Humans share ninety eight per cent of their genes with chimpanzees,but according to researchers at Keele University, the latter show no preferencefor music over dissonant noise. By contrast, all human cultures have developed some form of music, suggesting that an interest in melody is a both a universal human characteristic and one which differentiates us from lower primates.In most societies, music is a crucial part of rites of passage, played at partiesand religious ceremonies. Many tunes therefore carry special emotional connotations and significance for the listener. Studies in which scientists monitored the blood flow to different parts of the brain while volunteers listened to their favourite music showed that listening to music can trigger increased blood flow to neural centres linked to reward, motivation and arousal. Increased activity in these centres is also caused by both sexual arousal and intoxication: sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll all have similar effects on the brain.Before the advent of widespread literacy, songs were used to record and recall valuable information. they laboured on plantations in the South, Aamerican slaves sang songs whose lyricsdetailed the location of safe houses on the “Underground Rrailroad”, the network of anti-slavery activists who helped to slaves to escape to freedom in the Nnorth. Eelizabethan balladeers wrote popular songs which detailed the maritime adventures of Her Majesty’s Navy, and the Queen’s visits to army camps. Music, especially in the form of easily-learnt songs, has also been an effective form of propaganda: Rroyalist balladeers satirized Cromwell mercilessly prior to the Rrestoration.So, music has been a fundamental and almost universal part of human society for centuries. But recently, the way that we access, purchase and consume music has changed. Our route of access to music changed in 1999 when an eighteen year old college dropout, frustrated with the difficulty of sharing music over the internet, stayed up all night to write the code for the program that was to become Nnapster. This program allowed users to share their (legitimately purchased) music with an infinite number of other people, via the internet. The upshotwas an explosion in file-sharing. By making it possible to share music for free, Nnapster encouraged listeners to download tracks they wouldn’t have spent money on, or been able to purchase locally.MP3 file compression technology and new mass storage devices allowed users to fit a shelf’s worth of CDds into their pocket. Aas the capacity of portable MP3 players has risen, so has their ubiquity: twenty two million iPods have been sold since the launch of the first generation of players four years ago. Just as Nnapster revolutionised the way people accessed music, the iPod changed the way people stored it. Used in conjunction, these facilities allowedthe user to rapidly and cheaply construct their own extensive, and eclectic, musical library.Until the release of the Sony Walkman in 1979, music was always a communal experience, whether in the concert hall, church or around the campfire. The arrival of the personal music player individualised the experience, by allowing people to listen to music in isolation from those around them. The iPod advanced on its predecessors by letting its owner have a completely unique and individual soundtrack to their life. Rresearch by the government in New Zealand found that people of all ages spent an average of one hour a day listening to music whilst doing other tasks.The absorbing, distracting, mood-altering effect of background music has been recognised for years by store-owners and marketers. The Journal of Business Rresearch published a study showing that shoppers were left with a favourable impression of shops in which they heard background music that they liked. Aas hard evidence of the effects of music begins to accumulate, even more conservative organisations, such as hospitals, are introducing schemes in which music is used to relax and distract patients before and during uncomfortable procedures. The low set-up and running costs for such projects have led to them being introduced in a wide range of areas, from maternity wards to palliative care facilities.It is evident that any soundtrack we construct will affect our perceptions of everyday life. Given that music can stimulate the same brain areas as sex and drugs, the effect of listening to music could change the way we think and feel about our environment in the same profound and transient way. Evidence showing that this change in mindset can influence behaviour comes from research into the synchronisation of body movement with music tempo during exercise. A team a  Brunel University found that listening to music which had a rhythm that matched the pace at which volunteers were exercising improved the subjects’ adherence to their gym programmes by eighteen percent. Eelite athletes have been using this technique for years: the British bobsled team for the 1998 Winter Olympics listened to Whitney Houston as they prepared for the race, and went on to win Britain’s only medal at the games. James Cracknell trained for the Aathens Olympics (where he won gold) whilst listening to the Rred Hot Chili Peppers.The iPod has made it possible for us to consume music in a new way: we can set up playlists to trigger different memories and emotions, using music as a tool to manipulate our experience of the world. When Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Ddorian Gray, 1890: “Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets”, he captured a notionthat could easily be applied to the iPod generation.Now we all have the potential to become like Dorian, treating our lives as works of art, each day accompanied by backing music. Potentially, this could divorce us from reality, as we take an increasingly detached view of life, absorbed in our music, as it alters our perceptions of the everyday. Aurally immersing ourselves in a more glamorous, passionate world allows us to avoid recognising all that is commonplace and mundane in our lives.Ironically, the capacity to create an individualised sound-scape, that effectively removes the listener from their surroundings, was the result of unprecedented co-operation between strangers. The ability to cheaply construct an extended personal soundtrack depended on the co-operative effort of thousands of people who decided to make their MP3s available to the world through Napster.There was no material incentive to share music in this way: people who made their files available to others received no payment. Nnor did they receive admiration for their generosity:the file-sharing community was too large and anonymous for the value of individuals’ actions to be recognised. The users’ selfless actions are a testament to their faith in the virtual community.The use of the word “sharing” to describe the distribution of music through networks like Nnapster obscures the reality of making music available over the internet. Nnormally the word is used to describe shared access to a single object, whereas when a file is “shared” over the internet, one user offers their MP3 to another as a template, from which a copy is made, resulting in two copies. Biologists would call it reproduction, but the people who make a living from music call it theft.The controversy over the legalityof file-sharing provoked a certain amount of moral relativism, especially where the behemoths of the recording industry were concerned: many people who wouldn’t steal a CD were nevertheless willing to make illegal downloads. When the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius considered the nature of plagiarism, he considered it a victimless crime, writing that, in the case of literature, “Thefts cannot harm it, while the lapse of ages augments its value”. In the face of record company fat cats earning millions in profits, many people were inclined to believe their actions wouldn’t affect the recording industry as a whole. There was speculation that in the future, bands would only earn money from live performances and royalties from radio play, rather than music sales.However, the record industry wasn’t prepared to die quietly and severalcompanies launched legal action against people who had downloaded music illegally, and put pressure on internet service providers to stamp down on file-sharing services. High-profile cases have kept the industry’s campaign in the headlines.The record industry is not opposed to downloading in principle: the internet offers them a larger market and cheap distribution, as well as eliminating the risks of overproduction. Aaccordingly, there is now a proliferation of sites which allow people to buy MP3s legally. These sites are becoming increasingly popular, with 2005 seeing a 744% rise in the number of downloaded tracks sold in the UK compared to the previous year.Despite the controversy over the legality of downloading, it is now possible to enjoy a more diverse range of music, more cheaply, and in more circumstances than ever before.This music is capable of altering our perceptions, changing our behaviour, triggering memories and stimulating emotions. Its profound effects may be surprising, but the ubiquity of music in human culture and history is evidence of its power. The iPod may have the capacity to isolate us from each other, but it is also evidence of our desire to share the music that moves us.ARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005

Tatler sits somewhere between House and Gardens and Vogue. Geographically at least:
its offices occupy the third floor of Condénast’s headquarters in London, sandwiched
between the other titles in the magazine publisher’s stable. Geordie Greig, editor since
1999, occupies a corner office decorated with prints of former covers. In a pink checked
shirt open at the collar he surveys his overwhelmingly female staff. The walls of the offi ce
are glass but the ceiling certainly is not: for, as, Greig claims, he “employs 98% women.”
The third floor location and the tough looking doormen employed by Condénast are
perhaps there for a reason, Greig’s magazine being one that everyone seems to have a
hold on. although younger readers have a tendency to elide the definite article that their
parents would have prefaced it with, The Tatler is nevertheless unique, particularly
following the rebranding of Harpers and Queen. “We’ll be the only social magazine left in
Britain. Hoorah,” quips Greig. But what exactly is a social magazine, what is the formula that
has kept Tatler going since its foundation in 1709? “It’s a luxury. Like a fabulous box
of chocolates. deeply desirable, enjoyable. decadent and sometimes a little wicked.” Flicking through the current issue reveals an interview with Paris Hilton in which the hotel
heiress enlightens the reader with her preferred conversation topics with her manicurist, a
short story by the improbably named evgenia Citkowitz about a sixth former at the kind of
girls’ school whose leavers ball photos appear in Bystander, and numerous glossy ads.
advertising is clearly important: “the big brands love Tatler because it’s very english, it’s got
a sense of humour, a very rich readership.” Very rich indeed: there are a mere 86,000 of
them, but in a year they spend a total of £1.1 billion on travel alone. as a magazine Tatler
chronicles society, and Greig is insistent on having writers who “have the inside
track;” hence a list of contributors encompassing both Parker-Bowles children and Lord
Freddie Windsor. But how valid is the notion of society in today’s england of labour
politicians and Pete and Jordan’s OK nuptials? Greig is adamant that “every country has a
society.” He points out that society is, and always has been, accepting of new talent and
(gasp) new money. “There’s no stigma to making money: people like success. The
establishment is always made up of those who do well, who reach up.” as anyone who
has seen Madonna’s current tweed phase will no doubt agree, these people merge. “Who
would have thought rock stars, symbols of rebellion, would be shooting pheasants on
country estates?” Our interview takes place during London Fashion week, and Greig uses the example of the
guest list at donatella Versace’s party to illustrate this new trend: “there were people
from grand houses, people from rock, people from fashion, from the financial industry.” and
do they all get on? “I think people are all rather intrigued by each other.” But nevertheless
Tatler is not just for insiders. “It’s read by probably the widest and most influential circle
of readers it’s possible to have. From Tony Blair’s spin doctors to Saatchis, to fifteen year
olds at schools all over the country.” Certainly not all of these could be classed as
members of capitalised London Society. Even in Oxford it is not only those who can spot
their school friends in the back pages who read the magazine. Greig agrees that there can
be an element of voyeurism involved: in peeking into a different social milieu, a different
world. But the balance has to be kept right. “The insider should feel it’s right and that they’re
more informed, and the outsider should find it interesting and fascinating, and aspire to
know more about that kind of life.” However, Greig emphasises that his magazine is not
totally serious: “Humour is very important for Tatler. I think we need to be mischievous,
ironic, to sometimes bite the hand that feeds us.” It is reassuring to hear that articles
such as ‘Terror on the King’s road: Why Chelsea is no longer safe’ (which appeared, with
unfortunate irony, shortly before the July 7th underground bombings) are not conceived with
a deadly serious public service agenda. But do some people miss the joke? “If they do
they probably don’t read us again,” laughs Greig. “I think most people who enjoy Tatler
enjoy the sense of having fun, including taking the piss sometimes.”But who is this man who claims to “come in every morning thrilled to be here
because there are exciting things to be done?” now in his mid forties,he has worked in
journalism since leaving university at Oxford, although he claims: “I always used
to be rather nervous about calling myself a journalist.” After Eton he read english at St.
Peter’s, but was not involved with the student press. “I had a horrid time doing
journalism at Oxford. When I wrote one piece for the Isis, the editor totally rewrote it,
made up quotes and I had to write a letter of apology. I thought: shit, I’m not going
to do this.” But do it he did, eschewing a job in banking to take up an offer
at a newspaper in deptford. except it turned out not to be an offer: someone at the South
east London and Kentish Mercury merely thought it would be amusing to have someone
whose CV read ‘eton, Oxford, deptford.’ They did, however, employ him as a crime reporter.
Was working in one of London’s poorest boroughs a culture shock? “You have to be
genuine. Normal rules of life: be yourself. People don’t give a monkey’s as long as you are
yourself and you’re comfortable in your own skin.” After two years he moved to the Sunday
Times, who sent him to america. Greig claims: “I loved new York. It was a
real life changer.” He covered “all the fun, froth and trivia,” as well as more serious
events like the Waco shootings. After five years he returned to London as the Sunday
Times’ Literary editor, a position he held for a further five years. What about the job at
Tatler? “I was rung up out of the blue by Nicholas Coleridge, who is the managing director
of Condénast. He said: “Please don’t put the phone down: this is probably the maddest call
you’ve ever had, but would you consider being editor of Tatler?” He admits he had no
idea it was coming at the time, but he eagerly accepted. “Tatler is one of the oldest, most
distinguished magazines, with a pedigree going back almost three hundred years, and it’s
had some great editors who made a difference in journalism.”He mentions how the magazine “punches above it’s weight: we’re a small circulation that
tries to have a big impact. Tatler is an authority on social life.” Certainly the rest of
the media listens. Greig recalls the time “we declared the dinner party was dead. There
were headlines in Korea, Canada, people rang us up.” On another occasion there were
“seven TV stations camped outside (his) offi ce” following an interview with Prince Andrew.
The transition from a ‘gritty, warty newspaper’ to a glossy magazine with a two month lead
in period was a challenging one. “My first three months were quite tense. I thought it was
going to be the same as newspapers, whereas it‘s very different.” How so? “It is less
adrenalin led. You haven’t got that intense sense of ‘we’re going off the press in thirty
minutes.’ Moreover the subject matter is different. at the start, Greig “didn’t know anything
about fashion. [He] thought Pucci was a misspelling of Gucci.” However it was not just the
switch to magazine journalism and the more female environment that the new editor had to
deal with. He also had his own agenda. “I wanted to make it more journalistic and
I wanted to go back to its roots, bringing in great writers, a sense of style.” Under Greig’s
command Tatler has featured work by Tom Wolfe, Kazuo Ishiguro, VS naipaul, William Boyd
and Seamus Heaney. “I have tried to make it more intelligent. I think our readers can take
great writing.” Great writing it is, and in a glamorous showcase. Tatler is the kind of place
where the staff can borrow clothes from the heaps of couture in the fashion department if
they need something smarter for the evening. Aspiration shows on its shiny pages, but does it shine brightly enough in today’s
increasingly homogenized world, where everyone is middle class? I ask Greig if it is still
cool to be posh. He considers for a minute and replies: “It’s never cool simply to be posh,
but it’s fine to be yourself. Whether you’re posh or Polish or from Pittsburgh doesn’t really
matter.”ARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005

 was six months old when my father started working at St John’s. That was in 1946, and he
worked here thirty odd years, into his seventies. He was a scout. Back then it was all male
scouts. He made beds, brought the coal in, cleaned shoes, and was generally
a skivvy; a nursemaid, I suppose you’d say. It was quite different in those days; it was real
hard graft. My eldest sister worked here, in this building, for about thirteen years. She
left just over four years ago. So there’s been me, my dad and my sister, and actually my
daughter worked here for about five years as well. Back then a lot of families worked here.
The husbands, the wives, the children – that’s how it was in those days. It has changed
now, of course: people don’t stay as long as they used to. When I started, women were able
to bring their children along to work with them during holiday time, which is no longer the
case, and I think that’s why a lot of them did this job. It was a way of working when you had a young family; a way of going back to school when
you didn’t have a career. That was what you did: you either worked in a college or worked in
a school, and because my father was involved in college life it was pretty obvious I would be
too, somewhere down the line. Life’s changed a lot since then. Everything’s got faster. All
this health and safety has come in and there are all sorts of different gadgets for various
things. And there’s now only about three or four of us left who’ve been here for a few years.
When I started I just did one staircase in the block and my sister did the other two. now I do
the whole lot. As long as you’re in a routine, you’re alright. I get in at half six in the morning
and do 36 hours a week. I live 11 miles out of Oxford so although my husband drives me to
work, it still means an early start for me.I was born in north Oxfordshire and lived in Central Oxford all my live until about 8 years
ago. My mother still lives in the house I grew up in, in St John’s Street. I started coming in
early so I could clear up after the bops while everyone was still in bed. There’s usually
loads of rubbish afterwards. It’s surprising how much there is to do, really. I try to pace it
out: I do the loos first, then start going round the rooms at half past eight. Some people are
up by then. I do all the bins and what I can in the rooms when I’m going round. I have my
coffee at 10 o’clock, then start the hoovering on the staircase. The showers and the
bathrooms are the last thing for the day. I’m here all year round but I prefer it when the
students are here. We’ve had a few interesting people staying. There was Jonathan
dimbleby’s son, and Tony Blair was in this building too. I don’t think I was working here at
the time. My sister was, but she can’t actually remember him. Typical of my sister. At the
beginning of a new year it’s diffi cult because I’m quite nervous and the students must find
it odd too. Some students will talk and some won’t and you can usually tell from the very
first time you meet them whether they’re going to speak or not. I’ve been here nineteen
years now, and I’m actually going to retire in March. It’s the end of an era from the family’s
point of view, but it’ll be nice not to have to get up so early in the morning. That is one thing
I’m really looking forward to. Susan Gulliford talked to Julian CotteeARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005

In 1992, a european country was destroyed while the rest of the world watched. Its nucleus,
however, resisted, fought back and survived three years of siege and bombardment. By
1995 over 170,000 people had been killed and several times that many injured. It was
Bosnia and Sarajevo, and a war that substituted for my childhood. The Serbs blockaded
Sarajevo that april: their snipers took positions on high buildings in the suburbs, killing
at random. as Sarajevo is in a bowl-like valley, within days their artillery occupied
the hills surrounding us and aimed down. Soon, the Serbs turned off the electricity, the
freezers begun to defrost and everyone was cooking so the food wouldn’t be wasted.
Simultaneously the bombing started and we began spending nights in the basement of our
apartment building with our neighbours eating all this food, like some strange nocturnal
underground picnic. For a child, it seemed we were in some crazy festival, like the circus had come to town, and
at the end there would be a big meal and the children would play while the adults talked
about how bizarre it had all been. But then water and gas pipes were switched off, the food
ran out and the bombing intensified. The maternity hospital was bombed, pictures of
people shot dead in the city filled the newspapers and from the look in my parents’ eyes I
realised it was time to be scared. The men in the building took turns to guard the entrance
at night, armed with semi-automatic rifles. Bosnia had no real army because the
Yugoslavian army was mostly made up of Serbs, so the government released from prison
and armed some powerful gangsters who formed militias to defend the city. They
essentially saved Sarajevo from falling in the first weeks, before an organised army was set
up. as children we sang songs celebrating their bravery. I still regard them as heroes,
despite their crimes. At home, we abandoned all rooms with windows, leaving us with only
the hall to live, and cook and sometimes sleep in. But most nights we slept in the
basement, sometimes staying there for days. Water was brought from a nearby pump.
Food was scarce and monotonous and before long we were down to one daily meal of rice,
beans or pasta. By the time we left Sarajevo I had forgotten what ice cream was, and whether oranges had
to be peeled. It was all the more surreal because I couldn’t understand what was going on
or why. On the radio, I heard ‘ethnic conflicts’ mentioned, but this seemed like an answer to
a different question, one I didn’t ask. My father is Muslim, my mother roman Catholic, my
best friend Orthodox Christian and my nanny was Jewish. But, as a family we celebrated
the Orthodox Christian festivals with our Orthodox Christian friends,the Jewish ones with
Jewish friends and so on, and probably took them as seriously as they did. Religion served
not to preach, but to bring friends and family together, secure theseties and carry on
traditions passed down to us. How ironic it was then that which had helped unite us
was now being used to divide and kill us. Most Muslims in Sarajevo don’t go to the mosque, don’t know arabic or how to pray, smoke
like chimneys and drink alcohol like the best of them, so the idea that they could suddenly
go on a jihad to establish a fundamentalist Muslim state seemed incredulous even to a
child. However, that’s what the Serb politicians claimed, what they convinced many of their
people was happening and what some in the outside world seemed to (want to?) think.
In reality, I later understood, it was a genocidal, nationalist war, initiated by Milosevic,
Karadzic, and some Bosnian Serbs to make a ‘Greater Serbia’. Bosnia was to be annexed
and the Muslims living there killed or removed. My parents decided to stay in Sarajevo,
partly because they are doctors and most doctors had left. Five anaesthetists served a city
of 350,000 during the war, my mother being one of them. But also because it was Sarajevo:
a city where four religions, the east, the West, capitalism and communism, met to
create an energy that so many thought was worth fighting for. The city was all it was
because it was multicultural and multiethnic, and we wanted it that way.
Perhaps I idealise ante bellum life in Sarajevo. The privileged life that I led there, of
nannies, ballet lessons, winters skiing in the mountains and summers on the coast,
wasn’t a life that many had. There were many problems that didn’t affect us but, still,
there was something unique about Sarajevo, something that made everyone proud to
live there and made so many stay to fight for her. Peter Maas, a Washington Post
correspondent who spent 1993 in Bosnia, wrote “Sarajevo was a temptress,
and it was hard to know which was more seductive, the half-mad look in her eyes, or
the scarlet drops of blood on her extended hand. Temptresses have different allures with
which they entice their victims, and the oddest thing about Sarajevo’s allure was that the
more ghastly she appeared to the outside world, the more her buildings were destroyed
and the more starved her residents looked, the more seductive she was. Sarajevo was
violence and passion.” It was the longest siege in modern times, but for the
residents there was never the option of surrender. Just a sense of defiance, a sense that
in Sarajevo we were right and just had to hold out until the world realised that too. I remember the night when the Serbs set the national Library on fire. My parents took us up
to the roof during the bombardment to see what the cowards with their tanks on the hills
were doing. and camera crews filmed this and the aftermath of massacres and broadcast
the unedited footage on TV, to show the world what was happening. and it saw, but when
the Un Secretary General Boutros-Ghali visited, he just said, “I can give you a list of ten
places where you have more problems than in Sarajevo.” Meanwhile, my parents went out
to work separately, so that a single grenade couldn’t kill them both. But, on Christmas eve
1992, dad and I were leaving the house and he was shot as we walked down the street.
Fortunately he was only wounded while many others we knew were killed. Lucky, everyone
said, that it wasn’t me. The strange thing was how quickly this stopped upsetting us:
by the time they started burying people in football stadiums, death had lost its novelty value.
In war, you see things you don’t want to see. You live through things you don’t want to. You
lose people you love. as a child, you grow up quickly. There are no ‘boogie monsters’ under
the bed, trying to ‘get you’, because you know of real monsters, with real guns, who wake
up every morning with the aim of killing people like you. There is no school because they
bombed it, but it would have been too dangerous to go there anyway. You stay indoors for
months and, when you can go out, you play ‘street wars’ with kids on your street, throwing
rocks and glass at the other neighbourhood kids because you can’t remember the games
you played before the war. After three years my parents decided they had done enough. With the help of some British
friends mum went to england for a job interview and returned. One night, through a secret
tunnel dug underneath the airport and over a mountain, she took my brother and me out of
Sarajevo and to england. aged ten, I had my first day at school, she worked as an
anaesthetist and a year on dad came to join us – a happy ending. But I don’t know whether I
should be happy I lived to tell the tale or resentful that I have such a tale to tell. Probably it’s
the former. I feel privileged to have experienced man at his best and at his worst, risking life
to commit good or evil. But, there is anger that it was allowed to go on: perhaps because
Muslims were being killed, perhaps because Bosnia had no oil, perhaps because even
when Clinton intervened (after 9,000 Muslims were killed in two days in Srebrenica,
a town declared a ‘safe area’ by naTO) it was principally to salvage his image. Politics-
wise, I’m a cynic. But maybe I just can’t believe that mediaeval sieges of cities would be
tolerated in 20th century europe, that the attempted genocide of a people was tolerated
for years only fifty years after they said ‘never again’. I now realise what they meant was
‘should never happen again.’ not quite the same, but how naively we hoped otherwise.ARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005

Some go peacefully, some “rage against the dying of the light”, some do it themselves,
some let nature take its course, for some it is a low key event, some do it in style. The
uncomfortable truth is, sooner or later, we’re all going to do it but have you ever wondered
how you’re likely to die? My own, rather rudimentary, research into how people would like to
die yielded a variety of not very constructive answers: “peacefully”, “old age”, “in bed” and
“jumping off something.” Of course most of us aren’t going to get what we want on
this one and statistics suggest that the most likely way will be heart disease or cancer. But
of course, as 83% of people know, statistics can be used to prove anything, so here goes.
The US national Safety Council has over the past few years estimated the chances of dying
from various causes. For example, the chances of dying from falling from a bed or chair are
1 in 4745 but only 1 in 93,125 from contact with hot tap water. Ignition of nightwear is the
fate of 1 in 286,537 people whilst “foreign body entering through skin or natural orifice”
accounts for 1 in 161,956. an average of 73 are struck and killed by lightning each year and,
according to Professor Steve Jones, this is much more likely to happen to men. The
chances of drowning in floods caused by a dam bursting are 1 in 10 million and there is of
course also a 1 in 2.8 million chance that you will die falling down a hole, possibly much
shorter odds if you are a Warner Brothers cartoon character. Vending machines – safe, yes?
no, these deadly pieces of equipment kill an average of twelve UK citizens each year,
shaking it for that last KitKat really isn’t worth it. and any resident ofOxford will not express
surprise that those ‘silent killers’, bikes, are responsible for 824 US deaths every year.
away from our perilous modern existence filled with vending machines and hot-taps the
natural world is of course a dangerous place to be. For example, the chances of dying from
being bitten by a dog are 1 in 206,944. “death where is thy sting?” – well for 6 million
americans each year it is in the end of a bee. But you have only a 1 in 54 million chance of
dying from a spider, lizard or snake bite.Scientists wanting to prove just how innocuous various animals are often cite the odds of
being hit on the head by a falling coconut, George Burgess, director of the Florida Museum
of natural History’s International Shark attack File (somehow I can’t imagine a British
museum appointing a director of ‘shark attack file’) claims that fifteen times as many
people are killed by coconuts than by sharks each year and that coconuts account for 150
deaths per annum. This idea has been heavily influenced by the work of Dr. Peter Barss, an
american academic whose jolly oeuvre includes, ‘Suicide in the Southern Highlands of
Papua new Guinea’, ‘Scald burns in children 0-14 years old’ and ‘Cold Immersion deaths
from drowning and Hypothermia’. He was awarded an Ig-nobel Prize in 2001 for his thesis
‘Injuries due to Falling Coconuts’ and now works in Saudi arabia. Barss further aided
medical science during his period in the tropics in the 1980s with such publications as,
‘Inhalation hazards of tropical “pea shooters”’, ‘Falls from trees and tree associated injuries
in rural Melanesians’ and the scientific classic ‘Grass-skirt burns in Papua new Guinea’.
Perhaps we should not pay too much attention to a man who has made his living
inspecting the buttocks of young Papua new Guinean girls, conclude that the
coconut statistic might just be George Burgess talking out of his Barss and that the much
maligned coconut is less dangerous than has been suggested.But how should you prevent all this? Well clearly you need to stay in your house at all costs,
have no social contact and never turn on the hot tap. Oh, and be naked. Yes because
clothes can kill as well and not just grass-skirts. Recent research has suggested that tight
ties can cause glaucoma and we chaps have long been aware of the health risks of tight Y-
fronts but perhaps the most dangerous article of clothing your trousers. Yes, each year
3695 people are hospitalised in trouser- related accidents. Primarily this is from putting
them on too quickly and falling over but anyone who has seen There’s Something about
Mary will realise the health benefits of button flies as opposed to the zip variety.On the other hand most accidents happen in the home, a fact which would be attested to by
the 35 people which the royal Society for the Prevention of accidents claims were injured in
2000 by tea cosies or the 738 who suffered at the hands of beanbags three years ago.
Over recent years the Darwin awards have shown us some of world’s most peculiar deaths
and accidents, such as the six egyptians who drowned in 1995 trying to rescue a chicken
from a well (the chicken survived) or the Californian who, offended by a rattle snake sticking
its tongue out at him, returned the favour only to have the offended body part bitten off. The
awards are of course designed to confirm darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest, or at
any rate the survival of those who can remember to put the pin back into an unthrown
grenade before returning it to their pocket. Of course one way to insure an eccentric death
seems to be to become famous. Celebrities and especially musicians have a habit of dying
in bizarre circumstances. Jazz musician Chet Baker’s defenestration or Sonny Bono skiing
into a tree serve as reminders to us all. Sadly the story that Keith Moon drove his car into his
swimming pool is fanciful, as he actually died from alcohol poisoning, incidentally in the
same flat in which Mama Cass had died from ‘ham sandwich asphyxiation’ a couple of
years previously. Modern rock deaths are a familiar and predictable catalogue of
overdoses, suicides and traffic accidents and it is surprisingly to classical music that we
must turn to encounter the truly bizarre.Charles Valentin alkan, a French composer, died when a bookshelf collapsed on him as
he was reaching for a copy of the Talmud from the top shelf whilst Henry Purcell died from
chocolate poisoning. Jean-Baptiste Lully died from an infection when the large wooden
staff he used to keep time whilst conducting fell on his foot and the Czech Frantisek
Koczwara meta sticky end to autoerotic asphyxiation in 1791. Such a fate has more recently
befallen Conservative MP (and former Oxford Union president) Steven Milligan and BnP
activist Kristian etchells, which perhaps says all that needs to be said about the British
right. death was no more subtle in the ancient world either. aeschylus the Greek dramatist
died when a vulture dropped a tortoise on his head, and the stoic philosopher Chrysippus
died of laughter after seeing a donkey munching on figs. At the other end
of the Mediterranean, age might not have withered Cleopatra, but an asp to the breast did
the trick. and death is no respecter of position or breeding as many royals would testify.
King Béla I of Hungary died when his throne collapsed due to sabotage and his compatriot
Matthias died after eating poisoned figs, which Chrysippus would presumably have found
quite amusing had he still been around. Modern day Hungarians seem to fare little better, in 1973 Finance Minister Péter Vályi died
when he fell into a blast furnace at a factory he was inspecting. Ben Schott revels in
recounting the deaths of Burmese kings in his Original Miscellany including no less than
three trampled by elephants and one killed by an enraged cucumber farmer whose
cucumbers the king had eaten. Closer to home, Henry I died of a surfeit of lampreys whilst
edward II was unfortunate enough to be the 1 person in 161,956 to die from a foreign body
entering the body through skin or natural orifice although as the foreign body was a red-hot
poker and the orifice was his anus I suspect the odds are somewhat longer. The quest for
knowledge is a noble one but one which has its hazards, just look at the case of Francis
Bacon who died from pneumonia after stuffi ng a chicken with snow to see if cold could
preserve meat; his body was not cryogenically frozen.Or there is Scottish botanist david
douglas who died in 1834 after falling down a pit trap and being crushed by a bull
which fell down the same trap. What are the chances? Well 1 in 2.8 million actually. One
final word of warning, “manners maketh man” but they can finishth the man just as easily,
as danish astronomer Tycho Brahe found out in 1601 when he politely remained at the
dining table rather than get up to go to the toilet during a banquet. He died of the ensuing
bladder infection. So what is the moral of all this? “Some people are so afraid to die that
they never begin to live” said Henry Van dyke, so we can all afford to live a little. Living won’t
kill you, though it will be those bastard vending machines. Is it wrong to laugh at other
people’s misfortune? George Bernard Shaw said, “Life does not cease to be funny when
people die” and he should know – he died falling out of an apple tree at the ripe old age of
94.ARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005

A
company founded by Oxford University Chemists has doubled in value since last
year and is now estimated to be worth £58 million.The company, VaSTox Plc, was floated on
the London Stock Exchange in October 2004 valued at £30 million. earlier this
month the company published an interim financial report showing a turnover of
£201,000, a fourfold increase from last year. One of the company’s founders
described its success as “remarkable.” The company was founded in 2003 by
Professors Kay Davies of Hertford, Edith Sim of St Peter’s, Graham Richards of
Brasenose and Steve of new College, who invested £100,000 in the company. VASTox is involved in develop­ing
treatments for diseases such as muscular dystrophy and tuberculosis, using a
process known as chemical genomics. Professor Steve explained, “By looking at
the unique features of fruit fly larvae and zebra fish eggs, we are able to
predict the properties of organic chemicals.” This information can then be related to
humans. According to the company’s website this leads to the production of much
safer medicines. As a ‘spin-out’ company, the Univer­sity holds a stake in
VaSTox allowing it to share in the company’s massive success.In January 2005, VaSTox moved out of
University facilities to a new site at Milton Park a few miles south of Oxford but Professor
stressed his priority, “still lay with the University, managing one of the
largest research departments and running a full teaching programme.” A professional
management team handles the day-to-day running of the company, allowing
academics to continue work in the University. described the team as “highly
competent”, and highlighted their role in the company’s achievements. He also
stressed that none of the academics were involved for personal profit, allowing
more money to be reinvested in the company. VASTox is not the first spin-out company
with which had been involved. In 1992 he founded the similarly successful Oxford asym­metry
Limited. That company was also floated on the stock exchange and sold for £316
million in 2000.Professor admitted that he had made
considerable personal gain from Oxford asymmetry’s suc­cess but added that a
large part of the company’s profits were used to fund chemistry studentships in
the University. He believes that success­ful spin-out companies can only be
beneficial for the University. Since 1998, forty companies have been spun
out from University de­partments and their estimated value is over £2 billion.
The companies are overseen by Isis Innovation Ltd, a subsidiary of the
University.ARCHIVE: 4th week MT 2005