Insta...gem?

Not a day goes by when I look at my Facebook news feed and someone hasn't uploaded a very artistically shot Instagram photo of the sandwich they are about to eat.

Yesterday, for example, it was a shot of coffee by a friend. Not as in an espresso; but as in a photographic shot of a cup of coffee. A cup of coffee that he hadn't even made himself, and therefore had no particular right to be proud about. It was a pure boast: this is what I have and am about to enjoy; despite the fact that I did nothing much to make it worthwhile (excuse the rant!)

A couple of days ago it was someone uploading a photo of a beach - again, purely to inspire jealousy. The comment with it was “I'm going to miss being here when I'm back in the office like you guys next week”. I know the beach, it's nothing particularly spectacular. Catch it on a good day and it has its aspects; on a bad day and it is gloomy and unremitting.

But Instagram has proliferated widely, and why? Well it's the filters that make practically every photo look amazing. Ish.

You know, the filters that enhance all of the colours so that the blues are bluer than you've ever seen, the hazy soft-focus (or just plain blur) around the edges, the sepia wash or aged-grain effect that are supposed to be redolent of rose-tinted yesteryears. Take the beach - apply the 'vivid' filter and it makes a dull beach amazing; apply a different filter and it could make exactly the same picture look spooky, or grainy, a hundred years old or as though the sun is just setting.

The irony is that with the most recent update, the 'live filters' have been removed, and you can only apply them 'post-production'. The founder of instagram doesn't see the application as a photograph manipulation tool, he sees it as a social network. It isn't a program to take photos and apply filters, it is a facility to share photos with your network of friends.

But how much of the picture is yours?

You have taken the time to properly compose the picture, to stand in the correct place and frame it correctly, to time the click just right...

And then you use a processor to apply a filter, altering the focus, the colours, cropping out the bits that you don't want in there. Where is the skill, other than clicking on the correct filter?

It's a question that has bugged me for a while, and it isn't exclusively digital either.

Where do you go if you want a family portrait? A modern, crisp, minimalist family portrait? You go to Venture Photography, where all the photos look the same. Pure ethereal, white backgrounds, no shadows, vivid colours with some picked out to be more vibrant than others. (They do simple black and white photos as well, but still no shadows). And obviously a little airbrushing thrown in, just in case you had a spot that day.

But how reflective of truth is it? And how reflective of the truth should it be? And - of course, one of my favourite subjects - how much of it is 'art'?

As I said with the 'beach' photo and the thirteen or so different photographs that the same shot could be, to what degree is the choice of filter an artistic choice? If you had a great degree of control over exactly how 'vivid' each particular colour is, and essentially spend a lot of time repainting the image, then I can see that - despite the digital intervention - it is still user-generated art.

This is no new question though. Image manipulation has gone back hundreds of years. If we look at photography, colour was a manipulation. Originally it was black and white. Even then, the level of contract would vary depending upon the film and the development. With colour photos, part of the reason some of them have the washed-out tones is because the development process employed did not accurately reproduce the colours taken. This was not an artistic intervention, but usually because of the technology available at the time to produce the pigments. To what extent do unmanipulated photographs these days accurately capture the colours? Afterall, when I turn on my digital camera there are a couple of dozen settings depending on whether I need high-resolution, low-light, high-speed, dusky conditions or others. I software in the camera itself then enhances the required aspects.

But long before the software did it, we were manipulating the aspects. Flash was around to ensure that a picture could be taken at a time when pictures otherwise should not be taken - inside or otherwise too dark. Henry VIII often instructed his portraitists and artists to paint him taller, broader, more ruddy and more impressive.

These days we go further. Obviously there are the 'pure' artistic considerations: composition of the scene; positioning and pose; and framing to crop the image. Then there are the 'external', yet still 'pre-production' elements: the lighting or filters, make-up etc. There may be some post-production additional articles added that weren't there in the original shot, or a bit of airbrushing or filtering or contrast or colour manipulation.

Like I say, I see this entirely where a considerable degree of skill and effort has been undertake by the person. but where it is just a couple of clicks to apply a filter? Or to airbrush out a spot (we've all been there)? I have had a similar discussion on art generally.

Of course, there are occasions where such manipulation is an absolute no. There have been numerous occasions in recent years of photo-journalists being sacked or having their reputation torn to pieces because of how they have composed a piece, Photoshopped two separate aspects together, even simply cropping the photo too short to remove a key element. But these are where we have a particular expectation that the image will be pure, unadulterated and a fair representation of the truth. But then photo-journalists don't go around taking photos with Instagram. Or at least not for publication. The Wikipedia article contains various references, although it seems to focus on digital manipulation and not on 'mock-up' images such as those used by The Mirror) which purported to be of abuses carried out by the armed forces in Iraq.

It's going to be one of those questions that doesn't go away - a matter of fact and degree, the blur between fact and fiction. Where the distortion or manipulation exceeds the original input, then clearly the 'art' is owned by the computer rather than the user, but it is the grey spectrum in the middle where people will draw their own line, or may only encounter that line when something comes so close to crossing it.

And I'm sure, wherever they have drawn the line, I will probably perceive that as wrong.

A bad deal?

So there is outcry over the naming of St James' Park in Newcastle again.

Well, not quite.

This time it isn't the naming, it is the sponsorship.

The naming rights have been sold off alongside shirt sponsorship; and the new sponsor has elected not to use their own brand name on the arena but to revert back to St James' Park (it having been the Sports Direct Arenafor almost a year).

Bravo. They listened to the fans. They may even have listened to my rant

But, apparently, the fans didn't want to talk to the sponsor, really.

The new sponsor is Wonga. You know, the “pay-day loans company”. They lend small amounts on short terms, but at eye-watering levels of interest. Wonga's standard APR is 4124%.

Yes, FOUR THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR percent.

And this is what is concerning fans, players and even the general secretary of the Football Association has decided to wade in. There is even a suggestion that “star player” Demba Ba may not play in the shirt, because he is a muslim.

The Islamic faith prevents taking or paying interest on financial matters.

But Demba Ba had no problem wearing a Newcastle shirt sponsored by Virgin Money, who charge or pay interests on their loans and savings.

Curious.

The fact is that many financial service firms sponsor football clubs. In the 2011-2 Premiership alone there were:

Standard Chartered (Liverpool)

Aviva (Norwich)

Britannia (Stoke)

Aon - who whilst not directly involved with consumer financial products still supply reinsurance and other risk assurance products (Man United).

So there are financial services firms readily advertising on shirts.

Wonga themselves currently sponsor Blackpool who are playing in the Championship, having themselves previously played in the Premiership in a Wonga shirt. So that makes the comments by the general secretary of the Football Association - Alex Horne - all the more bizarre. He talks about inappropriate advertising: “If you consider it as in the category of things that are inappropriate for children like gambling and alcohol, it feels like it is in that category”.

So it should be in the same category as gambling and alcohol, despite being in a very tightly regulated consumer credit industry most definitely not aimed at children?

Well, fine.

After all, gambling firms sponsor the following 2011-2 Premiership teams:

Aston Villa (Genting Casinos)

Bolton Wanderers (118bet)

Sunderland (Tombola bingo)

Swansea (32Red)

Wigan (12bet.com)

Wolverhampton (Sportingbet)

And, of course, Budweiser is the official beer of the Premier League. So where is the inappropriate advertising?

Now, don't get me wrong - I don't like Wonga. I would never myself use Wonga, I do think their advertising strategy is poor, and they have been rapped by the OFT for their aggressive and misleading practices in debt collection.

And when you look at the interest rates, yes they are eye-watering.

But - and this is the same stance taken by the OFT and FSA - they are offering a credit facility to people who would not otherwise have that facility. The loans are low value and for a short period of time. They are not expected to be relied on regularly, and if Wonga was not around the people who use that facility would go to unregulated or illegal sources of money - loan sharks.

I see that.

I also see that if you borrow £300 over ten days the cost of that facility is around £36. That's barely an admin fee.

So no, whilst I don't endorse them, I understand why they are in existence. I don't understand the criticism levied because one club has gone with a sponsor who already sponsors football clubs.

Sex-free September

So, I didn't have sex in September.

Remarkable, isn't it?

Well, I don't know.

I have a tendency to average out at one a month. But I don't really keep track. I certainly don't get towards the end of the month and dash out to bonk the first bloke passing my house to get it in (so to speak) before midnight on the 30th.

And were I to keep track, it would rather demean the encounters that I do have. I can honestly say that I very, very rarely regret any of the shags that I have, and where I do it is usually do to 'logistical complexities' - it will make relations with that person or with some other person awkward for a while, or such like.

But, if I undertake a proper retrospective; yes - it has been an average of about one a month. That's one partner a month, rather than one bonk, and obviously when I am in a sustained relationship that partner will be the same partner for repeated months.

But, in terms of many of the people I know that doesn't make me promiscuous. There are many of my friends who consider it a bad week if they don't get any, but then again I've seen the levels to which they will stoop just get 'some'.

But that is really neither here nor there, it is the fact that I didn't have sex, in spite of the circumstances, that is more of a surprise.

For example, the students are back in town. Now, this may mean that I do get a quickie soon - I have one of them already texting me wanting to meet up - and for the first two or three weeks the freshers are still settling in and finding out about the city so it may take them a little while to get a bit more adventurous.

And I played away during September. With football. Our team went over to Liverpool and we booked a hotel and had a night out the night before the game (we really should get around to organising these things the other way round). In fact that lead to a rather bizarre encounter that was the closest that I did get to sex: somebody pinched my bottom in a bar. I never saw him again that night, and he had no association with either of the football teams, and yet by the time I got home on Sunday I had a friend request on Facebook. I presume he heard my name mentioned by someone in the club - it is quite distinctive - and found me that way. Anyhow, we started chatted and the next thing we were video-calling each other with our bits out.

And September is the end of summer. Summer is a good time for one-off sex. People are in a good mood, enjoying the long, languorous, lazy evenings, not wanting to get tied down into anything complicated. And people generally look their best in summer. It is widely noted that people generally look better wearing less: once the pasty-white flesh has acquired a good colour, and assuming you don't wear less than the minimum, generally skimpy or tight summer clothing flatters. It certainly does more for you than a chunky merry knit, balaclava and gloves. So it is good for Summer Fun, and in September people are starting to get very aware that it is the end of that for some months.

In October and November people go for a Winter Warmer - a sustained relationship, someone to cuddle on cold winter nights. No longer are you sunning yourself in a relaxed beer garden until late evening as in July; no: now you spend all your time in darkness, wanting to cuddle up to someone to get warm. You can't be bothered traipsing round all the bars in the wet and the snow, peeling off layer after layer in each establishment and then taking twenty minutes to reclothe before leaving. You want to go to meals where you can sit in a nice warm restaurant for hours without having to move; or cinemas where it is as dark as outside so you don't have to make an effort. Or, better still, having someone round and cooking them a meal. That way one of you doesn't have to leave the house or - potentially - the bed if you forgo dinner.

Generally in a year I will possibly have two relationships. It's not guaranteed, and indeed my last relationship was a year ago; however they tend to be in October/November, and in January/February.

For the few years prior to this year I have been dumped immediately before Valentines day for the "late Winter Warmer". That's a great feeling.

But then some of this could be because I can't sustain a relationship over summer. Exciting August - and the weeks in the run-up - are when I do the majority of my galavanting around. My winters tend to be very
quiet. It's odd that this should happen, but I suppose the reasons are pretty similar: it is too cold and dark in winter to do much galavanting. If you can manage to do the travel in the dark, you only have a few short hours to see the sights before it is too dark and you have to start drinking.

It's not that I'm averse to a relationship at any other time. I would quite gladly have a Christmas Cuddle, a Spring Snuggle, a June Spoon or a Week Twenty Six Fix, I just don't seem to be able to pull them off.

So, September marked the end of Fun Season, providing me with a slight holiday until I - hopefully - get the guy.

Filling in

Do you know what the most annoying thing is?

I have four posts between half and three-quarters complete, but I just haven't had the time to finish them off. This could mean that you get swamped next week with talk of sex and photos (different posts, don't worry, I've not done a Prince Harry or Duchess Catherine on you!)

So for now you will have to cope with this brief explanation and apology and expect service (I don't really have 'normal' service) to resume anon.