Bonobo World

Marx and Monkeys.

2011-10-17T10:41:00.004Z

This is intended as the first blog in a series of (probably) three. When I get around to them.

Speak to any intelligent and informed person and they'll have to problem at all with Darwin's revelation that the rich diversity of species was brought about by competition. Neither will the 21stC reader have any problem taking this to the microbiological level. Dawkins' Selfish Gene idea of life shaped by the impersonal interactions of gene sequences and the Blind Watchmaker principle whereby order and complexity can spontaneously arise from simple, binary mutations, are common currency. As ways of making sense of the world we can simply take them as given. Perhaps slightly less well known, but still Out There (it's been on the telly with Jim al-Khalili) is Alan Turing's work on the chemical basis of morphogenisis which shows how complex patterns can emerge from chaotic conditions.

But when you mention Marx...it's all that stuff about gulags and purges...and he was hardly any good at predicting the death of Capitalism and subsequent workers' paradise, was he...and it's all old-fashioned stuff, dead and buried. And it was hardly scientific, was it?

Hmm.

Let's begin with Darwin the Philosopher. Note, incidentally, that Marx who was first and foremost a philosopher - a vital thing to remember about him - was a great admirer of Darwin and cited him as an inspiration. While Darwin's primary focus was the biological world, in thinking about it he came across a mode of conceptualisation that had ramifications way beyond The Origin of Species. He discovered a philosophy that allowed him to think sensibly about Life. (That's what philosophy is about , surely? Ways of Thinking.)1

Dan Dennett has taken this on with his Darwin's Dangerous Idea. in which he argues that Darwinian ideas of evolution by natural selection are relevant to areas areas of biology, to philosophy of mind and to ethics. While I respect the man enormously, I would argue that he was behind the curve. This kind of meta-Darwinism was being done 100+ years previously, and with wider application, only under the name of Marx. See his application to everything from sociology to psychoanalysis to literary criticism.

Marx, as well as being a philosopher, was an economist. Nowadays we draw a bizarre distinction between the two. Economists are the harmful drudges who balance the books while philosophers are the ivory tower dreamers. Hah! That's why Marx failed. He was too airy fairy yadda yadda (this apart from the fact that he spent years with his nose stuck in the accounts of Lancashire cotton mills). But is it any accident that two of the world's most prestigious universities award degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (My fantasy degree)...or that the same man, who mixed company with Hume and Voltaire, wrote both The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

A short aside - the last three Nobel Prizes for Economics have been for work in how communities share resources; Friction in markets and; macroeconomic cause and effect. OK - so Marxism is often accused of trying to be a Theory of Everything (and in a later blog I'll explain why this is no criticism)...but trust me...these are all areas where Marxism could make some inroads.

So...economics and Darwin. Now..we all know that business is red in tooth and claw. 'It's a jungle' is a reasonable metaphor. We also know how much a certain kind of Capitalist admires the idea of Social Darwinism. But there's more. An economist friend quoted to me 'Evolution and economics are isomorphic' [which, I see, I keep using - even though I don't know the source]. They are the same kind of system of competition. Indeed, it seems there is a whole sub-discipline of Evolutionary Economics (namecheck to Marx in that Wiki). Or how about this article which suggests that in future Darwin will be recognised as the greatest economist off all time (sorry - it's fallen behind a paywall since I read it) .

Well, possibly. But why not Marx? It doesn't really matter - ideas don't develop in a vacuum and both Darwin and Marx were doubtless drawing from the same well. Except maybe Marx had a clearer idea of what the ideas were.

So let's take Marx's Big Ideas. The fundamental structuring principle of human life is Class struggle. From this struggle derives all the social and economic structures that we see around us today. In what way is this not Darwin, except applied to human society rather than inter-species competition? OK - in terms of a predictive theory that can correctly identify the impending revolution in England/Germany/the US...maybe not. But how many Darwinists would like to predict what tomorrow's species will be? Yet Darwinism provides reasonably convincing explanations of how species are how they are - and Marxism provides a reasonably convincing explanation of how the human world works.

Two differences. Firstly - Marx provided the philosophical underpinning. This can't be stressed enough. He explained why the world works that way. In his political work he was simply applying the philosophy to the clear and present problem of the conditions of the industrialised world - but if he was tootling around on HMS Beagle, who knows, maybe his interest would have been in finches.

Secondly, On the whole, species do not have a choice in how Natural Selection pans out for them. Big fish eat little fish and there we have it. But humans are different, and Marxism provides a theory of praxis for achieving a desirable end. Possessed of an understanding of the nature of their society and of a revolutionary self-consciousness - i.e. if people understand what's going on - the proletariat can fight back against their annihilation. A self-conscious person will do this as surely as an animal will struggle against predation. Capitalism creates the conditions for its downfall.

1 In a later blog I'll be talking about how this fits into Hegelian Dialectics - but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Only Smarties have the answer

2011-09-20T12:14:00.006Z

My son’s primary school had The Church in to their assembly last week. He said that they held up a jar of Smarties and told them that they might be all sorts of colours on the outside, but underneath they’re all the same.

Oh. Fuck. Off.

For a start, a contemptibly patronising message to be telling children to whom the stupid hang-ups of previous generations are not an issue. These are young people for whom issues of ethnicity, religion, disability simply do not figure. Who are used to watching men kissing on Coronation Street. Well, OK, let’s not be too naïve – girls still play with girls and boys with boys and ‘Gay’ is a playground insult…but on the whole and by and large today’s kids are smart enough to realise that differences just…exist. Smarties are all different (is it just me or do the orange ones taste slightly orangey?)…but none of that don’t matter. They don’t need some retrograde religious type coming in and parading his credentials.

But it’s even more insidious, isn’t it?

People are all the same underneath.

Actually, it’s quite a surprising message from the religious perspective, if you think about it. Surely we’re all meant to have unique souls? But I’d better leave the theology to the experts. From my secular perspective – people quite plainly aren’t all the same underneath. We all have individual personalities, experiences, cultural contexts, beliefs, perspectives, hopes, desires.

And?

In Rev Smartie’s version of things, we need to reconcile our differences by smoothing them out. It would perhaps be uncharitable to suggest that he would prefer to see everyone embracing Jeebers – I gather he was Church of Scotland, not one of the evangies they sometimes get in¹. But by promoting this ‘all the same underneath’ message with the authority of a churchman…isn’t he assuming that the cultural assumptions of the white, surburban, Scottish are the default position to which to aspire? This Is The Church’s Way? And perhaps it’s not a bad way, if it leads to love peace and harmony etc. But can’t he just trust people? Can’t he accept that people might not be the same as him underneath…but none of that don’t matter?

This sort of thing is why I’m not a Liberal. This article by notorious neo-post-Marxist provocateur Slavoj Zizek on the ‘barbarism of Liberal Multicultural’ puts it nicely. [EDIT I've linked this before. Sorry for being boring.] What is being sought is ‘the decaffeinated other’ (and, true to form, he ends with a defence of Christian values. J ). It’s a dumb way of being. In a bland monoculture…where’s the next, earth-shaking surprise going to come from? We simply can’t afford to take on board this kind of Fukuyaman ‘End of History’ thinking and assume that a neo-Liberal, Euro-American stasis is the way to be. It won’t work and it’ll end in tears.

Fortunately…the world is getting smarter than Church of Scotland ministers. Example: big, fascistic corporations (I won't give examples) have started paying at least lip service to this thing called ‘Diversity and Inclusion’. They ain’t doing it to be nice. They’ve woken up to the stark reality that they are not recruiting talent from a uniform demographic. Given that talent is evenly distributed between all sub-groups (Ya don’t say?!), if they’re underrepresented in any then they’re probably failing to recruit the best available. Worse! They’re leaving the talent for their competitors to pick up. And once they get the talent in….they don’t want any unfortunate atmospherics in the company that will make them uncomfortable, decreasing their productivitity or sending them out the door. Who’d have thought that pinko-lefty ideas were good for business? Who’d have thought that countries that spend most on health, education, welfare tend to have high GDPs. Healthy, well educated, happy workforces are productive? Imagine that!

Or in schools. The modern education system is constantly berated, although its got much, much better, year by year. OK – in Britain it still has some way to go. But all those pinko-lefty teachers are at least, by and large, now treating children as humans and teaching them to be citizens of a future world. The stuff my son has been taught on Children’s Rights is far more progressive. There’s no kowtowing to the popular ‘Ooh! There’s too much talk about Rights and not enough about Responsibilities’ tosh. Sensible teachers realise the two are the same are simply using the UNDRC as the governing principle in their schools. ‘Stop disrupting the class! You’re depriving everyone of their right to education!’

Or…when I was young, Disability was A Big Thing. You didn’t see it on the streets, let alone in classrooms². Now…some school pals go away to special classes a couple of days a week, but no biggie. Oh…and by-the-by they’re moving the classrooms around because one child has a wheelchair…

And all this is normal. None of the kids bat an eye. They just carry on playing with…whoever is their friend. Only their parents, fixated on the past, notice that one is wearing hijab and another has cerebral palsy. But if we want lessons on how to handle our Brave New World (and probably I need some – otherwise I wouldn’t be making a big deal of it) – I’d, take them from the kids, not a Minister. On my brighter days, I think it’s almost as though humans were programmed to be sensible.

Or...I might be wrong. Maybe our kids are going to louse it up although they show rather fewer signs of doing so than previous generations). Yes, there's a certain misty-eyed liberalism in what I've said - a 'Whig View of History' which assumes constant progress for the better. Also I'll admit that there are certain Enlightenment Values that I'd like to see go forward. But mutatis mutandem. Que sera sera.

Whatever - the world is for the next generation to shape. At least they seem to be able to cope with Difference.

¹ The school has an unfortunate infestation from The Scripture Union. By contrast...in my other Kids' High School, the title of 'RME' (Religious and Moral Education) was changed, following student demands, to 'RMPE' (Religious, Philosophical and Moral Education). Teachers do not divulge their own faith - although one keeps mentioning Jesus. He's the one they take the piss out of.

² More than once I've heard the issues of Disability Rights and Abortion conflated - as though the latter were a breach of the former. Abortion 'devalues' the disabled, who are simply damaged foetuses to be got rid of I like to point out that the remarkable progress that has been made in Disability Rights over roughly the same timescale that abortion has been legalised. This is not to make a positive correlation - just to point out a lack of connection. To twist the knife, I like to mention that my wife and I declined amniosentisis. There was no point because we wouldn't have considered abortion if the result were positive. But that was a purely personal matter: other mothers should be able to make their own decisions. I am, of course, fully supportive of contraceptive abortion. FULL DISCLOSURE: I am the son of an abortionist.

Guilt and Innocence....of what?

2010-12-17T11:33:00.006Z

All the right thinking (by which I mean Left thinking) folk have been lining up in support of Julian Assange. All well and good. But do they have their causes confused?

On last Thursday's (16th Dec) 's R4 'World at One', Josefin Brink from Sweden's Vänsterpartiet ('Left Party')¹ made the good point that a) The exposure of government lies, double-dealing and general shadiness and b) the alleged rapes of two women are separate issues.

She reminded us that there have been numerous cases of famous men being accuesed of rape, and everyone says "Oh, how could it have been him? He's such a nice guy!" Often, though, our hero has turned out to be a rapist, and people find this concept difficult to accept. She stressed that she's not saying Assange is guilty - but there's one proper place to decide the issue: the court.

The general assumption appears to be that the rape allegations have been trumped up by Dark Forces. One of the victims has been 'linked' (whatever that means) to the CIA. All this might be more than conspiracy theory - after all, remember back to when Anti-Apartheid Activist Peter Hain was fitted up for bank robbery by the South African BOSS, with the compliance of the Met?

Now I accept that the Scandiwegian nations aren't as squeaky lean as they like to believe.: a browse through a Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell novel suggests an underbelly. But I wonder...if you wanted to bang up a troublemaker for political reasons, which jurisdiction might you find most amenable? Britain? Australia? Sweden? Myself, if I were looking for a fair trial (and a clean, non-Dickensian cell), I know where I'd be headed.

There's also a feminist angle missing here. (I note, with mild surprise, the involvement of Helena Kennedy QC. a leading advocate for justice for women, in this case). From the pro-Assange camp, there have been complaints that the Swedish definition of rape is somewhat more liberal than in other countries. I'm struggling to see their point here. Sweden is also - at least, theoretically - more robust than many in prosecuting rape¹. If this is the case, the proof or innocence of a case may turn on complicated matters than whether the man can be proved to have held the woman down at knifepoint. There seem from the allegations here to be prima facie grounds. Granted, there appears in Swedes to uncertainty over whether evidence supports rape or lesser molestation charges, but again...this reflects the complexity of the issues and its why the allegations need to be examined in a court. Surely?

Isn't it somewhat disturbing that some of Assange's supporters have been so ready to dismiss the allegations a priori?

¹. But note my 'dark underbelly' comments: below the surface, Swedish men are no more reconstructed than any. Stieg Larsson was making a point with the original, Swedish title of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo' ('Män som hatar kvinnor'): Men who hate women.

Was God a Mathematician?

2010-12-15T12:04:00.020Z

Last night I watched a BBC4 tellything called 'Beautiful Equations' in which the presenter, an artist with no scientific background, struggled to get to grips with the idea that some scientists have talked about the aesthetic quality of equations. I don't recommend the programme to anyone with a basic understanding of science - it was one of those that was more travelogue than science¹ - but the basic idea's interesting enough.

Einstein famously said:

"The only physical theories that we are willing to accept are the beautiful ones."

and Paul Dirac:

“God used beautiful mathematics in creating the
world."

There are implications here that the universe is 'constructed' with an underlying, elegant pattern. Neither was necessarily saying that the universe was created by God. Einstein was certainly an atheist who was at pains to make it clear that he only ever used 'God' as a metaphor. Dirac perhaps took the idea more literally - although in point of fact he probably didn't give it much thought. Certainly neither saw any connection between the ordering of the universe and the conduct of our daily lives: they weren't theologians or philosophers.

(Interestingly, there is a school of thought within Islam that wheras only God can fully understand the universe, we have a duty to practice science to gain insight into the Oneness of God. Sometimes this is described as scraping back the surface of the universe to reveal glimpses of the underlying 'greeness' - green being associated with God, life, etc.)

Even so, the idea that science and mathematics reveal the inherent beauty of the universe is arsey-versy, isn't it? It's an anthropocentric notion. The universe is complicated. We are evolved to grub for roots, spear antelope and/or gather shellfish. We're on a par with other beasties in our ability to Comprehend Nature. Granted, we're extraordinarily adaptive by virtue of our faculties for problem solving. Nevertheless, when we bump our heads against the difficulty of understanding the inner workings of the universe, there's no reason to suppose our capacities are any more limitless than, say, a bonobo. We're undoubtedly better at it...but even our best minds can find it awfully hard.

The reason we're better is that, especially over the last 400-ish years, we've come up with some little tricks to simplify the picture. It goes without saying that equations are useful if they allow us to predict the way the universe behaves. But that wouldn't necessarily make them beautiful. A beautiful equation is something like:

E = mc²

...which has the additional advantage of simplicity. It's not only simple in that it only has three terms, but the way it falls out of Special Relativity is elegant. Plus it tells us a lot about the the universe and has various practical applications.

Or take the Dirac equation:

Now, OK, I'm not going to bullshit that I understand the first thing about this, but my understanding is that its a simple, clean expression which, by manipulating its variables, predicts the existence of various particles (e.g. anti-matter) which are experimentally verifiable.

So what these 'beautiful' equations have in common is that they're neat little bundles with the power to tell us a lot about the universe. Einstein's probably wouldn't have caught on if it went 'E=mc² except in February minus the number you first thought of...' and on for twenty pages. For an example of an inelegant equation, see the Computus (origin of the word 'computer') by which the date of Easter is calculated. Its main predictive power is to explain why nobody ever knows what date it's going to fall on in any given year. The Dirac equation is slightly different. Wheras most people can grap the bones of Relativity after a bit of thinking about trains, watches and flashlights, even particle physicists struggle with Dirac. My understanding is that in deriving it he 'boiled down' some concrete stuff into abstract variables. E, m and c we can get to grips with, but nobody can quite explain the real-world concept represented by Ψ.

Note, incidentally, that not all mathematical descriptions of the world are considered elegant. I well recall my A-Level in Pure Mathematics with Mechanics². The Pure, I liked. The Mechanics...sheesh!....all those long, long expressions representing the forces acting on a ladder leaning against a wall on a rough surface. The underlying maths was simple (and repetitive) - basically variants on Newton - but it was pure handle turning, without elegant shortcuts. Subsequently, throughout my so-called career, I've worked with people doing various forms of mathematical modelling. While in no way denegrating them, the type of maths they're dealing with is getting computers to spit out anwers using more data and doing morecalculations than humans can get their heads around. It's a matter of brute force rather than elegance.

But wait a minute. In contrasts to the messy maths, there are the beautiful equations which show themselves to be powerful tools for understanding and manipulating the real world. Doesn't the very fact of their existence demonstrate a beautiful order?

It's Douglas Adams' Intelligent Puddle once again, surely?:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"³

What we've done is to go out looking for ways to simplfy the world, either for good, practical purposes or simple curiosity. Some parts of it we find can be described in nice, neat equations. But these will only be tractable if they'll fit within a human head or can be worked out on not too many sheets of paper or, more recently, in MATLAB.

We haven't discovered an underlying pattern, pleasing in its beauty. It's more that we've found we cen get our heads around parts of it and have been pleased with our ability.

(Btw, when I say 'we', I mean 'they'...those cleverer people than I who've made scientific discoveries.)

Finally: As a further test of Snow's 'two cultures'...can any scientists amongst us tell me why I have a picture of a vase in this post? See last two lines here. No cheating, now!

¹ Actually, it was a good illustration of CP Snow's 'Two Cultures'. At the outset, the presenter seemed to have little notion of the idea of manipulating variables in equations, finding limiting values, etc.

² My school's assumption was that if you did science and weren't clever enough to be a doctor, then you'd be an engineer, so you needed Mechanics. Alternately, if you did Arts and weren't posh enough to be a solicitor, you'd be an accountant and would need Statistics. It was only at university that I encountered - and was good at - statistics, which comprised a large part of my Experimental Design and Analysis.

³ Completing the quote, to illustrate the potentially malign consequences of anthropocentrism (or puddlecentrism):

"...This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for."

A thousand words paint a picture

2010-12-09T14:33:00.004Z

I've been playing with tag clouds at the gorgeous wordle.net. For thems as doesn't know, a Tag Cloud is a visual representation of word frequencies within a body of text. More frequent words are shown larger. Wordle lets you monkey around with layout, colour, etc.

Here's what it makes of Shakespeare's sonnets. All 154 of them:

And here's Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales.' It was a bugger editing out the footnotes from this one. I'm slightly disappointed that 'shiteth' doesn't appear - but bigge shoute out to 'eke':

The Communist Manifesto:

NWA's seminal 'Straight Outta Compton' album:

By way of comparison, I used tagcrowd.com to do Bonoboworld. It doesn't have such nice graphical features:

(Hmm. This could become recursive.)

Any ideas for what else we really ought to see clouded?

Mmmmm...tasty!

2010-11-30T12:12:00.003Z

Genuine Sainsburys photo, from the blog that brought you this.

Going back a bit

2010-11-23T14:43:00.026Z

As ever...I'll fix the html shortly.

A short while ago I read, and immensely enjoyed 'The Time Traveller's Wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. Others I know have rated it highly too. I'm not necessary claiming that it's great literature - but the convoluted time strand was an enjoyable head fuck. (The film was universally panned, though.)

So I was surprised when two people whose opinions I respect, at least one of whom had read it ( ;-) )¹ responded...somewhat negatively. It wasn't just that they didn't like it as a book - there seemed to be a bit more revulsion going on². It seems the source of the distaste is the ('vile') Wife of the title who ('selfishly') goes all out to conceive a child even though she knows it may suffer by having the same time travelling condition as her husband.

The first thing I have to say is my only thought about the Wife is that she is a little mimsy. (Hiffenegger comes over that way in interviews too). It simply didn't register with me that she was doing something dreadful by having a child, and nobody else I've spoken too commented on that. I don't get the impression that it was a theme or issue for Hiffenegger, either. The having-a-child plot element wasn't, I don't think, in the book for the purposes of either raising a dilemma or showing the Wife in a bad light.

So why the repugnance on one side and blank puzzlement on the other? Is it different worldviews over whether it's acceptable to bring a sick child into the world? Or perhaps its that some of us (like me) have simply demonstrated ethical laxity and failed to pick up an obvious monstrosity. That's what I'd like to explore. I'm not saying that one side is wrong and the other right. It's my view that ethics is (are?) a slippery bugger: many's the time that we can't say for sure what's right and have to accept that others simply disagree. Still - talking about the disagreements can be enlightening.

So here we go...

I want to start with the specific - the book - and then move on to the general - real life.

In the book, The Wife has an overpowering desire for a child (many women do) and suffers multiple miscarriages in her attempts to carry one to term. It gets to the point where The Time Traveller can't bear to see her so distressed and has a vasectomy. Her distress continues until she conceives and bears a child by an earlier, un-vasectomised³ version of The Time Traveller.

Now...if I recall correctly, the Wife's desperation for a child is driven by something more than biology. She knows that she will lose The Time Traveller and wants something to remember him by. So one could take the view that her determination might override other concerns. Such as the concern that the time travelling gene could be passed on to her child. She sometimes sees her husband suffering injuries as a result of his time travel, so she's (arguably, selfishly) weighing up her neediness against a child's suffering.

Except...that's not what it says in the book.

Firstly, note that The Time Traveller seems to have no problem with the possibility of conceiving - or not on the grounds of a child's suffering, anyway. Is he being morally lax? Or is he making a valid decision that a life that contains the same type of suffering as his might nonetheless be worth living. After all there are compensations, like getting to see cool punk bands that you missed the first time around or having al fresco sex with an eighteen year old when you're in your forties.

Secondly (and hear it occurs to me that Hiffenegger might have been addressing the suffering issue after all)...most of The Time Traveller's sufferings are due either to his getting into scrapes because he suddenly turns up somewhere naked or because of the complications of not being able to explain his 'now' circumstances. Plus he can't take any dental work with him when he time jumps. But Hiffenegger fixes that for the daughter, doesn't she? By the time she's ten her condition is widely enough known about to have a name. OK, so it might still be dangerous for a woman to turn up somewhere naked, and maybe she'll get frostbite like her dad - but the risks are reduced. It might mean multiple trips to the dentist, but at least the dentist would understand why. (Although maybe in the US there'd be the insurance issue.⁴)

And so on to the general.

First I want to deal with the issue of maternal yearnings. The urge to procreate differs from woman to woman (and, indeed, man to man), but on the whole, having offspring is what lifeforms do. We have to accept (surely?) that it's a legitimate urge. I wouldn't call it a 'Right' - after all, some people simply can't have children - but it has to be up somewhere in that territory.

(And note that we don't have to exercise our Rights or right-ish things: some have little compulsion to be part of a well-regulated militia, etc. etc.)

Consequently, on the whole, we don't believe in intefering in peoples' reproductive rights, do we? That's reflected in Articles 12 and 16 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. As a guiding rule, the decisions of others whether or not to have children are none of our damn business. That's not to say, of course, that we always think people are doing the wise thing by reproducing. Is it wise for a woman who makes her living scavenging on a Lagos rubbish dump to bring a child into poverty, filth and disease? Probably not. But breeding is what people do, and if there's any fault its the wider world for not creating satisfactory conditions for her and her child. Or we might be exasperated at the stereotypical woman on a sink estate who, in a dysfunctional search for meaning and identity, has multiple children who will be brought up in less-than-ideal socio-economic conditions. Or the the Pope-fearing woman who, unlike the majority of European Catholics, follows church teaching and end up with a pew's worth. We don't (do we?) despise these women but understand that they are the victims of circumstance. If their lives were better, they'd tend to have fewer children anyway, but what they're doing isn't usually regarded as immoral.

One small caveat: I realise there is one way in which we think it's reasonable to restrict reproduction. Given the scarcity of planetary resources, I assume we all wholeheartedly approve of China's 'One Child per Family' policy and - modest proposal - would approve of its extension and rigid enforcement in those nations which consume the most resources per capita. (I'll leave that one hanging. It's a whole can of worms and worth a thread of its own.)

Where was ? So far, I think I've been trying to establish that people breed and, in the case of healthy children at least, nobody bats an eye. So are unhealthy children as special case? Is it reasonable to give birth to a child knowing that it will suffer?

Welllll...it depends what you mean by 'suffer'. And how much. And whether the sufferer might nevertheless come to find life bearable despite. As Gautama said 'Suffering is inevitable.' But most of us don't take Schopenhauer's⁵ view that it is 'better never to have been born at all'. On the other hand, most (but not all!) of us would accept that it would be example to terminate a pregnancy on the grounds that an ultrasound scan showed the foetus to be microcephalic. And then there's a middle ground. What if a scan shows conjoined twins? Or a hole in the heart? Or if amniocentesis shows a high chance of Downs Syndrome? All those (potential) children will suffer through their conditions. Interesting questions: Are we compelled to terminate? Are we compelled to have the ultrasound and amnio so we can spot problems before it's too late? I promise you I'm completely, utterly Pro-Choice. I'm the son of an abortionist, after all (my mum was a family planning nurse who provided contraceptive and termination services in Bootle, a deprived, largely Catholic area of Liverpool in the 1970s-80s). On the other hand...we turned down amnio for our own children: we wouldn't have aborted.

So maybe it's a judgement call on how much suffering we're prepared to allow. I'll buy that. But who decides? Is Downs Syndrome bad enough? Is it better or worse than random time travelling? Search me. Shouldn't these issues be judged on a case-by-case basis? Shouldn't the default position be that its the parents who decide?⁶

Another caveat: parents can get judgements about their children dreadfully, dreadfully wrong and at such time it is reasonable to intervene in defence of the child. (The Univeral Declaration on the Rights of the Child⁷ has precedence over the UDHR). There have been various cases where, for example, parents and medical staff have disagreed over whether treatment should be withdrawn and the child allowed to die. The point about these differences of opinion is neither side is right. They have to be referred to a Higher Authority, and that's what judges are trained for⁸. In fact, even if both sides were inclined to agree, in difficult cases, doctors would be ethically negligent not to go to court.

But so far I've only dealt with the 'Shit Happens' cases. The ethical decisions we make when dealing with the happenstances of life are in a different category to our deliberate moral choices. Like when a Time Traveller's Wife deliberately chooses to conceive a child who will likely suffer a medical condition.

Or are they?

Let's allow that The Wife is (selfishly/vilely) privileging her desire for a child over the child's suffering. However, I've tried to establish (to my satisfaction at least - feel free to argue) in the default case where children are likely, as most are, to be born healthy that women are entitled to their own reproductive decisions. Further - even if we could see inside others' minds - their motives for reproduction remain theirs alone. (As a starting point at least. We might have qualms about someone planning to have a child for organ harvesting, sexual gratification, a tasty snack⁹...). I've also tried to establish that it's damn difficult to draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable suffering: at very least there's room for legitimate disagreement. (Hold that phrase: legitimate disagreement. It's OK to disagree ethically - it's inevitable, even.). So if we have a woman who's making a reproductive choice for unknowable reasons but which is hers and hers alone to make, and the acceptability of that choice in terms of the suffering to the child is unquantifiable but is hers and hers alone to judge...well...I guess you can see where I'm going. For myself, I'd have to be pretty certain before I labelled such a decision as vile - there would have to be some pretty obvious extremes. But mainly, these matters demand tolerance - unless one's prepared to be more ethically certain than I ever am.

Let's take a real world example (-ish. I'll not go researching links). There have been cases where congenitally deaf couples have had children knowing that they, too, would be deaf - in fact, some have even advocated positively for their deafness. Are they right? OK - I'm starting to get uneasy myself with this one...but I don't know. (Is deafness more disadvantageous than time travel?). Sure - I'm entitled to my gut feelings...but maybe, just maybe I should get over myself. For example, if I were to discover later that the deaf child turned out to be perfectly happy...could we not say that my gut feelings had been a bit silly?

Time to get philosophical on your asses.

I'm not a big fan of Deontological Ethics which say¹⁰ that 'good' is definable by fixed principles, on the obvious grounds that if there are Rules, how the hell do we decide what they're meant to be? Even Kant’s Categorical Imperative requires us to make, I think, quite arbitrary judgements about what is right. I’m not necessarily saying that’s wrong – so long as you’re heart’s in the right place – but we shouldn’t pretend we’re accessing universal principles by so doing. Essentially the Categorical Imperative boils down to Rabbi Hilel’s ‘Golden Rule’ – do as you would be done to. But there’s a big problem with this: What if I don’t want to be treated the same way as you? (“Curse this time travelling! I wish I’d never been born!” ...“Actually – I find its worth all the pain and inconvenience”)

A variant of this has become popular: Scientific or Naturalistic Ethics, the notion that we are all imbued with an ethical sense by nature of our biology. Some, such as Peter Singer and Sam Harris, hold that Morality can be derived scientifically. Singer, for example cites experiments where subjects are example of a train speeding down a track towards a set of points. Down one branch of the track there is someone on the track. On the other there are five. Subjects universally agree that it’s morally legitimate – imperative, even – to operate the points so that the train kills one instead of five. So we’ve established a universal principle. Except…I can see how easily such principles might be overridden. (“What if the five people are Jews?!”) I suggest that all we’ve established is that we make moral judgements, not what they should be.

The suggest that a basic mistake that many people make, not just 'ordinary' people but Deontological Ethicists make is to categorise decisions or actions as 'Right' or 'Wrong'. I don't just mean that people classify various things incorrectly, but that the categories themselves are insufficient. Much of our thinking seems to rest on Aristotelian logic. But maybe on matters of Ethics we need to take a leaf out of the book of Islamic philosophers such as al-Ghazali (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) who categorised the world more subtly - in line with Islamic theology which (contrary to popular belief) doesn't simply categorise behaviour into forbidden/allowed but has various gradations ('ahkam'). Plus, it's probably no coincidence that Fuzzy Logic was invented by an Iranian¹¹.

Then there's Dialectic. Now, obviously as a good Marxist I'm a Dialectical Materialist. But as a way of looking at the world, it's only a means to an end - a way of simplifying problems to the level at which they're tractable. Just so long we realise that the real world is complicated, though, and problems are multivariate. Kierkegård preferred to look at it differently. Complexity is irreducible and the truth is not in the decision one reaches, but in the process of grasping towards it. (There is a good Radio 4 'In Our Time' on this. Highly recommended.). Thus some decisions are to be approached with 'Fear and Trembling.' Plus, see my quote at the end of this post.

Except we do, ultimately, come down on one side or another, both as societies and individuals. As societies we derive laws and societal norms which provide us with an ethical framework so that we don't have to think everything through from first principles every damn time. But note that codification does not confer 'Rightness' on ethical principles. Nor, even in democratic societies does it mean that, having reached an agreement, everyone must nuckle down and agree. All that we mean by a 'Law' is something enforced by power - whether the power of a majority or of a priveleged minority with control over truncheons than anyone else. But so what? What I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't expect an ethical consensus stable enough to provide the basis of custom or law. It follows, then, that there will always be people who dissent from some laws, 'agreed' ethical positions or norms of behaviour. If they carry their dissent into action, we should remember that they are not necessarily breaking a moral code, and when we punish them...all we are in fact doing is exercising our superior power to enforce our norms. In fact arguably society needs dissent - including plain, old criminal nastiness - to remind us what we think.¹² However...we should always be aware: We may be wrong.

Getting back to individuals. Yes, of course we all have our opinions of what is Good/Bad, Vile/OK, What I'd do/I'd never do a thing like that, etc. I guess my plea is that we choose carefully the occasions when we elevate what may be mere matters of personal taste to the status of morality.

Or am I wrong? Am I weak-willed hyper-liberal moral relativist with no ethical underpinning? Discuss.

However...we're only talking about a piece of Chick Lit, and one's entitled not to like the characters in books. (I don't like anyone in 'The Lord of the Rings', after all ;-) )

I've rambled enough. I'm a rambling man. I shall leave you with some examples, though. Which of these hereditary conditions would you judge sufficiently serious to avoid passing on to a child?

Heart disease
Huntingdon's Disease
Bipolar disorder
Being born in a socially deprived area
Dark skin pigmentation (face it - it causes genuine hardship!)

Unleash the footnotes...

¹ In fairness, the other person cast it aside as Chick Lit...although I still say they should have read on and not been swayed.

² "This is not a book that can be tossed aside lightly. It must be thrown with great force." Dorothy Parker. Hmm. I'm currently ploughing through 'The Kindly Ones' by Jonathan Littell. At 980-odd pages, it can't be tossed aside lightly. Even if you did, it would land with an almighty thud.

³ Is 'un-vasectomised' a real word? Never mind - it doesn't make a vas deferens.

⁴ Yeah, dentistry is costly in the UK too now - although one would expect Time Travellers to get NHS treatment. I've saved a fortune by managing to get on an NHS dentist's list and cancelling my insurance.

⁵ I'm fairly sure it was Schopenhauer. Could've been Nietzsche. I'm 99.999% sure it wasn't Kierkegård.

⁶ And, for various reasons, I think ultimately the mother, but I'll leave that subtlety for now.

⁷ I always use the Plain English version of this. It's lovely!

⁸ "I could have been a judge if only I had the Latin...the Latin that you need for the strenuous judging exams." - EL Whisty.

⁹ "Eight pounds and four ounces...Good size for a baby...Damn small turkey, but." Line from a Roddy Doyle book - can't recall which one.

¹⁰ Says? Can I have a ruling please on whether Ethics are singular or plural? Or a county in the South East of England?

¹¹ "What have the Muslims given us lately?" "Camcorders and Anti-Lock Braking Systems, Mr Kilroy-Silk."

¹² I think there's a criminological theory along these lines, but I'll have to consult the local expert. It sounds like a Jean Genet, Deviance kind of thing.

Lies my father told me

2010-11-10T12:47:00.007Z

We have various pieces of lore in my household:

The object to the right is a bear's egg. Yup. An egg. From a bear.
The best course of action when pursued by a rhinoceros is to grab hold of its horn, very tight, with both hands and don't let go!
Special precautions need to be taken when eating custard creams. They are the most dangerous type of biscuit and should only be eaten under close supervision. ¹
The way to tell the difference between a rabbit and hare is that one says 'bounce, bounce, bounce...' as it hops along wheras the other says 'boing, boing, boing...'
Babies fly around the room when nobody is looking.
There are three species of bird: chickens, ducks and pigeons. Flamingos, for example, are a tall kind of chicken.

It is, after all, important for children to learn not to trust their parents.

¹ FACT: More biscuit related injuries are caused by custard creams than other types of biscuit! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/08/killer_biscuits/

Cake!

2010-11-03T16:43:00.021Z

(Bear with me - I'll try and fix the formatting. Blogger has its own ideas)

I'm making Parkin.

For non-UKanians...parkin is a heavy, moist cake containing oats and treacle (= molasses, approximately) that sticks to the roof of your mouth. I don't know why, but it's associated with Catholic Burning Night. So are jacket potatoes, which I can at least understand - you can bake a potato in the embers of a bonfire. Then there's treacle toffee. I don't get this whole treacle/pyrotechnics connection.

Parkin originates from Yorkshire, and they'll doubtless insist that only Yorkshirefolk can make it properly.

The recipe I'm (loosely) following is:

1/4 lb/125g self raising flour
1/2 lb/250g porridge oats
1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
Some finely grated ginger (don't know how much. 'To taste'.) Or you can use ground ginger
1/2 lb/250g soft brown sugar (or I doubt anyone will notice if you use white)
1/2 lb. butter or margarine
1/2 lb/250g treacle, warmed so that you can pour it out of the tin. (stand the tin in some hot water)
1 egg (optional)
Milk to mix into a thick pouring consistency

Sieve the flour and bicarb together. Add other dry incredients and mix. Warm the butter with the grated ginger and mix in. Add the treacle and (finally) the beaten egg. Add as much milk as it needs (it should still be fairly stiff). Pour/spoon into a well greased, shallow baking tin. Bake at 175C/350F for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Turn out. Cool. Best eaten the next day and keeps for ages in an airtight tin

This is all dreadfully approximate, I know, but we're not talking precision baking here.

Probably Yorkshirefolk will complain that it's not proper parkin unless it's made with lard. And gravel.

Etymololgy Corner

Just go go off on a tangent (moi?)...Parkin gives us an opportunity to discuss a couple of etymological factoids. 'Parkin' and its variant 'Perkin' are diminuitives of 'Peter.' (As in Perkin Warbeck, The Bastard Pretender, pictured.

Now, Treacle...that's an interesting one. Originally it derives from θηριακή (thēriakē, “antidote”), feminine form of θηριακός (thēriakos, “concerning venomous beasts”) - i.e. an andidote to snake bites. This morphed into Latin, triaca and Old French, triacle and its meaning became generalised to mean a general potion to ward off diseases or spells (which were more-or-less the same thing). Now. Where do you go to gather the ingredients for potions? Into the woods. And what else do you find in the woods? Honey! And what's a bit like honey? Treacle!

And that's why fire engines are red.

Fascinating, Eh?

So while we're at it, let's do fascinating. When a Roman boy reached puberty, he would be presented with an amulet consisting of a small leather pouch called a bulla to wear around his neck. In the bulla was a fascinum, a small model of his erect penis. Fascinum became generalised to mean any kind of charm. 'To charm' is synonymous with 'to transfix' which is synonymous with 'to fascinate'. And I notice a revival of the word 'fascinator' , which fell out of use but has now bounced back re-defined.

Funny old thing, langwidge.

No sun, no fun, November

2010-11-01T11:40:00.009Z

(I think the title was originally Chesterton. Not sure.)

I've just taken delivery of one of these things, in an effort to beat the winter gloom.

I've long been prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder, which has always hit me most in November, just as soon as the clocks go back, and mid-January to February. Presumably Christmas distracts me in between. Fuck knows why I migrated northwards! I'm cleary more the Mediterranean type.

SAD used to be regarded sceptically - one of those things diagnosed by American psychiatrists* - but it seems there's some pretty sound physiology behind it:

...the cause may be related to melatonin which is produced in dim light and darkness by the pineal gland, since there are direct connections, via the retinohypothalamic tract and the suprachiasmatic nucleus, between the retina and the pineal gland.
(from Wikipedia)

There is also well documented evidence that its incidence increases moving towards the poles, and of a relationship with bipolar disorder.

Light boxes have come shooting down in price. I got mine for £50 from Amazon. There are all sorts availabe. What you don't want is one of those alarm clocks designed to simulate dawn breaking. (They may work - but they're not the same). You want 10,000 lx of full spectrum light output. Blue lights are available (eg from Philips) , but there's no reason/evidence for them - athough there is some evidence for yellow-green at lower lux, since the human eye is most sensitive in that region.

Experience so far. Well...it's a bit wierd. The first thing you notice is that they make the room seem dimmer, because all the surrounding shadows look more shadowy. Plus the full spectrum light is a little cold looking. My model has a little perceptible flicker at the ends of the tubes, which is not a good thing (could give headaches). Maybe more expensive models are better for that. As for use - to get a sufficient dose you're meant to sit 20cm in front of it for half an hour. That's never going to fit in with my daily routine. Maybe I could manage 10cm for seven and a half minutes (note to non-scientists: inverse square law), but that seems a bit extreme. So I guess I'll have to schlep it in to work where I can sit with it further away for longer. Tcha. It can be a conversation piece.

Apparently I should have started it a few weeks earlier, before the nights really drew in, but better late than never. It's too early to notice results, but I'll keep you posted.

Btw - I once knew of a couple who ended up splitting up over SAD. He was a petrochemical engineer and his work took him to Alaska. But she couldn't get on with the climate and so she moved down to Florida.

She just couldn't stand his lattitude.

Oof.

End with a song:

* Everyone knows, for example, that American psychiatrists over-diagnose things like ADHD. Oh? Why do we think that? Mightn't it be that over here we underdiagnose?

The knives are out

2010-11-01T09:41:00.018Z

Regular readers will know about my annual charidee pumpkin-a-thon. See previous examples. Nowadays we do them for Unicef.*

Anyway - here's some of this year's crop. Mwwwwu-wa-ha-ha-ha-haaaa...

Halloween is A Big Thing around here - something I wasn't used to growing up in England (or has it changed there now?). The Scottish variant on 'Trick or Treat' is that the children have to sing a song or (more usually) tell a joke. The adults' job is to try to look amused as they are bombarded with often garbled versions of humour. (This is especially the case with my daughter's Algerian friend. Her English has come on stupendously from a standing start in the year-odd that she's been in the country...but she hasn't quite mastered the intricacies of the inane pun yet. Bless!). We did get a heart-meltingly cute version of 'Hickory Dickory Dock' from a Power Ranger, though.

Now...in our experience, children will practice their jokes on their parents for about three weeks beforehand. Repeatedly. Endlessly. So imagine our surprise when this year...

...we got a Paki joke.

From an eight year old.

I mean...how is one meant to react?

My costume? Sink Plunger. Egg whisk. Head torch........Dalek!

* Speaking of which...this demented eejit is planning to run up and down Ben Lomond 100 times during 2011, hopefully raising some money for Unicef along the way. Please visit his Just Giving page: "In general, it takes about an hour to get to the summit, and 30 minutes back down." !!!!!!! (I should point out that this is someone who runs up and down the Himalayas).

I doubt you've even heard an Indian elephant break wind...

2010-10-27T15:35:00.029Z

The word for today is:

qawm.

This is a Pashto word refering to a unit of or basis for of solidarity, such as kinship, residence, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Sometimes it's transalated as 'tribe', but that's really an outsider interpretation with colonial overtones. (Irregular noun: We are a nation; You are a people; They are a tribe.) A qawm can cross tribal or ethnic boundaries and can is flexibly deliniated according to context, e.g. Our village vs those bastards in the next village; the villages in this valley vs those bastards over the hill; us Pashtuns vs those bastard Tajiks; All of us Afghans vs whatever bastard Americans/British/Russians/whoever is dumb enough to waltz into our country and reckon they can sort us out.¹

Another way of looking at the concept of qawm is from the inside out, as the arena for competition between individuals. This idea has been taken up by anthropologsts - and especially by the NATO military wishing to get a handle on ~~resistance~~ insurgent organisations (Google 'qawm competion' for numerous examples).

From the anthropological view the idea of qawm gives a useful model of group and identity formation. The ties that bind are things like: exhange (people getting together to exchange goods, money, services, social obligations); opportunity for advancement through exchange; enforcement of power arrangements to enforce or protect advantage; solidarity arrangements to protect against competition or power; etc.

And so on to Marx². I do keep trying to tell everyone that I'm not an Orthodox Marxist³. In fact I'm a pic'n'mix Revisionist. So you want get me dividing people rigidly into proletariat or bourgeoisie nor imagining the world as struggle to the death between the one and the other. I accept that many a self-styled Marxist regime has thought that way (or, at least, acted as though they did), but it wasn't what Marx was on about. ('If all these people are Marxists, then I'm not'. It's a valid criticism, notwithstanding, that if only the man were capable of writing a coherent sentence then fewer people would have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.)

What Marx was on about was the way that economics is the driver for the organisation and progression of society. He concentrated on the conditions within 19thC industrialised nations, hence the qawms that he identified as most important were the proletariat - those who earn their living by selling their labour and the bourgeoisie - those who own the means of production and are hence able to extract surplus value from the workers. The bougeoisie are the normally held to be synonymous with Capitalists - but I find it's often necessary to draw a distinction between them and those those at the top of the heap who make their living by dealing in the abstracted, rarified, slippery meta-commodity of 'Capital'. or 'Kapital' Let's call these über bourgeoisie 'Financiers' or 'Bankers' or whatever.

(Hang on...Did I say 'qawms' somewhere back there? My bad. Marx called them 'Classes'.)

There is conflict within and between classes. Take the bourgeoisie. Unless they constantly strive to keep up with or undercut other businesses, they won't be able to pay back their loans and put food on their families' tables, so they are constantly forced to find ways to lower their cost base - and this will always, ultimately, be at the expense of the workers. Automation. Lower Ts&Cs. Outsourcing to China. (In Marxist jargon, they're 'maximising their extraction of Surplus Value'). And thus, obviously, we have competition - conflict, even - between the proletariat bourgeoisis classes. Amongst workers we have competition which, in times of labour surplus at least, allows wages to be held in check - although if they're canny enough about it, workers can form solidal⁴groups to curb excesses/ensure they get the best deal. Or, indeed, businesses can form corresponding associations, cartels, etc.

When it comes to bankers...well...the bourgeoisie tend to feel a class alignment there - they can't afford not to: they're dependent on finance - although various alements of competion apply, from shopping around for loans to the shares market etc. etc. When it comes to bankers...there's a nice, real-life contemporary example of competition in the current stooshie over bankers' bonuses. At the high end of the market, to where all the Capital has gravitated, to gain a competitive advantage, banks have to engage in risky, marginal trading. To secure the services of those best capable of doing this, they have to offer fuck off sums to entice people away from their competition. If they fail to attract the right people, their bank goes under instead of the other guys, busineses collapse, jobs are lost, mortgages are called in, etc. So it's fine to rail against banker's bonuses, but people should be aware that they're intrinsic to the system as a whole. Why not go for broke and oppose Capitalism as a whole?

Oops...I almost fell in to a trap there. While we're here, let's knock something on the head. 'Capitalism' isn't an evil plot by nasty Capitalists. It's not a system designed to do down the workers. It isn't even designed or consciously adopted at all. Capitalism just is⁵. People compete and exchange. Someone gains advantage. Society is developed and shaped. Some people gain, others lose out - but that's nothing personal. 'It's just business' All Marx was describing is what happens, with particular focus on the industrial phase of societies.

Back to qawms. What I've described so far is something of a 'vulgar Marxist' version whereby people are fiited into defined classes and the heel of the bourgeoisie is forever on the face of the proletariat. It's a particarly British mistake: 'Oh, Marxists are always on about Class, but that's all disappeared.' ⁶Of course...it's more complicated than that. ⁷

If we take the concept of qawm and apply it to Marxist notions of Class and Class Conflict, we perhaps can perhaps see them as somewhat more mutable. If the basis of group/qawm/class identity is competition within and between, the the boundaries will be defined differently dependending on context: different identities for different types or arenas of competition; boundaries shift over time as economic conditions change; etc. All of this explains (obvious) stuff like why employers and employees can unite in a common interest (one needs wages, the other workers); why men can be persuaded to fight in Capitalist wars (better to be on the winning side.)

Something else. Another species of Revisionist is the Eurocommunist. Antonio Gramsci's concept of 'Cultural Hegemony' holds that when powerful class comes to rule a divserse society, its ideas become the norm. Those economically dominant set the rules of play. Seems to me that qawm makes sense of a lot of the stuff about the way people adopt identities which aren't necessarily in their interests.

To my mind, Marx shouldn't be thought of as painting a picture of inevitable conflict. OK - there's a bit of that: he pointed out the worst-case solution whereby the contradictions of capitalism will lead to its inevitable (messy, destructive) collapse. And, yes, he had distinct apocalyptic tendencies - he was a revolutionary manqueé⁸ who was hideously bad at predicting the onset of revolution. But reall his big idea is that economics - and here we should remember that economics isn't just about money but all forms competition and exchange - is the motive principle of society.

Ideally I'd like to bring Darwin in here. Marx was an enormous admirer of Darwin, whose ideas he cited as an leading influence on Das Kapital. Now, it's been said that 'Economics and evolution are isomorphic'⁹. If you think about evolution by natural selection, its a matter of competition within an environment leading to speciation. Order arising from a messy, impersonal process. Clearly the parallel with qawm isn't exact here (but when have I ever been exact?) - for example we don't find organisms that are one species one minute and another the next. My point is that evolution - and qawm - and Marxist theory - share the idea that competition acts as an organising principle.

See also genetic algorithms, The Blind Watchmaker, etc. etc.

Arn'tcha glad I've discovered the html tag for superscripts?

¹Cor! While researching this, I came across something about The Only Jew In Afghanistan. See the last line. No facile comparisons, please, to The Only Gay In The Village. In Afghanistan...there are plenty.

²My 'Alice's Restaurant' moment: "But I didn't come here to talk about that. I came here to talk about the draft...".

³I'll admit that part of my reason for constantly calling myself a Marxist is to wind people up. It's generally been a rod for my own back, though, 'cause so many people get the wrong idea and make assumptions based on very little knowledge of Marx. I shall stick to my guns, though: Marx has made more sense to me the more I've aged.

⁴ Yes, it is a word. I checked.

⁵Here's another way in which I'm not an Orthodox Marxist, I guess. I'm not a revolutionary, at least to the extent that I don't think revolution will cause the overthrow of Capitalism (although it can achieve regime change and social reform). The best we can do put in place measures which steer economic forces one way or another to mitigate against the negative consequences of Capitalism and achieve desirable social outcomes. More wealth accumulation vs More redistribution, etc. etc.

⁶"The Class War is over. The working class lost...and the government are charging reparations."

⁷As it would be with Marx. He was the first post-modern philosopher, slippery as a well lubricated eel and fond of internal contridictions. Gotta admit, mind, this led to a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of trouble.

⁸ Unlike yours truly. I'm a revolutionary monkey.

⁹ That is, one learned person said it to me, but I've no idea who said it originally. If you google 'economics evolution isomorphic' it seems that quite a few people are interested in the general idea. I've a hunch that it might have been John van Neumann.

The Boys Are Back In Town

2010-10-27T10:24:00.020Z

If you happen to be in London, run-don't-walk as fast as you can away from the RA where they have an exhibition of The Glasgow Boys school of painters. Myself, I'm only in London once every five years or so, but I caught it when it was at the Kelvingrove Museum.

Jaysus, but I fucking hate them. 'Round these parts they're meant to be wonderful and innovative and everything. Well...I'll admit that they were technically accomplished, but innovative they were not. In fact, they were a thoroughly reactionary school, churning out their sub-Millais, 'kaleyard' pictures of romantic peasants, as seen here. I mean...Fuck. Off. Some of them were inspired by the way Cezanne painted light. I'm sure it would be lovely to pick cabbages in the climate of Southern France, if cabbages grew there. But, sorry, now matter how hard you squint, Dumfries and Galloway ain't Provence. (It goes without saying that my objections are as much political as aesthetic).

And then we come to this one. There's a fuzzy line between 'The Glasgow Boys' and 'The Scottish Colourists'. Whatever. But anyone who's ever visited the Kelvingrove with me, and many who haven't, will be aware - will have been told forcefully - that this is my very least favourite painting of all time.* I loathe it with a passion. Jesus fucking wept - I'm allergic to pseudo-Celtic mythology at the best of times, but this is just taking the piss. No need, no need. 'Bringing home the Mistletoe', I ask you. And it's huge!

I really don't know what it is about these fellas and why they're held in such esteem. I guess there's an inevitable tendency for provincial cities to idolise their own, 'World Famous in Glasgow' etc. etc, and since these guys were working at a time when Glasgow was the Second City of Empire (and fifth largest city in Europe), maybe they made a dispproportionate splash simply by dint of Being There. Because - their technical prowess admitted - they really aren't that special. Are they? Where's the originality? Where's the depth? Where's the Art?

The thing is, though, that Glasgow has produced its own innovative artists (as have many other cities). I'm a fairly recent re-convert back to Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I'd become blasé about him due to over-familiarity and the ubiquity round here of piss-poor rip-offs. But then you see The Glasgow School of Art** and see the way he uses Japanese references the way a contemporary artist might use Manga or Super Mario, all mixed up with Scottish vernacular, Gothic and Arts and Crafts. Plus he really does have an international reputation. On a recent visit to The Hill House I learnt that one of his tables was once owned by Andy Warhol***.

Plus Glasgow has its own, thriving artistic scene, as do many cities, and crucially one that's not regarded as a stepping stone to London or New York, but as a thing in itself. International artists are attracted there (and not in the same way as they are to Edinbugger where they arrive en masse to choke off the local culture). There's a sense of making local-but-not-provincial art. Elderly Glasgow pedestrian Alasdair Gray put it well: "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."

'Fraid I don't get any of that from these boys. Any Fine Arts course can teach the rudiments of painting, and their 'Glasgowness' was merely incidental. It seems to me that their chief skill was to be born wealthy enough to go to art school and settle into a career turning out chocolate box interior decor for their own type.

FULL DISCLOSURE: At home we have this and this on the wall and are looking for a frame for this. Harrumph.

* With the possible exception of Frederic Leighton's 'Flaming June'. Or anything by Edward Burne-Jones or Lawrence Alma-Tadema (especially this piece of crap). In fact, any of that Pre-Rapahelite scheisse with all it's pictures of dopey, swooning women lying around - often in harems or the like - being all lethargic and available. (apologies to JE if she reads this. ;-) )

** Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand once taught at GSoA. For those who haven't heard my story, I was in a bar a while back and the guy next to me waiting to get served was a skinny guy, beige jacket, stripey top, floppy hair. I turned to him and said 'Either you're the world's biggest Franz Ferdinand fan, or you are Alex Kapranos.' 'Can I just stop you there?,' he said, 'I'm Alex Kapranos.' Oops.

*** National Trust for Scotland properties have old ladies in each room, as guides. Ours told us about the table and said. "Mind you - I wouldn't even know what Andy Warhol looked like." Ah, what a terrible thing esprit d'escalier can be. We were half way home before I realised I should have told her "Andy Warhol looks a scream." See also this previous post.

This is the end, my friend.

2010-10-25T13:12:00.023Z

There has been a bit of back and forth lately between celebrity Catholic, Christina Odone and celebrity moral philosopher, Mary Warnock. The former has written a paper called 'Assisted Suicide: how the chattering classes have got it wrong'. (download) Marnock, meantime, has written 'Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics', which was discussed on R4's 'Start the Week' (prog available online).

Then from The Grauniad comes this debatelet between the two.

To take Odone's argument first, she holds that the 'chattering classes' - a term she says she's using deliberately to emphasise a class-based point* - that legalising assisted suicide will benefit only the monied, educated, articulate while the the poor** will come under pressure to end their lives for the convenience of others. She argues instead for better care for all near the end of of life.

It's a reasonable (and original) point, and I'm somewhat disappointed that Warnock didn't address it directly***. It's a variant of the 'slippery slope' argument, and for euthanasia (although that's a different thing altogther. Isn't it?) there's a precedent for medicalised killing spreading in scope. But I'm not entirely convinced. Assuming a properly constructed set of legal checks and balances in which the views of prospective suicides are sought, there's no reason why the poor should be less capable of expressing their wishes than the wealthy. There are various professions outwith the chattering classes who assist them in doing so daily. Plus that class has the same issues in relation to managing the end of their lives as the 'consumerist élite'.**** Then there's the sad fact that when it comes to palliative care - or medical care in general - the poor get a worse deal than the rich, whether in private or state system. So surely the class argument evaporates if the net effect is a worse end of life? Unless one believes that a suffering life is inherently of more value than an easy death. Which is, I understand, Catholic doctrine - but don't get me started on how that leads down the slippery slope towards fetishising the suffering of the poor.

Incidentally, we should question whether Odone's argument is disingenuous. Note that her paper was published by The Centre for Policy Studies - an outfit not normally regarded as being on the right (i.e. left) side of the barricades in The Class War. But give them their due - even conservatives may, from time to time, have compassion for the poor. It's possible that they are not simply siding with religion on the usual ideological grounds.*****

Interesting, though, that when it comes to her reasoning, it's not the class issue she talks about but her personal experience. Now...there's nothing wrong by being informed by experience - but which is it? The fact that she couldn't stomach helping her father to die is entirely up to her. If she derived satisfaction from her relationship with her desparetly sick and disabled brother than one must believe her. In the context of assisted suicide, incidentally, the latter is a bit of a red herring, except that she uses it to make a more-or-less God-based point on the Catholic belief in the automatic sanctity of human life. So which? Of course, it could be both. If so I guess I could ignore the religious argument about which it's impossible for me to have any opinion other than 'that's irrelevant' and have an honest, secular disagreement about the class issues. But I'll expect to see her (and the CfPS) taking a consistent attitude on class issues elsewhere. Otherwise I'll suspect a smokescreen.

On to Warnock. I read her justifications for assisted suicide as being refreshingly grim. And honest. Lately the public narrative has been taken over somewhat by the Swiss model of terminally ill patients bravely checking in to an appartment and gently slipping away surrounded by loved ones. Well...the reality is actually that the end of life is often shitty - not only for the elderly person but also their loved ones. Warnock regards 'not wanting to be a burden' as just a legitimate reason for seeking death as pain. Or we might consider how poor the quality of care is in many hospitals and care institutions. (And note that, while palliative drugs can remove pain, fixing the psycho-social aspects is harder). 'So why not,' Warnock seems to be saying, 'Just get it over with?'

It's a counsel of despair, isn't it? An obvious counter-argument is that we would not have to consider assisted suicide if we fixed other things. We ought to have better elderly care. We ought to take the burden off relatives, etc. etc. Except - to mangle a phrase - you can't get an is from an ought. If wishes were fishes, etc. And I'm doubtful of a hypothetical causal link: if we allow assisted suicide we won't be motivated to improve standards of care.

So this is where I think Odone has the class argument backward. Let's assume assisted suicide were legal. The poor, suffering the most intolerable health and social care conditions, would be more likely to wish recourse to it. So I will happily join Odone on the barricades to fight for equality - but assisted suicide is not the battleground.

NOTE: It's pretty clear from the above that I come down on the Pro- side. It's not a done deal, though. I have some sympathy for the slippery slope idea and am willing to listen to arguments. My only objection is when it's, per Odone, false argument in which underlying motives are hidden. But these issues are tricky ones and worth debating. It's not a topic in which either answer is particularly pleasant.

Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. Whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. This, gentlemen, is the quintessence of all the wisdom of life.

– Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

* Note that, despite her own impoliteness, Odone has previously bemoaned the 'stridency' of secularist/atheist commentators, which, the behaviour of some of The Usual Suspects granted, seems to be catch-all religious speak for 'They should shut up.' Interestingly, Warnock has been garnering praise for the civility with which she has been putting over her 'repugnant views', as in this review in Odone's old organ.

** Sigh. I desparately need a better term than 'the poor'. 'The working class' doesn't (ahem!) work. Lower class - meh. But 'the proletariat' just sounds silly.

*** To be frank, I'm not a huge admirer of Warnock. For example, it seems to me that the recommendations of her Commission which were taken up into the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill failed as soon as real life intruded. Like when Diane Blood was unable to be legally impregnated with her dead husband's sperm until she hopped on a plane to Brussels.

**** Those words from the link. I suspect 'consumerist' is a weasel word here. In Catholic circles, there's a tendency to - deliberately? - confuse 'materialist' = 'wants lots of consumer goods' with 'Materialist' = 'there's no such thing as the supernatural'. What's one to do when one encounters the word in a discussion? One has to either let the - deliberate? - misunderstanding/insult pass or go off-topic to explain.

*****Odone herself does not appear to be entirely right-wing herself. Although the Catholic Herald, which she edited, is regarded, unlike The Tablet, as establishment, she also did a stint at The New Statesman. (Now she blogs for The Telegraph - but journos tend to be political whores anyway).

[Personal note: I've had relatives who, I believe, would have wished help to die once they got beyond a certain point. And it's generally assumed that my father, having had a severe stroke, hastened his death by refusing food until diabetes took over. For myself - yes - I'd like the choice, and assistance with a speedy, painless method.]

Sigh. It's all about death today. Reggae great, Gregory Isaacs.

Book Rave: Nothing compares to his sister.

2010-10-20T10:50:00.011Z

It's time to effuse about a book I've just finished: 'Star of the Sea' by Joseph O'Connor'. It's the best book I've read in a long while.

I'd come across it several times in charity shops (my theory is that there's a law that compels every charity shop to stock certain titles. Have you ever seen one that didn't have Pamela Stephenson's 'Billy' biography? I rest my case.) For some reason I mistakenly believed him to be a respected, elderly 'man of letters' types writing Lawence Durrell-y prose, but it turms out he's the brother of baldy warbler Sinead, of whom I'm irrationally fond. (see previous post). I don't know if the siblings are still estranged following disagreements over her allegations of maternal abuse.

I'll not give much in the way of plot summary - you can get that in the usual places - other than that it concerns a coffin ship sailing from Ireland to New York during the famine of 'The Black '47' with a cargo of desperately starving passengers in steerage, more and more of whom succumb each day, and a handful of dysfunctional toffs dining well in first class. Synecdoche, and all that. Episodes over the course of the ship's voyage are interwoven with the back story of the principal characters, which in one case has something of the picaresque.* The characters are well and even-handedly drawn: the English are not shown as inherently evil, some of the Irish are shown to behave badly. Oh - and a murder plot unfolds as the voyage progresses.

What really impressed me are...what I call the 'formal' aspects of the book. I don't know whether that's the proper LitCrit word, but what I like is books which play around with the form or structure of the novel**. SotS uses multiple narrative viewpoints and intersperses real-time with flashback, plus a post-modernistic collage of things like newspaper stories, extracts from the ship's log, etc. These are all held together under the mantel of Victorian chapter headings ('In which we learn of the DREADFUL EVENTS...' &c &c), etchings of famine victims, racist Punch magazine portayals of Irishmen and extracts from letters, newspapers, etc. The book appears to be well reseached***, with lots of sources in the endnotes, so one assumes this material to be genuine. One item that shocked me was an entreaty that the poor of Ireland should do the patriotic thing and hang themselves from the nearest tree.

But we've seen all that multiple-narrative, multi-textured stuff done before. Whats really impressive is the way O'Connor pulls it all together and makes the form crucial to the backbone to the book. I don't want to give spoilers...but there's a reason why one person is aware of the viewpoints and why all the material is collected together, and that reason is central to both his character and (I think) his role in the key event of the voyage.

So basically it's a very gentle, very subtle collapsing wave function thingy, done in a totally unshowoff-y 'look at me aren't I a clever novelist' way.

And did I mention? It's a rattling good yarn!

Next up are 'Fathers and Sons' by Turgenev and 'Oryx and Crake' by Margaret Atwood.

*Get him, showing off his literary terms!

** Provided they do it for a reason. I hated Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth' for a different reason (I found it patronising, bordering on racist, to some of her characters.) But I believe she does clever things with the likes of chapter titles, gives each character she introduces a name starting with successive letters of the alphabet, etc. Well...If I didn't notice, what was the point? David Mitchell also, apparently, uses mathematical structures in 'Cloud Atlas' and 'Revolution No 9'. I shall reserve judgement not having read them...but I understood he did the same in a watered down way in 'The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet'...and I didn't notice even though I knew in advance. Although I did enjoy the book.

*** O'Connor has said in interviews that he read lots of sources, but he admits in the notes that he took liberties with a few things. One anachronism I caught him out on, though, was frequent references to 'hygeine'. But would this have figured in minds before Joseph Lister? Cleanliness at best, but that was more an aesthetic thing to do with first class not being able to smell steerage.

The picture's of a Merkin, by the way.

2010-10-19T14:56:00.009Z

So in a move of staggering irresponsibility, Frau Reichskanzler…sorry…Bundeskanzler Angela Merkel has declared that German multiculturalism has failed

"At the start of the 60s we invited the guest-workers to Germany. We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, that one day they'd go home. That isn't what happened. And of course the tendency was to say: let's be 'multikulti' and live next to each other and enjoy being together, [but] this concept has failed, failed utterly."…
…"Germany should … get tougher on those who refuse to integrate before
opening itself up to further immigration."

Hmm. I wonder when precisely it was that Germany flirted with an active policy of multiculturalism? We note, for example., that it was only with the 1997 citizenship reforms, implemented only to avoid EU-wide embarrassment, that German born, third-generation individuals of foreign background were granted automatic citizenship at birth. This tardiness promoted integration how?

I have problems with this M-word anyway. Leaving aside that it's seldom defined, the insinuation (is it not?) is that multiculturalism was some sort of well-meaning, liberal-left policy. To point out its naivety is not racism, simply part of the ‘reasonable’ debate around immigration alluded to in this article by Slavoj Žižek. Except…I fear that that even if we allow that Merkel et al are engaging in a sincere, philosophical debate, this is not the message they have put across. For "multiculturalism has failed" read "immigrants are a problem".

Which is – surprise – what they, and others, actually think. Merkel must know full well what impact her words will have. But let’s try to tease out why people think like that, and why particularly in early 21stC Europe. We know, from experience, that racism can be exacerbated by unfavourable socio-economic conditions. But the problem is less simplistic than ‘poor people are racists’ – that doesn’t account for the middle class support of the likes of Geert Wilders, the Sweden Democrats, or, indeed, are own, dear British Nazi Party (who, contrary to the lumpen stereotype, draw a fair number of votes from the leafier council wards*).

Germany’s recent history includes importation of Gastarbeiter, especially from Turkey, when their industrial need was for unskilled, cheap (note that word – cheap) labour. (other countries filled the need by similar means, e.g. British importation of Pakistani and Bengali labour). These are the people Frau Merkel wishes had gone back when demand fell**. Meantime, Germany underinvested in the education and social conditions of the children and grandchildren of Gastarbeiter - why invest in an underclass you don’t want or expect to fit in? - and we are left with disadvantaged ghettos. Nowadays, Germany still has skills gap, which they are filling via quotas for skilled immigration (c.f. arrangements put in place by the Labour govt. and carried on by the ConDems). After all, it is much cheaper to suck skilled resources out of the developing world than it educate the disadvantaged in your own country. Adam Smith as applied to the teaching profession: only do those things that you can't buy in cheaper from somewhere else.

So where does this take us? Wellll…(reaches for copy of ‘Das Kapital’) (only kidding! ‘Marxism for Beginners’ is a more manageable read.) What’s being said about immigrants is that they are valued solely for their Labour. (Merkel is saying this pretty explicitly, isn’t she? "…We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn't stay, that one day they'd go home..."). In Marxist terms we might call this ‘Commodification’ – the jargon isn’t important, but the point is that the purchasers of the labour commodity (yes, ‘Capitalists’ – but also German society in the round) are only interested in the labour, not in the people who, inconveniently, supply it. So they are welcome to sell their labour within a host country, when the market demands it, under carefully circumscribed conditions, just so long as they don’t bring their thoughts, desires or culture with them. That’s not part of the deal.

And what else do we get from commodification? Alienation. We have to be careful here, though. It would be a mistake to think of a pool of clannish immigrants who are partly or wholly the architects of their misfortune, through their alienated behaviour, like teenage Goths. Alienation is something imposed, something that arises from socio-economic conditions. Yes, immigrants do sometimes look to one another when they have class boundaries imposed on them. Wouldn’t you?

But why should this inward-looking or alleged lack of integration matter? What does it signify? (‘Signify’ in the sociological sense, that is). Well it’s useful for the mainstream society to have a class to look down on, isn’t it? And convenient when that class is identifiable as ‘The Other’. In straitened times, it’s just as comforting for the majority to turn inwards and feel the solidarity of a beleaguered European culture. Kinda shifts the blame, eh?

"Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch! Sie haben nichts in ihr zu verlieren als ihre Ketten."

* There was a survey a while back which indicated people were less likely to sympathise with racist ideas if they lived in areas with significant immigration, but – damn – I can’t find the link just now.)

** There's still a healthy demand for really, really cheap labour, including slave labour. This highly recommended book provides an eye-opening account of the working conditions of migrant and slave labour in Britain. It's not an underground or fringe phenomenon. Many work in the supply chain for major brand names or for the public services.

Fractal Rock.

2010-10-19T10:34:00.003Z

I see that Benoit Mandelbrot has died.

And no matter how closely you look at him...he's still dead.

((Ba-dam TISH!)

Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!

2009-10-24T19:52:00.012Z

So Nick Griffin has received a trouncing on Question Time. You can all YouTube it yourself. Chicago's finest Bonnie Greer was soooooooo sharp, so sexy. Agreed?

And obviously the BBC were right to let the gig go ahead, and the protesters who opposed the programme were and attempted to prevent its broadcast were 'misguided'. Right?

Wellll...let's remember our history, please. Yes, there are various aspects to The Struggle and Bonnie Greer and the other Question Time panelists were one aspect. But please, please, remember that they were only light relief in the real Struggle, the violent struggle that's paying out daily on British city streets.

Let's look at some historical examples:

The South African Anti-Apartheid Movement. My own (tiny, miniscule) contribution* was attending ANC benefit gigs (this, btw, when the ANC was a proscribed organisation whose leader was described as the UK PM as a terrorist). Hugh Masekela, Thomas Mapfumo. Mlalathini, The Bhundu Boys. On the white intellectual front, we had...well...you name them. The entire South African literary elite: Fugard; Cootzee; Breytenbach (his 'Confessions of an Albino Terrorist' was my personal favourite), Gordimer. Inspirational figures, all but....None of whom (with the possible exception of Breytenbach) really drove the nail into the coffin of Apartheid. So who did? Umkonto we Sizwe. The CP-SA. COSATU. The massed children of Soweto.

The US Civil Rights Movement. I know I don't have to name the artistic and philosophical contributors to The Struggle. Taking the white side alone....Abel Meeropol, Harper Lee, Bob Dylan..none of whom freed African Americans. This was achieved by African Americans themselves. But not as non-violently as history records. Brother Malcolm; Bobbie Seale; Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis...Dr King's Southern Leaders Christian Conference itself grew out of CP-USA activism whereby white neighbourhoods were 'involuntarily integrated' by the likes of Decca Mitford and her comrades. Do you think this was done without force?

And so to...

Germany. Nobody who's seen and appreciated Berthold Brecht's 'Mother Courage' could be a Nazi. Come to think of it...neither could anyone who'd read Goethe, Schiller (see post title), Mann...where do we stop?...do you reckon there might have been the Jewish Intellectual equivalents of Bonnie Greer in 1930's Germany who could have wiped the floor with Hitler and his 'Director of Communications' Goebbels? You betcha there were.

So why did Hitler succeed? By the brutal supression of the elements that were Fighting The Fight on the streets of German cities. This is what the Reichstag fire was about.

So, yes, I loved Question Time. Best TV event since 'Up For Portillo' (I was up in a birthing suit of the Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital for that one, incidentally). I loved things like Greer's 'And of course Nick, as you remind us you have a 2.2' (Subtext: Whereas I, the Granddaughter of sharecroppers am Deputy Director of The British Museum. So kiss my black ass.)

BUT DO NOT TELL ME THE PROTESTERS WERE MISGUIDED. Democracy alone is not enough to defeat fascist cunts: they are simply too practised, too adept at using Democracy against us. We also need those with the courage to face them down with the only argument they have ever understood: half bricks, thrown with great force.

Quote from the CP-GB father-in-law of a good friend of mine:

'When the Blackshirts came to Glasgow, we beat them back from Glasgow Green...
by the way - I do mean 'beat'.'

Oh, by the way...you might like to see just how successfully Bonnie trounced Griffin (these are vids 2 and 3 if you do a YT search on her name):

*That and 'Trolleys Against Apartheid' - individually or collectively taking a supermarket trolley around the aisles, filling it to the brim with SA tinned fruit, pilchards sherry....and leaving it/them tere with a suitable note attached. This was in the days before CCTV, so you could do it every shopping trip and not get banned.

Women's Work

2009-10-13T22:18:00.005Z

The award yesterday of the Nobel Prize for Economics to Elinor Ostrom represents something of a back-to-basics, firstly in that it is the first award to a woman, and secondly in its topic: the management of common property resources by communities.

There's a common misconception that equates economics with money. Not so. The circulation and (ultimately) accumulation of money is the topic of a rather dull subset of economics: finance.

I'm not a trained economist. But my economics teacher, Pedro, has told me a couple of interesting things:

The origin of the word Economy is 'household management'. (by the way...look at how recent that coinage is. It hasn't been synonymous with 'finance' for very long at all!)*

Quote (and I've stolen this repeatedly from him): 'Economics is about decision making. Usually we use money to keep score.'

The way I see it is this. Women, typically, have various decisions to make:

Do I spend money on school shoes for the kids, or can I afford to eat myself?

Is it more important to take the kids to the cinema to see the new Pixar or to pay the electricity bill on time?

Should I keep having sex with that drunken bastard who sometimes hits me but who also brings home money?

Those are micro-economic examples. Can anyone think of any macro-economic?

Isn't it amazing how ordinary women manage these complex, long-term planning decisions on a daily basis, all without the aid of the theories, spreadsheets, computer models and the like that financiers can't seem to manage without?

* This I already knew. It's the topic of 'A History Maker' by the great Glaswegian pedestrian, Alasdair Grey. The book is set in a futuristic time of plenty wherein the men occupy themselves by running around playing at Battles, while the women stay at home and TCOB. How very unlike our own time.

A whole hill of Beanscenes

2009-10-11T16:23:00.003Z

On my Facebook earlier today, I mentioned that I was working/chatting/whatever by Wifi. This was from a Beanscene café, a chain that’s rapidly become a Glasgow (and Edinbugger) institution.

The coffee’s pretty so-so (still way better than The Big S! But they need to learn the magic word: Illy.), but maybe that will change with the new management. There’s certainly a better range of food now – and even wine and beer (not sure these are A Good Thing. Their previous corkage regime worked just fine). Also…while the WiFi’s cheap (an hour with every purchase), as a Moral Principle, all WiFi should be free! (or, at very least, unlimited with purchase).

So what’s so great about Beanscenes?

We first started going to the original one in Shawlands when our first two were born, twelve years ago. This is highly significant! They define the Platinum Standard in child friendliness. They actively encourage Parent and Baby groups to meet there, informally…and, of course, this is great for business. Mid morning they’re generally stowed out with buggies, babies and Yummy Mummies.

They’re also a great place for teens to hang out.
They’re the venue for Bright Young Muslim Things. No alcohol (until...)
They’re nice and quiet for business meetings and the like. I did all my e-mails there today. In another corner, I guy I know was sat with someone with files and laptop and briefcases all piled up.
There are not many places you can sit and eavesdrop on a conversation which turns out to be about managing stenosis in neonates.
I meet my Community Psychiatric Nurse for appointments there.
Their playlist is All The Good Stuff…Yusuf Islam, Blur, Van ‘The’ Morrison, Beatles, Neil Young, Dylan, Doors, Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright Outkast…you get the drift. I want their playlist! (Mind you…my barista – I hope the *don’t* call them that - complained that it’s not big enough so it gets repetitive)
They promote/manage their own label (still? not sure)
They do evening gigs, readings, writers groups.
Their House Photographer is Ken Sharp. Today, from where I was seated, I could see Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Van, Polly Harvey. Bjork and Lou Reed were around the corner. Keef was by the toilet door.
Sure, it’s a mainstream commercial enterprise and I’m not saying there’s and interstitial about them. But not a hint of Central Perk, either. There’s usually one nearby. They’re an institution!

Beanscene, Clarkston Toll, Sunday.

L'enfer, c'est les auteurs.

2009-10-06T22:04:00.005Z

I went to my first ever Creative Writing class today, @ the local library as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival.

One of the exercises was haikus. Proper 5-7-5 haikus, with a seasonal imagery and dynamic middle line. We were given an object to inspire us...in our case, a lichen-covered, autumnal twig.

I wrote three thematically linked stanzas:

A brittle tree branch
snapped from its mother forest.
Fodder for writers.

Dark evenings' fun
from dry kindling. Nature
dried out for poems.

How cold these scribbles.
Wood burned, on table not hearth.
Sends out autumn warmth.

(extra points for spotting the Basho reference in the last one.)

Then we had to spend five minutes writing something - anything - about hands. Given that about 70% of the class was women over seventy...perhaps it was fortunate that I didn't have to read mine out:

Hands give great pleasure - which is why, in primates, god placed them so that they are adjacent to the genitalia when the primates are in their normal standing or resting positions. There are many other things that primates can do with their hands, but the African Ape species Homo is by far the most dexterous (or in many cases, sinistral). While the other two members of the chimpanzee subspecies, pan paniscus and pan troglodytes, are extraordinarily adept at unpeeling bananas with their feet, only the hairless chimpanzee is able to use its hands to communicate. This it achieves by tapping its fingers repeatedly against a complex arrangement of oil-based polymers.

Doris Lessing meets Douglas Adams meets Max Bygraves, I thought.

Some observations on the characterisation of societies according to their position within the historical dialectic.

2009-10-04T10:49:00.007Z

Just before I went to Sweden last, I read (via www.thelocal.se) a Prospect Magazine article about The Swedish Soul. 'The Scandinavian Exception' has long been a puzzle: how come they manage to do everything right, in terms of heathcare, welfare, education, social inclusion and, above all per capita GDP. (The groundbreaking 'The Spirit Level' discusses the overwhelming, unignorable correlation between societal equality and all these factors).

So how do they pull off what Hobsbawm called (long before Blair filched the term) 'Third Way', the hugely successful alternative to Anglo-Saxon Capitalism and Soviet-style Communism. Well...it's in the blood. A Swedish Trade Union leader points out that their society moved somewhat smoothly from an egalitarian agrarian society and straight into industrialisation and modernity. Unlike in, say, Britain, there was no intervening feudalism. Accordingly, they regard they regard Social Democracy as obvious. To a large extent they didn't have to struggle for the benefits they take for granted - obvious things like the struggle for independent trade union representation which my own mother played a leading role in in the 1970's.

Now, Marx pointed out that the conditions of the previous historic age are carried over into the next phase. The British Industrial Revolution was enabled by its feudal system: landowners were able to enclose their feudal demesnes for the benefit of the mutton and wool industry. Their dispossessed serfs provided a convenient pool of labour for the Dark Satanic Mills they were investing in in the newly forged cities.

And as for America...they still bear the horrifying legacy of the agro-industrial use of human machinery.

So where does this leave us? I would argue that we can characterise societies in terms of how har along they are on the dialectical process from feudalism-capitalism-Dictatorship of the Proleriat-Emergence Into Communism.

Scandiwegia: Well, as readers of Stieg Larsson will know, it has a dark underbelly (and a Norwegian of my acquaintance reminds me that the same people who invited Hitler in are still around, still active in society). But...you'd quite like to live there if you were elderly, ill or jobless, no? It's not far off 'To each according to their needs from each according to their ability' And they're all smart techno-cookies who completely get Marx's view that technology is the engine of Growth.

America: It is significant that America has a Liberal Left but not (to any large degree) a Socialist Left. The average, American, college-educated liberal is genuinely scared at words like 'Socialism' and 'Marx', for the obvious reason that sixty years of anti-Socialism militates against their studying them. Not if they want to hold down a job and mix in respectable company. So we are told, the Received Wisdom has it, that wheras Britain has a class problem, America has a race problem. Well...I'm sorry...but what is 'Race' other than a convenient device for colour-coding human machinery? The US of A was founded on slavery and its wealthier inhabitants continues to prosper from it. It always has been a class issue - Marxist historian Howard Zinn is excellent on this in his Peoples' History of the United States. It is no accident that the Civil Rights movement was largely instigated by the CP-USA and people like my personal hero, Trade Unionist Bayard Rustin. (J Edgar Hoover was right: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was a Commie front organisation). But...while there ave obviously been many good signs of late...America will not make progress in addressing healthcare, poverty, education, drug abuse, social exclusion, inequality or any of the general Happiness issues until they wake up to Socialism.

England (yes, we have to take it separately from the rest of the UK): The Class War is over and the proletariat lost. As an English emigrant whose formative years were directly shaped by English Feudalism and the stale hierarchy it implies - I believe I'm in a position to comment that it's seriously failing to fulfil its potential as a nation. England was the engine of the early Industrial Revolution...but it never quite got around to sharing its wealth (attempts to do so were crushed mercilessly, and the bitter legacy can be seen across the Northern coal towns). Indeed, it exported feudalism throughout the world in the form of colonialism, and as such...it as A Bad Name. (An Irish friend told me that the only phrase one needs to learn in a foreign language is 'Oh, god, no! Irish!). And the great crying shame is they don't even get it. Brown is On The Side Of The Angels - but even he is still bought into the idea that Britain (read 'England') can prosper on 'Invisible Earnings'* What part of 'The Crisis of Capitalism' would you like me to explain?

Scotland: Now as a Scot-Of-English-Ethnic-Origin (and boy, does that phrase piss people off. It's meant to.)...I'm not going to pretend for one moment that this dreich, Irn Bru swigging, chip-guzzling, proud nation of heroes is paradise. I merely observe that our socioeconomic history is somewhat different to England's. It is unfortunate for us that, at about the time the Industrial Revolution was kicking off, England exported a vicious brand of colonial feudalism which replaced a looser-knit, more consensual Clan system. (eg.up until The Act Of Union there as never a King of Scotland Dei Gratia, but a 'King of the Scots'.) So Scotland's communitarian culture was held in check...but it's always been there. This, combined with the Scots emphasis on education as a moral duty (we have Knox to thank for this: his insistence that the lowliest crofter was able to read The Bible meant that the Scots were able to read Adam Smith, Davy Hume, Burns, McDiarmid, Irvine Welsh, Tables of Logarithms...) means that we are...different. Our greater sense of JFDI coupled with our awareness that we're 'A' Jock Tamson's Bairns' puts us, I argue, in a better position than our stale, colonial masters to cope with the fact that the historical dialectic has simply moved on.

So what's the plan? Fuck-off big wave turbine generator in the strongest and most reliable current in the world (www.emec.org.uk). Use this to power a hi-speed maglev between Edinburgh/Glasgow and the English cities, so all the people from the defunct Financials industry can commute to where the money is. Or, if they're to dumb to want to come to one of Lonely Planet's Top Ten Cities, the Holyrood government, unlike Westminster, is actively encouraging immigration. We regard asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants and their children as a valuable economic resource. (and this, children, is why, in Scotland, the BNP share of the vote in the EU election was 0.02%. Or, to quote a friend's CPGB father-in law "We beat the Blackshirts off Glasgow Green!...by the way, I do mean 'beat'.")

Then...who knows? Maybe start running ourselves as though we were Scandiwegia, with free university education, free medicines, free elderly care...oh, wait. We already have those.

Tiocfaidh ár lá

* 'Earnings' is a misnomer here. The whole financial industry is a massive overhead which serves only to skim of tithes from Production Value. Even more bizarrely, Education is regarded as a 'Tax Burden', ignoring the well-established first year economics textbook teaching that $1 on education yields $1k in GDP. Teachers are the economic engines of society!

Geor-Geor-Geor-Geor-Georgia's always on my-my-my-my--my mind

2008-01-29T13:08:00.000Z

Here's a not-very-good cameraphone photo of my favourite relish du jour. My brother-in-law found it in a Russian shop in Dundee. The main label text is in Russian (nice one, Cyril) and says Adzhika - obviously a cognate of aji, achaar, etc - chilli or spicy pickle in various languages. The text above it is in Georgian script. (Which is where the sauce originates)

The relish itself is a dark, confit-ey reduction of chillis, onions and garlic. It's pleasingly hot, slightly sweet and salty. In Scovilles, it's about on a par with a sambal oelek. It goes especially well with fried eggs but then show me a chilli sauce that doesn't.

I've just discovered that Wikipedia has a category for hot sauces. It doesn't mention this one - but it does have a picture of the retro-cool Harrisa du Cap Bon Phare.

My Pop Soft Spot

2008-01-25T23:47:00.000Z

This is not exactly admitting to a guilty pleasure - just someone who probably isn't reflective of the bulk of my musical taste.

I've liked Sinead O'Connor ever since I say a small photo of her in the NME - well before I'd heard any of her stuff. It would be trite to say I like her voice*. It's acoustically very similar to Dolores O'Riordon of The Cranberries, but the difference is that you get the impression that every note that comes out of O'Connor's mouth is the one she meant to sing.

Anyway...this is quite clearly the best No 1 single ever. Certainly the best No.1 video.

It's the tear four minutes in that's the killer.

And then there was this - 13 days after she'd torn up a picture of JPII on live TV:

OK...I admit she's made the odd embarassing record...but her Reggae covers collaboration with Sly 'n' Robbie was a lot better than it could have been!

I learnt that lesson - around the same time as I first heard of Sinead O'Connor - when I told a record store employee that Najma Akhtar had a good voice. He told me 'Lots of people have good voices. But she knows how to sing.' Check out Dil Lagaya in her download section.

My favourite shop

2008-01-14T13:25:00.000Z

I had a birthday trip around the 2nd hand bookshops clustered around Glasgow's Otago Street. There are three: Caledonian Books on Great Western Road (opposite IJ Mellis, Cheesemonger); Thistle Books;...those two are good, and Thistle especially is good at having in stock what you're looking for. But they're a bit too well-organised for my tastes. Best of all is...

It's a little tricky to find if you've never been before, down a shabby wee lane. See this Google Map. Or look out for this landmark:

This is the bibliophile heaven that awaits you inside:

I'm guessing that at one time they tried to categorise and alphabetise everything properly - but they've long since abandoned that idea and gone for the 'Loose Piling' method. There were several minor avalanches when I was in. Useless if you've a particular title in mind, obviously, but book lovers can have a wonderful time mining in the stacks. "Ooh! There's another title that I simply have to have, despite never having heard of it a second ago." And I like the way the floor slopes in different directions and threatens to give way when you walk.

What I bought:

Two titles for my collection of 'Textbooks for languages I have no intention of learning':

Colloquial Mongolian
Teach Yourself Swahili

Other finds (from there and Thistle) were:

The Collected Poems of Hugh McDiarmid (2 vols)
The Joys of Yiddish - Leo Rosten
There Are Two Errors In The Title Of This Book - Robert M Martin. About logical and philosophical paradoxes.
A Time Of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor. First of a highly recommended trilogy about walking across Europe just befoere the start of WWII.
You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggars. I actually wanted (still want!) his What Is The What, but that's serendipity for yer. His A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius is also highly recommended.
Marx For Beginners by Ruis. The prototype for the '...For Beginners' series.

Believe me - I could have bought a lot more!

Oh - I did buy some Lancashire and Cheshire cheese, too.

The Ghost of an Old Machine.

2008-01-07T14:08:00.000Z

Last week, I bade farewell to a faithful, old companion. I tossed my pre-Cambrian PC out by the bins. It was almost 9 1/2 years old - a record, maybe? - but had served me well. I bought it from a dodgy backstreet outfit. PII 333MHz processor, 64MB RAM, 2GB HD (you can get bigger micro-SD cards nowadays!).

It was something of a George Washington's Axe of a PC, though. Over the years, I'd had to: replace the motherfuckerboard; add a CD-R drive (and then another, when that one wore out), add USB and Ethernet cards - they didn't have USB in those days - although I left the phone modem in, as a curioisity; replace the HD (upgrading to 4GB!) and add an extra one at a whopping 8GB; add more memory; and, most recently, replace the monitor with a better one, picked up for £5 in a car boot sale*.

Then there was the time they power unit failed. I googled (this was before ebay), and it turned out that there were only two of a suitable type in the whole UK...and they just happened to be in Bristol, where I was going the following day, right on my route from the airport. They were in a PC graveyard, a business run by a guy who bought up old equipment and disassembled it in his basement.

When I bought an iPod, In discovered two things. Firstly, iTunes won't run on anything olderv than Windows 2000. Secondly, my machine wouldn't handle XP. This set me off discovering the wonderful world of Ubuntu Linux, to be able to run gtkpod.

Here's what it looked like inside.

As my friend Gunnar once said, "When you become a parent, you have to put the case back on your PC." Wise words. Note the crafty use of duck tape in lieu of a hard drive bay. Marvellous stuff, duck tape. It's what holds the universe together.

The reason for replacement was that my brother-in-law donated one of his old PCs, on the grounds that it was '...too old to handle e-mail. It doesn't even have a modem.' I must tell him about the existence of USB network adapters sometime.

But the spirit lives on! I've stripped all the useful components (eg memory) from the dead machine and stuffed them into the new one. One of these is the IDE cable**. Bizarrely, the old one had a backward one which had to be twisted awkardly to get it into the back of a drive. And I've kept the old monitor, keyboard, mouse and graphics tablet (another car-boot £5).

I've not got a DVD-R working in it yet. I did buy one, from the same dodgy backstreet outfit (£17!) . But I knew it wasn't going tom work as soon as I plugged it in...on account of the smoke. Once I get that sorted, I plan to burn and install Ubuntu and dual-boot with XP.

* Complete this well-known phrase or saying:

"Don't get your knickers in a...

...car boot sale."

** Grey ribbon-y thing that plugs into the back of DVD and CD drives.

Wee Devil

2007-11-26T14:34:00.000Z

This weekend was Glasgow's biennial Radiance Festival of light art. As part of this, Adam and Sophie took part in the production, 'Wee Devil' by an arts group, Giant Productions. They put in a lot of work, making shadow puppets, rehearsing and appearing on three succesive nights.

It was a multimedia production, with live actors and narration and a film projected against the mediaeval Provand's Lordship, Glasgow's oldest house.

Here's the performance.

And here's a cast photo. (Adam on left, Sophie on right, holding demon mask)

Afterwards, we had a spooky walk in the Necropolis.

More from Yorterborrr

2007-11-21T14:21:00.000Z

Gothenburg = Göteborg (pr. Yorterborrr). More photos from my recent trip.

City of Many Canals

One of a dozen or so contenders for the coveted 'Venice of the North' title

A disturbingly erotic woolen shorts-sox-knee warmers combo

An ergonomic supermarket basket-cum-trolley

A society so hi-tech that even the rodents are online.

Shrimp boat is a-comin' ('restaurang' where dinner is delivered on radio controlled boats)

In the last couple of weeks the fish have wised up and have started attacking the boats. Evidence for evolution?

A refreshingly down-to-earth attitude to fleshly matters.

This is what Swedish Marine Engineering Officers look like.

A poster for my public seminar.

Not a real ship. Only a model. A well cool model! The Captain is real, though. And also a Professor.

Where I did the gig.

The view from the cafeteria.

What a university department might look like, if you didn't forget to fund it for thirty years.

A fat bastard, teaching a university class.

Hej då!

Faux amis pour mes vrais amis.

2007-11-02T23:07:00.000Z

Linguistic confusions in Scandiwegia:

I think I'm lost. I thought this was Copenhagen?

Probably the most boring licorice shoelaces in the world.

You'd have to be either stupid or stoned to shop here.

I've been up Jorck's passage

Oh, I don't know. I thought he looked like a cute wee...whatever he is.

Now I don't like that!

(but the sensible Scandiwegians have it under control - as always)

This tram got out of the wrong side of the bed.

Snakes in an Elevator!

Well, yes. Bacardi and sex is a fatal combination.

It'll never sell. Mind you...Cafe au Lait flavour seems somewhat appropriate...

And finally...this one speaks for itself...

Baby Doom

2007-08-23T13:24:00.000Z

I like these:

It's one damned thing after another.

2007-08-23T09:04:00.000Z

"History is written by the victors", says the slogan. In fact, in the case of the Vietnam, it has now been re-written by the losers - as evidenced in George Bush's speech to US veterans yesterday.

In fairness, it didn't start with Dubya. There is a current of popular mythology that says that the war could have been won if the US hadn't soft-pedalled to appease the lefty peaceniks (and if the draft dodgers had done there part...oops better not mention that). Bush is playing on this when he talks about the US 'withdrawal' from Vietnam. That's 'withdrawal' as in 'kicked out.' The US were licked fair and square. Despite their overwhelming advantages in firepower and logistics they had no choice but to 'withdraw'.

Nevertheless, they shouldn't make the mistake of withdrawing again. Last time, we're told, that led to the horrors of the Khmer Rouge killing fields. He has a point there. The US left the region in a shocking state. Part of the mess was the power vacuum created in Cambodia, in large measure due to 'Operation Breakfast' and 'Operation Menu', the covert carpet-bombing of Cambodia which Kissinger used to destroy peace talks and to suppress Viet Minh elements that were in opposition to Pol Pot's faction of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia and Laos were to be sacrificed to buy time in Vietnam. In so doing, the US shares a large part of the blame for creating a monster.

And who was it who sorted out the mess? In 1968, Cambodia was liberated by Vietnam.

Tip o' the hat to this guy for his photo title.

Looks a scream, hang him on your wa-a-all.

2007-08-22T14:13:00.000Z

Last week I visited the Andy Warhol exhibition, showing at the National Galleries of Scotland as part of the Edinburgh Festival (loyal readers will recall that last year's blockbuster was Ron Mueck).

I didn't have too much interest in Warhol previously...some good ideas, sure, but I'd got the idea. Or so I thought. In fact, we weren't going to go in at first (we were headed for the Picasso ceramics at the Museum for Scotland), but the queue was short and it was a spur of the moment thing.

I was blown away! I got more out of it than I have from an exhibition in many a year. here's some ramblings.

Warhol was the master of praxis. Just do something, and work out what it is afterwards. Keep churning out repeated images and new ideas will emerge. Say a starlet is terrific and It Shall Be So. Portray yourself as an artistic genius and things will happen. Repetition was obviously his Famous Big idea, but he did all sorts of exciting things with it:

The Brillo pads and soup cans - in an industrialised, mass-market era, artifice has no value. The artefact becomes art. The trick is to continue to make art at a detached distance from the product.

Jackie O. (This sort of thing - except with the images more mixed up). It took a while to realise that there were only three separate images, combined in various enlargements. What he's done here is added a time dimension - cf Picasso's 4-dimensional paintings. But he's added a televisual element for the media age: it's not a linear portrait, but a series of snatched glimpes of a public persona beamed intensively into living rooms over a period of intense interest. So it also adds multiple perspectives - the same image of a fixed event, viewed repeatedly by different people and/or the same person, over time - a blurring of time and viewpoints.

His death paintings - stunning use of silk screen and silver nitrate photography to add noise to images, making the viewer work to draw out the content. In a version of this one (scroll down to Green Car Crash) it comes as a shock that the impaled victim is not the first thing we notice. A version of this has the image repeated, in one repetition with a lot of visual noise. The shock comes when one realises that a faint blur in the corner is the falling figure. (And again - it says something about time: Before and After). In another, one gradually realises that a hospital scene shows a baby being delivered by Caeserean section.

Skull Paintings. Screen print on heavily impasto'd paint, lending subtle variations to each reproduction and making each one fresh.

Screen tests. Films to be viewed as portraits. What is a film but a stream of still photos? (I had my own screen test done).

Stitched photos. He's take four identical B&W photos and stitch them together (he left the the ends of the thread visible). When you look at them, you realise that you're focusing on something different in each repetition. It also turns out that he was a master of composition.

I could go on - but better not. I'll leave you with some children playing with his iconic 'Silver Clouds'.

Capitalism 101

2007-08-16T13:12:00.000Z

A few words on the Mattel toy recall.

There seems to be a lot of criticism of Chineses safety standards. But is it entirely fair to lay the blame on Chinese subcontractors?

Here's how Capitalism works. Corporations are more or less obliged to constantly find ways of cutting their margins. This is how they maintain a compatitive market position, allowing them to stay in business and re-pay their investors. Those in favour of 'Free Marketeers', who are in favour of unbridled criticism, constantly rail against 'regulation' which imposes non-negotiable costs on companies. (eg John Redwood's call for de-facto tax cuts).

Regulation includes things like financial probity, workers' pay and conditions and product safety. These are the responsibility of national governments and are put into place in response to democratic agreement. In effect, the electorate says "We'd rather not have lead in children's toys, thank you." One way for companies to avoid the costs associated with local regulations is to shop around for laxer regimes - ie to source products from markets where labour is cheaper and less money is spent on product safety.

So...say you're a toy supplier placing subcontracts in a competitive market. Your priority is going to be the bottom line...isn't it? Because that's the impersonal law of The Market. The subcontractor offering the best deal is quite likely to be the one who's paying workers pennies and cutting corners on safety (and environmental impact...etc. etc. etc.).

We know this. Right?

So whose job is it to check whether subcontractors are meting our minimum standards? And whose job is it to ensure that companies supplying into our country do not place contracts on subcontractors whose business model relies on terms and conditions for their workers that we would deem unacceptable? At present, we recall poisonous toys. We don't recall garments made by sweated child labour.

The Way We Live Now

2007-08-13T10:19:00.000Z

I've got a new phone - and, more's to the point, a new supplier. My old provider's Loyalty Department didn't come up with the goods...so I was disloyal. Slut!

My new supplier is these people. They are slightly unusual in mobile telecoms terms in that their business model is based around the sale of 3G content. Their handsets are set up with shortcuts to their content portals - some of it free (eg. news - albeit mostly tittle-tattle about people I've never heard of) , but mainly paid-for content (TV; empeethrees; games).

It hardly needs saying that mobile telecommunications have changed our lives within a very short space of time. It's hard to imagine how we did without our phones. Example: I was (re)watching one of my favourite films, Gregory's Girl recently. The scene where he's stood up by Dorothy at the clock in the plaza...that would never happen nowadays. We no longer have to make elaborate arrangements to meet people and hand around waiting in anticipation; we can make arrangements on the fly. And I'm sure we've all got stories about life/sanity-saving incidents.

But that's not all. I was browsing through the various 3G offerings, and discovered that I am twelve or so twitches of the thumb away from pornography. Here's a thing; High Street shops all over the UK are openly selling devices which give easy, discrete access to commercial sex product, menu choices including gay, lesbian, MILF, gonzo, anal...etc. I don't wish to moralise about this (although debate always welcome), but merely to highlight it as a a societal change. Gone are the days when images of erections were only available (if at all!) through scary backstreet emporiums.

It's a well cool phone, incidentally. Who'dathunk I'd be carrying not one but 2 video cameras around in my pocket (and a much better camera than on my last phone!). I've got this photo as my wallpaper, my ringtone is The White Stripes' 'I Think I Smell a Rat' and for the alarm, in tribute to Brian Wilson who woke his family up with it every day, The Ronettes' 'Be My Baby'

Hearts, Minds and Prawn Cocktails

2007-07-27T09:28:00.000Z

A wee tidbit which is perhaps indicative of why the occupying forces in Afghanistan have failed to win hearts and minds.

I chanced upon a Ministry of Defence newspaper which had a mayor feature on new types of field dressing being used in Afghanistan. The dressings contain Chitosan, a compound which reduces blood loss and inhibits sepsis. It sounds like a good biotechnology. Odd, though, that the MoD think it useful to highlight the use of a compound derived from the shells of prawns, which Islam deems haraam.

Remember what happened when rumours spread that bullets were greased with pork fat?

TV nolstagics will recognise the accompanying image as the scampi (with friends), from Fingerbobs. All parts played by Yoffe.

The Bonobo Interview

2007-07-18T12:15:00.001Z

Azahar has got me involved (not exactly kicking and screaming) in a blog meme whereby another blogger (In this case, she) puts interview questions to me. Her own interview is here. Being a self-absorbed show-off, I'm happy to oblige.

Damn good questions, Az! I warn you...I tend to digress - but you probably know that about me.

You call yourself a 'militant atheist'. Why do you think it's important to take a militant stance on this matter?

I've already admitted to a tendency to show off - I've a pathetic tendency to want to portray myself as 'different' (and I could probably talk for hours about how this is a psychological defence mechanism caused by not feeling as part of the crowd in the first place.) So obviously there's a large degree of pour épater la bourgeoisie. Although there's a serious side, too.

The full title was 'Born-Again Militant Atheist Fundamentalist'. Born-Again, because although I've been an Atheist at least since the age of 12, for much of my life, I was happy enough to countenance countenance pseudo-religious, mystical hippy shit...Taoism, Zen, UFOs, Telepathy...again, all part of voluntary difference; I probably thought it made me more interesting. Of course, they're all nonsense. Militant - yes, that's pretty much a pose. I'm more strident than militant, in that I don't actively seek out religious people to attack and abuse (but if you hand around long enough, they'll come to you...), so that's really redundant. Whether or not I'm militant, people are going to carry on believing all manner of tosh.

Atheist and Fundamentalist I'm entirely comfortable with. Atheism is really so obvious that it really doesn't need any explanation. There is simply no reason to suppose there is a god - nor indeed things like souls or spirits or cosmic forces, or anything outside/ alongside our physical existence. Further, the idea of god in no way helps us think about the universe or our own lives. It's a useless, meaningless concept. Fundamentalism - yup, here I get to retain my outsider credentials. Fundamentalism, usually religious, is generally held to be A Bad Thing. The accepted wisdom is that the religious headbangers who deny evolution and/or murder innocent bystanders are to be distinguished from the nice, sensible religious (those for whom I've coined the phrase 'fluffies'). Now, from a Rationalist, Atheist perspective, I've got any number of arguments against such bastards. Indeed, I'm sure I share these arguments with the religious. However - I cannot conceive of any even vaguely plausible religious arguments aganst them. Such like "That's not true religion" or "That's not what god wants" don't stack up. How do the fluffies know? It's all too easy to throw back "Yes it is" and "Yes he does". Religion just doesn't have any good answers, either to scientific or moral questions - and that's what I'm fundamentalist about. I have to apply the same standards to the fluffies as to the murderers.

But there's another side, too - partly following on from my outsider stridency, but in a good way. Religion - proper religion - is held up by the religious (and even by some non-religious) as being better than non religion at all. It gives us a place in the universe, a meaning to life, a moral code, a sense of beauty, awe, wonderment, mystery. At worst, the religious look down in pity (or even anger) at those who simply don't get it. But even those who are open to the idea that there are many ways of being religious tell us that we need our 'spiritual side'. There's an implicit - and often explicit - suggestion that religion makes us Better People. Well...of course, I react against this. I regard myself as a tolerably moral person. And I can't prove it...but I'm reasonably certain that I feel spiritual sensations (although I'm allergic to the word 'spiritual') in pretty much the same way and just as intensely as the religious. I'm bound to! We share similar neurobiology. I doubt I'm missing anything.

Even more...there is something that the religious are missing. The fact is that we are all biological entities, sharing a common, physical existence. Our whole perception of the world and our various ways of getting on with one another has to take this into account. We have to think about these things in Atheist terms, rather than adding random, god-centred logic. And if we all want to get along in a democratic world, we have to talk about them in common, secular terms. So I'm Fundamentalist about religion adding absolutely nada to human understanding. In terms of organised religion, this obviously means we shouldn't privilege the language and terms of reference of those who live within theological houses of cards.

And here is where the anti-Fundies may start to get agitated - I'm afraid I have to be equally Fundamentalist about disorganised religion. Some people, while eschewing the mainstream, claim a personal; spirituality or god concept. (Hi, Az! ;-) ). Now they're entitled to use whatever mental models they want, but when they start talking, I'm afraid it doesn't help me to understand where they're talking about. Which is fair enough...except that if they're thinking in god terms, it doesn't help them either. If they're trying to think about anything of real world relevance, there's a good chance they're not going to be coming up with much sense. Sorry - I'm only trying to help.

So that's me - a nasty, prickly Atheist Fundamentalist. What I'm trying to say with the phrase is "Sorry - religion does not give privileged insights into the world or the self. Quite the opposite."

How has being bipolar affected your life? Are there any positive aspects about it?

I think Azahar was kindly concerned that I might not want to answer this question. For the record...I have absolutely no embarrassment about my illness. I'm deliberately open about it, and on the whole haven't experienced negative reactions.

It will be helpful if I take the second part first. It's also something I feel strongly about. The notion of bipolar disorder as having positive aspects - the highs as massive compensation for the lows - has entered public mythology. For example, Stephen Fry has made high-profile statements along the lines of "If there were an 'off' button to take away bipolar disorders, sufferers wouldn't press it." Well, I'm sorry...maybe Stephen hasn't experienced extreme highs...maybe he has sufficient life cushions (wealth; life in a tolerant, arty circle) that his highs haven't damaged him. Yes, many people with bipolar disorder speak of the creativity the highs give them...but they're a self-selecting group of high achievers. Could it be that there's a hidden population, perhaps undiagnosed, whose lives have been ruined? Think of that next time you pass a homeless drunk slumped in his own piss.

As for myself...my hypomanic episodes were scary and destructive. They started with an upswing into happiness and creativity...and I wouldn't have sought help for them because, I told myself, I was having a whale of a time, living life to the full and solving all the world's problems. But even at the time - I think knew that something Wasn't Quite Right. And there were definitely a few scary moments when the brain went into complete short circuit (although I'd dismiss them a few minutes later and carry on running, full-tilt). Put it this way - at the end of the day, I needed to be in hospital for my own good. Being Sectioned is scary! Trust me - you wouldn't want it. Neither would you want the realisation, on coming down, that all that 'fun' stuff in the lead up was absolutely fucking embarrassing. Even now, hardly a day goes by without my breaking out in cold sweat on remembering something I did or said.

And it goes even deeper. Hypomania is the extreme end of the creative, happy spectrum. So how would you feel if every time you felt happy or creative, you had to think "Is this going to get out of control? Do I have to take a step back? Am I allowed to feel this way?"

Which all goes some way to answering the first part of the question. I have a bipolar brain (latest evidence is that b-p is associated with abnormalities in midbrain white matter - although it's not clear whether this causes or is caused by the condition). I guess if I didn't have the illness, I wouldn't be me...and since I've come to see my good points, I guess I have to accept - reluctantly! very reluctantly! - the disorder as a net positive. But I could certainly have done without the disabling episodes in my life.

It took me a long, long time to be diagnosed, and this is typical for sufferers. I've been treated for depression since my mid-twenties. With hindsight, it had started by age 14...and possibly by 12. There was quite a bit of misery along the way, leading up to the thing I'm most proud of in my life - checking myself into hospital instead of killing myself. So...yeah...you could say my illness has affected my life. And in other ways - lack of self-confidence, failure to achieve, inabilty to cope with life's turmoils, etc. etc. Although...to put it in context...what doesn't kill you makes you strong. I'm me, and I like the result reasonably well. Mostly. I was in a hospital casualty department with an eye injury yesterday, and the doctor asked me if I had any other conditions. "Only bipolar disorder," I said. (To quote Woody Allen, "What's so 'only' about it?"). Yes, it has and continues to be a major factor in my life, but I guess I can cope with being a pharmaceutically-regulated bipolar person. It's a killer disease, and for the untreated prognosis is not good.

When did you become a vegetarian and why did you make this choice?

Ah...I'm afraid this one really is down to deliberate difference. Age 20, I did it as a sort of experiment. You should try anything once (Except incest, folk-dancing or sitting through Star Wars). Being vegetarian for one meal hardly counts, so I tried it for a while and it got to be habitual. It would be nice to pretend there was some sort of ethical underpinning...but truth be told it made a change from finding different ways to cook a quarter of mince. Up to a point, I have absolutely no qualms about animal suffering - it's humans that count for me - and so I in no way mind others eating meat, or even find the idea personally repellent. In fact, it's probably a little daft of me to keep ordering the vegetarian choices on menus, even when they're boring. I like food, so why should I compromise? (Although if I did waiver - I think I'd waiver towards seafood or offal. In fact...I sometimes have a notion for braised lambs hearts. I think it's possibly genetic. It's the one thing my Grandpop ever managed to cook in his life.).

You have a very interesting Desert Island Disks list on your blog. What would be your 10 Desert Island Books?

Thanks for the compliment, and for giving me an ever-welcome chance to talk about books.

Contrary to some impressions (eg my wife's), I really don't go in for that whole, male, Hornbyesque list-making shit. In fact, I hate the idea of 'Best Of's. My attitude is more "This is good...and so's this...and have you read this?". But Desert Island Disks isn't really about best ofs either. One way to play it woukld be that I'd like to take ten books that I've never got around to, to keep me busy. Ulysses, War and Peace, Gravity's Rainbow, etc. etc. But the best thing to do is to choose books that are meaningful in the story of one's life (although in reality...I might not want to read them again). So...let's go for:

Some kind of classic 'Space Opera' SF - I'm tempted to go for Arthur C Clarke's The City and the Stars - but I can get extra credibility for the wonderful The Star Diaries by Stanislaw Lem.

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (I should choose Slaughterhouse 5 - but this was my first proper literature)
On The Road by Jack Kerouac

The Good Terrorist - Doris Lessing

Candide - Voltaire
Penguin Modern Poets: The Merseysound - Roger McGough, Adrian Henri, Brian Patten
A History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell
Selected Poems of Hugh McDiarmid
Another Country - James Baldwin
English Bread and Yeast Cookery - Elizabeth David

Eek! Where's the Greene, the Burgess, the Salinger, the Steinbeck...10's not nearly enough! (Funny - in my Desert Island Disks, I chose the complete poems of Norman McCaig. That's a nice thick book that I'd like to delve into more, but it's not really part of my story).

If you could change jobs tomorrow, and money and qualifications weren't a factor, what new career would you choose?

I always say that if I win the lottery, I'll go and study something. Anything. I'd enrol in a university and study stuff. If I could, I'd do it without bothering about exams or qualifications. (I suppose I'm an intellectual at heart. That's what my university old tutor still maintains...ever since he saw me coming out of the library on the day after finals had finished, with one of the books on the above list. Mind you - at my university it was a relative term). I do also like teaching people stuff - although I don't think I'd want the hassle or discipline of working in formal education. Maybe I could be some sort of 'public intellectual'. (Gawd! That sounds poncy and self-aggrandising - but we did say qualifications weren't a factor)It's all a complete pose, of course. 'Intellectual' doesn't imply that I'm smarter than anyone else - just that my head's full of more shite. (I'm dead serious here. There's more than one way of being clever. There's more than one way of being a good person).

Alternately - a baker.

Or a fluffer for Lesbian porn films.

The rules of this meme are here. Feel free to ask me to interview you.

It was twenty years ago today...

2007-06-05T17:00:00.000Z

I've just found a twenty year old cassette tape (remember them?) that I'd used for a compilation*. I haven't anything to play them on, but I managed to track down a device that is normally used to play The Singing Kettle. Endlessly. Here's what I was listening to twenty years ago:

Should I - Barrington Levy
Starvation - Jerry Dammers etc**
Desmong Dekker and the Aces - Israelites
Picture on the Wall - The Natural-Ites
Too Much Too Young - The Specials
Gangsters - The Specials
The Bottle - Gil Scott-Heron
Shut Them Down - Gil Scott-Heron
Bring Him Back Home - Hugh Masekela
I Am Down - Salt 'n Pepa
Across the Tracks - Maceo and the Macks
Into the Groove(y) - Ciccone Youth
Surfin' USA - The Jesus and Mary Chain
Nobody's Twisting Your Arm - The Wedding Present
Hand in Glove - Sandie Shaw
Mandinka - Sinead O'Connor
Hit The North - The Fall
That Petrol Emotion - Swamp
I've no idea what this one's called***. It's in Xhosa - Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens
Hey, La' - Gone to Earth****
Waxy's Dargle - The Pogues
Big Decision - That Petrol Emotion
Someone To Love - Jefferson Airplane
Drop The Bomb - Trouble Funk

I have to say - I'm impressed by my young self. I'd stand by all those tracks. Certainly no "Jaysus - what was I thinking" moments. Ah, memories, memories...

* Explanatory note for 'Young People': In those days, you couldn't just whack together an empeethree playlist, hohhhhhh, no! You had to get out these big plastic disks called a 'record', start them playing on a special rotating machine, hold down two buttons on the 'cassette' recorder, wait until the whole song had played, then stop the 'cassette' machine before the 'record' started making a funny scratching noise at the end of the song. Compiling a 'cassette' could take the better part of an afternoon.
** The alternative 'Do They Know It's Christmas'. Double A-side with 'Tam-Tam Pour L'Ethiopie'
*** But I do recall it was on 'The Indestructable Beat of Soweto, Vol II
**** You won't have heard of them. Punkish Folk on Liverpool's Probe Plus label. From the album 'Vegetarian Bullfighter'.

Ethical Flipping

2007-05-14T13:14:00.000Z

Apparently, the latest trend is flipping . That's when you buy a limited-edition thing - say a Banksy Paris Hilton CD, Boots anti-wrinkle goo or one of those I am a smug twat bags* and turn a handsome profit by flogging on to some gullible fool via ebay. I find it hard to see much wrong with it, frankly.

But I've got a better idea. I've been sorting and pricing books at Oxfam from time to time. Sometimes I've come across books that I know won't sell - at least not there - but someone will want them. For example - a dozen ancient hardbacks by Canadian humourist Stephen Leacock and lots of obscure titles by Churchill.

Now as it happens, Oxfam are quite professional about sifting out the rarities, and they have one or two specialist bookshops dotted around. But I've often come across the odd book in a charity shop or at a car boot sale which I don't particularly want for myself, but I know it's reasonably collectable.

So here's a socially useful idea: flip 'em on ebay and donate the proceeds. We might not be talking loadsamoney, but it's a thought.

*Yes, you can buy parody versions.

As it happens, I went to a school car boot sale. I have a spooky ability to get what I need at these places. This time, I went in thinking "I need a new PC monitor". I decided to have a quick once-around before looking in greater detail, and the third store I came to...17" monitor, £10.

Plus a reflecting telescope.

Currently giving poddage to:

Modest Mouse
CSS
The Hold Steady
Mark Ronson (I'm not convinced. We're basically talking The Jools Holland Big Band and Guests, aren't we?)

Blair's off...

2007-05-11T11:03:00.000Z

...on 27th June.

Damn this delayed gratification!

Election tactics.

2007-05-10T11:52:00.000Z

It's certainly a relief that the British Nazi Party didn't make their feared electoral breakthrough - not in Scotland, where their share was trivial, nor in England and Wales. But there's no reason for complacency. In Glasgow, their posters were - still are - prominently displayed on street furniture, heavily plastered in working class areas and scattered on major routes as far out as the leafy suburbs. Every one an affront to human decency. This is the first time I can recall anything other than the occasional, rare sighting.

This fits in with the BNP's tactics. Their rebranding as just-another-respectable-party is a front. They have always been and remain a mess of violent thugs whose favourite hobby is intimidating and beating up 'ethnics'. As they showed in the summer of '01, and in cases like this* they consider it a victory if they can stir up a climate of fear and hatred.

That's what the election posters are for. They will remain, signalling hostility and distrust, for weeks to come.

*Some readers will know of my personal connection to this.

This R4 documentary tells you everything you need to know about what a shady bunch of heid the ba's the BNP are - if you didn't already know. (Available streamed for 1 week from 8/5/07)

How to help

http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/

http://www.uaf.org.uk/

http://www.antifa.org.uk/

http://www.anl.org.uk/campaigns.htm

Buzzzzzzz....

2007-05-09T13:09:00.000Z

I liked this story which I (ahem) came across the other day.

It suggests a new military tactic. Cripple enemy communications by sending in the Women's Royal Masturbation Corps.

(Oh dear...I find that image somewhat more alluring than perhaps I ought...)

Somersault

2007-05-03T08:55:00.000Z

For Dan.

One isn't really meant to quote poems in their entirety, but the Penguin Selected Poems by Hugh McDiarmid seems to be out of print, so what the fuck. Probably appropriate on this parliamentary election day, anyway.

Somersault

I lo'e the stishie
O' earth in space
Breengin' by
At a haliket pace.

A wech o' hills
Gangs wallopin' Owre,
Syne a whummlin' sea
Wi' a gallus glower.

The West whuds doon
Like the pigs at Gadara,
But the East's aye there
Like a sow at farrow.

You need a Lallans glossary with McDiarmid. It's deliberate. It's a constructed language, only loosely based on anything actually spoken by Scots. The idea is that you can read for the rythm, or slow down to catch the meaning.

(these translations are only approximate):
stishie = stir
breengin = hurtling
haliket = giddy
syne = then, and then
whummlin' = tumbling
wecht = weight
gallus = reckless
aye = always

Anarchism begins at home.

2007-05-02T09:53:00.000Z

So I'm sitting at my doorstep last night, drinking a red vermouth with tonic.* Across the road, on the grassy gushet**, two six year old boys are playing with a ball. A neighbour parks and gets out of his car. He approaches the boys and says,

"You'd better stop playing with that ball. There's a sign saying you're not allowed."

I don't like bullies. I don't like pettyfogging regulations. I saw red. I stood up and said in my best theatrical voice (my voice projects!),

"I think we should get rid of that sign, boys."

The neighbour takes exception:

"Never mind that. They're not allowed to play there."

"Why?"

"Because there's a sign!"

"Why is there a sign?"

etc.

As Chomsky says:

"Power is not self-legitimating."

Twat said he was going to "Phone the council." Ooh. Scary. Seems he's always phoning the police about this and that.

*Shaping up to be this summer's drink. Non-Martini vermouth is dirt cheap! Nicer than last year's - Campari.

** Scots word - a triangular piece of land beteen two road forks.

Margaret On The Guillotine*

2007-04-04T09:40:00.000Z

This being the 25th anniversary of 'The Falklands Conflict' (never officially a war, you'll note), the mind turns to The Beast of Grantham.

What with her getting on in years and being in ill health, I've wondered more than once what will be the reaction when she dies. One isn't meant to speak ill of the dead (especially while they're still alive)...and maybe I should be slightly ashamed to admit this...but won't it be fucking great? I have visions of a solemn radio announcement followed by a collective "Whoop!". Air punched. Car horns sounded. Spontaneous outbreaks of smiling and friendliness. "Maggiemaggiemagie! Dead! Dead! Dead!" Then later in the week the inevitable, now mandatory, minute's silence accompanied by the banging of dustbin lids, pots and pans**. (Shall we make a solemn pact right now to do this?)

Granted, all this will be to the disgust of a significant part of the population. But we won't be able to contain ouselves, will we?

Or is it just me? Am I 'A Bad Person'?

* 'Tramp The Dirt Down' would have been just too obious.

** aka 'The Divis Orchestra'.

Another Falklands Flashback is Defence Secretary John Nott. When the AIDS epidemic hit, the government convened an emergency cabinet session to discuss What Is To Be Done. They agreed on the famous ad campaign (crashing icebergs) and a leaflet to be sent to anyone not called Doris or Albert.*** They were discussing whether contents should include explicit advice on oral sex. It was said (I think by Alan Clark - but I'm not sure) that one minister had to have the concept carefully explained to him and couldn't believe it is a mainstream practice. Said minister is rumoured to have been John Nott.

*** One suggestion, so as to spare the blushes of the elderly.

Giving 'Poddage to:

The new Kings of Leon

Neil Young - Live at Massey Hall

And still smitten with Regina, of course.

Baby's got blue eyes.

2007-03-29T15:19:00.000Z

I read this article by Peter Singer. I've not got much time for him (as blogged previously, I think the notion of Animal Rights is wrongheaded), but this ws rather interesting. He basically says we shouldn't rely on our 'instincts' to tell us what's right.

Then, last night, I caught part of The Moral Maze on the topic reproductive technologies. One panelist (I think it was Ian Hargreaves) was quizzing a director of an American clinic about what he'd do if someone came to him wanting only blond, blue-eyed children.

Sounds like the Lebensborn programme? Well, let's prod it a little.

OK. So let's assume that the parents are Nazis. Obviously we don't approve. But what if they aren't Nazis? Well, OK...perhaps we still don't approve. Surely parents should love their children irrespective of physical appearance?

Now let's look at the majority case. Say Nazis are conributing to a voluntary breeding programme. Blue-eyed blond guys are coupling up with blue-eyed blonde chicks. Bad! On the other hand...if it just happens to be two Finns in love...?

So how can we tell the diffference?

Are we entitled to enquire into the political beliefs of blond prospective parents? Or pass laws requiring blonde women to be randomly impregnated? Of course not!

So what's the difference with reproductive technology?

But none of the above is relevant in any way whatsoever. To connect reproductive technology with Nazi eugenics is a cheap tactic. So what if modern parents wish to breed Aryans, as the Nazis did? Would it make any measurable difference to the global gene pool? Selective breeding ws the least of the Nazis' crimes. Principally, they were mass murders.

Lies, distortions and half-truths

2007-03-28T09:22:00.000Z

...but not necessarily in that order. This is a catch-up post. There's three things I want to talk about.

A fatal miscarriage of justice.

The recent death of Sally Clark was more than tragic. The sudden deaths of two children would be hard enough for a parent to overcome, without the disgraceful ordeal of being wrongly convicted for their murders and the subsequent villification from the media and fellow prison inmates. Although she was eventually after her conviction was overturned, it appears that, in common with similar cases, she was given absolutely zero government support to help her to readjust. And it can't have helped that her renmaining child remained in care after her release (although, granted, there may have been legitimate reasons to reintroduce the child gradually).

Her lack of support is especially disgraceful given the outrageous circumstances of her conviction, which relied heavily on the 'expert testimony' of the now discredited Prof. Roy Meadow. I'm not sure that he should take all the blame, though. At the time, I remember being askance at the statistical fallacy he was putting forward. It was telling that the defence counsel, judge, jurors and the population in general seem to lack the basic numeracy to have spotted the glaring error.

To recap...Meadow stated that the likelihood of two babies having died of natural causes was 1:73,000,000 against. This was based on multiplying the population incidence for a single death.
Let's put it this way:

Someone buys a lottery ticket. The probability of winning is (near as
dammit) 14 million : 1.
Someone wins the lottery and invests £1 of their winnings in
another lottery ticket. The odds of winning with that ticket are...guess
what?...14 million : 1. Oddly enough, the laws of chance are not determined by
the player's past history. Similarly, if the chances of cot death for one
baby are 8,500 : 1, then the chances for a baby who already has a dead sibling
are 8,500 : 1.
But...imagine you have some kind of inside knowledge that lets you skew the
winning lottery numbers towards your own. Then your chances of winning are
somewhat more than 14 million : 1 - and this is true every week.
Similarly, if you are the carrier of a condition that makes your children prone
to cot death...

But, hey, whole idea of the lottery is based on ignorance of statistical probability*.

* Actually, that's not quite fair. Possibly most players know full well that they're unlikely to win but feel they can afford the low stakes for the pleasure of fantasising.

Credit where it's true

With the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of (direct British involvement in) slavery, the focus is on William Wilberforce. And, indeed, he's worth celebrating. But it shouldn't be forgotten that the slave trade ended for strictly economic reasons, and the abolitionists** only made inroads when it became increasingly unviable. A leading reason for this was direct action by slaves***. They were too expensive to control. Other notable fallacies:

The Vietnam War was ended by US protests. Methinks the Vietcong had something to do with it.

The British Colonial Legacy. We left them with a sound infrastructure of democracy, law and education, didn't we? Nnnn...except the normal time between Britain declaring an intention to grant independence and then clearing out was one month!!! Hardly an orderly transition; we didn't even bother to clear up on the way out. Even the Mountbatten Viceregency was a mere 60 days.

(Heard on the radio last week) "If it wasn't for intervention by international governments, Apartheid would never have ended in South Africa." And what intervention was that? Any participation in sanctions - economic or cultural - was down to individuals and independent organisations...and let's be honest, that was pissing in the wind.**** Nope, South Africa was liberated by South Africans.

Oh...and while I'm at it...

"Slavery was a long time ago. Can't we move on and stop blaming it for all of black people's problems?" Except that we haven't moved on, have we? We've hardly begun to acknowledge that our economic advantage was founded on slavery. We've nowhere near begun to address the continuing, structural legacy of disadvantage.

** Including black activists such as Olaudah Equiano - who I see is payed by Youssou N'Dour in the current Wilberforce biopic whose name escapes me.

*** For a classic account of rebellion, see 'The Black Jacobins' by the great CLR James, chiefly an account of the Haitian, Toussaint L'Ouverture.

**** I speak as a former leading member of 'Trolleys Against Apartheid'. The deal was to stack a supermarket trolley with SA produce and leave it in the aisle. Bet that had the Boers quaking in their boots.

Say 'Nope!' to dope.

The moral/legal position on the Blessed Lamb's Bread Beloved of Jah Ras Tafar-I seems to have swung 360° in recent years. Rosie Boycott as editor of The Independent on Sunday championed a campaign for legalisation, and under the (normally illiberal) David Blunkett***** it was re-classified to a Class B - later C, alongside the likes of Haliborange or PG Tips.

But now The IoS has vigorously retracted its position citing, amongst othet things, the alleged increasing potency of the skunk varieties now available and the possible links between intensive cannabis use and schizophrenia. On the potency argument: this article rather puts the kibosh on it. On the mental health aspects...well, the scientific evidence remains mixed. We have to consider:

If there's a correlation between cannabis and psychiatric disorders, is this because the drug causes illness?...or do the mentally ill have a propensity towards self medication? Note that many mentally ill people also havy users of alcohol and tobacco.

Does the drug interact with other factors, eg genetic tendencies?

Probably the best source of guidance is The Royal College of Psychatrists. Their advice on the topic is here. There's enough there to suggest that I personally am wisest to refrain on medical grounds******...but it doesn't seem to me that they are giving an unequivocal warning to the population as a whole.

So why the volte face by the IoS? It seems to me that this is part of a political trend. The government are also becoming twitchy. Legalasiation is increasingly off the agenda. Perhaps a clue comes in the IoS's follow-up article: UN warns of cannabis dangers as it backs 'IoS' drugs 'apology'. Why would the UN be concerned top comment on a domestic issue? (note that most of the UK's cannabis is now home-grown). I'm speculating that there are some machinations afoot. One powerful nation is so caught up in 'The War Against Drugs' that it refuses even to licence diamorphine as a painkiller (and this is also partly why it is bogged down in Afghanistan by its inability to provide economic alternatives to opium farming). And then, of course, there's the domestic political culture which is increasingly socially macho. "Tough on Crime, Tough on the causes of crime". It seems that - in the light of New Labour's inability to address social conditions - we are to understand that crime is caused by druggy schizos with no respect.

There may be sound medical arguments for and against legalisation - but I fear they're being swamped by domestic and international politics.

***** Who hardly has to worry about glaucoma, surely?

****** bugger.

Giving 'Poddage to:

Regina Spektor. Obssessively.

Those green ideas are a nightmare!

2007-03-05T16:28:00.000Z

I have a private game called 'Chomskyan Bingo'. Noam Chomsky put forward the idea that language works as a generative grammar. A relatively small set of rules can be applied to a vocabulary to generate a vast array of possible sentences - some of which are very unlikely indeed, but are nevertheless recognisable as 'valid' sentences.

Anyway, I collect the unlikely ones - those sentences that you can be fairly sure have never before been uttered since the dawn of creation. From a recent discussion elsewhere:

"Put it on top of the fridge until it becomes suitably pudendal."

and

"...the ammoniac tang of woman parts."

Another one I like is:

"Somehow the chapatti had become lodged behind the skirting
board."

I've even been known to do them in German:

"Ich bin nicht Mitglied dieser Konferenz, doch ich möchte ein
Pinguin" (I am not a conference delegate, nevertheless I'd like a
penguin)

"Gibt es Damenbinden für einer Frau mit viel Blut?" (Do you have sanitary towels for a woman with a heavy period?*)

Got any more?

btw - this is another in my "Guess the relevace of the accompanying picture" series.

Giving 'Poddage to:

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position. (A most joyful noise!)

Bryan Ferry - Dylanesque (Certainly shows he wrote some excellent songs. But let's face it - nobody can do them quite as well as Bob**)

Big Star - Sister Lovers

Yoko Ono - Yes, I'm A Witch***

Dylan - Desire

*Literally '...a woman with a lot of blood' - It was my spur-of-the-moment translation that makes it collectable.

** Then there's Van Morrison's comment on The Waterboys' cover of 'Sweet Thing': "It wasn't a patch on the original, was it?"

*** Q: What is yellow and wrinkly and lives off a corpse?...

Steal this book!

2007-02-26T11:04:00.000Z

I've recently read 'Bash the Rich: The True-Life Life Confessions of an Anarchist' by Ian Bone, and I feel so strongly about it that I'm moved to give it a review here.

For those who don't know the name, Bone was one of the prime movers of the Class War anarchist group, active in the 1980's. Anyone with in the UK who was at all involved in protest politics will have had at least a passing knowledge of this group. They could be seen, menacing black flags held aloft and usually surrounded by police, at all the major demonstrations. They had a something of a reputation as nihilistic troublemakers, equally ready to have a pop at trendy lefties as at Thatcher's blue legions. I've nothing against political violence, properly applied, so I approached the book with a desire to hear things from their point of view, to understand something of their political philosophy.

Jaysus, but it's one piss-poor book. Let's deal with the editing first. I'll admit that I'm as prone to error as anyone and I can't proof read for shit - but that someone is actually credited as having edited this book defies the imagination. There are numerous repetitions. It would probably been useful to settle on a single spelling for 'Alsation' (they only get it right twice). And some basic fact checking, puh-lease! Like a slightly more accurate account of the start of the Brixton Riots.

So on to Bone. He explicitly states that he and his comrades were uninterested in political philosophy (although he's happy enough to parade his erudition with references to Bakhunin, Makhno, Durutti and...er...Wilhelm Reich), concentrating instead on direct action and agitation. Yes, we all bought Class War from time to time. We all gasped in amazement/ had a giggle at the 'Hospitalised Copper' feature. But what did the Class War group actually achieve. Did they radicalise the miners*? Are you kidding?! Did they galvanise the inner cities? I suggest not. Indeed, in the case of the miners, I suggest that far more practical good was done by the support groups organised by the very groups that Bone would have despised as ineffective. So by Bone's own account, their remaining contribution to The Struggle seems to stand at the (admittedly amusing) Situationism of Henley; a couple of hopelessly disorganised 'Bash the Rich' marches which singularly failed to leave the affluent quaking in their boots; some minor skirmishing on the fringes of the Second Brixton Insurrekshan (and why do I have the feeling their contribution may have been over-glamorised?)...and some low-level bonfire night rowdyism (eg stoving in the windows of Cancer Research and Oxfam shops. Ooh. Scary.) of the sort that occurs in any British town on that night of the year.

And yet through all of this, Bone appears to maintain the self-delusion that he was at the political focal point of opposition to Thatcherism - not just a bit of a waster with strictly limited analytical powers who liked a bit of a ruck. Not too much of a ruck, though. Class war activities were curtailed following the killing of PC Keith Blakelock, when Bone realised that the Hospitalised Copper feature - er - might not be seen in a sympathetic light. In Paul Weller's words, he was "...Left there standing like a guilty schoolboy". I'm wondering whether he has an inkling of the contradictions and inconsistencies of the book? Violence is necessary...unless it can get you into trouble. Class War are not the macho group they're portrayed...because they sometimes have woman speakers. The comic-0pera Free Wales Army, with whom Bone had a minor association were not laughable crypto-fascists with a uniform fetish...because some of them turned out to be lefties. Sexual liberation is centrally important to anarchism...but it's still acceptable to make what amounts to "backs to the wall, boys" comments in your books. My overall impression is that what is politically important Bone is whatever he and his immediate circle are thinking at the time. The example that really stood out for me was when, after repeatedly decrying the trendy-lefty interest in overseas struggles, he praises his father for a article, written in the early 1960s, in which he highlights the anti-Apartheid struggle and the murder of Rudi Dutschke. His father was an activist for that well-known revolutionary organisation, The Labour Party.

Now admittedly Class War were prominent. They were highly visible in the politicised 1980's (let's face it - who wasn't radicalised by Thatcher?) . I suggest, though, that that they were part of the zeitgeist, but far from the vanguard. On the basis of this self-aggrandising book by a political peabrain, they contributed little. The front cover displays a spook PMRC sticker reading "This book contains strong language and dangerous ideas". To the first part - what a fucking pathetic little twat. To the second - like fuck it does. If you're interested in Anarchist ideas - look elsewhere.

Myself, I'm rather glad I picked this book up on remainder, so Bone will get less of a cut. I suggest that anyone else who insists on reading it does as Abbie Hoffman suggested...

*In fairness, he admits this at one point. On the other hand - he bangs on endlessly about how successful Class War sales were in South Yorkshire. Note that the paper's most notorious feature, those coppers were being hospitalised by already radicalised miners. The anarchists were merely printing their souvenir snaps.

Desert Island Bonobo

2007-02-16T18:16:00.000Z

Yukanian readers will need no explanation of this, but for thems as is fortunate to live in the more salubrious nations, Desert Island Disks, now featuring the frankly hot Kirsty Young, is a venerable BBC Radio institution. Guests talk about their lives and pick eight records they’d like to be marooned with on a desert island. You’re also given The Bible* and The Complete Works of Shakespeare, and you get to choose one more book. Plus a luxury. The luxury can’t have a practical use and can’t be a person (eg I couldn't ask for Kirsty).

Here’s mine. Feel free to follow suit. Remember – the name of the game isn’t to show off with hippest, funkiest selection you can, or even necessarily your indispensable records (how tricky would that be?!). Rather it’s to choose records that say something about your personality and/or life history. There’s a couple more unofficial rules:

If you’re a boring politician or Captain of Industry, you have to choose a Beatles song to show how hip and trendy you are.
If you’ve chosen lots of bland pop and show tunes, you have to ring a clever mate and get them to tell you the name of something classical.

The most famous selection was when Maria Callas chose eight of her own records. But my favourite was JK Galbraith. He said he was tone death and had absolutely no interest in music, so he’d got a few people to choose for him.

Then there was the story Decca Mitford* tells (in one of her letters). Her sister Diane was married to the fascist Oswald Moseley (Elvis Costello wrote ‘Less Than Zero’ after seeing her on TV), so Decca never spoke to her again. Diane was invited onto Desert Island Disks, unfortunately originally scheduled for Yom Kippur, so rescheduled after complaints…to Holocaust Memorial Day. So she goes on and talks about how Oswald was never rally an anti-semite, and how Hitler had such lovely blue eyes. At he end she’s being put in a cab. The cabbie’s told, “Lady Moseley is going to the Ritz”. He shouts back, “Not in my bleedin’ cab she ain’t!”

Soooo…for better or worse, here's mine*** (with links to where you can hear samples)…

I'm In Love With Jacques Derrida - Scritti Politti

This Charming Man – The Smiths

Summertime in England – Van Morrison

I’ll Wear It Proudly – Elvis Costello and the Confederates

Both Sides The Tweed – Dick Gaughan

Cinnamon Girl (live) – Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Pressure Drop – Toots and the Maytals

Death Letter – The White Stripes

Book: I’d like to think I could manage Ulysses, but I might not like it, so The Collected Poems of Norman McCaig

Luxury: A programmable electric massage chair.

This is totally against the rules, but I can’t resist revealing one that was bubbling under, ‘cause I know you’ll enjoy a good laugh at my expense:

Bat Out Of Hell – Meatloaf.

* Oh, good. Toilet paper's likely to be scarce.

**Must blog on her one day. She was a gem!

*** I have to say, once I'd decided I was havering way too much, my final selection surprised me. It's not the list I'd have picked for myself!

Operation Enduring Mayhem

2007-02-15T14:21:00.000Z

I've blogged previously about my attitude towards Christoper Hitchens. Here's another article about the Iraqi Civil War by him from Slate. As so often with him, I think he has a lot of fascinating things to say. But I ultimately disagree with his end conclusions.

The basic story is that Saddam was in danger long before 2003. Sooner or later the Iraqi's wouldn't take any more and democracy would ensue. So al-Zaqarwi wrote with an offer for al-Qaeeda to enact brutality on the Shia, goading them to react in kind (a tactic learnt from the Baader-Meinhof/ RAF 'Reaktion gegen Reaktion'?). Win-Win, because al-Q would get to slaughter apostates. This policy was put in place in Saddam's subsequent absence. This has a ring of plausibility about it. Not because it plays to the myth of Saddam as a fanatical supporter of al-Q, but because, although a long standing secularist, since GW1 he increasingly showed himself willing to exploit Islamicists to serve his ends.

Here's what Hitchens draws from it:

Everybody has their own favorite alternative scenario of how things might have evolved differently or better. In some weak moments, I can picture taking the alternative advice from the European Union and the United Nations in 2003—let's just see how Iraq develops if left alone as a private fiefdom of the Saddam Hussein dynasty—and only then deciding that things have deteriorated to the point where an international intervention is necessitated. That would have been much less upsetting and demanding than the direct assumption of responsibility, and could have been triggered by the more familiar images of unbearable suffering and carnage......but it would perforce have been begun very much later—and perhaps too late altogether.

In other words, the invasion didn't trigger the Civil War - eventually it would have been provoked anyway.

Now I do still believe that, for all the bad company he's been keeping, Hitchens is still on the side of the angels. Just. He makes some trenchant digs at the hand-wringing tendency of the liberal left to avoid getting involved (or, rather, abrogate responsibility for problems that are 'too difficult') . I think he was dead right in his support for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, too. Commenting on the alternative to invasion, he says:

Nobody has ever even tried to make a case for doing nothing about Iraq

Well, no. Nobody tried to. And he also rightly points out that sanctions were a harmful failure. What he doesn't point out, though, is that it was pretty much impossible to discuss alternatives. Such as constructive engagement with Syria and Iran (moves towards which on several fronts were knocked back by the Bush regime). Such as wider diplomatic solutions to 'The Middle East Problem'. There was an invasion agenda. The parameters for foreign policy were tightly drawn.

Neither does he point out that the invasion didn't immediately trigger a civil war. The coalition signally failed to even understand the need for - let alone to enact - any kind of coherent plan for the stabilisation and reconstruction of Iraq. It was in that vacuum that agitators were able to make merry. The fire was fuelled by the all-round disaffection of the various factions. At very least the blame for that disaffection can be laid at the door of the US.

The Song Remains Inane

2007-02-14T13:59:00.000Z

My five least favourite songs of all time:

5= Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

5= Another Brick in the Wall* - Pink Floyd

5 = Blue Monday - New Order

5 = Layla - Derek and the Dominoes

But by a massive margin, No. 1 with a bullet in the temple...

Imagine - John Lennon

Christ, they're dire. There were many bubbling under. It would unfair (and time consuming) to name and shame them all, but I suppose special opprobrium** should go to Elton John's 'Candle in the Wind'. Have you ever heard of anything quite so tacky as dedicating a song to one not-particularly-noteworthy 'icon' and then saying "Actually, it's about someone else now...". People's Princess, my arse. I never voted for any of 'em.

Further suggestions welcome. Make your case. Personally, I don't think things like Agadoo or The Birdy Song qualify. At least they're honest shite.

Imagine...no possessions!!!

*And not just because folk insist on saying "Actually, its full title is 'Another Brick In The Wall, Pt 2' ." - although fuck knows that's reason enough.

**I think it's a kind of bedtime malted milk drink. Not sure.

Sons and heirs of nothing in particular...

2007-02-08T16:19:00.000Z

On the way to work today, I played The Smiths in the car (and I really shouldn’t try and select iPod tracks while I’m joining a motorway). I keep forgetting just how damned ace they were. Like (the ubiquitous) Russell Brand, my adoration of Morrissey has crossed the dangerous line towards hero worship. Allow me to satisfy a compulsion to gush…

First off…some of you* may be labouring under the delusion that The Smiths were a miserable bunch of fuckers. They weren’t. Certainly some halfwits took them way too seriously and contemplated their morbid lyrics in darkened bedsits while considering a Haliborange overdose (“Only Morrissey feels my pain!”). Their modern counterparts these days listen to the dreadfully insipid My Chemical Romance. But such people they entirely missed the point. The Smiths were funny! Seriously funny. Second only, perhaps to Half Man Half Biscuit, Eminem or Leonard Cohen.** *** Anyone who doesn’t get that misses the whole point. Funny – but that doesn’t rule out sad at the same time.

I first heard The Smiths while I was in Canada. I was working there for a year as a student – and a very immature student at that. I was lonely and depressed. I’d noticed from the NME – a lifeline to home – that music seemed to be changing, and there was mention of these Smiths people (and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and Billy Bragg). But all I heard on the radio was Culture Club, The Thompson Twins, Michael Jackson. So I wrote to a friend**** and asked for some music. (Sad to say, my favourite bands were Genesis and Roy Harper). His girlfriend (this is her these days, incidentally, fellow web stalkers) sent me a tape***** of… Culture Club, The Thompson Twins, Michael Jackson. Oh…and The Cure’s ‘Love Cats’ (Barf!). So I wrote to another friend. This time I got a much better tape. Billy Bragg. Frankie. Orange Juice. Elvis Costello. Eyeless in Gaza. And…The Smiths. I put on ‘This Charming Man’ late one night and it immediately had hurling myself around the room in my version of dancing. What was this peculiar shit?

"Punctured bicycle, on a hillside, desolate,
Will nature make a man of me yet?"

I’ll avoid the temptation to quote the entire lyric, which you can find here. "When the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat"…"I haven’t got a stitch to wear"…"A jumped up pantry boy"…"Return the ring"…and all sung in that peculiar yodel. And who’d ever heard the word ‘gruesome’ used in a song?

In short, I was hooked – even if I had to wait until I got back to England some months later to see him on Top of the Pops, gladioli in his back pocket. The Smiths were My Band. They defined my youth. Talkin’ about my generation. I’ll skip over embarrassments like an ill-advised Morrissey quiff****** Every new Smiths record was hotly anticipated and bought immediately. Best gig I ever went to - The Queen Is Dead Tour, Brixton Academy. And I still have that iconic NME cover – no text, just a B&W portrait of Morrissey , his eyes coloured blue.

So – what’s the appeal? I’m tempted to say “Isn’t it obvious’ – but maybe not everyone idolises Morrissey the way I do. Plus, it’s a worthwhile intellectual exercise to try and analyse these things. Sooo…

The Northern iconography is important. These were the darkest days of Thatcherism, before places like Manchester were officially Cool. Coupled with that there was something of an outsider appeal for we dispossessed.

The campness. I suppose the (then) celibate Morrissey was the heterosexual male’s safe homoerotic squeeze - I'm afraid I'm disappointingly heterosexual. And, again, the fact that it was a Northern, outsider’s campness, part of the great tradition that includes Coronation Street*******.
The unexpected conjunctions of lyrics:

“I broke into the palace/ With a sponge and a rusty spanner/ She said ‘I
know you, you cannot sing’/ I said "That’s nothing, you should here me play
pianer.”

Or

“Now I know how Joan of Arc felt/ When the flames rose to her Roman nose/ And her walkman started to melt”

Or

“Spending warm summer days indoors/ Writing frightening verse/ To a buck-toothed girl from Luxemburg”********

The waspish phrases that sound like overheard snatches conversations from your
mother’s slightly disreputable cousin talking about a divorce or a hysterectomy:

“Ask me why and I’ll spit in your eye.”

“The sun shine out of our behinds”
“Sweetness, I was only joking when I said ‘d like to smash every tooth in your head.”
“I didn't realise that you wrote such bloody awful
poetry”

And we mustn’t leave out Johnny Marr’s stunning, unique guitar. At the time I fancied that it was somewhat similar to that of the Bhundu Boys’ Rise Kigone.*********

And who could resist a song about someone being wanked off in the bushes by a teacher?

I could go on, but I’ll stop gushing now. I won’t even attempt to justify any of this!

*Assuming there’s anyone actually reading this.

** Surely that makes fourth?

*** I’m deadly serious about Leonard Cohen, by the way.

**** This was the days before e-mail, kids!

***** Strange music storage devices we had in the days before God invented the emmpeethree, consisting of a wee plastic box full of brown tickertape.

******* Remember that Coronation Street was created by Tony Warren who had the courage to be Out in early ‘60’s Manchester. It’s always drawn heavily from the tradition of ‘theatricals’ – up to and including the recently departed John Savident ("Ah says, up to and including…" etc. And who can forget Smiths cover star and gay icon Elsie Tanner, girlfriend of Tony Blair’s father-in-law?

******** What a great sense of meter. See also WB Yeats “And I shall have some peace there/ For peace comes dropping slow” (The Lake Isle of Innisfree).

********* Currently residing in Penicuik, of all places. Sometimes gigs with Champion Doug Veitch.

I've been book tagged.

2007-02-06T15:14:00.000Z

By and large, tagging is the blogging equivalent of sending a chain letter. However...this one's about books. Books are good. Thanks to Psychocandy. Bitch!

Hardback or paperback?

Either. For reasons of cheapness, and availability, most of my books are paperback

Amazon or brick and mortar?

Nothing against Amazon, but nothing beats the serendipity of browsing in a good bookshop. The best bookshop in the world is Glasgow's Voltaire and Rousseau, which has ceiling high piles of loosely-categorised books. But Amazon are great for free album art for my iPod.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?

Oxfam. Barnes and Noble aren't a UK brand. Borders aren't my favourite (but, hey! they sell books.)

Bookmark or dog-ear?

If it's a bookmark, usually it will be a supermarket receipt. I've no qualms about dog-earing, leaving books face down or just thumbing through until I reach the right place.

Alphabetize by author, alphabetize by title or random?

Are you shitting me? I am the anti-Candy! Actually, onceuponatime we did have our books alphabetised, and it worked quite well. But we have less space and fewer bookcases now. The system can best be described as a semi-controlled avalanche.

Keep, throw away, or sell?

I'm being quite ruthless these days. Books are being recirculated through Oxfam, simply left places or given away. If I lend a book, I don't expect it back unless I explicitly ask.

Keep dust jacket or toss it?

Take it off to keep it nice when reading, then put it back on afterwards. In theory. If I remember.

Read with dust jacket or remove it?

See above - unless its a library book with a plastic dust-jacket jacket.

Short story or novel?

Mainly novels, but nothing against short stories....Raymond Carver...Alexei Sayles' short stories are surprisingly accomplished.

Collection (by same author) or anthology (by different authors)?

Collection, probably

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

Lemony Snicket in principle, because they are more intelligent. And who could resist someone who names a character 'Esme Squalor'? I've only read a couple though. Unlike Harry Potter. But the last few Harry Potter books have been appallingly written. Plot strands are flailing wildly.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

When tired - but when it's time to bed I promise myself I'll go at the end of the chapter.

‘It was a dark and stormy night’ or ‘Once upon a time’?

'Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins, Lo. Lee. Ta...'

Buy or Borrow?

Buy. It's a compulsion.

New or used?

Whatever I can get away with! Without 2nd hand shops, I'd be bankrupt, though. And the condition of the book isn't a factor.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse?

All of the above.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger?

Hmm. I like to think the author hasn't simply got bored and stopped - Norman Mailer's 'Harlot's Ghost' being a case in point.

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading?

Any available moment. Even a couple of snatched minutes before rushing out the door.

Standalone or series?
I have a snobbish objection to 'series'. You'll never get me reading Clan of the Space Elves, and when you've read 1 1/2 Terry Pratchetts, you've got the point. Although...I'll make exceptions. Eg Armistead Maupin. Plus, see below...

Favourite series?

I'm addicted to Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series. So much so that I'm not allowing myself to buy any until I see the next one in a 2nd hand shop. There's twenty-one of the fuckers!

I'd like to add a few more questions:

Plough on or abandon?

I'll happily abandon any book I'm not getting on with. I usually know after a couple of chapters.

Always a book on the go or books a sometimes thing?

Never without a book. I tend to read one every week-and-a-bit at least. Less if I have spare time.

Have you read all the books on your shelf?

No. I buy much faster than I can read. Actually, I'm a pretty slow reader compared to some. But I've stopped moving my lips!

Genre(s) or Mainstream?

I don't follow any genres, but I'll sometimes dip into crime or SF if I'm told something is especially good. I used to read exclusively SF in my mis-spent youth, but I haven't been impressed recently and have developed an aversion to Fantasy - even Magic Realism sets off by bullshit alarm. Sometimes I stumble on some seriously good writing tucked away under Crime.

How often in your life have you read 'The Lord of the Rings'?

Once. And that was once too often.

Spread the word!

2007-02-01T14:59:00.000Z

Ryanair's Michael O'Leary has started a PR war with the government over their green taxation policy. He's taken out ads in which he's published the e-mail address of the environment minister with te suggestion that customers might like to make their objections known.

As suggested in this previous post - he maybe has a point on climate change. Nevertheless, in light of his 'interesting' attitude towards custome service, which is "If you don't like it, then fuck off. I can easily sell your €15 seat to someone else", I think that the creative response by Sharon Hodgson MP should be publicised further.

So...

The e-mail address for Ryanair's Head of Customer Sevices, Carol Green
is:

greenc@ryanair.com

and the national rate telephone number for its head office in Dublin, which
is cheaper than its high-tariff 0871 number is:

00 353 18121212

Since none of this is anywhere on their website, you may be especially grateful for it if, for example, oooh...say you're trying unsuccessfully to reclaim for a cancelled trip on behalf of a wedding party when the groom has died the week before the wedding*.

*To give just one example - happened to a friend. The eventual response from Ryanair was "Fair dos! - We've refunded the groom's fare."

Television is a Crack Whore

2007-01-22T15:50:00.000Z

I see no reason not to add my two penn’orth to the terrabytes that have already been devoted to Jade Goody. (has this Yukanian obsession impinged on consciousnesses outwith Britain and India?)

It’s important to remember that two – or more – sides can both be wrong. Yes, her remarks were clearly racist and she is a bully. Yes, she had an outrageously negligent upbringing, and in the light of that one has to have a certain respect for her in being the only Big Brother alumnus to make a career out of it (can you name any of the others?). Yes, there is something despicable about the class prejudice against her. Yes, she has been scapegoated for representing a common-or-garden racism which is somewhat milder than much of what is out there.* Yes, the public (and I’m not excluding myself) have akin to the audience at the Roman circus. Yes, television is a crack whore that sullies anything it touches. Yes, she has been exploited by programme makers who are pimps for the crack whore (obviously in this analogy, we are the johns).

But only one person will suffer. Only one will suffer vilification, ostracisation and career meltdown. The nation will continue to be complacent about racism. Television producers will continue to be unmitigated cunts and arseholes**.

The accompanying photo is the second in my occasional 'Guess the Relevance of the Accompanying Photo' series.

*It is undoubtedly positive that her remarks were almost universally recognised and condemned as racist. Yet only a few years ago, I worked on a project for which the customer’s director was Iranian. He was commonly refered to, by people who didn’t have Jade’s excuses of stupidity and poor education, as ‘Onion Bhaji’. Do we think there’s been a massive culture change in the intervening period?

**Full Disclosure: I’ve had a couple of minor brushes with television and radio. Even in the context of Current Events programming and Open University units (yes – I am the man in the paisley shirt and kipper tie), it is not a pleasant experience. I have yet to meet anyone in the meeja who did not have their head firmly up their own arse.

There’s a new recipe on Flaming Pie: ‘The site that elevates tofu to a foodstuff’ coming soon. Keep watching.

Here’s how to hang someone without decapitating them. And here’s a drop table for calculating the required rope length according to the weight of the hangee. Nice!

Giving ‘Poddage to:
MC Solaar
Dylan – Desire and Blood on the Tracks
MIA
Serge Gainsbourg –‘Chez les Yé Yé’ is my chanson du jour.
Neil Young – Weld. I’d forgotton just how mighty it is.
The Good, the Bad and the Queen. Marianne Faithfull and Roy Harper should both consider sueing.

Freedom for Tooting!

2007-01-19T10:25:00.000Z

I watched C4's 'comedy drama' The Trial of Tony Blair last night. I didn't expect to be as impressed ad I was. A lot of it was quite vicious. I especially liked the inclusion of the Brian Haw character. There were some killer lines, a couple of which I want to talk about later...but first...

Acting (again)

In this post, I touched on the difference between acting and impersonation. TToTB had two remarkable central performances by Robert Lindsay (as Blair) and Peter Mullan* (as Gordon Brown). Neither of them look much like their characters. But they didn't try for convincing impersonations - instead they managed to capture the essence of their characters. Their body language and vocal cadences were spot on - I kept thinking "I've never noticed that before, but that's just what Blair/Brown is like." Bravo!

The Killer Lines.

These lines are applicable far beyond their context. I'll be quoting them again and again.

Anyway...the context is that Tony has walked away from his memoir publishing deal on 'a matter of principle' (ie the editor can't believe his self-justificatory god-bothering shite) and has handed back his enormous advance. Cherie says to him:

"It's not enough to feel good with youself. "

and then:

"You can't lead you life by moral instinct. You need some analysis"

I love the second one especially. It gets back to his conference justification of his self-delusion:

"You can criticise me for being wrong, but you can't criticise me for believing
I was right."

No. It's not enough to go to war on the belief that there's a threat. You have to ask "What if I'm wrong? How can I test this out? What's the evidence?" Cognitive Behaviour Therapy 101. The whole basis of Rationalism.

*A most excellent man. Cannes bst actor for Ken Loach's My Name is Joe. Director of The Magdalene Sisters and Orphans (filmed round the corner from were I lived at the time). Leading donator to the SSP. Goes to the same gym as my wife.

How extraordinary, the cheapness of potent music.

2007-01-17T13:48:00.000Z

By clicking through the blogosphere, I'm delighted to see that thepiratebay.com, top site for dissemination of files via bittorrent, is making a bid to become an independent nation. They are in negotian to buy Sealand - a concrete structure some seven miles off the Essex coast and thus outwith international jurisdiction. You can donate to their treasury here. (also gives the full story)

Actually - I usually reach thepiratebay via the isohunt or torrentz meta-search engines. They're cheeky boys and I love 'em to bits.

If you've not yet discovered the joys of bittorent, here's the gen.

Of course, I couldn't possibly condone etc. etc.

Rrrrrrrrrrr!

Best Acting

2007-01-16T15:35:00.000Z

Forest Whittaker took a well-deserved Golden Globe last night for his portrayal of Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. It was a tour de force performance. Since Golden Globes are usually an indication of Academy Award nominations, it’s highly likely that he’ll be up against Leonardo DiCaprio for The Departed. Excellent though Whitaker was – and my money’s on him - I have to say that I was totally blown away by DiCaprio. Allow me to compare and contrast:

Forest Whittaker

The night before I saw TLKoS, I saw the review on Newsnight. Someone mentioned that footage of the real Amin was shown with the credits “…and that usually means Game Up for the actor.’ Even forewarned I did a double-take. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t still Whitaker. So obviously it was a great physical impersonation. As it happens, I don’t much like impersonations – oftentimes they’re just a matter of clever makeup and learning some gestures in front of the mirror. Whitaker did better than that. To get Amin right, he had to draw on his considerable charisma and screen presence to give the impression of Amin as a force of nature. Plus he had to portray Amin across a range of personalities from joker to scared child to psychotic torturer. (There was one moment where he went, chillingly, straight from torturing James McAvoy and into jovial mode in front of reporters and hostages – but I think that was a matter of good editing. It would have been truly impressive if one had seen Whitaker make the switch in a single shot – although you’d also have to worry about his mental state). Anyway…suffice to say it was a virtuoso piece of method acting.

A Digression on Method Acting

One of my least favourite actors of all times is Dustin Hoffman*. Tootsie was a lousy film – you can see better drag in many a gay pub. And what was interesting about his autistic schtick in Rain Man? They could have got better realism by hiring an autistic actor with no great detriment to the part.

The best story about him (and about The Method in general ) is about when he was playing opposite Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. Before the famous dentist drill torture scene, he was agonising to Larry: “I don’t know how to, ahmm, you know, like, ahmm, get into this part, like, you know, ahmm, like really feel his pain”
So Larry says. “My dear boy! Why not just pretend.”

This to me sums up the difference between The Method and good, old-fashioned acting. In a similar vein, I’m a big fan of James Mason. In every one of his films, he looked and sounded like James Mason. But he also acted.

Leonardo DiCaprio

I’ve always regarded him as someone promising. He’s yet to do his best work. Obviously he’s a pretty boy, so he gets to do crap like the execrable Titanic – but it’s fairly plain he can act a bit. So far he’s not been stretched. His characters have (mainly) called for naïve puppy-faced charm, and with his face he hasn’t had to actually do much.

But – Scorsese has used him well this time. I haven’t seen Gangs of New York (the consensus was that he came over as too young). I slightly liked him in The Aviator – although all the OCD stuff was a bit too researched, cf Hoffman. But The Departed is different.

My theory is that it’s Scorsese’s film about the art acting. Over part of his career he had DeNiro as a muse – and over that period DeNiro’s performances were unmatched.** It was clearly mutual chemistry – DeNiro hasn’t done anything interesting since.

So – The Departed and acting. Firstly, the whole plot is about acting. Both DiCaprio and Matt Damon are in deep cover, the one a goodie acting as a baddie, the other a baddie acting as a goodie. So far so good. Secondly, Scorsese assembled a virtuoso ensemble cast. Standouts include (especially) Mark Wahlberg, Ray Winstone and Martin Sheene. Thirdly, there’s Jack Nicholson. Usually when a director casts Nicholson, they want him to dominate the film with his Jack impersonation. For once he plays against type. His role is central and powerful and charismatic – but without hogging the limelight.

Now…onto DiCaprio. SPOILERS HERE. To a large extent, his part is a cipher. He has to play it deadpan and unemotional, holding in the dangerous truth. To do it properly, that takes clever but not exceptional acting. Where he goes beyond that is the few times when it slips – like the genuine panic revulsion he shows when Sheene’s body lands next to him. But best of all is the moment when he’s talking to the counsellor. She (says something like) “You always seem so vulnerable – or is that just an act? " And he says “No…I don’t think so.” And it’s that moment that made me go ‘Whooaa!’ – his body slumps slightly. He looks as though the mask has slipped – he’s stopped acting…Only, of course, he’s acting as though he’s stopped acting. Classy! It’s this kind of thing I like best. Acting that’s aware of itself as an artefact and yet still manages to take us to new emotional places.

See also the moment in Prime Suspect II when Tom Bell blew Helen Mirren off the screen with a single facial gesture - yet didn't move a muscle. I still can't figure out what he did. Maybe dilated his pupils a fraction?

And I really liked Forest Whitaker in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

* OK – so I liked him in The Graduate, obviously. And Midnight Cowboy. And Straws Dogs. And Little Big Man.
** Barry Norman used to say that he used to think that DeNiro was best actor in the world, until he saw the next Depardieu. Then he’d think Depardieu was the best, until he saw the next DeNiro...

An Inconvenient Truth

2007-01-10T16:15:00.000Z

I’m the last person to want to leap to the defence of that lying, murdering cunt Blair – but in the spirit of contrarianism I shall grit my teeth and try.

He’s started back peddling now…but he’s recently got himself into trouble by saying that climate change won’t be reversed by individual sacrifices like telling people not to fly on holiday.

He’s right, isn’t he?

Yes, airliners are vastly more polluting per passenger mile than other forms of transport. But their overall impact pails into insignificance against the number of passenger miles travelled by car. And then there’s the road miles travelled by goods. And not to forget the sea miles propelled by inefficient, polluting, lo-tech marine engines (including the freight carried between coastal container distribution centres around the coast of Europe. New cars carried from port to port around Britain are a significant carbon source).

And then there’s stuff like using low-energy lightbulbs and not leaving the TV on standby overnight. All very laudable, but even they are pissing against the wind when one considers:

The inefficiency of manufacturing and distribution processes.

The necessity for growth within our economic system. (Basically, if capitalist economies lose speed, they collapse).

The understandable desire of emerging economies to match 1st world standards of living.

So Michael O’Leary of Ryanair* is right, isn’t he?. All this focus on air travel simply serves to make the public feel guilty about weekend breaks while the rich continue to afford their high-carbon, jetsetting lifestyle (leaving aside the fact that much budget airline traffic consists of East European labour we import to keep our economy up to speed). And trivia like lightbulbs pass guilt from industry and consumers. And we’re meant to feel guilty about driving along gridlocked motorways from areas of affordable housing to wherever our employers decide to base their industrys. And the third world had better feel guilty about the way they’re stopping us from fixing the atmosphere that we’ve been fucking up for 100** years (that is – if we were fixing it).

No, Blair’s right, on this one surely? It’s not bottom-up effort that’s needed. Even Green Consumerism isn’t going to change industry. Let's face it, if they pump it out cheap enough, we’ll buy it. The EC has been talking about a ‘new industrial revolution’. That’s about right, isn’t it?

But let’s have a think about the last industrial revolution. It didn’t come about through individuals’ desire for smelted iron, steam transport, mechanised weaving, etc. etc. It was part of an economic process. The definitive description of this process and the resultant pain is here. Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad to be a privileged member of a modern, affluent society – but it’s that process that’s killing us, isn’t it? So agreed, big solutions are needed***. And by its nature, capitalism can’t deliver. Can we have a new industrial revolution without a revolution?

* O’ Leary has an interesting but highly successful attitude to customer care which can be summed up (and I think he has summed it up) as “If you don’t like it, fuck off.” His continued profitability is evidence that customers don’t care about the pollution emitted by his aircraft.

** "A hundred years of transportation whoopee." Kurt Vonnegut: A Man Without A Country.

*** By the way – assuming that, as James Lovelock thinks, we’ve passed the tipping point, these solutions will need to go waaaay beyond cutting down on energy use.

The Curse of the Bonobo

I'm a regular visitor to the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre - a little-known treasure consisting of a number of warehouses 'round the back of an industrial estate where a nice lady called Pauline will show you neolithic stone balls and stuffed weasels or pull paintings and drawings out of massive storage racks to order. Last week I got her to pull out a sketch of Scooby Doo and Shaggy by their creator, Iwao Takamoto. And now - bugger me! - he's dead!*

Moral: Never offer to show me your etchings.

* What with Joe Barbera, this is the second creator of Scooby Doo I've killed in a fortnight. I'd have got Hannah too, if it wasn't for those pesky, meddling kids.

Ramen!

2007-01-08T15:41:00.000Z

Momofuku Ando (I swear that's his real name), the inventor of the cup noodle and a saint to Pastafarians, has died . I do hope he's asked for his body to be freeze-dried and buried in a giant polystyrene pot.

It's amazing (or do I mean 'disturbing'?) the amount of information that Wikipedia gives both on noodles (in general) and instant noodles. Amongst other things I've learned that in Poland they come in beetroot flavour.

My own favourites are the Korean kimchi ones. And I'm also fond of the noodlepie Vietnamese food site.

The Grauniad article on his death (no link - not online at time of writing) was written by...Justin McCurry!

The Petrodollar Wars.

2006-12-18T13:39:00.000Z

On the day in which British news sources weill be leading on the arrest of a suspect for the murder of five women, it would be all too easy to overlook a piece of news that is bound to have major implications over the forthcoming weeks and months.

Iran is to start calculating its budget in Euros. I'll repeat that: Iran is to start calculating its budget in Euros. This is massive! Why? Wellll...for years, the oil market has been conducted in US dollars. Indeed, some 70% of all currency reserves worldwide are held in dollars. What this means is that promissary notes are in circulation which far exceed the capacity of the Federal Reserve. If the holders of those notes were to all ask for payback, the US economy would be in freefall. Hence, the US is keen to ensure that the current convention remains in force in a large part of the world economy, ie the oil market.

Now, in 2003, Iraq announced that it would heneceforth like to receive payments from the UN for its 'Oil for Food' programme in Euros. This piqued the interest of Iran and Venezuela, both of whom made similar overtures. The ongoing result has been described by in Rob Newman video as "The biggest punishment beating in history".

Now, we all know that America and Iran (ahem) 'have history'. Following the 1953 US/British overthrow of Mossadegh and the instalalation of the brutal Pahlavi regime, the overthrow of that regime, and the ignominious failure of the military adventure to free US embassy hostages held by a Islamic Republican factions, believed to have included amongst them one Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Then there was US use of Saddam Hussein as a proxy to contain Iran during the high casualty Iran/Iraq war. However, there have been attempts to thaw relations. It is widely rumoured that Iran made approaches through diplomatic back channels along the lines of "Look...we reckon we can sort out Hamas and Hizbollah^*, but for god's sake please have a word with Israel." ^{[Decent citation desperately sought for this story. Any ideas?]} When these overtures were batted back by the Bush regime, the theocracy pulled the rug from the reformist Rafsanjani and put in the hawkish Ahmadinejad. Lately the focus has been on Iran's nuclear programme, and on proposals (presumably tested out via back channels) for seeking Iran's help in containing the Iraqi civil war.

One has to ask "What's going on with this latest move?" My guess is that the US has shown its weakness over Iraq. They've been trying to use their economic muscle to make it difficult to move dollars in or out of Iran from overseas accounts. The Iranians have seen their chance to break free. Most of their buisiness is with Europe anyway, plus they have another powerful trading partner who would be more than happy to trade with them in Euros...China. And China is also keen to trade in Euros with Venezuela.

Fascinating blighter, geopolitics, no? So...what happens next...?

^* Contrary to some media opinion, Hizbollah is not a straightforward puppet of either Iran or Syria. In an Alice In Wonderland, both are sometimes held to be true, ignoring the likely differences in aims and objectives between Iran's Islamist theocracy and Syria's secularist regime. Hizbollah is a broadly-based federation, although admittedly some Hizbollah factions are closely associated with Iran...including that founded by current Iraqi PM, Nouria al-Maliki.

Snowflakes

2006-12-13T14:04:00.000Z

Brighten up your home this festive season with these

We Are Devo...

2006-12-07T15:47:00.000Z

Scottish Independence has never really been a touchstone issue for me. I coukd live with it. I can live without it. Recently, though, I've come round to the idea that it would be 'A Good Thing'. Moreover - I think there's a good chance it's going to come about in the not too distant future.

Scotland is traditionally egalitarian and communitarian - and hence the Labour vote has been pretty much guaranteed. But various things have changed:

Iraq, sleaze, general Westminster Labour incompetence and a lack of public faith in their stewardship of health and education.
New Labour's lukewarm support of the devolved parliament.
The parliament's qualified success. Yes, there was the building scandal, yes it's largely toothless - but on various issues it's shown a 'JFDI'* attitude which contrasts with Westmister. As one trivial example - smoking.
The West Lothian question...to which the obvious answer is 'Don't worry...we'll sort it out for you.'
An incipient English backlash against uppity Scots (cf a similar attitude of "It's one rule for all these Muslims..."). This is illustrated by The Gordon Factor - English voters are openly pondering whether a Scottish MP should be the 'English' prime minister.
An increasing cultural gulf between (broadly) welcoming Scotland** (see this heartwarming example) and petty Little Englishness.
Accession to the EU of various small but viable countries. Plus the presence of new Polish neighbours amongst us has reminded Scots that they've been migrating for years themselves.
A continuing Westminster focus on the economic development of the South East of England alone. In comparison...don't things like the Scottish proposal for a Glasgow/London high-speed rail link seem A Good Idea?
Trident. Gordon Brown plans to keep Faslane at ground zero for the forseable future. Jobs at Faslane notwithstanding, this will not be popular.

So the next Holyrood election (May '07) is likely to be interesting. The consenus on Jack McConnel seems to have been that he's done pretty well (And whod' have imagined? We thought he was just a time serving party man who'd got lucky!)...but on the whole, Labour*** has lost much of its shine. In England, the Tories are bound to pick up votes from those easily conned or with short memories. That could never happen in Scotland. The Lib Dems may pick up a few votes, but they as coalition partners they have a certain guilt by association. It is likely then that there will be a considerable swing towards the SNP. They've come on in recent years. Alex Salmond is popular and highly regarded. They've been consistently anti-war - none of the Lib Dem shilly-shallying of opposing until the war actually started. They've thrown off their Tartan Tories past and are to the left of New Labour, who are obviously shit scared of them (John Reid has even been so desperate as to use the terrorism angle)

So...here's my predictions on how the independence snowball will roll:

SNP/Green/SSP coalition (they'll probably be able to tell the LibDems to fuck off).
Constitutional crisis in England. The backlash will intensify.
Gordon loses the General election, spring '08 (or only narrowly wins if he goes for a snap one in October '07)
Salmond holds a referendum, against Westminster opposition (This opposition will be the deciding factor).
Independence by '12.

It will be a painful process - for England. The negotiations over Oil and military bases will be tough (Scotland will want a small, defensive military; England won't want nuclear submarines in Devonport). And then...somehow we'll make it work. Or, at least, not fail too drastically.

Vive la république!

Speaking of Polish migrants...Over the last few years, employes have increasingly used migrant labour to undecut pay and conditions. But Poles know a thing or two about trade unions. Such things truly gladden the heart!

* Just fuckin' do it.
** But let's not be entirely conned by the cosy myth that "There's no racism in Scotland - only bigotry."
***Note to English readers: The Scottish Labour Party doesn't use the word 'New'.

Curly Locks

2006-12-05T11:33:00.000Z

Excuse this diversion. In general, I'm intending to keep this blog a celeb-free zone. In fact, I only have a vaque idea who this Gail Porter woman is, although I understand she has alopecia.

I came across this quote in The Grauniad:

...a taxi driver will say, "Oh, you used to be so pretty."

I mean...FUUUUCK! Gorgeous or what?

(This image comes from www.baldiness.com. You probably don't want to go there)

The Ethics of Kitten Strangling.

2006-12-04T15:12:00.000Z

or It's just God's way of punishing them for being dumb, Part 3.

Agesandages ago, I had a pop at 'Animal Rights'. Then I rambled a bit about what might be a more sensible basis for ethics. This second part was inevitably disjointed. I don't think it's straightforward answer. There's no answer 'out there' and whatever we struggle towards is bound to be as complicated as we are human.

Anyway...here's the long awaited (?!) Part 3, dealing with why we might conclude that it's acceptable to use primates for medical research but look upon kitten-strangling with revulsion. I've said pretty much what I want to say in a posting on Dan's Samovar, which I'd like to repeat here:

In Catholic superstition, life begins at the moment of conception. It thus follows that abortion, stem-cell research, certain forms of contraception (eg IUDs - but not, surely condoms?) are immoral. An atheist argument (or, at least, a non-Catholic one) against this is that small clumps of cells donot have a consciousness - but see the arguments above concerning neurones and thermostats.

However, isn't there a hint of vestigial superstition in affording special consideration on the basis of consciousness? Consider that consciousness does not appear to have a special place in the universe. There is no grand scheme in which stars may explode, but conscious entities are not be wiped out by tsunamis. Indeed, the very idea of consciousness may be 'Explained Away' as simply the combined effect of neurological pathways that give certain organisms the control mechanisms that maximise the probability of certain biochemical processes occuring. So let's remember our place.

On the other hand...we do tacitly acknowledge an ethical hierarchy which seems to correlate with consiousness. At the higher end, we (mostly) agree that (avoidably) killing people is (usually) wrong. (and, by the way, this might include humans who are as yet 'merely' collections of cells incapable of unsupported cells: any potential parent would regard the involuntary abortion of a wanted foetus as an outrage). At the lower end, we're happy to disassemble thermostats without qualm. Somewhere in between there's a continuum, and there are individual disagreements about whether it's reasonable to kill fish, chickens, cows, dogs, bonobos. There are endless arguments along the lines of 'Can lobsters feel pain?' and I recently discovered that the rules for halal slaughter include that animals must be transported kindly, fed beforehand and not killed in the presence of other animals (presumably so as not to worry them).

But is this really an argument about Consciousness? I suggest that really it's about our own empathy. We regard as ethical that which we feel broadly comfortable with. We don't think we'll feel comfortable in a society in which human slaughter is tolerated (especially if we're the ones up for slaughter). We don't much care about lobsters, fish or thermostats - but as one gets higher up the mammalian hierarchy, animals get cuter and cuter.

So let's be honest Atheist Fundamentalists here. A 'scientific' basis for morality is just as superstitious as a religious one - it's making a god of new discoveries in the philosophy of neuroscience. All we actually know about morality is what we will or will not collectively tolerate. Which - alarmingly - seems to be 'quite a lot'.

So clearly there is a certain degree of (biologically natural) sentimentality in our attitude towards non-human animals - and that's OK. That's why we're mostly happy to step on earthworms but less comfortable with kitten-strangling. But that's not to say that human ethics must be determined by the most nauseatingly sweet common denominator. Ethics is a continuing conversation. Some people are OK with killing chickens for food, others are not. Some people are uncomfortable with animal experimentation - and they might ethically be opposed by those who see the benefits to humans and can handle the necessary detachment. (How many of us could handle cutting open a human skull?). Others may feel more distress about the disposal of a collection of human cells than the woman in whose body they are growing - but that's their problem, not hers. There are no fixed answers.

I leave you with two quotes. One from a friend:
"Ethics is a bit like free will...it doesn't really exist, but it's useful
to behave as though it did."

The other from Mark Vonnegut, quoted by his father Kurt in his 'A Man Without A Country':
"We're here to help each other to get throug this thing, whatever it
is."

Your Highness is like a cream bun...

2006-11-22T16:20:00.000Z

I've come up with an aphorism.

Here's the background. I was talking to a small group of people last week. Most of them were university educated. But one guy was a rather down-on-his luck former caretaker, originally a trained printer. It was clear that he felt slightly out of place amongst all these other guys with their fancy words. However...it was pretty clear to me that he was one intelligent guy. Sometimes he'd say something perceptive that really made me think. And unlike us others who dressed our opinions up in fancy cultural references...he'd just say it. The distressing thing is that I just couldn't get him to appreciate how intelligent he was. (And I promise you I didn't patronise him. I hope.)

In my life, I've met just as many bright people without degrees as with. And I've definitely met many, many people in universities who are thick as auld pigshite. They're usually in roughly the same proportions wherever you go.

So here's my aphorism:

Never confuse 'intelligence' with 'education'. Any fool can get an education. Many fools have.

Ahfangew.

The Iraq Body Count...so what?

2006-11-17T11:56:00.000Z

I was going to talk about the Lancet's report on the Iraq body count anyway, but some of my gavourite bloggers have beaten me to it. See Dan's comments, and also the link to the Grauniad article that Polonius linked to in a comment on my earlier post. My starting point was a Slate article by Christopher Hitchens.

I like Hitchens. That's not a popular view on the Left at the moment because he's reckoned to have gone over to The Dark Side. I fear that's largely true... his moral stance against islamofascism* has blinded him to his allies' excesses...but he's a great entertainer (try this excellent podcast) and a puncturer of wooly liberal orthodoxies. These days I find that I can agree with about 90% of what he says...but the remaining 10% is a massive gulf. But we need to test our opinions by cross-checking against reasoned disagreement. Hitchens is my touchstone.

So...to summarise Hitchens opinion of the bodycount...it uses a flawed methodology, its production and peer review reflects left-wing bias and it's been too eagerly jumbed on by the anti-war faction as yet another example of Bush's evil. There's some truth in that, so let's allow it as valid opinion. However, he goes on, the anti-Bushites shouldn't bleat about the casualties. They may be uncomfortably high (if not as high as the report suggests), but that's not America's fault. Since the end of the war, the overwhelming mass of the slaughter has been of Iraqis (and their coalition force protectors) by Iraqis, and there the moral culpability lies.

First of all, let's deal with the casualties that have been caused by coalition forces. During the invasion there was, inevitably, a good deal of 'collateral damage'. Unless one is a pacifist (and I'm not) then provided one accepts Hitchens' position on the paramount necessity of the overthrow of Saddam, it's reasonable to argue that the means justify the end. (Yes, there's a countergument that the coalition was so reckless that they didn't even count the bodies, and certainly incidents like the blatant assaination of journalists in the Hotel Palestine, and the heavy-handed razing of Fallujah need to be accounted for). Also, there has been a series of casual excesses since the invasion (trigger-hapiness; beating and murder of captives; etc. etc.). But we shouldn't be naive about such things. This is how soldiers behave, especially when put in intolerable positions. If we're prepared to use military force, then we have to accept this kind of thing as the consequence (although it goes without saying that we should not condone it; discipline should be maintained, excesses punished). Incidentilly, Hitchens has stated (wittily, I think) that conditions in Abu Ghraib prison improved markedly immediately following the regime change. So, let's grant that the coalition mean well, but you have to be cruel to be kind.

Now let's go back to early 2003, when I was one of 2 Million+ in Britain who marched against the war. Various anti-war arguments were being put forward at the time. So let's have a recap:

"War is bad" Indeed. Thank you for that piece of sage insight.
"It's all about oil." Wellll...possibly there's a lot of truth in that. Not, I don't believe, that the Bush/Cheney oil intersts wished to grab Iraqi oil profits for themeselves. But re-connection the Iraqi supply would certainly have detabilised the OPEC cartel in an advantageous way. (And there's an intriguing argument- see this Rob Newman video - concerning the switch from Dollars to Euros as the payment method for oil which would have sent the Federal Reserve into meltdown). But if we accept the Hitchens view, the causus belli is unimportant, so long as there's a legitemate morale outcome.
"Ah, but why aren't we invading other bad regimes, like Burma" Vapid, liberal idiocy. Nuff said.
"We don't have evidence of WMDs, and we don't believe they're a threat." That was a pretty good argument at the time, and has since been proved to be right. And see the last point but one. But let's also take the related argument:
"We don't believe the government. We think Blair's trying to hoodwink us." Much though it may leave a nasty taste, let's allow that for Tony Blair, the case for regime change was so morally convincing that he had to find a means to make us buy into it. That's not what he's said, of course; "You can say I was wrong. But you can't criticise me for believing it." Well, yes, we can criticise you for not having gathered sufficient evidence (the UN inspectorate was asking for more time) or for interpreting it incompetently. OK...so maybe he was so sincere in his laudable desire for regime change that his bias influenced his interpretation - doesn't that sound faintly scary? But let's allow the odious man of the hook. Maybe he just God was telling to convince the public of the need for regime change 'by any means necessary'. Although a man of integrity would have put the regime change argument to the fore - as he's had to since.

Thus far it has been possible to reason that all the arguments fail to take into account the clear necessity of deposing Saddam Hussein's vile regime. We can ignore rhetoric such as "He's a monster of our own making." We can ignore our doubts on whether "Freeman Moxy**" is foremost in the mind of the American Right. Sometimes causes make strange bedfellows. In WWII (aka 'The Great Patriotic War'), moral necessity meant allying with one totalitarian murderer against another. In this conflict, the self-declared Trotsyite Hitchens is content to get into bed with the Neo-Cons. But there's one argument from the time that remains unananswered:

How sure are we that it will work?

It seems to me that support for the Iraq War could only have been justified if it would lead to improvements in the lives of the Iraqi people. Freedom. Security. Self determination. Living conditions. For these improvements it is reasonable to make the dismal but necessary tradeoff against the amount of suffering along the way. So...let's allow that a there is some worthwile price, measured in terms of the numbers of bodies directly attributable to the coalition.

Except...have there been improvements? One area in which life has definitely not improved is in personal security. whether the insurgents are responsible for the lion share of 650,000 or of some smaller number (although the official estimates of a tenth of that are utterly incredible and certainly wouldn't stand up to peer review), it is undeniable that more people are dying, being kidnapped, etc. etc. now than there were under Saddam***. The people live in a climate of fear. It is arguable whether the coalition has achieved - or will in future be able to achieve - any material or psychological improvement in the conditions of the Iraqi population.

One is forced to conclude that, even if...if...action was taken with the best of intentions, its results have been an abominable failure. I will accept, then, that there may be an argument for, as Hitchens claims to have done, throwing ones lot in with those who might have had their own reasons for invasion because whatever the motives, the outcome would have been desirable. But the outcome hasn't been desirable. Has it? So - could this have been predicted? I refer you back to the pre-war period:

How sure were we that it would work?

Maybe if you throw a pack of cards in the air, they'll land so that only the ace is right-way-up. But in the case of Iraq, it was a terrible gamble with peoples' lives. Humans are rather poor at making gambling-related decisions; they focus on the possible benefits ignoring their low probability and the negative consequences of losing. That is what - maybe with the best possible intentions - Hitchens has done. In this context, the argument about numbers isn't about whether he's wrong. It's about how much.

*Fluffy liberals are quite wrong to criticise Bush's use of the word. It may not be strictly accurate, but it works well enough. What is this? The Pedants' Revolt****?

**Grauniad If cartoonist Steve Bell's version of Dubya's pronuciation of 'Freedom and Democracy' (constantly refered to in his 'War Against Tourism' speeches.

*** Caveat: Apart from the period of their war with Iran...although the nations that supplied Iraq with arms and other support as a buffer against Iran are hardly in a position to comment.

****Q. Who led The Pedants' Revolt? A. Which Tyler.
Q. What is the definition of pedanticness? A. Surely you mean pedantry?

Class War (and my Oscar nominations)

2006-11-13T13:41:00.000Z

I detect an intellectual trend. Possibly class issues are on the verge of a comeback in British politics. Admittedly my evidence is drawn from just 2 Radio 4 programmes (and it would be faintly surreal to think of R4 as the vanguard of the proletariat) . Firstly, in Class Conscious, a series of programmes from retired political correspondent, John Cole (him with the Northern Irish accent who was invariably seen outdoors, at night, in the rain, in a beige gaberdene mack^*), who is old enough to remember when British politics had a left wing. Then in R4's flagship 'Analysis' programme. Quote from the latter:

"New Labour said they were going to take Class out of politics. They've
certainly done that...if you mention it you're branded a dinosaur."

The programme refered to some facts which are well known to us brontosaurii: There is still a strong correlation between a child's parental incomeand any manner of factors from their educational attainment to their health; Social mobility has decreased over recent years...ie fewer people are climbing out of poverty.

Maybe those old stalwarts who've remained in The Party were right after all?...If they handg around long enough, New Labour might go away.

Changing topics entirely. .. I've always been wary of the urge to buy the latest models of gadgets. People are inordinately impressed by the number of megapixies offered by cameras, not realising that hi-end models are only really necessary if you intend blowing your photos of the kids up to the size of a tower block, and as for hi-fi reproduction...admit it...most of us have tin ears. So I read with ineterest Mark Lawson's comments on HDTV. He talks about the potentially distracting effect of detail. I was thinking about this when watching the superb 'The Departed' on a rare outing to the cimena. Two examples:

Scorsese (or his cinematographers) use some very clever lighting to hide Jack Nicholson's make-up which is used to take 10 years off him. It wouldn't have worked in HD.

In two-up shots, sometimes neither actor was in focus...yet it worked. Sharper doesn't always mean better! (remember all those 1970's US TV shows in which the focus would shift back and forth as each person spoke?)

I'm going to bore everyone to death on this for the next few weeks, by the way...but it really is an excellent film. There were outstanding ensemble perfomances from all. Nicholson was breathtakingly charismatic without phoning in his usual Jack Nicholson impersonation. Matt Damon starts out being...well...Matt Damon, and the beauty is in when that slides away and the character development comes through...Martin Sheene, Mark Wahlberg, Ray Winstone - all playing at the top of their game and then some. But the Academy has to go to Lenny DiC. I think this is Scorsese's big film about Acting. Posible Spoilers From Here. He's the undercover cop, so is having to act all the time (as is Damon, who's Nicholson's mob plant in the police). He's seeing a police shrink, first profesionally, later as a friend. She says to DiCaprio: "You seem very vulnerable right now...or it just an act?" He slumps and says: "No...I don't think so..." - and for that slump alone he deserves the Oscar. Do you get it? He's stopped acting for a moment...only, of course, he's acting that he's stopped acting! OK. I'll shut up now.

Nicholson will walk Best Support - although he could be nominated for best actor. And I think you have to see this one in the theatre. The violence needs maximum impact. It's strange - I really don't get off on movie violence, but three of my favourite films are (now) The Departed, Goodfellas and Casino.

Giving Heavy Poddage to:

Polly Harvey (the new Peel Sessions album)
MC Solaar
Public Enemy
Yusuf Islam
Joanna Newsom.

^*Old Joke: "Have you got a light, mac?" "No - but I do have a dark overcoat."

Beware of the Leopard

2006-11-06T14:24:00.000Z

I got a letter from that nice 'Dave' Cameron the other day. He wanted to know my opinion on the Conservative Party. He even enclosed a pre-paid envelope. Naturally, I was happy to oblige:
"Since you ask...
I think that that the deceiving, opportunist bastard who was more than
willing to use racism in the service of Michael Howard can just fuck
off."

Written with my best green crayon, of course.

There are fascists
Pretending
To be humanitarians
Like cannibals on a health kick
Eating only vegetarians.
(Roger McGough. Or possibly Adrian Henri)

Currently giving heavy Poddage to:

Muse
Miles Davis (Porgy and Bess)
Talving Singh's compilation, 'Anokha: Soundz of the Asian Underground'.

Poop the Magic Draaa-gonnn!

2006-11-02T15:01:00.000Z

More Halloween photies.

My reputation amogst coworkers for eccentricity was sealed when I sewed this costume at lunchtime:

And here's yet more pumpkins:

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

2006-10-31T11:43:00.000Z

Nothing to say...except to give a quick cross-link to Pumpkin-a-thon '06.

I have a Hitchens/ Iraq body count posting in preparation, but I've been too busy carving pumpkind. And sewing a dragon costume.

...and it's a fuckin' ugly head

2006-10-18T09:51:00.000Z

Welcome to my first 'Guess The Relevance Of The Accompanying Image' competition.

So anyway…on the way to work yesterday, I stopped for petrol at a supermarket (I’ll not mention which one, but if you were to assume that it was whichever one first comes to mind, statistically you’d have a good chance of being right.). When I went to pay, there was an East European lorry driver at the counter trying to get directions – the supermarket is brand new, and he’d fallen off the edge of his GPS. He was getting nowhere in sign language, so I asked him if he spoke German – which he did, some – and pointed him in the right direction. After he’d gone, I paid for my petrol, and the woman serving engaged me in conversation:

“Where was he from?”

“I’m not sure. I think it was either The Czech Republic or Slovakia.”

“Hmmph. See if you went to one of their countries? Nobody would be friendly like that. They wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
(Sigh! Always give them a chance to be educated, though).

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always found the people very friendly over there.”

“Aye – but see on our estate? They get all these houses for the Russians, and the council pays for it all, and they just fill them with prostitutes…”

I turned on my heel.

“Tell you what – I shouldn’t have to listen to racist garbage like this on my way to work.”

“I’m not a racist.”

I turned and gave her my steeliest of glares.

“Yes you are.”

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…then it probably hasn’t spent enough time in the microwave. But isn’t this kind of run-of-the-mill stuff just soooo tedious?

When I got to work, I phoned the store manager. Give them their due, they’ve taken it seriously and I’m confident that certain working practices will be explained.

As Jeremy Hardy said the other week:

“You have to sympathise with racists these days – they’re having a hard time putting across their point of view: ‘These immigrants – they come over here with their white faces and bland food and fit thermostatic valves to our radiators.’ Hardly has the right force, does it?”

Never return to a god once lit.

2006-10-16T11:13:00.000Z

More of the headline story in a minute.

First of all...

There has been a pernicious rise in religious extremism of late. The Minister for Women and Equality, Ruth Kelly, is responsible for nursing through the Equality Act, which aims to outlaw discrimination in the provision of goods and services for the LGBT^* community. She is also a member of the crypto-fascist Catholic autoflagellant group, Opus Dei. The bill has already been delayed due to meddling by religious groups, and Kelly is pushing for exemptions for faith-based groups. This has caused rows in the cabinet, but she is being supported by Tony Blair, an in-yer-face Christian who is widely rumoured to be a Catholic convert. More information here and here.

Obviously one gruesome aspect of this is the grubby homophobia that so frequently goes with religion. But as a certain George O'Dowd once said, "If God didn't want men to shag each other up the arse, then why did he put the male clitoris up there? It must be some sort of divine plan."

At an even more basic level, I fail to understand why the religious might think they have a special right to be exempted from democratically-agreed laws. This law is intended to limit the effects of individual bigotry on others. What Kelly and her ilk are saying is "Ah, but our bigotry is divinely inspired."

Shit on 'em.

* Sorry - but this always comes out as "LGBLT". My bad!

But back to the title....

I don't usually 'do' religious ceremonies, obviously, but at the weekend I was fortunate to be a bystander at a Hindu ceremony for Dussehra. It marks the triumph of Rama over the 10-headed god Ravana - or the triumph of good over evil. It's conducted around sundown at a time considered to be a new start. First of all we watched a (much abridged!) enactment of the Ramayana in which kiddies in brightly-coloured costumes and monkey tails (Rama's army of monkey soldiers, see?) rescued Rama's wife Sita from Ravana. It was a lot more exciting than yer average nativity play, involving much charging back and forth and brandishing of toy swords. (One of the monkeys had a light sabre!). This was accompanied by evocative hindu hymns, drumming, rhythmic clapping, a pandit spraying the crowd with scented water, and much blowing of a conch shell. Then, as night fell, they torched a giant papier maché effigy of Ravana and let loose with the fireworks. By this time we'd wandered over to a small hill overlooking the site, so we were on a level with all the crackles, pops and wheeees. Only a few shells landed near us.

If you must have religious ceremonies, then let 'em involve fireworks, I say.

There's always an elephant in the room.

2006-10-11T12:32:00.000Z

Yesterday was National Mental Health Day. Alistair Campbell was on R4's PM show talking about his history of depression. Fair play to him - he discussed it openly and without stigma. He said that it would be unsurprising that leading members of the government were to suffer from mental health problems, given the amount of pressure they're under.

I wanted Eddie Mair to ask him the obvious question:

"How did you feel when a government advisor was put under so much pressure over remarks he was reported to have made about you that he walked into the woods one night, took a handful of pills and slashed his wrists?"

(The picture is a reference to the Peter Capaldi character in a satirical TV show that currently has as much chance of being repeated as Gary Glitter has of doing a comeback tour.)

Favourite Eddie Mair moments:

His opening headline on the day the British government had been accused by Gerry Adams of covert surveillance in Stormont: "Sinn Fein say, 'The British government are buggers'."

When he asked the Sudanese ambasador, "How do you sleep at night?"

When Elton John won a libel case: "We've just got time to read out one more listener's e-mail. Mrs Jones of Basingstoke writes, 'That Elton John - he's a great big poof.' Goodnight."

More of his wit and wisdom here. He's better than that twat John Humphrys any day.

I've a new photo on my Flickr site. Enjoy!

And while I'm doing quotes from the good and the great...here's a bunch from John Peel.

I never knew they did them in tins!

2006-10-06T10:27:00.001Z

Jen-yoo-wine purchase from my friendly neighbourhood Iranian food store.

(fnarr, fnarr)

Death to Thomas Szasz

2006-09-22T09:57:00.000Z

A brief interlude before I get back to animal rights. I'm much more interested in our particular type of animal.

I was talking with some people the other night about a legal case that one of them had heard being discussed on Radio 2. A woman had swallowed a load of pills to kill herself and then phoned up a friend and asked him to sit with her while she died. He did so, and has been charged with being an accessory to murder.

The talk turned to whether one is duty bound in such circumstances to intervene by calling for medical help. It somewhat surprised me, given that all people in the room had recovered from episodes of serious depression, that there was some doubt. The argument given was that while they had survived - in large part through the support of friends and family, another person's situation might be so lonely and desperate that they might never get better. And psychiatric services are notoriously hit and miss. Some get an excellent service. Many more fall through the cracks. In such circumstances, since the pain of depression is so severe, it might be cruel to force them to live on.

My counter to this is that we simply don't have the information to make an informed judgement from case to case. We might assume that they won't get better. We might assume that they will never get social or medical support...but we simply don't know. Nevertheless, we have to decide one way or another. My own position is that I would want to be saved. So if someone tells us they're planning on suicide, we call a doctor as a reflex action.

Some notes:

I don't blame the guy. He was trying to do the right thing. He was wrong.
Suicide is not a cry for help. It's an expression of pain. Suicides want to kill themselves.
It's futile to try to identify a cause: "What made him do it?". The answer's "Everything" or "Nothing" or "Bad chemicals on the brain." It's an illness. Call an ambulance!
Assisted suicide in the case of nasty, terminal, untreatable and humanity-sapping illness is a different matter. In the case of something like Motor Neurone Disease or Huntington's Chorea, we do have enough information to go on. Individuals should be allowed to choose their fate.
Who's Thomas Szasz? The most dangerous psychiatrist wever - with the possible exception of Radovan Karadžić.
In all discussions such as this, I am duty bound to post contact details for The Samaritans. If you have come across this post, are feeling depressed and are thinking of harming yourself, Contact them right away. They're there for you.. If you know somebody else in this position, please do your best to get them medical help.

Sorry to, like, totally bum everyone.