The Days The World Ended

Wide-aperture Rapture photo capture recently

Ever since mankind first evolved, someone, somewhere has been predicting that doomsday is just around the corner. Does the completion of the Mayan calendar in 2012, though, mean that the end truly is a little bit nigh this time?

Acolytes tend to be a trusting breed. It takes little more than a few statistics relating to the girth of Noah’s Ark or rumours of an unwitnessed tête-à-tête-à-tête with a two-headed extraterrestrial to persuade them to forsake all their worldly goods and decamp to a nearby hill, there to await the Rapture.

The “Rapture”, for the uninitiated or for those still weighed down with consumer items and a place to live, is something of a catch-all term relating to the timely rescue of goodly folk (usually Christians) from the earth just scant seconds before said planet is consumed by fire, swallowed by a space demon or overrun by sterile cactus people on a mission to inseminate human females. Please feel free to delete in line with your own personal delusion.

The “Rapture” is chiefly notable for two things: a) The frequency with which it is predicted, and b) The frequency with which it fails to materialise. Leading the field in Wrongful Rapture Recognition (WRR) are, of course, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a US-based Christian splinter group.

The Witnesses predicted the imminent arrival of the Rapture in 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1984. They then took a ten-year sabbatical before returning to the fray in 1994 when, once again, they completely failed to predict the end of the world. In 1995, with no apparent sense of irony, the Witnesses returned to the headlines of the less-discerning periodicals with the announcement that “the end of the world was no longer nigh”. With the Jehovians’ unparalleled record for getting things wrong, this may prove their most unsettling prediction to date.

In truth, the end of the world has been predicted with unerring inaccuracy pretty much since the beginning of the world. In prehistoric times, winters, eclipses and an unaccountable shortage of mammoths may all have been seen as harbingers of the apocalypse, but it was the arrival of Christianity that really proved to be the beginning of the End of Times industry.

The first to capitalise on this new-found enthusiasm for species extinction was Theudas, a self-appointed messiah, who led 400 of his chosen people into the Judean desert in 44 AD in order that they might survive the looming end of the world. Unfortunately, their personal worlds ended somewhat precipitately when they were hunted down and slain by a Roman garrison. Theudas, himself, was decapitated and had his head carried on a pikestaff to Jerusalem. This, at least, had the benefit of preventing him predicting further apocalypses in 45 AD, 47 AD, 52 AD or 56 AD, leaving the field pretty much open for the Jehovians some 2,000 years later.

While the interim period between the headstrong (and ultimately head-short) Theudas and the current predictions of a cosmic full stop are undoubtedly littered with dubious doom-mongers, let’s jump forward a millennium or two. Despite 2,000 years of scientific discovery, increased religious cynicism and some 15,000 or more occasions when the horsemen of the apocalypse have proved to be non-runners, belief in instant immolation on a global scale seems more widespread than ever.

The very latest—and hugely popular—injudicious Judgment Day theory currently centres round the Mayan Calendar. Now the Mayan calendar is quite different from those that we habitually give to our least-favourite relatives around Christmas time. For one thing, it is singularly lacking in kittens, bobbins of wool and life-affirming doggerel; for another, it is some 1,872,000 days long and consequently takes up a lot of wall space.

The Mayan Calendar (non-girly version)

The figure of 1,872,000 days represents some 5,128 years, a period spanning back to 3116 BC, the year the ancient Mayans believed the world began. Under their somewhat complex system of chronological assessment, long periods of time are measured in b’ak’tuns, each one of which is some 394.3 years in duration. A total of 13 b’ak’tuns equals one piktun. The current piktun comes to an end on 12 December 2012. Many have subsequently seen this as marking the absolute end of the Mayan calendar and, hence, the world.

This has proved to be enough to excite an appetite for a pending apocalypse not seen since the long ago days of September 2008, when the trials of the Switzerland-based Large Hadron Collider (LHC) spectacularly failed to destroy the world, even the bits of it to be found in Geneva. The mass media, professional Armageddon auteurs, the decidedly unhinged and even Hollywood (note the subject matter of the 2009 blockbuster 2012) have all latched onto December next year as our Next Best Shot at Being Shot Of It All.

One small, but influential, group, however, seem rather unconvinced and, largely, unconsulted. This is, of course, the diminishing number of South American natives who still adhere to the precepts of the Mayan Calendar. There is much bemusement among the latter-day Mayans that their sophisticated Western neighbours have picked on the piktun as a sure sign that a deity-decreed downsizing is due in December 2012.

One Mayan elder, Apolinario Chile Pixtun, is decidedly unimpressed with the attention his cultural chronology is suddenly attracting. He says: “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff. These doomsday ideas come from Western ideas, not Mayan ones.”

In truth, the Mayan calendar extends well past 2012, with many future predictions in its religious tracts not scheduled to take place for another 1,500 years or more. Far from marking the end of the world, for the Mayans the completion of a piktun is a time for celebrations. It’s a bit like Mayan Christmas. The fact that young ancient Mayans had to wait more than five millennia before they had a chance of getting a new Wii console or a Beyblades Super Vortex Battle Set may explain the cultural ennui that led to the ultimate downfall of this once-venerable civilization.

No matter how easy it is to dispel the mysteries of the Mayan Calendar, one other issue remains far harder to resolve—just why, since time immemorial, have so many people felt it incumbent upon themselves to predict the End Of Life As We Know It? Speaking to the UK-based Guardian newspaper on the eve of the first tests of the aforementioned LHC, Paul Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture, ascribes the enthusiasm for en-Rapturement as down to mankind’s most primal urges.

He said: “It reflects a very ancient pattern in human thought. It is rooted in ancient, even pre-biblical, Middle Eastern myths of ultimate chaos and the ultimate struggle between the forces of order and chaos.

“It is deeply appealing at a psychological level because the idea of meaninglessness is deeply threatening. Human societies have always tried to create some kind of framework of meaning to give history and our own personal lives some kind of significance.”

Loosely speaking, Boyer seems to suggest that a hankering for ringside seats at the holocaust stems from a deeply ingrained desire to be part of something momentous—and what could be more momentous than mankind’s last moments? Boyer’s theory, though, may be fatally flawed, by its complete failure to acknowledge the role of “bragging rights” in many elements of human intercourse.

Lucky enough to bag a seat on the last U2 tour? Then no doubt you’ll be bigging up Bono’s performance, brandishing a tour programme and sporting a Larry Mullen Jr T-shirt. In short, you’ll be letting everyone know you were there. Front row seats at Ragnarok, as it was known by our 11th-century Norse cousins, offer little scope for one-upmanship on those, if any, that missed the occasion. Put brutally, there won’t be many bids for merchandising rights come the apocalypse.

The Norsemen of yesteryear offer another object lesson for would-be apostle of the apocalypse—every decade gets the doomsday it deserves. For 11th-century Norwegians, the end of the world involved a lot of pillaging, smiting and ultimate triumph, closely followed by an eternity of quaffing premium grog in the Valhalla Twilight Home for Victorious Vikings. In more biblical times, the ideal apocalyptic aperitif consisted of a lot of burning bushes, angelic hosts and the sound of trumpets being blown.

Ragnarok'n'roll: It's hammer time

Contemporary cataclysms now embrace recreations of the Big Bang, invasions by inevitably grey aliens and computers developing self-awareness and deciding to dispense with mankind altogether. Despite the many different mechanisms suggested as heralding mankind’s last hurrah, a number of elements remain consistent. Chief among these is the identification of an individual or a group who provides the catalyst for the looming cosmic catastrophe.

Over the centuries many different characters have fulfilled this rule. The Jews, for instance, are a perennial favourite, often functioning as a default setting for cataclysm conspirators when no other more likely candidate can be found. Other supposed agents of the apocalypse have included Bill Gates, Elvis Presley, Genghis Khan, The Beatles, Bill Clinton and ’60s pop songstress Cilla Black.

The British Royal Family have proved particularly fecund ground, with the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles all separately linked to plots to shift the earth’s poles, trigger a nuclear war or to simply provide a warm welcome for Satan and several of the lesser dukes of the underworld.

 One surprising figure for candidature as the “Antichrist” is Anwar Sadat, the former president of Egypt. As late as February 1997 he was tipped by several Middle-Eastern prophecy pundits as a key figure in the coming End Of Days. It is no slur on Mr Sadat’s zeal for such a cause to suggest the likelihood of his shirking the proffered role. He has, after all, been dead since October 1981.

Whilst many celebrities and international figures, such as Sadat and The Beatles, were unwittingly pulled into matters apocalyptic by third parties, others have been much more pro-active on that front. Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States and star of the 1951 chimp comedy Bedtime for Bonzo, was probably the only end-of-the-world advocate who actually had the power to deliver it.

During his eight years as the world’s Most Powerful Man (1981-89), Reagan regularly alarmed colleagues and political commentators alike by his literal belief in one biblical prophecy in particular. This stated that the end of the world would begin with a decisive battle between good (the US) and evil (the USSR) above the small town of Armageddon (Megiddo) in northern Israel. Critics of Reagan’s foreign policy during his term in office maintain that not only did he believe this prophecy, he also did his level best to bring it about.

 Reagan typifies many in the apocalypse-anticipation game in terms of actually being a true believer. Despite the countless thousands who have sought to steer humanity to a premature mass grave, very few of them seem to have been out-and-out scoundrels, motivated entirely by pecuniary gain.

A dishonourable exception here would be Lee Jang Rim, the Korean author of the ever-popular Getting Close To The End, one of the comparatively few Southeast Asian contributions to Last Days literature. Lee’s Hyoo-go movement attracted thousands of supporters from across the world, all believing his prediction that the end of the world would occur at midday on Wednesday 28 October 1992.

Having, with true apocalyptic zeal, given away all their possessions, quit their jobs, left their credit cards unpaid and neglected to set the video for any of their favourite programmes, the patience of Lee’s assembled flock was not long-lived.

By 12.01, a distinct shuffling of feet and subdued muttering was apparent. By 12.05, watches were pointedly being glanced at and a general round of harrumphing could be discerned. By 12.15, Lee had legged it, fearing a retribution far more imminent than that likely to be meted out from any divine source. He was eventually arrested and imprisoned for fraud.

It came as scant consolation to his ex-congregation when some US$4 million worth of bonds, bought with money Lee had extorted from them, came to light—especially when their maturity date turned out to be June 1995. Still, as no doubt one jovial member of the local Korean judiciary pointed out to the now penniless throng, it’s not the end of the world now, is it?

Sadly, the world outlasted REM

A Brief History of the End of Times 

4.5 billion BC: Earth created according to current scientific thinking. No recorded sightings of angels, spaceships or members of the British Royal Family.

10000 BC: Earth springs fully formed into life according to creationists. Much time spent burying dinosaur bones and aging cave paintings in order to try the faith of future generations.

3116 BC: Date the Mayan calendar begins. Possibly stunt by South American tourist board to promote city breaks to Rio in 2012.

0 AD: First ever Christmas. Birth of Christian religion and inspiration for 2,000 years of apocalyptic rumours. And pantos.

53 AD: Residents of Greek city of Thessolinia panic due to widespread belief they had missed the end of the world. They hadn’t.

1000 AD: First millennium crisis. Whole of world reportedly on best behaviour in anticipation of return of Messiah and likelihood of End of Days. Mood spoilt by arrival of 1001.

1555 AD: Michel de Nostradamus, the famous French seer, publishes his first collection of apocalyptic prophesies, setting the trend for vagueness, lack of specifics and generalisations still followed by 21st-century horoscope writers.

1843 AD: William Miller founds influential apocalyptic movement with the unimaginative title of Millerism. Predicts end of the world in 1844, later revised to 1845. Miller’s many followers refer to their ultimate failure to be consumed by fire and summarily despatched to the afterlife as “the Great Disappointment”.

1914 AD: First prediction of the end of the world by the Jehovah’s Witnesses (see also 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1984 and 1994).

1988 AD: Edgar Whisenaut publishes his best-selling book, 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988.

 1989 AD: Edgar Whisenaut publishes sequel, 89 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1989. Doesn’t sell as well as original.

1992 AD: David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian Group in Waco Texas, changes name of his commune from Mount Carmel to Ranch Apocalypse. Local FBI fails to see this as ominous sign.

1998 AD: Chen Heng-ming, leader of the God’s Salvation Church, announces that the Messiah is set to announce the end of the world live on every Channel 18 in the world. News goes down particularly badly in North America where Channel 18 is home to the Playboy Network.

2000 AD: Forces of Y2K bug, planetary alignments, biblical predictions and disgruntled aliens combine. World stubbornly refuses to end nevertheless.

2012 AD: End of Mayan Calendar. Hillsides expected to be briefly over-populated. Normal service expected to be resumed shortly. 7.5 billion AD (circa): End of the world due to consumption by massively expanded sun. Vague sense of vindication reported among latter-day Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Sixties Kid's Star Zebedee Found Out in Tragic Roundabout Round-up

VETERAN children’s entertainer Zebedee was last night arrested on charges relating to indecently assaulting a young girl, a fairground ride operator with learning difficulties and an underage snail. The offences are believed to date back to 1963.

The arrest comes just 24 hours after Cheshire police raided the home of Stuart Hall, the former It’s a Knockout presenter. The ashes of the late Eddie Waring are also believed to be helping with the enquiry, said to relate to an illicit “up and under” with a 15-year-old dressed as a giant marsupial.

In 1982, Zebedee was awarded the MBE in recognition of his work in promoting a positive image of the disabled. At the time, a Palace spokesman said: “Zebedee has proved to be a great role model for those facing physical challenges. He has become a British institution, despite being born with no lower limbs and a torso 50 per cent composed of coiled steel. He has endured many of his afflictions, including his comedy moustache, with considerable dignity and courage.”

Recent weeks, however, have seen speculation grow as to a darker side to the life of this once-feted jack-in-a box. One of his alleged victims, known, for legal reasons, only as “Miss F”, said: “When I first met him, he was the proprietor of a musical carousel that he told me had occult properties. At the time, I couldn’t believe he was interested in someone like me and when, after only about five minutes, he told me it was time for bed, I believed him. He also started asking me to “be nice” to a friend of us, a rabbit. I later learnt he was using me to pay off a drug debt.”

Waiting in the wings...

In a statement, the BBC this morning confirmed that Zebedee will not be appearing in a light-hearted five-minute slot before the news until enquiries have been completed. Speculation that The Herbs have been approached as a possible replacement could not be confirmed.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Constabulary confirmed that arrest did not form part of Operation Yarrow “because he’s a puppet”.

On Other Pages:

Has he been a naughty old Hector?

Hector’s House of Horrors: 

Sex-mad old Hector’s kinky capers left Kiki cold

Mary, Mungo and Nonce: 

High rise high-jinx in lift of lust

Bagpuss the P***y Blagger: 

Saucy old cloth cat exploited Emily, 11. After 38 years in therapy, lost property Lolita confesses: “Not even the mouse on the mouse organ could mend it or fix it.”

Dick Emery, German Poo Porn and the Bearable Unlikeliness of Being

Ooh he was awful

It’s not quite a mid-life crisis. To date, I’ve had about six of those and having one more some nine weeks shy of being 49 seems a little presumptuous to say the least. It’s more a growing sense of fragile mortality, in part occasioned by the reluctant realization that I probably need glasses for the first time in my life. Only though, as the old gag has it, for reading and seeing things fortunately.

The other factor is a reluctant acceptance that I really can’t and shouldn't drink these days. Having cut back hugely over recent years, apart from on trips to the UK, my tolerance is akin to that of a  curious 15-year-old babysitter who finds the key to the drinks cabinet. One who has skipped his tea. Years of overdoing it, missing meals, eating a what’s what of those foods designed to fuck your gut and almost willfully seeking out stressful situations, with all the gusto of anxiety junkie with a martyrdom complex have made me Reflux Sufferer of the Year for four concurrent terms. There’s no gala dinner to mark this achievement  you just get given two boxes of Nexium and are allowed to have a bit of a lie down.

The other, less predictable, sign of your own impending demiserie is that you suddenly realise everyone you watched on the telly as a kid is dead. From Dick Emery to Arthur Lowe, from Harold Wilson to Doctor Who’s Brigadier. Even the Beatles have suffered 50 per cent fatalities and, worse, still neither of them was Ringo.

Suddenly, the prospect of being unalive one day seems much more than just the rumour it was 20 years ago. It’s now that religion suddenly has a fleeting appeal. “Christ,” you think, “if only it wasn’t such obvious bollocks…”

It even triggers the forlorn belief that if, well, smart people believe in it, then perhaps believe in it, then perhaps you’re missing something. Sadly, despite – or, likely because – having the whole of my education in Catholic institutions of various hue up to the age of 22, my cynicism trumps my forlorn hope in heavenly gradparental reunions and the persistence of consciousness every time. Bugger.

Only my fundamental belief in the huge unlikeliness of anything existing at all ever in the first place gives me a sliver of doubt as to the certainty of absolute oblivion within the next two and a half decades.

By current reckoning, I will miss having my consciousness digitally downloaded to a PC by at least half a century. Then that might not by a bad thing. I expect I’d only end up getting over-written by some 22^nd century German coprophilia porn. Besides who would bother to access you?

They''ll hate you, Butler

Would some still corporeal descendant boot you up and ask how you were today? What would you reply? “Slightly fragmented?” or “I think I’ve got a bit of a virus coming on…” Would anybody really be interested in a digital you reminiscing  about the days when On the Buses was the funniest programme in Britain or hearing about that bird you probably could have shagged had you played it slightly differently? Chances are, being evicted from your hard-disk home by Teutonic poo porn would be no accident.

80 minutes away, my arse...

Anyway, as antidote to being a trifle miz, I’ve decided to have a bit of an adventure. This has seen me temporarily abandon the high rises of Hong Kong and head to Koh Yah Noi, an island some hour and 20 minutes from Phuket by speedboat and one lacking so much as an ATM. Here, for the next 12 days, I will contemplate the nature of mortality and watch the whole of 24 on DVD.

The Mrs has used all her holiday on a three-week viisit to her folks in Hanzhong, so this is a solo trip.

Expect blinding insights, revealing revelations and the answer to the question that preoccupies many of us – was season six of Kiefer Sutherland’s real-time thriller really all that bad?

The Mob Rules

Like many of my generation, I wrote to Jimmy Savile. In my case, I asked him if he could sort it for me to meet a Zygon, a Doctor Who baddie that lived below Loch Ness. He never wrote back. Maybe I shouldn’t have included a picture. Of me. Not the Zygon.

A Zygon recently

Rumours about Jimmy Savile were apparently in circulation even way back then and long before the peroxide popster was well past fixing. The most prurient of these concerned backhanders paid to morgue attendants for a little alone time with the recently departed. Of course, the truth concerning these “expiry dates” has never been established.

Then again, neither has any of the current crop of allegations.

Anyone who has seen the harrowing recollections in the Panorama programme (Jimmy Savile: What the BBC Knew) would find it hard to doubt the sincerity of the participants. None of them, however, was corroborated. Even if they had been, they would not have been aired had Savile not made his final travel. Savile’s right to sue, like his pensionorial right to Winter Fuel Payments, died with him.

The sheer volume of posthumously-emerged accusers obviously suggests the likelihood of Savile’s paedophile proclivities. The fact that many of them seem to be currently working in chip shops in the Roundhay Park area etc., though, suggests a certain payday sensibility. The way in which the allegations have been universally accepted as gospel, however, is perhaps a little disturbing.

Savile row continues

The lack of any dissenting voices demonstrates the muscular orthodoxy that characterises the current state of UK media. While rightly desperate to fend off state control in the wake of the phone tapping scandal, there has been no such willingness by any commentator to posit alternative views on potentially sensitive subjects.

This unanimity of position seems to rely, depending on the issue, more on a fear of inciting the belligerence of particularly vocal single issue pressure groups or, of course, the Daily Mail. The latter case is perhaps the most bizarre, given that the Mail itself is a supposed manifestation of the free press. In truth, it acts more like a rabid sheep dog, savagely turning on any member of the media flock that fails to follow its line. On anything.

The most virulent manifestation of the former has been the Hillsborough Action Group.  The publication of the recent report was, publicly at least, greeted as the Absolute Truth. This was despite the fact that, in private, a number of broadcast and print journalists believed the true truth lay somewhere between this latest report, which totally exonerated fans, and earlier investigations that equally exonerated the emergency services. Any suggestion, however, that every Liverpool footie fan was not a jolly gap-toothed chap with a heart of gold would have been howled down.

It seems every media owner was in obvious fear of inciting this opprobrium and, of course, the inevitable Sun-style circulation-collapse throughout Merseyside that would ensue. It is to Liverpool’s credit that, I suspect, it is the only city in the UK that could create such a phenomenon, but such muscular orthodoxy rarely guarantees the veracity of anything. All of which brings us back to Mr Savile.

With Savile no longer in the saddle, the search for warmer scalps is well under way. Gary Glitter has been in and out of custody, while 69-year-old Freddie Starr has been pre-emptively defending himself, while sitting on a sofa next to his 30-year-old fiancée.

Inevitably, with the Savile-saga proving so lucrative, both in terms of reader-acquisition and, ultimately, “my own story” pay-offs, the reputations of many other dead celebs are sure to be exhumed. The ever-reliable internet has already suggested John Peel. This, though, seems largely on the grounds of his obvious similarities to Savile – these being that he was a DJ, started his career in the sixties and, most importantly, is dead.

A Fredaphile?

For those interested in such things, I am reliably informed that the current list of runners and riders includes Hughie Green (10-1), Leslie Crowther (20-1), Jimmy Edwards (40-1), Arthur Negus (100-1) and Fred(A) the Blue Peter tortoise (1000-1). Aye, madness will ensue when the public’s appetite for such things is aroused.

In these bizarre times, it is perhaps ironic that the most apt of words come from the late Ronnie James Dio, one-time lead singer of Black Sabbath and not a paedo (probably). In the opening number to his second album with the band, Dio perhaps far-sightedly, warns us: “When you listen to fools, the mob rules.” Quite.

Merger Most Horrid?

Sadly the much-mooted merger of How-do, You Tube, What’s On in Manchester, MobileMe and the official Gerry and the Pacemaker fan site now seems unlikely to come to pass. Those of us who eagerly anticipated the arrival of How-do-you-do-what-you-do-to-me.co.uk, though, can take some solace from the recently announced deal between How-do and Manchester Confidential.

Not ideal – "How Confidential", sounds like the slightly more prim off-spring of Wiki Leaks, while “Do-Man” is likely to produce the kind of Google results best excised from your browsing history. The sad lack of unintentionally comic name potential aside, what are we to make of this alliance of the North-West’s media and marketing website and Manchester’s on-line lifestyle magazine?

It think it is safe say that any list of the top ten digital publications outside of London has been read by both Mark Garner and Nick Jaspan. The two, the publishers of Man Can and How-Do respectively, are very different individuals.

With Garner the land and the king are very much one, with Man Con infused with his personality and dominated by “Gordo”, Garner’s digital alter ego. Jaspan, on the other hand, prefers to lurk behind the arras, seldom inflicting himself directly on the readership.

Jaspan vs Garner

Below the surface, both have a little more in common. Both have been serial entrepreneurs and both got their fingers burnt with previous ventures. Garner’s role as a digital porn pioneer with Red Hot and Dutch saw him Dead Broke and Cross, while the most frequent enquiry made by Jaspan’s North West Enquirer was to the banks and inevitably involved a bid to increase its overdraft.

Red hot, but not butch

Learning lessons from their earlier enterprises, both have built successful digital brands and, critically, both have been the undeniable prime movers in these successes.

As a mainstream brand, Man Con, launched in 2003, managing to wrong foot the established media in the North West, pre-empting their digital migration and leaving many of them playing catch-up. This has seen it diversify, both geographically – with forays of varying success into Leeds, London and Liverpool – and by speciality, notably with Body and Kids Confidential.

How-Do is far more of a niche player. Launched in 2007, just as realization set in as to how much the BBC’s Salford move could transform the North West media landscape, it faced far less competition than Man Con.

While, just a few years before, two print titles (Adline and the Marketeer) had competed to provide coverage of Manchester-based marketing and media companies, both of these were just vestigial addresses on press release circulation lists by 2007. With token coverage of the area provided only by the Glasgow-based Drum, the region readily took to Jaspan’s dedicated website.

Sadly Crain's took no note....

This saw How-Do rapidly brand-extend itself into awards events and conferences. Tellingly, the annual how-do awards is now by far the largest media event in the North West.

The success of both How-Do and Man Con has been very much down to the approaches of their two founders. Man Can has succeeded by embodying the more acerbic, judgemental and controversial approach of Garner, while How-Do has adopted an almost diametrically opposed philosophy.

While, in person, Jaspan is informed and sometimes scathing about certain NW players, How-Do itself has steered a very neutral course. It has frequently taken at face value announcements and information from organizations in the North West and published them without comment.

This approach has endeared it to a number of companies happy to escape probing of some of their more dubious claims – McCanns, Trinity Mirror, the MPA, GMG, Sass Panyii, Channel M and Euro RSCG are among the many who have got away with far more than they should.

This “honest broker” approach has frequently irritated many of the site’s more outspoken, while frequently most syntactically-challenged, anonymous contributors. It has, though, kept all channels (except M, obviously) open, ensuring that How-do has remained eminently sponsor-friendly.

The survival of this policy will be an interesting measure of how much influence Garner brings to bear on his new mergeree. Garner is much more of a smiter than Jaspan, notoriously willing to put critics and competitors to the digital dagger.

Retrieved from Gordo's desk (allegedly)

Tellingly, the very first post-merger comment on How-do read: “So does this mean that How-Do won't report anything bad about the Confidential titles? And how co-operative will other media be when How-Do is now merged with what many will feel is a rival?”

Garner is probably too canny to become a mini-Maxwell, with many in media still recalling, with bemused horror, the “bouncing Czech’s” late 80’s period as the proprietor of Media Week. It is an accusation he will do well to be wary of though.

It does bring us onto one question, though, that will concern the readers of How-Do far more than those of Man Can. We all know mergers are bollocks. There is always a shagger and a shaggee. So who is the “daddy” in this particular arrangement and who will be reaching for their ankles and hoping for at least a considerate reach-around?

With twice the trading history and nearly four times the staff, Man Con will clearly be the one causing any squealing heard in the Quay Street vicinity. The direct route into brands and agencies offered through its relationship with How-do will also clearly benefit its expansion plans.

Do not disturb: merger in progress

The benefits to How-Do will be less visible. It previously employed some eight staff across How-Do and Place North West, the property site it acquired two years ago. That’s a lot of mouths to be fed from two websites - particularly when creative services recruitment and property in general have both been hard hit by the current economic situation.

Undoubtedly, the greater sharing of resources will transform the financial landscape for How-Do, though savings will have to come from somewhere. Whether personnel cuts come on the MC or HD side remains somewhat blurred, with the joint statement from the two publishers stating only that “total staff headcount will be 32”.

How-Do II

That same statement also says: “We also intend to exploit Confidential’s broader geographical reach.” With Liverpool already within How-Do’s remit and London, frankly, a non-starter for regional publishers in the marketing sector, Leeds is obviously the prime contender for How-Do II.

Ay up, there's trouble at 't Poulters

If anything, marketing communications and media in Yorkshire are even more poorly served in terms of coverage than they were in the North West. The MEN at least pays lip service to media coverage, while the Yorkshire Post has long disdained such matters in favour of the financial services sector.

The Yorkshire market is very different to that in the North West, despite their proximity. Yorkshire has never had a media community akin to that of the North West, largely because it has historically had far fewer media buying or selling points.

Its lack of a scene is a huge boost for recruitment prospects however. While Manchester creative directors, for instance, all know each other and have an awareness of emerging talents in other agencies, many Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford agencies toil away in blissful isolation.

The lack of a media scene in Yorkshire, though, will mean that How-Do will have to up its game in terms of coverage of the creative sector. Placing more emphasis on new campaigns and design work will be key to drawing in the Yorkshire players.

With the huge shortfall in media stories in the region compared to the NW, this will be essential to the success of How Do II (or “Ay up” as it perhaps should be christened). It also wouldn’t be a bad direction for the North West mothership to expand into.

Cross-selling on recruitment, with staff frequently migrating both ways across the Pennines, will hugely add to HD’s offer. Creating an entirely separate editorial offering will also be crucial. Trying to blend the coverage of the two regions would be a dilution and not an enhancement.

There is also ample opportunity for HD to push into media awards events in Yorkshire. Yorkshire has been running its own awards event, through the largely ineffective and somewhat unrepresentative Yorkshire Publicity Association, for some 20 years.

Historically, it was a 300-strong event held in Rudding Park or the Queen’s Hotel. This year, two years after the event was entrusted to the Carnyx Group, the cottage industry behind The Drum, no ceremony was held. Instead the results were read out in a hotel bar in Leeds. It’s fallen a long way fast, leaving an open door for How-Do and its new chums.

Editorial resource

As well as a new focus on creativity and a move into Yorkshire, the greater editorial resource now open to HD could benefit the site in other ways. Restrictions on staff numbers and an absentee editor often saw HD unable to properly follow-up on stories, often waiting passively for updates rather than taking the initiative.

Similarly, How-Do has been a little hamstrung when it has come to providing off-diary feature stories, relying instead on its hugely comprehensive news feed. How-do has become an astonishingly robust brand in the NW in a remarkably short period of time, the addition of bespoke feature material and industry comments will ensure its position remains inviolable, while shutting up a number of the critics of its “open access” policy.

So, will it work and is it desirable? Does this merger create a dynamic new partnership or does it amount to How-Do selling its arse like a Minshull St whore on a crack comedown?

It will inevitably allow Jaspan to take more of a back seat. How-do has taken up the majority of his time for the last four years and he is keen to work on other projects, while keeping an interest in the site. While Jaspan is a “plate-spinner”, Garner is an empire builder, with the Confidential brand the solus focus of his ambitions.

Jaspan: "plate-spinner"

The motivations of the two men for doing the deal are different. For Jaspan, it means he is no longer lashed to How-Do’s wheel. For Garner, it means a direct route into brand owners, agencies and media buyers. It also sees him strengthening his offers in Leeds and Liverpool.

It is unlikely that Man Con readers will notice any substantial differences in the months to come. How-Do readers, though, may well see a little Garner-ization beginning to emerge. Tempered with a degree of discretion and an element of enlightened self-interest, this may be no bad thing. For the foreseeable future, at least, Jaspan will also be around to safeguard a brand that he has long-nourished and will not wish to see undermined.

Overall, it could have been far worse. A number of different players have, at one time or another, been mooted as potential suitors for How-Do. Frankly it could have been far worse.

Garner: "empire builder"

The Carnyx Group would have been the worst possible option. The Glasgow-based publishers have long looked at How-Do with envious eyes, irked to the extreme that the site stole its most lucrative market so easily. It has also seen its own Manchester events, notably the Roses Advertising and Design Awards, shunned by both sponsors and attendees, while HD now sells 600 tickets for its own flagship event.

So to those naysayers to the HD/Man Con merger, I say this – at least it means that, this time next year, all North West media and marketing coverage won’t be down to a semi-literate intern in the G1 postal code district. Nor will the 2012 How-Do awards be distributed, over nibbles and crisps, in the front bar of the Peveril of the Peak. Bit of a result, I reckon.

Disappointing turnout at Roses 2012

A Reply to Niall Kennedy...

On 21st July Niall added this post to his blog:

"Thursday, 21 July 2011
MESSAGE TO TONY MURRAY:


I AM OPEN TO NEGOTIATING A SETTLEMENT TO TAKE *ALL* THESE PAGES DOWN.
PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME - YOU HAVE MY EMAIL.

NK"

Obviously the truth is beginning to hurt for you, ensuring that you are unemployable in the world of TEFL teaching or any role that might see you coming into contact with Kids. I am delighted about that.

As to your own site, well it is largely only excerpts from my blog that you've desperately tried - and failed - to skew. Unlike me. you have offered no substantiation of anything you've said. I've offered the emails of four witnesses to the whole process. I think people can draw their own conclusions.

You've also not said anything about what you're currently doing. No doubt you're skulking in the shadows somewhere in London, desperate that your current colleagues don't Google you - which, believe me, they will. As suspicion about your abilities, intentions and past grows, someone will do the most cursory check online and find the truth about you.

As I have now had an email from another of your former employers - one who I'd never heard of, so it was obviously one omitted from the CV you sent me - I suspect I've only scratched the surface about you. Unsurprisngly, this employer also alleges that you were cautioned about your behaviour towards children.

You rantings about me - a desperate bid to undermine the truths I told about you - are of no matter to me. I frankly don't care whether you take them down or not.

I wrote the truth about you to protect kids and unwitting schools. Nothing has changed. The posts stay. Sort yourself out and live with the conseqences of your past behaviour.

UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE*

Warning

Kennedy has once again emerged and once again he is trying to find a role that brings him into close proximity to children.

He is now Glasgow-based (or possibly still in London) and billing himself as an “Independent Education Management Professional”

This is wrong on almost every level.

Independent? Only if his mum and dad have stopped paying his bills and debts. A little embarrassing when you’re in your mid to late thirties.

Education? In my experience he seemed to have acquired little and was deliberately misleading about his qualifications. He also showed no ability to impart education to any third party.

Management? Suffice to say, he can’t even manage to wash himself or his clothes.

Professional? Only if “professional” has been redefined to mean “inevitably late, ill-prepared and untrustworthy around children”

You have been warned.

http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/niall-kennedy/4/461/a13

Even More Sanctimonious Shitery About The News of The World - But This Time Written By Me. And With Swearing

Can there ever have been a paper with a more misnomerous nomer than the News of the World? Its foreign correspondents must have been about as busy as Gadhafi’s FourSquare account. In its seventies’ heyday its parish was home county sex parties, kitless Wiccans and naughty vicars. In the eighties, its coverage grew a little darker, with vicars getting far naughtier and the word paedophile dominating its lexicon.

Over the last 20 years, the paper has reflected and nurtured the cult of celebrity, with dogging dull unless it involved a premier division midfielder and coke only a matter of alarm when a Hollyoaks role model partook.

Despite this it remained a quality product, in much the same way as the Daily Mail or the NOTW’s own stablemate, The Sun. Quality at least in terms of killer subbing, precision readership targeting and an ineffable affinity for zeitgeisting. And now it’s gone, with many queuing to claim its head.

Half-twits

The self-important twitter brigade has, of course, been digitally slapping each other on the back with nauseating smugness. Given a choice, I would far rather have a pint with a News of the World journo than most of these self-satisfied twats, sat in their mum’s back bedroom and communicating, with masturbatory glee, their ill-informed outrage in 140 characters (or less).

"Welcome back Mr Co-Op!"

Then you have the advertisers – Ford, HSBC, Vauxhall etc– who have claimed the moral high ground by pulling their DPSs with a mixture of censoriousness and fanfare. While there is, no doubt, a degree of toxicity by association for any company paying to appear in the NOTW’s pages, there is also a great deal of commercial opportunism here. Had the paper survived, how many of these advertisers would have subsequently crept back in, at reduced rates, having once deemed the publication’s days on the naughty step well and truly over? 

Much the same happened back in 1987, when Tesco and the Co-Op were among many to pull out of the disastrous, but brief, Daily Star-Sport amalgam, which saw even Star readers appalled about just how downmarket the combined title had become. Christ it must have been bad. Still, just a few weeks after the demerger, the Co-Op and Tesco, were back, nestling between 16-year-old Linsey Dawn Mackenzie’s tits, and probably several points lower down the rate card.

The Only Way is Ethics

In terms of would-be executioners, there was also the shareholder lobby. Most vociferous here was the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Committee, which threatened to pull its £4 million funding from News International. This does beg a fairly obvious question: “Why the fuck was the C of E’s Ethical Investment Committee unethically investing in News International in the first place?”

Perhaps, with Guantanamo Bay on the closure list, the CofE’s investments in Orange Overalls International PLC looked a little shaky of late? Or maybe all ills in contemporary society had been remedied and giving cash to an Australian billionaire seemed the most virtuous route left available. If only there was someone left to wire-tap the Lambeth Palace confessional then we might, one day, know for sure.

Divine Retribution

Then there has been the celebrity lobby, led of late by Hugh Grant and Steve Coogan. Despite their rightful and righteous indignation about appearing on the phone-tapping list, it is impossible not to see a more self-seeking agenda here. Hugh “Nobbing Hill” Grant is obviously still seething from the 1995 News of the World frontpage that saw Divine Brown, the prostitute who dealt his career an almost fatal “blow”, dressed in the same Versace dress made famous by, his then fiancée, Liz Hurley.

Coogan, too, has been a long term target for the tabloids, with stories of his affairs with lapdancers and his love of cocaine being front page staples since the mid-nineties – not that any of this seems to have done his career any harm and, in truth, there’s no reason why they should have. His performance on Newsnight suggests differently. Here was a man set on revenge. Only an event of the extremity of hacking Milly Dowler’s phone could ever have given Steve Coogan the moral high ground and, God, did he enjoy it.

"To err is human, to forgive..."

He was helped by the fact that his sparring partner was Paul McMullen, a man of such unbelievable fuckwittery as to defy belief. Against McMullen, even Levi Bellfield would be in with a shouting chance of gaining public sympathy. Although the last seven days have left many questions unresolved – How involved was the Met? Do other newspapers have similar practices? Would you shag Rebekah Brooks if you got the chance? – there can be no lack of doubt as to McMullen’s utter unemployability. He has all the air of those sad individuals who confess to murders they didn’t do in order to grab a few fleeting seconds of fame and self-glorification. Against the cast of brutal, threatening figures in this ever-spiralling soap opera, he has revealed himself as the Billy Mitchell of Fleet Street.

Undoubtedly, though, despite the right-to-smite given to both Coogan and Grant by the NOTW’s phone-tapping escapades, their actual agenda is completely different to the one espoused – and transparently so. Under stricter privacy laws, the pimps of the Sunset Strip would grow ever richer without affecting Grant’s boxofficeability, while the class A cleavages frequented by Coogan would result in him suffering fewer costly divorces.

The Angus Deayton Syndrome

For the real reasons behind the “End of the World” (© Seemingly every single still-employed sub in the English-speaking publishing world), we have to look to another tabloid-targeted celebrity – this time Angus Deayton. Back in 2002, Deayton fell foul of (perhaps both ironically and predictably) the News of the World. During his tenure as the host of Have I Got News for You, his predilection for prostitutes and cocaine proved the multi-functionability of the many £50 notes (reportedly £50,000 an episode) he got paid by the Beeb. 

The subsequent front page revelations about his private life made him far more risible and, crucially, possessing of double-standards, than the individuals and institutions mercilessly mocked by the programme every week. His position was untenable and he was swiftly, and predictably, untenned.

It was then, ultimately, the Angus Deayton Syndrome that brought down the News of the World. Imagine the daily editorial conference, with the poor sweating hacks desperately in search of a front page…

A sausage: long-hidden by vicars and other members of the clergy

“NAUGHTY VICAR PLAYS HIDE THE SAUSAGE WITH VERGER’S VEGETARIAN DAUGHTER,” says one.

The editor shakes his head with a weary: “No, we’ve done worse than that…”

“EX-BROOKIE BABE’S NIGHT OF GERBIL SHAME,” proffers another.

Another shake of the head: “No, we’ve done far worse than that, too.”

“WAG SLAG SHAGS FAG HAG IN DRAG,” says a third.

“You’ve just made that up, “ says the editor, “but we’ve still done worse than that…”

In short, unless a nun was gang-raped on her birthday in the intensive care unit at Great Ormond Street, it would have been very difficult – in the short term at least – for the News of the World to take the moral high ground on anything at all really. With self-conscious outrage its stock-in-trade, it had left itself open to the most basic of playground comebacks – “You’re a disgrace to society and an affront to all right thinking people!”  - “Yeah, but so is you, man”.

Brave New World

Could new staff, new beginnings and something of a hiatus have overcome that? Undoubtedly. The Daily Mail used “I love Hitler” toothmugs as promotional giveaways in the 1930s and still blames rickets on inherited genetic weaknesses among the poor, yet still they thrive. I suspect a re-invented, conspicuously contrite News of the World with a credible figurehead could still return to popularity. And, inevitably attributed to “reader demand”, it may still.  I suspect that this would be more acceptable than any “Sun on Sunday”, which would be seen as both an affront to readers, treating them as naïve and media unliterate, and possibly leading to increased contamination of the daily mothership by the NOTW brand.

Brooks: Would'yer?

At any rate, a return, in any guise, would be impossible while Rebekah Brooks remains at the helm, at no matter what distance she is placed. Like many, I’ve been puzzled by her apparent indispensability. There are many theories, one has even suggested a close relationship with a senior political figure – though I can’t see how that would bequeath her any invulnerability. In all likelihood, I can see only two possible explanations for her continued presence. Firstly, she is being kept on to save the neck of Murdoch Junior and has already been designated for the chopping block when the next –presumably worse – tranche of allegations emerge. This seems a bit odd, though. Surely, she would have gone now with the paper itself saved to be the Ultimate Sacrifice.

There is another theory – simply that, in terms of Murdoch’s empire, she knows where too many bodies – presumably only figuratively – are buried. It is more expedient to keep her on the inside pissing out. How much water, as it were, this theory actually holds remains to be seen. Should she depart, she would, no doubt, be at least as keenly looked after as other ex-Murdoch lieutenants, such as former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie, whose bid to buy Talk Sport was at least partially bankrolled by Rupert, removing him from the clutches of the rival Mirror group.

Just Shut It

A couple of final thoughts for those gleefully can-canning around and claiming the demise of the News of the World as a digital scalp on their twitter accounts…Would you feel the same if your activities had resulted in the closure of a pram factory in Humberside, with the loss of 200 jobs? Even if it was a pram factory that had, five years ago, produced a faulty model that killed a child? If that pram factory, today, despite having admittedly the same owners, had an entirely different staff, a new manager and different designs and safety protocols in place? I doubt you would.

The News of the World didn’t kill anybody. It was crass beyond belief and insensitive to an unparalleled level. Of late, I’ve heard and read people saying the paper did “the most evil thing ever” with regard to Milly Dowler, quite forgetting that that particularly dubious honour must go to Levi Bellfield.

Bellfield: slightly worse than a phone-tapper?

With thousands of journalists laid off in the UK in recent years, is the demise of a profitable newspaper – no matter what its past evils – really a cause to celebrate? I doubt it. I similarly doubt whether we’ve actually seen the end of the News of the World brand. It could just prove that all this public outrage merely plays into the hands of News International, which can now initiate any levels of internal restructuring and cost saving it chooses and attribute all of its actions to external factors. Could be that we’ve all been well and truly had.

Vacancy Vacancy

For those journalists looking for a new job post the News of the World closure, you have my sympathy. It’s undoubtedly never been a tougher time to be a journalist. I was a guest lecturer for a group of student journalists at Hong Kong University a couple of weeks back. The idea was for a few of us to give them some advice about their chosen career. I only just managed to resist the temptation of trimming my advice down to just one power point slide – one which simply said “Change to a law degree while you still can”.

Sadly, one of the things that will hamper UK journalists in getting new jobs is the piss-poor nature of two of the leading platforms for journalism recruitment in the country – The Press Gazette and holdthefrontpage.co.uk. About a month ago, I emailed the two of them looking to place a paid recruitment ad for a new features editor here in Hong Kong. From HTFP, I got an automated out-of-office reply. From the UKPG, I got absolutely nothing.  

 

HTFP and UKPG: Both a bit shite frankly

Five weeks on, I’ve had no responses from either of them. Maybe they’ve been deleted from my voice mail.