Media

There is a very silly American show called Deadliest Warrior.  It compares historical fighters by exploring what their weapons are capable of and  fighting technique.  It’s fun stuff.  Blowing stuff up, chopping stuff up, and testing weapons.  A recent episode explored a fictional Shaka Zulu vs William Wallace scenario.  It culminates with a computer model battle to decide the outcome.  It’s got a veneer of scienciness and a narrator who probably smokes to keep husky.

Problems: There seems to be little no reference to environment.  The first thing I thought when I saw the title of the show was “in what environment?”.   It’s important. Styles of combat are as much affected by geography and logistics as many human endeavours.

How long would William Wallace be able to wield a claymore in South African heat?  How long would someone in traditional Zulu dress cope with Scottish weather? Further to that how are a given warrior’s tactics adjusted to the environment they live in?  What did the warrior do the day before?  Could have marched miles because of inferior strategy.

Superior weapons are a huge part of it.  But to assume inferiority solely on the basis of inferior weapons seems a bit, well, retarded.  Most successful armies, and warriors, have great logistics.  But logistics is boring.  Then there’s strategy and tactics.  Less boring, but complicated.  There’s so many factors involved that would determine something seemingly simple like a one-on-one fight.

Deadliest Warrior is a late night conversation between drunk stereotypical beer advert blokes.  “In a highly unlikely, ideal environment for both sets of combatants, fighting fit, in a one-on-one fight, who would win between He-Man and Lion-O?” without the caveats or references to cartoons.  Essentially comparing deadly warriors (in their environment) in a fictional environment.  It’s like Japanese bug fights.

I still kind of like Deadliest Warrior but then I like a lot of nonsense.  I don’t begrudge the show.  Just people who view it as anything other than entertainment.

My back hurts, I’m not in an objective and happy place, but feel compelled to write. I was reading Charlie Skelton’s reports from the Bilderberg Conference, near Athens, Greece. I’ve watched and read Jon Ronson‘s reporting of the same subject, which was excellent, and set the bar high when it came to objective reporting of the subject. I read Skelton’s pieces with prejudice, and, to be frank, thought they were mildly amusing. The levity with which he covered the subject felt a bit insincere and affected. Until he got arrested.

I’ll declare here that I sort-of agree with the internationalist agenda. I don’t think Bilderberg are inherently evil or a threat to world democracy. I don’t think it’s at all straight-forward. There’s lots of competing centres of powers in the world. The world is as complicated as people, and because of that, conspiracies have a habit of not working, or being a kind of paraeidolia.

However many powerful and/or influential people attend Bilderberg Conferences. I can see why there needs to be privacy. Many of the people attending are, rightly, scrutinised by a partisan and intrusive press. There needs to be outlets where important things can be discussed without press and public scrutiny. Taking decisions behind closed doors is wrong and distinct from discussions behind closed doors. I don’t believe Bilderberg Conferences are about decisions.

Charlie Skelton sounds quite sheltered. He doesn’t strike me as particularly political person, or the kind of person that is particularly streetwise. He’s a stereotypical (I don’t mean this as an insult) middle class humorist reporter. Seems polite, fairly deferential to authority, not overtly or covertly political, isn’t an activist, seems temperate, and not much of a threat.  Maybe, just maybe, a threat to cups of tea, and biscuits, and weeds in his garden.

So, hearing and reading about him getting arrested (three times), put under overt surveillance, and generally harassed by authorities guarding the event, it strikes me as an incredibly twatty and, totally, utterly, pointless, thing. Maybe I’m wrong and The Guardian sent him to angrily micturate, all beered up, at passing limousines, and have him seagull passing dignitaries on the golf course. But I think that is very unlikely.

Instead, the Bilderberg Conference via the Greek police have given ammunition to every conspiracy theory on the internet. Well done Bilderberg. Well done.