I don't mean Dudley Simpson's orchestral stuff here, nor Murray Gold's modern version, but the synth outpourings of Roger Limb et al in the 80s.
Well, it's like this. A lot of Doctor Who music is well written, vaguely atmospheric and reminds me of being a kid. It is also, unsurprisingly, almost devoid of serious emotional content. Adric's theme, the end of Earthshock - it's alright, but it's no Love Will Tear Us Apart. For me, this is good. It means I can listen to tunes without being battered by the contents of my own mind. Goodness knows why we like to see our pain reflected in our music - what on earth is this for? Is it to express the pain, through tapping and dancing or whatever, or is it to deepen it, and enable us to spend hours in brutal melancholy?
Listening to these synth themes obviates this problem. In fact the best of them are not even the 80s guys but the sheer brilliance of Delia Derbyshire, who seemed to have a feel for electronic sound like no-one else. the 80s stuff is much more conventional, it doesn't really push boundaries like hers does, but it does use synths and samples to tell the story in sound, which I find appealing. Peter Howell's music for The Five Doctors for example is the story, as much as the teleplay or the camerawork is.
The appeal is also nostalgic. I was given a record of Doctor Who music by a friend when I was 10, and I taped it; then later I bought it on CD; now I have it on iTunes (and am listening to it now in fact) - the form has shifted, like my own in these twenty two years, but the tunes still carry the information of those early days, when I could see Leckhampton Hill from my classroom and you could still have a teacher throw a board rubber at your head. In fact, when I listen to this, I am listening to the story of my own life, as I see it, as much as I am to the stories behind the music.
And it is music: sounds, phasing, rhythm, themes - it's just not three minute statements of the bleedin' obvious.
But there's little point overstating the theory or the nostalgia. I listen to it because I like it, because I can get on and do other stuff as well, and because I don't have to listen to some kid spewing out my own romantic problems in the process.
Now there might be another question here - why not just silence?
But that's another story altogether.
Saturday, 31 January 2009
Thursday, 29 January 2009
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
This Is my N - Leafed Clover
mathematics...tears before bedtime...vivid dreams in bright primary colours...laughing with my pupils in a conspiracy of friendliness devoid of power relations...reading about the past...having my poetry analysed and criticised..listening to Doctor Who music...examinations...not reading the newspapers...walking a riverbank and watching the evening sky in between the branches...arm in arm with a friend...cutting the booze...new car...reading the most beautiful poetry ever written by ten year olds...ignoring the criteria...growing up together with language...getting lost in Reading...loathing and despising that ghastly mixture of nineteenth century gothic and late twentieth century neo-classical pastiche...talking a book with a stranger...learning from someone whose name you'll never know...solving a problem after giving up on it...being passed over for promotion...being left alone, right alone...finding you are the same as someone else...realising humanity is difference, not similarity...casting off the shackles of ideology...hacking away the people who think your private world is their domain...watching a film of demons and seeing them out of the corner of your eye.
InEquality
Root x, x to the half, the number or the value that is multiplied by itself to make x, you take it and you put it over two, then you spring up the two to make half x to the half, then you differentiate and you stick the half in front of the x and slap down the half index so that it is x to the minus half. Alternatively you could wallop one over root x, then you fiddle, or rather you divide, so then you get a sort of quotient which is x to the minus half, and the neat thing about that is that you can easily, as it were, reverse the operation because it leaves no remainder and no doubt: you just reverse what you did to obtain the fraction.
A conveniently ingested portion of excreted material.
Indeed, a fraction is not a statement: it is an action - when you look at a fraction (one number sliced by another) you look at a process. That process can do its stuff and have its stuff undone by its inverse.
I have proofs of all this shit at the other place....
A conveniently ingested portion of excreted material.
Indeed, a fraction is not a statement: it is an action - when you look at a fraction (one number sliced by another) you look at a process. That process can do its stuff and have its stuff undone by its inverse.
I have proofs of all this shit at the other place....
Hole in the Heart
...and love falls through it, onto the street, where you see it gleam for a moment but take it for sweet wrapping; you think you see something dipping out of your line of sight but you return to real life (work and desire and ambition and hate)as soon as the thought strikes you, as you should, as only life can continue through - and the feeling is gone, sunk, like everyone else's feelings, into the running sore of the gutter.
And it is over.
And it is over.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
John Scott Martin - Exterminated
I know it's a bit crass, but he did appear in over 100 episodes of Doctor Who, almost always as a Dalek (I think he was also an extra in The Daemons, at least), and he has died aged 83. He was a real stalwart of old Who, and probably did more than anyone else apart from Peter Hawkins to bring the Daleks alive as characters: although the voices weren't his, the movements were and it was often in the sudden, jerky movements of a Dalek that you glimpsed the irrationality underneath the robot-like exterior - it gave you a hint of the mass of hate inside.
I wonder how many people he exterminated over those 100 odd episodes?
Thanks, John.
I wonder how many people he exterminated over those 100 odd episodes?
Thanks, John.
Friday, 23 January 2009
The Art of Noise
Silence, as they say, is a non-reactive rare earth metal. In which case, noise is a precious though abundant element.
The problem is: where do you go for noise? How do you achieve it?
Well, I suggest that an average primary classroom is a good place to start: in there is all human noise - the hum of work, the mutter of conspiracy, the febrile buzz of unconscious flirtation (and that's just the teacher and assistant), the groans of pain, the sneers of hate.
It's all there, and in any good classroom they mix and mould all together, giving an outsider the impression of some kind of productivity. Whereas, what really exists is a sort of subdued revolution, consisting of all the adult, sub-adult and immature minds in that room, dancing together in felcitious concert.
Look for noise in the scribbling of pencils, in the sharpening of the same, in the bloated silence of the rubber, in the pregnancy of the staring into space, in the glare of the teacher, in the misread glance of enthusiasm from educator to pupil: at every stage the noise.
Even to the warlike roars, chants and screams of the playground. This is where we act all politics, from the tribal disputes to the sophisticated attempts to bring protagonists together (usually without genuine success, thus guaranteeing yet another League of Nations fiasco).
Into the frustrated scraping of chairs and all too rapid scuffling of coats at the end of the day. Noise, meaningful noise, what it means to be a community.
A surviving, thriving community.
The problem is: where do you go for noise? How do you achieve it?
Well, I suggest that an average primary classroom is a good place to start: in there is all human noise - the hum of work, the mutter of conspiracy, the febrile buzz of unconscious flirtation (and that's just the teacher and assistant), the groans of pain, the sneers of hate.
It's all there, and in any good classroom they mix and mould all together, giving an outsider the impression of some kind of productivity. Whereas, what really exists is a sort of subdued revolution, consisting of all the adult, sub-adult and immature minds in that room, dancing together in felcitious concert.
Look for noise in the scribbling of pencils, in the sharpening of the same, in the bloated silence of the rubber, in the pregnancy of the staring into space, in the glare of the teacher, in the misread glance of enthusiasm from educator to pupil: at every stage the noise.
Even to the warlike roars, chants and screams of the playground. This is where we act all politics, from the tribal disputes to the sophisticated attempts to bring protagonists together (usually without genuine success, thus guaranteeing yet another League of Nations fiasco).
Into the frustrated scraping of chairs and all too rapid scuffling of coats at the end of the day. Noise, meaningful noise, what it means to be a community.
A surviving, thriving community.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
New Year, Etc....
I wonder if the thing is not so much to renew yourself, through resolutions, or by some arbitrary action to appear to be changing - but to recognise yourself anew. By which I mean, see what it was that had been holding you back, and see what you were before that happened.
Very few of us can look back at ourselves with honesty. For one thing, we genuinely forget what we were like. Through the difficult patch, we come, as through all kinds of memory, to see ourselves as perfect before. This "memory cheats" thing must be some kind of survival device.
You are what you are: you will probably not succeed in changing that significantly, unless something happens to you - shocks you, in some way. But how do you know that what you think you are is what you are? In the muddle, the wave of relationships, the power games they need, the way that they grow around you like your most comfortable clothes, in all this, it is hardly a surprise that you look in the mirror and you don't quite see yourself, but instead see yourself looking a certain way (good or bad) "in that". Your perception is coloured by something that is not, in fact, you.
So what are you, then? How do you recover or recognise what it is that you are and what you can do with it?
I think this is where New Year's Resolutions come in, and the psychology of hope- especially the kind of vicarious hope that we have seen lately. But these are more likely to represent what we want to be, not what we are.
To be honest, I have no idea. I look for the answer in words, in alcohol, in staring at the mirror, even in -yuk- work (which is usually the way of blocking self off altogether): but no answers are forthcoming.
Is it possible, after all, that it is very difficult to know how to recognise yourself? Or is it me?
Very few of us can look back at ourselves with honesty. For one thing, we genuinely forget what we were like. Through the difficult patch, we come, as through all kinds of memory, to see ourselves as perfect before. This "memory cheats" thing must be some kind of survival device.
You are what you are: you will probably not succeed in changing that significantly, unless something happens to you - shocks you, in some way. But how do you know that what you think you are is what you are? In the muddle, the wave of relationships, the power games they need, the way that they grow around you like your most comfortable clothes, in all this, it is hardly a surprise that you look in the mirror and you don't quite see yourself, but instead see yourself looking a certain way (good or bad) "in that". Your perception is coloured by something that is not, in fact, you.
So what are you, then? How do you recover or recognise what it is that you are and what you can do with it?
I think this is where New Year's Resolutions come in, and the psychology of hope- especially the kind of vicarious hope that we have seen lately. But these are more likely to represent what we want to be, not what we are.
To be honest, I have no idea. I look for the answer in words, in alcohol, in staring at the mirror, even in -yuk- work (which is usually the way of blocking self off altogether): but no answers are forthcoming.
Is it possible, after all, that it is very difficult to know how to recognise yourself? Or is it me?
Friday, 16 January 2009
Confession
I've just spent the evening on...FACEBOOK.
Fuck me, I'd rather admit to spending it wanking over porn.
but I wasn't, so I can't.
Fuck me, I'd rather admit to spending it wanking over porn.
but I wasn't, so I can't.
Never Let Me Down (again)
From up here I can see the gutters, the filthy gutters, the ones I am supposed to be looking up from at the stars. But no: I can see the fag ends, the leaf-mulch, the filth of the Thames, the blood of the rodents and the accumulated dirt of the valley floor.
The stars are behind me; though I can't see them I see their faint reflections in the dirt. They are diminished in the passage of light, even in the beauty of soil.
From here I travel through empty boughs and over the hardly moving meadow grass: the wild barley stays brittle in the stillness. There it is, dark, monochrome, given a sort of sub-illumination, unnoticed.
No-one cares about the stars, but the boughs hold tall over the valley, full and broad. They stand, despite the fall of time. They simply hold.
Give me the dirt, the essence of life and the rain, over a fascist, body-worshipping, death-cult sun-regime - any time.
Give me the lush, sinking soil on any day of my life. Let me look, fly, fall, sink and then merge in the full body of the ground.
Then I see the stars.
They are nothing. Literally nothing.
Here, life bleeds into soil and back again. Ideas crawl into the air and are picked up, mainly by people who don't want them.
The stars are behind me; though I can't see them I see their faint reflections in the dirt. They are diminished in the passage of light, even in the beauty of soil.
From here I travel through empty boughs and over the hardly moving meadow grass: the wild barley stays brittle in the stillness. There it is, dark, monochrome, given a sort of sub-illumination, unnoticed.
No-one cares about the stars, but the boughs hold tall over the valley, full and broad. They stand, despite the fall of time. They simply hold.
Give me the dirt, the essence of life and the rain, over a fascist, body-worshipping, death-cult sun-regime - any time.
Give me the lush, sinking soil on any day of my life. Let me look, fly, fall, sink and then merge in the full body of the ground.
Then I see the stars.
They are nothing. Literally nothing.
Here, life bleeds into soil and back again. Ideas crawl into the air and are picked up, mainly by people who don't want them.
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Matt Smith
He's got the face for it...that's for sure. I was worried a young actor might just be cast for eye candy but his face has got real possibilities!
Good luck, Matt, I am insanely jealous.
Good luck, Matt, I am insanely jealous.
Live Blogging the New Who Announcement
...come on, get on with it....RTD going on and on at the moment...zzzzz....hurry up....
Ah...a flashback sequence....oh I still love Peter Davison as Who...
David Tennant reckons it's the youngest Doctor...hmm...who's that then? Not David Morrissey then! Sadly.
hmmm...running down the Doctors now...zzzz...
OMG this means the new Doctor is going to be younger than me! Holy moley that's how you know you're getting older.
You know I really like Jon Pertwee's Doctor these days. I think he is a brilliant Doctor. I didn't like him as a kid but these days I do like the more sort of aggressive character of the 3rd Doctor. The Doctor as a fully paid up member of the establishment...
OMG the new Doctor is 26!!! Oh no I am getting old now....
Oh....I don't recognise his face....Matt Smith.
Who the hell is he?
Ah...a flashback sequence....oh I still love Peter Davison as Who...
David Tennant reckons it's the youngest Doctor...hmm...who's that then? Not David Morrissey then! Sadly.
hmmm...running down the Doctors now...zzzz...
OMG this means the new Doctor is going to be younger than me! Holy moley that's how you know you're getting older.
You know I really like Jon Pertwee's Doctor these days. I think he is a brilliant Doctor. I didn't like him as a kid but these days I do like the more sort of aggressive character of the 3rd Doctor. The Doctor as a fully paid up member of the establishment...
OMG the new Doctor is 26!!! Oh no I am getting old now....
Oh....I don't recognise his face....Matt Smith.
Who the hell is he?
Monday, 29 December 2008
Living In The Ice Age
Well what the hell is there to this number - 2008?
I'll tell you. Nothing at all. There is nothing to this number at all:-
no blossoming oak, no muddy field full of young leaves, no rippling water sipped by lambs, no tumbling beech, no lime hanging in the breeze, no river scudding on in the long wind, no mallard skipping the current, no robin copping an eyeful on the nearest bare branch.
There is nothing here you'd care to see: no hands slipping out of touch, no missed glances, no desires shaping into the clouds, no love unspoken in stones, no sighs given by thrown twigs or rocks, no resentments that a stranger hasn't supped in his breath as he walks past.
What is there to your year?
There is nothing.
Nothing at all.
I'll tell you. Nothing at all. There is nothing to this number at all:-
no blossoming oak, no muddy field full of young leaves, no rippling water sipped by lambs, no tumbling beech, no lime hanging in the breeze, no river scudding on in the long wind, no mallard skipping the current, no robin copping an eyeful on the nearest bare branch.
There is nothing here you'd care to see: no hands slipping out of touch, no missed glances, no desires shaping into the clouds, no love unspoken in stones, no sighs given by thrown twigs or rocks, no resentments that a stranger hasn't supped in his breath as he walks past.
What is there to your year?
There is nothing.
Nothing at all.
Saturday, 27 December 2008
Explanation
If you didn't get my previous post.
One of those things that haunts the memory.
But if you are too young...this is it:
Or you might know it like this:
Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.
Life goes on.
So they say.
One of those things that haunts the memory.
But if you are too young...this is it:
Or you might know it like this:
Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.
Life goes on.
So they say.
Clipper Maid of the Seas
Fucking hell.
It is my greatest fear.
And it did actually happen: to 249 people. So many of them found to be scratching the seats or holding hands or holding crucifixes.
I remember the newsflash. Michael Burke: the helpline number: the Christmas tree in the corner of the room.
This is why I hate horror films: they are the worst of what humans actually do to each other - they are not fantasy.
It is my greatest fear.
And it did actually happen: to 249 people. So many of them found to be scratching the seats or holding hands or holding crucifixes.
I remember the newsflash. Michael Burke: the helpline number: the Christmas tree in the corner of the room.
This is why I hate horror films: they are the worst of what humans actually do to each other - they are not fantasy.
Ghost by Robert Harris
The Shorter Version:
I have a real sneaking admiration for Blair, despite everything, but I really, really hate his wife; and I don't think much of the Ham Shanks either.
End of.
I have a real sneaking admiration for Blair, despite everything, but I really, really hate his wife; and I don't think much of the Ham Shanks either.
End of.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Liberty Still Alive
A good story from Europe at last, for all those who believe that simply being arrested should not make you a suspect in all future crimes.
Needless to say, however, just as the government refused to add the amendment voted through by the Lords last month to the counter-terrorism bill, they are disappointed that individuals should remain free from suspicion and that citizens should not have their personal details routinely sifted through by police whenever a crime happens anywhere. They don't really intend to change the law.
Well...what can you say? Are you surprised?
Needless to say, however, just as the government refused to add the amendment voted through by the Lords last month to the counter-terrorism bill, they are disappointed that individuals should remain free from suspicion and that citizens should not have their personal details routinely sifted through by police whenever a crime happens anywhere. They don't really intend to change the law.
Well...what can you say? Are you surprised?
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Liberty Prorogued
Oh well, no revolution. A mildly interesting speech by the speaker, calling to order interventions on his own interventions - for the maths devotees among us, an interesting example of recursion - but other than that, the same old same old: questions, no answers, the governing party and the independent police in curious lockstep.
The idea, among the intellectuals, that the police have the right to uninterrupted action, whereas the democratic representatives of the people don't (if they belong to the opposition, crucially).
And the PM? Presumably, the strongest, most passionate democrat in the land?
He does not give a fuck. Instead he wants more powers for the state to demand things from innocent civilians.
Do not rely on the most intelligent: in times like these, their genius is put to the service of evil, which makes tenth rate minds like mine sit back and say, time after time, when liberty after liberty is killed, and even the right to oppose finally attacked, say "oh, well, I guess...if _they_ say it's reasonable, then it must be: after all, they write independent reports/are the police service of the people/are the local authorities/are the independent authority....". Genius and reason can, and are, used by evil.
That's when the only response is silent rebellion, to live as you wish to live.
And that's when they decide to come for you too: because they realise that when visible rebellion has gone, they need to seek the other sources of rebellion.
I'd give it 25 years.
Then, if I were you, I'd learn Newspeak.
By 2050, at the latest.
The idea, among the intellectuals, that the police have the right to uninterrupted action, whereas the democratic representatives of the people don't (if they belong to the opposition, crucially).
And the PM? Presumably, the strongest, most passionate democrat in the land?
He does not give a fuck. Instead he wants more powers for the state to demand things from innocent civilians.
Do not rely on the most intelligent: in times like these, their genius is put to the service of evil, which makes tenth rate minds like mine sit back and say, time after time, when liberty after liberty is killed, and even the right to oppose finally attacked, say "oh, well, I guess...if _they_ say it's reasonable, then it must be: after all, they write independent reports/are the police service of the people/are the local authorities/are the independent authority....". Genius and reason can, and are, used by evil.
That's when the only response is silent rebellion, to live as you wish to live.
And that's when they decide to come for you too: because they realise that when visible rebellion has gone, they need to seek the other sources of rebellion.
I'd give it 25 years.
Then, if I were you, I'd learn Newspeak.
By 2050, at the latest.
Saturday, 29 November 2008
Hmmm.
As I see it, the story goes like this. The arrest of Damien Green is fine because he possibly broke the law. You don't want MPs above the law now do you? Whatever Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Tony Blair and others did in the 90s, or indeed, whatever Gordon Brown did last weekend, with the PBR, is completely irrelevant.
In short, leaks to or by Labour are part of the democratic process. Leaks by or to the Tories need the full force of the law brought down upon them.
Some sections of the left are not covering themselves with glory over this - it is interesting that the defenders of Green have been people like Tony Benn: ie the looney left. The modern, reasonable left thinks that arresting Conservatives for something Labour does all the time is perfectly alright.
In short, leaks to or by Labour are part of the democratic process. Leaks by or to the Tories need the full force of the law brought down upon them.
Some sections of the left are not covering themselves with glory over this - it is interesting that the defenders of Green have been people like Tony Benn: ie the looney left. The modern, reasonable left thinks that arresting Conservatives for something Labour does all the time is perfectly alright.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Opposition Still Legal
...for the moment.
The NuLab defences:
1) You didn't care about Ponting;
2) If Robin Cook had of been arrested in the 90s, and if you right wingers had of been blogging then, you wouldn't of made a fuss then;
3) The Tories are cunts, so it's ok.
That basically sums up the Left-Stalinist-Centre defences when aksed whether arresting an MP with 9 counter- terrorism officers, holding him for 7 hours and ransacking any property to do with him, on suspicion of er, having helped to leak info in the public interest, you know, like NuLab did all the fucking time in the 90s, with the Supergun and Matrix Churchill stuff among fucking shedloads of others, and have done whenever they liked since then, was appropriate.
New Labour must be destroyed.
We must destroy them.
This is how.
You write sarky and sweary blog posts until May 2010, then you mark any of the boxes on the ballot paper that are not "Labour".
Of course, there will be an election then, and it will not be postponed because of unprecendented national emergency.
Oh - wait, hang on, I am receiving a NuLab transmission from 05/10:
"All these Tory toffs complaining about the election being postponed had nothing to say in 1940, when an election was cancelled due to a wholly fabricated 'national emergency', enabling the Tories to rule for x years [subs: fill in correct number]. They are just hypocrites, who cannot see that the reasons for not having an election have been approved by the independent Electoral Commission. And the Queen. This is a time when we need to pull together, not indulge our differences. And it is no time for whistleblowers...."
I guess I've sort of tuned out.
Normally, fucking the cunts is a good, pleasurable thing.
This time it will be difficult.
NuLab cunts are moist, but tight.
Fuck them. Fucking fuck the fucking fuckers.
The NuLab defences:
1) You didn't care about Ponting;
2) If Robin Cook had of been arrested in the 90s, and if you right wingers had of been blogging then, you wouldn't of made a fuss then;
3) The Tories are cunts, so it's ok.
That basically sums up the Left-Stalinist-Centre defences when aksed whether arresting an MP with 9 counter- terrorism officers, holding him for 7 hours and ransacking any property to do with him, on suspicion of er, having helped to leak info in the public interest, you know, like NuLab did all the fucking time in the 90s, with the Supergun and Matrix Churchill stuff among fucking shedloads of others, and have done whenever they liked since then, was appropriate.
New Labour must be destroyed.
We must destroy them.
This is how.
You write sarky and sweary blog posts until May 2010, then you mark any of the boxes on the ballot paper that are not "Labour".
Of course, there will be an election then, and it will not be postponed because of unprecendented national emergency.
Oh - wait, hang on, I am receiving a NuLab transmission from 05/10:
"All these Tory toffs complaining about the election being postponed had nothing to say in 1940, when an election was cancelled due to a wholly fabricated 'national emergency', enabling the Tories to rule for x years [subs: fill in correct number]. They are just hypocrites, who cannot see that the reasons for not having an election have been approved by the independent Electoral Commission. And the Queen. This is a time when we need to pull together, not indulge our differences. And it is no time for whistleblowers...."
I guess I've sort of tuned out.
Normally, fucking the cunts is a good, pleasurable thing.
This time it will be difficult.
NuLab cunts are moist, but tight.
Fuck them. Fucking fuck the fucking fuckers.
Bragadoccio
Well (shines cuff with little finger in a sort of half-formed light fist, circa 1949 and then 1989, to indicate self-satisfaction): far be it from me to boast, but each and every time I have been to France I have found their prophylactics inadequate....
I guess I'm unusual.
Heh.
Still - it would be a dull old world if everyone was the same, eh? Heh. Tchoh. I guess it takes all sorts, eh? Cah. What must it be like to - . Heh, but I guess we'd better not - hey! Life's good, isn't it?
I mean, possession of a piece of anatomy of uncontrolled size, is clearly an indication of personality and worth! Obviously! And if that piece of anatomy happens to be the same one used to make babies...well! Who am I to...? Well yes I know that no-one cares about the size of my liver (until it bursts), or my brain (nowt in it anyway), or my lungs - the least said about my spleen the better - hah! - though now you come to mention it, I've been feeling a bit of a bump here recently - have a feel -ow! - do you think - no, I guess I'm being silly. Where was I? Oh yes - the size of my knob is unutterably important. What do you mean, what if a woman has a - well yes I'm straight, what did you think I was? - what if she has, you know, a long...you know...yes, what does that have to do with anything? No of course I haven't thought of it! Does anyone? Well anyway, no I haven't. Is that a problem? Oh, right. Is she? Does she? What, every time? No, I mean, if you're big enough does she feel that - every time? Blimey! Is that really - I mean, are you supposed to feel that when you - you know, if your woman - oh. Oh dear. Am I supposed to feel that? Really? Oh.
Oh.
Well.
Then I guess these prophylactics are ok then. About the right size sort of. After all.
Hey ho.
Anyway, I've heard about this cream. You rub it on, and then, after eight months, maybe, you -
I guess I'm unusual.
Heh.
Still - it would be a dull old world if everyone was the same, eh? Heh. Tchoh. I guess it takes all sorts, eh? Cah. What must it be like to - . Heh, but I guess we'd better not - hey! Life's good, isn't it?
I mean, possession of a piece of anatomy of uncontrolled size, is clearly an indication of personality and worth! Obviously! And if that piece of anatomy happens to be the same one used to make babies...well! Who am I to...? Well yes I know that no-one cares about the size of my liver (until it bursts), or my brain (nowt in it anyway), or my lungs - the least said about my spleen the better - hah! - though now you come to mention it, I've been feeling a bit of a bump here recently - have a feel -ow! - do you think - no, I guess I'm being silly. Where was I? Oh yes - the size of my knob is unutterably important. What do you mean, what if a woman has a - well yes I'm straight, what did you think I was? - what if she has, you know, a long...you know...yes, what does that have to do with anything? No of course I haven't thought of it! Does anyone? Well anyway, no I haven't. Is that a problem? Oh, right. Is she? Does she? What, every time? No, I mean, if you're big enough does she feel that - every time? Blimey! Is that really - I mean, are you supposed to feel that when you - you know, if your woman - oh. Oh dear. Am I supposed to feel that? Really? Oh.
Oh.
Well.
Then I guess these prophylactics are ok then. About the right size sort of. After all.
Hey ho.
Anyway, I've heard about this cream. You rub it on, and then, after eight months, maybe, you -
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Oh My God, It's Started
If I remember rightly, that's what the terrorists say in Superman II when their hydrogen bomb goes shooting down the Eiffel Tower (before it's eventually shoved into space to bust Terence Stamp out of his eternal prison).
Well, something has started tonight. Something the government has been doing for years has apparently caused it, but - what do you know - an opposition MP has been arrested and held by the police.
Made in Britain.
Well, something has started tonight. Something the government has been doing for years has apparently caused it, but - what do you know - an opposition MP has been arrested and held by the police.
Made in Britain.
Easton on Teenagers
Or rather, Easton on all those awful people who don't like teenagers hanging around telling people to fuck off and shouting with barely repressed rage:
Perhaps the Home Office might like to do a youth survey asking how worried people are about the anti-social problem of adults treating teenagers like vermin.
That's the best he can do - no analysis, no evidence, no attempt to empathise with people, no criticism of youth at all - just a sneer at the adults.
Modern liberal insouciance, with no attempt at impartiality at all - what we expect from the publicly funded broadcaster, of course.
But the problem is this. The behaviour he does not even address is not recorded in crime figures. It doesn't get written down. It just gets listened to and put up with every day of the year by thousands of people. It has happened to me, out here in the bloody back of beyond, several times recently: teenagers who refuse to move, who barge you, who shout at you, swear at you, jump into you - they just don't care and you don't really dare respond.
Behaviour that Easton and his tired, clapped out, in denial ideology just will never recognise. It's a rigorous appeal to the ethics of victimhood against the assumed foamings of middle England (or whatever the "bourgeoisie" are labelled from Islington these days). It's based on the two key words of "perception" and "prejudice" (which are essentials of Easton's argument, in meaning if not actually mentioned).
Key NuLab buzzwords both, applied to the streets, to prevent an immature subset of society recognising the rights of everyone else to live in peace. More than that - worshipping the immaturity and elevating it above the real struggles of life that the swearing and aggression is directed against.
Perhaps the Home Office might like to do a youth survey asking how worried people are about the anti-social problem of adults treating teenagers like vermin.
That's the best he can do - no analysis, no evidence, no attempt to empathise with people, no criticism of youth at all - just a sneer at the adults.
Modern liberal insouciance, with no attempt at impartiality at all - what we expect from the publicly funded broadcaster, of course.
But the problem is this. The behaviour he does not even address is not recorded in crime figures. It doesn't get written down. It just gets listened to and put up with every day of the year by thousands of people. It has happened to me, out here in the bloody back of beyond, several times recently: teenagers who refuse to move, who barge you, who shout at you, swear at you, jump into you - they just don't care and you don't really dare respond.
Behaviour that Easton and his tired, clapped out, in denial ideology just will never recognise. It's a rigorous appeal to the ethics of victimhood against the assumed foamings of middle England (or whatever the "bourgeoisie" are labelled from Islington these days). It's based on the two key words of "perception" and "prejudice" (which are essentials of Easton's argument, in meaning if not actually mentioned).
Key NuLab buzzwords both, applied to the streets, to prevent an immature subset of society recognising the rights of everyone else to live in peace. More than that - worshipping the immaturity and elevating it above the real struggles of life that the swearing and aggression is directed against.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Party Defeated by Mule?
I've been thinking this week about re-arranging posts into a short book (an idea I stole from DK). But most of my output is nonsense: drunken, sweary and self-pitying, it says little of permanent interest.
I did think, however, that I could make something of my posts on the subject of the book.
So I've been re-reading them, and particularly one in which I suggest that a Mule would be the only person who might defeat Ingsoc. A Mule whose mental powers were capable of affecting others directly - not just through torture or fear.
The problem would be that such a character would be obvious from early on in their life. The Thought Police would surely see this child who has an effect on the children around him and either harness him, or destroy him, before he is old enough to act against the Party.
He might act a little like the central character in the fascinating Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which would certainly cause him to be hauled in by thinkpol.
But if he didn't, protected by parents or proles; if he grew to maturity keeping his powers secret, and if he were eventually hauled in for something like facecrime - it would be interesting to see his encounters with the Inner Party....
I did think, however, that I could make something of my posts on the subject of the book.
So I've been re-reading them, and particularly one in which I suggest that a Mule would be the only person who might defeat Ingsoc. A Mule whose mental powers were capable of affecting others directly - not just through torture or fear.
The problem would be that such a character would be obvious from early on in their life. The Thought Police would surely see this child who has an effect on the children around him and either harness him, or destroy him, before he is old enough to act against the Party.
He might act a little like the central character in the fascinating Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which would certainly cause him to be hauled in by thinkpol.
But if he didn't, protected by parents or proles; if he grew to maturity keeping his powers secret, and if he were eventually hauled in for something like facecrime - it would be interesting to see his encounters with the Inner Party....
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Quelle Surprise
Kerry McCarthy, MP, as quoted by LPUK:
I don’t think ‘freedom’ is sacrosanct
This much is obvious. Indeed, the open scepticism shown by this government and its fellow-travellers to the whole notion of freedom (note the scare quotes above) should be a constant source of worry to all of us, until the day when we finally have them removed from office.
I don’t think ‘freedom’ is sacrosanct
This much is obvious. Indeed, the open scepticism shown by this government and its fellow-travellers to the whole notion of freedom (note the scare quotes above) should be a constant source of worry to all of us, until the day when we finally have them removed from office.
Monday, 10 November 2008
After Room 101
Winston, purified, is supposedly filled with "ourselves" - meaning the desires and wishes of the Inner Party. He drinks, he gets up late, he hangs out in Chestnut Tree Cafe, he has a sinecure. He meets Julia and their meeting is awkward, punctuated by a lack of emotion, and precisely the inner hardness and separation that O Brien wanted and that Winston sought to escape from before the moment he first wrote in his diary.
In fact it is not quite the same, for Winston is now no longer aware of that isolation. He drinks heavily and he plays chess, and he worries about the news. His anxious thoughts are gone, but whether O Brien's confident statement that never again would Winston be capable of "ordinary human feeling" is correct is debateable. Take the drinking. Is Winston trying to hide something from himself - disgust? anxiety? Julia? Is he completely capable of those thoughts but merely repressing them - not quite what the Party wanted.
O Brien highlighted "fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement." He mentioned love of Big Brother and loyalty to the Party - but "everything else we shall destroy - everything."
From the final lines of the book, which contrast with an earlier segment, before he was arrested, Winston, in the bliss of the news of military triumph, imagines the "longed for bullet entering his brain" - he delights in this vision, this fantasy of his own death, "his soul white as snow".
With his tears of love for BB and his joy at the news, together with his conquest of the "false memory" that comes to him there of a happy moment of his childhood, Winston has been hollowed out. O Brien has his wish, and Winston, finally belongs to the Party.
And so he wants to die: because the Party want him to die, because they have engineered him to desire death at the point of his "perfection" - which is now, the very end. It is a reaction to his self-discoveries here: there is no self. Only the internalised Party.
Incidentally, the final point of the novel is made: the love of the Party is death. The theme of the novel has been "thoughtcrime is death" - as a totalitarian warning; but now we learn that it is this evil and hollow Party that is death. It is a re-statement of the vital values of civilisation and freedom. As readers we knew this already, as Winston used to know - but it is made with the self-sacrifice of the hero, who gives up, finally, any hero status he had, even in the physical act of survival (which was intended by the Party of course) - and is scooped out.
There is nothing left to do except fulfil the dream, which, we must imagine, would take place at any point of the Party's choosing following this moment.
In fact it is not quite the same, for Winston is now no longer aware of that isolation. He drinks heavily and he plays chess, and he worries about the news. His anxious thoughts are gone, but whether O Brien's confident statement that never again would Winston be capable of "ordinary human feeling" is correct is debateable. Take the drinking. Is Winston trying to hide something from himself - disgust? anxiety? Julia? Is he completely capable of those thoughts but merely repressing them - not quite what the Party wanted.
O Brien highlighted "fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement." He mentioned love of Big Brother and loyalty to the Party - but "everything else we shall destroy - everything."
From the final lines of the book, which contrast with an earlier segment, before he was arrested, Winston, in the bliss of the news of military triumph, imagines the "longed for bullet entering his brain" - he delights in this vision, this fantasy of his own death, "his soul white as snow".
With his tears of love for BB and his joy at the news, together with his conquest of the "false memory" that comes to him there of a happy moment of his childhood, Winston has been hollowed out. O Brien has his wish, and Winston, finally belongs to the Party.
And so he wants to die: because the Party want him to die, because they have engineered him to desire death at the point of his "perfection" - which is now, the very end. It is a reaction to his self-discoveries here: there is no self. Only the internalised Party.
Incidentally, the final point of the novel is made: the love of the Party is death. The theme of the novel has been "thoughtcrime is death" - as a totalitarian warning; but now we learn that it is this evil and hollow Party that is death. It is a re-statement of the vital values of civilisation and freedom. As readers we knew this already, as Winston used to know - but it is made with the self-sacrifice of the hero, who gives up, finally, any hero status he had, even in the physical act of survival (which was intended by the Party of course) - and is scooped out.
There is nothing left to do except fulfil the dream, which, we must imagine, would take place at any point of the Party's choosing following this moment.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Wrong Again, Eric
He's at it again, Britain's oldest unrepetant communist once again predicting the downfall of capitalism, just like he did in his terrible book The Age of Extremes.
A word to the not-wise, Eric: it ain't gonna happen. No-one's going back to the socialism you love because it was an oppressive crock of shit with a brilliant record for pig-iron production but bugger all else. Capitalism might well adapt, as it has done before; it might incorporate aspects of socialism, or at least progressivism, as it has done before; but it ain't going away.
Every time someone has something to sell and someone else wants to buy it there's capitalism. However it modifies itself, however we choose to regulate it, it will survive better and for longer than his beloved socialism managed.
A word to the not-wise, Eric: it ain't gonna happen. No-one's going back to the socialism you love because it was an oppressive crock of shit with a brilliant record for pig-iron production but bugger all else. Capitalism might well adapt, as it has done before; it might incorporate aspects of socialism, or at least progressivism, as it has done before; but it ain't going away.
Every time someone has something to sell and someone else wants to buy it there's capitalism. However it modifies itself, however we choose to regulate it, it will survive better and for longer than his beloved socialism managed.
Remembrance Sunday
I haven't posted anything of my own, despite always marking this day with a poppy and thoughts and prayers, but instead today i thought I would just round up a few blogosphere Remembrance posts. James Higham gives a lot of the background. Behind Blue Eyes has an excellent post about the day and what it signifies about values. Leg-Iron has closed his blog as a mark of respect. DK quotes Cecil Spring-Rice, though he needn't seem as diffident about it as he does. And Heather Yaxley adds a personal recollection to the day.
That was all. I liked these posts, and I like the different shades of remembrance they bring.
I wonder if Hazel Blears will see it the same way?
That was all. I liked these posts, and I like the different shades of remembrance they bring.
I wonder if Hazel Blears will see it the same way?
Saturday, 8 November 2008
The Disappearance of Syme
This is an interesting moment in the book. Winston foresees it over lunch in the cafeteria - demonstrating a stronger grasp of the principles of Ingsoc than O Brien gives him credit for - but the lingering question is: why does this lover of Ingsoc disappear?
Winston's fear was that he was "too intelligent" - meaning that he understood what he was doing with the Newspeak dictionary, and why, but also that he spoke too clearly about the aim of the project: to narrow the range of thought by narrowing the range of vocabulary. Syme obviously thought - if he did at all - that his obvious goodthinking and his clear bellyfeeling of Ingsoc would keep him safe.
This is where he went wrong. He failed to exercise doublethink appropriately. In his conversations with Winston he should have made it clear that the aim of the reduction in words was to expand the range of goodthinkful ideas and to enable fuller discussion of the principles of Ingsoc.
It kind of begs the question whether, in this case, it was necessary to have "the heretic here at our mercy", in the words of O Brien. What possible kind of re-education could Syme have needed? Apart from the obvious training in doublethink, it seems more likely to me that Syme, not in fact being guilty of an incorrect thought, would simply have been shot, no questions asked.
Could it be, however, that a clear understanding of the true principles of Ingsoc does itself constitute crimethink - when voiced by a member of the Outer Party? If this knowledge spread, then discontent and rebellion could follow throughout the Outer Party, leaving O Brien and his mates (of whom there are few) could be overthrown. The Party is a hierarchy, designed to freeze history with one group permanently in control - the Inner Party. Syme is not of the Inner Party.
Most likely, the understanding of Ingsoc is crimethink when not tagged on to doublethink. Without that the danger of falling into contempt for BB is great. O Brien, being a fanatic, is in no danger at all: his doublethink strategies are excellent. Even here, though, O Brien is as clear as possible to Winston: "The object of power is power." O Brien seems to be able to face and discuss the evil at the heart of Ingsoc, and recognise it as evil, and know that he wants evil. Syme does not recognise that you need to hold this knowledge of evil and also to know it as good at the same time, in order to be truly goodthinkful. His words leave too much open to interpretation, too much that could make a Party member wonder or worry...
On the other hand, we know that Syme frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and that he was too open in his conversations. It is possible that in fact, despite his instinctive goodthinking, he knew he was in danger and killed himself (as Winston knows that many disappearances are suicides).
In the main, however, the disappearance of Syme provides Winston (and the reader) with proof of the evil of Ingsoc; they even murder their own faithful. There were always excuses for the purges of the Soviets - that they needed to secure the revolution - but if you murder your own, you do that in a display of power only. I wonder in fact if it was meant to be another part of the game O Brien was playing with Winston: that Syme's death was nothing to do with Syme, or little to do with him, and everything to do with the thought-criminal, Winston? Clearly when he first speaks to Winston he mentions it deliberately, even teasingly.
The Inner Party like playing games with humanity. That is what they mean by pure power, which is their sole motivation. The games are fun, exciting, rewarding, like hunting. But instead of just killing, first you turn the quarry into whatever you want it to be.
Syme is not really a quarry: more of a diversion. He stands for the wholly contingent nature of humanity and life under Ingsoc. He doesn't even get to stay on the chess team.
Winston's fear was that he was "too intelligent" - meaning that he understood what he was doing with the Newspeak dictionary, and why, but also that he spoke too clearly about the aim of the project: to narrow the range of thought by narrowing the range of vocabulary. Syme obviously thought - if he did at all - that his obvious goodthinking and his clear bellyfeeling of Ingsoc would keep him safe.
This is where he went wrong. He failed to exercise doublethink appropriately. In his conversations with Winston he should have made it clear that the aim of the reduction in words was to expand the range of goodthinkful ideas and to enable fuller discussion of the principles of Ingsoc.
It kind of begs the question whether, in this case, it was necessary to have "the heretic here at our mercy", in the words of O Brien. What possible kind of re-education could Syme have needed? Apart from the obvious training in doublethink, it seems more likely to me that Syme, not in fact being guilty of an incorrect thought, would simply have been shot, no questions asked.
Could it be, however, that a clear understanding of the true principles of Ingsoc does itself constitute crimethink - when voiced by a member of the Outer Party? If this knowledge spread, then discontent and rebellion could follow throughout the Outer Party, leaving O Brien and his mates (of whom there are few) could be overthrown. The Party is a hierarchy, designed to freeze history with one group permanently in control - the Inner Party. Syme is not of the Inner Party.
Most likely, the understanding of Ingsoc is crimethink when not tagged on to doublethink. Without that the danger of falling into contempt for BB is great. O Brien, being a fanatic, is in no danger at all: his doublethink strategies are excellent. Even here, though, O Brien is as clear as possible to Winston: "The object of power is power." O Brien seems to be able to face and discuss the evil at the heart of Ingsoc, and recognise it as evil, and know that he wants evil. Syme does not recognise that you need to hold this knowledge of evil and also to know it as good at the same time, in order to be truly goodthinkful. His words leave too much open to interpretation, too much that could make a Party member wonder or worry...
On the other hand, we know that Syme frequented the Chestnut Tree Cafe, and that he was too open in his conversations. It is possible that in fact, despite his instinctive goodthinking, he knew he was in danger and killed himself (as Winston knows that many disappearances are suicides).
In the main, however, the disappearance of Syme provides Winston (and the reader) with proof of the evil of Ingsoc; they even murder their own faithful. There were always excuses for the purges of the Soviets - that they needed to secure the revolution - but if you murder your own, you do that in a display of power only. I wonder in fact if it was meant to be another part of the game O Brien was playing with Winston: that Syme's death was nothing to do with Syme, or little to do with him, and everything to do with the thought-criminal, Winston? Clearly when he first speaks to Winston he mentions it deliberately, even teasingly.
The Inner Party like playing games with humanity. That is what they mean by pure power, which is their sole motivation. The games are fun, exciting, rewarding, like hunting. But instead of just killing, first you turn the quarry into whatever you want it to be.
Syme is not really a quarry: more of a diversion. He stands for the wholly contingent nature of humanity and life under Ingsoc. He doesn't even get to stay on the chess team.
Friday, 7 November 2008
The Gift of O Brien
A subtext of the great book is that Winston, despite his love for Julia, and his endemic thoughtcrime, is in some way in love with O Brien. The brutal, fleshy monster seems to be a kind of father figure. In a way of course, he is. O Brien is a teacher, not just of facts, or even of modes of thought, but of life. Without O Brien's instruction, Winston can have no life at all. He is completely dependent on the Inner Party fuckhead for his entire worldview - with the emphasis on "view", for Winston, weakened by torture and the demonstration of the fallibility of reality, has nothing to cling on to at all, not sight, not thought, not Party - only the avuncular evil of the man who wishes to save through total control. Through this dependence - which is a dependence of living, an instinct like that of the warrior in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, faced with the chopping block - he comes to see O Brien as a more or less positive force, even as he decries and hates the aims of the Party ("pure power...what we mean by pure power you will understand presently").
O Brien's gift is the perversion of love. The manipulation of the most human of feelings for the ends of power. O Brien knows how to create love: you begin with some kind of admiration (built of fear, and intimidation, and mystery), then you leave little traces (glances and looks), then you strike, and you show your quarry that you are the desired object: unobtainable, mysterious, promising, caring of you, as an individual.
Of course, Winston should have spotted this straight away: that the indicators of love from an Inner Party member suggested his own death. Instead he sublimated them into dreams and fantasies ("We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness"), from where O Brien was only too happy to use his feelings. As Julia points out, it was obvious from his face: "...as soon as I saw you I knew you were against them").
O Brien needs Winston's love to make the emptying of his soul possible. Although he calls Winston "a difficult case", this is only true insofar as the ideology of Ingsoc is hateful to Winston. O Brien is not, could never be: so all it takes is a little torture, and the assurance of love, which O Brien knows Winston lost when his mother disappeared, never had with Katharine, and has only just found illegimately with Julia.
Winston, if the truth be told, is an easy case: he can love BB very easily, because he loves O Brien. His love for O Brien is what makes the final scene ("He loved Big Brother") possible: and indeed, it is not BB he loves, but O Brien. His mentor, his confidant, his torturer, his saviour.
We always love those who destroy us.
O Brien's gift is the perversion of love. The manipulation of the most human of feelings for the ends of power. O Brien knows how to create love: you begin with some kind of admiration (built of fear, and intimidation, and mystery), then you leave little traces (glances and looks), then you strike, and you show your quarry that you are the desired object: unobtainable, mysterious, promising, caring of you, as an individual.
Of course, Winston should have spotted this straight away: that the indicators of love from an Inner Party member suggested his own death. Instead he sublimated them into dreams and fantasies ("We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness"), from where O Brien was only too happy to use his feelings. As Julia points out, it was obvious from his face: "...as soon as I saw you I knew you were against them").
O Brien needs Winston's love to make the emptying of his soul possible. Although he calls Winston "a difficult case", this is only true insofar as the ideology of Ingsoc is hateful to Winston. O Brien is not, could never be: so all it takes is a little torture, and the assurance of love, which O Brien knows Winston lost when his mother disappeared, never had with Katharine, and has only just found illegimately with Julia.
Winston, if the truth be told, is an easy case: he can love BB very easily, because he loves O Brien. His love for O Brien is what makes the final scene ("He loved Big Brother") possible: and indeed, it is not BB he loves, but O Brien. His mentor, his confidant, his torturer, his saviour.
We always love those who destroy us.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Why The Photo Was Important
A reader recently got here by googling "Why was the photo of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford so important?"
Easy. The photo is used by O Brien to prove to Winston the power of doublethink and the impotence of traditional approaches to "the past". Winston, under pain of torture, can do nothing but tell the truth - he saw the photo, O Brien held it in his hand - and O Brien, with one sentence, announces the arrival of a far more powerful mode of thought: "I do not remember it."
Freed from the slavery of truth, the Party mind can be as flexible as the situation demands, and it can forget anything it needs to, whenever it needs to, even to forgetting the act of forgetting. The photo demonstrates that nothing exists apart from what the Party calls into existence and destroys, and that lunacy really is being a minority of one. The photo's destruction and forgetting is a brutal display of power over reality, in a way Winston does not come to understand fully until later.
Easy. The photo is used by O Brien to prove to Winston the power of doublethink and the impotence of traditional approaches to "the past". Winston, under pain of torture, can do nothing but tell the truth - he saw the photo, O Brien held it in his hand - and O Brien, with one sentence, announces the arrival of a far more powerful mode of thought: "I do not remember it."
Freed from the slavery of truth, the Party mind can be as flexible as the situation demands, and it can forget anything it needs to, whenever it needs to, even to forgetting the act of forgetting. The photo demonstrates that nothing exists apart from what the Party calls into existence and destroys, and that lunacy really is being a minority of one. The photo's destruction and forgetting is a brutal display of power over reality, in a way Winston does not come to understand fully until later.
More Stat Pron
By the way, according to Sitemeter, my readership continues to increase, from "hardly anyone at all" to "very very few people." I got 2,200 visits in October, which is a record, and I imagine that 95% of them are those helpful little robot things. If anything, the percentage of hits coming through CBI has increased, up to around 99%. If it wasn't for him, I'd be down to 4 or 5 a day, like in the pre-blogpower days. I don't mind things being quiet, actually, because it means i don't get involved in all those bloody awful circular arguments you get on blogs. It also means I can say what I like with little fear of being refuted. This is a blessing, because there is nothing worse than those miserable bastards who just do not agree with one. You know the sort - different ideas, different background, different worldview. They're not too bad if they change their minds quickly, but if they don't they become a real pain. So yes, avoiding this is good.
Actually believe it or not I am just like this in real life too. I so loathe and detest confrontation now that I sit on my own all the time reading the paper. At the slightest sign of an argument my pulse races and I lose the faculty for independent, rational, sequential, logical thought. I just start to shake.
I can't really explain this: it's not as if I'm not exposed to other viewpoints all the time. It's more that I just can't stand them: and that my own worldview is so shaky that I feel I am being knocked down when it is challenged. But instead of punching someone's lights out, as my generation has tended to do, I just get all weepy and sad.
Erm...
Of course it does mean that life round here is pretty dull, but then you need an chill out room in the middle of this wild party we call the blogosphere, don't you?
Actually believe it or not I am just like this in real life too. I so loathe and detest confrontation now that I sit on my own all the time reading the paper. At the slightest sign of an argument my pulse races and I lose the faculty for independent, rational, sequential, logical thought. I just start to shake.
I can't really explain this: it's not as if I'm not exposed to other viewpoints all the time. It's more that I just can't stand them: and that my own worldview is so shaky that I feel I am being knocked down when it is challenged. But instead of punching someone's lights out, as my generation has tended to do, I just get all weepy and sad.
Erm...
Of course it does mean that life round here is pretty dull, but then you need an chill out room in the middle of this wild party we call the blogosphere, don't you?
Yes, Alright
I'm avoiding work. I suppose it's easy to tell with me. As I am less inclined to work, so my rate of blogging goes up. In fact my archives are a neat guide to my liking for work.
I see DK is testing out the idea of a best of DK book. Good luck to him, though I'll probably just surf his archives rather than buy the book. I've been toying with a "Least Crap of TTD" book for a while now but the problem is I just can't be bothered.
I see DK is testing out the idea of a best of DK book. Good luck to him, though I'll probably just surf his archives rather than buy the book. I've been toying with a "Least Crap of TTD" book for a while now but the problem is I just can't be bothered.
More Diaries
Having just finished the second volume of Bernard Donoughue's No10 memoirs (but not being bothered to read volume 1), I thought I would stick with the theme of diaries for the moment, so I'm now reading The Duff Cooper Diaries.
What has struck me in the first hundred pages or so, apart from the extraordinary indulgence of his lifestyle, his casual evenings out with the PM, and his sudden encounter with war in 1918, has been his attitude to love.
The object of his affections is usually Lady Diana Manners (whom he marries in 1919), but he describes his love for her in rollercoaster terms: it appears and disappears day by day and sits sometimes comfortably alongside his love for other women he variously kisses, looks at, or as in the case of an unnamed woman in France, follows out of a restaurant and into her bed. His love does not seem like an animating force, but like a scratch that is more or less irritating.
I often wonder how diarists can separate themselves from their emotions long enough to commit something readable to paper. Does it mean there is a kind of distance between an experience and its impact? How can you write something down while its consequences are still rattling through your veins? Do such people in fact not really experience things at all but merely observe them?
I ask because I've often tried to write diaries of my own. They always stop at precisely the point something ghastly happens, like a work crisis or a love crisis. I cannot record these things, because I can never find the words for them. The feelings always re-emerge, or are too vivid anyway, and anything I put seems trite or simply inadequate. That, or it just seems wrong to be writing things that are really happening and are really awful. The only way I could see to do it would be if I - as a self, as a feeling being - was not affected by the things that happened to me, so that I could sit there as the same, possessed person I had been before, and write it as though it were a story.
Even that is difficult, because I know I am lying, in the sense that I'm not writing a story, but babbling a set of unpleasantnesses or a jagged series of events. This is why for years I've only written poetry, so that I can write in shades of opacity that suit my need to close the actual experience down, and leave myself with only a reflected emotion, which I can write in analogue or metaphor.
Real experience, for me, needs to be left alone to settle or to wreak the havoc it wants to wreak. It is too important to be narrowed and scribed, and the emotion too raw to write, even privately.
Maybe years later. Or sublimated into an imagery that can actually be used; but then you never quite get to the centre of the issue.
What has struck me in the first hundred pages or so, apart from the extraordinary indulgence of his lifestyle, his casual evenings out with the PM, and his sudden encounter with war in 1918, has been his attitude to love.
The object of his affections is usually Lady Diana Manners (whom he marries in 1919), but he describes his love for her in rollercoaster terms: it appears and disappears day by day and sits sometimes comfortably alongside his love for other women he variously kisses, looks at, or as in the case of an unnamed woman in France, follows out of a restaurant and into her bed. His love does not seem like an animating force, but like a scratch that is more or less irritating.
I often wonder how diarists can separate themselves from their emotions long enough to commit something readable to paper. Does it mean there is a kind of distance between an experience and its impact? How can you write something down while its consequences are still rattling through your veins? Do such people in fact not really experience things at all but merely observe them?
I ask because I've often tried to write diaries of my own. They always stop at precisely the point something ghastly happens, like a work crisis or a love crisis. I cannot record these things, because I can never find the words for them. The feelings always re-emerge, or are too vivid anyway, and anything I put seems trite or simply inadequate. That, or it just seems wrong to be writing things that are really happening and are really awful. The only way I could see to do it would be if I - as a self, as a feeling being - was not affected by the things that happened to me, so that I could sit there as the same, possessed person I had been before, and write it as though it were a story.
Even that is difficult, because I know I am lying, in the sense that I'm not writing a story, but babbling a set of unpleasantnesses or a jagged series of events. This is why for years I've only written poetry, so that I can write in shades of opacity that suit my need to close the actual experience down, and leave myself with only a reflected emotion, which I can write in analogue or metaphor.
Real experience, for me, needs to be left alone to settle or to wreak the havoc it wants to wreak. It is too important to be narrowed and scribed, and the emotion too raw to write, even privately.
Maybe years later. Or sublimated into an imagery that can actually be used; but then you never quite get to the centre of the issue.
Government's Power Grab (part n)
They're at it again: preparing the ground, building a consensus among themselves, establishing their opponents as simply illegitimate and continuing the process of trying to bring the blogosphere under control.
The modern totalitarians are very effective indeed. They know how to work things.
Firstly you need, definably, to be on the side that is understood by those who matter (government, academia, liberal media) to be the compassionate one. It helps if you can point to a list of laws you've introduced on behalf of special interest groups. It also helps if you can have "science" on your side - especially social studies carried out by people with definite ideologies.
Then you pathologise your opponents, slowly but clearly. You begin with accusing them of being "x-phobic", and when this is mainstreamed, you start on the idea of "offensiveness" and "ignorance" (which merely means "dissent" when used in this context). You discuss the need for "dialogue" (which means the government talking and everyone else listening), and you look sternly upon those who are "unhelpful". Laws are brought in citing some of these words. During this process minor court cases, arrests, fines and stories in the tabloids steadily demonstrate that these words actually do have criminal impact and are enough to have the police interested in you. So, gently, you spread a little fear while denouncing all these stories as myths.
Your opponents being successfully pathologised, it follows that they will need to be controlled in order to promote healthy dialogue and positive contributions. There will be an urgent need to prevent the abuse of science and the spread of ignorance.
You will begin very softly, with a quality mark for the good blogs. You will, however, be building a national firewall and a national electronic database during this time. You will send in your trolls to the political blogs. You will maintain the discussions in Europe about the dangers of untrammelled offensiveness online. Eventually you will discover an incidence or two of racism or some other offensiveness on a blog or two, and this will serve as a pretext for closing down websites.
Finally, because of the huge public outcry in the Guardian and on the BBC following these incidents, laws will be introduced and a Council or a Commission will be created, to which all blog-writers will need to apply. This council will consist of government supporters and one or two pro-government bloggers. Applications for rightish blogs will mysteriously fail to be successful.
This will continue regardless of whether this government stays in power or not: for the other Party will be too afraid to close the Commission down, for fear of being painted as pro-racist or pro-whateverotheroffensivenessmattersatthattime.
The modern totalitarians are very effective indeed. They know how to work things.
Firstly you need, definably, to be on the side that is understood by those who matter (government, academia, liberal media) to be the compassionate one. It helps if you can point to a list of laws you've introduced on behalf of special interest groups. It also helps if you can have "science" on your side - especially social studies carried out by people with definite ideologies.
Then you pathologise your opponents, slowly but clearly. You begin with accusing them of being "x-phobic", and when this is mainstreamed, you start on the idea of "offensiveness" and "ignorance" (which merely means "dissent" when used in this context). You discuss the need for "dialogue" (which means the government talking and everyone else listening), and you look sternly upon those who are "unhelpful". Laws are brought in citing some of these words. During this process minor court cases, arrests, fines and stories in the tabloids steadily demonstrate that these words actually do have criminal impact and are enough to have the police interested in you. So, gently, you spread a little fear while denouncing all these stories as myths.
Your opponents being successfully pathologised, it follows that they will need to be controlled in order to promote healthy dialogue and positive contributions. There will be an urgent need to prevent the abuse of science and the spread of ignorance.
You will begin very softly, with a quality mark for the good blogs. You will, however, be building a national firewall and a national electronic database during this time. You will send in your trolls to the political blogs. You will maintain the discussions in Europe about the dangers of untrammelled offensiveness online. Eventually you will discover an incidence or two of racism or some other offensiveness on a blog or two, and this will serve as a pretext for closing down websites.
Finally, because of the huge public outcry in the Guardian and on the BBC following these incidents, laws will be introduced and a Council or a Commission will be created, to which all blog-writers will need to apply. This council will consist of government supporters and one or two pro-government bloggers. Applications for rightish blogs will mysteriously fail to be successful.
This will continue regardless of whether this government stays in power or not: for the other Party will be too afraid to close the Commission down, for fear of being painted as pro-racist or pro-whateverotheroffensivenessmattersatthattime.
World Goes Off Its Head In Delight/Anger
Myself: I couldn't give a toss. One guy wins an election, the other guy loses. Yes I understand the symbolism. And the significance. But it's politics. It's still people bossing other people about. It's still empty slogans ("Change" - although I like it when Tears for Fears say it). There are still wars to be lost, taxes to be raised, laws against liberty to be enacted and who knows what coming in the next few years.
We've had the candidates of hope before, and two of them particularly come to my mind: one who nearly blew the world up (JFK) and the other who tightened the state's grip on the neck of his people for a decade before anyone tried to object (Blair).
Governance is a messy business because life is messy. People with sweet sounding messages will always be forced to compromise or abandon them because things are not sweet or lovely. That is, if they believed what they were saying in the first place.
Things are bastards.
That's why governments are bastards.
The Obama administration will get an easy ride in the media, to be sure, but that doesn't mean it won't do un-nice things at some point.
And change isn't always good. I don't remember the left queuing up to praise the change taking place in the 1980s. In fact, if I remember rightly, they wanted society frozen as it had been in 1974 (before the monetarist policies of Callaghan) and no change from there (apart from steady increases in taxation of course).
Also losing my hair is not good change. I want that change reversed to around 1995 - when I had massive flowing locks of poetic-type hair.
We've had the candidates of hope before, and two of them particularly come to my mind: one who nearly blew the world up (JFK) and the other who tightened the state's grip on the neck of his people for a decade before anyone tried to object (Blair).
Governance is a messy business because life is messy. People with sweet sounding messages will always be forced to compromise or abandon them because things are not sweet or lovely. That is, if they believed what they were saying in the first place.
Things are bastards.
That's why governments are bastards.
The Obama administration will get an easy ride in the media, to be sure, but that doesn't mean it won't do un-nice things at some point.
And change isn't always good. I don't remember the left queuing up to praise the change taking place in the 1980s. In fact, if I remember rightly, they wanted society frozen as it had been in 1974 (before the monetarist policies of Callaghan) and no change from there (apart from steady increases in taxation of course).
Also losing my hair is not good change. I want that change reversed to around 1995 - when I had massive flowing locks of poetic-type hair.
Friday, 31 October 2008
On the Cold
Well we don't really get it here, but a few days of mildly unwarm weather reminds me why I don't like it being warm. I like the freshness and the ice on my car; I like the fact of needing to wear more clothes and feeling more protected; I like the lack of winged insects; I like the way the seasons are definitely changing, adapting, that life goes on in different ways than before; I like the way tea suddenly assumes a far greater importance in life.
But above all I like the fact that I don't sweat so much. I can stay awake longer and can be more alert in the cold than the warmth.
Hence, despite the clothes making me look like a balloon, I retain far more dignity when it's cold than when it's warm, and my beads of sweat make me look like an ageing version of Piggy out of Lord of the Flies. Without the glasses.
But above all I like the fact that I don't sweat so much. I can stay awake longer and can be more alert in the cold than the warmth.
Hence, despite the clothes making me look like a balloon, I retain far more dignity when it's cold than when it's warm, and my beads of sweat make me look like an ageing version of Piggy out of Lord of the Flies. Without the glasses.
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
This Is A Bloody Awful Time, All Round
Well, what more could possibly happen, apart from everyone losing all their money and pensions and jobs and houses?
Well - what did you think?
For F's S.
Just when you thought life couldn't get any crapper.
All I can say now is - not John Simm. Great actor and all that but don't let the Master "merge" into the Doctor or something equally crap.
Well - what did you think?
For F's S.
Just when you thought life couldn't get any crapper.
All I can say now is - not John Simm. Great actor and all that but don't let the Master "merge" into the Doctor or something equally crap.
Consensus' End
I finished the second volume of Bernard Donoughue's memoirs (Downing Street Diaries) this week, which are an account of working in No10 under Jim Callaghan between 1976 and 1979. He was a political advisor who worked closely with the PM and various civil servants on policy (ie not spin, though he did have words of spin-related advice for Jim).
What is fascinating is the way the three years, seen from inside No10, veer from immediate crisis, to an eighteen month period of calm, to total and utter chaos. It is also curious (though i've heard this before in contemporary accounts) that Donoughue, as a Labour man, is frustrated by the actions of the unions, but also feels strongly that the British people themselves are to blame: they've lost their elan, their desire to work, their whole spirit. He ends his accountin May 1979, believing that the Tories and anyone else would fail if they could not get the people as a whole up and running again, with belief and commitment in their work.
The central stumbling block during 1978-79 seems to be the 5% pay policy, which had to be thrashed out in the teeth of ministerial opposition and then had to be enforced - which, especially after the laws on sanctions for companies who broke the policy were defeated in the Commons, was impossible. Inflation had been brought down to 7% during 1978 and though Donoughue does not mention it, it was clearly rising again at the end of the year.
But the way in which things, aided by the weather, collapse utterly between December 1978 and February 1979 is startling even to someone who's taken an interest in this period for years. Mad pay demands, threats to strike even during the negotiation process, wildcat strikes, secondary picketing, a Labour party so bewildered by the betrayal of its people that it did not know where to turn. In this quick period, No10 seem to become convinced that the Labour movement has been betrayed. Donoughue writes at one point that what they were doing was not Trades Unionism, but capitalism in its rawest form - we want whatever we can get and stuff everyone else.
He reserves his sharpest scorn for public sector unions, and particularly the ones responsible for picketing hospitals.
This whole experience leaves him convinced that Britain in general really is sick.
It does leave me wondering, if this account is reliable, and if Labour had won decisively in the autumn of 1978 (as many had though might happen) what would have been the course until 1983. I doubt, strongly, whether incoming North Sea Oil would have made any difference. I think it would have been used as fuel for more pay demands, because the political will for union and public sector reform generally was only just gestating at the time of the 1979 election within Labour and would have been delayed even longer than it actually was. Some movement into tax cutting territory might have happened, and there would not have been the great shift to indirect taxation. It is also clear that Britain would have deindustrialised, just as it did, though probably more slowly. In the Diaries, the Cabinet are shown to have no idea what do about the collapse of Steel except let it happen. They know it's useless, they know the collapse will be desperate, but they cannot afford to bail it out and don't really have the political will or nous to do so. They just let it go, slowly but definitely. And that's what would have happened if Jim had been in power in that 1980-81 period. Some more investment in bad products made with bad practices, no reform, same result. Possibly less painful in the short term, but leading to a similar result: the death of the traditional industries in Britain. Even in 1978 Donoughue talks about "another wave of deindustrialisation", admitting that it has been going on for years.
But that's not really an informed view. That's just me, thinking on the basis of one book's ideas. But it is interesting to see things one normally associates with THAtcher, already happening. Another one is monetary policy, forced onto the government by the IMF.
Of note in the diaries is the constant, weaselly treachery of Tony Benn; the desire of Labour not to lose the Catholic vote by being too extreme on abortion (unlike today, when Labour seems desperate to lose the left-footer vote and indeed has); the self-interest and laziness of the Civil Service.
I think the book is well written, clearly prejudiced like any first person account but overall fair both to its subject (Jim) and the times. It steers well clear of "revelations" and personal stuff (except in small doses), and it does not seek to backstab. Above all, it's been hidden for 30 years, rather than the two minutes we've come to expect from "I Was There" books.
What did Jim famously say?
"You cannot now, if you ever could, spend your way out of a recession."
Hmm.
Hey Darling, your tax or mine? fnarr fnarr.
What is fascinating is the way the three years, seen from inside No10, veer from immediate crisis, to an eighteen month period of calm, to total and utter chaos. It is also curious (though i've heard this before in contemporary accounts) that Donoughue, as a Labour man, is frustrated by the actions of the unions, but also feels strongly that the British people themselves are to blame: they've lost their elan, their desire to work, their whole spirit. He ends his accountin May 1979, believing that the Tories and anyone else would fail if they could not get the people as a whole up and running again, with belief and commitment in their work.
The central stumbling block during 1978-79 seems to be the 5% pay policy, which had to be thrashed out in the teeth of ministerial opposition and then had to be enforced - which, especially after the laws on sanctions for companies who broke the policy were defeated in the Commons, was impossible. Inflation had been brought down to 7% during 1978 and though Donoughue does not mention it, it was clearly rising again at the end of the year.
But the way in which things, aided by the weather, collapse utterly between December 1978 and February 1979 is startling even to someone who's taken an interest in this period for years. Mad pay demands, threats to strike even during the negotiation process, wildcat strikes, secondary picketing, a Labour party so bewildered by the betrayal of its people that it did not know where to turn. In this quick period, No10 seem to become convinced that the Labour movement has been betrayed. Donoughue writes at one point that what they were doing was not Trades Unionism, but capitalism in its rawest form - we want whatever we can get and stuff everyone else.
He reserves his sharpest scorn for public sector unions, and particularly the ones responsible for picketing hospitals.
This whole experience leaves him convinced that Britain in general really is sick.
It does leave me wondering, if this account is reliable, and if Labour had won decisively in the autumn of 1978 (as many had though might happen) what would have been the course until 1983. I doubt, strongly, whether incoming North Sea Oil would have made any difference. I think it would have been used as fuel for more pay demands, because the political will for union and public sector reform generally was only just gestating at the time of the 1979 election within Labour and would have been delayed even longer than it actually was. Some movement into tax cutting territory might have happened, and there would not have been the great shift to indirect taxation. It is also clear that Britain would have deindustrialised, just as it did, though probably more slowly. In the Diaries, the Cabinet are shown to have no idea what do about the collapse of Steel except let it happen. They know it's useless, they know the collapse will be desperate, but they cannot afford to bail it out and don't really have the political will or nous to do so. They just let it go, slowly but definitely. And that's what would have happened if Jim had been in power in that 1980-81 period. Some more investment in bad products made with bad practices, no reform, same result. Possibly less painful in the short term, but leading to a similar result: the death of the traditional industries in Britain. Even in 1978 Donoughue talks about "another wave of deindustrialisation", admitting that it has been going on for years.
But that's not really an informed view. That's just me, thinking on the basis of one book's ideas. But it is interesting to see things one normally associates with THAtcher, already happening. Another one is monetary policy, forced onto the government by the IMF.
Of note in the diaries is the constant, weaselly treachery of Tony Benn; the desire of Labour not to lose the Catholic vote by being too extreme on abortion (unlike today, when Labour seems desperate to lose the left-footer vote and indeed has); the self-interest and laziness of the Civil Service.
I think the book is well written, clearly prejudiced like any first person account but overall fair both to its subject (Jim) and the times. It steers well clear of "revelations" and personal stuff (except in small doses), and it does not seek to backstab. Above all, it's been hidden for 30 years, rather than the two minutes we've come to expect from "I Was There" books.
What did Jim famously say?
"You cannot now, if you ever could, spend your way out of a recession."
Hmm.
Hey Darling, your tax or mine? fnarr fnarr.
Repairing The Road
Is what is going outside here today; it means i am sort of stuck here. But it is half term anyway so I was only planning on a trip to the gym. I thought the time was right for a quick gym update, so here goes: I have recently completed 100 miles on the exercise bike in 3 weeks rather than 4, which was the challenge (in aid of Breast Cancer) though I did it at the expense of everything else and ended up with some rather nice thighs. I have been bench pressing a mere 20kg (30 if you include the bar, or at least that's what the guy tells me) but it is creating some new chest muscle.
Unfortunately I continue to drink far too much, and eat too much fatty and salty stuff. This means I now resemble a cut-n-shut human being. Waist downwards: athletic, poised, full of youth and vitality. Waist upwards: balding barrage balloon.
End of update.
Unfortunately I continue to drink far too much, and eat too much fatty and salty stuff. This means I now resemble a cut-n-shut human being. Waist downwards: athletic, poised, full of youth and vitality. Waist upwards: balding barrage balloon.
End of update.
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
On the Frustrations of an Inadequate Imagination
One of the annoying things about trying to write - stories and poems, I mean - is never really knowing what to put, and sitting here with a vague concept in mind, or a scene of some kind, or sometimes just a word, and then attempting to make something of it. Generally I don't put enough effort in, and I flick through various bits of music on iTunes, or I scribble and delete stuff, or I just end up doodling. I am not very good at doodling but I have a nice way with sort of squares and diamonds and straight lines. This blog is a sort of linguistic doodle.
I read somewhere (I think it was Ted Hughes) that you need to train your imagination, and develop it like a muscle. I have been trying that lately, by writing things of different genres. It has been frankly toe-curling to read the results. Not only have I chosen genres which I should stay well away from and don't even read, but what have I come up with isn't even a morass of sentiment and cliche; it's just meaningless verbiage, duckspeaking. This work has issued from my fingers with no input from my higher brain centres at all.
And yet the sheer number of words I have declaimed to Microsoft Word lately: 4000 on Wednesday last week, with 2000 most days before and since for around two weeks. How can so many words say so little, and how can they be so poorly arranged?
The problem for me - and, I suspect, many tenth rate authors - is that my range of sympathies and interests, and therefore imaginations, is narrow. So I have to force the imagination into action. And if one's imagination works like a slightly surreal film, then on these occasions mine is like a three year old's picture done in very heavy blue crayon. But for so long I have failed to do this, and have just focused instead on the "things I know" (to quote a writerly phrase), that I have exhausted these things, and been left with a paucity of spirit and creative soul.
It has also left me quite astonished at how little I do know. Even of the daily things of life: the materials of clothes, the looks of emotions, the workings of televisions, the ingredients of famous dishes. I know nearly nothing at all about colours, different types of rain, types of cloud, the appearances of the sky in different seasons: in short, the stuff of observation which is supposed to characterise writers.
Which makes me wonder: what on earth have I been doing all these years? Why have I failed to retain so much of what I must have seen and even noticed at various times? It must be because I have not really been interested enough in the world around me. In me - yes, for sure. In the outside of me - hmmm. It all seems too much like reflections of my moods, which means I either ignore it, love it or loathe it. Finer distinctions, such as would come from a genuine interest in life and the world, seem to escape me.
I don't think I can be a writer because I am too uninterested in the mechanics of existence.
That doesn't stop me wanting to pour out words, and sometimes in great quantities, very quickly. It just means I have to do it into the void, which wouldn't be a void if I had paid more attention earlier on.
I read somewhere (I think it was Ted Hughes) that you need to train your imagination, and develop it like a muscle. I have been trying that lately, by writing things of different genres. It has been frankly toe-curling to read the results. Not only have I chosen genres which I should stay well away from and don't even read, but what have I come up with isn't even a morass of sentiment and cliche; it's just meaningless verbiage, duckspeaking. This work has issued from my fingers with no input from my higher brain centres at all.
And yet the sheer number of words I have declaimed to Microsoft Word lately: 4000 on Wednesday last week, with 2000 most days before and since for around two weeks. How can so many words say so little, and how can they be so poorly arranged?
The problem for me - and, I suspect, many tenth rate authors - is that my range of sympathies and interests, and therefore imaginations, is narrow. So I have to force the imagination into action. And if one's imagination works like a slightly surreal film, then on these occasions mine is like a three year old's picture done in very heavy blue crayon. But for so long I have failed to do this, and have just focused instead on the "things I know" (to quote a writerly phrase), that I have exhausted these things, and been left with a paucity of spirit and creative soul.
It has also left me quite astonished at how little I do know. Even of the daily things of life: the materials of clothes, the looks of emotions, the workings of televisions, the ingredients of famous dishes. I know nearly nothing at all about colours, different types of rain, types of cloud, the appearances of the sky in different seasons: in short, the stuff of observation which is supposed to characterise writers.
Which makes me wonder: what on earth have I been doing all these years? Why have I failed to retain so much of what I must have seen and even noticed at various times? It must be because I have not really been interested enough in the world around me. In me - yes, for sure. In the outside of me - hmmm. It all seems too much like reflections of my moods, which means I either ignore it, love it or loathe it. Finer distinctions, such as would come from a genuine interest in life and the world, seem to escape me.
I don't think I can be a writer because I am too uninterested in the mechanics of existence.
That doesn't stop me wanting to pour out words, and sometimes in great quantities, very quickly. It just means I have to do it into the void, which wouldn't be a void if I had paid more attention earlier on.
The Ross/Brand Defence
1. It was funny.
2. Sachs deserved it for playing a racist character.
3. The girl's a bit..you know...
4. The campaign is led by the Mail, which proves that the complaints are invalid.
5. Why are we talking about this when there is genocide in x y or z place?
Not saying I agree with any of the above points (especially No.1) but I've just read them all over at The Grauniad's comment piece about it (which is actually quite good).
I did laugh when I read No2 as a defence. I had to read a few more comments than I was expecting to get to it, but it was worth it.
2. Sachs deserved it for playing a racist character.
3. The girl's a bit..you know...
4. The campaign is led by the Mail, which proves that the complaints are invalid.
5. Why are we talking about this when there is genocide in x y or z place?
Not saying I agree with any of the above points (especially No.1) but I've just read them all over at The Grauniad's comment piece about it (which is actually quite good).
I did laugh when I read No2 as a defence. I had to read a few more comments than I was expecting to get to it, but it was worth it.
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Why Would I Post In Defence Of Freedom When Everyone Thinks It Is Shite?
I don't know.
Just this feeling I have, that alcohol is better than Caroline Flint: that thoughts of different worlds, where you don't have to prove who you are, are better than Harriet Harman; that you exist, regardless of what Yvette Cooper thinks: that actually, despite the spew talked by Ed Balls, it is quite good to know things about the world, I mean real things, like where people live and what they are called and what they speak and what they make: and that learning about multiculturalism is like, learning about fuck all.
If children learn things,
if they know stuff about the world, I mean real stuff like where people are and what they speak, and what they make, then the "learn about socialism" Left are without a cause, without a home, without a voice.
Suck the voice from the Left.
Learn the World's Capitals today.
Just this feeling I have, that alcohol is better than Caroline Flint: that thoughts of different worlds, where you don't have to prove who you are, are better than Harriet Harman; that you exist, regardless of what Yvette Cooper thinks: that actually, despite the spew talked by Ed Balls, it is quite good to know things about the world, I mean real things, like where people live and what they are called and what they speak and what they make: and that learning about multiculturalism is like, learning about fuck all.
If children learn things,
if they know stuff about the world, I mean real stuff like where people are and what they speak, and what they make, then the "learn about socialism" Left are without a cause, without a home, without a voice.
Suck the voice from the Left.
Learn the World's Capitals today.
The Elites Cover All Their Tracks
Someone please confiscate my computer!
- post deleted for being stupid sweary nonsense.
- post deleted for being stupid sweary nonsense.
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Not An..Oh Fuck It I Suppose It Is...
It is official.
The Book is indeed an instruction manual.
DK's campaign is well-intentioned but doomed. You see, the people who matter loathe and despise liberty. The people in parliament and in the universities, the people who actually think of, draft, vote on and implement laws, they do not see liberty as anything worth discussing at all. They love control and they mask it in all those fluffy words like "equality", "social justice", "social harmony" and now, "choice-editing". Oh, of course they love some freedoms, the ones that use cocks and cunts particularly, and sometimes arses, but show them a freedom of words, of movement, of belief, of association, of a fair trial, of non-execution; and they become jittery, adducing imaginary terrorist atrocities that will come if we do not all have our wrists stamped. An individual is a danger, because it carries the potential to think other things, things we do not like, things we do not understand. And if we do not understand then it must be made illegal.
Well fuck you lot, yes i am going to have my wrists stamped. With "Ingsoc" and "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
So fuck you: every time I wipe my arse, every time I take a wank, every time I stick two fingers up at a fuckwitted agent of the evil state, every time I pick my nose and eat it, every time I drink, there it will be, the reminder of your essential evil, your desire to control every part of me, the fact that you satirise me by your very existence, and by the fact that I hate you with everything I have now and will ever have. All the love I will ever have I hate you with, I hate you with everything good in me, all the respect and tolerance and compassion in me, I hate you with it.
I hate you. And the more that this convinces the enemies of liberty that I am a lunatic, the better. Here it is again, fuckwads:
I hate you.
Now I come to think of it:
It's odd, actually, how often the word "social" comes into excuses for denying people basic liberties.
The Book is indeed an instruction manual.
DK's campaign is well-intentioned but doomed. You see, the people who matter loathe and despise liberty. The people in parliament and in the universities, the people who actually think of, draft, vote on and implement laws, they do not see liberty as anything worth discussing at all. They love control and they mask it in all those fluffy words like "equality", "social justice", "social harmony" and now, "choice-editing". Oh, of course they love some freedoms, the ones that use cocks and cunts particularly, and sometimes arses, but show them a freedom of words, of movement, of belief, of association, of a fair trial, of non-execution; and they become jittery, adducing imaginary terrorist atrocities that will come if we do not all have our wrists stamped. An individual is a danger, because it carries the potential to think other things, things we do not like, things we do not understand. And if we do not understand then it must be made illegal.
Well fuck you lot, yes i am going to have my wrists stamped. With "Ingsoc" and "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
So fuck you: every time I wipe my arse, every time I take a wank, every time I stick two fingers up at a fuckwitted agent of the evil state, every time I pick my nose and eat it, every time I drink, there it will be, the reminder of your essential evil, your desire to control every part of me, the fact that you satirise me by your very existence, and by the fact that I hate you with everything I have now and will ever have. All the love I will ever have I hate you with, I hate you with everything good in me, all the respect and tolerance and compassion in me, I hate you with it.
I hate you. And the more that this convinces the enemies of liberty that I am a lunatic, the better. Here it is again, fuckwads:
I hate you.
Now I come to think of it:
It's odd, actually, how often the word "social" comes into excuses for denying people basic liberties.
Saturday, 18 October 2008
This Government Is Evil
A government which acts to stoke fear and division, and which is openly derisive of liberty, can be nothing else. Imagine this: a government minister brazenly announces that if we don't accept draconian surveillance measures, we will die. This is a free society?
So, in case you had missed it, here it is again:
But the Lib Dems' communities spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy said it sounded like "something I would expect to read in [George Orwell's book] 1984" and questioned whether the government and councils could be trusted not to misuse the powers.
She asked: "How much more control can they have? How far is he prepared to go to undermine civil liberties?"
Mr Hoon interjected: "To stop terrorists killing people in our society, quite a long way actually.
"If they are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don't have the power to deal with that, then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people."
He added: "The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist."
This government must be defeated, crushed and destroyed. With such raging contempt for a value that has taken centuries to build, in painful and slow-moving struggles, which needs to be at the heart of any civilisation - the right of an individual to be themselves, and not to be afraid of constant monitoring and punishment, not be assumed to be a criminal - they have set about tearing down the boundaries between state and citizen.
There is a word for this approach of governments to their people, when they promote fear, want to watch every aspect of an individual's life, want to punish, both judicially and extra-judicially, who demand conformity, and who, crucially, leave innocent people guilty (the "recording" of allegations, the DNA theft,) or ensure they are unaware when they have committed a crime.
This word begins with a "t". Ironically, it is a word they often use themselves, to defend these inhuman measures.
It means to be afraid.
I'm not going to say it: even the word itself makes me shudder.
So, in case you had missed it, here it is again:
But the Lib Dems' communities spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy said it sounded like "something I would expect to read in [George Orwell's book] 1984" and questioned whether the government and councils could be trusted not to misuse the powers.
She asked: "How much more control can they have? How far is he prepared to go to undermine civil liberties?"
Mr Hoon interjected: "To stop terrorists killing people in our society, quite a long way actually.
"If they are going to use the internet to communicate with each other and we don't have the power to deal with that, then you are giving a licence to terrorists to kill people."
He added: "The biggest civil liberty of all is not to be killed by a terrorist."
This government must be defeated, crushed and destroyed. With such raging contempt for a value that has taken centuries to build, in painful and slow-moving struggles, which needs to be at the heart of any civilisation - the right of an individual to be themselves, and not to be afraid of constant monitoring and punishment, not be assumed to be a criminal - they have set about tearing down the boundaries between state and citizen.
There is a word for this approach of governments to their people, when they promote fear, want to watch every aspect of an individual's life, want to punish, both judicially and extra-judicially, who demand conformity, and who, crucially, leave innocent people guilty (the "recording" of allegations, the DNA theft,) or ensure they are unaware when they have committed a crime.
This word begins with a "t". Ironically, it is a word they often use themselves, to defend these inhuman measures.
It means to be afraid.
I'm not going to say it: even the word itself makes me shudder.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Dystopian Dinner Party Schmooze
*You know what fits in between these stars*
Well it is 10pm and i am in bed, as is usual, but finding it difficult to wind down properly so I thought I would blog, which is less usual. Not so much in the hope of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, but more in the expectation of opening a new line of thought. This is unlikely but not impossible.
I have a long and complicated relationship with 1984. It was my first literary love, and although I have had passionate affairs with other novels, notably The Information and Crime and Punishment, as well as an immensely satisfying fling with Middlemarch and something of a powerful one-nighter with Birdsong (and a less satisfying, drawn out affair with Atlas Shrugged), in addition to various flirtations here and there, it is to 1984 I return whenever I have a spare few minutes. As readers of this blog will now know, I have thought about it endlessly - and in the main, more for political reasons thab literary ones. In some ways I am only coming to appreciate the artistry of the novel, since as a bog standard novel, it fails (lacklustre characters, slightly jarring prose, curious plotting - check out the semi-magical transformation of Charrington, for example).
I don't make a secret of the fact that I think we are heading vaguely into the direction of a type of Ingsoc: a surveillance driven, penalty oriented kind of technocracy, in which rationing, reduced services, increased obligations and conformity will be the order of the day. Our rulers are not taking the same road as the Inner Party, though, they are dressing up their control in clothes of compassion: cameras to save lives, DNA databases to catch rapists, terrorism laws to save the country, draconian environmental laws to save the planet. Our authorities behave as just that, with little regard for any notion of service.
And so on.
But that aside, which is contentious and possibly (hopefully) wrong, the book deserves to be read as the work of art it is. Not a conventional one, to be sure. But there are little elements of literary substance that deserve to be picked up on.
For example: the theme of repetition that runs through the book: Julia sometimes repeats Winston's words, Charrington does, O Brien does, the fatal telescreen does. These are intimations of connection, of the kind of spirit which Winston attempts to invoke during his long torture. They are hints of a common humanity.
And the fish Julia describes during their first assignation, which makes Winston feel that he is being brought to the Golden Country of his dreams: living, gloriously ignorant of the Party, life surviving, outside the Party, regardless of its claims to absolute control over matter. Yes, if the Party want to believe that stuff about inventing reality, it can: but the fish and the river are still there, and life does survive.
Incidentally, mentioning Charrington's transformation (not an original idea of mine, but I can't remember where i read it - the reference has slipped my memory for a moment). There are hints of magic throughout the novel: the Party could not control with its technology without some kind of supernatural involvement; the insight O Brien has into the very words of Winston's thoughts is too clear for surveillance alone to have given him (and he claims to "always detect a lie"); the interpenetration of O Brien and Winston's very mind.
You could, I suppose, argue that these mean that the novel should be taken as a fable, or as a magic-realist novel, or even as a lazy satire. To me this latter is more likely: I think a subtext of the novel is that the Party is the direct inheritor of the Catholic Church, and these hints of supernaturalism are sly references to Catholic doctrine. O Brien certainly could be read as a kind of twisted confessor. I don't even need to mention the Party's sexual ethics.
I ought to leave you be now, as I can see you staring into your drink and longing to catch the eye of that rather attractive blonde woman you have been eyeing up for a while. No, it's ok, really. "It was nice to talk to you and everything but I must be-excuse me - Ah, Julia...how are you?"
Well it is 10pm and i am in bed, as is usual, but finding it difficult to wind down properly so I thought I would blog, which is less usual. Not so much in the hope of anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, but more in the expectation of opening a new line of thought. This is unlikely but not impossible.
I have a long and complicated relationship with 1984. It was my first literary love, and although I have had passionate affairs with other novels, notably The Information and Crime and Punishment, as well as an immensely satisfying fling with Middlemarch and something of a powerful one-nighter with Birdsong (and a less satisfying, drawn out affair with Atlas Shrugged), in addition to various flirtations here and there, it is to 1984 I return whenever I have a spare few minutes. As readers of this blog will now know, I have thought about it endlessly - and in the main, more for political reasons thab literary ones. In some ways I am only coming to appreciate the artistry of the novel, since as a bog standard novel, it fails (lacklustre characters, slightly jarring prose, curious plotting - check out the semi-magical transformation of Charrington, for example).
I don't make a secret of the fact that I think we are heading vaguely into the direction of a type of Ingsoc: a surveillance driven, penalty oriented kind of technocracy, in which rationing, reduced services, increased obligations and conformity will be the order of the day. Our rulers are not taking the same road as the Inner Party, though, they are dressing up their control in clothes of compassion: cameras to save lives, DNA databases to catch rapists, terrorism laws to save the country, draconian environmental laws to save the planet. Our authorities behave as just that, with little regard for any notion of service.
And so on.
But that aside, which is contentious and possibly (hopefully) wrong, the book deserves to be read as the work of art it is. Not a conventional one, to be sure. But there are little elements of literary substance that deserve to be picked up on.
For example: the theme of repetition that runs through the book: Julia sometimes repeats Winston's words, Charrington does, O Brien does, the fatal telescreen does. These are intimations of connection, of the kind of spirit which Winston attempts to invoke during his long torture. They are hints of a common humanity.
And the fish Julia describes during their first assignation, which makes Winston feel that he is being brought to the Golden Country of his dreams: living, gloriously ignorant of the Party, life surviving, outside the Party, regardless of its claims to absolute control over matter. Yes, if the Party want to believe that stuff about inventing reality, it can: but the fish and the river are still there, and life does survive.
Incidentally, mentioning Charrington's transformation (not an original idea of mine, but I can't remember where i read it - the reference has slipped my memory for a moment). There are hints of magic throughout the novel: the Party could not control with its technology without some kind of supernatural involvement; the insight O Brien has into the very words of Winston's thoughts is too clear for surveillance alone to have given him (and he claims to "always detect a lie"); the interpenetration of O Brien and Winston's very mind.
You could, I suppose, argue that these mean that the novel should be taken as a fable, or as a magic-realist novel, or even as a lazy satire. To me this latter is more likely: I think a subtext of the novel is that the Party is the direct inheritor of the Catholic Church, and these hints of supernaturalism are sly references to Catholic doctrine. O Brien certainly could be read as a kind of twisted confessor. I don't even need to mention the Party's sexual ethics.
I ought to leave you be now, as I can see you staring into your drink and longing to catch the eye of that rather attractive blonde woman you have been eyeing up for a while. No, it's ok, really. "It was nice to talk to you and everything but I must be-excuse me - Ah, Julia...how are you?"
Sunday, 12 October 2008
500th TTD post
Crikey. I don't seem to have said all that much over the years!
And I know one post is still in draft, but that's because i can't get my computer to upload a scary bit of Arthur C Clarke's World of Mysterious Powers!
And I know one post is still in draft, but that's because i can't get my computer to upload a scary bit of Arthur C Clarke's World of Mysterious Powers!
The Internal Contradictions of Ingsoc
(see CBI's comment on the post below)
- There aren't any.
Ingsoc is a theory designed to secure total power for people who want, who know they want, and who forget that they want, total power. Total power includes, specifically, the power to destroy and remake human beings. Such naked evil, though of course we do it all the time, whenever we are able, sustains itself because it is having fun. It is spreading its wings and enjoying its creative potential on the bodies and minds of people. As O Brien acutely remarks, there is no reason why a civilisation founded on hate should be less vital than one founded on love.
The only possible internal contradiction is that, as O Brien points out, the human face "will be there forever". Namely, although the Party desires the existence of the heretic to maintain its power - ie it depends on the heretic, in a wholly predictable and foreseen way (this is part of the fun - watching the cowed Outer Party members try to make themselves believe we have always been at war with Eastasia, and that Goldstein is the enemy); but more than that, it means that the human, as Winston understands it, the "spirit of man", will always exist - the Party will never actually crush that spirit, even as it denies its existence, because if it did, the Party would cease to have any purpose, and would have nothing to act upon. The Party would die.
Other than that, it is a totalitarianism that commands beings in and out of existence, without those beings needing to be in any way physical entities. Comrade Ogilvy was a hero, but he never existed: Syme was an orthodox goodthinker, who was lifted out of time. He is the subject of O Brien's first visible piss-take of Winston ("His name has slipped my memory for a moment").
Power is a drug and the Inner Party are a group of men and women able to destroy the entire world for their fix.
No contradiction there. But we have a habit of seeing contradictions in things we think are evil, as a way of convincing ourselves they cannot work.
This is no criticism of CBI or of his comment: it just got me thinking.
- There aren't any.
Ingsoc is a theory designed to secure total power for people who want, who know they want, and who forget that they want, total power. Total power includes, specifically, the power to destroy and remake human beings. Such naked evil, though of course we do it all the time, whenever we are able, sustains itself because it is having fun. It is spreading its wings and enjoying its creative potential on the bodies and minds of people. As O Brien acutely remarks, there is no reason why a civilisation founded on hate should be less vital than one founded on love.
The only possible internal contradiction is that, as O Brien points out, the human face "will be there forever". Namely, although the Party desires the existence of the heretic to maintain its power - ie it depends on the heretic, in a wholly predictable and foreseen way (this is part of the fun - watching the cowed Outer Party members try to make themselves believe we have always been at war with Eastasia, and that Goldstein is the enemy); but more than that, it means that the human, as Winston understands it, the "spirit of man", will always exist - the Party will never actually crush that spirit, even as it denies its existence, because if it did, the Party would cease to have any purpose, and would have nothing to act upon. The Party would die.
Other than that, it is a totalitarianism that commands beings in and out of existence, without those beings needing to be in any way physical entities. Comrade Ogilvy was a hero, but he never existed: Syme was an orthodox goodthinker, who was lifted out of time. He is the subject of O Brien's first visible piss-take of Winston ("His name has slipped my memory for a moment").
Power is a drug and the Inner Party are a group of men and women able to destroy the entire world for their fix.
No contradiction there. But we have a habit of seeing contradictions in things we think are evil, as a way of convincing ourselves they cannot work.
This is no criticism of CBI or of his comment: it just got me thinking.
A Note on the Appendix
*Nineteen Eighty Four related vol-au-vent*
I'm afraid I can't share the optimism of some that the appendix suggests, through its use of the past tense, that Ingsoc was eventually defeated and that the narrator of the Appendix writes from a free society. I think the narrator might just have mentioned the defeat of Ingsoc and the public execution of O Brien (er, I'm guessing). It would have been a big enough deal, no?
I'm afraid I can't share the optimism of some that the appendix suggests, through its use of the past tense, that Ingsoc was eventually defeated and that the narrator of the Appendix writes from a free society. I think the narrator might just have mentioned the defeat of Ingsoc and the public execution of O Brien (er, I'm guessing). It would have been a big enough deal, no?
Pronoun Note
Norm:
Here's another of those traditionalists decrying the use of the singular 'they'. As far as I can tell, his objections are: (a) that he doesn't like it; and (b) tradition. I've nothing to add to what I've said before on this. I do find it interesting, however, that he seems also not to be comfortable with using 'she' where you mean 'he or she' (or, indeed, the singular 'they'). What possible objection could there be to doing so, when 'he' was so long used in this way and still often is? Mix it up, that's my view: say, now 'she', now 'he', now 'he or she', now 'they'. It will help to end such pointless pedantry.
I'm not a big fan of "they". While it works, and does the job reasonably well, and can even sometimes be elegant, on the whole it clunks a bit. But Norm's suggested solution, to mix up the pronouns, is an excellent idea and one I use a lot (not necessarily here). If nothing else, it keeps readers on their ideological toes. It also keeps you, the writer, on your aesthetic toes, because in different sentences, contexts, the different pronouns will have varying effects. So, following Norm, - try them out!
Here's another of those traditionalists decrying the use of the singular 'they'. As far as I can tell, his objections are: (a) that he doesn't like it; and (b) tradition. I've nothing to add to what I've said before on this. I do find it interesting, however, that he seems also not to be comfortable with using 'she' where you mean 'he or she' (or, indeed, the singular 'they'). What possible objection could there be to doing so, when 'he' was so long used in this way and still often is? Mix it up, that's my view: say, now 'she', now 'he', now 'he or she', now 'they'. It will help to end such pointless pedantry.
I'm not a big fan of "they". While it works, and does the job reasonably well, and can even sometimes be elegant, on the whole it clunks a bit. But Norm's suggested solution, to mix up the pronouns, is an excellent idea and one I use a lot (not necessarily here). If nothing else, it keeps readers on their ideological toes. It also keeps you, the writer, on your aesthetic toes, because in different sentences, contexts, the different pronouns will have varying effects. So, following Norm, - try them out!
Tuesday, 7 October 2008
Winston and the Old Man
*Nineteen Eighty Four related vignette*
Although the narrator and Winston both seem to imply that his visit to the proletarian quarter and the strange beer-shop was wasted, the reason is not because the old man is talking nonsense: it is because the variations of ideological truth under the Party and the exigencies of Ingsoc have left Winston without any clear way to understand. Hence the conversation becomes a synecdoche for the entire theme of the novel: how, denuded of truth, an individual's links to the world around them collapse.
In particular, the old man refers to hearing a powerful speaker denouncing the Labour Party as "lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!" This indication of radicalism, which would have told an educated Winston that the left was being assaulted from its fringes before the Revolution, bypasses Winston's sense altogether. In fact he knows nothing of the Labour Party at all (he is even vague as to whether Airstrip One was ever known as anything else: he thinks it might have been called England or Britain). As an aside, I wonder whether the speaker was one of the three bastards in the post below.
The old man then gives Winston, under heavy guidance, a narrative that chimes in almost exactly with the teachings of the Party: "They liked you to touch your cap to 'em". He talks about being insulted and threatened by exactly one of the ruling classes the Party complains about in its history books ("The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and..."). It is at the point at which the old man is developing this narrative to a peak that the narrator says: "A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston." - which is odd, because the old man is making sense. It isn't what Winston wants to hear, and he isn't interested in the old man's life, just the past, the pure past.
Of course this is the problem. There is no such thing. The past - at least the kind Winston wants to know, human experience - is indeed filtered through minds, and can be located there and there only. To this extent the Party is right, and with Winston being a child of the Party, albeit a rebellious one, he has no time for or patience with the stories of people's lives (he tells Julia a lot more about his than he asks of hers).
Winston's failure to understand therefore has the fingerprints of the Party all over it, and strongly suggests that even in his act of crimethink he still belongs to them. Worse, you could argue that his failure is because he is hearing what the Party tells him anyway - and thereby opening up an even more pessimistic reading of the book than most of us already have.
At precisely this point of despair, he makes one last ditch attempt. But without any confidence, and phrasing it like a bureaucrat, indeed, like O Brien might do later on, "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. What I wanted to know was this", Winston loses the old man completely and he utterly fails to answer the question.
The fault is not the old man's, nor his mind; but the cracked, desiccated mind of Winston Smith.
Although the narrator and Winston both seem to imply that his visit to the proletarian quarter and the strange beer-shop was wasted, the reason is not because the old man is talking nonsense: it is because the variations of ideological truth under the Party and the exigencies of Ingsoc have left Winston without any clear way to understand. Hence the conversation becomes a synecdoche for the entire theme of the novel: how, denuded of truth, an individual's links to the world around them collapse.
In particular, the old man refers to hearing a powerful speaker denouncing the Labour Party as "lackeys of the bourgeoisie! Flunkies of the ruling class!" This indication of radicalism, which would have told an educated Winston that the left was being assaulted from its fringes before the Revolution, bypasses Winston's sense altogether. In fact he knows nothing of the Labour Party at all (he is even vague as to whether Airstrip One was ever known as anything else: he thinks it might have been called England or Britain). As an aside, I wonder whether the speaker was one of the three bastards in the post below.
The old man then gives Winston, under heavy guidance, a narrative that chimes in almost exactly with the teachings of the Party: "They liked you to touch your cap to 'em". He talks about being insulted and threatened by exactly one of the ruling classes the Party complains about in its history books ("The chief of all the capitalists was called the King, and..."). It is at the point at which the old man is developing this narrative to a peak that the narrator says: "A sense of helplessness took hold of Winston." - which is odd, because the old man is making sense. It isn't what Winston wants to hear, and he isn't interested in the old man's life, just the past, the pure past.
Of course this is the problem. There is no such thing. The past - at least the kind Winston wants to know, human experience - is indeed filtered through minds, and can be located there and there only. To this extent the Party is right, and with Winston being a child of the Party, albeit a rebellious one, he has no time for or patience with the stories of people's lives (he tells Julia a lot more about his than he asks of hers).
Winston's failure to understand therefore has the fingerprints of the Party all over it, and strongly suggests that even in his act of crimethink he still belongs to them. Worse, you could argue that his failure is because he is hearing what the Party tells him anyway - and thereby opening up an even more pessimistic reading of the book than most of us already have.
At precisely this point of despair, he makes one last ditch attempt. But without any confidence, and phrasing it like a bureaucrat, indeed, like O Brien might do later on, "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. What I wanted to know was this", Winston loses the old man completely and he utterly fails to answer the question.
The fault is not the old man's, nor his mind; but the cracked, desiccated mind of Winston Smith.
Monday, 6 October 2008
Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford Were As Guilty As Hell
*Nineteen Eighty Four related post*
Let's be clear about this. Although the narrator suggests that Winston feels some sympathy for these three bastards, as they sit in the Chestnut Tree Cafe with broken noses, and the sympathy is even more blatant in the 1984 film; the fact is, they deserved what they got.
They were tried in about 1965 and finally executed in around 1968. They had clearly then survived "the great purges of the fifties and sixties" - in the main - and had maintained their high places in the Party, hence the famous photo that did not exist of the three of them "at some Party function in New York" taken in 1965.
In other words, they were complicit, from the beginning, in the distant drumming of machine gun fire, the purges, the adoption of Newspeak, the programme of pure power that motivated the entire Revolution, and that was, as O Brien put it, refining itself all the time.
It just refined itself on their asses. They deserved everything they got.
Let's be clear about this. Although the narrator suggests that Winston feels some sympathy for these three bastards, as they sit in the Chestnut Tree Cafe with broken noses, and the sympathy is even more blatant in the 1984 film; the fact is, they deserved what they got.
They were tried in about 1965 and finally executed in around 1968. They had clearly then survived "the great purges of the fifties and sixties" - in the main - and had maintained their high places in the Party, hence the famous photo that did not exist of the three of them "at some Party function in New York" taken in 1965.
In other words, they were complicit, from the beginning, in the distant drumming of machine gun fire, the purges, the adoption of Newspeak, the programme of pure power that motivated the entire Revolution, and that was, as O Brien put it, refining itself all the time.
It just refined itself on their asses. They deserved everything they got.
Sunday, 5 October 2008
We Could Have Been The Best of Friends
Fuck it: this is why I refuse to join any political party: no-one reflects my views, or gives a fuck about them. I am not really a libertarian and those fuckers really, really hate a large part of me (not my knob, all parties love my knob); they loathe the idea that I choose to see the world differently. Well fine, fuck them. Fuck Labour, who are the world's biggest authoritarian cunts; fuck the Tories, who are close behind, fuck the LibDems, who are fuckers, fuck UKIP who just are not with the programme, whatever the fuck that means, and fuck the Libertarians, who, at the sunset of the long summer's light show, are people who hate my guts.
I had thought of joining them. But I'm not, and I can't.
Fuck it.
I am me, and I am a minority of one.
I am mad.
So what?
Who cares.
Really. Who cares.
I had thought of joining them. But I'm not, and I can't.
Fuck it.
I am me, and I am a minority of one.
I am mad.
So what?
Who cares.
Really. Who cares.
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Sanity on Leave
You might be thinking: well where is TD? The world is collapsing into fiscal chaos, into political impotence, and into the virulence of ideology, and one of our most vile spewers of undiluted verbal toxicity is strangely silent.
Well, the answer is that I have been forced to work for a living. I mean obviously I've been working for a while but the pace has recently been increased somewhat, and I've been trying to write proper stuff (ho ho) so it's not that my time for blogging has been cut, but my energy for it.
Besides of which the world's own actions recently have revealed that the blogosphere is in fact a haven of sense and reason, and it is the world itself that is the unrestricted, unregulated purveyor of nastiness. Everywhere you look someone is hysterically braying about people who don't agree with them, invoking illness, suffering and death; someone is calling for more death for anyone they feel does not deserve to live; someone is urging the closure of freedoms; someone is denying the existence of freedoms; someone is screwing something up and blaming everyone else. Implicating everyone, crying foul, lying about their own records, screaming cliches and rehashed sententiae to a world which seems too dazzled to care, or too busy to care, or too cynical to care.
I'm almost too afraid to read the newspapers or listen to the radio: not because world events themselves frighten me, but because the people in the media and politics now seem afraid -of what, I don't know: Sarah Palin, maybe, or the fact that so many people just do not care what they think anymore: their privileged positions as dolers out of knowledge, refracted through an educated, elitist standpoint, are under threat, not from argument, or attack, but from apathy. And from the rise of the blogger. Bloggers are still a narrow, self-selected bunch, especially the UK political blogging scene, but they are a blot on the landscape of the opinion professional.
They must be well pissed off that we survived the first attempt to regulate and control us: they'll be back for the next round though.
And - the worst thing, Peter Mandelson is back. I was laughing until I heard the BBC's serious analysis, with Labour people naturally, of the move: fuck me they mean it, they really mean it.
Oh well, as I said, I've been busy. Not really followed the news.
Well, the answer is that I have been forced to work for a living. I mean obviously I've been working for a while but the pace has recently been increased somewhat, and I've been trying to write proper stuff (ho ho) so it's not that my time for blogging has been cut, but my energy for it.
Besides of which the world's own actions recently have revealed that the blogosphere is in fact a haven of sense and reason, and it is the world itself that is the unrestricted, unregulated purveyor of nastiness. Everywhere you look someone is hysterically braying about people who don't agree with them, invoking illness, suffering and death; someone is calling for more death for anyone they feel does not deserve to live; someone is urging the closure of freedoms; someone is denying the existence of freedoms; someone is screwing something up and blaming everyone else. Implicating everyone, crying foul, lying about their own records, screaming cliches and rehashed sententiae to a world which seems too dazzled to care, or too busy to care, or too cynical to care.
I'm almost too afraid to read the newspapers or listen to the radio: not because world events themselves frighten me, but because the people in the media and politics now seem afraid -of what, I don't know: Sarah Palin, maybe, or the fact that so many people just do not care what they think anymore: their privileged positions as dolers out of knowledge, refracted through an educated, elitist standpoint, are under threat, not from argument, or attack, but from apathy. And from the rise of the blogger. Bloggers are still a narrow, self-selected bunch, especially the UK political blogging scene, but they are a blot on the landscape of the opinion professional.
They must be well pissed off that we survived the first attempt to regulate and control us: they'll be back for the next round though.
And - the worst thing, Peter Mandelson is back. I was laughing until I heard the BBC's serious analysis, with Labour people naturally, of the move: fuck me they mean it, they really mean it.
Oh well, as I said, I've been busy. Not really followed the news.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
The Worst Thing, Again
I don't have a lot of sympathy for Gordon Brown. He was at the centre of this government, this intrusive, accusatory government, for ten years before he became PM, and he needs to start taking responsibility for the nastier aspects of Labour's achievements as well as bleating that none of the current crisis is his fault.
I also don't remember Labour being shy getting stuck into John Major, whose demeanour as PM was something like watching a toddler struggle in the shallow end of the pool wearing massive armbands. In fact the media as a whole have been a lot softer on Brown than Major (though the situations are not really comparable: Major's big problems came after that improbable 92 election win). I used to hear a lot from my English teacher (natch) about the "right wing media", which was a real trope of any liberal discussion in the 90s.
it's not something you hear anymore. Instead liberals tend to just whinge about the Daily Mail and the bloggers, while conservatives are gunning for the BBC (with extremely good reason in my view - how anyone can describe Matt Frei and Justin Webb as in any way impartial is beyond me. Webb's bizarre article in the Times on Friday, applauding the US's move towards more euthanasia as somehow making the US "cool" again should, if the BBC really were impartial, result in his sacking). Conservatives also whinge hysterically - if that is possible - about the Guardian. I think is probably due to the way its influence seems undue, given its readership.
I'm not going to get on my high horse about personal attacks. Politics is not only about policies; it is about human nature. If you think someone is truly hideous and awful you're less likely to vote for them, whatever their policies. Hence politicians spend a lot of time persuading you that their opponents are personally ghastly and that they themselves are just nice. Ideologues who do not intend ever to subject themselves to democratic approval act on behalf of those who do. The left do tend to do this more at the moment than the right, and often under the cloak of "analysis"; but that's probably reflective of the fact that the left have been in political and cultural power for ages and are simply trying to shore up the failing defences. They're also a bit shriller in their denunciations. I don't think it tells us anything psychologically, though about ideologues of left or right. Meanwhile the blogosphere is taking all these tendencies to new heights, led traditionally, though not for long, as the left is catching up quickly, by the right. But it is, as the Sarah Palin thing has shown, increasingly indistinguishable from the MSM. There is a crossover of personnel, attitude, themes and memes ("a heartbeat away from the presidency" for example). I don't know for how long we'll be able to talk of the blogosphere as an entity in its own right.
Perhaps it will just evolve again, and areas of it will hive off into a sort of second-MSM, with professionals weaving seamlessly between blog and MSM, or even with their blogs becoming a referenced, influential part of the MSM.
I digress.
I don't have any time for Brown, or for whinges about personal attacks. I've done it myself. I find it increasingly distasteful and horrible, but I'm not going to moan about it.
All I mean is: something is unfolding here in Britain. There is an immensely successful politician, with years of experience at the very top of government, who does not seem to see a way out. He seems literally clueless, whether he is or not. His identity as a politician, one with beliefs and ambitions, is unravelling.
This might create opportunities for British politics, ideological spaces to enable change; but it is crushing a man who devotes his life to this. It is clearly crushing him. More so than Major, who, you felt, simply didn't experience politics as deeply. Much more like Thatcher but more rapid and more complete - Thatcher's fall was partly predicated on the millions of people who never liked her anyway - she didn't enjoy the complete reputation Brown had before last year.
Politics is about human nature. I can't help feeling slightly...odd about the way things are at the moment. I can't help not wanting to join the circus, but to just quietly tell Gordon Brown to go, and go now. I'm not sorry for Brown...but that fall could happen to anyone successful. That's about - the caprice of life. Such sudden, destructive failure does happen, all the time.
Luckily, with my long record of laziness and incompetence, it's unlikely to happen to me.
I also don't remember Labour being shy getting stuck into John Major, whose demeanour as PM was something like watching a toddler struggle in the shallow end of the pool wearing massive armbands. In fact the media as a whole have been a lot softer on Brown than Major (though the situations are not really comparable: Major's big problems came after that improbable 92 election win). I used to hear a lot from my English teacher (natch) about the "right wing media", which was a real trope of any liberal discussion in the 90s.
it's not something you hear anymore. Instead liberals tend to just whinge about the Daily Mail and the bloggers, while conservatives are gunning for the BBC (with extremely good reason in my view - how anyone can describe Matt Frei and Justin Webb as in any way impartial is beyond me. Webb's bizarre article in the Times on Friday, applauding the US's move towards more euthanasia as somehow making the US "cool" again should, if the BBC really were impartial, result in his sacking). Conservatives also whinge hysterically - if that is possible - about the Guardian. I think is probably due to the way its influence seems undue, given its readership.
I'm not going to get on my high horse about personal attacks. Politics is not only about policies; it is about human nature. If you think someone is truly hideous and awful you're less likely to vote for them, whatever their policies. Hence politicians spend a lot of time persuading you that their opponents are personally ghastly and that they themselves are just nice. Ideologues who do not intend ever to subject themselves to democratic approval act on behalf of those who do. The left do tend to do this more at the moment than the right, and often under the cloak of "analysis"; but that's probably reflective of the fact that the left have been in political and cultural power for ages and are simply trying to shore up the failing defences. They're also a bit shriller in their denunciations. I don't think it tells us anything psychologically, though about ideologues of left or right. Meanwhile the blogosphere is taking all these tendencies to new heights, led traditionally, though not for long, as the left is catching up quickly, by the right. But it is, as the Sarah Palin thing has shown, increasingly indistinguishable from the MSM. There is a crossover of personnel, attitude, themes and memes ("a heartbeat away from the presidency" for example). I don't know for how long we'll be able to talk of the blogosphere as an entity in its own right.
Perhaps it will just evolve again, and areas of it will hive off into a sort of second-MSM, with professionals weaving seamlessly between blog and MSM, or even with their blogs becoming a referenced, influential part of the MSM.
I digress.
I don't have any time for Brown, or for whinges about personal attacks. I've done it myself. I find it increasingly distasteful and horrible, but I'm not going to moan about it.
All I mean is: something is unfolding here in Britain. There is an immensely successful politician, with years of experience at the very top of government, who does not seem to see a way out. He seems literally clueless, whether he is or not. His identity as a politician, one with beliefs and ambitions, is unravelling.
This might create opportunities for British politics, ideological spaces to enable change; but it is crushing a man who devotes his life to this. It is clearly crushing him. More so than Major, who, you felt, simply didn't experience politics as deeply. Much more like Thatcher but more rapid and more complete - Thatcher's fall was partly predicated on the millions of people who never liked her anyway - she didn't enjoy the complete reputation Brown had before last year.
Politics is about human nature. I can't help feeling slightly...odd about the way things are at the moment. I can't help not wanting to join the circus, but to just quietly tell Gordon Brown to go, and go now. I'm not sorry for Brown...but that fall could happen to anyone successful. That's about - the caprice of life. Such sudden, destructive failure does happen, all the time.
Luckily, with my long record of laziness and incompetence, it's unlikely to happen to me.
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Words Fail Me
Actually they don't. There is more than enough variety, shade and connotation in this language more than adequately to express opinion, belief, logic. Mathematics is more accurately descriptive of the real physical world but language has been able to help build civilisations and destroy them. The demagogue can do almost as much damage as the tank. It helps if you have both, of course. Language can evade meaning and justify anything you like. When words fail us it is because our thinking fails us. We are struck by rage, sometimes, but more likely sheer incompetence is what prevents us. We blame it on words, but the tools are there. So we stay silent, or we just roar - using some words, a few words, as surrogate screams. Their emotional content, their - shall we say - friction, bluntness,sibilance - their history, renders them less a comunication and more a howl. This is why the wild humans at the end of Will Self's Great Apes cry "fuuuuuck offffff" in the distance. It was the call of the human.
When words fail us we let things happen. Shouting sometimes reinforces the evil: it convinces the demagogue that his (or, increasingly often, her) shouting is just, and that of others proof of reactionary or disturbed tendencies. Words become our own jailors.
Words fail us because the thinking has failed, because we no longer recognise the tools we have and we have forgotten how to use them. The concepts we used to use in those words have been overhauled by something else and we have yet to create a new vocabulary to express what is, in fact, a very very old worldview. The language, somehow, needs to change, or the assault on the citizens will simply intensify. And the reactions we give them will convince them more of their need to act.
Some people of course have the talent required: almost no-one in the MSM: in the blogosphere, Tom Paine, Crushed (although he tends to talk far more personally), DK, and this guy among them. Alas, I'm not one of them. I just sit on the wall and shout. Or cry. That's a more accurate rendering of my use of words.
When words fail us we let things happen. Shouting sometimes reinforces the evil: it convinces the demagogue that his (or, increasingly often, her) shouting is just, and that of others proof of reactionary or disturbed tendencies. Words become our own jailors.
Words fail us because the thinking has failed, because we no longer recognise the tools we have and we have forgotten how to use them. The concepts we used to use in those words have been overhauled by something else and we have yet to create a new vocabulary to express what is, in fact, a very very old worldview. The language, somehow, needs to change, or the assault on the citizens will simply intensify. And the reactions we give them will convince them more of their need to act.
Some people of course have the talent required: almost no-one in the MSM: in the blogosphere, Tom Paine, Crushed (although he tends to talk far more personally), DK, and this guy among them. Alas, I'm not one of them. I just sit on the wall and shout. Or cry. That's a more accurate rendering of my use of words.
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Interlude
It's a fairly dull old day here, and the rain is as usual falling -
oh no hang on, it's stopped!!! It's actually stopped!!!
oh no it hasn't. False alarm.
UPDATE: 5.15pm
Traditionally the start time for Doctor Who, and in the olden days we'd be right at the start of a new season...
And it isn't raining at this precise moment.
oh no hang on, it's stopped!!! It's actually stopped!!!
oh no it hasn't. False alarm.
UPDATE: 5.15pm
Traditionally the start time for Doctor Who, and in the olden days we'd be right at the start of a new season...
And it isn't raining at this precise moment.
Good Lord
Woman fined for fire engine theft
A 45-year-old woman was fined after she admitted stealing a fire engine while its crew dealt with a flood near her home.
Catherine Durant was "irate" when she entered the cab of the fire engine before reversing it, crashing it into a brick wall and a car, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said.
Durant, of Pontypool, admitted aggravated vehicle taking when she appeared before Abergavenny magistrates. She was given community service, fined and banned from driving.
Courtesy of msn.
A 45-year-old woman was fined after she admitted stealing a fire engine while its crew dealt with a flood near her home.
Catherine Durant was "irate" when she entered the cab of the fire engine before reversing it, crashing it into a brick wall and a car, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service said.
Durant, of Pontypool, admitted aggravated vehicle taking when she appeared before Abergavenny magistrates. She was given community service, fined and banned from driving.
Courtesy of msn.
Call that a recession? Cah.
This is quite a good article until the last, rubbish, bloatedly biased sentence, which I would challenge anyone to prove is the authentic voice of the impartial BBC.
But it does make me laugh, when I read those awful history books about the champions of social justice and fairness, and how awful and uncaring the Tories are:
It was the month the dead went not just unburied, but were left on wards for hours at a time. When hospital managers struggled to find a way of coping with bodies that were starting to decompose. When ambulance drivers refused to answer emergency calls, and pickets on the dockside blocked the unloading of drugs needed for chemotherapy.
You see, this is all ok, for the leaders of the TUC, because they
were provoked by a substantial cuts in their real wages and by what they saw as the government's absolute refusal to recognise the importance of their role in society by paying them a decent wage.
But I thought they were motivated by love of humanity, and the public? And yet they were prepared to kill people, to get higher wages?
But it does make me laugh, when I read those awful history books about the champions of social justice and fairness, and how awful and uncaring the Tories are:
It was the month the dead went not just unburied, but were left on wards for hours at a time. When hospital managers struggled to find a way of coping with bodies that were starting to decompose. When ambulance drivers refused to answer emergency calls, and pickets on the dockside blocked the unloading of drugs needed for chemotherapy.
You see, this is all ok, for the leaders of the TUC, because they
were provoked by a substantial cuts in their real wages and by what they saw as the government's absolute refusal to recognise the importance of their role in society by paying them a decent wage.
But I thought they were motivated by love of humanity, and the public? And yet they were prepared to kill people, to get higher wages?
Latest Stasi Nonsense?
Today's Torygraph cover tells a familiarly depressing story, and JuliaM does her usual with it.
The interesting thing is the choice of glamorous names for these networks of little spies, such as "Street Scene Champions". Immediately you de-mystify and make ordinary something which is quite extraordinary: children paid to spy by the state.
The key question about it, apart from how the operation of justice works when it is solely the word of a minor against that of an adult (I think I can guess), is whether such initiatives will actually get the fly-tippers and yobs who deface our towns and cities.
Somehow I think I know the types of people who will be caught by all this.
Call it intuition.
This, however, is what Harlow Council has to say on its website:
Street Scene Champions project initially aimed at young people age 11 to 13 years who have shown an interest in taking care of the environment and improving the appearance of local areas. Street Scene Champions are encouraged to report static anti-social behaviour to Contact Harlow and take part in community project days which include things such as pond clearing, coppicing, clearing overgrown areas and planting new shrubs and plants etc. In return for their community spirit and positive citizenship they receive credit’s on a high street gift card which can be exchanged for school equipment, books, DVD’s etc. Participants are also given the opportunity to take part in training days that will equip them with valuable skills such as First Aid, fire and water safety and anti-bullying etc.
Clearly they don't teach them the art of apostrophes. Still, not much to object to there, provided that this is in fact what happens. Normally in this NuLab world things turn out to be a little more "complex" than they appear.
But of course the money shot of the Torygraph article is this:
Many of the town halls said they did not encourage their volunteers to confront offenders or collect evidence, for their own safety.
But Bromley Council in Kent offers up to £500 for information that leads to a conviction.
Crawley Borough Council in West Sussex said its 150 Streetcare Champions were asked to "report on individuals if known". Bolton Council said its Green Inspectors must "note any relevant information such as registration numbers" if they see criminal activity.
Aha. It is rather less innocent than it appears. Conviction by word of mouth: the enactment of vendettas and mischief, the promotion of constant surveillance.
And will the violent, or the dangerous get convicted? Nah.
Incidentally,
A commenter on the original Torygraph article writes:
To encourage and assist any child to spy and report on so-called �criminal activity� is in direct contravention of the HASAW Act 1974 as no person under the age of 18 years and 1 day may be placed in a position that may lead to a risk to their heath, safety and welfare, whether for profit or not.
This would apply to the act of spying of course. Not the reporting of "static" problems.
The interesting thing is the choice of glamorous names for these networks of little spies, such as "Street Scene Champions". Immediately you de-mystify and make ordinary something which is quite extraordinary: children paid to spy by the state.
The key question about it, apart from how the operation of justice works when it is solely the word of a minor against that of an adult (I think I can guess), is whether such initiatives will actually get the fly-tippers and yobs who deface our towns and cities.
Somehow I think I know the types of people who will be caught by all this.
Call it intuition.
This, however, is what Harlow Council has to say on its website:
Street Scene Champions project initially aimed at young people age 11 to 13 years who have shown an interest in taking care of the environment and improving the appearance of local areas. Street Scene Champions are encouraged to report static anti-social behaviour to Contact Harlow and take part in community project days which include things such as pond clearing, coppicing, clearing overgrown areas and planting new shrubs and plants etc. In return for their community spirit and positive citizenship they receive credit’s on a high street gift card which can be exchanged for school equipment, books, DVD’s etc. Participants are also given the opportunity to take part in training days that will equip them with valuable skills such as First Aid, fire and water safety and anti-bullying etc.
Clearly they don't teach them the art of apostrophes. Still, not much to object to there, provided that this is in fact what happens. Normally in this NuLab world things turn out to be a little more "complex" than they appear.
But of course the money shot of the Torygraph article is this:
Many of the town halls said they did not encourage their volunteers to confront offenders or collect evidence, for their own safety.
But Bromley Council in Kent offers up to £500 for information that leads to a conviction.
Crawley Borough Council in West Sussex said its 150 Streetcare Champions were asked to "report on individuals if known". Bolton Council said its Green Inspectors must "note any relevant information such as registration numbers" if they see criminal activity.
Aha. It is rather less innocent than it appears. Conviction by word of mouth: the enactment of vendettas and mischief, the promotion of constant surveillance.
And will the violent, or the dangerous get convicted? Nah.
Incidentally,
A commenter on the original Torygraph article writes:
To encourage and assist any child to spy and report on so-called �criminal activity� is in direct contravention of the HASAW Act 1974 as no person under the age of 18 years and 1 day may be placed in a position that may lead to a risk to their heath, safety and welfare, whether for profit or not.
This would apply to the act of spying of course. Not the reporting of "static" problems.
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Strange Object Seen In Sky
I could have sworn, a few moments ago, that I saw a large, spherical object, yellowish in colour, in the sky.
Nah, must have been hallucinating.
Nah, must have been hallucinating.
Just a Cheerful Thought...
I'd advise anyone to buy, as i have now done, all the series of "Old Harry's Game" - the radio 4 comedy written and starring Andy Hamilton. It is absolutely brilliant: in the main, hilarious, and where not hilarious, thought provoking.
There's even a brilliant episode where Satan tells Marx that socialism was a crock of shit. I've never heard any criticism of socialism on any radio 4 comedy so that was really refreshing. Poor old Marx. He ends up fighting with Stalin.
Although the ethics of putting Stalin into a radio comedy programme are a little complicated...
There's even a brilliant episode where Satan tells Marx that socialism was a crock of shit. I've never heard any criticism of socialism on any radio 4 comedy so that was really refreshing. Poor old Marx. He ends up fighting with Stalin.
Although the ethics of putting Stalin into a radio comedy programme are a little complicated...
The End of Innocence Again
I've blogged on this before, and here is one of the latest examples at Obnoxio the Clown's place. The key point is that information on false allegations will be held by this database for ten years.
Ten years.
For a false allegation.
Just ponder this: for doing absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever, your job prospects can be screwed over for ten years. This will be rendered obsolete by the national CRB database anyway that will just keep these permanently.
For centuries we worked towards a society founded on justice: now we are building one founded on fear. The fear of these allegations will stalk more and more people. Because that is all it will take. The concept of innocence is irrelevant, totally irrelevant.
You have no possibility of clearing your name.
This, let's be clear, is only the start. Soon it will be extended to all sorts of people, not just those working with children. It will become a plank of the new justice, along with "the need to raise conviction rates" and other non-judicial concepts. The innocent will be caught more and more until no-one will ever know who was guilty and who was not.
This, of course, is the whole idea.
The silence of those who claim to care is deafening. The silence of those interested in rights is shattering.
A society based on fear of the state and fear of others. Informants, non-police enforcers, anyone who might make an allegation, police with weapons: the state constantly arming itself against its people, making it harder and harder for anyone to tell who is good and who is bad.
The state setting us up to destroy the bonds between us.
Day by day we learn more and more of this hate that our rulers, local and regional, have for the citizens of this country. Harsher penalties, more penalties, more rules, more bans. It's what we are used to. We see councils talking of "environmental crimes" - meaning dropping litter or leaving rubbish in the wrong bin, whereas we thought the word "crime" had been replaced by "offence" - no, it was just being saved.
It is silly to say we live in a police state. Of course we don't.
But we are doing our damndest to build one, we really are. And it seems that a lot of us will welcome it. After all, if you've nothing to hide...
which is where this database comes in.
Ten years.
For a false allegation.
Just ponder this: for doing absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever, your job prospects can be screwed over for ten years. This will be rendered obsolete by the national CRB database anyway that will just keep these permanently.
For centuries we worked towards a society founded on justice: now we are building one founded on fear. The fear of these allegations will stalk more and more people. Because that is all it will take. The concept of innocence is irrelevant, totally irrelevant.
You have no possibility of clearing your name.
This, let's be clear, is only the start. Soon it will be extended to all sorts of people, not just those working with children. It will become a plank of the new justice, along with "the need to raise conviction rates" and other non-judicial concepts. The innocent will be caught more and more until no-one will ever know who was guilty and who was not.
This, of course, is the whole idea.
The silence of those who claim to care is deafening. The silence of those interested in rights is shattering.
A society based on fear of the state and fear of others. Informants, non-police enforcers, anyone who might make an allegation, police with weapons: the state constantly arming itself against its people, making it harder and harder for anyone to tell who is good and who is bad.
The state setting us up to destroy the bonds between us.
Day by day we learn more and more of this hate that our rulers, local and regional, have for the citizens of this country. Harsher penalties, more penalties, more rules, more bans. It's what we are used to. We see councils talking of "environmental crimes" - meaning dropping litter or leaving rubbish in the wrong bin, whereas we thought the word "crime" had been replaced by "offence" - no, it was just being saved.
It is silly to say we live in a police state. Of course we don't.
But we are doing our damndest to build one, we really are. And it seems that a lot of us will welcome it. After all, if you've nothing to hide...
which is where this database comes in.
Soldier Refused Room
This story sucks, of course. But what caught my eye was the statement that it had been a "mistake". May I respectfully suggest that what they meant by that was "oh bugger the bastards have gone to the bloody media so we look like a total bunch of cunts".
Just a guess.
Just a guess.
500th post
Across both blogs, is over at the other place. Something to do with polynomials, I think. I'd be surprised, if, over these 500 posts, more than a handful are worth anything. I've become seriously, perhaps irrevocably, disillusioned with the blogosphere and its relentless shrieking and abuse. I've come to agree, though for entirely different reasons, and from an opposite perspective, with those who argued that there was too much bullying in cyberspace. This doesn't mean i am going to stop blogging: far from it. I get more out of typing than before, especially with regard to the maths (it is really helping my revision and if it helps anyone else, all the better). Most of my posts have been snippets, shouty and largely irrelevant. I don't think that really matters to be honest; but if you're looking for really quality posts from this blog, you do have to look quite hard actually. It seems a shame to admit it of one's own creative effort, and i never did set out to compete with DK or Dizzy or Timmy, but you do sometimes think, a la Kevin Pietersen, "what's the point if you're not going to be the best you can be?" (paraphrase) There has never been more blather in the world as there is now, opinions and arguments wherever you look. Opinions are good, very good. But after two years of trawling through the comments boxes of blogs both British and international you do begin to wonder how many hours of your life you will never get back reading people calling each other cunts*. Unlike some I actually like reading about blogging itself because I think it needs a dose of self-reflection; I'd like to see more good writing about blogging and where it could go from here.
* yes, yes, this is the Dalek accusing the Cyberman of not having enough respect for other species...
* yes, yes, this is the Dalek accusing the Cyberman of not having enough respect for other species...
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