This week I've been smacked sideways three times by three of the most interesting articles I've read all year. I just had to link to them. Warning: moderate levels of nerdiness.
Firstly this one courtesy of Wired: quantum chess. Wowzer. Normal chess is hard enough for me with enough permutations to keep me interested for ages (at our recent cheese-and-port-and-chess night, the games were always the centre of attention despite some pretty stupendous smelly cheeses), and I've never got into Fischer Random chess, but quantum chess sounds nuts. And impossible.
Then this story from the LA Times, which was picked up on by the Freakonomics crew. That sort of shit gets me seriously excited. Mapping crimes isn't new - and police forces are already aware, for example, that serial burglars tend to work within a very small area - but using simulations to predict the behaviour and movement of criminals while including factors like police movements into the model, adds up to a very powerful model. "Humans are not as random as we think". That sounds familiar! Will it work? Would it ever hit the UK? Who knows, but even the thought cruising around in an IRV with real-time probability heatmaps for crime on the MDT gets me fidgety with anticipation. Look out for further developments.
As an aside, another, similar story that Freakonomics reported was this one on using text analytics to predict whether a film will succeed or bomb. Instinctively, that sounds like bollocks to me; some of the best films have the simplest plot lines, and vice versa. Isn't there some theory about there only being five stories ever written, and they're all by Shakespeare, or something like that? Stories about using science and/or data modelling to predict wacky things tickle me every time, but this sounds like nonsense to me. I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Finally, I've always believed in some similarities between physics and marketing (I've lost count of the number of people ask why I wanted to work in marketing after doing a physics degree, but it makes complete sense to me). What a delight, then, to discover a talk given by Google's Dan Cobley comparing the laws of physics and those of marketing. ("H/T" as they say to Mike Cooke). It'll only take up seven minutes of your time. He splits things up neatly into four analogies - all of which are neat: large brands have larger inertia and are therefore more difficult to change direction quickly (cf Newton II - nice!); and that as time goes on, it becomes ever more difficult to keep control of a brand (cf entropy) - he didn't explicitly make reference to the fact we are living in a more fragmented society, but I wonder if that was what he was referring to. But the real killer was Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and the observer effect that results from it. It's a simple idea (not so simple in practice) and many philosophical dilemmas result from it: that any observation you make actually affects the quantity being measured. As Cobley points out, the fact that consumer research can be affected by the very act of observing (consumers are less likely to give honest answers in the presence of an observer), can be compared obviously and simply to the Heisnberg-derived observer effect. Yes, yes, YES. I'd half had the same comparison stored up in my head but Dan Cobley has articulated is concisely. Some people in the comments whine about it not taking the true spirit of the Uncertainty Principle and how that's not the meaning of the observer effect, but that's just bluster and semantics - for all real-world, simple-analogy purposes, it holds true. Those moaners would probably have a fit if they saw my own analogy of flirting with quantum mechanics which I'm pleased to say has the seal of approval from my old flatmate Libby, a postdoctoral physicist who said she'd use the comparison with her undergrads!
Oh, and while we're on a science tip, a good piece by Evan Harris on the impending cuts to the science budgets.
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Social media market research from an amateur perspective (1): some examples of online communities
I thought I'd just throw a few things together about some of the developments in social media market research over the last few months, based on a few articles and blogs I've been reading. It's not in any particular order, and is as much for my own reference as anything else, so don't get too excited if you happen to have stumbled across it!
Cecile Lux and Doron Meyassed, from Danone and Promise Communities respectively, gave a paper entitled The future of community based research. They make the point that "the consumer is increasingly wanting to have their say". The sheer volume of online opinions support this statement; apart from all the obvious media for broadcasting opinions like blogs and forums, feedback on brands, services, and life experiences via all sorts of other channels - like reviews on Amazon or LondonEating, comments on online articles, and sharing titbits of knowledge through all kinds of crowdsourcing channels like Facebook group Secret London or, as in the examples given by Lux and Meyassed's paper, TripAdvisor or Wikipedia. They assert that "status is increasingly driven by what we share, not what we own" (handy for me - I don't own much, but love sharing secrets!)
They also assert that research communities will become more decentralised, with multiple business departments having direct access to the community. This sets my amateur alarm bells ringing. What good can be gained by HR and business development staff asking direct questions to a focus group? I can imagine knee-jerk reactions taking place following one forthright opinion on pricing or business ethics, for example. Would it not be better to leave the moderation and analysis of the community's opinions to the insight professionals? By all means there should be direct contact and input from other departments, but I would have thought it best to leave the overall control to the research team. Hopefully I'm missing their point.
The key point that is made, and the one which seems to be key to the whole concept of online communities as opposed to mere online panels, is the level of interaction and engagement with the consumers. Rather than simply being given a series of surveys to fill in, the participants are encouraged to come up with their own inspiration for the future of the product in question. Thus the brand can use crowdsourcing to generate innovation for their product, marketing, or anything else - everything will be much more open ended. Mircosites will encourage the community members to feel that they are making a difference and go out of their way to come up with insights and innovation in ways that they might not have if they felt they were being used. Research seems to be going the way of marketing where social media is concerned: the marketer cannot only take, but must give something back. In the same way that consumers will only follow a corporate Twitter account if they feel there is something in it for them, the community must fulfil some sort of promise to the consumer - giving them a reason to log on to the community and participate on a regular basis.
Tom Ewing in his paper "Cultures of Collaboration" (from which much of this post was derived) suggests that a consumer's default view of a research community could differ from person to person - so that their perspective is based on their own personal preferences, contacts and content, rather like the way a Facebook news feed runs now. This sounds like an interesting idea. Increasingly, since the push
Can research learn anything from quantum mechanics?
It occurs to me that research could learn a lot from quantum mechanics. One of the most fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics is the double headed beast of the observer paradox, and the measurement problem (linked to Heinberg's Uncertainty Principle and Schrödinger's Cat). Basically, between them they say this: that you cannot determine a result until you take a measurement, but the very taking of the measurement affects the result itself (I've tried to explain it better with a pub analogy here). Whilst it's only noticeable when the scales are very small, these effects are universal.
The tenuous link to research, therefore, is that any measurement that a researcher takes will inevitably affect the result itself. Even in the context of making a passive observation of an online community, the very fact that the participants know that Big Brother is running their every word through text analytics software may have some implications on their responses to prompted questions, or even to open-ended creative thinking. In quantum mechanics, there's no "quick fix" - the errors are fundamental to the science - I wonder if the observer principle can be directly applied. I suspect that even the swishest of technologies can't escape the effects; in he offline world, I imagine that even those cameras which participants wear to allow researchers to analyse their eye movements in supermarkets are still liable to the observer effect as shoppers make conscious efforts not to look too hard at the bargains? Similarly, no matter how much online research community owners step back, the participants will always know why they are there, unless the environment is allowed to degenerate so much that the forum subject matter moves so far away from the guided topics that even the participants forget what they are doing logging on.
Facebook monitoring
In the last few months Facebook has allowed keyword searches on status updates of everyone whose privacy settings are set to public. This means that you can search for what people are saying on Facebook, across the world. For example, what is being said about social media monitoring at the moment? (You'll have to be logged in to Facebook for the link to work). In true stalker style, I now know that a Canadian girl called Erin Brown needs to learn about social media monitoring software for work ("oh god" is her reaction). How about something a bit more brand-friendly? Over the last few months, a brand who have taken a social media hammering at the moment are BP; a simple Facebook search on "BP" would reveal to them what is being said at the moment, in real time.
This is immensely powerful stuff. It would be easy to write this off as just another way of monitoring alongside forums, Twitter and blogs, but I would argue that being able to monitor Facebook statuses is more powerful than all of those, as it displays people in their most "natural" habitat, and perhaps displaying online behaviour closest to their offline ("real") personae.
Of course, arguments still rage over whether whether Facebook's rather fast-and-loose approach to privacy settings are infringing on human rights - the goalposts have moved significantly since I joined in 2007, when it was basically a way of sending messages and updates to your closed group of friends, and nothing was shared with people I didn't know. Furthermore, many people have issues with the ways monitoring companies go about harvesting data, and most importantly how that data is used: this reached the Mail on Sunday recently. There's also an interesting riposte here from a Alex Brown of Virgin Media. My own take on it is that since those Facebook goalposts have started moving around quicker than a bat in a dustbin, users feel a little disgruntled when their content is going further than expected - particularly when it's rubbed in that they're being followed. As far as pure monitoring is concerned, I would say that as far as possible, the guidelines set down by the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR should be adhered to as far as possible; the first principle of the Code, relating to "informed consent", may need rewriting or adapting for monitoring situations, as clearly the explicit consent of Facebook users cannot be sought, although it could be argued that the fact that the users have opted to make their content private implies consent for companies to put it to good business use. I'm not so sure about this, but feel it's acceptable so long as all data is anonymised, and, where research agencies are concerned, is only used for research purposes and not passed on to the client for marketing or other purposes (like customer services in the case of BT in the Mail article), but only used to provide aggregated research data - in keeping with the spirit of the code as it stands.
See Jeffery Henning's summary and Ray Poynter's post on social media monitoring ethics for more in-depth views on the subject.
I digress. Whatever the ethics of listening to Facebook conversations, the data is now available to be viewed, although my understanding that the API does not allow this data to be automatically exported or cached (perhaps someone can put me right on this? I'm not a developer and got a nosebleed when I stuck my nose in the developers' section of Facebook the other day). These are publicly available opinions, which, as far as Facebook are concerned, users have elected to make public for anyone to "listen" to. And yet I would speculate that attitudes towards Facebook, as opposed to Twitter or forums, say, mean that Facebook personae are closer to "real life" than any other online profiles.
Let me explain what I mean. On Twitter or LinkedIn, one sets up a profile attached to one's real name and image, and the default - and ethos of the networks - is that information is viewable by anyone. To a certain extent, therefore, there could be the online equivalent of "good behaviour for the mother-in-law"; polite, measured, intelligent, but not necessarily spontaneous, as many users will bottle up true opinions for fear of jeopardising their chances of impressing the mother-in-law (or, perhaps more pertinently, potential employers). On the other hand, it's well documented that people posting under anonymous profiles on forums and social networks can often give overly aggressive, controversial, speculative, or simply wrong opinions.
Someone famously described the difference between Facebook and Twitter thus: "Facebook is for people you went to school with. Twitter is for people you wished you went to school with." (I don't know who came up with it first...possibly this guy.) It's a nice analogy.
Co-creativity and innovation by collaboration
One excellent example of co-creativity is Coproducer. The brainchild of Yougov boss Stephan Shakespeare, it is a very simple concept: creation of an entire film by means of creative collaboration. Every aspect of the film is determined by means of surveys and collaborative suggestions: plot outlines, twists, characters, moods. For some reason I haven't been getting their emails recently, so I'm not sure what stage the project is at right now, but I understand (well, hope) that the collaboration effort will be further applied to any business decisions that are made. I understand that the film will actually be made; it'll be fascinating to find out whether the quality of the product (the film) will be improved by the collaborative aspect.
Co-creation of products is something that consumers are actively enthused by, too. The classic example that gets trotted out as a case study wherever you look is My Starbucks Idea. Others far more qualified than me have said it all before so I won't embarrass myself, but the power of having brand advocates all giving their solicited and unsolicited opinions on what could improve the brand, is frightening really. Yet this rather unstructured qualitative data isn't a million miles from the sort of thing they could achieve by monitoring Facebook and Twitter; except that there's much less noise.
Noise is a real problem with social media monitoring - particularly as there are so many automated bots retweeting content all over the place. The day someone comes up with a comprehensive database of Twitter contacts, arranged geographically, and divided up by their area of "expertise", could be the day that monitoring gives more insight than noise. Putting together such a database is something I'm currently working on in my day job - it's time consuming but I think we've really nailed a method for saying with some confidence that on any given industry or subject area, we can pull together a pretty big list of the people that matter.
Having worked through Steve Rappaport's rather plodding book on social media monitoring (it does, however, have a lot of case studies which, most of them being American, I hadn't heard of), I'm currently getting started on Ray Poynter's new book, The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research, which is a hefty work and comprehensive. It's not a sexy book but I think that's the point; more a work of reference, which it seems to me to succeed at brilliantly. I'll probably throw a few words together about it when I get through it (which won't be for some time).
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Mark Earls - "Herd": the Da Vinci Code of marketing?
Mark Earls is clearly in the wrong profession. He's an ad man by trade, but Herd: How to change mass behaviour by harnessing our true nature lurches between a vast array of subjects covering all types of popular science yet is so tangential that it rarely mentions any direct applications to marketing and market research. Instead, Earls has created a tome to make you go and think for yourself, and explore topics in greater depth.
It's a beautifully printed volume - nice paper, nice typeface and a bright pink cover of the sort that makes people on the tube squint to see what you're reading (and when they see the "how to change mass behaviour" title combined with a suitably megalomaniac look in your eyes, you'll get a bit of extra standing room, I promise you). The writing style is very much in the catchy mould of the advertising professional, albeit the author is a planner by trade, not a creative. Short, sharp sentences. With lots of sentences starting with 'with'. And many more starting with 'and'.
Meanwhile, Mark Earls is able to cover huge amounts of ground in subjects close to his heart. He launches into a discourse on one of hs favourite subjects with gusto in the early pages. a self-confessed amateur primatologist, he explores the human/chimp boundary and concludes that socially, as well as physiologically, we are infinitesimally close: humans are an example of a super-social ape. Chapter 1 doesn't say anything particularly radical. Rather, it sets the scene for Earls' later dramas, a scene with all humans as a naturally social species, with interactions with other people playing a central role in the way we approach all problems and decisions.
The second chapter carries on where the first left off, with helter-skelter, high octane voyages of discovery covering illusions and memory - and where the two meet in the middle. Then, out of the blue on page 72, comes the first killer blow: the claim that attitudes change after behaviour, not before.
This is based on work by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, whose writing sounds fascinating and whose book Judgement and uncertainty: heuristics and biases has shot straight to the upper echelons of my wishlist.
I take issue slightly with the way Earls treated Kahneman's work, although I must stress that I haven't read the original material. Earls seems to sensationalise everything - using Kahneman's "lazy minds" theory to suggest that nobody ever makes decisions for themselves and we're kidding ourselves if we think we do. It's easy enough to understand the point he's making - and it's an important one - but does he need to exaggerate so much? It's a rather tabloid style that turned me off the book somewhat; indeed, my enjoyment of of the book fluctuated as I went through - looking something like this:
Kahneman's model talks of heuristics as mentioned by Nigel Hollis - subconscious, instinctive, even irrational judgements or actions that we make. Perhaps I'm wrong, but the impression I get is that Earls takes a rather defeatist attitude: he seems to suggest that it's not possible to break down and analyse the motivations for these heuristics, let alone take advantage of the heuristics themselves and influence people's decisions in this way. Surely that is one of the great challenges for researchers and marketers: to discover the heuristics at the point of decision-making and then throw a spanner in the works by affecting those unconscious thoughts. Earls, it seems to me, seems to take a rather fatalistic attitude (repeated later in the book) - you can't do anything about it so don't bother trying.
The attitudes change... statement might be controversial, but, as Earls points out, it challenges the awareness-interest-desire-action model of marketing. Decisions might not be made in the frames of reference we assume.
The question is: how can we work out in what ways, and at what times, that decisions are made? The most obvious example of mass behaviour not working out as expected that I can think of in recent months was Cleggmania in the run-up to the general election in May this year. Before the election, I attended a social media summit where respected political commentator (and influential blogger) Paul Waugh proffered the opinion that the result of the election would depend less on social media than on television, as the televised leaders' debates would change more attitudes than anything else.
The first debate took place and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg was almost universally acknowledged by those who watched the show live to have "won" it. Sure enough, the various opinion polls, with their varied fieldwork dates (some with rolling fieldwork dates; there was much excitement on the UK Polling Report discussing methodologies!) displayed dramatic increases in support levels for the Lib Dems.
But let's consider. Say 10 million people watched the debate on TV and another 5 million saw clips on YouTube or on the news, a total of 15 million who had seen the debate in some form, and not all of those would be eligible to vote. How many genuine floating voters among that lot? Surely not that many. Yet the changes in the opinion polls were dramatic. The Liberals gained up to 10% of the vote in the space of a couple of days in some polls. What was even more interesting was the fact that the bounce wasn't just an immediate thing: the Lib Dem share of support increased as time went on - and stayed high throughout the remaining weeks.
Surely this was a classic example of herd behaviour going on? Had the Twitter campaigns (for example #iagreewithnick) succeeded? Critically, were there people changing their preference who had not actually seen the debate at all, but were reacting to the hype and opinions of others around them? It's often said that voters like to choose a winner so that they can feel like they have contributed something personally to that success; this is why such positive language is used in electioneering. The Lib Dems, masters of the campaign trail thanks to the genius of Chris Rennard, have monopolised the phrase "Winning Here" as a result.
And yet come election day, the herd phenomenon seemed to vanish completely. Pre-debate polls were actually more acurate than post-debate. This seems to have been a dramatic example of the herd effect/word of mouth affecting opinions, yet when it came to the decision-making that really counted, the voters lost their nerve, or else there are other heuristics involved inside the ballot box. My feeling is that Earls' Herd theory needs re-evaluating after this, but also the research industry as a whole: the post-debate polls were largely worthless in predicting the election result, given that they gave a Lib Dem share of up to 30% right up until polling day, which dissolved completely. That's not to say there was necessarily any flaws with the methodologies used at the time... just that people's intentions can be different from their actions (as Earls would agree - it's a fundamental point of his book).
What can researchers learn from this? That intentions and behaviour are very different - that surveys can be a very inaccurate way of predicting future behaviour (what's the disclaimer that you get on investment ads?) - that perhaps word of mouth has its limits. Were the polls useless? Not entirely; they may be able to give a clue to the heuristics involved in making a decision on who to vote for. Besides things like fear, optimism, wanting to contribute to a success story...what could they be? I have no idea, but anyone who works them out accurately could be a person in great demand. I'd love to know what Mark Earls' thoughts are on the mechanisms at work in the weeks preceding the election.
Earls' argument, taken more generally, is that people are not really in control of their own lives and opinions. The key point for research is that what we think we believe in, or what we aspire to believe, or what we believe we do, and the actions we actually take, may not tally up at all. Now researchers have known for ages about the dangers of respondents giving "socially acceptable" answers to questionnaires. earls takes things further by arguing that traditional focus groups can never provide a natural environment in which we operate and interact, and that we need more organic ways of monitoring behaviour - ideally at the point at which those heuristics kick in. Does this simply point to social media research? I'm not so sure. Monitoring naturally occurring conversations - in forums and on Facebook, for example - can give a wealth of opinion data; but as with a focus group, one is reliant on opinions being put forward, however naturally that may be. Perhaps some of the newer, more sophisticated techniques might be the way forward in analysing decision-making processes - are they just hot air though?
Rich use of case studies is one of the best things about Herd. The Milgram Experiment is one terrifying example of just how irrational human behaviour can become when we feel that there is an "accepted" way of thinking. I'd never heard of it before and barely dared to breathe as I read Earls' two page account. I distinctly remember staring at the wall and saying "shit" repeatedly after reading about it. There are other, similarly dramatic (if less horrifying) examples which most "marketing" books won't come within a hundred miles of. For example, how much idle fun can you have with this Mexican Wave generator? (There are other similar modelling simulations here).
Having set the scene, Mark Earls proceeds to lay down his Seven Principles of Herd Marketing. Don't get too excited: this isn't a step-by-step bible on how to double your turnover in a year. Rather, they're a set of rather nebulous ideas, some of which are frustratingly obvious. Instead, you should continue to focus your attention on the game-changing case studies and analogies with which his arguments are made.
It starts unpromisingly. Urinals? C'mon Mark, it doesn't need a laborious analysis of the rules - that's known to anyone who's ever had a few drunken conversations (if you haven't, there's plenty of stuff on the internet). My attention wavered. Following this, however, we get into the real meat of the first chapter (simply entitled Interaction): it's lengthy, but rich in case data and ideas, and convincingly presented. We learn about markets; whether it's betting markets or financial markets, much of their behaviour and volatility is a result not of external factors, but purely the interactions between people concerned. Betting markets are similar - particularly when you start to think about either starting-price betting, or the new betting exchanges such as Betfair, where you take on the market directly. There are comparisons to be made with game theory - another subject which Earls touches on, and Thomas Schelling concedes that his entire book is really about game theory. I was chatting to a hedge fund trading mate of mine the other week, who is keen to learn more about game theory in order to improve his work; if I remember to dig it out of a locker in Holborn, I'll lend it to him - I might point him in the direction of Herd at the same time.
A fascinating discussion on metastability ensues, and how phase transitions can be compared to other social situations (for example crime levels). The pedigree of the theories is impressive: Earls rehashing Phillip Ball rehashing Campbell & Ormerod influenced by Schelling. It's no less entertaining for all that. Thrillingly, there appear to be quite a few comparisons to be made between physical systems and human ones.
I wonder if Earls has ever come across percolation theory, an area of statistical mechanics which has some striking similarities to some of Earls' material. It deals with lattices connected by nodes and the probability of some form of path finding its way through the lattice to an infinite degree. In other words, if each individual bit of mesh in the coffee percolator has a certain probability that coffee will manage to drip through that one bit of mesh, what is the probability that some coffee will make it all the way through? Admittedly that's an oversimplification, but percolation theory, which has applications in geology and materials, as well as, for example, the propagation of forest fires. Networks vary, depending on the number of connections at each node, and the number of dimensions. But the key property is that, for an infinitely large lattice - the simplest model - across a range if individual node probabilities (how porous one "junction" is) the probability of the percolation taking place jumps from zero to one around a critical probability. So there's a critical point above which the information will always find a way through. The similarities with human networks are clear: each node or person or organisation, connected to a certain number of other nodes, has a certain chance of "getting their message across" to the next person. The spread of information greatly increases as the influence or effectiveness of transmission of information at a particular junction reaches a critical level. I wonder if the Mexican Wave model could be predicted using percolation theory? It's a fascinating subject - one I came across at university - and one that merits further reading.
Earls only makes direct reference to market research a few times in the text, but when he does, he tends to be pithy. He cites the example of when a different methodology gave a completely different answer to a descriptive research problem he was involved with on shoe-buying habits. It's easy to see where his scepticism towards traditional research methods comes from: a methodology could conform to all the usual rules on sapling, validity and so on, and still give wildly different from another methodology which was similarly robust. (Could this provide a clue to where the opinion polls went wrong? Could we try a radically different methodology next time?)
Following on from Milgram's experiment, Earls then examines the models of influence: how we are all influenced, by whom, and in what way. He thoughtfully considers various descriptions of the types of people who are "influential" (though the definition of influential remains somewhat shrouded). There is the Opinion Leader approach - where one in fifteen are "social influencers". There is the "early adopters" model. Malcolm Gladwell has his ideas. Earls doesn't conclude in favour of any one approach - or against any for that matter; personally, I think that you can't just define what an influencer looks or sounds or behaves like - it simply depends on the situation. Opinion Leader talk about MPs, CEOs and community leaders. That all seems a bit predictable to me. I'd say it's much more of a social personality thing: in my experience, those people who are natural leaders and natural influencers within social spheres are the most exuberant, most outgoing, funniest, most interesting people. They're the ones who are good at everything - from rugby to pub quizzes - and don't waste a minute of their time lying around on the sofa but are involved in loads of activities (although they always seem to be good at computer games too, ironically). The ones with god jobs and attractive partners (they're probably attractive themselves, too; good genes, I suppose). In other words, the ones you're jealous of. The ones who suggest a trip to the pub and the rest follow. The ones everyone else is jealous, and wants to be like, and wants to copy. Is it possible to pinpoint what sets these people apart? I don't know. This does, however, extend to internet forums, where again there are influencers and leaders; this does not correlate with post counts. It's something I might write a post on at a later date.
The next couple of chapters of Herd fade away very slightly, with a rather forgettable discussions on word-of-mouth marketing - although I wholeheartedly agree that buzz isn't something you can conjure up, and that half of these word of mouth, buzz and social media "conversation" agencies are charlatans. A slightly sanctimonious chapter saying "just be yourself" follows; presumably this was the chapter where Earls convinced his publisher that this was really a marketing book rather than a popular science one, as there are quite a few case studies. Again, however, while a little predictable in its ideas (make good products, be nice and smiley to everyone and everything will be OK) it's written in a gripping style. He defines a "Belief Business" as one which applies its ideals across all forms of its operations. He gives several examples; the most obvious one that can think of in my experience is The Lexi cinema. Run by volunteers, with all its profits going to charity, it's not just for the bleeding hearts - it's a lovely comfortable interior with great decor, friendly staff, a bar (yes, you can take in your pint), no ads, a personal introduction to the film by one of the friendly staff...all in all, it's easily the best cinema in London (and 10 minutes walk from me to boot). The damage is a tenner a time, but the overall experience is so far removed from the nearest alternative (the multiplex on the North Circular) that it's worth every penny. The Lexi has been cited before as a social media case study (not sure where the article is or who wrote it but suffice to say that their Facebook and Twitter pages are active, conversational, multilateral and give you plenty of reasons to follow them).
Earls is back on compelling form when talking about co-creativity - with countless examples, across platforms and industries (and outside industry!), of group collaboration proving to be more effective than one "genius". His nineteenth century engineering example was particularly strong; more up to date was his discussion of co-creativity in the software industry. Perhaps he missed the two more obvious examples of collaboration in the technological world: APIs, where programs and applications such as Twitter and Google Chrome are opened up, allowing developers to create extensions and tools to really enhance the user experience; and of course the ultimate co-creative project, Wikipedia. There are plenty of academic studies on the wiki phenomenon out there so I won't embarrass myself - but I will point you in the direction of one of the most interesting articles on Wikipedia: about its own accuracy.
Herd finishes on a slightly damp note of don't bother defeatism again (hence the slight tailing off of my enjoyment graph!) but I found myself coming away with more and more examples ofgroup Herd behaviour flooding into my head, and am in serious danger of considering myself a disciple.
One example that always gets to me, although not strictly an exercise in herd behaviour (it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to), is choosing who to sit next to on the bus. If you go upstairs and each two-person seat has exactly one person sitting on it...how do you choose where to sit? Now don't say "random". There will be some sort of reason. Perhaps there's a simple rule you take: the front seat, or the one closest to the stairs. But let's say you don't. OK, if you've got the whole bus to choose from, then certain people rule themselves out straight away: those sporting loud headphones, gross obesity, and cans of special brew are unlikely to have their adjacent space taken away from them early on. But then who? Trying to deconstruct my own subconscious, I think I aim for someone as neutral and bland as possible, someone who is unlikely to make a fuss, someone who keeps their stuff on their side of the seat, someone who won't make a big deal of getting out. I don't think I'm fussed by male or female...although if I decide to sit next to a woman, it can't be the most attractive one there (too obvious), although I'll err on the attractive side of average if possible. It'll probably be someone of nondescript age (ie middle-aged). And although consciously I would never choose on racial grounds, having read Schelling I'd love to know statistically/historically whether my seating habits are biased towards white people. They probably are. Incidentally, as a schoolkid, I always used to get paranoid if I was the last person to be sat next to. In truth, I probably still do.
I could go on all day providing examples. Just the other day I was in Edinburgh at the festival (I've put some reviews up here). I went to see stand-up comic Stephen K Amos - one of the better and more dependable middle-of-the-road comedians in this country. At one point, a bloke got up noisily to go to the toilet; when he was gone, Amos decided to try a little experiment in herd behaviour (or peer pressure as he put it). He briefed us on what to do, and when the chap came back with a newly empty bladder, Amos casually said "now, c'mon folks, let's be honest here. How many of you used to pick your nose and eat it when you were younger?" As one, we put our hands up...and, sure enough, chappie's hand went up with the rest, whereupon he was stitched up royally by Amos, to his embarrassment (and our mirth).
Mark is a constant critic of the traditional focus group - his arguments perhaps point to weaknesses in even the latest trendy research-by-crowdsourcing and online communities (MROCs) - that they are artificially created and therefore can never be a place to watch true, natural interactions between people. But there is a difference between online communities and focus groups and that is timescales. Scientists can create artificial environments very easily - whether it's artificial reefs or contrived forests - and, although nature will take a while to adapt, in time the relationships between creatures and plants will adjust as normal. Hell, Big Brother was a great concept at first, and no matter how much the producers contrive to force increasingly incompatible and decreasingly interesting people who they think will be good for a fight/shag/ratings (delete as appropriate), even in a short space of time true human emotions, relationships and frailties poke out from under the veneer - and thanks to the camera work of Tony Gregory and his team, every glimpse, every pained expression, every faltering relationship will be captured on film (although, of course, the editing reduces it all to fighting, shagging and ratings). If left alone, a garden will start to sprout weeds and brambles and similarly, now matter how artificial an online community is at first, if left alone, the true insight can appear. Weeds and brambles encourage the real money shot back garden wildlife like bees, mice and foxes; perhaps if left to go to weed, online communities can also provide that rich interaction of the type that Mark Earls thinks is so elusive.
My mum (like my dad, also a shrink; breakfast-table conversations could be quite stressful) was talking to me the other day about a conference organised by the Tavistock Institute she attended in Leicester many years ago. Ironically, it's a conference on group behaviour; she told me that what was fascinating was the way that over the course of the week-long conference, groups, factions and schisms grew naturally - which all began with a rather heated discussion between the smokers and non-smokers at the conference. In the space of a few days, delegates had clustered together around natural leader-types, to the extent that cross-group interaction was almost non-existent.
"An indispensible manual for the Web 2.0 era" extols Matthew D'Ancona in the list of endorsements on the back cover. Would I be right in thinking that D'Ancona has missed the point of the book entirely? The "Web 2.0 era" isn't something new, and nothing has changed about the way people interact and behave. The behaviour just manifests itself more clearly. Opinions, trends, and the propagation of content and views can just be traced quantitatively much more easily.
Herd could be described as the Da Vinci Code of marketing. It relies a little too heavily on shock tactics, the writing style is an acquired taste, and it draws some conclusions that might be distinctly dodgy, but damn, it's good fun getting there: you'll gobble it up page after page, and come out on the other side feeling quite liberated, with some pretty major questions in your mind about how human beings work, and whether our communications efforts could all be in vain. One of those rare things that might actually justify the description "essential".
It's a beautifully printed volume - nice paper, nice typeface and a bright pink cover of the sort that makes people on the tube squint to see what you're reading (and when they see the "how to change mass behaviour" title combined with a suitably megalomaniac look in your eyes, you'll get a bit of extra standing room, I promise you). The writing style is very much in the catchy mould of the advertising professional, albeit the author is a planner by trade, not a creative. Short, sharp sentences. With lots of sentences starting with 'with'. And many more starting with 'and'.
I'm going to start at the end, rather than the beginning: the bibliography is one of the highlights of the whole book, and the sceptic might suspect that Earls may have gone to great lengths to deliberately cram in as many offbeat and varied references as possible. From Freud to Popbitch, from Goebbels to Thatcher, at times it feels like Earls is desperate to show his versatility and open-mindedness. It should also be pointed out that Earls pays humble tributes to many writers before him, and is quick to pay credit. Indeed his praise for several books put them straight on my wishlist. One of them is Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which, by sheer coincidence, I found my dad (who is neither a marketeer nor a scientific revolutionary, but a psychoanalyst) is currently reading. As an aside, I asked him about repressed memory and the controversies surrounding it; his explanation was almost word-for-word identical to the description in Herd - which certainly added a lot of credibility to the book in my eyes.
Another I did pick up: Micromotives to Macrobehaviour, Nobel Laureate Thomas C Schelling's study of the way group behaviour is affected by tiny fluctuations in individual perceptions or opinions, and the way the decisions of individuals relate to overall crowd behaviour. The examples at times seem so obvious, yet seeing them written down makes you think twice about crowd behaviour. It's absolutely compelling - one of the best I've read in ages. Herd builds on the solid foundations placed by Schelling and sexes it up; he also begins to muse on how these crowd-behaviour phenomena might affect marketing campaigns, although, perhaps wisely, leaves many questions unanswered: what would be the fun in creating loads of mysteries only to clear them all up?
Schelling touches on traffic modelling - something of which I know little, other than it's a fascinating subject and well worth exploring. One fundamental principle is that traffic jams flow backwards with a wave-like motion, as first set out by Lighthill & Whitham in their 1955 paper On kinematic waves II - a theory of traffic flow on long crowded roads (Proc. R. Soc. Lond. Vol 229 pp 312-345) - something which I'm intending to dig out of the British Library at some point, although to get started I have a copy of Robert Banks' Towing icebergs, falling dominoes and other adventures in applied mathematics (I'll report back if I ever become an amateur traffic expert). Hat tip to a Durham maths student called SG Hockey for the links - his dissertation is well worth a read, although it comes with a health warning - if, like me, mere mention of partial differential equations is enough to trigger a heart flutter, then it might be best avoided. He also links to this experiment by Yuki Sugiyama et al which is an experimental verification of, in their words, "a dynamical phenomenon of a many-particle system" of which "in general, such a system drastically changes its macroscopic aspect owing to the collective motion of many interacting particles". A direct analogy of the sort of behaviour Schelling and Earls are talking about! Keep those two chevrons' distance on the motorway, and you'll do your bit to keep traffic flowing as sudden braking slows everything down. It's easier to see on a crowded escalator: if you're in the "fast lane" (left hand side if you're from London!) bunched up close, if the person in front of you stops suddenly, you'll make a sudden stop, as will the people behind you...in seconds, the whole escalator will come to a standstill. Next time you're heading down to the Northern line at Euston in rush hour, try looking behind you to watch the jam flow backwards. It works. Keep a sedate distance, and you might just help speed people's journeys up.
So much for a book review, I hear you say. This deviated from the mainline ages ago. OK, I may be going off at a tangent, but that's probably Herd's greatest strength: for all I might be sceptical of some of its conclusions, and for all I might scoff at the writing style at times, it doesn't half inspire you to think outside the box. I found myself drifting off into daydreams of herd-like behaviour as I was reading. Earls' enthusiasm is infectious. Let's put the traffic modelling to one side for now, however - if anyone knows an expert who can explain it to me properly, please let me know.
[Update, 7 September: I'm now reading Banks' Towing Icebergs which is very interesting if you like maths, and is bringing back rather more vivid memories of differential equations than I'd like to remember; and how could I forget to link to this post comparing traffic modelling to online communities?]
[Update, 7 September: I'm now reading Banks' Towing Icebergs which is very interesting if you like maths, and is bringing back rather more vivid memories of differential equations than I'd like to remember; and how could I forget to link to this post comparing traffic modelling to online communities?]
Meanwhile, Mark Earls is able to cover huge amounts of ground in subjects close to his heart. He launches into a discourse on one of hs favourite subjects with gusto in the early pages. a self-confessed amateur primatologist, he explores the human/chimp boundary and concludes that socially, as well as physiologically, we are infinitesimally close: humans are an example of a super-social ape. Chapter 1 doesn't say anything particularly radical. Rather, it sets the scene for Earls' later dramas, a scene with all humans as a naturally social species, with interactions with other people playing a central role in the way we approach all problems and decisions.
The second chapter carries on where the first left off, with helter-skelter, high octane voyages of discovery covering illusions and memory - and where the two meet in the middle. Then, out of the blue on page 72, comes the first killer blow: the claim that attitudes change after behaviour, not before.
This is based on work by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, whose writing sounds fascinating and whose book Judgement and uncertainty: heuristics and biases has shot straight to the upper echelons of my wishlist.
I take issue slightly with the way Earls treated Kahneman's work, although I must stress that I haven't read the original material. Earls seems to sensationalise everything - using Kahneman's "lazy minds" theory to suggest that nobody ever makes decisions for themselves and we're kidding ourselves if we think we do. It's easy enough to understand the point he's making - and it's an important one - but does he need to exaggerate so much? It's a rather tabloid style that turned me off the book somewhat; indeed, my enjoyment of of the book fluctuated as I went through - looking something like this:
 |
| How good is Herd? It varies as you go through. (Pictorial representation only!) |
The attitudes change... statement might be controversial, but, as Earls points out, it challenges the awareness-interest-desire-action model of marketing. Decisions might not be made in the frames of reference we assume.
The question is: how can we work out in what ways, and at what times, that decisions are made? The most obvious example of mass behaviour not working out as expected that I can think of in recent months was Cleggmania in the run-up to the general election in May this year. Before the election, I attended a social media summit where respected political commentator (and influential blogger) Paul Waugh proffered the opinion that the result of the election would depend less on social media than on television, as the televised leaders' debates would change more attitudes than anything else.
The first debate took place and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg was almost universally acknowledged by those who watched the show live to have "won" it. Sure enough, the various opinion polls, with their varied fieldwork dates (some with rolling fieldwork dates; there was much excitement on the UK Polling Report discussing methodologies!) displayed dramatic increases in support levels for the Lib Dems.
But let's consider. Say 10 million people watched the debate on TV and another 5 million saw clips on YouTube or on the news, a total of 15 million who had seen the debate in some form, and not all of those would be eligible to vote. How many genuine floating voters among that lot? Surely not that many. Yet the changes in the opinion polls were dramatic. The Liberals gained up to 10% of the vote in the space of a couple of days in some polls. What was even more interesting was the fact that the bounce wasn't just an immediate thing: the Lib Dem share of support increased as time went on - and stayed high throughout the remaining weeks.
Surely this was a classic example of herd behaviour going on? Had the Twitter campaigns (for example #iagreewithnick) succeeded? Critically, were there people changing their preference who had not actually seen the debate at all, but were reacting to the hype and opinions of others around them? It's often said that voters like to choose a winner so that they can feel like they have contributed something personally to that success; this is why such positive language is used in electioneering. The Lib Dems, masters of the campaign trail thanks to the genius of Chris Rennard, have monopolised the phrase "Winning Here" as a result.
And yet come election day, the herd phenomenon seemed to vanish completely. Pre-debate polls were actually more acurate than post-debate. This seems to have been a dramatic example of the herd effect/word of mouth affecting opinions, yet when it came to the decision-making that really counted, the voters lost their nerve, or else there are other heuristics involved inside the ballot box. My feeling is that Earls' Herd theory needs re-evaluating after this, but also the research industry as a whole: the post-debate polls were largely worthless in predicting the election result, given that they gave a Lib Dem share of up to 30% right up until polling day, which dissolved completely. That's not to say there was necessarily any flaws with the methodologies used at the time... just that people's intentions can be different from their actions (as Earls would agree - it's a fundamental point of his book).
What can researchers learn from this? That intentions and behaviour are very different - that surveys can be a very inaccurate way of predicting future behaviour (what's the disclaimer that you get on investment ads?) - that perhaps word of mouth has its limits. Were the polls useless? Not entirely; they may be able to give a clue to the heuristics involved in making a decision on who to vote for. Besides things like fear, optimism, wanting to contribute to a success story...what could they be? I have no idea, but anyone who works them out accurately could be a person in great demand. I'd love to know what Mark Earls' thoughts are on the mechanisms at work in the weeks preceding the election.
Earls' argument, taken more generally, is that people are not really in control of their own lives and opinions. The key point for research is that what we think we believe in, or what we aspire to believe, or what we believe we do, and the actions we actually take, may not tally up at all. Now researchers have known for ages about the dangers of respondents giving "socially acceptable" answers to questionnaires. earls takes things further by arguing that traditional focus groups can never provide a natural environment in which we operate and interact, and that we need more organic ways of monitoring behaviour - ideally at the point at which those heuristics kick in. Does this simply point to social media research? I'm not so sure. Monitoring naturally occurring conversations - in forums and on Facebook, for example - can give a wealth of opinion data; but as with a focus group, one is reliant on opinions being put forward, however naturally that may be. Perhaps some of the newer, more sophisticated techniques might be the way forward in analysing decision-making processes - are they just hot air though?
Rich use of case studies is one of the best things about Herd. The Milgram Experiment is one terrifying example of just how irrational human behaviour can become when we feel that there is an "accepted" way of thinking. I'd never heard of it before and barely dared to breathe as I read Earls' two page account. I distinctly remember staring at the wall and saying "shit" repeatedly after reading about it. There are other, similarly dramatic (if less horrifying) examples which most "marketing" books won't come within a hundred miles of. For example, how much idle fun can you have with this Mexican Wave generator? (There are other similar modelling simulations here).
Having set the scene, Mark Earls proceeds to lay down his Seven Principles of Herd Marketing. Don't get too excited: this isn't a step-by-step bible on how to double your turnover in a year. Rather, they're a set of rather nebulous ideas, some of which are frustratingly obvious. Instead, you should continue to focus your attention on the game-changing case studies and analogies with which his arguments are made.
It starts unpromisingly. Urinals? C'mon Mark, it doesn't need a laborious analysis of the rules - that's known to anyone who's ever had a few drunken conversations (if you haven't, there's plenty of stuff on the internet). My attention wavered. Following this, however, we get into the real meat of the first chapter (simply entitled Interaction): it's lengthy, but rich in case data and ideas, and convincingly presented. We learn about markets; whether it's betting markets or financial markets, much of their behaviour and volatility is a result not of external factors, but purely the interactions between people concerned. Betting markets are similar - particularly when you start to think about either starting-price betting, or the new betting exchanges such as Betfair, where you take on the market directly. There are comparisons to be made with game theory - another subject which Earls touches on, and Thomas Schelling concedes that his entire book is really about game theory. I was chatting to a hedge fund trading mate of mine the other week, who is keen to learn more about game theory in order to improve his work; if I remember to dig it out of a locker in Holborn, I'll lend it to him - I might point him in the direction of Herd at the same time.
A fascinating discussion on metastability ensues, and how phase transitions can be compared to other social situations (for example crime levels). The pedigree of the theories is impressive: Earls rehashing Phillip Ball rehashing Campbell & Ormerod influenced by Schelling. It's no less entertaining for all that. Thrillingly, there appear to be quite a few comparisons to be made between physical systems and human ones.
I wonder if Earls has ever come across percolation theory, an area of statistical mechanics which has some striking similarities to some of Earls' material. It deals with lattices connected by nodes and the probability of some form of path finding its way through the lattice to an infinite degree. In other words, if each individual bit of mesh in the coffee percolator has a certain probability that coffee will manage to drip through that one bit of mesh, what is the probability that some coffee will make it all the way through? Admittedly that's an oversimplification, but percolation theory, which has applications in geology and materials, as well as, for example, the propagation of forest fires. Networks vary, depending on the number of connections at each node, and the number of dimensions. But the key property is that, for an infinitely large lattice - the simplest model - across a range if individual node probabilities (how porous one "junction" is) the probability of the percolation taking place jumps from zero to one around a critical probability. So there's a critical point above which the information will always find a way through. The similarities with human networks are clear: each node or person or organisation, connected to a certain number of other nodes, has a certain chance of "getting their message across" to the next person. The spread of information greatly increases as the influence or effectiveness of transmission of information at a particular junction reaches a critical level. I wonder if the Mexican Wave model could be predicted using percolation theory? It's a fascinating subject - one I came across at university - and one that merits further reading.
Earls only makes direct reference to market research a few times in the text, but when he does, he tends to be pithy. He cites the example of when a different methodology gave a completely different answer to a descriptive research problem he was involved with on shoe-buying habits. It's easy to see where his scepticism towards traditional research methods comes from: a methodology could conform to all the usual rules on sapling, validity and so on, and still give wildly different from another methodology which was similarly robust. (Could this provide a clue to where the opinion polls went wrong? Could we try a radically different methodology next time?)
Following on from Milgram's experiment, Earls then examines the models of influence: how we are all influenced, by whom, and in what way. He thoughtfully considers various descriptions of the types of people who are "influential" (though the definition of influential remains somewhat shrouded). There is the Opinion Leader approach - where one in fifteen are "social influencers". There is the "early adopters" model. Malcolm Gladwell has his ideas. Earls doesn't conclude in favour of any one approach - or against any for that matter; personally, I think that you can't just define what an influencer looks or sounds or behaves like - it simply depends on the situation. Opinion Leader talk about MPs, CEOs and community leaders. That all seems a bit predictable to me. I'd say it's much more of a social personality thing: in my experience, those people who are natural leaders and natural influencers within social spheres are the most exuberant, most outgoing, funniest, most interesting people. They're the ones who are good at everything - from rugby to pub quizzes - and don't waste a minute of their time lying around on the sofa but are involved in loads of activities (although they always seem to be good at computer games too, ironically). The ones with god jobs and attractive partners (they're probably attractive themselves, too; good genes, I suppose). In other words, the ones you're jealous of. The ones who suggest a trip to the pub and the rest follow. The ones everyone else is jealous, and wants to be like, and wants to copy. Is it possible to pinpoint what sets these people apart? I don't know. This does, however, extend to internet forums, where again there are influencers and leaders; this does not correlate with post counts. It's something I might write a post on at a later date.
The next couple of chapters of Herd fade away very slightly, with a rather forgettable discussions on word-of-mouth marketing - although I wholeheartedly agree that buzz isn't something you can conjure up, and that half of these word of mouth, buzz and social media "conversation" agencies are charlatans. A slightly sanctimonious chapter saying "just be yourself" follows; presumably this was the chapter where Earls convinced his publisher that this was really a marketing book rather than a popular science one, as there are quite a few case studies. Again, however, while a little predictable in its ideas (make good products, be nice and smiley to everyone and everything will be OK) it's written in a gripping style. He defines a "Belief Business" as one which applies its ideals across all forms of its operations. He gives several examples; the most obvious one that can think of in my experience is The Lexi cinema. Run by volunteers, with all its profits going to charity, it's not just for the bleeding hearts - it's a lovely comfortable interior with great decor, friendly staff, a bar (yes, you can take in your pint), no ads, a personal introduction to the film by one of the friendly staff...all in all, it's easily the best cinema in London (and 10 minutes walk from me to boot). The damage is a tenner a time, but the overall experience is so far removed from the nearest alternative (the multiplex on the North Circular) that it's worth every penny. The Lexi has been cited before as a social media case study (not sure where the article is or who wrote it but suffice to say that their Facebook and Twitter pages are active, conversational, multilateral and give you plenty of reasons to follow them).
Earls is back on compelling form when talking about co-creativity - with countless examples, across platforms and industries (and outside industry!), of group collaboration proving to be more effective than one "genius". His nineteenth century engineering example was particularly strong; more up to date was his discussion of co-creativity in the software industry. Perhaps he missed the two more obvious examples of collaboration in the technological world: APIs, where programs and applications such as Twitter and Google Chrome are opened up, allowing developers to create extensions and tools to really enhance the user experience; and of course the ultimate co-creative project, Wikipedia. There are plenty of academic studies on the wiki phenomenon out there so I won't embarrass myself - but I will point you in the direction of one of the most interesting articles on Wikipedia: about its own accuracy.
Herd finishes on a slightly damp note of don't bother defeatism again (hence the slight tailing off of my enjoyment graph!) but I found myself coming away with more and more examples of
One example that always gets to me, although not strictly an exercise in herd behaviour (it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to), is choosing who to sit next to on the bus. If you go upstairs and each two-person seat has exactly one person sitting on it...how do you choose where to sit? Now don't say "random". There will be some sort of reason. Perhaps there's a simple rule you take: the front seat, or the one closest to the stairs. But let's say you don't. OK, if you've got the whole bus to choose from, then certain people rule themselves out straight away: those sporting loud headphones, gross obesity, and cans of special brew are unlikely to have their adjacent space taken away from them early on. But then who? Trying to deconstruct my own subconscious, I think I aim for someone as neutral and bland as possible, someone who is unlikely to make a fuss, someone who keeps their stuff on their side of the seat, someone who won't make a big deal of getting out. I don't think I'm fussed by male or female...although if I decide to sit next to a woman, it can't be the most attractive one there (too obvious), although I'll err on the attractive side of average if possible. It'll probably be someone of nondescript age (ie middle-aged). And although consciously I would never choose on racial grounds, having read Schelling I'd love to know statistically/historically whether my seating habits are biased towards white people. They probably are. Incidentally, as a schoolkid, I always used to get paranoid if I was the last person to be sat next to. In truth, I probably still do.
I could go on all day providing examples. Just the other day I was in Edinburgh at the festival (I've put some reviews up here). I went to see stand-up comic Stephen K Amos - one of the better and more dependable middle-of-the-road comedians in this country. At one point, a bloke got up noisily to go to the toilet; when he was gone, Amos decided to try a little experiment in herd behaviour (or peer pressure as he put it). He briefed us on what to do, and when the chap came back with a newly empty bladder, Amos casually said "now, c'mon folks, let's be honest here. How many of you used to pick your nose and eat it when you were younger?" As one, we put our hands up...and, sure enough, chappie's hand went up with the rest, whereupon he was stitched up royally by Amos, to his embarrassment (and our mirth).
Mark is a constant critic of the traditional focus group - his arguments perhaps point to weaknesses in even the latest trendy research-by-crowdsourcing and online communities (MROCs) - that they are artificially created and therefore can never be a place to watch true, natural interactions between people. But there is a difference between online communities and focus groups and that is timescales. Scientists can create artificial environments very easily - whether it's artificial reefs or contrived forests - and, although nature will take a while to adapt, in time the relationships between creatures and plants will adjust as normal. Hell, Big Brother was a great concept at first, and no matter how much the producers contrive to force increasingly incompatible and decreasingly interesting people who they think will be good for a fight/shag/ratings (delete as appropriate), even in a short space of time true human emotions, relationships and frailties poke out from under the veneer - and thanks to the camera work of Tony Gregory and his team, every glimpse, every pained expression, every faltering relationship will be captured on film (although, of course, the editing reduces it all to fighting, shagging and ratings). If left alone, a garden will start to sprout weeds and brambles and similarly, now matter how artificial an online community is at first, if left alone, the true insight can appear. Weeds and brambles encourage the real money shot back garden wildlife like bees, mice and foxes; perhaps if left to go to weed, online communities can also provide that rich interaction of the type that Mark Earls thinks is so elusive.
My mum (like my dad, also a shrink; breakfast-table conversations could be quite stressful) was talking to me the other day about a conference organised by the Tavistock Institute she attended in Leicester many years ago. Ironically, it's a conference on group behaviour; she told me that what was fascinating was the way that over the course of the week-long conference, groups, factions and schisms grew naturally - which all began with a rather heated discussion between the smokers and non-smokers at the conference. In the space of a few days, delegates had clustered together around natural leader-types, to the extent that cross-group interaction was almost non-existent.
"An indispensible manual for the Web 2.0 era" extols Matthew D'Ancona in the list of endorsements on the back cover. Would I be right in thinking that D'Ancona has missed the point of the book entirely? The "Web 2.0 era" isn't something new, and nothing has changed about the way people interact and behave. The behaviour just manifests itself more clearly. Opinions, trends, and the propagation of content and views can just be traced quantitatively much more easily.
Herd could be described as the Da Vinci Code of marketing. It relies a little too heavily on shock tactics, the writing style is an acquired taste, and it draws some conclusions that might be distinctly dodgy, but damn, it's good fun getting there: you'll gobble it up page after page, and come out on the other side feeling quite liberated, with some pretty major questions in your mind about how human beings work, and whether our communications efforts could all be in vain. One of those rare things that might actually justify the description "essential".
Saturday, 28 August 2010
Camille O'Sullivan - Chameleon - review
It would be unfair to expect Camille to live up to the first encounter on seeing her a second time. Her new show, Chameleon, carries on where the previous show left off, and indeed much of the material is the same. Much of the magic is lost on seeing her again. The ad libbed banter, the asides - all are carefully scripted and dropped in with consummate professionalism. But, as with stand-up comics, that's not a reason to criticise. She merely has her act highly polished, and sticks to it.
Nevertheless, in a show of less than an hour and a half, it was a shame to see so much duplicated material, even if it was some of the best songs from the previous time. Tom Waits's All the world is green, Brel's Amsterdam (equally extraordinary performance second time round), Nick Cave's The ship song and Dylan's Don't think twice, it's alright took up a substantial proportion of the show. It would be nice to see the band showcased a little more, as well, and Camille's range of songwriters is limited (all the more irritating given that she asked for repertoire suggestions on her Facebook page a few months back, then slipped into her usual Waits-Cave-Brel-Bowie hitlist).
But to show some irritation at seeing a show without many changes is churlish, as the fact of the matter is that Camille is simply a massive star. She has it all: performing ability, charisma, presence...and a stupendous voice. It was a special moment for me to hear her take on the music of Leonard Cohen, as the two singers are two of the greatest live performances I've ever seen; Tom Waits's God's away on businesswas another highlight. It's a shame that she has outgrown more suitable venues, but sitting in the sixth row, the sparks were exploding in all directions.
Verdict: Not the same seeing her second time round, but damn! this girl can perform.
Nevertheless, in a show of less than an hour and a half, it was a shame to see so much duplicated material, even if it was some of the best songs from the previous time. Tom Waits's All the world is green, Brel's Amsterdam (equally extraordinary performance second time round), Nick Cave's The ship song and Dylan's Don't think twice, it's alright took up a substantial proportion of the show. It would be nice to see the band showcased a little more, as well, and Camille's range of songwriters is limited (all the more irritating given that she asked for repertoire suggestions on her Facebook page a few months back, then slipped into her usual Waits-Cave-Brel-Bowie hitlist).
But to show some irritation at seeing a show without many changes is churlish, as the fact of the matter is that Camille is simply a massive star. She has it all: performing ability, charisma, presence...and a stupendous voice. It was a special moment for me to hear her take on the music of Leonard Cohen, as the two singers are two of the greatest live performances I've ever seen; Tom Waits's God's away on businesswas another highlight. It's a shame that she has outgrown more suitable venues, but sitting in the sixth row, the sparks were exploding in all directions.
Verdict: Not the same seeing her second time round, but damn! this girl can perform.
Markus Makavellian's International Order - review
The cross-dressing Markus Makavellian (Drew Taylor to his family) flounces onto stage and confides that he's going to talk about poo. Sat in the front row, my heart sank a little: it's an inauspicious start. But things pick up rapidly and Taylor's loosely rhyming writing is red-hot at times, his lines rattling off like slam poetry at times. As a straight male perhaps I wasn't necessarily the main target audience for the show, but it didn't stop my enjoyment: Taylor is engaging and intimate throughout and there are times (the love-letter reading sequence) where the audience's attention is held rapt. Occasionally we drifted into cliché territory but on the whole, the detail of the writing kept this well and truly afloat.
Markus Makavellian's International Order (Drew Taylor/Proud Exposure, Underbelly)
Verdict: tight writing and a flamboyant performance make this a captivating hour after a wobbly start.
Markus Makavellian's International Order (Drew Taylor/Proud Exposure, Underbelly)
Verdict: tight writing and a flamboyant performance make this a captivating hour after a wobbly start.
Impressionist Gardens: asphyxiating colours
I'm not going to bother with preamble. The Impressionist Gardens exhibition at the National Gallery of Scotland is brilliant. It's a thoughtfully curated collection of works leading up to and including the whole Impressionist period, covering gardens and natural outdoor spaces. Quite broad, you would think, and yes: there is a wide range of subject matter, but all showing fine examples of the Impressionists' use of colour and warmth to generate atmosphere.
The first room, Towards the Impressionist Garden, explores some of the work pointing towards the techniques and styles that the Impressionists proper would use, and an increasing obsession with the natural world. The vibrancy and sensuality of Eugene Delacroix's Still life with flowers (1834) - a rust-coloured background highlighting the heady flowers. I also loved Corot's Parc des Lions at Port Marly (1872) with its silver birches dividing a brother and sister.
The largest room displayed a variety of Impressionist works. One that made a real impression on me (sorry) was American painter Mary Cassatt's Summertime (1894) with wonderful depiction of a young girl's shoulder being the highlight. Even more striking, although rather hideous in some ways, was Leon Frederic's The fragrant air; it's not a beautiful depiction of a child, but you can feel the warm air, the smell of the roses, the innocence of the child. It's a startling work. A name new to me was Gaston La Touche; his painting Phlox is a celebration of whites and lights, the sunlight peeking through the leaves and bouncing off the flowers and dresses.
What surprised me was that although there are only a handful of works by the blockbuster names (Monet, Renoir, Manet, etc), the exhibition does not suffer one bit and there is absolutely no feeling of there being and "filler" (which was the problem with the Impressionism & Scotland exhibition at the same gallery a couple of years ago when they padded out the good stuff with a load of Scottish stuff from their own collection). Indeed some Scottish works were amongst the highlights: Arthur Melville's A cabbage garden (1877), placed later within the utilitarian and market gardens section, was one, with its gardener knee-deep in blue-grey cabbages. Belgian James Ensor's The garden of the Rousseau family (1885) also sits in this section, a real magical feeling, not to mention the spooky cabbages looking like eyes.
It can't be said that the blockbusters aren't among the highlights, however. Sitting in a row in the main room are two Monets and a Renoir. Monet's The artist's garden at Argenteuil (a corner of the garden with dahlias) (1873) is an arresting piece: soft light and clouds (the weather has a very British, changeable feel) provide the background, with trees smudging into the sky. The viewer's eyes are drawn into the foreground where vibrant dahlias burst out of the canvas. The garden at Vetheuil, from eight years later, is overwhelmingly busy, with dense layers of dark colours. Renoir is represented by Woman with parasol in a garden, which features a striking dark figure in the background, surrounded by lush vegetation, almost like a jungle. It's this lush greenery which got me thinking, was there much Impressionism in Ireland, particularly in the southwest? The sheer lush intensity of the vegetation in parts of Cork and Kerry, where it's so warm and wet, would seem like ideal targets for French Impressionists, not to mention any local painters.
Other highlights included a Gauguin (Skaters in Frederiksberg Gardens, 1884) where the red autumn leaves highlight the coldness of the ice; Monet's pair of paintings of The parc Monceau in Paris, where he deliberately avoids the brilliant parts to concentrate instead on a shadowy corner; and The rainbow (1896) by Leopold Graf von Kalkreuth, who captures the feeble white sunlight contrasting the dark clouds perfectly. Serene figures shiver as they contemplate the rainbow.
Camille Pissarro is represented by The cote des boeufs at L'Hermitage, 1877, with its winding poplar trees which draw the viewer's eyes from one side to the other in a zigzag motion, and by the perfectly proprtioned The artist's garden at Eragny, also from 1877.
The final rooms, featuring later Impressionist works, are the most dreamlike and fantastical of all. Nature gets sinister with Van Gogh's Undergrowth while a couple of Monet's most misty, dimensionless waterlily works are also exhibited. Henri Le Sidaner - another I'd never heard of - made a wonderful piece called An autumn evening in 1895: an air of soft beige mystery surrounding a woman walking alone at gloomglow in profile. Meanwhile, Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida's The garden of Sorolla's house (1920) is idyllic, with luminist shimmering perfection in a garden framing a dazzling white chair. It's an extraordinary work. Another Van Gogh work, the rather stark, raw Garden with path (1888) feels almost harsh and uncouth by comparison to the earlier lushness (presumably what contemporary critics felt as well!).
The very best is left until last, however, with works of rose gardens on the final wall - four heady, indolent washes of colour and texture: Klimt's Rosebushes under trees is one highlight but my favourite of all is the very final work - another one by Le Sidaner: The rose pavilion, Gerberoy (1938) is a wonderfully evocative work of colour and beauty.
The first room, Towards the Impressionist Garden, explores some of the work pointing towards the techniques and styles that the Impressionists proper would use, and an increasing obsession with the natural world. The vibrancy and sensuality of Eugene Delacroix's Still life with flowers (1834) - a rust-coloured background highlighting the heady flowers. I also loved Corot's Parc des Lions at Port Marly (1872) with its silver birches dividing a brother and sister.
 |
| Mary Cassatt - Summertime (1894) |
 |
| Leon Frederic - The fragrant air |
 |
| Gaston La Touche - Phlox |
What surprised me was that although there are only a handful of works by the blockbuster names (Monet, Renoir, Manet, etc), the exhibition does not suffer one bit and there is absolutely no feeling of there being and "filler" (which was the problem with the Impressionism & Scotland exhibition at the same gallery a couple of years ago when they padded out the good stuff with a load of Scottish stuff from their own collection). Indeed some Scottish works were amongst the highlights: Arthur Melville's A cabbage garden (1877), placed later within the utilitarian and market gardens section, was one, with its gardener knee-deep in blue-grey cabbages. Belgian James Ensor's The garden of the Rousseau family (1885) also sits in this section, a real magical feeling, not to mention the spooky cabbages looking like eyes.
 |
| Monet - The garden at Vetheuil (1881) |
Other highlights included a Gauguin (Skaters in Frederiksberg Gardens, 1884) where the red autumn leaves highlight the coldness of the ice; Monet's pair of paintings of The parc Monceau in Paris, where he deliberately avoids the brilliant parts to concentrate instead on a shadowy corner; and The rainbow (1896) by Leopold Graf von Kalkreuth, who captures the feeble white sunlight contrasting the dark clouds perfectly. Serene figures shiver as they contemplate the rainbow.
 |
| Pissarro - The Cote des boeufs at L'Hermitage, 1877 |
 |
| Joaquin Sorolla y Baptista - The garden of Sorolla's house (1920) |
The final rooms, featuring later Impressionist works, are the most dreamlike and fantastical of all. Nature gets sinister with Van Gogh's Undergrowth while a couple of Monet's most misty, dimensionless waterlily works are also exhibited. Henri Le Sidaner - another I'd never heard of - made a wonderful piece called An autumn evening in 1895: an air of soft beige mystery surrounding a woman walking alone at gloomglow in profile. Meanwhile, Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida's The garden of Sorolla's house (1920) is idyllic, with luminist shimmering perfection in a garden framing a dazzling white chair. It's an extraordinary work. Another Van Gogh work, the rather stark, raw Garden with path (1888) feels almost harsh and uncouth by comparison to the earlier lushness (presumably what contemporary critics felt as well!).
The very best is left until last, however, with works of rose gardens on the final wall - four heady, indolent washes of colour and texture: Klimt's Rosebushes under trees is one highlight but my favourite of all is the very final work - another one by Le Sidaner: The rose pavilion, Gerberoy (1938) is a wonderfully evocative work of colour and beauty.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Julien Cottereau - Imagine-toi: more than just bubblegum
My Fringe kicked off on Sunday with Julien Cottereau at the welcome addition to festival venues, the Spiegeltent rip-off run by Assembly (a member of box office staff informed me conspiratorially that they were on strict instructions not to refer to the real Spiegeltent). Cottereau, a mime artist/clown formerly of Cirque du Soleil, has the audience in the palm of his hand for an hour as he creates a host of fantastical characters and situations. From a brilliant extended sequence featuring a piece of imaginary bubblegum, to various animal creations, his only props are a series of audience stooges and his voice, which he uses to concoct all manner of noises. There were times where I didn't understand what was going on, but this is natural - many of the stooges were equally perplexed, and only Cottereau's vocal talents managed to turn rather wooden stomping around into some magical moments. I'll admit that I didn't join the standing ovation at the end, but make no mistake, this is a joyous hour for young and old alike.
Verdict: gentle and uplifting, worth and hour of anyone's time.
Verdict: gentle and uplifting, worth and hour of anyone's time.
Will Glenda put her money where her mouth was?
At the election hustings I attended for Hampstead & Kilburn in April, Labour candidate (and now MP) Glenda Jackson impressed me to a surprising extent - she spoke eloquently on a number of subjects, and I wondered if she was able to shake off her "laziest MP in London" reputation, if she might end up being a half decent representative.
One of the subjects she spoke about most passionately was the electoral system and how it so desperately needs reform; a topic close to my heart. Of all the candidates on stage that evening, she spoke with the most vehemence, gravitas and rhetoric on the subject - and had me totally convinced that she would be a strong proponent of changing the electoral system.
Well, barely three months later and we are looking forward to a vote on the bill to put forward a referendum. Labour, who under Gordon Brown had piped up about being in favour of the Alternative Vote, are demonstrating the destructive, wrecking side of them that we have seen consistently since the election (and are rapidly putting forward the argument that they would be a disaster in any sort of coalition); they are using the "gerrymandering" excuse as the bill also contains elements relating to boundary changes.
Labour will be whipping their MPs to vote against the historic bill. Boundary changes can be argued one way or another, and perhaps it was cheeky to lump everything together in the same bill, but boundaries come and go. A chance to vote on the lame duck electoral system may never come again in our lifetimes. Glenda Jackson is not afraid to vote against her party whips. She should put her money where her mouth was at the hustings and vote in favour of the bill. I intend to speak to her about it before the vote. I hope other local Hampstead & Kilburn residents do the same.
One of the subjects she spoke about most passionately was the electoral system and how it so desperately needs reform; a topic close to my heart. Of all the candidates on stage that evening, she spoke with the most vehemence, gravitas and rhetoric on the subject - and had me totally convinced that she would be a strong proponent of changing the electoral system.
Well, barely three months later and we are looking forward to a vote on the bill to put forward a referendum. Labour, who under Gordon Brown had piped up about being in favour of the Alternative Vote, are demonstrating the destructive, wrecking side of them that we have seen consistently since the election (and are rapidly putting forward the argument that they would be a disaster in any sort of coalition); they are using the "gerrymandering" excuse as the bill also contains elements relating to boundary changes.
Labour will be whipping their MPs to vote against the historic bill. Boundary changes can be argued one way or another, and perhaps it was cheeky to lump everything together in the same bill, but boundaries come and go. A chance to vote on the lame duck electoral system may never come again in our lifetimes. Glenda Jackson is not afraid to vote against her party whips. She should put her money where her mouth was at the hustings and vote in favour of the bill. I intend to speak to her about it before the vote. I hope other local Hampstead & Kilburn residents do the same.
Thrilling Brandenburgs from Gardiner topped by stupendous brass
An early start to queue for day seats meant that the hangover battle was marginally tougher than usual, but a local Sloane Square caff's bacon roll did the job and a tenner to hear John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists is a bargain not to pass up.
To my knowledge, I've never seen a Gardiner concert performance before - and it was worth waiting for: the Brandenburg Concertos are, for my money, about as close to musical perfection as you can get. I've known them back-to-front since I was about two feet high thanks to sitting on my dad's knee listening to Menuhin and Pinnock recordings (with the odd Wigmore trip thrown in). You'd never have anything at the Wigmore resembling the chaos of getting the audience into the auditorium in the first place at the Cadogan Hall though: they hadn't manage to get the audience completely in by the time the concert started. I promoted a concert there about four years ago and it was similarly shambolic; they no longer have the excuse of being a new venue.
We kicked thing off with the Concerto No 1, never one of my favourites, and it was a thrilling ride. Gardiner launched into the opening movement at a breakneck pace and the exhilaration never let up. It was a quite extraordinary performance. Swooping changes in colour and dynamics, a perfectly balanced second movement, and crisp main themes were excellent. Dominating everything were the horns. They hurled themselves into the fray, thrashing out cross rhythms like their lives depended on it. The music around may have been refined; the horns bullied and harried, "hooligans breaking up the party" as Gardiner observed during his excellent, and lengthy, discussions with Catherine Bott during the shifting of chairs between pieces. But these weren't modern French horns, but old-school hunting horns - nigh-on impossible to play. Both players demonstrated incredible technical skill - particularly Anneke Scott, whose trills and virtuosity were out of this world.
The slow movement was perfectly balanced, but it was in the beautiful polonaise, buried deep within the menuets (and shortly before the ludicrous horn & oboe trio), which provided one of the moments of the entire concert: following the lulling of the strings with their appoggiatura-like duplets, halfway through, where it breaks into a dance (you know the bit): suddenly, the strings crackled into electric staccato. My jaw nearly hit the floor - it was another thrilling moment. As Wagner once said of Beethoven's seventh symphony, it was the apotheosis of the dance. As a whole, the first concerto was a spectacular success.
The sixth was up next. Never a blockbuster, I've always had a soft spot for it thanks to its unique colours - dark yellows, mauves and browns provided by the instrumentation. With no natural high voices, the violas, gambas and cellos provide a rather oblique feel. The key (B flat) heightens the effect. The first movement, which has no real tune but is just a wash of dark tonal colour in languid, almost turgid rhythms, is almost impressionistic and I can think of no other piece like it. The group, now conductorless, played the colours up marvellously. The final movement, once again, as with so many of the Brandenburgs (as Gardiner emphasised) provided the EBS to show off their dance music making skills.
All the Brandenburgs are special to me but the fourth is especially close to my heart and was a disappointment. Kati Debretzeni was very accomplished in the virtuoso violin role, but I found Rachel Beckett and Catherine Latham - especially Beckett - extremely dull. The first movement plodded along, with one-dimensional staccato-by-numbers recorder playing, with little variation in tone or style. After the joys of what we had heard so far, I felt let down. The slow movement was similarly uninspiring, with only some excellent orchestral balance making up for dull solo playing. Only in the presto finale did the piece really spring to life - sparkling virtuosity from Debretzeni in the background supporting bubbly recorder solo lines. A wonderful ritornello came out of nowhere shortly before the end, reminding us that however brilliant the soloists might be, Gardiner remains the star of the show.
Technically, the day was split into two separate concerts, so after finding a paella stall just off Sloane Square (the only place that served something more promising than rocket ciabattas) it was time to go back for the second part. Among a set of some of the best music ever written, the third shades it as my favourite of all with its perfectly balanced nine solo strings and incredible fugal lines. This, too, was a riveting performance. We heard a lengthy violin improvisation as the non-existent slow movement (perhaps a bit of a partita); various conductors have done "all kinds of wanky things" according to Gardiner (Catherine Bott did well to keep her composure at this point, with producers doubtless falling off their chairs).
As wonderful as the melodies are throughout the Brandenburgs, the best thing of all is the harmonies and most of all the driving pedal basslines. None more so than in the third, where the tension is ratcheted up to fracture point at times with the bass. Although a soloist in the third, special mention must be made of the principal cellist (I will have to wait until I get back to London to check my programme for his name) whose continuo playing I thought was superb.
Gardiner and Bott indulged in some cringeworthy flogging of dead horses in repeatedly describing the music as "funky". They're really "boogying down", we were told. Set toes to curl and ears to shut. That said, I could see an obvious comparison: in the late 70s and early 80s, heavy metal guitar solos became ever more lengthy, virtuosic and gratuitous - and self-indulgently brilliant; I can't think of a better way to describe the harpsichord solo in the fifth. Ever since I was a kid I've loved the way the rest of the band gets out of the way to admire the harpsichord and this was no exception. The slow movement of the fifth always strikes me as the only movement in the entire catalogue that is genuinely dull - although the dainty last movement makes up for it.
We finished on a high note with some facemelting natural trumpet playing from Neil Brough in the second concerto, with oboe, violin and recorder providing able support. Brough didn't put a note wrong throughout and the final movement's lightning pace was a fitting way to finish.
To my knowledge, I've never seen a Gardiner concert performance before - and it was worth waiting for: the Brandenburg Concertos are, for my money, about as close to musical perfection as you can get. I've known them back-to-front since I was about two feet high thanks to sitting on my dad's knee listening to Menuhin and Pinnock recordings (with the odd Wigmore trip thrown in). You'd never have anything at the Wigmore resembling the chaos of getting the audience into the auditorium in the first place at the Cadogan Hall though: they hadn't manage to get the audience completely in by the time the concert started. I promoted a concert there about four years ago and it was similarly shambolic; they no longer have the excuse of being a new venue.
We kicked thing off with the Concerto No 1, never one of my favourites, and it was a thrilling ride. Gardiner launched into the opening movement at a breakneck pace and the exhilaration never let up. It was a quite extraordinary performance. Swooping changes in colour and dynamics, a perfectly balanced second movement, and crisp main themes were excellent. Dominating everything were the horns. They hurled themselves into the fray, thrashing out cross rhythms like their lives depended on it. The music around may have been refined; the horns bullied and harried, "hooligans breaking up the party" as Gardiner observed during his excellent, and lengthy, discussions with Catherine Bott during the shifting of chairs between pieces. But these weren't modern French horns, but old-school hunting horns - nigh-on impossible to play. Both players demonstrated incredible technical skill - particularly Anneke Scott, whose trills and virtuosity were out of this world.
The slow movement was perfectly balanced, but it was in the beautiful polonaise, buried deep within the menuets (and shortly before the ludicrous horn & oboe trio), which provided one of the moments of the entire concert: following the lulling of the strings with their appoggiatura-like duplets, halfway through, where it breaks into a dance (you know the bit): suddenly, the strings crackled into electric staccato. My jaw nearly hit the floor - it was another thrilling moment. As Wagner once said of Beethoven's seventh symphony, it was the apotheosis of the dance. As a whole, the first concerto was a spectacular success.
The sixth was up next. Never a blockbuster, I've always had a soft spot for it thanks to its unique colours - dark yellows, mauves and browns provided by the instrumentation. With no natural high voices, the violas, gambas and cellos provide a rather oblique feel. The key (B flat) heightens the effect. The first movement, which has no real tune but is just a wash of dark tonal colour in languid, almost turgid rhythms, is almost impressionistic and I can think of no other piece like it. The group, now conductorless, played the colours up marvellously. The final movement, once again, as with so many of the Brandenburgs (as Gardiner emphasised) provided the EBS to show off their dance music making skills.
All the Brandenburgs are special to me but the fourth is especially close to my heart and was a disappointment. Kati Debretzeni was very accomplished in the virtuoso violin role, but I found Rachel Beckett and Catherine Latham - especially Beckett - extremely dull. The first movement plodded along, with one-dimensional staccato-by-numbers recorder playing, with little variation in tone or style. After the joys of what we had heard so far, I felt let down. The slow movement was similarly uninspiring, with only some excellent orchestral balance making up for dull solo playing. Only in the presto finale did the piece really spring to life - sparkling virtuosity from Debretzeni in the background supporting bubbly recorder solo lines. A wonderful ritornello came out of nowhere shortly before the end, reminding us that however brilliant the soloists might be, Gardiner remains the star of the show.
Technically, the day was split into two separate concerts, so after finding a paella stall just off Sloane Square (the only place that served something more promising than rocket ciabattas) it was time to go back for the second part. Among a set of some of the best music ever written, the third shades it as my favourite of all with its perfectly balanced nine solo strings and incredible fugal lines. This, too, was a riveting performance. We heard a lengthy violin improvisation as the non-existent slow movement (perhaps a bit of a partita); various conductors have done "all kinds of wanky things" according to Gardiner (Catherine Bott did well to keep her composure at this point, with producers doubtless falling off their chairs).
As wonderful as the melodies are throughout the Brandenburgs, the best thing of all is the harmonies and most of all the driving pedal basslines. None more so than in the third, where the tension is ratcheted up to fracture point at times with the bass. Although a soloist in the third, special mention must be made of the principal cellist (I will have to wait until I get back to London to check my programme for his name) whose continuo playing I thought was superb.
Gardiner and Bott indulged in some cringeworthy flogging of dead horses in repeatedly describing the music as "funky". They're really "boogying down", we were told. Set toes to curl and ears to shut. That said, I could see an obvious comparison: in the late 70s and early 80s, heavy metal guitar solos became ever more lengthy, virtuosic and gratuitous - and self-indulgently brilliant; I can't think of a better way to describe the harpsichord solo in the fifth. Ever since I was a kid I've loved the way the rest of the band gets out of the way to admire the harpsichord and this was no exception. The slow movement of the fifth always strikes me as the only movement in the entire catalogue that is genuinely dull - although the dainty last movement makes up for it.
We finished on a high note with some facemelting natural trumpet playing from Neil Brough in the second concerto, with oboe, violin and recorder providing able support. Brough didn't put a note wrong throughout and the final movement's lightning pace was a fitting way to finish.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Reviews: Daniel Kitson "It's Always Right Now Until It's Later" a winner but Grandage directs limp "Danton's Death"
It's Always Right Now Until It's Later (Daniel Kitson, BAC/Traverse) ****
Danton's Death (National Theatre) **
Daniel Kitson is the master of coaxing the most out of something so tiny that after an hour and a half in his company, you feel you'll be able to spot something idiosyncratic or beautiful in the tiniest thing you pass. It's Always Right Now... is typical Kitson fare these days, to be honest, and if you've seen any of his more recent material this will have a familiar ring to it. But that doesn't detract from it in the slightest. The night I went was the final preview night at the Battersea Arts Centre, before he transferred to the Traverse in Edinburgh for a (more expensive!) run which is currently in progress. He warned that it might be slightly shambolic, which is was at times, but not in a bad way. Kitson remains incredibly nervous, and was easily put off by shuffles in the audience; eventually this developed into a full-blown heckle from some bell-end sat next to me. As I pointed out to him afterwards, Daniel Kitson hasn't done stand-up since about 2004 (his complaint) but (as the knobwhiff found out) he is possibly the greatest exponent of putting down heckles in the world. The turbomong was duly despatched with, with savage efficacy.
Back to the show. Kitson tells the tale of two lives, independent of one another, in fleeting moments: falling off a bike, or a moment on a bus. It's loose and sprawling, but the tenderness with which he spins his yarns, and acute social observations, make it an utterly compelling 90 minutes. I emerged wide-eyed and inspired to look for more beauty in the mundane: if Kitson has a message, it is that all our lives are extraordinary. Which is an inspiring thought in itself.
Donmar Warehouse director Michael Grandage has been exalted to near-legendary status in recent years with some brilliant productions: I can vouch that his Othello with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan MacGregor, Hamlet with Jude Law, Ivanov with Kenneth Branagh and Twelfth Night with Derek Jacobi were all superb.
With Danton's Death, however, Grandage hits a massive dud. It is a lengthy French Revolution saga which is completely one-dimensional (lots of shouting) and linear (brave revolutionaries jockey for position and make "inspiring" speeches, ad infinitum). Toby Stephens as Danton is completely indistinguishable from the rest of the cast, and the only memorable feature, a nice guillotining gimmick at the end, only goes a small way to recouping the time wasted in seeing this show. Avoid.
Danton's Death (National Theatre) **
Daniel Kitson is the master of coaxing the most out of something so tiny that after an hour and a half in his company, you feel you'll be able to spot something idiosyncratic or beautiful in the tiniest thing you pass. It's Always Right Now... is typical Kitson fare these days, to be honest, and if you've seen any of his more recent material this will have a familiar ring to it. But that doesn't detract from it in the slightest. The night I went was the final preview night at the Battersea Arts Centre, before he transferred to the Traverse in Edinburgh for a (more expensive!) run which is currently in progress. He warned that it might be slightly shambolic, which is was at times, but not in a bad way. Kitson remains incredibly nervous, and was easily put off by shuffles in the audience; eventually this developed into a full-blown heckle from some bell-end sat next to me. As I pointed out to him afterwards, Daniel Kitson hasn't done stand-up since about 2004 (his complaint) but (as the knobwhiff found out) he is possibly the greatest exponent of putting down heckles in the world. The turbomong was duly despatched with, with savage efficacy.
Back to the show. Kitson tells the tale of two lives, independent of one another, in fleeting moments: falling off a bike, or a moment on a bus. It's loose and sprawling, but the tenderness with which he spins his yarns, and acute social observations, make it an utterly compelling 90 minutes. I emerged wide-eyed and inspired to look for more beauty in the mundane: if Kitson has a message, it is that all our lives are extraordinary. Which is an inspiring thought in itself.
Donmar Warehouse director Michael Grandage has been exalted to near-legendary status in recent years with some brilliant productions: I can vouch that his Othello with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan MacGregor, Hamlet with Jude Law, Ivanov with Kenneth Branagh and Twelfth Night with Derek Jacobi were all superb.
With Danton's Death, however, Grandage hits a massive dud. It is a lengthy French Revolution saga which is completely one-dimensional (lots of shouting) and linear (brave revolutionaries jockey for position and make "inspiring" speeches, ad infinitum). Toby Stephens as Danton is completely indistinguishable from the rest of the cast, and the only memorable feature, a nice guillotining gimmick at the end, only goes a small way to recouping the time wasted in seeing this show. Avoid.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Lush, but it ain't Tchaikovsky, Valery
World Orchestra For Peace/Gergiev - Mahler: Symphonies 4 & 5 (Proms, RAH) ****
An hour's queueing was enough to secure a gallery place to watch the world's greatest all-star orchestra on Thursday night. It felt like seeing the Harlem Globetrotters - the fact that it was Gergiev and Mahler made the gig that little bit extra tantalising. The result: a wonderful performance...but memorable Mahler it was not.
The Fourth Symphony isn't one of the blockbusters, indeed it's not one I'm particularly familiar with. The opening was arresting, with an exaggerated tempo change to the string line. Decidedly microtonal intonation marred the second movement - there seemed to be some problem with one of the horns. The third movement passed without incident; the end of the movement is bizarre, with a clashing gears tempo change and unexpected modulation late on. Camilla Tilling's soprano was beautiful throughout the finale, although solo vocals don't carry well up to the rarefied atmosphere in the gallery.
Throughout, the tones produced by the musicians were out of this world. The combined orchestral colours sounded like the Albert Hall organ at times, such was the richness of the sonorities. Strings were superb throughout. Aristocratic horns and clotted cream heavy brass (I particularly liked the tuba), but things were too measured, especially in the Fifth. The oboes didn't yowl, the clarinets weren't petulant enough. The first movement of the Fifth was taken at a majestically sombre pace, the triplets given paramount importance. I liked the interpretation. The second movement had some wonderful moments, notably the exposed cello line which was spinetingling (even hearing it puts an amateur cellist into jitters, it's a horribly stressful passage to play!). The gigantic Ländler, a wild, rough jamboree, had too many ballet shoes and not enough clogs. As the movement progresses, it flirts with bitonality, and can feel like a party that's gone out of control as the harmonies and crossrhythms descent into anarchy. There was none of that here. The Adagietto was perfectly balanced, and The Greatest Note In All Music welcoming in the final movement was as pure as can be. Only then, in the final movement, did the orchestra sound truly Mahlerian. There was a swagger in the woodwind and aggression in the brass that had been lacking somewhat.
Had we been hearing Tchaikovsky, this would have been a stupendous performance. As it was, the evening was a masterclass in tight, marshalled orchestral playing. But a little more Mahlerian entropy would not have gone amiss.
An hour's queueing was enough to secure a gallery place to watch the world's greatest all-star orchestra on Thursday night. It felt like seeing the Harlem Globetrotters - the fact that it was Gergiev and Mahler made the gig that little bit extra tantalising. The result: a wonderful performance...but memorable Mahler it was not.
The Fourth Symphony isn't one of the blockbusters, indeed it's not one I'm particularly familiar with. The opening was arresting, with an exaggerated tempo change to the string line. Decidedly microtonal intonation marred the second movement - there seemed to be some problem with one of the horns. The third movement passed without incident; the end of the movement is bizarre, with a clashing gears tempo change and unexpected modulation late on. Camilla Tilling's soprano was beautiful throughout the finale, although solo vocals don't carry well up to the rarefied atmosphere in the gallery.
Throughout, the tones produced by the musicians were out of this world. The combined orchestral colours sounded like the Albert Hall organ at times, such was the richness of the sonorities. Strings were superb throughout. Aristocratic horns and clotted cream heavy brass (I particularly liked the tuba), but things were too measured, especially in the Fifth. The oboes didn't yowl, the clarinets weren't petulant enough. The first movement of the Fifth was taken at a majestically sombre pace, the triplets given paramount importance. I liked the interpretation. The second movement had some wonderful moments, notably the exposed cello line which was spinetingling (even hearing it puts an amateur cellist into jitters, it's a horribly stressful passage to play!). The gigantic Ländler, a wild, rough jamboree, had too many ballet shoes and not enough clogs. As the movement progresses, it flirts with bitonality, and can feel like a party that's gone out of control as the harmonies and crossrhythms descent into anarchy. There was none of that here. The Adagietto was perfectly balanced, and The Greatest Note In All Music welcoming in the final movement was as pure as can be. Only then, in the final movement, did the orchestra sound truly Mahlerian. There was a swagger in the woodwind and aggression in the brass that had been lacking somewhat.
Had we been hearing Tchaikovsky, this would have been a stupendous performance. As it was, the evening was a masterclass in tight, marshalled orchestral playing. But a little more Mahlerian entropy would not have gone amiss.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
5 year old Gouda tops bill at cheese party
Last Thursday I hosted a Cheese, Port & Chess night. It was a throwback to uni halls, where a few of us used to waste all manner of late-night time playing chess and necking cheap port - most of the same crew were in attendance again. The eventual winner was a guy who wasn't part of that original Linstead crew but used to be some kind of U12s champion back-in-the-day.
We added a cheese element to the night and boy did the lads make an effort. Pretty much everyone turned up not only with a bottle of port but with a piece of cheese or two. we ended up with nigh-on twenty cheeses to choose from. A week later and my fridge is still rammed. Rachel and I emptied our wallets in Whole Foods Market, coming away with a selection of things. Others ventured elsewhere including Borough Market. as someone pointed out, there was almost no doubling up.
Highlights included:
We added a cheese element to the night and boy did the lads make an effort. Pretty much everyone turned up not only with a bottle of port but with a piece of cheese or two. we ended up with nigh-on twenty cheeses to choose from. A week later and my fridge is still rammed. Rachel and I emptied our wallets in Whole Foods Market, coming away with a selection of things. Others ventured elsewhere including Borough Market. as someone pointed out, there was almost no doubling up.
Highlights included:
- a 5 year old Gouda - with almost fudge-like colour and texture, and an incredible dark nutty flavour
- some knock-your-face-off Gorgonzola
- something prehistoric wrapped in leaves, mould and stench, which must have been smuggled past customs
- Brie de Melun (puts your normal Brie de Meaux to shame)
- a lovely light creamy cheese from Borough laced with chilli
- some tasty Gruyère
- Saint Felicien
- Fourme d'Ambert
- Camembert
- a nice Caerphilly
- a massive chunk of Manchego
- a Crottin de Chavignol
- and an excellent Stilton.
Port highlights included a nice white port, and a Dow's 1991 which I'd been saving up for a while. Sadly, there aren't any photos of the night, but a lot of good memories.
The only problem is, if I ever have the good fortune to have a stag night, how can I top it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)