Interview with Blogger Michael Greenwell

By The Pakistani Spectator • Sep 1st, 2008 • Category: Interviews • One Response

Michael Greenwell blogs at http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com.and is a member of www.spinwatch.org.

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

I think I have a healthy sense of anger about some of the things going on in the world and a sense of absurdity too. I try to write from one of those positions or a combination of both, which is more difficult. Pointing out logical fallacies and making fun of them is what I enjoy most.

The object behind every blog is the attainment of a state of being. Do you agree with this statement?
There are a lot of blogs about celebrities and so on. I detest that kind of thing and I am not sure what kind of state of being they are trying to attain other than the reinforcement of some of the banalities that constitute our daily lives.

For myself, I am trying to tell people about some things I noticed.

I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

Well, death threats have to rank highly there. I posted a story from a newspaper about an animal on the verge of extinction and that so enraged someone that he saw fit to threaten to kill me three times (by email). I didn’t even write the story, I only posted it, so I am at a loss to understand precisely why he was so angry with me.

On the upside I like the intelligent comments people leave on the site and I generally just enjoy when people say they have enjoyed or understood what I was trying to express.

Fortunately, I have also been lucky to meet a few fellow bloggers so there has been a good social side to it off the internet too.

What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?
The same thing it has been for 100 years, and it is not a positive thing… How the new media technologies, one after the other, have been used to remove people from the conclusions that their physical surroundings give them and instead make them reach wildly different conclusions.

It first happened with radio. That was followed by TV - and it is obviously still happening with TV.

For the internet it remains to be seen.

Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?

No. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be if they were used in a different way.

Many studies have shown that most internet users only look at a few websites repeatedly instead of looking around to see what they might find. The sites people look at are also often directly related to what is on TV as well, which I think is a terrible missed opportunity when you consider the other ways that the internet can be used.

What do you think sets your site apart from others?

That is not for me to say.

If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success, what would it be?
I am not sure how much success I have had other than managing to see a bit of the world.

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?

The happiest moment of my life was seeing the sun come up over the Annapurna range of the Himalayas from the top of a mountain. We walked up the mountain at night with torches so we could see it.

There have been a few gloomy ones so I am not sure which one to mention.

Do you think [the use of Twitter and other social networking tools by politicians] is bandwagon jumping or what?

I never use facebook or myspace or anything. I don’t even know what twitter is.

If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for - what would your top 3 choices be?
Top of a mountain+2 whiskies+music – doesn’t matter where. There is actually a piano near the summit of Scotland (and Britain’s) highest mountain, Ben Nevis. Someone carried it up there and played a song. I am glad mp3 technology means we don’t have to go through that to listen to something up high now.

What is your favorite book and why?

Too many to mention and questions about favourites always depend on what mood you are in at the time.

I am a huge Orwell fan and went to the house he wrote 1984 in which is on an island on the west of Scotland called Jura. It was something akin to a pilgrimage for me. That said, it is usually the force of his ideas rather than the fineness of his prose that marks Orwell out.

I am also a massive fan of Huxley (particularly his book Island), Dostoevsky, James Kelman and Alasdair Gray.

What’s the first thing you notice about a person (whether you know them or not)?

The way they walk. I think it can tell you a lot about someone.

Is there anyone from your past that once told you you couldn’t write?
A school teacher when I was 8. She was quite vicious about it too. Even then I couldn’t have cared less what she thought because she was responsible for writing a dreadful and inane hymn that we were forced to sing every Friday morning, so I didn’t respect her opinion.

How can bloggers benefit from blogs financially?
No idea. If you have any please tell me.

Is it true that who has a successful blog has an awful lot of time on their hands?
No. I sacrifice quite a lot of time to do my blog that I could use for other things and there is quite a lot of housekeeping to do if you want the blog to be successful. A lot of bloggers are very dedicated and conscientious about what they do.

What are your thoughts on corporate blogs and what do you think the biggest advantages and disadvantages are?

I don’t look at them.

Corporations already have a huge influence on what we see and hear. I don’t think their intrusion into another new medium can be seen in a positive light, no matter what they are saying in their blogs.

What role can bloggers of the world play to make this world more friendly and less hostile?
Telling people things that the mainstream media won’t such as the US army using chemical weapons in falluja.

Who are your top five favourite bloggers?

This is always changing. I have a list of links on my site to the ones I like.

Is there one observation or column or post that has gotten the most powerful reaction from people?
A few have actually gotten some severe reactions but probably it was something on an old blog of mine.

I wrote just a small thing trying to knock Winston Churchill off the pedestal that many people seem to have him on. He made a few good speeches, I am not denying it. But at other times his actions were openly racist, sexist and imperialist. Those assertions come not through inference but from direct actions and words of his.

What is your perception about Pakistan and its people?

Glasgow has both a large Pakistani and Indian community. I never have a problem with anyone except genuinely gullible people. Gullible people come from all places and all walks of life and are more dangerous for the world than George Bush, Climate change or anything.

Have you ever become stunned by the uniqueness of any blogger?
The Curmudgeon. His use of language is sublime.

What is the most striking difference between a developed country and a developing country?

How uptight people are in developed countries.

What is the future of blogging?

I don’t know exactly. I hear more and more people say that they are banned from accessing blogs at their places of work.

The companies and governments doing this will obviously say that this is because the site is not work-related and they don’t want people randomly surfing on their time.

However, if you speak to people who have certain sites in their work blocked then you will see that websites about what Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie and so on have been doing never seem to be blocked. I find it difficult to understand what these sites have to do with increased efficiency. Apparently it is only websites about what politicians and companies have been doing that seem to slow people down at work. Strange that, isn’t it?

Stopping access to certain sites at work is a bad enough development in itself but if the major media companies that are paid for connecting people to the internet at home start to choose for you what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate content at home –the way they do with television now – then we have a serious situation. If that happens it may be that blogging will simply turn out to be a short-lived experiment in free speech, discarded for being disruptive.

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?

At first I was a real nuisance to my friends, I really wanted them to read it and hear what they thought about it. Then I realized I can just talk about those things I mention on the site with them when I see them. Now I have a set of regular readers I have stopped harassing my friends.

The other parts of this are time and pressure. The more popular it gets the more I feel obligated to write something. That can be a blessing and a nightmare but I made the bed and I am quite happy to lie in it.

What are your future plans?

Seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting and feeling more things, talking about them and getting better at it.

Any Message you want to give to the readers of The Pakistani Spectator?

Hello!