Wider Reading | Speak2Tweet: Google Supports Free Speech In Egypt, In A Cheeky Carefree Rapscallionish Sort Of Way

Geoffrey Rush, as promised. AKA the coolest thing in Elizabeth.

A few press statements concerning machines. The first is from Vodaphone, when the Egyptian government shut down mobile phone communications. It's a sort of on-the-fence shrug; the final clause indicating, very, very delicately that maybe Vodaphone would prefer this sort of thing not to happen, but that it's not really their business to interfere, and that, practically speaking, there's nothing that can be done. Not that I'm comparing it to the US reaction or our reaction here in the UK or anything. Less still the Foreign Office's 'wait-and-see' policy in Yes, Prime Minister to say that they can't do anything until it's too late to do anything, then admit that something could have been done but that it can't now, in fact, be done. Anyway, the quote.



"Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it."


Their second statement, made when service was resumed, is almost masterful in its wording; the implication being that Vodaphone were right to close down their mobile networks in Egypt, because had they resisted, the government would have closed them down manually and prevented them from bringing back the power of communication to the people for quite some time. So, if you think about it, they were the good guys, applying softer pressure from within the system rather than standing against it. Oh, Vodaphone, you brave little Schindlers!


"We would like to make it clear that the authorities in Egypt have the technical capability to close our network, and if they had done so it would have taken much longer to restore services to our customers."


The third statement came on Monday night from Google, announcing a new method of communication. In essence, it's that bit in A Knight's Tale where Heath Ledger's having veg pelted at him in the stocks. Then James Purefoy turns up as the Black Prince and announces dramatically that Heath Ledger's actually a knight and must be set free and given a chance to joust the baddie a second time and a happy ending and everything, after which he gives Heath Ledger a cheeky grin and a wink and starts very obviously rooting for him in the joust. You have absolutely no idea why this immensely powerful figure turns up and comes through for the underdog hero. It could be an ethical thing; or it could be just that he doesn't give a shit about offending anyone and he's too much of a softie not to root for the little guy, regardless of the knock-on effects of introducing social mobility very suddenly into the feudal system.


Observe the cheeky grin and the wink that accompanies this statement of obvious neutrality and business-like detachment. God, it might as well be whistling nonchalantly.


"Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

 

We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there."

 

What the...Google, you've absolutely no right to go around idealistically sticking up for freedom of speech with a cheery disregard for the practical consequences. Less still to mimic the carefree jargon of a group-buying site ("Glued to the news", indeed!) while pretending your action has no political implications whatsoever. You're meant to be the oppressive internet baddie who swallows competitors whole, advertises sexy adult webcam pop-ups and spends your weekends torturing Bing with electrodes in a basement. And Twitter, Google, and SayNow working together? Like the Justice League?

Actually, scratch that previous thought about James Purefoy. This absurd situation is more like the bit in a movie or TV series where the old baddie has been supplanted by a new, more ruthless, more powerful baddie. And there's 40 minutes until the end and the goodies are arguing about how their situation's hopeless. And they hear from off-screen something like, "Hopeless, eh? Perhaps I can help." And they turn around and there's the old baddie, grinning at them in the doorway. So, after some token scenes where they shout at each other about how they can't trust him, they all team up and save the day together. Huzzah!

 

Yes, you heard me right. Google is Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Hollywood | Poetry | Remakes

'It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.'
- Andy Warhol

Hollywood loves a remake - what better way to ensure success than to try as hard as possible to recreate something that has, in the past, been successful? It takes a lot of the pressure off the creative process when you aren't bogged down by having to think up new ideas, research into fresh concepts, do any writing.

For this reason, I have rebooted a franchise of my own. Frank O'Hara has been given the Michael Bay treatment and put back to work with sassy new ephemera. For your delectation...

To read Frank O'Hara's original Click Here



To the Film Industry in Stasis

Not you, thick-stock magazines and swanky pamphlets
with your perpetual allusions and weighty wider reading,
nor you, avant garde Performance Art, shotgun
wedding of the two, feigning insight badly, nor you,
indie-rock bovine bullshitters, alternative as puberty (though
this is certainly my camp) but you, Motion Picture Industry,
it’s you I love!

In times of stasis, we must all decide again and again what turns us on.
And be up front about it: I see the way you fetishise a plastic bag, it taught me
how to revel in the noises off and celebrate an out-take (and is steadily
hooking me into bonus material), not with the smug atheists
who the films have taught to trust only the lies they can see,
not to the BBFC, who will allow a rape as long as there is no swearing,
but to you jaded Cinema, grimy-desaturated-gritty-realistic-o-scope,
incorrigible iMax and deafening Dolby 5.0, sub-woofing your deafening
message as you substitute all sense of depth for a third dimension. To
Jason Statham as the angry geezer with a grudge and a gun,
Denise Richards whose chocolate locks beguile (lucky Charlie) and her legs,
Megan Fox with oily hands tinkering with a Transformer’s chassis
scowling, Vanessa Hudgens sending photographs of her vagina
to an Aryan-eyed Zac Effron who denies having ever seen one,
Jude Law, Cassanova of the crèche grabs a nanny on the sly
the Batmans, each and every one of you (I cannot bring myself to prefer
Christian Bale to Michael Keaton, I cannot!), Cameron Diaz in a red coat
smiling and humming through interviews, Sam Rockwell of moon,
such cabin fever, and rocklike too, the agile Uma Thurman,
Gloria Stuart throwing her necklace off James Cameron’s boat
from her beautiful veiny hands, Gwyneth Paltrow rescuing Robert
Downey Jr. and Daniel Craig rescuing Eva Green from nothing,
David Carradine dies from an exploded heart as Samuel L. Jackson
combs bits of brain out of his afro whilst chastising John Travolta,
Noomi Rapace with her skin-tight toughness and childish smile,
George Clooney smirking and Robert pimping Freddy Rodriguez
smoking with an out-of-date bravado, Saoirse Ronan in peril,
and Brittany Murphy in memoriam, and Heath Ledger in memoriam
and laughing and method, and Corey Haim in memoriam and laughing
and abusive and broken by drugs, and Bryan O’Byrne in memoriam
sagely and understated and conciliatory in the background,
Lindsay Lohan as a snowglobe in an earthquake, yes to you

and to all you others, the ambitious, the talented, the both, the ones
clustered in Los Angeles cafes and dream of passing your screenplay
to a receptive Ridley.
May the days of your remakes continue forever, until the final droplets
of plot have been squeezed from every spin-off conceivable and movies
are remade before they have even finished production, until the sequels
seep from viability and the five remaining masters capable of original
thought have passed into the void like Harry Patch leaving us with the
finite films we deserve. Render, you glorious gigabytes of digital film,
as the world is rendered ready for your final release.

Phil Brown
Poetry Editor