Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Friday 19/04/2002

Sir Christopher Bland is on the wireless. Ex-chairman of the BBC, now chairman of BT, he's on Desert Island Discs, being terribly hearty and rather annoying in a smug, chummy sort of way. The initial shock of hearing broadband pipes and content strategy being discussed by Sue Lawley soon fades: his choice of music isn't bad -- you can't really go wrong with Beethoven's late quartets -- but what to make of his pick of 'Going to sit right down and write myself a letter'? Hardly indicative of the mindset best suited to guide BT into the brave new world of electronic communication...

But then, what is a good anthem for IT? Peter Judge's sterling work on the very bad world of corporate anthems continues apace -- this week, we got a drum 'n' bass remix of the IBM hymn, for which much thanks -- but begs the question of how to do it well. It's so easy to get it wrong -- witness the Citroen use of Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene to promote its digitally stuffed cars, when everyone knows that the music was produced entirely on analogue synthesisers, or BMW's use of Boards of Canada music for the 7 Series adverts. BoC -- again, as is universally realised -- are a bunch of techno-pagans who are dead set against the overexploitation of natural resources: BMW's image hardly gels there.

So -- suggestions? Are "Friends" Electric? might be a good one, while the slammingly up-to-date Streets song Let's Push Things Forwards both expresses the right sentiment and namechecks AltaVista. But the position is clearly open. Your ideas most welcome.

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