Sometimes technology can seem like a very, very bad thing. OK, I'm grumpy today, but there's a reason for this.
I'm a journalist, I occasionally need to record interviews with important people and this often happens over the phone. Once upon a time telephone handsets would allow you to attach a mike which would pick up the sound so you could record to a cassette player or note taker. Not any more - nothing you can buy has a mike-friendly handset. This wasn't a problem while I was using an old phone/fax with a built-in micro-cassette recorder as its answering system. But that died after a long, purposeful life and the new machine has a handset that isn't microphone friendly.
So I decided to get the Skype add-on that records conversations - easy! And it works, except that you need to call the interviewee on the Skype phone so that you can activate the recorder. People can't call you, which is a minor inconvenience, sometimes. Skype records the conversation as a sound file which you can play back on all sorts of machines - very useful.
Today I was supposed to interview a cabinet minister, so I checked the Skype set up a good three quarters of an hour before hand, including the Skype headphone. This all worked fine. I rang the minister at the appointed time, and the d**n thing refused to b****y well work!
After several attempts and a great deal of very bad language I called him on my normal land line, put him on speaker phone and recorded the interview that way with my little digital recorder. It worked, and I was able to save the interview as an MP.3 file which i could then send to my transcriber (an angel of a woman named Miki - details available on request to bona fide transcription clients)...
I've lost some more hair this afternoon...
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Tanker troubles
I'm looking at photos on the Flight Global web site of a British A330-200 Voyager tanker doing ground receiver clearance testing with a RAF Tornado GR.4 at Boscombe Down. Craig Hoyle's story says the RAF aircraft should be operational in November. Meanwhile, Australia's KC-30A variant of the same aircraft - identical, except for the in-flight refuelling boom - hasn't been handed over yet in spite of the fact it has been in flight test for years and supposedly has achieved European civil and Spanish military type certification.
The cause of the delay in the Australian program is attributed by officialdom to certification and paper work issues. Sounds about right - apparently the Spanish military certification process hasn't been too crash-hot, but Australian officialdom is fast becoming a by-word for mind-buggeringly slow processes and pigheaded adherence to process, with scant regard for outcomes.
If the Brits get their tankers into operational service before we do I shall spit.
The cause of the delay in the Australian program is attributed by officialdom to certification and paper work issues. Sounds about right - apparently the Spanish military certification process hasn't been too crash-hot, but Australian officialdom is fast becoming a by-word for mind-buggeringly slow processes and pigheaded adherence to process, with scant regard for outcomes.
If the Brits get their tankers into operational service before we do I shall spit.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Sanity, please!
Here in Australia the defence community is awaiting an edict from the Department of Defence on whether and under what circumstances ADF and Defence employees may partake of corporate hospitality from the defence industry.
This follows a celebrated memo from the head of the Defence Materiel Organisation, Dr Steve Gumley, a few days before the Avalon air show reminding his staff of their "obligations". This was widely interpreted as a ban on accepting corporate hospitality during the show and caused widespread anger and disgust.
There are very few occasions on which corporate hospitality is extended on any significant scale - traditionally, events such as air shows have been the vehicle for this type of activity and its value is immense. Sitting down with somebody outside the office environment and talking freely but informally about issues and problems of mutual concern is a vital part of the defence (indeed, any) business environment. Typically, it's the industry which has the resources to provide this informal environment and the obligations it brings are mostly well understood by all concerned.
There's every reason to want to ensure the probity of relations between contractors and those who spend public money. But Gumley's memo (which I haven't seen, by the way) and the much-anticipated edict seem to be a heavy-handed and counter-productive response to a problem which doesn't exist.
Putting the relationship between Defence and Industry onto such a formal basis that people can't even sit down to share a cup of coffee or a meal as part of the process of building a respectful business relationship is just stupid.
I can't blame Gumley for this - I'm sure his orders come from much higher up, and they may be intended primarily to cause some pain and embarrassment to a Defence Department leadership which Defence Minister Stephen Smith feels isn't serving him properly.
But it creates the mistaken impression that there is an issue that needs tackling. Nothing could be further from the truth. Australia's defence procurement system is highly regarded around the world for its probity and integrity. Pointless measures of the type we're currently awaiting are an insult to the men and women who try to serve this country and their various employers honourably and with integrity.
This follows a celebrated memo from the head of the Defence Materiel Organisation, Dr Steve Gumley, a few days before the Avalon air show reminding his staff of their "obligations". This was widely interpreted as a ban on accepting corporate hospitality during the show and caused widespread anger and disgust.
There are very few occasions on which corporate hospitality is extended on any significant scale - traditionally, events such as air shows have been the vehicle for this type of activity and its value is immense. Sitting down with somebody outside the office environment and talking freely but informally about issues and problems of mutual concern is a vital part of the defence (indeed, any) business environment. Typically, it's the industry which has the resources to provide this informal environment and the obligations it brings are mostly well understood by all concerned.
There's every reason to want to ensure the probity of relations between contractors and those who spend public money. But Gumley's memo (which I haven't seen, by the way) and the much-anticipated edict seem to be a heavy-handed and counter-productive response to a problem which doesn't exist.
Putting the relationship between Defence and Industry onto such a formal basis that people can't even sit down to share a cup of coffee or a meal as part of the process of building a respectful business relationship is just stupid.
I can't blame Gumley for this - I'm sure his orders come from much higher up, and they may be intended primarily to cause some pain and embarrassment to a Defence Department leadership which Defence Minister Stephen Smith feels isn't serving him properly.
But it creates the mistaken impression that there is an issue that needs tackling. Nothing could be further from the truth. Australia's defence procurement system is highly regarded around the world for its probity and integrity. Pointless measures of the type we're currently awaiting are an insult to the men and women who try to serve this country and their various employers honourably and with integrity.
Bye bye, Bin Laden
So Osama Bin Laden is dead at last. That's good news, but there's been a lot of commentary and criticism of the US government and President Obama for approving what some describe as a simple revenge killing.
The commentariat line is that Bin laden should have been captured alive, with the approval and assistance of Pakistan, and brought back to the US, or The Hague, to face trial and give an account of himself.
Sorry, but that was never going to happen.
Let's try to work out what would have happened if somebody had tried to do that. First, Bin Laden would have been alerted by the Pakistani intelligence services and their Al-Quaida sympathisers. He would have moved and gone to ground somewhere else, concealed by duplicitous government organisation who would continue to have made it as difficult as possible to track him down, and quite impossible to extradite him. At least that's what probably would have happened, based on what happened before.
So, there was no point in asking Pakistan for help. And asking Pakistan's permission to enter its air space with a commando snatch squad would be out of the question for the same reason. It wouldn't take much warning for somebody like Bin Laden to disappear once again, especially if he had ISI resources behind him (including almost any form of transport considered necessary at the time).
Okay - the US acts alone. Logical call. What does the snatch squad do when it enters the compound where Bin Laden was holed up? That depends on the reception it receives. Satellite and UAV surveillance probably established how many people there were in the compound, but probably wouldn't provide details of the internal layout and where individuals might be located and weapons might be stored.
Military operations are routinely blighted by the Fog of War and Murphy's Law. Complexity in the plan ('unnecessary complexity' is a tautology in this context) makes the planners and operators hostages to fortune, so I suspect the plan was probably to fight through the building until Bin Laden was found and identified, and then take him alive only if he showed signs of wanting to come quietly.
The element of surprise would be lost even before the first SEAL commandos' feet touched the ground in the compound. At the very least they would expect to have to fight their way into the building, and then overcome at least some resistance in tracking down Bin Laden before trying to overcome him - assuming, of course, he wasn't armed and preparing to fight it out. If it had been possible to overcome Bin Laden, how would he have been transferred to the waiting helicopter? And what if somebody inside the compound had continued to resist, or somebody outside the compound had decided to join in the fight on behalf of Bin Laden? And if he had been extradited alive what would have been the response from his lieutenants?
Based on what we know, the risks facing the men who entered Bin Laden's compound were scary enough already; trying to capture him alive would have compounded them beyond the point where you could reasonably expect even a volunteer to carry out your orders.
Naturally, Bin Laden didn't come quietly. By all accounts he ran, accompanied by his wife. We can't know what was in the mind of the SEAL team member who killed Bin Laden but unless he had very specific orders to the contrary, killing Bin Laden may have been the safe, default option in the circumstances that commando faced.
Could the US have done anything else, or done anything differently? I don't think so. For the first time in years it knew where Bin Laden was hiding out, suspected that he was being protected (unofficially) by a government organisation in Pakistan, couldn't guarantee it would ever get a better opportunity - and, most importantly, couldn't be seen to be allowing somebody like Bin Laden to get away with what he achieved on 9/11.
The message is clear - mess with the US and, rough or not, justice will be done, eventually. And the majority of Americans, and I daresay Europeans and Australians, would feel that justice has been served to the extent that circumstances allowed
The fact that the US never gave up the search, and was willing to take the chances it did to get rid of Bin Laden, sends a powerful message. It may not deter all would-be attackers but will surely deter many, and give pause to the remainder.
The commentariat line is that Bin laden should have been captured alive, with the approval and assistance of Pakistan, and brought back to the US, or The Hague, to face trial and give an account of himself.
Sorry, but that was never going to happen.
Let's try to work out what would have happened if somebody had tried to do that. First, Bin Laden would have been alerted by the Pakistani intelligence services and their Al-Quaida sympathisers. He would have moved and gone to ground somewhere else, concealed by duplicitous government organisation who would continue to have made it as difficult as possible to track him down, and quite impossible to extradite him. At least that's what probably would have happened, based on what happened before.
So, there was no point in asking Pakistan for help. And asking Pakistan's permission to enter its air space with a commando snatch squad would be out of the question for the same reason. It wouldn't take much warning for somebody like Bin Laden to disappear once again, especially if he had ISI resources behind him (including almost any form of transport considered necessary at the time).
Okay - the US acts alone. Logical call. What does the snatch squad do when it enters the compound where Bin Laden was holed up? That depends on the reception it receives. Satellite and UAV surveillance probably established how many people there were in the compound, but probably wouldn't provide details of the internal layout and where individuals might be located and weapons might be stored.
Military operations are routinely blighted by the Fog of War and Murphy's Law. Complexity in the plan ('unnecessary complexity' is a tautology in this context) makes the planners and operators hostages to fortune, so I suspect the plan was probably to fight through the building until Bin Laden was found and identified, and then take him alive only if he showed signs of wanting to come quietly.
The element of surprise would be lost even before the first SEAL commandos' feet touched the ground in the compound. At the very least they would expect to have to fight their way into the building, and then overcome at least some resistance in tracking down Bin Laden before trying to overcome him - assuming, of course, he wasn't armed and preparing to fight it out. If it had been possible to overcome Bin Laden, how would he have been transferred to the waiting helicopter? And what if somebody inside the compound had continued to resist, or somebody outside the compound had decided to join in the fight on behalf of Bin Laden? And if he had been extradited alive what would have been the response from his lieutenants?
Based on what we know, the risks facing the men who entered Bin Laden's compound were scary enough already; trying to capture him alive would have compounded them beyond the point where you could reasonably expect even a volunteer to carry out your orders.
Naturally, Bin Laden didn't come quietly. By all accounts he ran, accompanied by his wife. We can't know what was in the mind of the SEAL team member who killed Bin Laden but unless he had very specific orders to the contrary, killing Bin Laden may have been the safe, default option in the circumstances that commando faced.
Could the US have done anything else, or done anything differently? I don't think so. For the first time in years it knew where Bin Laden was hiding out, suspected that he was being protected (unofficially) by a government organisation in Pakistan, couldn't guarantee it would ever get a better opportunity - and, most importantly, couldn't be seen to be allowing somebody like Bin Laden to get away with what he achieved on 9/11.
The message is clear - mess with the US and, rough or not, justice will be done, eventually. And the majority of Americans, and I daresay Europeans and Australians, would feel that justice has been served to the extent that circumstances allowed
The fact that the US never gave up the search, and was willing to take the chances it did to get rid of Bin Laden, sends a powerful message. It may not deter all would-be attackers but will surely deter many, and give pause to the remainder.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Happy Hogmanay!
It's New Year's Eve - and over 12 months since my last post. That is seriously slack. Sorry folks, but I promise to try harder in the coming year.
Shortly before Christmas the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in Canberra published a modest paper they had commissioned me to write: "Risks and rewards: Defence R&D in Australia". If you haven't seen it you can download it here:
http://www.aspi.org.au/publications/publication_details.aspx?ContentID=276&pubtype=-1
My paper set out to describe the current defence R&D environment in Australia and how this relates to the ADF's capital equipment acquisition plans, and highlight what seem to me to be some incongruities.
Shortly after, on 27 December (it must have been a very slow news day in the national capital!), The Canberra Times published a news story by defence reporter David Ellery under the headline "Skimpy research on Defence gear". It was very flattering to be described as a "leading academic" and the author of the so-called "Ferguson report", but I should point out David Ellery didn't try to contact me in connection with the story and if you're interested in the subject I'd urge you to read my paper rather than accept his interpretation at face value.
It's an interesting experience being on the other side of the editorial transaction, so to speak. The Canberra Times story highlights the difficulties faced by the media in trying to understand and then interpret against a tight deadline often-complex situations, technologies and arguments for a non-specialist readership. David Ellery does a good job, as do his peers in the other mainstream newspapers, but the subtleties of the defence market mean that reporters and readers alike can sometimes become confused (and God knows I'm not immune to this....); without trying to draw too long a bow, this looks like a good argument for more openness between Defence and the media so that the media have a better general understanding of what's going on and therefore are better able to place new information and breaking stories more accurately into context. That would do more for Defence's reputation in the long term than the "small target" media strategy adopted by the current government and most of its predecessors.
Meanwhile, tonight is what we Scots call Hogmanay. This is the traditional Scottish mid-winter and new year celebration (Christmas Day wasn't even a public holiday in Scotland in my childhood!).
Once the revelries are over I'll be back on deck.
Wishing you all a very happy new year and the very best for 2011
Shortly before Christmas the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in Canberra published a modest paper they had commissioned me to write: "Risks and rewards: Defence R&D in Australia". If you haven't seen it you can download it here:
http://www.aspi.org.au/publications/publication_details.aspx?ContentID=276&pubtype=-1
My paper set out to describe the current defence R&D environment in Australia and how this relates to the ADF's capital equipment acquisition plans, and highlight what seem to me to be some incongruities.
Shortly after, on 27 December (it must have been a very slow news day in the national capital!), The Canberra Times published a news story by defence reporter David Ellery under the headline "Skimpy research on Defence gear". It was very flattering to be described as a "leading academic" and the author of the so-called "Ferguson report", but I should point out David Ellery didn't try to contact me in connection with the story and if you're interested in the subject I'd urge you to read my paper rather than accept his interpretation at face value.
It's an interesting experience being on the other side of the editorial transaction, so to speak. The Canberra Times story highlights the difficulties faced by the media in trying to understand and then interpret against a tight deadline often-complex situations, technologies and arguments for a non-specialist readership. David Ellery does a good job, as do his peers in the other mainstream newspapers, but the subtleties of the defence market mean that reporters and readers alike can sometimes become confused (and God knows I'm not immune to this....); without trying to draw too long a bow, this looks like a good argument for more openness between Defence and the media so that the media have a better general understanding of what's going on and therefore are better able to place new information and breaking stories more accurately into context. That would do more for Defence's reputation in the long term than the "small target" media strategy adopted by the current government and most of its predecessors.
Meanwhile, tonight is what we Scots call Hogmanay. This is the traditional Scottish mid-winter and new year celebration (Christmas Day wasn't even a public holiday in Scotland in my childhood!).
Once the revelries are over I'll be back on deck.
Wishing you all a very happy new year and the very best for 2011
Friday, December 25, 2009
Best wishes of the season
I've left it until Boxing Day to wish everybody the compliments of the season and offer my best wishes for 2010.
Why? Because I'm slack.
Its been an interesting year - plenty happening on the defence and aerospace side of things: the Australian government has ordered 14 Joint Strike Fighters (why just 14?); the first RAAF Super Hornet is flying and will be delivered early-ish in 2010; the AWD project continues to move along; the RAAF has short-circuited Canberra's cumbersome bureaucracy and laid its hands on a couple of Heron UAVs while the Army and DMO mess around trying to decide what they'e going to do about acquiring Tactical UAVs under JP129; the government says we need 12 bigger and better submarines than the current Collins-class, and mouths are already pursed censoriously at the prospect of an industry program that's bigger and more complex than the Collins, and run by the same stakeholders; and Navy at some point will have to decide what sort of helicopters it wants. Or, rather, somebody will have to tell the Navy what sort of helicopters it's going to get, because it's not a choice I'd entrust to the RAN just at present. There are two contenders and they need to be compared properly, and on its performance to date I'm not confident that the Fleet Air Arm is equipped to either make that choice or cope with the consequences of getting it wrong.
My viewpoint on this has been sharpened by my three-month sabbatical, courtesy of the Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) in Melbourne, studying defence industry innovation. I'll be flagging up papers and survey results in due course, but it's becoming clear that there are a number of factors which both stimulate industry innovation and affect the prospect of its success; these include the professional and technical expertise of the customer and their effect on his ability to identify, estimate and manage risk; and the customer's willingness to invest in a developmental project - the two seem to be related.
It's nice to see the DMO concentrating on the professional and technical development of its people, but the recent Mortimer and Pappas reviews of Australian defence procurement urge the government to buy more equipment off the shelf, which could see opportunities for Australian innovators reduced significantly. Hope not, but we'll see.
I'll try and blog a bit more frequently next year; the difficulty is finding something interesting to say that I'm not being to write for somebody else. Is that a New Years Resolution? Fat chance!
Why? Because I'm slack.
Its been an interesting year - plenty happening on the defence and aerospace side of things: the Australian government has ordered 14 Joint Strike Fighters (why just 14?); the first RAAF Super Hornet is flying and will be delivered early-ish in 2010; the AWD project continues to move along; the RAAF has short-circuited Canberra's cumbersome bureaucracy and laid its hands on a couple of Heron UAVs while the Army and DMO mess around trying to decide what they'e going to do about acquiring Tactical UAVs under JP129; the government says we need 12 bigger and better submarines than the current Collins-class, and mouths are already pursed censoriously at the prospect of an industry program that's bigger and more complex than the Collins, and run by the same stakeholders; and Navy at some point will have to decide what sort of helicopters it wants. Or, rather, somebody will have to tell the Navy what sort of helicopters it's going to get, because it's not a choice I'd entrust to the RAN just at present. There are two contenders and they need to be compared properly, and on its performance to date I'm not confident that the Fleet Air Arm is equipped to either make that choice or cope with the consequences of getting it wrong.
My viewpoint on this has been sharpened by my three-month sabbatical, courtesy of the Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) in Melbourne, studying defence industry innovation. I'll be flagging up papers and survey results in due course, but it's becoming clear that there are a number of factors which both stimulate industry innovation and affect the prospect of its success; these include the professional and technical expertise of the customer and their effect on his ability to identify, estimate and manage risk; and the customer's willingness to invest in a developmental project - the two seem to be related.
It's nice to see the DMO concentrating on the professional and technical development of its people, but the recent Mortimer and Pappas reviews of Australian defence procurement urge the government to buy more equipment off the shelf, which could see opportunities for Australian innovators reduced significantly. Hope not, but we'll see.
I'll try and blog a bit more frequently next year; the difficulty is finding something interesting to say that I'm not being to write for somebody else. Is that a New Years Resolution? Fat chance!
Conspiracy theories
Just wanted to bring to readers' attention an article in today's (26 December) The Weekend Australia by David Aaronovich. Published originally in The Wall Street Journal his article 'The Truth Is Out There' is a masterful swipe at the growing band of conspiracy theorists. As the Australian defence community has a few of these on its fringes I thought I'd quote a couple of short passages from Aaronovitch's article.
First: "Even where conspiracy theories are not momentous and may sometimes be physically (if not intellectually) harmless - such as with the gorgeous slew of nonsenses that prefaced 'The Da Vinci Code', involving Templars, secret priories, hidden treasures and the bloodline of Christ - they share certain features that make them work.
"These include an appeal to precedent, self-heroisation, contempt for the benighted masses, a claim to be only asking "disturbing questions", invariably exaggerating the status and expertise of supporters, the use of apparently scholarly ways of laying out arguments (or "death by footnote"), the appropriation of imagined secret service jargon, circularity in logic, hydra-headedness in growing new arguments as soon as old ones are chopped off and, finally, the exciting suggestion of persecution. These characteristics help them to convince intelligent people of deeply unintelligent things."
Secondly: "No inconvenient fact or refutation discombobulates the believer; conspiracists are always winners.Their arguments have a determined flexibility whereby reverses can be accommodated within the theory itself or simply discarded. So, embarrassing and obvious problems in the theory may be ascribed to deliberate disinformation originating with the imagined plotters designed to throw activists off the scent."
There's more from Aaronovich, and it's all good; the article is based on a book he's publishing early next year titled "Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History", which will be published in February 2010 by Riverhead. Looks like it may end up on my bookshelf alongside "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre and "The Australian Miracle - an innovative nation revisited" by Thomas Barlow - useful reality checks, all of them.
For those who enjoy a good conspiracy consider The Stone of Scone, aka The Stone of Destiny, upon which Scottish kings were crowned on Moot Hill, at Scone Palace, until King Edward 1 took it south to England in 1296. Supposedly (and there is good reason to believe this) the Monks at Scone Abbey, who had charge of the Stone, were forewarned of Edward's raid on Scotland's heritage and provided him with a poor-quality substitute instead, and this has been in Westminster Abbey for most of the past 700 years, until its recent return to Scotland.
The real Stone, by this account, was a much more elaborate and decorated piece of Pictish art carved from a single chunk of rock, possibly of meteorite origin, possibly something a bit less exotic. It was supposedly spirited away by the Monks and hidden in a cave on nearby Dunsinane Hill. Why is that name familiar? Because it is the site of Macbeth's castle - you know, Macbeth? Three Witches? Lady Macbeth? Killed King Duncan? Got topped by "Lay On" Macduff in Shakespeare's play of the same name? The Hill exists, and there are bare remnants on its summit of a pre-mediaeval castle; from the top of Dunsinane it's possible to watch and control the northern and eastern approaches to Scone and Perth - from the military point of view it's perfectly sited and no doubt Macbeth in his day was familiar with it. On one side of Dunsinane Hill, about a mile north-west, lies the hamlet of Collace with a beautiful stone church whose foundations go back to at least the 12th century (roughly contemporaneous with Macbeth), and possibly further. On the other side, a mile or so south-west towards Bandirran, lie the remnants of a celtic stone circle.
Being so close to Scone, this suggests there was obviously something in the Scone-Perth-Dunsinane district of spiritual importance to the Picts. It isn't hard to imagine the Monks from Scone Abbey hiding the 'real' Stone somewhere near Bandirran. The location of the Stone is a secret known only to a few and guarded by "men of strong opinion".
So far, so conventional - nice legend and all that. What about the conspiracy?
Okay, here goes: You may not be aware that the Depot and Training Centre for one of the British Army's most famous Highland Regiments was in Perth, about seven miles southwest of Dunsinane. The home of The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) has been for over 200 years at Balhousie Castle in Perth; but its roots go back to the mid-1600s and earlier when independent companies of men were formed by local clan chiefs to police or 'watch' the Highlands.
Apart from tradition, what reason was there to maintain a standing force of soldiers in Perth? Can't you see it? They must be guarding The Secret of the Stone! The Black Watch are the "men of strong opinion" whose spiritual duty it is to guard Scotland's greatest treasure. For what exactly? Doesn't matter - Make something up.
How do I know this? I don't - I just made it up, based on my own meagre knowledge and some family connections with the area. But all the elements of a wonderful conspiracy are there - this could rival the Loch Ness Monster. All it takes is a short visit by Dan Brown (of Da Vinci Code fame) carrying lots and lots (and I mean LOTS) of money to unlock my secret knowledge. And the beauty of it is, there's nobody who could disprove what I'm suggesting: anybody daft enough to believe it would take an official silence, or even worse outright denial, as the automatic response of a secretive Scottish "elite" with something to hide.
Come to think of it, I might write the damn novel myself....
First: "Even where conspiracy theories are not momentous and may sometimes be physically (if not intellectually) harmless - such as with the gorgeous slew of nonsenses that prefaced 'The Da Vinci Code', involving Templars, secret priories, hidden treasures and the bloodline of Christ - they share certain features that make them work.
"These include an appeal to precedent, self-heroisation, contempt for the benighted masses, a claim to be only asking "disturbing questions", invariably exaggerating the status and expertise of supporters, the use of apparently scholarly ways of laying out arguments (or "death by footnote"), the appropriation of imagined secret service jargon, circularity in logic, hydra-headedness in growing new arguments as soon as old ones are chopped off and, finally, the exciting suggestion of persecution. These characteristics help them to convince intelligent people of deeply unintelligent things."
Secondly: "No inconvenient fact or refutation discombobulates the believer; conspiracists are always winners.Their arguments have a determined flexibility whereby reverses can be accommodated within the theory itself or simply discarded. So, embarrassing and obvious problems in the theory may be ascribed to deliberate disinformation originating with the imagined plotters designed to throw activists off the scent."
There's more from Aaronovich, and it's all good; the article is based on a book he's publishing early next year titled "Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History", which will be published in February 2010 by Riverhead. Looks like it may end up on my bookshelf alongside "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre and "The Australian Miracle - an innovative nation revisited" by Thomas Barlow - useful reality checks, all of them.
For those who enjoy a good conspiracy consider The Stone of Scone, aka The Stone of Destiny, upon which Scottish kings were crowned on Moot Hill, at Scone Palace, until King Edward 1 took it south to England in 1296. Supposedly (and there is good reason to believe this) the Monks at Scone Abbey, who had charge of the Stone, were forewarned of Edward's raid on Scotland's heritage and provided him with a poor-quality substitute instead, and this has been in Westminster Abbey for most of the past 700 years, until its recent return to Scotland.
The real Stone, by this account, was a much more elaborate and decorated piece of Pictish art carved from a single chunk of rock, possibly of meteorite origin, possibly something a bit less exotic. It was supposedly spirited away by the Monks and hidden in a cave on nearby Dunsinane Hill. Why is that name familiar? Because it is the site of Macbeth's castle - you know, Macbeth? Three Witches? Lady Macbeth? Killed King Duncan? Got topped by "Lay On" Macduff in Shakespeare's play of the same name? The Hill exists, and there are bare remnants on its summit of a pre-mediaeval castle; from the top of Dunsinane it's possible to watch and control the northern and eastern approaches to Scone and Perth - from the military point of view it's perfectly sited and no doubt Macbeth in his day was familiar with it. On one side of Dunsinane Hill, about a mile north-west, lies the hamlet of Collace with a beautiful stone church whose foundations go back to at least the 12th century (roughly contemporaneous with Macbeth), and possibly further. On the other side, a mile or so south-west towards Bandirran, lie the remnants of a celtic stone circle.
Being so close to Scone, this suggests there was obviously something in the Scone-Perth-Dunsinane district of spiritual importance to the Picts. It isn't hard to imagine the Monks from Scone Abbey hiding the 'real' Stone somewhere near Bandirran. The location of the Stone is a secret known only to a few and guarded by "men of strong opinion".
So far, so conventional - nice legend and all that. What about the conspiracy?
Okay, here goes: You may not be aware that the Depot and Training Centre for one of the British Army's most famous Highland Regiments was in Perth, about seven miles southwest of Dunsinane. The home of The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) has been for over 200 years at Balhousie Castle in Perth; but its roots go back to the mid-1600s and earlier when independent companies of men were formed by local clan chiefs to police or 'watch' the Highlands.
Apart from tradition, what reason was there to maintain a standing force of soldiers in Perth? Can't you see it? They must be guarding The Secret of the Stone! The Black Watch are the "men of strong opinion" whose spiritual duty it is to guard Scotland's greatest treasure. For what exactly? Doesn't matter - Make something up.
How do I know this? I don't - I just made it up, based on my own meagre knowledge and some family connections with the area. But all the elements of a wonderful conspiracy are there - this could rival the Loch Ness Monster. All it takes is a short visit by Dan Brown (of Da Vinci Code fame) carrying lots and lots (and I mean LOTS) of money to unlock my secret knowledge. And the beauty of it is, there's nobody who could disprove what I'm suggesting: anybody daft enough to believe it would take an official silence, or even worse outright denial, as the automatic response of a secretive Scottish "elite" with something to hide.
Come to think of it, I might write the damn novel myself....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
