The Decision Review System and Schrödinger’s cat

by Sam Blackledge

IN 1935 the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger devised a thought experiment applying the theories of quantum mechanics to a hypothetical scenario.

Schrödinger presented the idea of a cat trapped in a box with a vial of poison, a radioactive source and a Geiger counter. If the counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered and the poison kills the cat. But according to Schrödinger’s theory, while the box is still sealed the cat is simultaneously alive and dead in the minds of those in the outside world.

The theory has probably never been aligned with the world of cricket, but during the third day of the second test between England and West Indies it suddenly sprang to mind.

Tim Bresnan bowled two balls to Kirk Edwards. The first one struck him on the pad, a huge appeal went up, but umpire Asad Rauf was unmoved. England decided against the review – a wise choice, as Hawk Eye showed the ball would have gone on to clip leg stump and the original decision would have stood. Bresnan’s second ball again trapped Edwards in front and he was given out. He accepted the decision and the replay had the ball just clipping the bails.

In both instances, the ball was only just hitting the stumps. Had the decisions been reviewed, both would have stayed with the on-field umpire’s decision. But the end result was that one was out, and one was not out. Confused?

The official guide to the Decision Review System (DRS) states: “If the technology shows that the centre of the ball would have hit the stumps within an area demarcated by a line drawn below the lower edge of the bails and down the middle of the outer stumps then it’s out (subject to all other factors being in place.)
“If the technology shows that no part of the ball would have made contact with any part of the stumps or bails then it’s not out. Otherwise, the on-field umpire’s original decision stands.”

You may need to read that again. This aspect of the DRS is in place to take account of that grey area, the unknown land between the ball hitting the pad for real and striking the stumps in the virtual world of the third umpire’s room.

While the players are mulling over whether or not to review a decision, the batsman can be seen as both out and not out. You would think the increasingly impressive technology would bring this existential crisis to a swift conclusion. In tennis, Hawk Eye has done wonders to show conclusively whether the ball is in or out. In soccer, the whole of the ball must be over the whole of the line. But cricket being cricket, we have to make things just that little bit more complicated.

Let’s go back to that first ball from Bresnan. It was hitting leg stump, but given not out. Logic dictates that the decision should be overturned. If Edwards had missed the ball, the technology says it would have clipped leg stump. Would it have been given not out because only one stump was disturbed? Of course not.

If the ICC had a policy of “clipping the stumps is not out”, we could deal with that. But the second ball was clipping the stumps too, and given out. If Edwards had reviewed it, he would still have had to slump back to the pavilion.

The DRS is one of the most significant advances of the modern era. It will surely undergo several changes over the next few years, but in order for it to really work the authorities need to trust it.

By sticking with this system which leaves half of the power in the hands of the on-field umpire, the ICC is refusing to commit and therefore questioning the reliability of its own brainchild. The ball is either be hitting the stumps – out – or missing them – not out. Until this issue is resolved, the cat in the box remains both alive and dead.

Criticism – dishing it out and getting it back

by Mike Wright

NO ONE likes criticism. Even the most committed self effacer secretly winces inside when they receive negative feedback. That’s why we generally precede any unflattering critique with apologetic preambles if delivering it in person. Unadulterated criticism, stripped of all politeness, is usually just a row.

The reluctance with which we receive criticism is matched only by the relish with which we hand it out. And few enjoy dishing it out as much as journalists. We usually, especially in print, have the luxury of dispensing criticism without being in the presence of the intended recipient. Hence it tends to be more blunt and excoriating.

Some in the profession are employed solely to analyse, criticise and, on the odd occasion, praise cultural, culinary and consumer works. The fact practitioners of this strain of the profession are called critics and not praisers or lauders tells its own tale. Yet despite being part of a trade that has professionalised criticism, some journalists appear exceedingly ill-equipped to deal with it when it comes their way.

Times food critic Giles Coren responding to an unflattering appraisal of his column from a female reader over Twitter with “go fuck yourself you barren old hag” presents itself as an acutely apt case study. Coren’s outburst (not his first obscene online paroxysm) has been met with a mixture of condemnation, hand wringing and, in some quarters, encouragement.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of his invective, the biggest shock for me was that someone so widely published possessed such a low critical tolerance. Anyone who publishes on a regular basis has to develop a thick skin. Whenever I make a mistake that slips past the subs, or sometimes even when I haven’t, I know there will be a horde of commenters on the site queuing up to haughtily point it out.

This is usually followed by a slew of comments implying that I am congenitally inept and holding up the error as concrete evidence of a drastic decline in educational standards precipitated by the abolition of (the appositely named) grammar schools. It is deflating, but I personally find it best to use these experiences as a spur to ensure I don’t leave myself open to those scenarios again.

In the past I have had to dissuade colleagues from engaging with their online detractors. It is always best not to engage. Even, as was the case with one reporter, if they are being panned for leaving something out of a story that the critic would have seen included if they had bothered to read past the third par before firing off their gleeful missive.

It is better just to suck it up and move on. As, given the amount of criticism we ladle out in the course of our jobs, it would be grotesquely hypocritical not to tolerate getting a little back.

This piece first appeared at Ovidus.

The paradox of unemployed exam success

by Hugh Morris

LAST Wednesday morning, while in bed, with no firm plan for the day and no job to go to, I became a fully-qualified journalist. I became a senior reporter. I passed the final set of journalistic exams to bring my credentials fully up to date, and now the media world is my metaphorical oyster. Only, I’m not actually a senior reporter because I’m unemployed after my newspaper , Cambridge First, shut down a fortnight ago. It’s a sad paradox. But this, I’ve learned, is life in the media.

I was ecstatic and mildly shocked when I passed my NCE because, frankly, the exams were difficult. The pass rate was only 45 per cent for March’s exams and on reading the examiner’s report you can understand why. All it takes is one legal blip, one missed piece of vital information, one typo, and unlike A-levels where your grade might slip from an A to a B, the way these exams are marked makes it more likely your pass will become a fail. That’s it. Over. Gone.

While passing is obviously better than failing, if you look at the job market it might seem this additional qualification makes me overqualified and potentially “too expensive” for many of the vacancies going. Off to the top of my head, I can think of two jobs I was seriously considering where my new senior reporter title makes me unsuitable. I admit I am being a wee bit selective about the jobs I am looking for at the moment, but it’s early days and I feel there are some roles I am willing to wait for before things get too desperate.

So here I am, a senior reporter looking for a job. Let’s go on Gorkana and see what they can offer me. Oh, so Gorkana basically tells me I need to be an intern or a business journalist with plenty of experience. Well, I am neither. I represent somewhat of an enigma to potential employers because I am a senior reporter with no experience of being a senior reporter. I feel I am above going back to being an intern (though at 24 it does not seem completely unreasonable) but I obviously do not have the experience to enter into media roles above reporting.

Likewise, freelancing. I believe I could write articles and features for newspapers, websites and magazines, but I am young and do not have a strong enough CV as it stands to get my name about. This may well be something I will have to change myself and is something constantly at the back of my mind.

I have no experience freelancing so my thoughts on it are fairly speculative: in my mind, one has 10 ideas, five of them could be worth writing, one or two get selected and it is probably not the ones the creator thought were the best. Can anyone back that up?

Anyway, this piece is just an outlet for the utter mess of frustration, ambition and fear my mind is at the moment. I am most pleased I passed my seniors, but it does feel like a slightly hollow victory.

This piece first appeared at Wax Lyrical

Folk’s reluctant poster boy goes back to basics

by Sam Blackledge

FOR years musicians have claimed in pre-album release interviews to be ‘going back to their roots’, re-discovering their heritage and casting off the shackles of show-business, insisting it’s ‘all about the music.’ More often than not this is simply PR fluff, an angle cooked up to make the impending release sound more worthy and the artist more in touch with their hardcore fans.

But few can have gone to such extremes as Seth Lakeman, who literally dug deep into his West Country background by descending into the mines and workshops of a disused copper port to record his new record. Tales From The Barrel House is a raw, gritty album telling stories of labourers and artisans from days gone by, and Lakeman speaks with passion and enthusiasm as he tells FFS about how the idea developed.

“It evolved pretty naturally. I wrote the songs over 12 months and I picked a concise concept of professions – people who worked with their hands, craftsmen like blacksmiths, stonemasons – and then I was looking for a location to try and draw people in to the stories I was trying to tell. I did try to record in a posh studio, but it didn’t quite work out. It didn’t have the raw edge that I think it needed.”

Lakeman took the unorthodox approach of playing every instrument on the album himself, from his trademark fiddle and tenor guitar to a jangling array of percussion made up of bits of old iron, discarded tools and an old Salvation Army drum rescued from a junkshop.

“That was part of the creative period. I had arrangements, but I think it was good that I wasn’t a conventional percussionist or producer, because I wasn’t being too fussy about anything. It was more about just collecting everything. It’s a lot to do with being confident and comfortable in what you’re doing and what you’re writing about.

“I have always been a fan of concept records, I loved listening to the Kate Bush records and things like that which have a beginning, middle and end. There is a story behind them. It was just trying to claw back some relevance and control to what I was doing.”

Photo © Sam Blackledge

Ah, yes – control. Sitting backstage at the Leamington Assembly ahead of the final gig of his latest UK tour, Lakeman’s eyes light up as we move on to the elephant in the room – his split from Virgin/Atlantic records, and the decision to release Tales From The Barrel House independently. He says the tipping point came when Virgin merged with Atlantic, creating what Lakeman described as “a completely different team – a pop team.”

“I had no control, they picked the songs, it was all very bizarre and you get confused about what’s going on. So thankfully there were a few meetings with a few people, they said ‘It’s probably a good idea if you leave’ and I said ‘It’s definitely a good idea if I leave.’”

It was a bold decision from an artist who, for the last few years, has been the reluctant poster boy of modern folk and seemingly on the brink of breaking through to the mainstream. But Lakeman has no regrets.

“As much as record labels have got cash and they’ve got teams that work with musicians, I think when you start playing around with genres…” he trails off, before finding his way back with a definitive statement. “I definitely am a folk artist. I enjoy telling stories and I don’t want to change what I like doing. That was when it became uncomfortable for me, so doing the independent thing is much more enjoyable.”

The 34-year-old grows more animated, keen to stress the importance of the new record as a body of work, much like a novel, to be digested and considered over time.

“I guess it’s quite retro in that sense, it’s more about a piece of work and it’s not about individual singles or tracks, which major labels can press on you. The internet is great, it gives you that control and access, but believability is tough and people are so obsessed with immediacy. Patience is not cool for young people now, they need to be hit quickly. Gimmicks are almost as big as they ever were within music or entertainment. It’s all about the first minute of something.”

Whether it’s retro, traditional or “back to basics”, the new direction certainly seems to suit Lakeman, who appears to have re-discovered the simple joy of musicianship.

This piece first appeared at For Folk’s Sake.

Rejecting social media would be a big mistake

by Mike Wright

THESE are hardly halcyon days for journalism. There has been a dense gloom filling newsrooms for as long as I have worked as a professional reporter. The atmosphere veers from a nihilistic acceptance to unrestrained despair. I have seen more colleagues and friends than I care to recall handed their P45s and had my value as a human resource quantified on an employment matrix.

All this has been accompanied by the mood music of euphemistic management-speak. The company is “operating in challenging conditions”, “cost-bases” need “streamlining” or “centralising” into “hubs”. The tragedy can lapse into farce. I remember at an earlier stage of my career being on a team of reporters congratulated as our paper saw its circulation drop least in the group that year. Needless to say no champagne accompanied this announcement.

Over time I think most hacks have become inured to this unrelenting state of decline and it’s now as much a part of newsrooms as the Bic Biro and notepad. On both sides of the Atlantic the printed press is the industry shrinking more violently than any other. I am thoroughly inured by now (possibly even jaded). But I am regularly disheartened by how of some elements of the fourth estate fail to recognise the context of print’s continued decay.

More so when I hear of the “the web” talked of as though it is some malicious conspiracy to send us all skidding down to the Job Centre. There is no great enigma. We are living through an information revolution, equal in proportions to those which have sparked geopolitical evolution and upheaval before.

There have been three major previous information revolutions. The invention of writing around 3,500 BC which meant we could store information accurately and indefinitely beyond what our limited memories could hold. Then from around 1,000 BC there was the development of the phonetic alphabet, which meant all human wisdom could be encapsulated in around 30 symbols. For these two we have little or no record of the direct effect they had on the people who lived through them. We do for the third.

In the 15th Century the invention of the Gutenberg press in Germany gave birth to the mass printed word. It upended centuries-old establishments and lit the touchpaper for the Reformation. (As an aside, it was a Bruges-based English businessman William Caxton who brought Gutenberg’s press to Britain in the 1470s. He set up his printing business in the precinct of Westminster Abbey, which is why print unions are called ‘chapels’ and their leaders ‘father’ or ‘mother’ of the chapel.)

We are living through the fourth information revolution: the digital word. so far this revolution is still in its infancy yet has already helped overturn a series of entrenched and brutal dictatorships in the Middle East. It is also causing economic tectonic plates to shift. One of the myriad consequences is that fewer people pick up newspapers. But it is the format, not the content they are rejecting.

I know that I now consume most of my news by plucking stories from social media feeds with scant regard of the publication behind them. It is a much more efficient and contemporary news environment. Also when I see papers on display they are generally a digest of stories I have already read and had my fill of in the previous 24 hours. Not to perceive this and evolve our business practices to match these new market realities seems about as wise as rejecting the phonetic alphabet.

For a profession that prides itself on being astute, we can be remarkably blinkered and naive about our current predicament.

Back in the game: returning to the strange world of village cricket

by Sam Blackledge

I AM a journalist. I spend my days making phone calls, chasing stories, following tip-offs and generally making a nuisance of myself. It is an exhausting, exhilarating and all-consuming profession, leaving very little time for anything else. But last year I decided I needed a hobby, something to take my mind off the daily grind. So I joined my local cricket club.

As a teenager I was a decent player. From the age of about 12 I would go up against senior teams, men three times my age and twice my size, and every now and then my looping legspin would get the better of them. It certainly bamboozled my peers when I played for my school team.

I had tentative trials for Warwickshire but drifted away from the game as other interests took over – college, university, relationships and then the world of work. When the 2011 season started, more than ten years had passed since I last hung up my whites.

The first net sessions were eye-opening. Though my passion for cricket had remained strong since I stopped playing, I had forgotten about the senses of the game. The hot, sweaty smells of kit bags, the echoing acoustics of the indoor school, the weight of the bat, the hardness of the ball. Everything was alien, like relearning a language I had been listening to all along.

As a naturally shy person, banter has never been my strong point, and sports clubs are not the most welcoming environments for people like me. I decided fairly early on to keep my head down, concentrate on my cricket, and made half-hearted attempts at small talk whenever the need arose.

Quickly realising I no longer had the control to bowl leggies, I switched to offspin, although there was precious little spin as I struggled with my action when practice moved outdoors. As a schoolboy it took all my effort and concentration just to get the ball down the other end. But now taller, older and uglier, I was dishing up all sorts of rubbish, unable to find my radar or settle into a rhythm.

My first match came along soon enough, a friendly fixture for the Sunday team, and I was a bag of nerves as we fielded first. No matter how much you practise, nothing can prepare you for the moment when you are standing at mid-off and a ball is cracked in your direction. Time slows down and speeds up all at once. It’s fight or flight. Every bit of my instinct was screaming: “Hard ball. Very fast. Get out of the way.”

To simply move, of course, would spell disaster. Quite apart from conceding a boundary, I would have been marked out as a problem fielder, a weak link to be hidden away. All these thoughts were racing through my head when the ball slammed into my ankle, looped behind me and the batsmen scampered a single.

Over the next few months things got slightly easier. My first wicket came with a neat caught-behind in my second game, and I celebrated a bit too enthusiastically. I soon realised that no one really celebrates on Sundays. Towards the end of the season we arrived for a Sunday home game to find one of the opposition players warming up by running around the boundary. Our laidback captain looked on, incredulous. “What’s he doing?” he spluttered. “It’s Sunday.”

My bowling was improving in fits and starts, but batting was a different matter. I scored seven runs, with a top score of 5, at an average of 2.33. Chris Martin, eat your heart out.

Many cricketers claim that they can remember every shot, every run and every moment of their greatest innings. I never quite believed it, thinking the statistical detail of their autobiographies came not from memory but from carefully studying the pages of Wisden. Now I am beginning to catch on.

That glorious 5 – a career best – came in my only match for the Saturday second team. It was a warm afternoon, FA Cup final day, and we endured a crushing away defeat – conceding 278 and managing just 106 in reply. I came in at No. 10, with the game in its final throes, the opposition’s two spinners bowling in tandem, and survived 27 balls before being caught at silly point.

It was great fun and summed up everything I love about the game. Nothing seemed to matter – the hopeless match situation, the fact I hardly knew which end of the bat to hold, the agonising cramp in my legs from 50 overs in the field – and yet it mattered more than anything else. I was in my own little world, battling my demons, playing a sport I cherish and that I had thought I would never play again.

After a couple more wickets, a shocking dropped catch and a fair bit of rain, the season ended. My statistics tell the story of an expensive part-time bowler and tail-end batsman with a tendency to get out clean-bowled. But my memories are of so much more than that.

I recently returned to winter nets ahead of the coming season. It is still awkward, terrifying and challenging. My bowling is slightly better, my batting seems to be getting worse. I still have trouble working up the courage to talk to anyone. But it’s great fun. I’m doing it for my 12-year-old self. I think he would be proud.

This piece first appeared at Cricinfo.

Why same-sex marriage should be legalised

by Maggie Henebury

IN ALL honesty, I find it extremely disturbing that I feel compelled to put this in writing. That in the 21st century, I have been so angered by the intolerance and hatred expressed by so many people, I feel the need to explain why one group of human beings deserve human rights.

However, the shamelessly prejudiced attitudes held by many people with regard to the question of legalising same-sex marriage have, regrettably, made this absolutely necessary. First, I present a brief but concise list of how you will be affected by the legalisation of same-sex marriage:

1. If you do not identify as heterosexual, you will be granted the right to marry a person of any gender.
2. If you do identify as heterosexual, your right to marry someone whose gender differs from yours remains unaffected.

Secondly, I would like to point out a word which accurately defines those among us who disagree with same-sex marriage, but do not consider themselves to be homophobic: that word is homophobic. End of story. If you do not believe that a non-heterosexual person is entitled to the same human rights as a heterosexual person, newsflash: you are homophobic. You are prejudiced. You are intolerant.

Yes, so technically the definition of ‘marriage’ currently stands as “the formal union of a man and woman, recognised by law.” But it is worth pointing out that less than half a century ago, anti-miscegenation laws were still in place in some parts of the United States.

While no such laws were enforced here in the UK, the idea of it being illegal for two people of a different racial background to marry is (I hope) utterly alien to us today, but if it was acceptable to redefine marriage and work to abolish prejudice back then, why not now? The fact is that marriage is a man-made construct, and as mankind continues to evolve and adapt, so the definition of marriage should evolve and adapt with us.

As it stands, any two adults wishing to be legally married, for any reason, have the right to do so provided one is a man and one is a woman. This means that two people who do not love each other, but have decided to marry for business or tax purposes, have more right to legal matrimony than two women who love each other, live together, and raise children together.

It means that while two men who want to spend the rest of their lives together and have this partnership legally recognised will be rejected a marriage certificate, two people who have never even met will be granted one because one is a man and the other is a woman, and one simply wants to permanently move to this country.

Not to suggest that marrying for any other reason besides love is a bad thing, but it just seems completely absurd that those opposed to same-sex marriage often sanctimoniously claim it somehow corrupts the purity or the holiness of the whole thing when a third of all marriages end in divorce anyway, and many people choose to marry simply in order to get a few tax breaks.

Personally, I think marriage is a bit of an overblown affair anyway and that civil partnerships are a great idea. But that’s one individual’s opinion, and what gives anyone else the right to say who can and can’t get married, simply because it makes them a bit uncomfortable?

What heterosexual people need to understand is that the legalisation of same-sex marriage is not going to result in your stepping out of your house in the morning to find that homosexual couples are running wild in wedding dresses and top hats, chucking wedding cake at you in disgust at your heterosexual behaviour. No one is going to tell you that you and your partner can’t adopt children because same-sex couples have adopted them all and the orphanages are empty. You’re not going to apply for a marriage certificate only to be told that straight marriage is a bit unfashionable these days.

No, all that might happen is you get a wedding invitation from your next door neighbour who can finally marry the man he’s been with for the last ten years. You might be asked to read a passage from the Bible at your sister’s wedding to her female partner. You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Although you do risk hurting the people around you once they discover you don’t think they deserve the same rights as you. As long as the institution of marriage exists, it should be accessible by all who want it. Human beings deserve human rights – it’s really that simple.

How Facebook Subscribe can change online relationships

by Rhys Griffiths

Facebook’s introduction of Subscribe in September last year and its resulting transformation into an asymmetrical social network has presented a new opportunity for connection – but is it an opportunity that is passing many journalists by?

Social media use has exploded among journalists in recent years. What only a few years ago was considered by many in the industry at best a fad, and at worst a time-wasting distraction, has now become a valued part of the reporter’s toolkit.

And the evidence around me – in newsrooms, in conversations with colleagues and online – suggests that Twitter has become the tool of choice for most. Where once Twitter was an unknown quantity, now it is almost surprising to discover a journalist isn’t using the micro-blogging service. But is this really the best approach for us to be taking?

Is Twitter the best place for journalists to engage their audience, to attempt to build an online community around their reporting? Especially since Facebook, and even start-up of the hour Pinterest, drive more web traffic than Twitter.

After all isn’t one of the aims of all this social networking – the very activity old-school editors feared would be such a drain on our precious time – to direct our online audience towards the content we are creating, which largely exists away from the social sites?

I understand why Twitter has emerged as the journalists’ soapbox. We looked at the options out there and decided to go with the one that didn’t involve opening up our entire online existence to the prying eyes of the world. And having seen newsdesks trawl the profiles of those who fell under the public gaze, who can blame us.

In our professional lives we wanted to follow and be followed without making the connection of “friendship” that the previously symmetrical Facebook demanded of us. The only way around this was to create a fan page and ask people to “like” you. An awkward sell at a time when journalists as a profession, rightly or wrongly, are unlikely to win any popularity contests.

Now the advent of Subscribe has changed the basis of relationships on Facebook, and made the site more akin to Twitter and Google+ in the sense that being interested in the thoughts, feelings and actions of another user doesn’t demand reciprocation.

So why have journalists, particularly at local and regional level, been so slow to embrace professionally a site that accounts for one in every seven minutes spent online while throwing themselves wholeheartedly into Twitter? The answer appears to be that many are simply unaware of the changes Facebook has made to its site and to the kinds of connection it allows users to make.

Recently I tweeted asking my followers for examples of local and regional journalists who are using Facebook Subscribe. I didn’t receive a single positive response. But I did get replies from a number of reporters who were unaware that the rules of Facebook engagement had changed.

That’s not to say there aren’t individuals out there exploring the new potential for engagement and collaboration made possible by Facebook Subscribe. Benjamin Cohen is one reporter who has seen a highly-engaged community grow up around his use of the feature.

The Channel 4 News technology editor has seen his audience grow to the point where he has, at just over 40,000, around four times as many Facebook subscribers as Twitter followers. In a blog post published last month he explained why he values this new community he has built on Facebook.

“Before I allowed users to subscribe to me, viewers could become a ‘fan’ of me,” he wrote. “But only around 1,500 did and it was a pain to manage two identities. I also felt like a bit of a vain idiot asking people to ‘become my fan’, I’m hardly Kylie Minogue. But, with Facebook’s subscribe feature, you have to use your real world Facebook identity.

“I think Facebook Subscribe allows the audience to gain a new and frankly amazing level of interaction with the people making the news.

“It breaks down barriers and it allows collaboration – my most recent special report, on Pinterest, was as a result of me asking my Facebook subscribers what they’d like me to report on next.”

I think it’s time more journalists opened up their public posts to subscribers on Facebook. At present the interactions I have on Twitter are split 50/50 between those with people within the media industry and those outside.

Anecdotal evidence suggests many of my friends who don’t work in the media have yet to embrace Twitter, let alone relative newcomers like Google+ or Pinterest, so I want to ensure that my stories about the community we live in are accessible to them on the social network they use the most.

Currently around one in five interactions on my Facebook profile – comments, like and shares – are from “non-friends”. I would love to see a greater balance emerge in the coming months.

Facebook has around 845 million monthly active users. Why would anyone producing content they want the world to see not want a piece of that?

This piece first appeared at rhysdgriffiths.wordpress.com

Reacting to the riots in the UK and Vancouver

by Rebecca Connop Price

RIOTS were a huge talking point last summer. Although we saw inspirational images of people rising up against tyranny in Africa and the Middle East, we also saw – in Vancouver and England – people perpetrating mindless acts of vandalism and violence for no discernible reason. In the aftermath of those horrible riots, I think it’s interesting to compare Vancouver’s response with that of the UK.

Consider this: The first rioters from Vancouver’s Stanley Cup disorder are only beginning to hear what they will face as punishment. Ryan Dickinson, from Surrey, B.C., was the first to be sentenced, eight months after the riots. He was given a 16-month jail sentence for among other things, throwing a newspaper box at a car. But some people are speculating that many of the other rioters will get off lightly.

From what has been written about prosecutions in Canada and the UK, it does appear that treatment of rioters and alleged rioters has been very different. In the UK, many of the perpetrators were dealt with in magistrates’ courts only hours or days after the violence and disorder of August last year. The wounds after the riots were still very raw.

“It was only meant to be a joke – a wind up.” The words of Jamie Counsel, a 25-year-old from Roath, Cardiff, who was locked up for four years for inciting riots in Cardiff and Swansea – even though the riots never happened. He is interviewed in a Sunday Times Magazine piece which is, sadly, behind a paywall.

Award-winning journalist David James Smith visited Jamie at HMP Parc in Bridgend. Jamie’s crime was to set up a Facebook group called “Bring the riots to Cardiff” which was later changed to “Bring the riots to Swansea”. He included a date, time and location in the group – but crucially, he never turned up, and there were never any riots. Jamie’s sentencing in November was, according to the judge, meant to be a warning to others that using social media to incite riots would not be tolerated.

Smith also interviewed 18-year-old Ricky Gemmell, from Levenshulme, Manchester, who was sentenced to 16 weeks in custody for using “threatening and abusive words or behaviour” towards a police officer. According to Ricky, he was trying to leave the area when he was blocked by police officers. He said one officer called him a cunt and pushed him. After getting angry and calling the officer a “dickhead”, Ricky says he was arrested and thrown into the back of a police van.

Ricky believes he was the first person to be arrested in Manchester, at 7.45pm, and the first person to be sentenced the following morning. One of the best quotes from the interview was Ricky saying: “I was put on a wing with a rapist and a couple of murderers. I thought, ‘that’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” (It should be noted, however, that the Manchester Evening News reported the prosecution in the case said Ricky had been “confrontational” and had told officers “I’d smash you if you took your uniform off”).

Looking at these cases in particular, it does seem that some people were treated, as Ricky says, rather “harshly”. I will be watching the court cases in Vancouver with interest to see if there are any cases similar to the English ones, or whether the passage of time will lead to more considered punishments, or indeed, if some people will “get off lightly” as Province columnist Michael Smyth fears.

The England riots, were, by all accounts, much bigger, as these Guardian facts point out. In total, nearly 3,000 were arrested. In Vancouver, 101 were arrested on the night of June 15-16, with more arrested later. The latest reports say there have been 125 arrests. However, police continue to look at photographic evidence, and more arrests could be on the way.

Still, looking at those stats, it’s surprising that all the English cases were dealt with much more quickly.

This piece first appeared at rebeccaconnopprice.com

St Vincent @ Shepherds Bush Empire

by Maggie Henebury

AFTER three albums of expertly crafted solo work released to commercial and critical acclaim, not to mention an impressive resumé as a member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens’ touring band, the other-worldly St Vincent (real name Annie Clark) should need no introduction. To describe her as a gifted multi-instrumentalist and songwriter would be insufficient – Annie possesses an ethereal quality that in turn allows her to possess us, all the while appearing innocently unaware of the devastating power she holds.

A Persian rug is laid out neatly on the stage at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London, signalling Annie’s imminent appearance. From my seat way up on the level two balcony I have a clear view, but long for closer proximity once she takes the stage and seductively sings: “I spent the summer on my back,” the opening line of Surgeon, from her most recent album Strange Mercy (2011). It’s a real pleasure watching her perform, not least because of her undeniably lovely physical form (I defy you to look into her eyes and not go weak at the knees), but also for her incredible musical skill.

As she runs through almost the whole of Strange Mercy (Hysterical Strength being the only exclusion) and a generous handful of songs from Actor, her hands run up and down the fretboard producing sounds you might have otherwise thought were crafted with computer software, controlling the pedalboard at her feet with effortless taps, supported along the way by her engaging and powerful backing band. She makes it look so easy.

Before giving us a dazzling cover of The Pop Group’s She Is Beyond Good And Evil, she describes her meeting with their frontman Mark Stewart, who presented her with a dish scrubber bearing the likeness of Sid Vicious. “It was called Sid Dishious,” she said. “And he said, ‘man…this is what’s become of punk.’” But it’s clear the spirit of punk very much resides in Annie as she leaps around wildly, shredding her guitar with animalistic ferocity.

When she returns for her encore, it’s clear that many of us in the audience are waiting excitedly for a track from Marry Me, St. Vincent’s first album released back in 2007. She doesn’t disappoint – after one more Actor tune (The Party), the stage goes black, and after a dark and stormy build-up, launches into a thunderous rendition of Your Lips Are Red to much cheering.

While she shreds the hell out of an interlude, she approaches the edge of the stage and lets herself fall into the crowd, prompting a great surging wave (even the balcony dwellers looked ready to leap in and get closer to her), and is swept along by a sea of adoring arms, her right arm still attacking the strings. As she is lifted back to the stage she tosses her guitar to the floor, and it honestly doesn’t reek of contrived, rock-star arrogance. It’s a genuine explosion of passion from a divine artist, who finally runs from the stage like a gleefully rebellious child amidst rapturous applause. It was bloody spectacular.

This piece first appeared at Heavy Gretel.