Ask Stephen: the virtual booktour

Only Stephen Fry could get away with this, yet he may be starting a trend: launching a book via Twitter, cinema, webcasts and, later, YouTube, no doubt. And The Fry Chronicles is available in five formats simultaneously: book, eBook, iBook, audiobook and iPhone app.

Mr Fry is launching the tome by appearing at the various UK theatres to do augmented book readings on successive evenings: the add-on part comes from interaction with audiences in the venue and at 60 cinemas with some of his 1.8 million Twitter followers.

Real-time Q and A, and the Twittersphere will send #recommendation tags to their exponential readers. Already the Chronicles has toppled Tony Blair's Journey from the top of Amazon's UK book chart. Very smart.

All this commercial success without stepping into a television or radio studio, chatting to features journalists (although Mr Fry is doing his bit the old-fashioned way, too), going 'on the road' past the Oxford-Cambridge-London triangle, or getting your hair wet.

Where Stephen leads, other writers will follow, especially if they have a Twitter fan base.


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A room of one's own: an unattainable dream?

Where there's an online product, you'll soon find a hacker or a pirate.

The latest examples that confirm the human urge to scream 'Mine' very loudly are Andy Coulson's tenure as editor of the News of the World (phone hacking has been alleged by, most recently, the New York Times) and hacker success in distributing popular ebooks for free.

Even the unveiling of the Stig's identity on Top Gear smacks of the school playground bully, tearing off the wings of a butterfly.

At stake, personal and professional privacy, and the right to make money from electronic products.

This is a gold rush in reverse where, in a landscape where information wants to be free, no one is allowed to make money. This spells disaster to conventional business models for creative companies. The globalisation effects of YouTube, home recording and back-bedroom piracy will propel the media into a dangerous Wild West outlaw world where copyright is seen as red tape and creatives won't be able to earn a crust. The new billionaires will be the sharp-elbowed owners of the speakeasies at the edge of the law and beyond.

The likes of Mick Jagger, J K Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood and Dan Brown represent the last of a dying breed: stars who get rich through their imaginations.


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Overnet stardom

The mechanisms of making a name for oneself are changing. Wither music went, comedy follows. Bo Burnham has gone from gigging in his bedroom to the Edinburgh Fringe, with a stratospheric fan base shift from 1 (his Mum) to 59 million.

What's next? Playwrights: front room to Royal Court? Actors showreels: no need for auditions? Television presenters/hosts: cut out the expensive Stage School fees?

But in this wired world of celebrity meteors, will fame burn brightly but fade quickly? It would be interesting to learn current hit stats for Susan Boyle YouTube videos and websites.


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Let the plane take the strain

Ryanair takes the biscuit for no frills and paid added extras in the low-cost airline business. The latest additions to the rosta of pain are coin-operated loos and 'vertical seats' (i.e. standing room only). What would health and safety make of that?

Where will Michael O'Leary's money-making schemes go next?

• Choose your own destination, as long as you're going to Paris (approximately)?
• Fly your own plane?
• Pay-as-you-go oxygen supply in an emergency? (Otherwise you get mustard gas)
• Propellor-driven aircraft using clockwork technology? (The 'vertical' passengers turn the cranks)
• Seats that double up as commodes?
• No aisles? (People move around by swinging from a climbing frame bolted to the ceiling)
• Luggage roof-racks?

If not these, suggestions, there will be others along soon.

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Obsession for jaguars

Ethological engineering just took on a new definition in the wild world of jaguars.

Conservationists in Guatemala have built of the findings on scientists at Bronx Zoo in New York City, who experimented with 23 different scents to attract the animals to camera traps. The outright winner was Calvin Klein's 'Obsession for men': the musky scent grabbed the jaguars' attention for 11.1 minutes on average.

In the wild, the scent is proving hotter than catnip. Male and female jaguars rubbed their cheeks on rags sprayed with the cologne fulfilling the hope that images of the creatures could be captured by heat- and motion-sensitive cameras. Little-seen behaviours, including mating rituals, have been captured on film.

If the marketeers at Calvin Klein have any sense, it should be a no-brainer to revamp their 'Obsession for men' ads with images of jaguars and other big cats along with a slogan like 'Bring out your wild side with ...'


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Grandad hands back marathon medal

Organisers of the London Marathon took a double take when ">checking the electronic tags of 69-year-old Anthony Gaskell. He ran the first 12.5 miles in about two hours, but apparently finished the rest of the course in just over an hour: a pace that would have smashed the world record.

In fact, he had pulled out of the race injured and skipped a loop in the course of 10 miles, making for the finishing line to retrieve his clothes. He didn't even stop to think he'd won.

Belatedly, he was disqualified.

Red faces all round, and not from the exertion of running (especially in fancy dress).


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BP: for their next trick ...

BP is the oil-industry's equivalent of Tommy Cooper: except that the failed conjuring tricks they have been performing on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico not only don't work, they aren't funny.

So far BP has tried the 'top kill' approach to stopping the oil flow. This consists of trying to plug the gap with all shades of rubbish and capping the pipe: they have tried drilling fluids, mud, tyres, golf balls and cement. BP has also tried closing safety valves.

Now they are going for the grand finale: cutting the pipe in half further down its length to get a clean break,  and then trying the capping procedure all over again.

The tension is palpable. A good outcome, and Hollywood producers will be primed with chequebooks for an action movie starring Tom Cruise, Hugh Jackman and Angelina Jolie (Deepwater Horizon, anyone? No pitch required, ho ho); fail, and BP will be writing the cheques to the US Government and reading said writing on the wall. The directors may even be reading it on the wall of a prison cell if recent applications of the Anglo-American extradition 'treaty' are applied (e.g. Gary McKinnon, austistic hacker extraordinaire; the Enron bankers from NatWest).

If the above scenarios may be fantasy (for now), one thing is for sure: either way, BP will be picking up the tab. Barack Obama needs someone to blame, even if the disaster wasn't strictly his fault. Laissez-faire policies with respect to big oil are ingrained on the American psyche: the Bush presidencies of father and son need particular highlighting.

And Michael Moore won't be far behind with his particular brand of TV Nation reportage: Obama and Me; Fahrenheit 494.6 (the temperature at which gasoline burns); or perhaps even Slicker Uprising. All bets are off.


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Saving Facebook?

Facebook has been shamed into reviewing its users privacy policy. Settings are now one click away, rather than needing a IT qualification to tick the correct boxes hidden deep with the site's infrastructure.

Will this work? The jury is out. Most people probably won't even notice the change (they like the openness of the web) or, even more likely, there will be ways determined hackers can find cached material or crack the new privacy arrangements.

The challenge of breaking into private areas might attract new hackers, as will all the inherent publicity Facebook has drawn to its new policy. Hopefully, though, the new plans will improve on the free-for-all of the status quo.


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Pentecostal muscle: a hip-hop career launched?

Scorchio day: made for lazing around, sunbathing, swimming, seeing off local vicar to pastures new with hog-roast buffet and the help of the BBC's Songs of Praise, and introducing a new performer to national consciousness: Forgive, known in civilian life as Toby Butler.

Performing the topical track, 'Straight Fire', for a live broadcast from All Saints, Peckham, Forgive is soon to hippety-hop into a professional career as a musician in a niche market: UK Christian rap. In a world of rampant illicit downloads, tanking niche distributors and retailers (e.g. STL, now under new ownership; Wesley Owen), difficulty in standing out to mass audiences through the white noise of the internet, and shrinking offline media platforms for original music material, how does a new artist like Forgive make a mark on the culture?

• Set up a bespoke website: check;
• Launch a record label: check;
• Write loads of material: check, launch of debut album, Straight Fire, in August 2010;
• Develop a viral marketing strategy: check, stealth-bomb blogs with relevant copy, upload videos to YouTube, plug review copy on relevant platforms (e,g. forthcoming Cross Rhythms feature), decent SEO plan to get 'Forgive' as top rank, say, for 'UK Christian hip-hop' Google search terms;
• Get radio airplay: check, future niche domination of the likes of UCB Radio and Premier Christian Radio; tomorrow promotion via the likes of the Tom Robinson Introducing 6 Music show of bands without corporate contracts;
• Grow a loyal fan base: check, local gigs supplemented by national tours to local churches and festivals;
• Become a rapper-in-residence: react to relevant events with slam poetry like a hip-hop version of Carol Ann Duffy;
• Reclaim rap for positive messages: check, role model status brings private and public responsibilities (Toby is married to Hannah);
• Name-check merchandise à la Taio Cruz (viz: Rokstarr sunglasses): check today's chapter and verse; tomorrow the hip-hop Bible to retrieve the hype from KRS-One's megalomania? (Well, if it can be translated into Klingon, anything's possible);
• Investigate new markets: check, develop relationships with relevant international websites (e.g. urban churches, rap blogs and websites), make sure viral marketing messages are not exclusively UK-centric. 

While the field is narrow, talent one hopes will out. Hopefully Forgive will not be forgetten in a hurry: he might even get name-checked in Rapzilla's next video roll-call ...


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Gallows humour at the Treasury

A comparison of Reginald Maudling and Liam Byrnes' respective notes to their successors in Government is illuminating.

In 1964, Reggie M greeted James Callaghan, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, with the immortal words: 'Good luck, old cock. Sorry to leave it in such a mess.' The incident only came to light in subsequent memoirs.

Liam Byrne's letter to David Laws read: 'I'm afraid there's no money -- good luck.' A missive made public within a few days at a press conference.

Fifty years is clearly a geologic era in politics. The striking contrast is in media deference to politicians and the need to feed to 24-hour news cycle. In future, retiring politicians won't publish memoirs, they will launch retrospective vlogs on YouTube; and the 30-year rule that embargoes official secrets will be the exception rather than the rule.


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BNP goes 404

Talk about taking your ball home with you before the end of the match.

Simon Bennett, the British National Party's head of online operations resigned spectacularly on the eve of the general election and took the website with him.

Visitors to the party's site were treated to a personal message about why people shouldn't vote for the BNP: an acronym that perhaps should now stand for Barely aNy Policies.


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Drill, BP drill?

President Obama has a problem, now, getting his climate reforms through the Senate with the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

But this pales into insignificance alongside the travails of the Republican party on this issue.

Whither Sarah Palin? Should baby still be drilling? She has been more muted since the crisis began, apart from tweeting her condolences to the families of the dead oil workers.

Hmm. I suppose much rests how how much the American people will take when it comes to increased gasoline prices. Voters can have short memories, when environmental catastrophe comes up against people's personal budgets.


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How to ruin your own reputation in a fortnight

Orlando Figes will now have to work hard not to be remembered as the academic who set fire to his own career. Years of building a reputation can be destroyed in an instant.

Posing as 'Historian' when reviewing works of history on Amazon, he raved about his own books and trashed his rivals' work, including Robert Service's biography of Leon Trotsky.

This may be seen initially as trivial, as playground antics, but when his rivals smelt a rat, Mr Figes instructed his lawyers to sue for libel in an attempt to smother their reaction. This tactic backfired when he was forced after a fortnight of posturing to admit his authorship of the caustic reviews.

Such behaviour goes down like Agent Orange in the academic world. Mr Figes is unfortunate in that the extremes of his behaviour will serve as a warning and a case study to other authors similarly tempted to bash competitors' books.

In an increasingly wired world, online reviews can matter: as Mr Service has said, 'there is such a thing as negative publicity' as sales of his book did not benefit from a 'dead-cat bounce' from curious readers wondering if the criticism was over the top. In other words, during the two-week siege, sales of Mr Service's book tanked.

Hmm. If wonder if the lawyers will now pursue Mr Figes, who is now on compassionate leave of ill-health grounds from his post at Birkbeck University?


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Seeing and believing: 3D TV realities

As sets go on sale today for the first time in the UK, is 3D television the future? Not apparently if you own a set with a screen size less than 40 inches.

Why? Any smaller than this and the 3D effect simply isn't noticed.

3D television programming may be great for communal sports fandom in pubs and clubs shown on large screens, but it will be a big shift in family life for everyone to wear tinted glasses gathered around smaller sets.

Social behaviour around 3D television may change: as ever, the medium is the message.


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Real Virtuality on the curriculum

An antidote to people's media sensitisation towards violence is been tried with success in Merseyside schools by the charity Support After Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM).

Young children are being shown stills from videogame franchise Grand Theft Auto and 'Itchy & Scratchy' from The Simpsons in the context of comparing violent images with what is going on in their own lives. Images are marked as 'bad real life', 'good real life' and 'not real'.

And the result? Kids are realising that comic-book violence is not real; in life acts and behaviours have consequences. And they report being disgusted by the stills.

Perhaps there is hope in clawing back civil society from the clutches of glamourised, depersonalised media violence.


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Wanted: a better class of heckler for an internet age

Day 3 of the general election campaign, and the quality of political heckler has reached a new low.

Ben Butterworth harangued Gordon Brown about the lack of a school place for his 4-year-old daughter. He later wrote on his blog that George Osborne was a 'slimeball'. Although there is no recorded comment about the LibDems, Mr Butterworth seems despairing of all politicians.

The parties need to take care in an internet age of claiming disaffected voters are actually supportive of their policies. We live in a fragmented world of opinion.

The most effective hecklers may turn out to be online poster hackers. Why not go the whole hog and Photoshop original, funny images that can be circulated virally? Or topical Youtube sketches? Or create irresistible Facebook petitions masquerading as humorous rants (see the effect of the Virgin flyer who complained about the airline's food)? This might even negate the effect of expensive election advertising campaigns devised by the likes of the Saatchi brothers.


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Celebrity culture: next steps?

What will be the impact of the new CelebAround iPhone application? Created by MatrixPhotos.com, a paparazzi agency, for a gossip-hungry crowd at £1.79 a throw, fans will be able to track their heroes footsteps 12 hours after the famous soles have trod London's hallowed sod.

• It will simply advertise expensive haunts to ever more people. Just because Madonna may eat at the Ivy doesn't mean Jo Bloggs can afford it.
• Expect a massive increase in mobile video 'journalism'.
• The paparazzi agency may either be shooting itself in the foot or encouraging a new source of material: I can't decide, and it's probably a close run thing.
• Celebrity venues will get even more exclusive in an attempt to keep out the 'civilians'.
• Stars will still be able to wander the street incognito if they dress down sufficiently and don't court publicity.
• Stalking has just met Google Maps.
• Agents will try to get the application banned, as business may get more difficult to negotiate without sufficient camflouge.
• Private members' clubs will thrive.
• Ordinary people may often get mistaken for celebrities causing many false sightings that clog up the site.

In short, a dangerous, dog's breakfast of an idea that may drown under the volume its own shrill publicity.

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His Next Materials

Author Philip Pullman has continued his critique of Christianity in the shape of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ: speculation that the Messiah was actually a pair of twins with different agendas.

Perhaps Philip himself is an angel and Pullman the devil?

Don't be evil, or at least don't be caught

'Don't be evil' is Google's informal mantra, but it's getting more difficult to avoid criminal litigation when you are the size of the corporate giant.

In Italy, after a video showing bullying of a disabled boy was briefly uploaded on to YouTube, three senior Google executives have been given suspended sentences on the grounds of violating privacy laws.

Given that 20 hours of new material is uploaded on to YouTube every minute, this seems a tad over-zealous, especially as Google removed the offending material quickly. And YouTube does operate a level of censorship. anyway.

So, what's the motivation? Jealous rival media owners spoiling for a fight?

This is the latest example of culture clash between 'internet as a space for free speech and free information' and 'internet as global marketplace'. Corporations fear losing control, and this trial signals the start of potential censorship of the internet, which may lead in dangerous directions.

Beyond the book

When is an e-book not an e-book? Possibly when its enhanced with video, audio, music and social media networking possibilities.

In the red corner, publishers say added extra to electronic texts are publishing rights; in the blue corner, agents claim enhanced e-books are a new medium that may best be sold to film companies or record labels.

Who said media convergence would run smoothly?

Maybe Canongate Books have got it right: they are apparently negotiating enhanced e-book rights on a title by title basis.

Illustrated-book contracts may also shine light on the subject, rather than heat it up: the royalty split between illustrator and author often depends on the importance of the respective art in any given project.

So picture-book contracts are weighted towards illustrators, whereas illustrated fiction titles are titled towards authors, with partnerships like Roald Dahl/Quentin Blake split more evenly.

The Death of Bunny Munro: A Novel (Hardcover)