Brexit, British Empire, #Futurelearn, @DavidOlusoga

I was fascinated to read David Olusoga in the Observer on Sunday. The headline states that "Empire 2.0" is "dangerous nostalgia". The text concludes with mention of "delusion". Previously Empire 2.0 has turned up for me while watching an interview with Liam Fox on Sky News. He told Sophie Ridge that the term came from mostly from civil servants. But he seems to support the associated ideas.

Empire 2.0 about 7 minutes in but best to watch all of it for context.


I recently did a MOOC for Futurelearn from Exeter University on the British Empire. My homework was a short text on where the Empire was now or something like that. I chose to concentrate on attitudes around Brexit. Text below, not time yet to cut and paste this together. Just notes so far.

David Olusoga mentions Hugh Gaitskell in 1962 for a take on the Commonwealth. The Conservative Party could be much more interesting. The book "Continental Drift" by Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon (CUP 2016) covers policy on Empire and Europe from Churchill to Major.

Possible muddle here between history, journalism and social media / gossip. I shall carry on with a blog anyway. May tidy this up, meanwhile cut and paste from Google doc where I kept my notes so far

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Legacy of British Empire

The present situation is part of European history and empires, the Dutch and Portuguese included. The financial aspect of the British Empire is now part of the USA dollar situation. So there is a wider context than first appears.

Public opinion is influenced by empire, notions of jingoism (UK) and exceptionalism (USA) for example. These seem to be less rational than could be shown as related to anything specific. Hitchcock remade the 39 Steps as North by North West , there is not much need to describe the external threat.

History as a subject can cross over with journalism or just speculation. The book Continental Drift by Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon describes UK policy on Europe up to the time of John Major. It shows how attitudes to Empire led to expectations of a role in Europe that turned out to be quite different to reality. The move towards leaving Europe has been based on an idea of “post-Geography” .

How much sense this makes remains to be seen. It is possible that the British government is deluded, as are most of the newspapers and the public. Will a global market be less of a threat for the “just about managing”? It is not yet possible to discuss this as history but whatever happens will be explained as part of a longer story.

First some links to clarify what was in my original text

Katherine Whiteley

"post-Geography" is a term used by Liam Fox. It might be futurist but I think it looks back to a previous time for UK options.

https://www.ft.com/content/e456c008-8642-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5

Hitchcock continued Buchan themes in film from novels. The course included the adventure stories in print. Hitchcock developed repeated ideas in USA from UK and they fit with Empire and Cold War.

Bonginkosi Sunday

More about Continental Drift

Intro as free PDF

http://assets.cambridge.org/97811070/71261/excerpt/9781107071261_excerpt.pdf

Full info

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9781107071261&ss=exc

You have to fill in the gaps towards the end. But it is clear enough about the Empire expectations post WW2 and the early approach to Europe from Heath and Wilson.

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Google doc now public

So comment please. Empire 2.0 and "delusion" both hard to back up with facts but continues as tweets until history.

Course site for Empire    starts again 27th March

#FLEmpire  on Twitter

Expanded Vagueness

This post will itself be expanded soon. I am just running out of time this weekend so need a quick version to explain how other posts might still fit together.

Previously "Intended Vagueness" posted on LinkedIn claimed that vagueness could be positive as a way to make connections. Ideas about the Learning Company or Organization had been criticised as too vague to make sense for academics.

My interest in learning and quality came from the print industry, then I became more interested in digital and all forms of communication. The words and search tags I use are ways to connect mostly these three areas.

"Social learning" seems to work well on Twitter and relates to Futurelearn and most MOOCs. It may not be clearly defined for academics but there is some support in practice. I have lost trackof Mode ! and 2 knowledge. Design Science is not being updated as far as I can tell. "Design Thinking" crops up more often. Communication is probably whatever the London College of Communication covers. Not sure they have fully worked out where print fits in but some statement will arrive with the new building.

This vagueness could include Management Learning, the Learning Company, Edwards Deming, various words used in previous versions of the Hello Spiders blog. So the current stage is to afford some connections. Forms of clarity may follow but the word cloud will get more crowded.

YouTube channels sorting out soonish

Some progress on a leap forward, but meanwhile quite confusing. I have been presenting my YouTube channel as Rougemont Global Broadcasting. this started as a joke way to test possibility of Exeter TV. Meanwhile the online video aspect has gained strength. I still think a local cable channel is worth continuing with but back to topic.

Subscriptions seem to offer an alternative to advertising. Mostly relevant for the conference style content. How to demonstrate production levels ahead of subscriptions and income? A new channel - mtwr - was started for Management Theory at Work in Radio but only one video was in it.

This just shows the extent of the problem. Sound ok in Phonic FM studio but lighting is terrible. Recently I went to the Lancaster campus and recorded some clips about voice interface that also showed how locations could be used in a sequence. More on this later. You should get an idea from the videos on YouTube.


Some topics continue as sound in Exeter. The Spine walk in Lancaster is being updated so a walk between spots is best left till later in the year. There can be tests meanwhile including links to other spots.

In Exeter there is now a Tubers studio, mostly intended for teenagers. There may be hours of the day when it can be used but not sure this will suit the guests. Definitely a good sign for how things are moving.

Production may get easier with software to compensate for lack of equipment. Adobe Spark improved this clip from original. Broken into two as Spark seems to get impatient after 15 seconds.

Variety continues, playlists offer the options for a mix.

RGB2 also exists as a subscription possibility for music and performance in and around Exeter. Plans for later this month assume better weather.