★ Going Ape

Well, I uploaded to YouTube the video of myself, my girl­friend and her God-daughter ‘going ape’. The status of the video is described as ‘match­ing third party con­tent’. In other words, YouTube has detec­ted that I’ve used the Raiders theme, but the video is still avail­able. Apparently, it could be removed at any time by Sony — or else a little advert will appear in the lower third. Hopefully, the latter.

★ Copyright Violation and Facebook

This week, we’ve had a young vis­itor from Germany. We took her to the Go Ape! attrac­tion at Leeds Castle on Sunday. Being that kind of per­son, I filmed some of the swinging about, added a soundtrack using music I’d pur­chased form iTunes, and tried to upload the video to Facebook. The music in ques­tion is the Raiders March, com­posed by John Williams for Raiders of the Lost Ark. When the upload had fin­ished, I received this email from Facebook:

Hello,

We have removed your video entitled (no title) uploaded at 3:10pm November 6th, 2009. We did this because it appears to con­tain copy­righted mater­ial owned by a third party, such as a video clip or back­ground audio. If you believe this mater­ial was removed by mis­take, you may file a counter notice of alleged infringe­ment by fol­low­ing the link below.

Please note that if you re-upload this video without fil­ing a counter notice, or if you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, we may remove the con­tent. This could cause your access to the Facebook Video applic­a­tion, or your Facebook account itself, to be disabled.

To file a counter notice:
File a Counter Notification

For any other ques­tions, view our Help page.

The Facebook Team

I don’t neces­sar­ily dis­agree with the legal inter­pret­a­tion of copy­right law here. Facebook is a US-based com­mer­cial com­pany and, as far as I’m aware, if Facebook takes any interest in edit­or­ial con­trol of its con­tent (I recall it once cen­sored a group of breast-feeding moth­ers on grounds of decency) then it loses the des­ig­na­tion ‘safe har­bour’ and becomes a tar­get for law suits from those who think their copy­right has been infringed. Thus, it should police its con­tent proactively.

However, I added the Raider March to my video with a clear con­science. I had bought the music (not for the first time). I knew that view­ers of the video would not mis­take the music for some­thing I’d com­posed myself. I did not think that its use would in any way dimin­ish the earn­ings of the movie stu­dio that owns the Raiders brand. And I did not con­sider that upload­ing the video to Facebook con­sti­tuted a form of pub­lic­a­tion because the audi­ence com­prises a small audi­ence of friends, any one of whom I might lend a book, DVD or CD. (I was spe­cific about this by indic­at­ing ‘my friends only’.)

As I say, I don’t neces­sar­ily dis­agree with Facebook’s legal stance here. I signed up for their ser­vice and (ahem) read the licence agree­ment. But it’s another reminder that Facebook — while cre­at­ing the illu­sion of a social exper­i­ence — has a meas­ure of con­trol over the way I inter­act with my friends that doesn’t really cor­res­pond with the com­plete sov­er­eignty I exer­cise in ‘meat space’.

★ The Small World of the Mouse

I just received an email from Michael Fuchs — thriller writer and author of The Manuscript and Pandora’s Sisters — telling me that my com­ments mech­an­ism sucks. Here’s what he tried to post:

That’s really a very funny coin­cid­ence. I checked in just now due to acute bore­dom at work. And would you believe it? Our house mouse turned up just on Friday. I got a single-line e-mail mes­sage from Anna, the text of which was that we have a mouse; and the sub-text of which was that I was in trouble.

There have been a couple of sight­ings — he’s a dar­ing little bug­ger, com­ing out in day­light, and Anna even admires him grudgingly. She’s named him Marcus. I was sit­ting at my work­sta­tion yes­ter­day when I real­ised he was dead at my line of sight — on top of a framed pic­ture of Anna’s fam­ily, on top of Anna’s dresser.

I fed him some chocol­ate. I texted Anna: ‘Marcus is a cutie pie!’.

Anna was not thrilled by either of these actions on my part.

I too picked up a ‘live cap­ture’ mouse trap at Home Base. It recom­men­ded pea­nut but­ter as bait, which we didn’t have, so Anna tried jelly. (Seemed intu­it­ive enough.) However, when we got up this morn­ing, either Marcus out­smar­ted us (I’d briefly ima­gined him remov­ing the whole back cap where the food goes) — or he doesn’t like jelly.

I already know he likes chocol­ate; but I’ll cer­tainly bear Muesli in mind if he con­tin­ues to elude us.

I intend to release him in the church­yard round the corner. While I’m not sure he has just the right tem­per­ment for it, per­haps he will liven things up there — as a churchmouse.

Now, off to for­ward this to Anna, ostens­ibly to show her it’s not just us, but I already know she’ll merely take it as me defend­ing A) the non-lethal trap and B) the exist­ence of Marcus in general …

★ The Mouse Who Came to Dinner

Previously, at our house

So my girl­friend and I are watch­ing Last Chance to See when she spots some­thing mov­ing across the room. It’s a mouse. Not a ger­bil; Erich, Dotty, Elvis and Snoopy are tucked up safely in their hutches. This is a wild, rough-looking, street-wise mouse. A mouse what is keep­ing it real, if you will; who is ‘down with it’; who eats wet lib­er­als like us for breakfast.

The moment my girl­friend and I stand up, the mouse runs away behind the book­shelf. It spots the power cable lead­ing to the light at the top of the shelf and shim­mies up to avoid our fin­gers, which can’t quite get to him through the books.

At the top, he stops near the light and looks down at us.

He is about as long as my thumb. His fur is a rather — ahem — mou­sey and he has tiny, semi-transparent ears. His belly is grey and he is hanging onto the power cable with one fore-paw and both hind-paws.

He is bril­liantly swash­buck­ling. I half expect him to laugh heart­ily and swing away.

‘He’s lovely!’ I say.

Britta gives me a sharp look. ‘He’s not lovely. He’s a bloody wild mouse.’

‘Perhaps we can tame him.’

‘What? He’ll chew the power cables!’

Britta knows how to motiv­ate me: threaten my Apple products.

We set about try­ing to cap­ture him. Imagine the Keystone Cops if there were only two of them and there was no chase music and no real story.

‘This isn’t work­ing,’ Britta says after a minute or two. ‘Shake the cable. Let’s see if we can get him to fall into the fish tank.’

‘Hmm. It’s quite far to fall…’

Britta looks at me as though I’m an idiot.

‘Right,’ I say, lower­ing my voice.

At this point, the mouse is a ninja-like shadow on the mesh at the back of the ger­bil hutch.

I must record that the ger­bils — Elvis and Snoopy — have been called upon by their human over­lords to help (some­how), and they have respon­ded to this call in their own, gerbil-like way: They’ve sniffed each oth­ers’ gen­it­als briefly, walked in and out of their food bowl, and gone to sleep com­pletely ignor­ant of the fun­da­ment­als of the situation.

I hook the cable and give it a tug. Then, warm­ing to my theme, I pull it all the way over to the side of the shelf, pre­sum­ably tak­ing the mouse with it. I look at Britta in tri­umph. She returns a look of indif­fer­ence; I press on. I give the cable a shake. If the mouse is still hold­ing on, he’ll be get­ting jostled.

Suddenly, the air is filled with the cutest dis­tress call I’ve ever heard. The pathos is all too much for me. The mouse — once swash­buck­ling — is now wail­ing with hope­less­ness. This is like Bambi’s mother get­ting shot.

‘Sorry, mate!’

I let go and the mouse rap­pels to obscurity.

Today

It is 7:30 a.m. We’re both in bed. We’re woken by the sound of a mouse scrab­bling. This is not unusual. Over the past couple of weeks, the mouse — whom we’ve christened ‘Tarzan’ — is heard to stroll through the wall spaces, through the attic, across floors at night, and gen­er­ally treats the house like he owns it. So far, he has not eaten any food from the kit­chen — though the dried wheat ker­nels in the microwave­able hot com­press Britta keeps in the ward­robe are look­ing some­what depleted.

I open my eyes.

Scrabble. Scrabble.

I smile.

This sound is a spe­cial, new one. It sounds rather like a swash­buck­ling paw on metal. It sounds — dare we hope — that the little bug­ger has wandered into the trap we set for him.

Peanut but­ter: didn’t like it. Too greasy, per­haps. Chocolate? Too much effort to chew. Muesli? Mmm. Just right.

The goldilocks solution.

Britta and I jump out of bed like it’s Christmas.

On the way to the woods at the back of our estate, we won­der what life will hold for the little chap. He will have gone from the lux­ury of the hot water cup­board to the some­what try­ing cir­cum­stances of pred­a­tion, rain, and a conker diet.

We choose not to release him in a field because he might be invited for break­fast before he’s got his bearings.

We find a hedge.

The trap com­prises two metal boxes: the smal­ler slides inside the lar­ger. For some reason, I decide to open the trap about six inches off the ground.

I give the halves a shake.

‘Hello?’ I say. ‘Still in there?’

‘Don’t tell me he’s escaped.’

‘Hmm, might have.’

Britta groans. ‘He’s prob­ably still at home, back­strok­ing through a bowl of Crunchy Nut.’

Scrabble. Scrabble.

‘No, wait. Look.’

I raise the smal­ler of the halves and peer upwards into it. Tarzan is inside. An arm is hooped non­chal­antly over a metal catch. He looks like a dia­mond thief hanging in the roof space of a museum. Just as I’m admir­ing the rak­ish angle of his ears, he lets go, lands in the leaves, and takes off through the under­growth in a man­ner that can only be described as a furry bul­let fired in anger.

‘Look at him go,’ says Britta. She is ruin­ing her hard­line image by scat­ter­ing muesli about the place. ‘Will we see him again?’

‘Are you kid­ding? He’ll be back at the house before we are.’

We both laugh. What a funny idea!

The laughter peters out.

‘Well, we should prob­ably get back anyway.’

‘True. You know what? I might jog. It’s a nice morning.’

Spain? ‘La La La La’? Really?

This is hil­ari­ously sin­is­ter. Eurovision has decided to ban coun­tries who dis­close the iden­tity of those who vote in the Eurovision Song Contest. According to the BBC:

It comes after a num­ber of people in Azerbaijan were ques­tioned by police after vot­ing for a song by neigh­bour­ing Armenia in this year’s contest.

One bloke had been told he was a ‘poten­tial secur­ity threat’ for send­ing a text back­ing Armenia’s song, Jan Jan.

The art­icle goes on:

The country’s author­it­ies said people had merely been invited to explain why they voted for Armenia.

Reminds me of post-revolutionary France, where people were merely invited to have a lie down on a bench and enjoy the sights and sounds of Paris from the com­fort of a straw-filled basket.

► BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Eurovision changes pri­vacy rule

★ Of Mice and Men

When Britta first men­tioned, a few years back, that there was another ger­bil at the RSPCA beg­ging her with his big black eyes to take him home, I offered the opin­ion that mice were all well and good, and so on, and so forth. Before I could warm to my theme, Britta had said some­thing like ‘Great! Apparently, he’s been bash­ing his head against the lid of his cage. I’ll have to build him a big­ger one,’ before dash­ing off.

‘Build him?’ I asked the empty house. ‘A big­ger one?’

So we acquired a ger­bil called Coffee. Cream, his com­pan­ion, had long since been taken away because of a prob­lem with her gen­italia — they were com­pat­ible with Coffee’s.

On his arrival, I remem­ber regard­ing this ger­bil scep­tic­ally (and being regarded, in turn, with equal scep­ti­cism). Coffee was quite small, even for a ger­bil. And his beha­viour was odd. Unlike our other ger­bil, Erich, he didn’t pro­duce Road Runner-style clouds of slowly set­tling dust and a ‘peow’ sound when I blinked. I wondered, there­fore, whether he was some­how defect­ive. My sus­pi­cions were rein­forced when I tried to stroke his head: he didn’t take a big, wet bite of my fin­ger. Instead, Coffee per­mit­ted me to touch him with rather more equan­im­ity than I would offer if, for instance, a giant ger­bil had opened the front door tried to touch me up with an air­craft escape slide.

Hmm, I thought. We shall have to see how we get on.

A couple of weeks later, when Britta observed that it was time for Coffee (and partner-in-grime Erich) to take his place in her office at work, I offered the opin­ion that mov­ing the mice was all well and good, but that I had become some­what — cough — attached to them. At this point, I grasped my lapels in a law­yerly fash­ion and turned my gaze to the ceiling.

‘So you do like them!’ There was a note of tri­umph in her voice.

‘It is pos­sible I’ve habitu­ated to the bloody racket they make when I’m try­ing to watch Dr Who; though I may never know what the Doctor said to that tree-being last week.’

That was four years ago. Nobody is quite sure when Coffee was born. He was prob­ably approach­ing his fifth birth­day when he died. He had been dod­dery and get­ting weaker for sev­eral months. Gone were the days when he could skip up the pipe from the ‘desert biome’ and bal­ance on the edge of his food bowl. Last Sunday morn­ing, hav­ing been unwell all week­end, and being blind and unable to move prop­erly, Coffee died. I’d been up with him on the Saturday, fairly determ­ined that he wouldn’t die alone (his col­league Erich show­ing no signs of sym­pathy), but in the end I had to go to bed. I left him lean­ing against his food bowl because he couldn’t stand up without help.

There had been a moment of lucid­ity just after mid­night on Saturday. Abruptly, Coffee seemed to wake up and notice me. Perhaps he was irrit­ated by the Nutella, pea­nut but­ter and other high-energy, easily-chewed things I was try­ing to push into his mouth on the small end of a tea spoon. But he turned and sniffed and shuffled in a very lop­sided way to the open door of the hutch. I put my palm out, as I always did, and Coffee man­aged to struggle on to it. Then I fol­ded my arms and Coffee made it to the crook of my elbow. From there, on count­less occa­sions over the years, he’d been taken on a tour of the liv­ing room. Sometimes we would stop at the hutches of the other ger­bils for a quick hello, or we’d relax on the sofa for a while, or — on spe­cial occa­sions — Coffee would have the run of the liv­ing room floor itself. On this occa­sion, how­ever, he just sat in the crook of my arm and tried to breathe. I took him on the tour anyway.

Coffee was really great. He’d never harmed any­one (we harmed his break­fast of meal­worms on his behalf by freeze-drying them; he wasn’t to know) or treated strange humans with any­thing less than curi­os­ity. He wasn’t the size of a dog or a cat. He could fit in the palm of my hand and when he ran across the key­board of my laptop, his weight wasn’t enough to depress the keys. He was just a ger­bil. But a great little gerbil.

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Epilogue

‘Do you think we should show Erich Coffee’s body?’ asked Britta. ‘He might start look­ing for him. It would give him closure.’

‘Hmm.’ I held Coffee up to the ger­bil with whom he’d shared his life.

‘That’s so sweet! He’s nib­bling Coffee’s ear.’

‘Hmm.’

‘And look, he’s really dig­ging his teeth in.’

‘He’s try­ing to eat Coffee.’

‘He’s not, he’s -’

‘Erich, you dis­gust me.’

‘Better get him a mealworm.’

★ An Unusual Amount of Pain

My osteo­path is a short, pretty woman who main­tains a stream of incon­sequen­tial con­ver­sa­tion as she does things to my body that recall almost-forgotten aikido and ju-jitsu moves. Last Thursday, when she exten­ded my arm and moved it in a wind­milling motion, I almost fol­lowed through with a for­ward roll into the chan­ging screen.

One of the muscles in my shoulder has been torn. Not in a knife fight, or reach­ing to pull a tod­dler back from a cliff’s edge. No; I wore a heavy ruck­sack for a bit. My girl­friend — who has been vis­it­ing a private osteo­path for a few months — poked vul­tur­ishly at my arm and announced, not without tri­umph, that the only thing was for me to see an osteo­path; her osteopath.

“But it only hurts when I salute. I read the Guardian; I don’t salute.” Manly pause, look­ing into the middle dis­tance. “I’ll do this my way.”

I resolved to visit the (frankly inef­fec­tual) NHS physio­ther­ap­ist who had helped me with a running-induced hip injury last year. Unfortunately, this meant talk­ing to my GP first. After three days of call­ing the sur­gery just after 8 a.m. to arrange an appoint­ment — each request met by a chuckle and a state­ment that all the appoint­ments were gone for the day, and that per­haps I should con­sider call­ing in one of the other quantum inter­stices between 8:00:00 a.m. and 8:00:01 a.m., which are infin­ite after all — I drew a chunk of cash from the Morrison’s ATM and booked an appoint­ment with my girlfriend’s osteopath.

So here I am.

Her upside-down head moves into my visual field and she says, “You’ll have to tell me when it hurts.”

“Really? You think I should verb­al­ise? I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, though, it’s the per­fect solu­tion to my body-wide, dribble-inducing tor­ment,” is what I never, ever say because it is indeed the case that I find it impossible to admit that prim­or­dial pain sig­nals are peti­tion­ing my brain, thusly:

‘Excuse me,’ says my arm (which is English), ‘but I’m about to break.’

‘Pipe down,’ replies my brain, ‘it’s import­ant to uphold point­less social norms.’

Arm: ‘But we’re lying here on this table in Ian’s spe­cial ‘going out’ under­wear and odd socks. I think that social norms have gone by the wayside.’

Brain: ‘It’s not your job to think. Now, she’s about to grind the shoulder socket like a mill­stone. Stay frosty and alert.’

Stiff upper lip: ‘Hear, hear.’

My osteo­path is utterly pro­fes­sional, and I cling to the know­ledge of her long years of train­ing as my body creaks, snaps, squeaks and shud­ders. I fan­tas­ise a pecu­liar ana­logue of esprit d’escalier in which I walk into a ward­robe at home and shriek into the towels.

Occasionally — when the man tears grow at the corner of my eyes and the mas­sage table has gained a per­fect record of my incisors — I’ll say, “Ooh, that’s really loosened the muscle,” going fal­setto on the word ‘really’ and dilat­ing my pupils independently.

“Yeah? Let’s work on this muscle for a bit.”

I go rigid with fear.

“Wow,” she says, “there’s still some ten­sion in this one.”

“Gah.”

“OK, lie on your back for me and cross your arms. I think you’ll need some hot and cold treat­ment on the muscle for the next few days.”

“No pain, no gain,” I say, one of the few sen­tences whose syn­tax is within my brain’s grasp.

The osteo­path leans across me.

“Now, don’t worry.”

I begin to worry.

Her upside-down face smiles and she lies across my fol­ded arms.

“I’m going to keep one foot on the floor.”

As the osteo­path bounces lightly up and down, like a darts player rehears­ing a treble-twenty, the air leav­ing my lungs gets rather more pres­sur­ised than I’d like, adding occa­sional Tourettish volume to my words: “What does the FLOOR have to DO with iii-IT?”

Suddenly, she drops her weight through my chest. A sound comes from my back that reminds me of a door hinge being ripped from a frame. A warm feel­ing spreads down my body. Have I wet myself? I panic: What are the social rules in such a situation?

“Yes,” she says, as though con­tinu­ing a thought, “you’ve been through an unusual amount of pain.”

I haven’t wet myself — that can come later, on the cycle ride home.

“Hot and cold treat­ment?” I croak.

“Yes, and I’ll def­in­itely need to see you next week. OK?”

While my Id and Ego start slap­ping and pok­ing each other in the race to gain con­trol of my mouth, the Super Ego steps in and says, “That would be lovely!”

On the way out, I — or rather the piece of jelly shaped like me — give the sec­ret­ary a weak salute.