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There's more to life than sex, vintage Champagne and palm trees (alas!) - and one of the inescapable evils is daily work. Still, even work sometimes has its compensations. F'rinstance, here are a couple of my favourite slices from the column I write for PC Plus magazine. Two little e-mail interviews with the ever wonderful Rolf Harris and the equally glorious Stephen Fry...
A view of Rolf's Web site as it was then. Featuring a pic of Rolf himself in a fashionable hat with dangly corks. The design of his site has changed now. The design of the hat with dangly corks hasn't (alas!)...
(PC Plus issue 161 - March, 2000)
Sit down, stay calm and prepare yourself for a shock! OK, here it comes - Rolf Harris did not invent the Rolf Harris Stylophone! I know this because Rolf told me so.
For the benefit of younger readers, I should explain that the Rolf Harris Stylophone was a hand-held device that produced electronic burbling noises when poked with a little 'pen'. Long before he branched out into vets and Led Zeppelin, Rolf used to advertise stylophones on the telly. I, being young and naïve at the time, assumed that Rolf had personally invented the instrument just as, a decade or so earlier, he had invented the wobble board.
"No, I didn't invent the stylophone," says Rolf, "It was Burt Coleman's company, Dubreq, that produced the stylophone in the late sixties. David Bowie used the instrument in his first big hit, Space Oddity, you know…"
A stylophone? You're kidding! I always assumed Bowie used a mighty Moog synthesiser!
"No, it was a stylophone! The Moog synthesiser didn't exist at that time. The stylophone was the first of those electronic organs. It only disappeared from view when Casio invented one with actual moveable keys like a piano, and suddenly the stylophone was obsolete."
Amazing to think that, but for Rolf and his stylophone, we might never have seen the dramatic emergence of the computer-synthesised music ranging from techno and rave to Gary Numan and Flat Eric! Still, I shan't hold it against him.
In recent years, a new generation of music lovers has come to appreciate Rolf's ground-breaking work at the cutting edge of the avant-garde movement. From his searing indictment of man's inhumanity to his fellow marsupial ("Tie me kangaroo down, sport") to his heart-rending plea for tolerance of the alienated and dispossessed in society ("I'm Jake The Peg, diddle-iddle-iddle-um, with my extra leg, diddle-iddle-iddle-um…"), Rolf has always been ahead of his time. And so it was with the stylophone.
To this day, the instrument commands a fanatical following. "I recently got a few of my stylophones all spruced up and rejuvenated," says Rolf, "And we used them at a gig in Southampton, four of us on stage playing Moon River, using two of the original ones, one treble one an octave higher, and one bass one an octave lower. It got an absolutely marvellous reception."
Ah, if only I had been there!
Bearing in mind Rolf's crucial role in promoting electronic music, he is curiously indifferent to the current generation of music software. "I haven't used any music programmes. Although I've sat in stunned amazement and watched other people working their magic with them. I guess my feelings here are that I'd prefer to make music and have it recorded in the old original way. Music software is an awful lot of stuff to learn if you're not going to use it all the time."
COMPUTER LOVE
Rolf is certainly not a computer novice. Not only does he have a powerful hardware setup (Advent PC Pentium III, 13Gb hard disk, 64Mb RAM, DVD drive, Windows 98, an Epson Stylus Photo 1200 printer plus "a great slim looking Mermaid Ventura TFT monitor and a crash hot Scanjet 6200 C scanner") but he also takes an active part in producing computer-enhanced art work for both his record sleeves and his web site.
It was through his web site that I managed to get in touch with Rolf in the first place. Don't bother trying to do the same, though. Rolf is very coy about giving out his e-mail address. I had to go through several intermediaries before I was finally granted access to the great man himself.
"All the drawings I've used on my website have been done long-hand," Rolf tells me, "I don't get much joy from using my Wacom graphics tablet or Corel Draw 8. It isn't that I don't like Corel, it's just that I prefer to do the art work for real, and then, if I want it on screen or want to alter it in a subtle way, I scan it and work from there with the program."
How about trying a different program? Maybe MetaCreations' Painter which is much better for producing authentic-looking painted effects?
"No, I'm really not interested in doing a 'virtual' painting, I want hands on stuff. I must say it is great fun when you can do a sketched-out bit of art work, scan it and then go right in at enormous magnification and 'clean up' awkward bits or change the colours without having to go and do a whole new drawing. For the background of my cover design for my new CD 'Bootleg 1'…" (available from Rolf's web site) "…I drew a chunky, bubble-type lettered 'ROLF HARRIS', photocopied it a few times, stuck those copies together, put a thin greenish colour wash over the whole thing and then scanned it.
"We didn't like the effect of the green eventually, so we easily changed it to a turquoise blue. The nice thing is, I've got it all saved, so when 'Bootleg 2' comes along, I can alter the art work and re-use that background, in a different colour without having to re-draw the whole thing. Great!"
Visit Rolf's Web Site at: www.rolfharris.com
(PC Plus #111 - January, 1996)
Pornography is, of course, one of the principal attractions of the Internet. Once you are on line, you are no longer circumscribed by the moral and legal restraints which normally prevail in the UK. Any text or pictures which have been put onto the Internet in Amsterdam, San Francisco or Bangkok can be taken off again in Grimsby, Carlisle or East Grinstead.
And it's not just pornography which is disseminated in this way. If you hunt around on the Internet you can find information on bomb-making, drug-taking and just about every other subject which threatens the very fabric of British society. Far from being the ultimate library, it turns out that the Internet is really little more than a World Wide Sewer - a global refuse tip harbouring all that is filthy, despicable and corrupting.
Fortunately, the Internet also contains havens of decency and propriety. Such as, for example, the World Wide Web site of the celebrated actor, author, wit, raconteur (and the most publicised recluse since Garbo), Stephen Fry.
Fry's pages, unlike those of more run-of-the-mill celebrities, are not the mere concoction of publicists or fans. They are, in fact, run by the man himself. He designed them using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and he continues to monitor and update them. True, he does all this using a Macintosh computer - but then, I'm not prejudiced against Macs. Some of my best friends use them.
Having tracked down Stephen Fry in the virtual world of the Internet, the next step was clear to me. I had to interview him. This turned out to be surprisingly simple to do. I sent him a question by e-mail, he mailed me back and soon we were blathering in full flow.
I quickly discovered that an e-mail interview has many advantages over a face-to-face one. First of all, it's a lot simpler to set up (you don't have to go through an agent). Secondly, it's a lot cheaper (did I mention that you don't have to go through an agent?). And finally, and best of all, you don't have to go through an agent.
FRY SWATTING
One of the notable things about Fry's Web site is its highly varied set of hyper-links to other Web pages. Among other things, they contain links to pages on The Works Of Shakespeare, Morris Dancing, ABBA and the Laws of Cricket. Which explains why I began the interview by asking the following tedious, though entirely necessary, question:
Of all the Web sites you've come across, have you got a favourite?
S.F.: "Well, James Coates at http://www.gbnet.net/~jamesc/ is excellent as a personal eclectic witty site. The Electronic Telegraph is a fine commercial/businesslike site ... it so depends on what one's after ..."
What do you think about moves to censor the Internet?
S.F.: "The net is a human system, and therefore carries with it all the potential for good or evil of any human system. Neo-nazi's use it; child pornographers use it; I dare say drug dealers use it; just as they use the postal system, the telephone and print.
"The fact the 'children' can use the net and therefore be 'exposed' is a separate problem, it seems to me. You don't stop a child entering a library just because there are copies of de Sade there, or nude photographs available somewhere; you don't ban children from the centre of London simply because there are 'bad people out there'.
"It really must be up to parents. Would a parent rather take the decision themselves as to what their children are 'exposed' to, or do they want politicians to make the decisions?"
But surely there must be some Web sites which you feel go beyond the bounds of the acceptable?
S.F.: "No. Absolutely not."
You said before that 'it must be up to parents'. There are, of course, some Internet providers which deliberately restrict access to some of the more controversial areas. What do feel about these?
S.F.: "Well, as long as they aren't the only providers, as long as all providers don't end up doing this too, I have no objection at all to such a 'service'. I think it's rather pusillanimous of parents, but that's nothing new ..."
By this point in the proceedings, my spirits were starting to sink. I had expected to discover, in Stephen Fry, a kindred spirit. I had hoped that he, of all people, might have mastered the fine old British art of disapproval. But no, to my horror, it seems that he genuinely believes that we British should have the right to read and view precisely the same uncensored material as the rest of the world.
The time had clearly come to wrap up this interview without more ado…
OK, so in conclusion, can you tell me what are the qualities you would expect to find in a good Web page?
S.F.: "As to what makes a good page or bad one: I think the whole joy of them is their personality. What's a good page for Person A might be bad for Person B. They should, I suppose, reflect the character of the author. As in typography, some element of simplicity is best, and a uniformity of design, size and composition. But as I've said elsewhere, they are rather like teenager's bedrooms, a whole mixture of daft things: collages stuck on the wall, naughty things hidden under the bed, No Entry Signs nailed to the door, odd collections that express individuality and the desire to shock, break out etc."
Examining Fry's Web pages in more detail, I began to see what he means. Beyond the ABBA and the Cricket there are all manner of links to other and stranger Web sites such as The Gallery of Male Photographs and Jon's Tasteless Page. Personally, I haven't yet quite recovered from the shock I received after clicking a link to The Rector's Page. All I can say is that its ecclesiastical connection is more than a little tenuous. To say more would be to risk bringing a blush to the readers' maidenly cheeks and I shall, therefore, hold my peace.
Note: Since that interview, the pros and cons of Internet censorship have become much more of a hot topic. It would be interesting to find out if Fry feels the same now as he did then...
By the way, Stephen Fry's personal web site is found at http://www.gbnet.net/~stephenf/. However, he seems to have been slightly remiss in updating it of late. At the time of the interview, he was maintaining the site fairly actively. Last time I looked in, however, it said: 'So Sorry -- Away for repairs: 22nd April 1997...Back soon, I hope' (well, I hope so, too...)
In the meantime Fry fanatics may wish to glance at the compendious Stephen Fry FAQ at: http://www.geocities.com/~quickfry/stephen.htm