In praise of paper, and in memory of Lionel Cuffie

Having listened with half an ear this morning to Richard Coles, JP Devlin, et al. discuss the superiority of paper books with Margaret Mountford (of Apprentice fame) on Saturday Live, perhaps I was extra alert today for some love token to mark my long histoire d'amour with the book.

Margaret Mountford, as you may have been able to guess, is also a fan of the book - and made an interesting observation about not being able to remember so much when she reads text on a screen; her brain is trained to remember that something is at the top of the left-hand page, etc. - and I think mine is too. It transpires that Margaret gave up the glamours of meting out judgement to Bright Young Tycoons to complete a PhD in Papyrology - she had been doing it part-time and wanted to complete it within the allotted time without having to request an extension (these rather mundane details fascinate me - I do wonder how many other successful corporate lawyers would display her genteel attitude to education).

Well, the books decided to remind me why I love them this evening, with the above epistle from an old copy of Santayana...

Just as I love reading "Acknowledgements" sections, I also find inscriptions and bookplates fascinating; I never erase or cross out the names of those who have previously owned my books - instead I add my own - and I hate being given a book with a blank front page (the legacy of a family who would scrawl and draw long dedicatory inscriptions on every book we gave) -- and to the man who once RIPPED OUT the front pages of all of the books I had left in his house, because my name was written on them: there is a particularly unpleasant corner of purgatory reserved especially for you.

One of my favourites is a copy of Isadora Duncan's autobiography which was once owned by Corin Redgrave, and I found out about a whole set of mid-century Cambridge feminists all because one of them had once owned my Edna St. Vincent Millay "Conversation at Midnight. Tonight, however, I was re-reading Santayana's "Genteel Tradition" and - procrastinating but also interested - decided to look up the "Lionel Cuffie" of Harvard who had previously owned my copy. Was he now a writer himself? - or an academic, or lawyer, or politician? - for a man who had been at Harvard forty years ago, the possibilities seemed endless.

The answer, unfortunately, was none of these: Lionel Cuffie died in 1985, from AIDS. He did, however, do remarkable things: in 1969 he founded the "Rutgers Student Homophile League" (only the second student organisation for gay men and women in the US): "I founded the league on impulse from my conscience, I thought it was my moral duty to bring other people to the same realizations that I had come to over the summer -- that we, as homosexuals, are an oppressed minority." 

 

RIP Leith FM

I have just heard about the re-branding of Leith FM and can't help but feel a bit sad - another one bites the sellout dust.

As its name suggested, Leith FM was set up as a radio station for Leith and the surrounding areas (I could still pick it up a few miles from Leith...) - and it had an authentic community-run feel, quite reminiscent of those Highland radio stations, like Lochbroom FM and Cuilin FM, that I love so much. It was properly local (and by this I don't necessarily mean "Scottish" - it was rightly reflective of Leith's multiculturalism) - it took itself and local issues seriously, as a local radio station should, but it was also lots of fun to listen to. It made an effort to involve the local community - with "open evenings" to bring in new people, and with Leith FM staff tutoring courses at the local school, and in this sense was also very accessible. 

Well, as of the 22nd March this year, Leith FM is no more, and if you tune in to 98.8 FM, you will pick up "Castle FM". The new name alone shows just how strong the commitment is to keeping the station's local empahasis, and recognising its roots: i.e. nil - where is the castle in Leith??!

There are so many questions I want to ask about this, and it is typical of the abysmal state of print media in Edinburgh that the Evening News has not taken this up.

The reason given for the re-branding is that Leith FM had "developed a 'bad reputation' in the local community" - well, if this is the case, it is the first I've heard of it. And how is basically re-figuring the station as a commercial competitor to Forth FM going to improve anything other than the station employees' pay cheques, let alone the station's reputation?

Apparently, Tom Farmer (of Kwikfit fame) is involved - as is his cash no doubt. Now, Tom Farmer makes a lot of his Leith childhood, which is all well and good, but he is as distant from the realities of life in Leith nowadays as it is possible to be, and is no part of its current community. Why, then, has he chosen to get involved with this community radio station?

It makes me deeply uncomfortable: he owns 90% of Hibs footballl club, he is a major donor to the SNP; in 2004 (when Leith FM was still a twinkle in Mary Moriarty's eye) he tried to set up a commmercial Edinburgh radio station called... Castle FM. 

This document on the Ofcom website makes for depressing reading. The list of those involved in the original Castle FM license bid reads like a roll call of Edinburgh finance, media and local government usual suspects: Angus Grossart, Andrew Neil, Eric Milligan, etc., etc, - and, of course, Tom Farmer. If the diversity of this group is anything to go by, then Leith FM (which was once truly local, and without a commercial agenda) has been handed over to same individuals who already have  the Edinburgh media scene entirely sewn up. Well done.

Tom Farmer has done many good things for Edinburgh, and for Scotland, but he clearly has  an idelogical and commmerical agenda alongside his philanthropic one - and where better to begin to play this out than in a small, cheap radio station (good value for money, less financial risk if it doesn't work out, and yet with the potential to wield a lot of influence - an Edinburgh Telemilano...)?

This story, and this picture, make me feel slightly queasy (cheerleaders?! - why?? where is the vibrancy, the diversity of Leith? - maybe they are there to disguise the fact that over 80% of the non-cheerleading participants in this photograph are male?):