Ethical Flipping

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.

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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.

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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...

...on 27th June.

Damn this delayed gratification!

Election tactics.

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.

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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)

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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....

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

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.

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*

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'.

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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.

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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.

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

...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.

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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.

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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.

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Giving 'Poddage to:

Regina Spektor. Obssessively.

Those green ideas are a nightmare!

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.

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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!

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

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:

1. 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.
2. 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

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

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...

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.

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!

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

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.

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

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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!

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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!

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.

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!