1. Be mindful

2. Be compassionate

3. If you fail at either of these, just try again

(Not necessarily in that order, and with thanks to The Buddha etc.)

I don’t celebrate Christmas because I don’t have anyone to celebrate it with. Instead I meditate a lot and do my annual spring clean. If you’re also alone this Christmas, I recommend this as a coping strategy. It’s still pretty bleak, but waking up on 27th having had no Christmas with a clean flat is definitely better than waking up on the 27th with a not-so-clean flat.

This year I’ve decided to really go to town and literally clean EVERYTHING. Although I’m starting to wonder whether moving the fridge and physically washing the walls down with soapy water is maybe a bit excessive. Even though I’ve been in my flat three years, the walls behind the fridge don’t look dirty to me, so my present dilemma this Christmas Eve is should I wash them or not?

I think I will, because I have committed to washing everything, but I got to wondering, is this excessive, how often do people wash the walls behind their fridges?

Anyway, I created this survey to find out, so please if you’ve found this site, humor me and complete it, thanks and for what it’s worth, Merry Christmas.

 
NB: The survey refers to whether you wash the walls behind your fridges at any time of year, not just at Christmas time. 

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This is also my first embedded survey, something of a practice run… So apologies if you can’t see the results, I will update later as I’m sure they’ll be a lot of interest in this….

Also if the survey just doesn’t work for some reason, do let me know, as I say, this is a trial.

Actually just in case the embed doesn’t work – here – Click here to take survey

My sixth form college (16-19) has just started ‘pole fitness’ classes and put this very large banner up to advertise them. The college’s take on this is to see ‘pole-fitness’ on a level with Zumba – It’s simply a different form of exercise that young women (let’s face it – it’s primarily women who will attend either) can use to empower themselves, but the former’s just a bit more aethletic and more ‘Burlesque’ than Zumba.

However some staff have commented that it just doesn’t seem appropriate for a 16-19 college to be promoting something that is associated with the sex-industry. The sexual connotations are visible in the banner – you can ‘clearly see cheek showing’ as one member of staff recently pointed out.

Of course I had to go away and do some digging on the issue, and it comes as no surprise that there are a wide range of opinions about whether or not Pole-Fitness is empowering or oppressive to women. To summarise just two…

Clare Mohan, writing at the Varsity Blogs about Pole Fitness in Cambridge University sets out the argument against it….

‘Whatever you name it, pole fitness or pole dancing, you’re still participating in the social context of the pole. Everyone knows where it comes from, that pole dancers are to be found in strip clubs and sex establishments up and down the country, and that pole dancing (which is, a huge percentage of the time, an activity carried out by women) is a dance form specifically designed to excite the watcher (who is, a huge percentage of the time, a man). So pole dancing encourages a view of the dancer [as a] sexual object.’

For more information on the objectification of women see the ‘Object‘ website.  

The ‘Pro-Pole’ voice comes from a number of women who both ‘pole’ and identify themselves as Feminists over at the StudioVeena.

Two of the more compelling arguments for ‘poling’ being empowering include…

(From ‘Nilla’) “Maybe people feel that way because stripping as a profession is often seen as something women would only do as a last resort, and that it’s degrading for any woman who does it (It can be, but so can working in the fast food industry).  So in a way, taking pole dance out of the stripping/sex industry context and doing it for your own enjoyment is the ultimate act of feminism, kind of taking the activity back for your own control and enjoyment rather than having to do it for the enjoyment of someone else.”

(From ‘Poledanceromance’) ’”To me, the answer is very simple (sex positive feminist): feminism must be about choice. It’s about women supporting other women in our efforts to explore undiscovered parts of ourselves. If I want to explore my potential by staying at home full-time to be the best mom I can be, you’d support me in that. If you wanted to explore yourself as a sexual being by experimenting in different sexual relationships, I’d support you in that (provided everyone is being safe!)”

If you read through the arguments for poling, many of them focus on the notion that it’s good for women to be allowed the freedom to express whatever they like through dance, including their sexuality if they damn well please, and they argue that in pole-fitness this process of exploration is completely liberated from the context of male domination and objectification that may exist in stripping.

What’s interesting is that both Pro and anti-pole stances see a sexual link in the activity, which brings me back to the original question – Is it right for a 16-19 college to be promoting something that has obvious sexual connotations? Moreover, is it right to do this when we all know that it will be mainly, probably solely young women, rather than young men, engaging in this sexualised activity?

Personally I don’t feel particularly comfortable with the college’s promoting pole-fitness, but am I just showing my age here? Or maybe this is my ‘inner patriarch’ just wanting to control young women from expressing their freedom? Or my ‘inner dad’ wanting to prevent young women from growing up?

Maybe I just need to get over it and start promoting pole-fitness in tutorials? Maybe that’s the future… ‘And don’t forget… final UCAS deadlines are this Friday, next Wednesday there’s a guest speaker talking about how to break into Journalism, and any young women wishing to explore their inner sex kitten are welcome to attend our new pole-fitness classes on Tuesdays… Please undress appropriately.’

Comments more than welcome…

The London Marathon is mainly about this kind of thing

A couple of my friends recently ran the London Marathon dressed as a Panto Horse – so I watched it to catch a glimpse of them – which I finally did, but I had to wait until right at the end of the BBC2 highlights show. As a result of keeping my eye on the BBC’s London Marathon for about 3 hours, I feel as if I have been used and abused.

I am a victim of the Corporate Branding of my public space. I honestly wanted to watch this event but I had no choice but to witness, in nearly every camera shot, the various Logos of the event sponsors – mainly Virgin, but others such as Adidas were in there too.

The London Marathon is a great event – I personally love running, and even I’m not that cynical (OK perhaps I am) about the money raised for charity and the ‘personal’ stories of some of the runners, but these tales seemed to take a back seat to the ‘Corporate event’ – from what I saw, the London Marathon is now primarily a vessel for Corporate advertisers to pollute our visual space with logos I do not wish to see: From the start, round every major landmark, right up to the trophy ceremonies where the corporate puppet-whores (the elite winners) adorned themselves in the logos of their sponsors.

But it's been sabotaged by this man

Critics might say that all of the money spent on advertising is going to a good cause – And a lot of money is going to come from allowing Virgin etc. to advertise in the world’s best marathon, and last year the London Marathon company had a turnover of about £18 million and made a profit of £4 million – a significant chunk of which goes to charity. However, this is nothing compared to the £47 million which individual runners make for their own individual charities.

I’d much rather see the London Marathon company scale down the advertising and just about cover costs – let the runners run for charity rather than using Corporation’s advertising to generate a little bit extra.

If you’re sick of Corporate Logo Creep,  I recommend reading,  or at least looking at summaries of Naomi Klein’s ‘No Logo’ – it was written in 2000, but she really predicted this trend – the trend of Corporate branding progressively taking over more and more of our public space

Finally, my friends did actually break the world record for the fastest panto horse to complete a marathon, they’re raising money for help the hospices, why not donate here - Who knows, if the BBC had spent more time flagging up the people’s efforts to raise money for charity rather than panning in on celebrity and Corporate logos, they’d be closer to their target of £5000!

Oh, you could also boycott all Virgin products, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend ever going out at night and vandalising Corporate logos where ever you see them.

You may have noticed that three thrill seekers recently slipped past (quite literally!) security scaled The Shard , posting pictures of themselves on the Place Hacking Blog – run by Bradley L. Garret. The three are members of the “London Consolidation Crew”, comprising of mainly middle class professionals, who have gained access to more than 300 locations in 7 countries over the last years.

Garret, from Los Angeles  has recently complete a PhD on ‘Urban Exploration’ (urban exploration being the process of researching, exploring and discovering temporary, obsolete and abandoned spaces in the built environment)  in which he charts the rise of an ‘urban exploration crew’ between the years 2008 -11. He took an active part in the group during this time, so this is a great example of a local researcher (presently living in Clapham) doing a form of participant observation.

Garret defends trespass in this video by pointing out that the actions are benign, but also alludes to the fact that there is a more political motive to the acts – which is clearer if you read his thesis (OK – I only skim read bits of it -Time!) in which he posits that

‘group are one of many who react to increasing surveillance and control over urban space by undertaking embodied interventions that undermine clean spatio/ temporal narratives. ‘

(In other words, the group dislike surveillance and so, in response to this, engage in a kind of subversive political action by ‘breaking into’ places they are not supposed to go into at odd times of the day (or night). )

As he says in the video – There are increasing amounts of public space where you just can’t go into, and increasing amounts of public spaces where its not clear if you can go there or not, or where its unclear what you are allowed to do. The actions of physical trespass push those boundaries and possibly challenge notions of what ‘freedom’ in the context of urban living means.

Garret also says the group are engaging with ‘history in the making’ in a creative way by trespassing and effectively hurting no one, while challenging our ideas of the boundaries of public and private, which is much better than what most people do – which is passively accept the status quo. These people are, after all, more active than the average citizen.

Finally – they also remind us that it’s impossible to secure large sites – as security guards aren’t machines - because they are fallible – suggesting, maybe, that the ‘man’ can be resisted.

Personally, however, and I think Garret and the others might well agree (I’m sure the question is up for debate) – I’m not sure how much this has really got to do with politics and challenging notions of citizenship – it is also about identity – and ‘the rush’ – and a great example of edgework – breaking the law to gain an emotional thrill and status (and possibly expressing your masculinity?) in a post-modern age – (would this have happened before social networking allowed the posting of pictures?).

As a final note, whether its about identity or politics or both, this is a pretty cool hobby, and if I were 20 years younger I’d be on the next train to London Bridge!

Some (minor bits) of this blog was cut and past from the links above 

This is a not-so-brief post on why I think Fashion is pointless – from a Buddhist point of view. It starts off with an allotment analogy but ends up with 6 reasons why I don’t like Fashion. (NB this first draft is quite abstract, I’ll jazz it up with a few pop. Culture references laters….)

Here we go……

When I go to my allotment I don’t tend to think too much about what I wear, other than to ensure suitable functionality for the tasks in hand. I just chuck on a pair of old walking trousers or traccy bottoms, combined with an out of shape T shirt and sweater – and of course my wellies – and off I trot.

Dressing for the allotment should be a model for dressing in wider society – because on the allotment, what you wear simply doesn’t matter, no one is in the slightest bit interested in judging you by your attire, and your outward appearance is almost completely irrelevant to your engagement with the land, the veg. and other people.

In fact, if you take a moment to reflect on it, what you wear is actually largely irrelevant to realising true happiness in the Buddhist sense of the word, where happiness is defined as realising a stable peace, or equanimity of mind.  

Happiness in Buddhism requires one to walk the ‘Noble Eight Fold Path – and there is absolutely no reason why wearing basic, functional, even tatty, clothes, should prevent you from practising any of the following aspects of this path (narrowed down to 6 because of ease of analysis) –

1. Reflecting, as you are now, on Buddhism and striving to know your ‘inner self’
2. Acting with compassion towards other beings.
3. Renouncing your attachment to particular things –
4. Doing a worthwhile job – other than requiring certain clothes for functionality in some areas of work.
5. Leading a routine life that avoids being too fussy and has too much emphasis on ‘picking and choosing’.
6. Developing meditative awareness – other than requiring clothes of sufficient comfort and warmth.

No, there is no reason whatsoever, that you should be prevented from ‘walking the Buddhist path’ for lack of fancy clothes. In fact, where two aspects of the path are concerned – renunciation and trying to avoid being fussy through avoiding picking and choosing – giving up your desire for particular clothes and not worrying about what you wear would actually be positive steps towards their realisation.

Maybe it’s the fact that I love Buddhism so much that I enjoy the near total irrelevance of attire to human interaction on the allotment – there is definite synergy between the two; and maybe this also explains why I generally dislike most of society so much – because the allotment is actually the only ordinary day-to-day ‘public domain’ I can think of where what you wear simply doesn’t matter.

This is probably why, when I sometimes nip from my allotment into town in order to feed my coffee addiction (I’m not a perfect Buddhist), I feel slightly ill at ease when I’m standing in the coffee queue – I’m not dressed appropriately for playing the ‘expressing my middle class identity through spending £2.50 on some frothy milk and four shots of espresso to go’ game. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t exactly suffer anxiety attacks over this, and I’m not about to stop wearing my scruffy old allotment clothes, but I can feel the ‘you look too scruffy for this place vibe’ coming off some fellow coffee-expressers.

Now perhaps you think I’m being over-sensitive, but if you know me, you know I’m not exactly a sensitive person, so I think this vibe I feel is real – and it’s a result of the logic of ‘having to wear particular clothes in particular situations’ having penetrated so deeply into the average person’s psyche that they actually judge me – ME! – on the clothes I wear rather than ‘my deeper-self’ (which is f**king marvellous btw.)

I mean think about it – learning how to pick appropriate styles of clothes for particular situations is a basic part of our early socialisation – Work, weekends, weddings, for example, all require us to ‘know what to wear’, and in our fashion conscious age, we’re expected to select particular colours and cuts that suit our skin tone, body type, and age. Worse, we are called upon to periodically change our wardrobes to accommodate the latest season’s fashion – autumn/ winter – spring/summer – For all I know things now change more often and less predictably – frankly I couldn’t give a toss if they do.

Worse still – for some members of society, clothes aren’t just about fitting in – they are about standing out – and a considerable amount of money is spent on ‘shopping as leisure’ – many people going into debt in order to ‘look good’. And of course this whole process of adornment doesn’t stop at clothes – there’s also hair, nails and accessories. Obviously, at the time of writing, women have things a lot worse than men.

Worse still – many friendships and relationships are periodically colonised by clothes-shopping rituals – where you pair  or group-up and parade around the shops reflecting on how certain combinations of clothes suit or not. This is actually regarded as fun by millions of people in Britain.

You’ve probably got the impression that I don’t approve of the time, money and effort so many people put into picking and choosing their items of clothing – and the reason I don’t approve is because this ritual that is so precious to so many people in Britain, this leisure pursuit that is so embedded in our popular-culture, all of this time, money and effort will do absolutely nothing at all to make you truly happy, at least not if you want to achieve happiness in the Buddhist sense of the word.

If we go back to the Noble Eight Fold Path you’ll see what I mean – Considering six of the aspects that lead to happiness – we can now see how the ritual of clothes shopping in order to express yourself through outward appearance is actually the antithesis of what you should/ should not be doing-

1. True happiness requires you to know your ‘inner self’- clothes shopping involves reflecting on what outward forms of dress you think are acceptable/ desirable, or what forms of clothes say a certain something about your ‘social personality’ and then buying or not buying.
2. True happiness requires that you act with compassion towards other beings – assuming you are shopping alone – you are focussing entirely on how other people see you – purely selfish, the antithesis of compassion. If you are helping someone else select clothes, you may think you are being compassionate, but you are in fact lying to them by perpetuating the notion that outward appearance matters more than ‘inner self’
3. True happiness requires renouncing your attachment to particular things – shopping involves, obviously, attaching your social self to particular clothes etc.
4. True happiness requires doing a worthwhile job – Functionality aside – If you are competent in a certain field – you can do a good job whatever you are wearing – but today some professions now require a certain style – There is a possibility that those who can master this style may be deemed more suitable for the job than someone less stylish and yet more competent. Attachment to appearance makes this situation more likely
5. True happiness requires one to leading a routine life that avoids being too fussy and has too much emphasis on ‘picking and choosing’ – as with no 3. It is obvious that clothes shopping – involving picking and choosing by its very nature – is the antithesis of this.
6. True happiness requires one to developing meditative awareness – worrying about what you look like and how you appear to others can only work against this.

As a penultimate note I’ll just make one brief qualification – I do think one will generally be happier if clothes are functional to tasks at hand, clean, and fit appropriately. Besides these requirements, I fail to see how buying any new clothes in the next decade could possibly lead to my being any happier.

Finally, If the six reasons above aren’t enough to convince you that spending time, effort and money on fashion is a waste of time – try this for a closing thought – think about it logically – the only people who really care what you look like probably care what they look like – this means that they are probably walking around either worrying about how crap they think they look, or lauding over how good they think they look on any particular day. Either way, they probably aren’t paying you that much attention, so you may as well not bother trying to impress them.

I hope this actually makes sense - I think I may have overcooked it! May add in a few examples to illustrate what I actually mean laters.

The purpose of this blog post is to outline a Buddhist inspired critique of ‘conspicuous consumption’ – which I define as ‘the act of picking, choosing and purchasing products and services with the intention of other people noticing either the products or the effects of the services purchased’.

As I see it – Conspicuous consumption directly contradicts many Buddhist values, seems to go against every aspect of the Buddha’s noble eightfold path, and encourages a number of negative human emotions. For example, because it is inherently linked to the process of ‘self-expression’ it promotes, in the literal sense of the word, self-ish-ness, it is a practice rooted in ignorance (of the truth of no-I) that essentially involves lying in public about the true nature of self by parading around one’s carefully ‘constructed self’. It also involves attaching oneself to objects, making one’s continued happiness dependent on the continued consumption of these objects, thus promoting a condition of radical unfreedom, while at the same time encouraging us to define the very concept of ‘freedom’ as the ‘freedom to pick and choose objects with which to construct my identity’ rather than seeing freedom as being about seeking ‘release from the necessity of being attached to particular objects which I deem to be significant’. Furthermore, the imperative to ‘identify through consumption’ requires money – and thus conspicuous consumption can, in some cases, encourage individuals to seek a livelihood primarily for its monetary reward rather than its social usefulness. Finally, this ritual demands that others pay attention to the ‘social self’ I am expressing’ – thus entangling others into a web of constant distraction in which we are all expected to pay close attention to the microscopic detail of numerous social selves, rather than simply focusing on ‘what we are actually doing’ – which ultimately works against the Buddhist goal of meditative practice in daily life.

The rest of this post analyses how conspicuous consumption goes against many Buddhist values -

The first problem with conspicuous consumption is that it works to prevent the individual from quietly sitting down and realizing the ‘true nature of self’, which (and to the non-Buddhist this will sound paradoxical) is that there is no inherent, distinct, isolated ‘self’. Conspicuous consumption is the antithesis of this simple, albeit hard to realise truth, as it is a self-expressive act which involves ‘me’ investing time and money in picking and choosing products and services that ‘I’ like in order to consciously construct a ‘social- identity’ – an identity that, ultimately, has no essential nature outside of the effort that I put into constructing it.

Conspicuous Consumption is thus, quite literally, an act which promotes ‘self-ish-ness’ – in the sense that ‘I’ start with the assumption that not only do ‘I’ exist, but that ‘I’ am significant enough to warrant other people’s attention when ‘I’ express myself through the products and services ‘I’ consume –  ‘I’ then return the favour of other people’s attention by noticing and commenting on their consumption habits, the end result being that our ‘society’ consists of people mutually engaged in the reflexive construction and expression of fictitious selves.

A preferred alternative to this farcical world of mutually reinforced ignorance would be a society in which we really do (and, again, somewhat paradoxically) act as individuals and quietly reflect on the ‘truth of non-self’ – which involves the gradual, and difficult to accept realisation that ‘I’ don’t actually exist as an independent identity at all, but rather, at root, ‘I’ am just one with everything else, and, in the grand scheme of things, am simply not that significant.  

The second problem with conspicuous consumption is that it encourages us to seek happiness through attachment, rather than peace of mind through freedom.

The fundamental logic of conspicuous consumption involves linking together a selection of things, and then linking these things to ‘my idea of myself’ – and then consuming this selection of things in a public space, thereby constructing a ‘social identity’. The problem here is that my social identity is dependent upon things outside of myself – it is thus contingent and fragile – and open to the possibility of being destroyed unless I can maintain the continued consumption of those things which ‘I’ deam to be significant. This notion of ‘self identity through conspicuous consumption’ is characterised by a profound sense of unfreedom –because it locks ‘me’ into a cycle of continuous consumption in order to maintain myself. Put another way, identity construction through conspicuous consumption is identity consumption through attachment, which stands in contrasts to the Buddhist notion of seeking happiness through non attachment.

To make matters worse, we fail to see that this ritual of consumption is characterised by ‘unfreedom’ because, in our collective ignorance, we have come to define ‘freedom’ as the ‘freedom to pick and choose a selection of objects in process of identity construction’ – rather than defining freedom as ‘freedom from contingent identity construction through conspicuous consumption’.

A third and, for now final, problem with conspicuous consumption is that it demands attention from others and thus distracts us from the mundanities of daily life.

Think about it – there is an assumption behind the act of conspicuous consumption that other people should pay attention to ‘my social self’ – which in turn means their making the effort to understand the subtle meanings that I give to the products and services which I consume.  

It is usually expected, for example, that people at least acknowledge new items of clothing, or a new haircut, or that ‘I’ve been on another holiday’ – and the closer my relationship to another person – the more attention they are expected to pay to my consumption choices.

The assumption that the fictitious self I have constructed is important enough to warrant input from other people really is the height of selfish arrogance – not only do I distract myself with consideration of how ‘I’ appear to others, but I also expect others to recognise and thereby assist in the perpetuation of this fictitious and insubstantial self-identity. Ultimately, this works to distract the attention of others away from ‘whatever they may be doing’ – away from the calm, meditative practices of daily life that are crucial to developing the kind of sustained concentration necessary for realising true peace of mind.

Of course the conspicuous consumption does not make it impossible for individuals to lead a Buddhist inspired lifestyle in some respects, but its very logic is so antithetical to Buddhist Ontology and the potential to discourage Buddhist ethical practice so huge, that if anyone wants to achieve real happiness, rooted in truth, it is probably best to avoid it altogether.

So to conclude, if you want to develop lasting, stable happiness, or more accurately peace of mind, that is non-contingent, and based on the ‘truth of self’, and if you wish to contribute to the construction of a society which allows others the freedom to do likewise, then don’t waste your time on constructing a fake and insubstantial social identity through conspicuous consumption.

So what – you may ask – is the alternative? Well, for a start, you could just sit there!

Water Aid works in 23 countries in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, with a total of 606 staff. Its mission is to ‘transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities’

To give you an idea of what water aid does – watch this video

According to this 2010-11 annual review - Last year they spent about £50 million – of which £32 million went to water and sanitation delivery service, £11 million on fundraising and £6 million on governance. You might criticise the £11 million on fundraising, but given that nearly 3/4 of their income comes from donations (the rest mainly from grants – which still need to be chased) – one imagines that without this, they’d have considerably less to work with…

The stats really add up – Last year Water Aid  helped 1.5 million people gain access to clean water, and improved sanitation for 1.6 million people.

I think this type of aid is crucial – the UN recognises the importance of aid for clean water and to improve sanitation - A few facts to further convince you….

• Diarrhoeal diseases are the leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity in low income countries – and the second leading cause of death overall
• 5000 children die a day from Diarrhoeal diseases
• If you look at worldometers - you’ll notice the numbers of people without access to clean water are going down! Partly thanks to the work of water aid -

The Labour party recently made a “serious complaint” to the BBC about a lack of political balance in its news coverage

According to the Guardian – ‘Party officials monitored invitations, and time given, to senior Tory and Liberal Democrat figures on the BBC’s main news outlets against that allotted to Labour counterparts. Their analysis showed that Labour has been represented less than half as often as the coalition. here is also broader concern amongst the Labour Party that the BBC is becoming an “echo chamber” for a press that is dominated by newspapers “determined for David Cameron to succeed”.’

But it’s worse than just there being a lack of a voice for Labour – I mean, frankly, who cares if Labour even got an equal share of air time with the Tories – the power elite in the Labour Party don’t actually represent the people of the United Kingdom anymore any way – Too many of them are elite educated, career politicians – and Labour stand for the city as much as the conservatives – and let’s not forget that they didn’t actually support the N30 strikes either.

Of broader concern is the fact there is a real lack of critical voices in the Beeb –the mainstream news agenda is extremely narrow – take the coverage of the credit crunch and the reaction (student protests, strikes, LSX) as an example – there really has been very little discussion of alternatives to the cuts – even though many alternatives exist – the agenda simply focuses on ‘what we should cut’ or, when people protest about the cuts, the media focusses on ‘the vandalism’ or ‘the disruption’ to ordinary people.

If you believe BBC chief Mark Thompson – then this lurch to the right is a relatively recent departure – Thompson argues that in the ‘70s and ‘80s the BBC used to be dominated by a ‘tribal leftism’ and there were certain issues that were off the media agenda.

So why is it that the BBC has lurched to the right? Possibly the answer lies in the fact that the conservative government which controls the BBCs budget is extremely right wing and, compared to the right wing press (the Mail and the Murdoch empire) to whom the government is so closely allied, the Beeb appears as something of a pain in the side, and this article by Polly Toynbe – reminds us that the Beeb has recently faced a 16% cut.

So could it simply be a matter of those in charge of the Beeb lurching their news agenda rightward in order to please their right wing pay masters and avoid harsher cuts and potential job losses? While this is a tricky area to research – intuitively at least it makes sense that media professionals would try to please their bosses in a time of job cuts!

It’s worth remembering too that many people who work for the Beeb (50% if you believe Monbiot) will be privately educated and themselves have a right wing bias – so moving further right, and cutting leftist analysis out wouldn’t be too much of a deviation from business as usual.

Whatever the reason for the Beeb’s narrowing agenda – we are fortunate that the growth of social media allows us to selectively choose our media outlets – and there are plenty of leftist voices out there which we can use instead of the once decent BBC – check out some of the links (to the left, obviously) for antidotes to the Beeb…