California Dreamin'

Every now and then I get a real yearning to go back to California.

Unusually, this doesn't happen when I'd expect it, i.e. when it's cold and windy and wet outside. Rather, it happens as soon as I catch the first glimpse of summer; when the air warms by that single essential degree marking the difference between spring and summer; when the smell of flowers hangs heavy in the air; when I feel the sun warming the stones under my feet and the bones under my skin; this is when I long to be back in California.

A cloudless sky and an endless horizon ahead of me as I drive home; the outline of the city against a backdrop of hazy mountains; sunshine glinting off a beat-up Ford pickup ahead of me on the motorway; these are the things that remind me of California.

It literally wrenches my heart. The longing to be in California grips me and leaves me breathless, aching, unsatisfied.

I have only ever been to California three times, but each single time was such an incredible experience that I have never forgotten it. The first time I visited was in 2000, and, bless me father for have sinned, it's been a year and a half since my last visit. Far, far too long.

In my three visits to California, I have driven the Pacific Coast Highway from just south of Portland, OR, to just north of Tijuana, Mexico. I have driven through incredible redwood forests and along roads clinging to the sides of mountains, as the surf pounded the rocks hundreds of feet below. I distinctly remember my first glimpse of the Pacific ocean in Oregon - grey and vicious and angry. I disctinctly remember the first time I swam in the Pacific in San Diego - clear and blue and warm. And very salty, as I discovered when I was dragged under by a massive wave.

I have cruised along beach boulevards, with the top down on my car, honking the horn at the glistening muscle men and gazing upwards at the clear blue sky through the almost-touching, impossibly tall palm trees. I have made the road trip from San Francisco to San Diego three times, and each time is more wonderful than the last. I have driven through Baja Mexico, from Tijuana to Ensenada and beyond. From poverty to paradise and back to poverty again.

There are some moments of my three trips that are etched indelibly in my memory. Driving through the desert for days on end, with nothing but Pink Floyd playing on the only station my broken radio could pick up. Since then, every time I hear Dark Side of the Moon I get a shiver down my spine.

I remember my big gay weekend in San Francisco, celebrating the successful open houses of our photographer and artist friends by getting pissed on Mojito's in a trendy bar on Castro Street and going to a Gay Glo show. Buff naked men in neon paint - nice!

I remember making plans to set up camp in a pink glittery tent at Burning Man the following summer... Unfortunately those plans were never realised.

I remember sitting in a beer garden near the Golden Gate Bridge, drinking pitchers of Bud with hairy bikers and gazing up at the stars. Watching Podge & Rodge on DVD in an apartment overlooking the bay.

Driving through wine country, with vineyard after vineyard rolling out all around us, windows rolled down, hand surfing in the warm breeze.

Hanging out in La Jolla, giggling at the seals and eating giant freshly-baked cookies from the local café. Drinking Hang Ten beer with the surfers who brewed it in their bar near the beach whilst eating BBQ shark and fish tacos and saying "Dude!" a lot. Walking in on a bizarre speed dating session in an Irish bar in the Gas Lamps, San Diego, where all the women looked like Cindy Crawford and all the men looked like George Costanza.

I remember Ozzfest in the desert. The dry, baking heat that you only get in the Californian desert. The weird, yet undefinable differences between American and European music festivals. Trying to avoid staring at the tattooed gang members down from LA for the day, as they walked around in their uniform of baggy blue jeans, white wifebeater vest and numerous bullet holes and scars. Doling out suncream to sunburnt teenagers because seemingly I'm the only person in America who brings suncream to a festival in the desert in California. Watching the dust bowl develop and envelope the mosh pit whilst Rob Zombie pounded the stage in front of us. Ten bucks for a beer... some things never change.

Drinking beers and watching the wannabes at the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Strip, the birthplace of my kind of music! Waking up in my hotel, opening the curtains and feeling my stomach flip with excitement and my hangover rapidly disappear as I see the Hollywood sign right in front of me. Getting lost whilst driving around southern LA, taking a wrong turn and ending up in a bad neighbourhood. Burning rubber as we sped out of there, laughing with relief and near hysteria, stopping only to pick up a case of cold beers as we raced toward the beach.

Sipping coffee on a patio café in the morning. Soaking up the sunshine at the beach in the afternoon as we spot the Irish students on their summer visa. Hot, sultry nights shooting pool at the local bar and sitting on the steps outside the apartment, sipping beers and watching the world go by.

California has everything I want. Mountains. Sea. Sunshine. The laid back attitude. The hopefulness that anyone can be someone if you just work hard enough.

I need to go back!

So, if anyone has two round-trip flights from Manchester to Los Angeles that they're not using, let me know...

In the meantime, I'm hoping this longing will wear off soon, because I can't get to California until next year at the earliest. It's due to rain tomorrow, so if that doesn't shift it my trip to the oil refinery north of Grimsby on Friday will surely do it!

I'll give you something to scream about

My office is in the middle of the countryside.

Ballygobackwards.

In the county of Middleoffrickin'nowhere.

Green fields full of cows and sheep surround my office. Daisies. Birds twittering in trees. That kind of stuff.

My office is an old converted schoolhouse. Sounds quaint, but it ain't.

Next door is the new school.

A primary school.

Full of primary kids.

It's break time.

For some reason, today the kids have decided that they're going to spend the entire break time running around screaming.

No, not screaming.

Screeching.

They've been screeching for almost fifteen minutes now.

It sounds like there's a mass slaughter going on next door.

It feels like there's a massive sledgehammer pulverising the insides of my brain.

I looked out the window to see if the teachers are running around, trying to get the kids to stop screeching.

They're not.

They're huddled in the corner, surreptitiously sharing a fag, trying not to let the kids see them.

I can't work under these conditions...

...

...

If the kids don't stop screaming, I'll give them something to scream about.

 

*Update*

 

The lambs have been silenced....

I've got a brand new combine harvester

And by "combine harvester" I mean, of course, computer.

Oh, how the geek in me rejoiced when I saw a brand spanking shiny new computer in my office this morning!

There it was, all sleek and black, sitting nonchalantly on my desk, smoking a cigarette and rolling dice with the desk lamp. It glanced up in my direction, giving me a "What the fuck do you want?" look, but I saw the quick little quiver of anticipation run down it's smooth outer casing. It was waiting, nay, begging for me to switch it on so it could impress me with its sexy moves and ultra-fast processor.

I sat down, inhaling the scent of new. I reached over, my finger hovering just above the power button, and paused. I wanted to remember this moment. The moment my life changed for the better.

"C'mon," my new computer chided me. "Press the damn button already!"

Unable to wait any longer, I rudely pushed the button in, and just like that, I had popped my new computer's cherry. And, just like my own cherry-popping, this computer gave me everything I had ever imagined, and more. Gorgeous new Windows Vista (borrowing very heavily from Mac OSX - I don't care what the developers say to the contrary) loaded up in seconds. It's full of little features but, rather than being really, really, really frickin annoying like some Microsoft features I can think of...

...these features are actually quite cool. There's the funky big clock in the corner, the sexy semi-opaque windows (yes, I know I just called a computer programme "sexy", but damnit, it is!) and this brilliant little button that slants all the windows and allows you to toggle between them!

Alt+Tab begone!

But enough about Windows. My new computer is faster than a speeding bullet. The programmes open almost before I've even clicked on the icon. This computer can do everything. It sounds better, it looks better, and it shuts down within seconds. It even made me a cup of coffee at 11:00!

It was all I could do not to salivate over the keyboard as the pre-historic company email programme, which has been known to take three whole minutes to open (and that's a long time when you're sitting there, watching it), loaded up in ten seconds.

I don't know what's inside this computer, but whatever it is it purrs like a panther.

As I drooled and stroked and personalised my new machine, I heard a wheezy groan from the corner of my office. Turning around, my past stared rudely into my face in the shape of my ex-computer. There it was, glaring at me with all manner of accusations in its eyes, like a jilted bride, still wearing the rags of her dirty old wedding gown, as she walks in to see you with your hand up the dress of the prettier, younger, skinnier bridesmaid.

"What?" I said.

My ex-computer just stared at me.

"I... I... It's not what you think! It's not you... it's just... that... I needed something... faster! I'm sorry!"

My voice rang hollow in my ears.

My ex-computer said nothing, but in that single moment of rejection, I saw the last gleam of life die in its eyes. The guilt threatened to tear me apart. We'd been together for over a year. We'd been through good times and bad, through difficult projects and through whimsical brainstorming sessions. It was with this machine that I first discovered MySpace... So many memories.

Then my new computer purred again.

And, just like that, the guilt vanished. The ex-computer was forgotten.

Fuck it, I almost threw the bloody thing through the window yesterday anyway.

Out with the old and in with the new! From now on, it's onwards and upwards! And twirling! Always twirling!

 I heart my new computer!

The ugly side of skinny

Last September, I posted a blog about the ban on super-skinny models at Madrid Fashion Week. Any models with a BMI of under 18 were not allowed to work for fear that they would promote a "wrong" or unhealthy body image to young girls.

Six months later, the size zero debate, as it's been labelled, is still in full swing. Albeit, with a twist. Recently, it seems that celebrities are falling over themselves in an effort to show how unhealthy the size zero obsession has become – from Victoria Beckham (queen of the super-skinnies) banning size zero models from her fashion show, to ex-pop star and ex-model Louise Redknapp recently filming a documentary called "The Truth About Size Zero".

Victoria Beckham

I watched Louise's documentary last week on TV and it aroused two surprising reactions from me. Firstly, it made me want to lose weight which, I gather, was not the intended reaction. And secondly, it made me want to throw my shoe at the TV for glamourising the whole process. More about both of these issues in a sec.

The background to the documentary is that Louise used to be pop star and then became a model, once voted "Sexiest Woman of the Decade" by FHM magazine. She is a US size 4 (UK size 8). In an effort to show how dangerous the size zero obsession is, she decided to make a documentary in which she would attempt to drop two dress sizes, from a US 4 to a US 0, in four weeks.

At the beginning of the documentary, she had the obligatory health check so the doctor could say that she was in perfect health and to urge her not to undertake this crash diet. But, because Louise really feels so strongly about this issue, she ignored the doctor's warnings and went for it.

Over the next four weeks, we watched Louise eating lots of salads, working out like a maniac, getting a bit grumpy and tired, and eventually achieving her goal and slinking into a size zero dress. Then she threw the dress in the bin and went out for a slap up meal with her mates.

Was that the truth about size zero? Bollocks.

Watching that programme made me want to lose weight. I'm going on holiday in two months' time, so thoughts of diet and exercise and bikinis are foremost in my mind. I found myself watching this programme and making notes of what Louise was eating to help her lose weight quickly. And that's not because I'm messed up in the head or have low self-esteem or a poor body image. It's because Louise made it look so easy. Ok, so she couldn't have a big plate of pasta for dinner with her husband and child. Instead, she had what looked like a really bloody tasty salad. And it made me think "Shit, I could eat salad for a month if it meant I dropped two dress sizes!" And I'm not the only one who felt the same way. Listening to the radio on my way into work the next day, the station was flooded with calls from girls saying the same thing – "if Louise showed she could drop from a 4 to a 0 in four weeks, then surely I could drop from a 10 to a 6 in the same amount of time?"

Rather than showing how dangerous this kind of crash dieting is, Louise merely demonstrated that it is ultimately achievable.

And that was the overwhelming message that I came away with – that if you starve yourself and exercise like a demon for a month, you can easily drop two dress sizes. Sure, you might not sleep well and you might argue with your nearest and dearest a bit because you're hungry, but it's only for a month! And then you'll be fine! And skinny!

There were other major problems with the documentary also. Louise had "before" and "after" photos taken to show the difference in her size (and there was a big difference, which was surprising considering she was a petite size 4 to begin with). During the "after" photoshoot the photographer commented that Louise was looking fantastic. Then he must have quickly remembered that this was a documentary about the dangers of starving yourself to become a size zero and said "But how do you feel?" to which she replied "Awful" as she beamed at the camera. No further remark was made about the photographer's comment.

During the documentary Louise also trained at Barry's Bootcamp and had personal sessions with big Barry himself – the man responsible for sculpting the skinny bodies of people such as Teri Hatcher and Katie Holmes. This bit shocked me because when Louise told him she wanted to become a size zero, he looked her up and down and said "Ok, let's do it." He didn't even bat an eyelid. He didn't once look at this beautiful slim, healthy girl and ask "But why do you want to be a size zero?" To him, it was just business. And at the end – during her last workout session with Barry when she looked like she was ready to drop dead from exhaustion, he congratulated her and told her she looked fantastic. What kind of fucked up message is that to send out to people?

But what really, really annoyed me about this programme is that at the end, Louise said that she spent two months carefully reintroducing normal food back into her diet (the doc told her that if she suddenly started eating normally again, it would really mess up her body) and that now she's "loving her curves" once again.

Now, in my opinion, the following women have curvy figures:

All are beautiful women, with perfectly proportioned, curvy figures.

This is what Louise Redknapp looks like:

I'm sorry, but I don't see any curves. She's got a gorgeous, slim figure. But she's not curvy.

Now, the problem I have with people calling a woman with a slim, size 4 four figure "curvy" is that it doesn't portray a very positive image for those of us who are more like the four ladies above. I'm a US size 10, and I have curves. But, if a size 4 is considered curvy, then what does that make me? Fat?

What about women who are bigger than me? What about someone who, for example, is a size 12 (i.e., Marilyn Monroe)? Would she be considered fat by today's standards? Sadly, within the fashion and film industry, the answer is probably "yes".

The problem with Louise's documentary, and the reason that it seems to have had absolutely the wrong effect on women who feel that they should lose weight is that Louise only made vague hints at the bad side of crash dieting to become size zero. She didn't even touch on the ugly side.

There was a very similar documentary shown at the beginning of February in which a journalist, Dawn Porter, who is a UK size 12, which is a US size 8, did the same thing – starved herself and exercised constantly - to try to drop to a size zero in eight weeks.

Dawn Porter in Hollywood

Dawn did everything that Louise did – medical checkup, ridiculously low-calorie diet, Barry's Bootcamp, etc. – but Dawn showed the really ugly side of crash dieting. This programme was made in a similar vein to Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me, which showed him puking out his car window after wolfing down two Big Macs. Similarily, whilst in LA Dawn heard that a lot of models and skinny girls were drinking some concoction made of water, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Dawn got some of this, knocked it back and proceeded to dry heave and retch as her stomach tried to reject the vile liquid.

Dawn also tried to get to the root of the problem, to find out why size zero is increasingly touted as the ideal size for women. She delivers doughnuts to Nicole Richie's house, and tries to deliver a piece of cake to Victoria Beckham's Madrid mansion. She wheels a designer dress-wearing skeleton into the offices of one of the top modelling agencies and tries to get an interview with Dawn Riva, head of the British Fashion Council to find out why the UK hasn't banned unhealthy models.

I think the most memorable part of Dawn's documentary was when she went for Christmas dinner at home, about halfway through her diet. This is her diary entry from that day:

"Woke up about 8am, the house stank of food. Aunty was preparing half a pig and toast for breakfast. I shoved past and got some melon out of the fruit bowl. I had to sort my attitude out - I didn't want to be so moody and horrible but I just couldn't help it.

We opened presents and I worked hard to ignore all the smoked salmon and champagne that was floating around. I hated every second of it.

At lunch time I had a small slice of turkey and some steamed veg. It was rubbish. When everyone else made their way through cheese, pudding, coffee, chocolate, I sat in front of the telly on my own feeling like life was pointless. I was so down, I just wanted Christmas to be over.

I have hated the last few weeks. Everyone is so bloody happy and I feel the worst of my life. From my view point every body is being hysterical and needs to calm down."

Watching Dawn eat a sliver of turkey and a measly portion of veg (which she didn't even finish) whilst every one else's plates were heaped with delicious food showed how utterly ridiculous this whole diet was.

Dawn and her skeleton

What's more interesting is that Dawn admitted that as she started losing weight, she quickly became obsessed with it. In fact, she was thrilled with the amount of weight that she was losing, with the fact that her stomach was flat, and she was excited about losing more weight. There were some days where she ate less than 250 calories in the day. Pretty soon, all she could think about was food.

At the end of the programme, Dawn didn't make it to a size zero. I think she slimmed down to a size 2. Again, I think this showed the dangers of the whole size zero culture, more so than Louise's documentary. This showed that, despite starving herself and exercising like crazy and being sick and irrational and depressed, etc. for eight weeks, she still didn't lose those last few pounds. It was like her body's way of saying "STOP! FOR GOD'S SAKE PLEASE STOP!" It definitely had a bigger impact on my mindset and made me determined to stick to a healthy eating plan (which I am doing) and exercising regularly (which I am doing) rather than obsessively, and that I don't actually need to lose weight, but only need to tone up to be confident in my bikini.

What's interesting is that during her diet, Dawn went on a date with a guy that she had dated a few times before. Previously, they'd always had a great time, but this time she couldn't relax, she talked about food obsessively and was on edge for the whole date. Afterwards, her date said that she'd been awful company, really aggressive and a completely different person from when they'd dated previously.

I think a lot of men don't understand why women seem to be on an eternal quest to be slim. They think "But men don't like skinny women? Why bother?" But that's not why we do it. During her diet, Dawn said that men didn't find her sexy, but women kept telling her she looked fantastic. And that's what kept her going.

As we discussed in my previous blog, women are bombarded with images of "beauty" from all angles – in advertisements, in magazines, on television, etc. And all these images of beauty come in the shape of slim, toned women. Celebrities get slammed for being too skinny, but god help them if they put on weight. Tyra Banks got slammed for putting on weight after she gave up modelling, despite the fact that she still looks gorgeous. And we've all heard about or seen that rant about how she may have put on weight but she's happy with her body and she loves her mama, etc. And I say "Kudos to you, Tyra!"

But…

And there's always a but…

But, Tyra spent about five minutes talking about how the newspapers claimed that she'd put on 40 pounds when she'd only actually put on about ten. So, despite the fact that she seemed to be giving the two fingers to the media and their dodgy photo angles, she was still sending out the "I didn't put on that much weight! I'm not that fat!" message.

Not only that, but I was watching the first episode of season 7 (I think) of America's Next Top Model the other day in which they were choosing the ten or thirteen or however many models for the remainder of the show. There was one girl, I can't remember her name, who was painfully thin. Her hipbones and ribs were practically poking through her skin. Even the judges grilled her (no pun intended) about whether or not she was anorexic. She said she was trying to bulk up but was finding it difficult. The judges said that she didn't look healthy, and that no agency would book her because she was too thin. However, she still made it through the next two rounds.

What message does that send out?

The whole Hollywood culture of size zero is still shrouded in mystery, with suddenly-skinny celebs swearing that they're "naturally lanky" and that's how they dropped three stone in three weeks. Still nobody's talking about the fact that half the people in Hollywood are munching on Clenbuterol, a medication made for horses with breathing problems. The pill kills your appetite and melts away fat whilst retaining muscle. Some people have reported weight loss of 10 to 15 pounds in two weeks. The side effects, however, are that it can bloody well kill you. It raises your blood pressure and heart rate, putting you at major risk of heart attack.

All in all, I don't see the size zero problem disappearing (oh, puntastic!) any time soon. On the one hand, we're being told that size zero automatically equals unhealthy, but there are plenty of healthy women out there who are naturally a size zero. That can't be doing their self esteem any favours. At the same time, the fact that designer dresses only go up to a UK size 10, which is a US size 6, sends out the message that anyone bigger than this doesn't deserve to wear nice clothes.

Personally, I've stopped buying magazines like Heat which shriek about how skinny Nicole Richie is, whilst at the same time doing a five page spread on the latest celeb to gain three pounds (complete with arrows pointing out the wobbly bits). Magazines like that do nothing to reinforce a positive body image, and in fact just end up confusing you. I've stopped watching those "DANGER! DANGER!!! CELEBS WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE!!!" programmes on E! I make sure to eat healthily and exercise regularly and it seems to be working for me. I'm just glad I don't live in LA.

Feel the fear and do it anyway?

I have always been interested in why people do the things they do. I don't mean why people sneeze when they look at the sun, or why they hate Jessica Simpson and yet continue to buy magazines with her mug on the front of it, thus ensuring her "celebrity" for another week at least. Rather, I'm interested in why people do the things they're not supposed to do.

I work as a human factors consultant, and most of my projects involve examining why people routinely ignore or violate procedures. Sometimes it's because the procedures are rubbish, or the system is badly designed. Sometimes it's due to the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" syndrome. And very occasionally it comes down to the fact that people are just plain mean, stupid or bad.

For my undergraduate degree I studied Sociology and English Lit. I absolutely loved Sociology. So much so, that I'm considering studying it again part-time purely out of interest. There were three classes that have always stuck in my mind: Sociology of Religion, Urban Sociology, and Sociology of Crime. I eventually wrote my dissertation on the demise of religion in Ireland, but my favourite class, without a doubt, was Sociology of Crime.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by crime. I'm not so interested in the gory details, as to why people commit crime - what drives them to do it? - and what society can and is doing to prevent it. Crime, or rather the prevention of it, runs in my family - my father was a detective (he's retired now) and one of my brothers is now a policeman with an Garda Síochána. My uncle, Dad's brother, is a policeman with the Met. I grew up hearing sanitised stories of "baddies". As I grew older, the stories became grittier. I remember when Dad qualified as a forensics detective and brought home his suitcase of goodies, including everything from liquid latex for getting impressions of footprints and whatnot, to swabs for collecting saliva, to that special tape they use for lifting fingerprints (it smells of pineapple!).

I also remember the day Dad brought home a slim, rectangular case and placed it on top of the dresser in the kitchen, out of reach of the kiddies. We badgered him for ages about what was in the case - "what's in the case Dad? Can we have a look Dad? Please Dad? Is it more fingerprint stuff? C'mon Dad? What's in the case? What's in the caaaaaaaaaaassssssse?"

Eventually, we wore him down, and he opened the case just to shut us up:

It worked.

That was also the day that it finally hit home how dangerous my Dad's job was.

But I digress.

In my Sociology of Crime class, we examined the different reasons why people commit crimes. We looked the preconceptions that people have about crime - that criminals come from predominantly poor backgrounds, broken homes, ethnic minorities, etc., and at how the rise in white-collar crime affected these preconceptions. We discussed how fearmongering affects our perception of crime - are the streets really as dangerous as we're led to believe? And we looked at how criminals are punished - does rehabilitation work or is it better to just lock them up and throw away the key?

Really interesting stuff.

Anyhoo, I can't remember if it was part of this class or another, but on the reading list for one of them was "Discipline and Punish" by the brilliant Michel Foucault - an incredible (and deliciously graphic) book, well worth a read if you can. It was in this book that I first read about the Panopticon.

The Panopticon is a prison designed by an English philosopher called Jeremy Bentham, which places a guard tower in the middle of a circular room of rows of prisoner cells. The basic principle behind it is that from the central tower, the guard can see all of the prisoners at any time. However, the prisoners can't see the guard at any time from their cells, and so they never know if or when they are being watched. As a result, prisoners become paranoid and they discipline themselves. Prisoners are also isolated from one another to maximise the psychological effect. Whilst the Panopticon design itself has never been used, it has influenced the design of a number of other prisons worldwide.

What fascinates me about this prison design is that it uses the concept of fear and paranoia to regulate the prisoners. This method of regulation is prevalent throughout all our lives. Think about it - how many times have you been driving late at night and you come to a cross roads controlled by a traffic light. The light facing you is red. You can clearly see that there's no other traffic around, yet you still sit there and wait for the light to turn green? Why?

For most people, the fear of getting caught is what stops us from breaking that red light. The idea of Sod's (a.k.a. Murphy's) Law is what keeps us on the straight and narrow - "knowing my luck, the one time I break a red light is the one time I'll get caught".

I always wait for the green light, because anytime I've tried to give the two fingers to Sod, I've gotten caught. For example, when I was studying for my PhD I spent a lot of time in Germany, particularly in Bielefeld. One night, having had dinner at a collegue's house, I was waiting for the tram home when I decided not to buy a ticket. I'd been on the tram so many times before and I'd never had my ticket checked, that I figured "Why would they check it now?"

Ten minutes later, two big burly ticket inspectors, carrying fecking machine guns, boarded the tram and started asking for tickets. I nearly puked. When they got to me, I feigned ignorance and did my best "me no speaka da german" tourist impression. They were having none of it. There's nothing like having two huge Arian men towering over you, shouting at you in harsh German and demanding your passport, to put the fear of God and all things lawful in you.

A €70 fine and a stern talking to later, I vowed never again to get on a tram or train or other method of transport without a ticket.

Just like in the Panopticon, fear and paranoia are routinely used in our everyday society to control the masses. Sometimes it's useful and to be encouraged, particularly when it works - for example, increased police presence on the streets at weekends to discourage drunken brawlers, and visible and frequent police checkpoints on the roads in the run up to Christmas to deter drink drivers. But sometimes it seems more insidious - for example, the fearmongering perpetuated by the media and beamed into our homes every night in the form of the evening news.

I'm not sure how useful this kind of fear is to society as a whole. It pretends to encourage vigilance, but I'm worried that all it does is perpetuate suspicion and paranoia. I'm sure you've heard about Jean Charles de Menezes who was shot dead at Stockwell underground station in London in July 2005. Apparantly police had been surveilling the block of flats in which de Menezes lived, and mistook him for a suicide bomber. Initial reports of the shooting claimed that de Menezes had been wearing a backpack and bulky clothing, possibily concealing a bomb, and had been acting suspiciously. Photographs of his dead body were released showing him wearing a tight fitting denim jacket - no backpack in sight. de Menezes was shot seven times in the head and once in the shoulder at close range.

It was about two weeks after the July 7th bombings in London which killed 52 people, and one day after police foiled another bomb attack in London. The police who shot him apparantly thought they were "protecting London from what could have been another terrorist attack". Were they right to take that chance? What if he had been a terrorist? Even if he had been, are seven bullets to the head and one to the shoulder an acceptable method of prevention?

Looking at this from a sociological perspective, how has this affected society? Has it put fear in the hearts of actual terrorists? I'm not sure. In my opinion, what this has done is increase the level of mistrust the public has towards the police, and fueled the hatred of those few extremist groups. Of course, had it been proved that de Menezes was a terrorist, the police involved would have been heralded as heroes. Society is such a fickle bastard.

On a vaguely related tangent, one interesting psychological study which demonstrated the effects of fear and paranoia amongst prisoners was the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted in 1971 at Stanford University. Twenty undergraduate students were hired to play the roles of guards and prisoners in a mock prison built in the basement of the psychology department.

The students were randomly assigned as guards or prisoners, and the experiment was supposed to run for two weeks. It had to be cut short after six days as "prisoners and guards rapidly adapted to their assigned roles, stepping beyond the boundaries of what had been predicted and leading to genuinely dangerous and psychologically damaging situations. One-third of guards were judged to have exhibited "genuine" sadistic tendencies, while many prisoners were emotionally traumatized and two had to be removed from the experiment early" (source). There is a video of the experiment, which has been broken into five sections. I'd recommend watching them - they're really frightening, but also incredibly interesting.

The experiments have been widely criticised as unethical, unscientific and unrealistic. Having only ever been in a prison cell once (when my Dad locked me in "for a joke"), I can't really comment as to realistic or otherwise the experiements were. I know somebody who works as a prison guard, and from what he's told me of prison life, the feelings of disorientation, denial, alienation, paranoia, definace, solidarity, etc. of the prisoners seems to have been fairly accurate.

What does this teach us about prison as a form of rehabilitation for criminals? There's a lollipop for anyone who can answer that.

In the meantime, I continue to live in fear of German ticket inspectors.