Wimbledon

[Lateralthinking1]

Back to the Centre Court for the moment, what's happened to the Robinson's Barley Water ? There was always a bottle on view, and the staff kept turning the label round in a futile attempt to scupper the product placement!

Yes - that is one of the very few examples where I know that a form of advertising worked for me. While not unpleasant, it seemed to be a trigger for excessive coughing. I still bought it as if I were exchanging cash for summer. Obviously now I don't.

[Serial_Apologist]

An interesting contribution s_a and I am not sure where to go with it. I don't fundamentally disagree with any of the components of your commentary or view as illogical the way it is structured. I might observe that those who make and enforce law are frequently not at war with themselves enough. The same is true of those involved in any form of promotion complying with norms of insufficiently challenged self-interest. If that kind of system is a parent, it is immature, however it walks and talks.

Yes but the type of self-warring you are talking about is a secondary phenomenon - a contradiction in conflict with a contradiction, namely a model of personality shaped by unrequitable social pressures.

While many of us will speak of systems using the analogy of the parent, any actual parent was in essence a child of a national system as well as the child of parents. A more giving nation may as a trend encourage more giving in more parents. Currently we have bad governance and there are many ill-equipped parents. Because the system changes through the eras, the symbol of the parent changes too. So it does in the ordinary lives of individuals in any era. After infancy, parents themselves become less idolised with all the accompanying issues around security and self-sufficiency. One down to earth perspective is that we should abandon everything that might hint at the original cosy fantasy - religion, heroes, royalty, bunting. These, it will be said, are illusions which divert us from inner personal development. Certainly, they can be used darkly by the few to make the masses pliable, particularly when there is little of substance being offered. Appeals go out not to be duped by the colour. That though isn't the whole answer.

One is not asking for abandonment, merely equipping people with the capacity for questioning unquestioned assumptions and acquiring critical perspectives as a prerequisite for bringing about change.

While I accept many of the sceptics' points, I also think they can be overstated. There is some historical evidence that a stick can have the ability to make people comply. While it is currently unfashionable to say so, the same is true of a carrot.

Herbert Marcuse devised a useful umbrella term for this: repressive tolerance - which has been nicknamed "the policeman inside our heads". The idea being that, instead of relying on external forces of the state, you persuade the populace with promises of bling to police their own subjection to the processes of self-diminution by means of peer-group pressure to conform to the norms and values of consumer society - then you trap them into situations - mortgages, loans etc - which discourage them seeing themselves as and acting as a class.

Those two things are very probably the only management tools available for systems which are authoritatively immature. That, to my mind, is pretty good news. I have no problem with there being a bit of carrot and stick to all these regular 'Christmas decorations' - the investitures, the jubilees and the tournaments. They are, of course, diversions from individuals' critique and subtle nudges towards a bogus sense of belonging. But just getting others to comply is a pretty weak objective. It doesn't exactly fire up energies. You will hear some - and the Mayor of London is an example - who will often use the word 'inspiration'. An important concept, this, that the more mundane techniques rarely capture. It should only be a danger if it is absorbed without adequate comprehension.

The human need for inspiration is pretty basic. I would argue that it as infantile as the early dependency on others for food. Surely it is one of the principal reasons for having the arts. It is also why we might go into the countryside, have holidays or even, god forbid, take up a hobby. None of that ever starts from the inside. Now you can talk about illusory self-images, adulation and pedestals. At the same time we must consider motivation. I don't disagree that there is a problem with having a Rowan Williams, an Elizabeth Windsor and an Andy Murray. It is that one can be transported by them, albeit temporarily, into wonderland, much as a three year old would be at Disney. That is not to say that the only alternative is cynicism. You can see them for what they are and yet still feel motivated in your own more humble domain. What is often lacking in teaching is advice on appropriate application. So, to conclude, knowing that you are being force fed compliance by people who are at most juvenile is a good reason to refuse the food. I would still prefer to accept the handout and turn it into a different recipe. Principally, that would be one that I found fulfilling. But if I really objected to the motives of those who provided it, I would also ensure they found it difficult to stomach.

Yes but the inspiration is artificially generated to perpetuate the idea that only by gazing up in longing admiration for example can we be motivated to do anything inspirational for our entrapped selves. The problem is in whence the messages emanate; when examined rationally, they are seen as being promoted by those in whose interests it is to compartmentalise those effectively in their control, while at the same time masking that very control by means of the ubiquitous individualism that makes them believe themselves to be self-determining. This is only cynicism insomuch that it instills critical thinking about the right of those to lord it over the rest of the population, from business leaders, priests, newspaper owners and politicians, trickling down through family structures which, yes indeed, adolescents begin rebelling against as part of their natural process of maturation.

And yes - on your final point - one takes the handout, (which was taken from one in the first place), and turns it into a different recipe.

[Lateralthinking1]

Well, you see then that I struggled in my response. I have been adding bits and pieces to it even as you write. I am still not satisfied by it. It lacks cohesion but then it is a small individual worldview. For once, I don't feel I have the capability to offer a broader manifesto here but that in itself provides a contradictory sense of comfort.

You might in essence be right but Elizabeth and Andy come and go. They are once a decade or once a year. Soon it will be Charles and Laura. Their moments don't stop me from cutting the grass or playing the guitar except when they occur.

I am not sure that it is 'gazing up in longing admiration'. We have the television and radio and records or do we not want them?

When Van Morrison recorded 'Coney Island', I wasn't motivated to go to Northern Ireland. Still, in a funny kind of way when people said 'let's walk the Cleveland Way', it was probably a big if vague sort of driver. That then led on to Cornwall and Dorset. If it had just been the mates asking, I doubt it would have happened. I only move with imagination and they are insufficiently musical.

[ardcarp]

Just watched my first Wimbledon match of the season on TV. Federer against Polla. Great tennis...but guess what? Just as we were getting into the match, live coverage ended and we were switched to bloody Clare Ball-ding. Why?

[Sir Velo]

Just watched my first Wimbledon match of the season on TV. Federer against Polla. Great tennis...but guess what? Just as we were getting into the match, live coverage ended and we were switched to bloody Clare Ball-ding. Why?

Have you mislaid your remote?

[ardcarp]

...no, just control.

[Serial_Apologist]

...no, just control.

With all the talk of performance-enhancing substances, the world of global tennis has become one gigantic racquet.

[ahinton]

...no, just control.

Ah, well, have no fear; there are those who claim to be able to help you regain control (or so I've heard)...

[BBMmk2]

Oh no! Tennis!

[mangerton]

Not only is it a gigantic racquet, it's a lot of balls. It's also the one fortnight in the year when it's not worth programming a pvr to record anything on bbc 1 or 2, as the bbc pay absolutely no attention to their published schedules.

Complaints are of course completely ignored.

[mercia]

never tried this before - listening to the radio commentary whilst watching with the sound down - it doesn't work - the radio is a good 60 seconds ahead of the images

[vinteuil]

Mme v in deep mourning - no Nadal, no Dustin Brown, and now - worst of all - no Federer.

And we shall probably have to endure the inelegant Murray...

[Dave2002]

Raonic is looking good though.

[subcontrabass]

never tried this before - listening to the radio commentary whilst watching with the sound down - it doesn't work - the radio is a good 60 seconds ahead of the images

In the earlier stages of the tournament one can often watch matches via the internet where there is NO commentary - just the pictures and sound from the court plus display of the scoreboard. I greatly prefer that to the witterings of most commentators.

[gurnemanz]

... and without a break for video snippets with a pointless rock sound track