The Dandy

I've never been much of a fan of The Dandy, a fact I have already discussed in brief detail when I pitted their cover-star Desperate Dan against the cover-star of its rival The Beano, Dennis the Menace. Since I dismissed Dan as an irrelevance, The Dandy has vanished from our shops, now only to be found online (www.dandy.com), having slumped to a weekly sale of just 8,000 copies.

Back in the 1950s however, The Dandy sold an incredible two million copies a week; that's an incredible 4% of the population purchasing the comic  (22% of 6-14 year olds). Magazines struggle to get close to those figures today, even with a larger population pool. TV Choice is the best-seller, shifting 1.3 million a month; What's on TV  is the only other magazine to top a million. Magazines and comics aimed at children sell far fewer with Moshi Monsters, the best-seller on the kids' market, clambering close to a quarter of a million. Back in the '50s, it's obvious to say that entertainment was a far narrower field, but that doesn't take away from the fact that The Dandy was absolutely huge, bigger than Bing Crosby in its day.

I kind of wish that comic books still held such a prominent position in our culture; in recent years, I have rediscovered a love for the comic, regularly reading graphic novels, but children's magazines are a different beast now, mostly linked to a TV series. Back in the day, it was the other way round: did you know that Bananaman moved from the pages of The Dandy (where he still remains) onto the screen? It's weird that I'm lamenting the loss of an age that I never lived through and the reality is that all I really want is for the things that I love to be a bit more universally loved, but then again, I'm not sure I want to like what everyone else likes - I'd feel a bit sheepish - so perhaps it's best as it is. Let me conclude by recommending five cracking graphic novels: American Born Chinese  by Gene Luen Yang; Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the the Geeks by the same person; Maus by Art Spiegelman; Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and American Elf by James Kochalka (www.americanelf.com). 

Sports Personality of the Year for People Whose Name Begin With D

I am a little perturbed that this evening's Sports Personality of the Year award is dominated by people whose names don't begin with the letter D. There is one contender whose first name begins with D: David Weir and not a look-in for anyone whose surname begins with the letter D. This is a clear case of alphabetical elitism and so here is my own Sports Personality of the Year nominations for British sports stars whose surnames begin with the letter D.

1. Charlotte Dujardin
Great Britain had never even received a medal for dressage before this summer (dressage, by the way, is that funny horse dancing thing that is difficult to get that excited over) - ignore my parenthetical comments because that is perhaps why Dujardin didn't make the list. She was the woman that earned Team GB their first ever dressage medal (and it was of the gold variety); as she completed her triumph, the commentator claimed she'd 'iced the cake in style' which is quite an achievement whilst riding a horse. She then went onto win a team gold as well. Two golds in a sport that GB have always sucked at is surely worth a nomination.

2. Jermaine Defoe
23 goals so far in 2012 for Tottenham Hotspurs and England striker surely warrant an inclusion. It's as if England's abject failure in the European Championships was overshadowed by the 84 medals Team GB racked up, but this wasn't Jermaine's fault. He was a barely used substitute (hmm, that's not a great selling point really).

3. Tom Daley
Daley's bronze surely deserved recognition from the shortlist selection committee and to be fair to SPotY, they have allowed the young diver to stroll onto the stage and talk through the triumphant moment of his third place finish, but unfortunately his Speedos were just too small for him to be considered a valid contender.

4. Kenny Dalglish
The legendary number 7 and manager of Liverpool had a 2012 to remember. He spent £100 million pound on substandard footballers; managed Liverpool to their worst ever league finish in 18 years; defended Luis Suarez when he refused to shake hands with a black man (Patrice Evra) he'd racially abused a few months earlier and then as a result of these calamities, got the sack.

5. Dion Dublin
Oh dear, this is the third footballer (or ex-footballer) that I've nominated, but I don't really care that much about any other sport. I'll watch Wimbledon and I enjoyed the Olympics, but when it comes down to it, I only really like football and I just saw Dion in the audience. He's done a fine job this season, occasionally featuring as a pundit on Match of the Day 2. In 2011, Dublin invented a percussion instrument called 'The Dube' which he performed in a gig with Ocean Colour Scene, but unfortunately this high moment in his career cannot be recognised because it happened last year. Kriss Akabusi is in the crowd as well and that excites me greatly, but unfortunately his name doesn't begin with D. Sorry Kriss.

6. Steven Davies
Cricket bloke Steven Davies got a recall to the England squad this year; that's not bad eh. He hits a ball with a bat and once ran from one wicket to another 192 times in one game which is pretty good. I've only played one proper cricket game and I only managed it once, so he is 192 times better than me at cricket. I can occasionally hit the ball quite hard if someone bowls me a real easy one, so this bloke must be some kind of cricket superman.

7. Steve 'The Game' Douglas
The current number 12 in the darts world, The Game (I like to call him The Dame, so that he's not disowning the D), lost in the second round of the World Championships which was a bit of a disappointment. If you define yourself by 'The Game', then it must be pretty depressing to lose at it. I like darts and am vaguely tempting to resurrect my darting days by joining a club, but I fear my lobbing lethargy of late may hold me back.

8. Paul Di Resta
He may only be Great Britain's third best Formula One driver, but I'm not sure how I'm going to finish this sentence and make him sound like he should actually be considered as a greater personality than Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, but his name is more exciting and he's Scottish you know.

Right, I've had enough of trawling around the internet searching for mildly worthy contenders; who said there had to be twelve? And I want to get this posted before the end of the show, otherwise the moment will be lost. So, this, I'm afraid, is my short(er than the official shortlist)list.

Driving Dogs

There are a number of different studies (or less than studious conjectures) on which animal is the cleverest. Chimpanzees are always high-flyers: the ability to fling poo at nosy visitors to zoos cannot be underestimated. Dolphins also always find themselves close to the top of the list; apparently a dolphin finished 15th in an aptitude test which involved 99 humans and one dolphin although I'm pretty certain this never happened and I only include it because it amuses me. 

Dogs meanwhile find themselves well off the pace, often popping up at some point or other on the list, but never commanding the top few spots, often embarrassingly losing out to pigeons. I've always been a bit dubious of the dog-intelligence claim because their loyalty is often cited as a reason, but their obedience feels a little robotic to me and also annoyingly needy. However, some dogs in New Zealand have swayed my opinion, causing me to consider their brain power to be beyond that of not only other animals, but many humans also. These pooches have been learning to drive. The point in the exercise is to prove their intelligence in a bid to encourage people to adopt them. It would be incredibly helpful to have a dog-chauffeur to take me from place to place. There would be no more debate and who is going to drink and who is going to drive. The only potential problem is if people feel intellectually inferior to these mutts; you know how it is - it's always a little intimidating to talk to an ultra-bright person and there would be little worse than feeling awkward around your own pet as you nod along to their conversation, pretending that you understand and hoping that you don't get caught out.

I'll stop waffling now and leave you with the link to the video: Driving Dogs

Demagoguery

Last night, blogging was a topic of conversation within the four walls of my living room and a blogfire was ignited in my heart. I like writing and it is all the more special when other people are reading the words I write which, even if not true, I can convince myself of in the blogging world, so here I sit, while the X-Factor final drearily drifts by in the background, resuming my blog. I've had a couple of false starts with ideas for my blog, but I have come back to where it all began by simply writing about words that begin with the letter D simply because my name (Dave) begins with D also. A couple of year ago I notched up 100 entries around this theme.

So, I start with the word demagoguery which is an interesting old word. It means, 'the art and practice of gaining power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions and prejudices of the people'. A lady called Trish Roberts-Miller describes it as a type of propaganda; I guess that when a person or group seeks to gain power, then they have two choices: appeal simply to reason, or make their appeal an emotionally charged affair that gets people's hearts thumping. Surely everyone uses emotional arguments to convince the audience of their point of view, but there is a problem if those emotional arguments lean on likely prejudices that people may already hold, in the process cementing those prejudices deep within the psyche of the people (unless they see through the demogoguery).

Let's imagine that badgers have a ingrained prejudice against foxes (they probably do) and imagine a demogogish owl and a non-demogogish owl are vying for power in the animal kingdom.

Here is what demagogue-owl might say to the assembled badger community:
"Foxes are filthy red vermin that have thieved edible rodents from the your jaws and my beak; we must crush them or risk a winter of famished bellies."

In contrast, here is what the non-demagogue owl might say:
"Here's the facts: we live in a wood with a whole host of different species; there's a shortage of food; there is constant tension between hungry animals. This tension solves nothing - we must work together to create a world where we can coexist peacefully or face a violent world".

Which kind of voice do we hear from the powerful voices in our world?

There are two (I'm sure there are more) potential problems that I feel that we face with demogoguery in Britain. The first is the crazy way in which the political parties engage with each other over issues. David and Ed never say things like, "That's a good idea, I hadn't thought of that" - argument and disagreement seems to be the only way they communicate. Of course, it is important to have debate and I don't suggest that they agree for the sake of agreement, but emotional egotistical argument clouds coherent debate.

Secondly, newspapers seek to exert political power through turning complicated issues such as asylum and immigration into nonsensical emotional arguments. When the Daily Mail has headlines like 'Number of Immigrants living in the UK long terms SOARS by 20% as a quarter of babies are born to foreign mothers', it is seeking an negative emotional reaction from its readers, particularly by capitalising the word 'SOARS' to make this percentage seem dangerous in some way rather than just a simple fact. The fact in itself is not particularly clear anyway, with the article later saying that immigration that year had fallen. Newspapers obviously need to discuss these issues, but it makes me very uncomfortable when I think that some people's negative feelings towards immigrants are cemented further by this kind of emotionalism that treats information as second rate. We're humans and emotions are part of our makeup, but we need to watch out for those that seek to rabble-rouse us into hating foxes.