Nick Mailer is CUT's Webmaster and a founder member. He handles all technical matters related to the site and the server it runs on.
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Welcome Nick. We're standing at a
well-stocked bar. What are you having?
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I'll have a rootbeer float, my good man - made with your finest
Bargs and soft-serve.
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How did you get involved in CUT and why?
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In 1994, I wrote a book about the Internet in education. In the final
chapter, I railed against metering. I have remain convinced that in a
modern democratic society, metering communication and information is
becoming not only economically but morally wrong.
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What is your current occupation (or would be if you could get the job you're
after)?
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I work as the network manager at Westminster School in London. Schools
are wonderful places to work - if you're neither pupil nor teacher ;-)
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What is your dream occupation?
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Chimera: something in the media (radio, perhaps) - mainly producing/directing.
Prospective: starting my own IT-related company with friends, treating
employees properly and providing a genuinely decent service.
Controlling my own destiny is becoming increasingly more attractive -
even just to the extent of deciding myself how many days off I can
afford rather than be dictated by others, and deciding myself what my work hours are.
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What's the proudest moment or achievement in your life to date?
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Probably writing my book - seeing the finished product being sold in
W H Smith :-)
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Do you currently have unmetered calls to the Internet? What do/would
you find them most beneficial for?
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Yes. I find them useful for many things, not least of which is
chatting 'trivially' to friends and relatives around the world. But of
course, to a human, social communication is the least trivial of
trivialities - hence the success of solitary confinement as
punishment.
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What's the most pointless sport in the world?
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Every sport has a 'point' - usually to do with bread and circuses or,
to be less Marxist, channeling one's unevolved atavistic instincts
through something marginally more civilised than rape and pillage.
After the scenes from World Cup 98, this marginality is become ever
more so. Indeed, as football becomes ever more corrupt and commercial
(I hear Murdoch has just bought Man United) it becomes ever more
pointless in my mind.
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What's the most likely thing to make you laugh?
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Frenetic farce or intricately constructed satire. Or my dog doing
stupid tricks.
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What's the most likely thing to make you get up on your soapbox?
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The death penalty. I simply cannot live in a country that has it. Its
abolition is the lynchpin of a civilised society, in my opinion. I am
also vehemently opposed to nationalism. And, where it is flagrantly
ridiculous, privatisation (like with the railways).
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Where do you see the Internet being in 5 years time?
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Ubiquitous. I think that rate of progress will be slower than many
predict - look how long it has taken 56k to become a standard compared
with the jump from 14.4 to 28.8. But there will be no 'bandwidth
crises' and other predicted problems, and higher 'permanent' bandwidth
will be a more widely-available option.
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Where do you see the telecommunications industry being in 5 years time?
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Surprisingly similar to the position they are today. They are doing
everything in their power to slow down progress - their marketeers
know that deploying DSL widely, for example, would be disastrous for
their ludicrously overpriced leased lines and frame relay circuits.
So they pretend they're 'doing trials' and so on to delay the
deployment. High bandwidth access will be available in five years'
time, though - but probably not through traditional operators unless
they do an about-turn. Which they may.
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If you were at a dinner party, who would you most like to be sat next
to and why (living or dead)?
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Difficult one, this. Saying someone like Bach is tempting, but it
would be difficult to have a conversation with him not knowing German
:-) Living, probably an influential politician (who had some say in
telecommunications issues)
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What do you read in the bath?
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I read anything and everything in the bath. I studied my maths
textbooks in the bath, read books on Perl, books on philosophy,
magazines, novels and even old computer magazines! The bath is a
perfect reading place if you have the technique of balancing the book
such that it does not get soggy.
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Does Finnegans Wake by James Joyce make any sense to you?
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Yes - as much as it should. And I believe it is a shallower exercise
than some would believe. It is, to my mind at least, which is only one
of several billion, it must be said, little more than a wonderfully
constructed puzzle game. Joyce is saying 'look at how many
references/motifs I've managed to stuff into this stream of
consciousness - bet you can't spot them all - aren't I a genius'. My
degree was in English and Philosophy, so I've had more than enough of
the 'catch the tail of the great Author' game and so have much more
respect for a well crafted narrative that, through convention, manages
to break it. I found Portrait of the Artist an all-together better
book. For truly mind blowing stuff, Rilke's metaphysical poetry is a
good bet - even in translation. Not to mention Beckett, who is a much
better modernist than Joyce all round. No, JJ might have given us
'quark', but I prefer to read books rather than digest them as
literary acrostics.
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If the UK telecommunications industry was an animal, which one would it be?
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It is difficult to single one out - it feels like I'm maligning Mother
Nature by so doing! While tempted to say Tree Sloth, those creatures
are too innocuous and even-tempered. As clichéd as it might be to say
so, I'd go for a big, slow, stupid dinosaur.
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What is the most useful/valued/indispensable piece of technology that you possess?
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My watch - without it I'd be constantly missing trains/appointments
and so forth! Otherwise, it's my computer. No other device is such a
multifaceted portal.
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Do you like marzipan?
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It is evil. It makes me physically ill just thinking about its sickly,
morbid aroma.
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If the aims of CUT are realised, would there be anything else you would feel
equally worth campaigning for? If so, what?
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There are many things equally (indeed, more) deserving than CUT at the
moment. But CUT's aims are, I believe, achievable. And once achieved,
the benefits will be subtly pervasive and helpful to many other
campaigns. It also fills an 'ecological niche' - very few people seem
currently aware of the problem, let alone are campaigning for it. We
are already claiming some success in helping to cure this cultural
myopia, but have a long way to go.
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What CDs/LPs/tapes are currently stacked upon/against your Hi-Fi?
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None, but they are lying all over the place. In immediate view (on top
of the Zip drive) is Leos Janacek's Sinfonietta, opus 60 and Beauty of
Sunrise by South African Jazz pianist Bheki Mseleku. In a cardboard
box of vinyl LPs below the desk is The Up Escalator by Graham
Parker.
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Who is the most underrated band or musical artist in your opinion?
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ABBA, without a doubt. Usually either despised or belittled with a
kitsch appreciation, this was a group of musical genii. Whatever
criticism about the cloying nature of some of their earlier songs,
their compositions are masterpieces (complex layering, innovative
studio techniques, almost baroque use of counterpoint and so on). The
performances are always perfect (with the timbre of the girls'
harmonisations unparalleled in pop). Their later, angst-ridden pieces
(The Visitors, The Day Before You Came et al) have artistic depth
that surpasses many 'concept album' and progressive rock composers of the
time.
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There's a pile of Smarties of all colours in equal reach. Which do you take first?
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Red.
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A mischievous angel gives you the opportunity to
throw a rotten tomato at anyone or anything in the world every day for a year. Who or what do you choose
and why?
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Sir Robert Horton, MD of Railtrack. He is the most nauseatingly smug,
clueless tabby amongst the privatised fatcats. He almost destroyed BP
single-handedly so, naturally, he was a perfect choice to run the
railways. But then, his selection had more to do with his appreciation of
greased palms than of greased locomotive axles.
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We have a time machine on standby. It can go forwards or backwards
but it's a one-way trip. Do you want to use it and, if so, where will you go?
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Well, we're living in exciting times at the moment. But maybe about 40
years forward (assuming the world still exists) to where many of
today's nascent technologies are (hopefully) blooming for the good.
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Well, the bar is closing now. We have every method of transport at your
disposal. How would you prefer to get home?
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High speed rail to the station nearest home, and then a bicycle home -
there are no irate and dangerous car drivers to worry about in
Utopia, so my fellow cyclists and I have the road to ourselves.
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