The Band Wagon Reunion

"The day after Man City win the European Cup"- that was bass player Mani's prediction for the day when an eager public could expect to see a reformation of one of the great Nineties groups yet to jump on the reunion band wagon. United-supporting Mani probably thought his quip, made back in 2006 following City's modest 15th place finish in the Premier League and two years before Abu Dhabi investment transformed the club, was the sporting equivalent of declaring "when hell freezes over". Well times, as we know, have changed; maybe he jumped before he was pushed.

The Stone Roses' reunion, initially two concerts in Heaton Park, Manchester next June that will be followed by a world tour, grew to seem increasingly likely, not just as the fortunes of Manchester City improved, but also as a growing number of their peers succumbed to the temptation of one last swansong and, let's face it, one last payday. Mancunian compatriots The Happy Mondays did it in 2004, as did James in 2007, when Tim Booth rejoined the band's original line-up. Blur finally set aside their differences in 2008 only to be rewarded with a headline slot at the following year's Glastonbury, as were Pulp, the band who struck lucky when they replaced the unavailable Stone Roses for the festival in 1995, who reformed in May and made a critically acclaimed cameo at Worthy Farm this June.

Going further back, the list of rock and roll second comings is pretty illustrious: Led Zeppelin, the Police, the Sex Pistols, the Velvet Underground. But given that all those reunions ended up being temporary and not a single studio album was recorded in the brief hiatus when all those hatchets were buried, are we foolish to get excited by the latest get-togethers, and what is the effect of this phenomenon on artists trying to make a name for themselves for the first time?

Simon Reynolds, author of Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past, is clearly concerned about the potentially stifling impact that the "bands reunited" trend may have on creativity: "There is something peculiar, even eerie, about pop's vulnerability to its own history ... When we listen back to the early 21st century, will we hear anything that defines the epoch?" he writes. It's easy to see why, for many festival and concert organisers, booking acts made famous in days gone by is a safer option. The secret to the success of reunions like those of Blur and Pulp is that they chose to play a limited number of high profile concerts, thus maximising their appeal to their pre-existing and newly acquired fan bases. The limited edition approach to the comeback if you like. And for many fans that is the appeal: tick a box you didn't think you'd be able to, say you've seen Jimmy Page play live, never mind that he's in his sixties, not this thirties. This, though, clearly leaves the returning artists with a limited shelf-life - once the novelty of their reappearance has worn off, so will their ability to fill stadiums. Indeed, in the modern era it is only Take That who have managed to maintain their popularity in both their pre and post break-up eras, and that largely is due to the fact that they aren't still churning out the same old tunes they were 15 years ago.

Whether the Stone Roses reunion endures long enough for them to make a long overdue appearance at Michael Eavis's festival in 2013 (there is no Glastonbury next year) remains to be seen. But if it does it'll be hard to shake the feeling that the crowd is participating in the mass re-enactment of a musical era long since passed. Although there will always be those über-nostalgics on hand to tell you it's not as good second time around. Now, what odds on Oasis headlining Glastonbury 2020?

Ladies and gentleman, please stand for the National Embarrassment

Billy Connolly once joked that the dirge-like pace of God Save the Queen would cause the British Olympic team to be lapped during an Olympic opening ceremony. Whilst Lord Coe and co are sure to have more important matters on their mind in the build up to London 2012, it’s hard to deny that there is an element of truth in the comedian’s assessment. Its lyrics make no mention of the country it supposedly celebrates until the fifth verse, (which is never sung) and the only surprise in racing driver Lewis Hamilton’s criticism of the anthem’s length this July, with the tune still ringing in his ears following a grand prix win in Hockenheim, was that he felt it was too short and not too long. Yes, the general consensus seems to be that as far as national anthems go, God Save the Queen is pretty bad.

But it wasn’t always this way. The inaugural performance of the world’s first ever national anthem took place in London in 1745. God Save The Queen went on to become, in the words of Nicholas Smith author of Stories of Great National Songs, “the most potent national anthem in existence” and was adopted at one time or another as the national song of countries including;  Germany, Russia and Switzerland. But over time each of these countries abandoned the tune in favour of something less derivative, much like teenagers turn their back on embarrassing and short-lived musical crazes. Great Britain however, along with poor Liechtenstein, who continues to emulate an older relative who has long since ceased to be cool, are yet to grow out of it.

Let’s face it, on the modern international stage any glory the anthem may have once had, has long since faded. Compared to the call to arms of La Marseillaise, God Save the Queen is toothless. Compared to two merged songs and five incorporated languages which comprise post-Apartheid South Africa’s hymn of reconciliation, Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika, it is characterless. Not that we have to look abroad to feel inferior about our anthem. The English among us have the pleasure of being doubly discriminated. Unsatisfied with mere international embarrassment, lucky England gets the dubious honour of using God Save the Queen when competing domestically against the other home nations in most sports. And while en masse singings of Wales’s Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau and Scotland’s Flower of Scotland, raise the hairs on the back of your neck, God Save the Queen induces barely stifled yawns. No wonder English football fans are famed for their booing of foreign anthems, they’re clearly hoping to provoke a retaliation of catcalls that will spare them the humiliation of listening to another mind-numbing, uninterrupted rendition of their own.

Maybe though there is a degree of appropriateness about our national anthem. Perhaps like governments, countries get the anthem they deserve. After all, we are British, it is not just our climate which is temperate it is our temperaments too. Keep calm and carry on, that’s what we do isn’t it? Every now and then the wind of change threatens to blow, but it always dies down. We’re hardly going to decide to ditch a ditty we’ve had for over 250 years just because it promotes an antiquated social order that few of us believe in now are we? No, we should take inspiration from the stiff upper lips of our millionaire footballers, so proud that they are visibly moved to muteness as possibly the worst national anthem on the face of the planet is played out. Why, it almost brings a tear to your eye.

Beware of the clap!

If you've ever been on a plane then you'll know just how stupid people can be, because inevitably, as the wheels touch down on the runway for landing, there will be some jokers who will feel the need to clap.  This is something I've never understood. If it's a joke, then it's a done to death man walked into a bar gag, and if the applause is genuine, well for me, it's undeserved. When I board a plane the very least, the absolute bare minimum, I expect is for that plane to arrive in it's chosen destination, ideally with all parties still alive and kicking on board. I may hope for a nice inflight meal, a comfortable journey, an undisturbed sleep, but I understand that these things want them as I might, are all a bonus. But, and call me old fashioned, avoiding death by crash landing into the sea from 35,000 ft., isn't. Especially since we are constantly being told that more people die each year from severe nut allergies, or squirrel attack than in aeroplane accidents. Rightly or wrongly, I've come to believe that air travel is only a fraction behind being carried inside a kangaroo's pouch as the safest mode of transport. So the only logical conclusion to make is that the people who clap are idiots. And apparently they are not the only ones, there's a lot of clapping idiots all over the world. 

Take for instance Wednesday’s Republican Party presidential debate, shown live on TV throughout America and filmed live in front of a studio audience. Clearly there were quite a lot of idiots in the audience, who decided the best way to show their appreciation for Texas Governor Rick Perry was to clap his execution record, which currently stands at 234 not out, of which 59% are ethnic minorities incidentally. Not bad for an anti-abortionist who’s gone on record to say "I believe the right choice is life". 

The fallout of the ‘applause for executions’ incident, which has generated a fair few column inches on both sides of the Atlantic, proved two things. One that, shock-horror, the death penalty is an emotive subject and two, the simple act of clapping is a slightly more perilous business than we often think. You don’t need to look hard for examples closer to home. This Saturday will mark a close to the BBC Proms season a series of classical concerts at which the act of banging your hands together in appreciation has never been so heavily scrutinised. For the blissfully ignorant clapping at classical concerts is bad, so bad in fact, that classical music aficionados have felt the need to lay down a few rules, the long of short of which are clap only in the right places or fuck off. Martin Cullingford, the deputy editor of Gramaphone Magazine suggested concert goers “don’t clap unless there is spontaneous uproarious applause, in which case it is safe to do so”, advice which if followed by everyone in the audience would be a sure-fire way to guarantee complete silence. Cullingford’s approach however seems positively laid back though, when compared to that of Jonathan Lennie, editor of Time Out magazine and author of a hilarious open letter, (read rant), to "Loud Clapping Man Who Sits Behind Me At Concerts". Lennie’s main concern? People who begin to clap too soon after the music finish. God, Guantanamo Bay isn’t good enough for those scum. 

But while the powers that be are trying to do everything they can to keep the proles out of classical concerts by outlawing clapping, in football they’re encouraging them to actually clap more often. The minute’s silence is now all but dead as a way for football fans to commemorate their tragedies and deaths, replaced with the utterly depressing minute’s applause. We are told it is because silence is too somber and depressing whereas the celebratory nature of applause is a more fitting way to commemorate sporting greats like Sir Bobby Robson. And in certain instances, like the example given, this may be true, but surely not on occasions like that in 2008 when Manchester United marked the 50^th anniversary of the Munich air disaster with the sound of clapping instead of silence, much to the dismay of many of their fans. There is something incredibly powerful and poignant when thousands of people in a football stadium stand in complete silence that is lost in the minute’s applause. Of course, the elephant in the room is that all too often the silence isn’t silent and one idiot shouting some obscenity or another marks the occasion in an entirely inappropriate way. But whereas fans of classical music are being urged not to clap for fear they do it in the wrong place detracting from the performance, football fans are being told they have to because the game’s bigwigs don’t believe they have the self-control to stay quiet for 60 seconds when it matters. What next, two-minutes applause on Armistice Day? 

Whether it’s to show support for the death penalty, enjoyment at a concert or appreciation for fallen heroes, applause, or the lack of it, looses all meaning when we are told when and when not to do it. Of course, good luck explain that concept to Bono a man who actually gets off on the idea that the claps of himself and his audience actually send innocent Africans to their deaths.   

Just Cook Will You…

“James Martin is on a mission to transform the standard of food at Scarborough General Hospital, North Yorkshire.” On the face of it, this sentence might sound like good news. Unwittingly, you're probably thinking ‘Great, it's about time somebody sorted out the food in that place’, but then, slowly, it'll dawn on you just who James Martin is, at which point you're probably likely to emit a dejected sigh, followed by the most obscene phrase in the English language, a phrase which contains no less than three C words...Celebrity...Chef...Campaign. Then you'll probably call James Martin a cunt.

No longer content to teach an ignorant nation the frankly vital skills of cake decoration or how best to season a risotto, today's television chefs are following in the footsteps of yesterday's pop stars, by (deep breath), trying to save the world. Like everything else in the universe, it all started with Jamie Oliver. Once content to drive his scooter round the English countryside blind drunk after gorging on an over inflated sense of self-importance and first pressing extra virgin olive oil, Oliver now gets his kicks hanging around the UN building in New York pestering Ban Ki Moon for a “global movement to make obesity a human rights issue”. And on that, isn't it about time that someone told Jamie Oliver he's a little bit overweight himself? I mean we all like to have a go at fat kids in Rotherham, but if you spend your entire working life guzzling Sainsbury's taste the difference confectionary, ostensibly bought for your ridiculously named children, despite the fact they never even get near them then aren’t you a bit of a hypocrite. Talk about the sous vide calling the soufflé ramekins black.

Yes truly TV chefs are the protest singers of our time, although in the case of James Martin he's clearly lip-synching to a cover, as anyone with a TV set and even the vaguest knowledge of popular culture knows that Cordon-Bleu mad scientist Heston Blumenthal already solved the issue of hospital food earlier this year, right after he dealt with the slightly more pressing matter of the quality of snacks served at motorway service stations. And therein lies the problem: there are clearly not enough evils in this world to give one each to our talented band of celebrity chefs to solve. Of course, it doesn't help when busy bodies like Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whatshisface aren't practicing what they preach and are clearly being greedy. Not content with bagsying all the problems in the world's oceans with his Fish Fight, apparently some ingenious pescatarian preservation scheme based upon the premise that we should NOT kill all the living creatures in the seas; HFW branched out to poultry with his latest venture, Chicken Out, a campaign designed to give chickens bigger houses and access to superfast broadband launched because -  and I quote -  "I feel so strongly about the welfare of our chickens”. However, this is still small-fry compared to Oliver, who, completely unperturbed by such trifling matters as a lack of any expertise or indeed natural ability, single-handedly revolutionised the national curriculum in Jamie's Dream School. According to leaked reports his next project will see the phonetically challenged Oliver team up with everyone's favourite lowly billionaire Bono, in which the pair successfully achieve the writing off of all third world debt and all in good time for Oliver's duet with Deila Smith on the Norwich City FA Cup song, conveniently released in the lead up to the 2014 election, at which he'll be standing in place of Nick Clegg.

You have to feel sorry for the old school, those TV chefs being left behind who foolishly believe that the barometer by which they will be judged is the number of Michelin Stars awarded and not the number of fashionable causes they can lend their name too. Should we expect to see Raymond Blanc attempting to cut teen pregnancy rates in 2011? Ainslie Harriot spearheading an inner city literacy campaign and that really young looking one from Ready Steady Cook advocating the decriminalization of heroin as the most effective method of reducing the harmful impact of drugs in society? Almost certainly, yes.

Once upon a time, before he rode his high-horse onto the bandwagon, James Martin used to make fun of people who tried to make a difference, specifically those of the environmental variety. In 2009 he wrote this in the Daily Mail about the cyclists who used to frequent the roads near his countryside house: “God, I hate those cyclists. Every last herbal tea-drinking, Harriet Harman-voting one of them”. Now sadly, instead of ridiculing those who try and change this world for the better, James has joined their ranks. Such a shame.

Accents and Attitudes...

Number one singles, high-profile romances and a regular slot on one of Britain’s most watched TV shows, arguably all of these would have been eclipsed by Cheryl Cole’s starring role on the judging panel of the US version of the X Factor. Yet, following Fox Broadcasting’s decision to relieve Cole of her duties after just two weeks in the job, we now know this is not to be. Cole’s meteoric rise to stardom in this country was no doubt helped by her well-known looks, but it was her North east roots and yes accent, which won her the tabloid accolade “Geordie Princess”. Following a well-trodden path of British superstars unable to “crack” America, (Oasis, Robbie Williams), Cole’s dismissal is noteworthy because it was her domestically-lauded Newcastle twang, apparently incomprehensible to American ears, which allegedly proved her undoing. 

In the United Kingdom surveys have consistently found that British ears find the Geordie accent desirable. Last April a study carried out by call-centre operator Sitel found that 2000 people rated the Geordie speakers the most likely to put them in a good mood and similar research undertaken by Travelodge, Cool Brands and the Aziz Corporation found Geordie to be the “sexiest” “coolest” and “most attractive” accent in England respectively. Clearly though this is a reputation it is not afforded across the pond. “When people say an accent is beautiful, ugly, charming or whatever, they are reacting to what they know about the area where that accent comes from” says renowned sociolinguist Peter Trudgill. Without this social context as a reference Americans do not have the favourable reaction to Cole’s voice that British people do. But not only do they not like Geordie, they can’t, by all accounts, understand it: “The further away an accent comes from the more difficult it is to understand” Trudgill continues. Accents only become more comprehensible through exposure and having rarely heard someone from Newcastle speak before, American TV audiences cannot be blamed for their inability to understand it.

Cole’s bad luck aside, the fortunes of those with regional accents pursuing a career in the media are certainly better now than they were 60 years ago. In 1941, Yorkshire born Wilfred Pickles became the first person with a regional accent to read the BBC’s national news broadcast. The reaction this precipitated from the London based media was derisory to say the least, as it marked a break from the BBC’s earlier policy of favouring received-pronunciation, now frequently dubbed “BBC English”. Thankfully a great deal of progress has been made since this time; so much in fact that Dr Joanna Thornborrow, from Cardiff University’s Centre for Language and Communication Research, believes “It is now advantageous to have a regional accent in the media”. Thornborrow notes that when she plays broadcasts from the 40s and 50s to her students it sounds as alien to them as Wilfred Pickles must have to the metropolitan elite of his day: “They are not used to it, they feel they are not the target audience”. It is no doubt a desire on behalf of the BBC and other broadcasters for their audience to identify with presenters that has led to a greater proliferation of regional voices, what Thornborrow terms “the democratisation of the media”.

Work in this field however is far from complete. “Some progress has been made. There are now people reading the news with Scottish, Irish and other regional accents” says Peter Trudgill, “but you still do not get people in positions of broadcasting eminence with strong regional accents”. Trudgill also identifies a hierarchy among regional accents which means that “some accents have a better chance than others”. He feels West Midlands and rural speakers are particularly underrepresented and Dr Thornborrow thinks more marked regional accents are permitted only in certain, less serious, genres. This point is corroborated by Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC who last year admitted that work was still needed to ensure “more variety”.   

Cole’s downfall was in fact pre-empted. When her American appointment was first announced in early May, numerous commentators questioned whether Cole would “tone down” her Newcastle dialect, which in turn prompted her empathic denial “'Never! I would be crucified where I'm from if I tried to change my accent.” And though this may seem like cutting your nose of to spite your face, Trudgill was unsurprised, “the bond between regional identity and accent is strong” and fewer regions demonstrate that strength better than the North East. Should Cole have compromised and carefully enunciated each word she spoke on air there’s no doubting she’d have been vilified in her hometown. As it stands she can now return home prematurely but with reputation intact.

Ask a silly question….

The interrupted and infamous question almost asked by John Hemmings in the House of Commons wasn’t the only query raised in parliament this Monday. As the speaker reprimanded the Lib Dem MP for “flouting” a court order, the repercussions of which could drastically change media privacy law in this country, a matter of equal importance raised by Life Peer Lord Jay of Ewelme was finally resolved: the fate of Albert, the stuffed anaconda who resides in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office library.  

Lord Jay, who has sat in the Lord’s since 2006, submitted a written question to the house on the 9^th May, concerning the Government’s plans: “for the future of the stuffed anaconda in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office library”. And just shy of two, no doubt sleepless, weeks later, the Government responded and it turned out the anaconda had a name. The Minister for the State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Lord Howell of Guildford replied: 

“Albert, the 20-foot long stuffed anaconda, has graced the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) library for over a century. He remains proudly in place, just as he did throughout the noble Lord's distinguished career in the FCO, and continues to be held in great affection by FCO staff. We have no plans for Albert other than to clean and stuff him from time to time.”

If his intention was to ask the strangest question heard in parliament however, Lord Jay has some competition. Last July, Labour MP John Spellar, who by some twist of fate is now Shadow Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, asked the Secretary of State for Health: “whether he plans to ban the sale of (a) tea and coffee with sugar and (b) cheddar cheese sandwiches in hospitals”. The Government responded tersely and somewhat bemusedly, “no”.  Former Conservative MP David Amess also famously fell foul of the House, when in 1997 he asked a question in the Commons about “cake”, the fictional drug which featured in satirists Chris Morris’s spoof documentary Brass Eye.   
 
Yet all of these enquiries pale into normality when compared to the eccentric questioning of the European Commission President from former Dutch Liberal MEP, Florus Wijsenbeek. In 1998, Mr Wijsenbeek apparently concerned by the fate of shoes washed ashore, enquired whether the commission was aware that: “in a single winter 68 left shoes and 39 right shoes were washed up on the Dutch island of Texel and 63 left and 93 right shoes were washed up on the Shetland Islands?”. He continued: “Does the Commission consider this a fair distribution and is it prepared to provide a fair allocation of shoes between each member state?” Somewhat disappointingly, though not altogether surprisingly, the Commission’s response was negative. Undeterred,  Mr Wijsenbeek’s other claim to fame is being the subject of an officiall reprimanded by the College of Quaestors, the body responsible for maintaining discipline amongst MEPs, for repeatedly riding his by through the parliament building in Brussels.

Azerbaijwhat?

Picture the scene: after months of diplomacy and backroom bartering two countries finally commence historic talks designed to settle deep-seated disputes which have festered between them for years. A historic accord is drawn up, with the more powerful of the countries offering a generous international aid package, an exclusive trade agreement and military backing in return for political support. Signing appears imminent. The world’s media waits with baited breath in anticipation of this momentous occasion but then, at the 11^th hour, talks break down and the smaller of the two countries storms out of negotiations citing the failure to agree a guarantee of maximum points at all future Eurovision Song Contests as their reason. 

Tactical voting at the Eurovision song contest is well documented and criticising it is something of a national pastime. The Scandinavians vote for other Scandinavians, the Balkan states vote for other Balkan states and the Eastern bloc countries...well you get the picture. The point being that seldom does anybody actually vote for the UK. Most people accept this flawed scoring system as part and parcel of Eurovision’s charm. The 3 hour long glorified Karaoke contest, which is broadcast live in 25 countries in Europe alone, is ultimately rendered pointless by a voting system that even Robert Mugabe would class as suspect. Terry Wogan used to find the predictability of scoring worryingly irritating and the programme used to be worth watching for his mock indignation alone. The former Lib Dem MP Richard Younger-Ross took such affront to Eurovision’s lax attitude to the tactical voting ‘problem’, that in 2007 he put forward an Early Day Motion to debate the subject in the House of Commons. Sadly, the EDM was ignored so one can only speculate whether he would have championed the Alternative Vote as a fairer solution, in which second-rate singers would have to work harder for our 12 points.  

Though I’m very much of the opinion that those who are bothered by tactical voting at Eurovision should get out more, I am intrigued by why it happens in the first place. Much has been made recently of Lord Triesmen’s allegations of FIFA corruption with regards to 2018 World Cup bid and although only the foolishly naive believe a word of what Sepp Blatter and co say, you can at least understand, if not condone, why corruption would exist in deciding the host for football’s most prestigious and financially lucrative tournament. But Eurovision, really who cares? Cyprus has awarded Greece maximum points in every Eurovision song context since 1996. Are we to assume that if they gave their twelve points elsewhere, Greece would let the island fall under Turkish control? Serbia also tends to give maximum points to Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I doubt that many in Sarajevo will see that as fair compensation for Milosovic’s genocide. The idea that countries would place any significance on who gives them what points in a contest dominated by the cruise ship crooners of tomorrow is baffling. Of course there are those that argue that suspicious voting patterns are not evidence of collusion, but simply the similar music tastes shared between countries with strong cultural and linguistic relationships. However this argument looses credibility when one actually listens to the songs in question and determines that: a) A large proportion of songs are actually sung in English – b) An even larger proportion are, to the ears of any human being, indisputably awful. 

But perhaps I am being too harsh, especially considering the origins of the contest, which was set up in the 1950s with the intention of bringing the nations of a war-torn Europe together. Broadcast live to a worldwide audience of over 160 million people Eurovision remains a much loved tradition throughout the continent, watched by people of all ages, who for one night a year put aside their nationalistic, ethnic and political differences to come together and say joyfully, in any number of languages, “this is rubbish!”. And given that Europe hasn’t been engulfed in a major war since, Eurovision has proved itself to be a success, presuming of course you consider nonsensical lyrics set to infuriating tunes designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator to be the lesser of the two evils?

Suspicious Minds

Dan Brown has a lot to answer for. Not only does he owe me 138 minutes of my life back following a misguided cinema trip to see a Spanish dubbed version of Angels and Demons, we also have his own imitable brand of “conspiracy fiction” to thank for bringing unverifiable paranoia back into mainstream political debate.

In the days before The Da Vinci Code, people who believed that world was really controlled by an international secret society and that aliens worked the checkouts at their local Tesco at least had the good graces to keep their psychosis to themselves. Nowadays they get a guest slot on Newsnight. 

Osama Bin Laden’s death, (or “death”, depending on the viewpoint you subscribe to), is the modern conspiracy theorists wet dream. The lack of body due to his burial at sea, the White House’s decision not to release photographs and the discrepancies between the current and initial account of what happened in Abbottabad, has convinced some that all is not what it seems with the anti-terror event of the year. Add to this the fact that the September the 11^th attacks are themselves the subject of much debate in conspiratorial circles and Obama is still thought by some to be ruling America illegally, by virtue of his supposed foreign birth and it’s easy to see how those of a far-fetched disposition have joined the imaginary dots of their own making. 

The most striking thing about the Bin Laden and indeed most other conspiracies is the way they spectacularly contradict each other. Depending on which know it all you listen to, Bin Laden was either already dead prior to the raid, is still alive somewhere after it, or he was killed, but only in a bid to improve Obama’s chances of re-election. Not that such inconsistencies concern the fantasists. After all, another feature of conspiracy theories is that their advocates will never, regardless of facts, admit to them being bogus. Anything which appears to disprove the theory is dismissed as simply smoke and mirrors designed to put people off the scent of what’s really going on. Even if America decided to reveal pictures of the deceased Bin Laden, those arguing that he is actually still alive would, unflinchingly, trot out the old:“well that’s what they want you to think” line.  The more evidence produced to the contrary, the more ingenious ways conspirators reinvent their own arguments in order to make them fit. 

Despite these misgivings, or perhaps because of them, there’s a certain appeal to conspiracy theories. If nothing else being part of a group that shuns conventional wisdom in favour of a “truth” known only to a few, is a bit of an ego boost. After all, which would you rather be: the gullible drones spoon fed lies by the New World Order, or the enlightened minority bravely fighting a clandestine elite? Tough call, I know. And though I genuinely believe that a sceptical outlook is no bad thing, beware; it’s a slippery slope from being inquisitive to doubting whether Elvis really did land on the moon.