Notsaussure, attempting to comment on my Lawmaking post, has sent me a txt file but it was so detailed I thought I'd be slightly cheeky and post it as a new post in its own right. Ns writes:
Tin Drummer, you be pleased to learn that these proposals for banning Holocaust Denial have, in fact,been dropped as a result of opposition from several countries, including the UK. There was never, to my mind, any serious chance of their becoming law; since the Germans must have known this, I suspect that the proposal must have had more to do with internal German politics than anything else. Minor point about sentencing; you ask 'why will fiddling with the road-pricing boxes or not cooperating with a road pricing inspector carry a 6 month jail sentence? ' The answer is that, in practice, it wouldn't -- the maximum sentence is there as an indication of what sort of sentence Parliament expects courts to hand down, not as an indication of what they should do. A better question would be why they need to create a separate offence of tampering with a road-pricing box when there's a perfectly good offence of criminal damage that carries -- assuming the damage is less that £5,000 -- similar penalties. For Criminal Damage at this level, the Magistrates Court Bench Book suggests a conditional discharge (usually accompanied with compensation) or a fine will normally be appropriate, with community penalties reserved for more extreme cases and prison for only the most aggravated ones (which I think would normally be reserved for fthe most persistent offenders). As to your point about how long someone might expect to spend in custody if he kills someone, I think we need to be specific about this. Someone might, indeed, spend as little as 18 months in custody if he kills someone, if he's found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. At the other end of the scale, if he's convicted of murder, there are various minimum periods of imprisonment specificed in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 before he may be considered for parole -- most of them 20 or 25 years. For a murder that doesn't have the aggravating features that attract a CJA minimum, the murdered can normally expect to spend about 14 years in custody before he's released on licence. If someone's convicted of manslaughter, then he may well spend less than that in custody, but it very much depends on the circumstances of the killing and on what the parole board think of him six or seven years after the event.
I am grateful to him for putting me straight. My post was really an anxious scratch, rather than a legal exposition. My fear was, and remains, that proposals are being advanced with the threat of stiff punishments as part of them, as if in the knowledge that these are unnecessary or unwanted laws. I would like to think that the authorities will be sensible, but part of me believes that the punishments, in practice rather than theory, will indeed be stiffer for this kind of damage than for ordinary criminal damage - in the sense that it would be seen as a political crime. I am interested to see what the council-smoking-inspectors are going to do, as well.
Thanks, Notsaussure. Thotsaussure.*
*=this is a Look Around You 2 joke. Buy the dvd, it's very funny.
UPDATE: 6.40pm: NS, the link you give -which hasn't come out on the copied text, I see - is to an old story from 2005. The proposal to "harmonise" the EU laws on holocaust denial is from this year
UPDATE: Friday 9.00PM: With NS's help to correct my total ignorance, I've fixed the links in his comment.
Thursday, 1 March 2007
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Continuing a Conversation
I thought it was a bit odd to have a discussion about UFOs in the comments of a post called "Lawmaking", as I have been with commenter "Crushed by Ingsoc" so I'm going to broaden the discussion in a new post.
Some of CBI's points addressed something I failed to in my earlier posts about my old interest in flying saucers: the fact that if you haven't seen something which to you can be explained in no other way, you need to bend logic and reasoning in order to accept as I did the ETH (extra terrestrial hypothesis). Seemingly obvious concepts like few astronomers sighting ufos need to be explained away or ignored. In my case I ignored them completely - they didn't pass under my radar. I assume that sceptical friends would have raised them but I don't recall. I have mentioned before my need or desire to believe in something that would prove I was mistaken in my assumptions and my understanding of the world around me; but there is more to it - the need to be accepted into a group, to will oneself into being an outsider within a group of likeminded persons. For me that was the only way I could try and avoid the point that it was my social inadequacies causing my outsider-sense, and that becoming a UFO buff was only likely to make it worse.
But then that itself is self-reinforcing. It was self-evident to me that people who laughed at me were deluded, lulled into a life of ignorance and alcohol by the manipulative Government (always spelled with a capital G). So the more excluded I felt, the more I got into it, and the more excluded I -was_, and the more excluded I felt, and so on. It meant, as a by product of this, that I became an acolyte of truth, a kind of deskbound crusader for something that everyone should know: another way it diverted my religious impulses.
It is also worth bearing in mind that this was the mid 1990s (say 1993-1996), that long bleak period of post black Wednesday political ennui and cynicism that haunted John Major's government like the ghost of a snarling dog. The incompetence of that shambling wreck of an administration was plastered over all media night and day and David Mellor even hosted 606 for goodness' sake. I wanted to think that governments might actually be competent, devastatingly so, because all I could see was wastage everywhere. I wanted to think that there were levels of government in which Major was involved (don't laugh) which actively and ruthlessly pursued an agenda and, by and large, achieved it. Looking back on that period now we kind of forget how many people felt about that government, how its sexual indiscretions only seemed to point to a wider and indeed a fundamental disappearance of ethics or responsibility, how its utter lack of charm or charisma detached it from the people like the bits on lego blocks. Yes there was Blair waiting in the wings but until early 97 he was often seen as thin, idealess, vague (even if he was miles ahead in the polls). The government, the country, was tired, really dog tired, probably from the trauma of the 80s - whatever. This was how I saw it and this was the background to my mid 90s keeness on ufos.
As I've said before, the wish for there to be something hasn't changed. Only my credulity has taken a massive battering so that now although my old interest stirs when I read a sighting story or see a ufo photo, the scepticism kicks in - twelve years ago I'd have called it denial.
Some of CBI's points addressed something I failed to in my earlier posts about my old interest in flying saucers: the fact that if you haven't seen something which to you can be explained in no other way, you need to bend logic and reasoning in order to accept as I did the ETH (extra terrestrial hypothesis). Seemingly obvious concepts like few astronomers sighting ufos need to be explained away or ignored. In my case I ignored them completely - they didn't pass under my radar. I assume that sceptical friends would have raised them but I don't recall. I have mentioned before my need or desire to believe in something that would prove I was mistaken in my assumptions and my understanding of the world around me; but there is more to it - the need to be accepted into a group, to will oneself into being an outsider within a group of likeminded persons. For me that was the only way I could try and avoid the point that it was my social inadequacies causing my outsider-sense, and that becoming a UFO buff was only likely to make it worse.
But then that itself is self-reinforcing. It was self-evident to me that people who laughed at me were deluded, lulled into a life of ignorance and alcohol by the manipulative Government (always spelled with a capital G). So the more excluded I felt, the more I got into it, and the more excluded I -was_, and the more excluded I felt, and so on. It meant, as a by product of this, that I became an acolyte of truth, a kind of deskbound crusader for something that everyone should know: another way it diverted my religious impulses.
It is also worth bearing in mind that this was the mid 1990s (say 1993-1996), that long bleak period of post black Wednesday political ennui and cynicism that haunted John Major's government like the ghost of a snarling dog. The incompetence of that shambling wreck of an administration was plastered over all media night and day and David Mellor even hosted 606 for goodness' sake. I wanted to think that governments might actually be competent, devastatingly so, because all I could see was wastage everywhere. I wanted to think that there were levels of government in which Major was involved (don't laugh) which actively and ruthlessly pursued an agenda and, by and large, achieved it. Looking back on that period now we kind of forget how many people felt about that government, how its sexual indiscretions only seemed to point to a wider and indeed a fundamental disappearance of ethics or responsibility, how its utter lack of charm or charisma detached it from the people like the bits on lego blocks. Yes there was Blair waiting in the wings but until early 97 he was often seen as thin, idealess, vague (even if he was miles ahead in the polls). The government, the country, was tired, really dog tired, probably from the trauma of the 80s - whatever. This was how I saw it and this was the background to my mid 90s keeness on ufos.
As I've said before, the wish for there to be something hasn't changed. Only my credulity has taken a massive battering so that now although my old interest stirs when I read a sighting story or see a ufo photo, the scepticism kicks in - twelve years ago I'd have called it denial.
Monday, 26 February 2007
Lawmaking
As usual, *disclaimer* - I'm not a lawyer, nor do I hate them.
I am perplexed though by the current wave of lawmaking, which is happening at local, national and EU level with seemingly breakneck pace. As polluters, not as citizens, our local council has decreed fewer rubbish collections and penalties for people who leave rubbish out,put it in the wrong box, and so on. We hear repeatedly on the radio that prison is generally a *bad thing* and should be reserved only for serious crimes - in which case why will fiddling with the road-pricing boxes or not cooperating with a road pricing inspector carry a 6 month jail sentence?
I read with some consternation, and it must be said, a fair amount of ignorance, on DK yesterday that the EU have already finished their draft directive on Holocaust denial, which will need to be implemented by July 2007. A quick googling doesn't throw this up as definite, though I'm happy to be corrected. In any case, even as draft legislation it is worrying. I see why the law should exist in Germany: but it is just plain dishonest to pretend that the whole of Europe needs the law in the same way. Britain has holocaust deniers of course and one of them exposed himself to ruin and his cause to ridicule under existing laws. David Irving's demolition was far better served by his libel case than by his imprisonment in Austria, which made him a rallying point for far-rightists. Europe does not have homogeneous political and social problems or backgrounds and so blanket laws of this kind are unsubtle and are liable simply to create criminals where none are needed. No attempt has been made than I have read to show that this law is needed in Britain, simply an assumption that what is good for Germany is good for all Europe, backed up by punishments of a scale that make British sentencing look tame. 3 years? For saying something? When you can kill someone and be out in 6 or so? This law is not designed to be good for Britain, or to solve a problem which exists there. It is simply designed to impose upon Britain the problems of others. It assumes, as do so many modern laws, that the people are nasty and bigoted, and must be forced into nicer habits of mind.
Besides of which, as DK and others have pointed out, it creates far more dangers with the concept of a government decreed version of history. In the Telegraph story linked to above we read:
General Lewis MacKenzie, the former commander of UN peacekeepers in Bosnia, courted controversy two years ago by questioning the numbers killed at Srebrenica in 1995.
He took issue with the official definition of the massacre as genocide and highlighted "serious doubt" over the estimate of 8,000 Bosnian fatalities. "The math just doesn't support the scale of 8,000 killed," he wrote.
Balkans human rights activists have branded Gen MacKenzie an "outspoken Srebrenica genocide denier" and, if approved, the EU legislation could see similar comments investigated by the police or prosecuted in the courts after complaints from war crimes investigators or campaigners.
and today we learned that:The UN's highest court has cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide during the 1990s Bosnian war.
It is difficult to think who the human rights activists in the first quote think might be responsible if not Serbia. Some things are held to be true by application of all the evidence, and some things open to revision. It was initially thought, from Soviet figures, that 4 million died in Auschwitz. We now know this figure cannot have been accurate: the true figure is around 1.1million. For me, as for many, the holocaust is a supreme fact of Europe, the great descent into barbarism and degeneration. But to put legitimate researchers under threat of prison sentences for trying to sharpen our understanding - as they would be, treading on eggshells and possibly needing government approval for certain lines of research, or just as bad, feeling that it is needed -is ridiculous and deadly to scholarship and enquiry.
I am perplexed though by the current wave of lawmaking, which is happening at local, national and EU level with seemingly breakneck pace. As polluters, not as citizens, our local council has decreed fewer rubbish collections and penalties for people who leave rubbish out,put it in the wrong box, and so on. We hear repeatedly on the radio that prison is generally a *bad thing* and should be reserved only for serious crimes - in which case why will fiddling with the road-pricing boxes or not cooperating with a road pricing inspector carry a 6 month jail sentence?
I read with some consternation, and it must be said, a fair amount of ignorance, on DK yesterday that the EU have already finished their draft directive on Holocaust denial, which will need to be implemented by July 2007. A quick googling doesn't throw this up as definite, though I'm happy to be corrected. In any case, even as draft legislation it is worrying. I see why the law should exist in Germany: but it is just plain dishonest to pretend that the whole of Europe needs the law in the same way. Britain has holocaust deniers of course and one of them exposed himself to ruin and his cause to ridicule under existing laws. David Irving's demolition was far better served by his libel case than by his imprisonment in Austria, which made him a rallying point for far-rightists. Europe does not have homogeneous political and social problems or backgrounds and so blanket laws of this kind are unsubtle and are liable simply to create criminals where none are needed. No attempt has been made than I have read to show that this law is needed in Britain, simply an assumption that what is good for Germany is good for all Europe, backed up by punishments of a scale that make British sentencing look tame. 3 years? For saying something? When you can kill someone and be out in 6 or so? This law is not designed to be good for Britain, or to solve a problem which exists there. It is simply designed to impose upon Britain the problems of others. It assumes, as do so many modern laws, that the people are nasty and bigoted, and must be forced into nicer habits of mind.
Besides of which, as DK and others have pointed out, it creates far more dangers with the concept of a government decreed version of history. In the Telegraph story linked to above we read:
General Lewis MacKenzie, the former commander of UN peacekeepers in Bosnia, courted controversy two years ago by questioning the numbers killed at Srebrenica in 1995.
He took issue with the official definition of the massacre as genocide and highlighted "serious doubt" over the estimate of 8,000 Bosnian fatalities. "The math just doesn't support the scale of 8,000 killed," he wrote.
Balkans human rights activists have branded Gen MacKenzie an "outspoken Srebrenica genocide denier" and, if approved, the EU legislation could see similar comments investigated by the police or prosecuted in the courts after complaints from war crimes investigators or campaigners.
and today we learned that:The UN's highest court has cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide during the 1990s Bosnian war.
It is difficult to think who the human rights activists in the first quote think might be responsible if not Serbia. Some things are held to be true by application of all the evidence, and some things open to revision. It was initially thought, from Soviet figures, that 4 million died in Auschwitz. We now know this figure cannot have been accurate: the true figure is around 1.1million. For me, as for many, the holocaust is a supreme fact of Europe, the great descent into barbarism and degeneration. But to put legitimate researchers under threat of prison sentences for trying to sharpen our understanding - as they would be, treading on eggshells and possibly needing government approval for certain lines of research, or just as bad, feeling that it is needed -is ridiculous and deadly to scholarship and enquiry.
Sunday, 25 February 2007
Good Sport
Another sporting post. England got stuffed (their own manager's words) at Rugby by Ireland yesterday, 43-13, a record defeat. Your drummer is an Englishman by birth and sympathy but in 1920 his antecedents (father's side)were involved on the republican side in precisely the war which is so important to Croke Park itself and Hill 16 (a side of the stadium built on the rubble of O Connell Street)in particular.
Despite the predictions of some, the performance of God Save the Queen was well observed and the match a mixture of wonderful attacking rugby by Ireland and pisspoor skills, tactics and performance by England. I thought before the game that the whole occasion would have made it very difficult for even a good England side to win, but for a poor one - it was an impossible task.
I wouldn't change it for the world, though. The game was played. The world moves on.
Despite the predictions of some, the performance of God Save the Queen was well observed and the match a mixture of wonderful attacking rugby by Ireland and pisspoor skills, tactics and performance by England. I thought before the game that the whole occasion would have made it very difficult for even a good England side to win, but for a poor one - it was an impossible task.
I wouldn't change it for the world, though. The game was played. The world moves on.
Saturday, 24 February 2007
Football Fracas
Football fan bloggers might have noticed a bit of a stir going on this week between Man United and Lille. Utd defeated the French team 1-0 in Lens (the Lille stadium currently being rebuilt) but the result was overshadowed by controversy including unpleasant scenes of fans being hauled over fences, tear gas, faked tickets, and, according to Lille, an unfairly taken free kick, leading to Lille taking off their players. I am staggered by the club's refusal to admit responsibility for any of this at all, but you can read more about the serious stuff hereand decide for yourself. Lille also insist Utd are to blame for the faked tickets - at the moment I don't know whether there were any or not, but anyone who comes into a game with a fake ticket should be banned for life. End of.
However, as soon as the match was over, Lille wrote a formal complaint to UEFA...about the free kick! The club insisted that in France when there is a disputed decision the players kick the ball out of play to talk to the referee - as if they were completely unaware that they were not playing a French match, but a UEFA Champions League game. They also maintain today that 'The feeling of injustice is shared with all those who love football'. In totally typical modern style, Lille have attempted to assume victimhood, and have also assumed widespread public support. Well maybe in France. But here in England that is not the case. Utd were entitled to take a quick free kick, and did so. Also end of. Had Lille not tried to blame the cock ups on everybody and anybody not part of the football club of Lille they might have more support here than they do. But to suggest that everyone who loves football feels aggrieved is ridiculous. What Giggs did was allowed, was skilful, and was a nod to the fact that a free kick is meant to be an advantage to the team with the ball, and not meant to be a demonstration of egalitarianism.
However, as soon as the match was over, Lille wrote a formal complaint to UEFA...about the free kick! The club insisted that in France when there is a disputed decision the players kick the ball out of play to talk to the referee - as if they were completely unaware that they were not playing a French match, but a UEFA Champions League game. They also maintain today that 'The feeling of injustice is shared with all those who love football'. In totally typical modern style, Lille have attempted to assume victimhood, and have also assumed widespread public support. Well maybe in France. But here in England that is not the case. Utd were entitled to take a quick free kick, and did so. Also end of. Had Lille not tried to blame the cock ups on everybody and anybody not part of the football club of Lille they might have more support here than they do. But to suggest that everyone who loves football feels aggrieved is ridiculous. What Giggs did was allowed, was skilful, and was a nod to the fact that a free kick is meant to be an advantage to the team with the ball, and not meant to be a demonstration of egalitarianism.
Thursday, 22 February 2007
Managerialism
Let me begin this post with a disclaimer: I am not a philosopher, nor an historian, nor do I have an MBA or any other business qualification. I am a fool who likes to post his thoughts to the internet.
Reading Michael Burleigh's remarkable "The Third Reich: A New History" I noticed that he tries to draw parallels and show continuities, mainly for conservative purposes, throughout the book. One of these concerns the SS. He writes: "If these were legacies of the war and its denoument, a managerialist emphasis upon competition and performance...has an enduringly modern ring to it." (p195) I had thought that managerialism - the idea that processes and outcomes can and must be regulated by targeted effort, among other ideas - was an offshoot of the breathless industrialisation of the USA, rather than the Great War: but I can understand how one could make a case that the War, in which for the first time millions of human lives were just movable columns of statistics, did more to foster the growth of this concept. Burleigh is more concerned with ends justifying the means, the fight being its own meaning, and sheer, furious brutality as being remnants of the war which found their way into a generation's hearts and hence helped to build the SS, than he is with the modern business consequences; but I wondered whether our western obsession with performance, targets, accountability and regulation could be traced in part to yet another thread of the First World War that still affects our lives. I understand that regulation, to some degree, hails from a universalist, napoleonic code in which things must be legalised before they are allowed (unlike our traditional common law system). However, I'm drawn to this idea that we culturally continue to act out an ancient trauma through the rituals of modern capitalist society in which an individual is conceived solely or predominantly as an agent of delivery, rather than something worthwhile in its own respect: it reminds me of the persuasive idea that cultural cataclysms cannot simply be forgotten, however much we like to think they can be. They survive in our dreams and nightmares, among other places. Burleigh also points out, again rather mischeviously, that modern identity politics, in which an individual is respected in so far as they belong to a group, has its own similar antecedents.
Incidentally, today Wimbledon announced that it will henceforth pay equal money for men and women, and rightly so. However, the BBC's Jonathan Overend, in discussing the news, dismissed arguments that they should do equal work for that money as "irrelevant and illogical". I wonder whether he would agree that men should work longer hours than women on building sites, buses, in factories, on the basis that "on average" men are stronger than women: instead he simply argued that female 100m runners are paid the same as men for slower times, which hardly seems to wrap up the argument to me. He concluded his little puff for gender equality with "the feeling here is.." which reminded me of another of Burleigh's phrases: "politics as feeling". I don't mind arguments being refuted, smashed, or destroyed: arguments simply being ignored is something else. Neither the Wimbledon guy, or anyone on the BBC attempted to engage with what seems a very simple idea. Before I get accused of hating women, or anyone else, (hate features prominently in modern political discourse, especially as the motivation of one's opponents) let me reiterate that I think it's a good idea to pay equal money, but there are other issues around it, which are being completely ignored.
Reading Michael Burleigh's remarkable "The Third Reich: A New History" I noticed that he tries to draw parallels and show continuities, mainly for conservative purposes, throughout the book. One of these concerns the SS. He writes: "If these were legacies of the war and its denoument, a managerialist emphasis upon competition and performance...has an enduringly modern ring to it." (p195) I had thought that managerialism - the idea that processes and outcomes can and must be regulated by targeted effort, among other ideas - was an offshoot of the breathless industrialisation of the USA, rather than the Great War: but I can understand how one could make a case that the War, in which for the first time millions of human lives were just movable columns of statistics, did more to foster the growth of this concept. Burleigh is more concerned with ends justifying the means, the fight being its own meaning, and sheer, furious brutality as being remnants of the war which found their way into a generation's hearts and hence helped to build the SS, than he is with the modern business consequences; but I wondered whether our western obsession with performance, targets, accountability and regulation could be traced in part to yet another thread of the First World War that still affects our lives. I understand that regulation, to some degree, hails from a universalist, napoleonic code in which things must be legalised before they are allowed (unlike our traditional common law system). However, I'm drawn to this idea that we culturally continue to act out an ancient trauma through the rituals of modern capitalist society in which an individual is conceived solely or predominantly as an agent of delivery, rather than something worthwhile in its own respect: it reminds me of the persuasive idea that cultural cataclysms cannot simply be forgotten, however much we like to think they can be. They survive in our dreams and nightmares, among other places. Burleigh also points out, again rather mischeviously, that modern identity politics, in which an individual is respected in so far as they belong to a group, has its own similar antecedents.
Incidentally, today Wimbledon announced that it will henceforth pay equal money for men and women, and rightly so. However, the BBC's Jonathan Overend, in discussing the news, dismissed arguments that they should do equal work for that money as "irrelevant and illogical". I wonder whether he would agree that men should work longer hours than women on building sites, buses, in factories, on the basis that "on average" men are stronger than women: instead he simply argued that female 100m runners are paid the same as men for slower times, which hardly seems to wrap up the argument to me. He concluded his little puff for gender equality with "the feeling here is.." which reminded me of another of Burleigh's phrases: "politics as feeling". I don't mind arguments being refuted, smashed, or destroyed: arguments simply being ignored is something else. Neither the Wimbledon guy, or anyone on the BBC attempted to engage with what seems a very simple idea. Before I get accused of hating women, or anyone else, (hate features prominently in modern political discourse, especially as the motivation of one's opponents) let me reiterate that I think it's a good idea to pay equal money, but there are other issues around it, which are being completely ignored.
Lent
...and I'm still owed A$100 by an unscrupulous ex-mate!
Er, but naff joke aside, it is that time of the year again when feeble Xtians like myself attempt to grapple with things that are far too difficult to think about the rest of the year. Drink being one of them. I have given up drink in the past and managed it quite well but this year I scrubbed it off the list of possible things to relinquish for a single, obvious reason: I could not. No way. Now I could rationalise this in many ways, but choose not to, for another obvious reason: it leads to unpleasant conclusions about oneself. I can go on the wagon for hours or even days at a time, but weeks... In the pessimistic Christian's mind, it is always Lent and never Easter: Lent attacks you soon after the Christmas revels are ended and you wait for it from Easter Monday onwards. It is a grey, pained, dull time. At mass last night (in the dark, needless to say) the priest made plenty of the significance of the ash: from dust we came and to dust we return. Ash = all burnt up and fit only to be thrown into the wind. Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and abstinence in which one's fasting actually amounts to a feast for many people around the world but which obligation one continues to resent. In the end I decided to give up work; that's right, not a single moment to be spent on the accumulation of money or the productive creation of wealth, or the satisfying achievement of something that might last for years after my death, for the whole of Lent. From now on I will devote myself with urgency and zeal to doing absolutely nothing at all.
I went to buy a paper later on in the evening and the guy behind the counter in the garage said:"Er...do you realise you've got a black stain on your head?" I had forgotten it was there and immediately made to rub it off, though, typically, I was coy about how I came about it.
Er, but naff joke aside, it is that time of the year again when feeble Xtians like myself attempt to grapple with things that are far too difficult to think about the rest of the year. Drink being one of them. I have given up drink in the past and managed it quite well but this year I scrubbed it off the list of possible things to relinquish for a single, obvious reason: I could not. No way. Now I could rationalise this in many ways, but choose not to, for another obvious reason: it leads to unpleasant conclusions about oneself. I can go on the wagon for hours or even days at a time, but weeks... In the pessimistic Christian's mind, it is always Lent and never Easter: Lent attacks you soon after the Christmas revels are ended and you wait for it from Easter Monday onwards. It is a grey, pained, dull time. At mass last night (in the dark, needless to say) the priest made plenty of the significance of the ash: from dust we came and to dust we return. Ash = all burnt up and fit only to be thrown into the wind. Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and abstinence in which one's fasting actually amounts to a feast for many people around the world but which obligation one continues to resent. In the end I decided to give up work; that's right, not a single moment to be spent on the accumulation of money or the productive creation of wealth, or the satisfying achievement of something that might last for years after my death, for the whole of Lent. From now on I will devote myself with urgency and zeal to doing absolutely nothing at all.
I went to buy a paper later on in the evening and the guy behind the counter in the garage said:"Er...do you realise you've got a black stain on your head?" I had forgotten it was there and immediately made to rub it off, though, typically, I was coy about how I came about it.
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
Nostalgia
Yesterday your Drummer took a trip back into his own recent past. As a conservative I'm often accused of looking back to a "mythical golden age" (as if it is completely impossible to conceive of life as ever better than it is now - but that's beside the point - just like whenever we say something isn't right we're stirring "moral panics"); but I do have the all-too human trait of going through a rough patch and then looking back on it as though it were quite comfortable actually. Call what I did last night "ostalgia" and you might be nearer the mark - living in the east (Reading), with its appalling prices, clogged up roads, London commuters, Heathrow jets coming overhead every 30 seconds, and culture of work: I didn't enjoy it much but going back last night I managed to forget all that and focus on the good times, the couple of times a year successes: now why couldn't I do that while I was still there?
In fact it was a strange experience, going there, much stranger than being there. Retracing a journey I made 400+ times was a curious blend of emotion and thought, with anxiety thrown in as well - as though I really were driving to work with something difficult to do, whereas I was just popping back for a meeting. Funny how the psychic defence mechanisms kicked in. I had to stop and think: "You are not employed there anymore. You don't have to go if you don't want to" before I could carry on. In the event, so little having happened since, I slipped back into the old relationships with bosses and parents rather quickly - but then I left quickly too, before that could grow uncomfortable.
In fact it was a strange experience, going there, much stranger than being there. Retracing a journey I made 400+ times was a curious blend of emotion and thought, with anxiety thrown in as well - as though I really were driving to work with something difficult to do, whereas I was just popping back for a meeting. Funny how the psychic defence mechanisms kicked in. I had to stop and think: "You are not employed there anymore. You don't have to go if you don't want to" before I could carry on. In the event, so little having happened since, I slipped back into the old relationships with bosses and parents rather quickly - but then I left quickly too, before that could grow uncomfortable.
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Reading Difficult Things
As I hinted before, I'm currently reading some Primo Levi. During the last ten years or so I must have read over two thousand pages of history concerning the Nazi regime and its atrocities. At first my reaction to it was a kind of dazzled horror - and I'd be lying if I said there was no fascination too. I was once asked by a patronising PGCE tutor whether I had heard of what the Nazis did to the Jews - the only question I think I've ever been enraged by. I don't know whether it is that I'm older, or that Primo Levi is such a different writer (only the third author I've read who has actually suffered in the camps) but my thoughts, reactions and feelings are now completely different. For a start I'm finding it (The Drowned and the Saved) extremely hard going. I'm averaging about 10 pages per sitting. It is the pained anger, the bafflement, the long, isolated memory that is so hard to read. This is neither historian nor novelist but a mixture of both, admitting as he does that he weaves his fallible memories into things he knows from outside. The ethics of his writing are just agonising for him - you can feel it: he knows there is no forgiveness, is utterly contemptuous of fashionable theories of victim/oppressor relationships, and most of all, he is tortured by an indefinable but strong sense that his survival, utterly contingent, means that he did not see the truth of the camps, and that some element of something he would rather not be, or have, enabled that survival.
Secondly most of the book is predicated on this experience being something most, if not all of his readers will literally be unable to imagine, even with practice. That it is a category of being utterly outside of his readers' view. There is a particularly memorable passage in which he struggles to define the pain of camp-hunger and seems - to me, shouting as he does so -to be flailing around in finding a comparison. There is the difficulty of interlocking the boredom and the terror and trying to find a way to explain that these were two halves of an existence, not totally different habits of mind or moments. As a reader this is much harder to read than an academic work, even one liberally interspersed with eyewitness accounts, because it drips from every page and every word. At no point can the reader relapse into a communication with someone who has also not experienced this, and thereby touch a common ground, as I find I can reading (say) Martin Gilbert (utterly painful though a lot of that is too).
Finally, reading it now, one knows that the author took his own life not too long after completing the book. This always gives a work itself a different complexion and makes it a matter of discipline not to jump to neat conclusions (I'm especially guilty of this, as a fan of Sylvia Plath and Joy Division). It also layers more tragedy onto a work that throws its hands up in despair and confusion as it is written.
By way of a conclusion, the single most striking passage, and the one that resonates with me, as a coward and a doubter: Levi recounts facing another selection, knowing that if he looks even a little too weak to work he will be sent to the gas chamber that day, considers offering up a prayer. But with death more than likely imminent, he realises he cannot change the rules of his life, and cheat both himself and the deity, should it exist.
Secondly most of the book is predicated on this experience being something most, if not all of his readers will literally be unable to imagine, even with practice. That it is a category of being utterly outside of his readers' view. There is a particularly memorable passage in which he struggles to define the pain of camp-hunger and seems - to me, shouting as he does so -to be flailing around in finding a comparison. There is the difficulty of interlocking the boredom and the terror and trying to find a way to explain that these were two halves of an existence, not totally different habits of mind or moments. As a reader this is much harder to read than an academic work, even one liberally interspersed with eyewitness accounts, because it drips from every page and every word. At no point can the reader relapse into a communication with someone who has also not experienced this, and thereby touch a common ground, as I find I can reading (say) Martin Gilbert (utterly painful though a lot of that is too).
Finally, reading it now, one knows that the author took his own life not too long after completing the book. This always gives a work itself a different complexion and makes it a matter of discipline not to jump to neat conclusions (I'm especially guilty of this, as a fan of Sylvia Plath and Joy Division). It also layers more tragedy onto a work that throws its hands up in despair and confusion as it is written.
By way of a conclusion, the single most striking passage, and the one that resonates with me, as a coward and a doubter: Levi recounts facing another selection, knowing that if he looks even a little too weak to work he will be sent to the gas chamber that day, considers offering up a prayer. But with death more than likely imminent, he realises he cannot change the rules of his life, and cheat both himself and the deity, should it exist.
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
Pathetic Thing To Post When Western Civilisation Is Collapsing Alert!!
I've always had a soft spot for Neighbours, the pisspoor Aussie soap that airs here in the UK at 5.30pm. It's generally been harmless, entertaining fun. But I'm increasingly pissed off with it; it has taken a serious swerve towards the postmodern "everyone on tv has to be beautiful" tendency, and, rather more disturbingly for a reactionary like me, today's episode was the first I've seen for ages where people didn't nip off for a quick bit of casual sex in the middle of the episode. The relationships are increasingly secondary to a consequence-free ideal of casual sex between largely beautiful people (alright, except Lou and Miska) - how does that translate to the people watching this? It's just fine to say "sex is fun" as a message, but when you refuse to discuss contraception or any of the other problems around it, it becomes a fantasy, and a fantasy for good looking teenagers at that. There must be twenty-first century 15 year old versions of the Drummer around somewhere thinking something is deeply wrong with them, as they're not getting any. Or don't they exist anymore? That must be how they feel, given that the whole tenor of sex education is not for them, and quite openly exludes them. OK. I haven't mentioned Sky and the several month controversy over the fatherhood of her baby - could have been any of 3 men at one point - that certainly shows some of the consequences. But at just the point at which it might have been worthwhile, with two men fighting with themselves to take responsibility, it was swallowed up in fantastical plots around kidnap and arson. And what of Susan, the high school head, who let the 14 year old in her care go on a camping trip with her 18 year old alcoholic boyfriend?
Anyway. Carmella has just decided to keep her scar but everyone around her thinks it's a terrible idea and they just want to make sure she's "doing it for the right reasons" - whatever they might be, they're not being fully explained - they think she must be nuts and into self-punishment (she's an ex-nun).
Maybe it's just going through a crap patch at the moment. I was, however, gratified to learn that at least one subplot involving a totally-non-threatening bizarre triangle of implied hard porn, car theft and blackmail appears to have been resolved with a murder. Marvellous stuff for the kiddies.
Anyway. Carmella has just decided to keep her scar but everyone around her thinks it's a terrible idea and they just want to make sure she's "doing it for the right reasons" - whatever they might be, they're not being fully explained - they think she must be nuts and into self-punishment (she's an ex-nun).
Maybe it's just going through a crap patch at the moment. I was, however, gratified to learn that at least one subplot involving a totally-non-threatening bizarre triangle of implied hard porn, car theft and blackmail appears to have been resolved with a murder. Marvellous stuff for the kiddies.
Monday, 12 February 2007
Odd Blogging Weekend
Strange things afoot this weekend: A Radio 4 profile of Guido followed by some defamatory (I believe) allegations against him - retrieved from 20 years ago by the Guardian - published and carried on leftist blogs which have been gunning for him for a while now (although Harry's Place defends him); Andrew Marr's AM show carries Iain Dale and the Yazzmonster, who concludes that despite being a progressive egalitarian, blogs are a bad thing (and Oliver Kamm, the egalitarian blogger agrees) - you could almost think something was going on.
Guido places himself in a position of vulnerability to these attacks because of what he does. I still find it odd that instead of celebrating the exposure of sleaze, as the left did throughout the 90s, we're seeing efforts to discredit the whistleblower. Nevetheless. He does what he does and people will attack him wherever possible.
As for this little outburst of left commentators slating the blogosphere (Taylor,Toynbee,Yazz,Kamm now it seems): the pressure keeps building it seems. For Kamm to slate it, despite being a fine blogger himself seems strange to me. You would have thought that a sphere which anyone can access for the price of an hour in an internet cafe every so often and which can bring the views of really ordinary (I don't just mean Guardian-writer ordinary, but people who sweep streets for a living ordinary) to a world-wide audience (ie potentially far larger than the Guardian gets to) -would be welcomed by the egalitarian left. No. According to Kamm and Yazzmonster, having loads and loads of people blogging politically actually, by some mysterious process, reduces the amount of debate taking place; worse than that, the genuine mass participation in politics we're witnessing through the blogosphere, via the people who post, the people who comment, and those who read - is, presumably by the same mysterious process, in fact bad for democracy. Somehow it just hardens people in their own views and sets up a vast "echo chamber". Well I don't know how much research has been done in this area - plenty, I assume, as egalitarians are big fans of evidence-based knowledge - but I don't understand it. How is a choice of say 20 great blogs with different shades of opinion worse than just reading the Torygraph? How is there less debate going on when various shades of the right are available in the form of the Devil, Guido, MrE, Tom Paine, Daily Pundit, David Farrer, and Croydonian? In the old days (last year, for me) I could only pick up the Torygraph for one shade of rightist view. But the left seem to be getting together to agree that this is a bad thing - perhaps the violent abuse being meted out to politicians, most of which is richly deserved, is what offends them (don't read MrE today on Patsy Hewitt then) - even when they make use of the sphere themselves. So what if the tone of comment and debate is full of rage and disgust? We care. We want things done well. We want honesty, competence and reliability. We don't get it. We assert (not wish for, meekly, waiting for it to be granted) - we assert the right to be shrill and angry, in a free sphere, open to all. Left pamphleteers have been doing it for centuries. At least we're not apathetic (or perhaps that now becomes the preferred choice).
Or perhaps we're just witnessing the cries of those who know that the media is changing for ever: their position of doling out wisdom (wth plenty of shrillness and hate when it suited them) to citizens whose only choice was either to write angry letters that don't get published, read, noticed or even opened; refuse to buy the rag; or set up their own local little sheet (did it myself years ago - at school, in fact) has vanished - those days are gone. People are having the say that is long, long overdue. And as the technology changes it will continue to morph, into videos, music, whatever - print blogs are just the start. So get used to it.
Guido places himself in a position of vulnerability to these attacks because of what he does. I still find it odd that instead of celebrating the exposure of sleaze, as the left did throughout the 90s, we're seeing efforts to discredit the whistleblower. Nevetheless. He does what he does and people will attack him wherever possible.
As for this little outburst of left commentators slating the blogosphere (Taylor,Toynbee,Yazz,Kamm now it seems): the pressure keeps building it seems. For Kamm to slate it, despite being a fine blogger himself seems strange to me. You would have thought that a sphere which anyone can access for the price of an hour in an internet cafe every so often and which can bring the views of really ordinary (I don't just mean Guardian-writer ordinary, but people who sweep streets for a living ordinary) to a world-wide audience (ie potentially far larger than the Guardian gets to) -would be welcomed by the egalitarian left. No. According to Kamm and Yazzmonster, having loads and loads of people blogging politically actually, by some mysterious process, reduces the amount of debate taking place; worse than that, the genuine mass participation in politics we're witnessing through the blogosphere, via the people who post, the people who comment, and those who read - is, presumably by the same mysterious process, in fact bad for democracy. Somehow it just hardens people in their own views and sets up a vast "echo chamber". Well I don't know how much research has been done in this area - plenty, I assume, as egalitarians are big fans of evidence-based knowledge - but I don't understand it. How is a choice of say 20 great blogs with different shades of opinion worse than just reading the Torygraph? How is there less debate going on when various shades of the right are available in the form of the Devil, Guido, MrE, Tom Paine, Daily Pundit, David Farrer, and Croydonian? In the old days (last year, for me) I could only pick up the Torygraph for one shade of rightist view. But the left seem to be getting together to agree that this is a bad thing - perhaps the violent abuse being meted out to politicians, most of which is richly deserved, is what offends them (don't read MrE today on Patsy Hewitt then) - even when they make use of the sphere themselves. So what if the tone of comment and debate is full of rage and disgust? We care. We want things done well. We want honesty, competence and reliability. We don't get it. We assert (not wish for, meekly, waiting for it to be granted) - we assert the right to be shrill and angry, in a free sphere, open to all. Left pamphleteers have been doing it for centuries. At least we're not apathetic (or perhaps that now becomes the preferred choice).
Or perhaps we're just witnessing the cries of those who know that the media is changing for ever: their position of doling out wisdom (wth plenty of shrillness and hate when it suited them) to citizens whose only choice was either to write angry letters that don't get published, read, noticed or even opened; refuse to buy the rag; or set up their own local little sheet (did it myself years ago - at school, in fact) has vanished - those days are gone. People are having the say that is long, long overdue. And as the technology changes it will continue to morph, into videos, music, whatever - print blogs are just the start. So get used to it.
Friday, 9 February 2007
Winter's Jacksie
Now it is raining but cold, and the pavements in the village are turned to filthy slush. The gardens, walls and cars of the absent are still bathed in snow, but snow of a type that knows its time has come, pockmarked and wet. At least I could burgle about 5 houses in this street without fear, given that those who have pissed off for whatever reason are brazenly obvious. You might say the same for the drummer's house - ie the roof is still full of snow - but this is simply to belie the temperature inside the house, namely 11.5 degrees C. I can no longer do 10ft skids on the road here; it is merely greyish sludge, and the rest of the snow longs for its own dissolution. God it looks so messy out; the pavements and road outside the window are like chopped up mash potato, on some intransigent teenager's plate. How can one thing look so beautiful and so ugly, within one day? Good luck to it though: it's pissing down and so much of the snow is resisting arrest. Up the frozen revolution.
Incidentally, I do have photos of this but my computer is so desperately old that I can't install the necessary software, etc etc (it was built in 2000 - I mean Jeez, man) - but I am certain that a 3-legged creature has walked across our back garden. There are three hoof - or paw, not sure at the moment and I can't be bothered to go out again - prints and then a gap, and then another three, all in close proximity. I had vaguely heard rumours of a three legged cat on the estate, but had never seen it. It just seems, whatever it is, to have sauntered across the lawn and towards the fence at the back. I bet the b****** took a crap at some point too. Bloody hell, that is all I need: some weird creature coming and evacuating its bowels over my garden! Yes, I will say on a future Channel 5 docu-drama, its turds were the size of tyres. No wonder my winter garlic is tardy to say the least (but then again it started badly, being saturated in cat's -or was it cats'- piss).
Incidentally, I do have photos of this but my computer is so desperately old that I can't install the necessary software, etc etc (it was built in 2000 - I mean Jeez, man) - but I am certain that a 3-legged creature has walked across our back garden. There are three hoof - or paw, not sure at the moment and I can't be bothered to go out again - prints and then a gap, and then another three, all in close proximity. I had vaguely heard rumours of a three legged cat on the estate, but had never seen it. It just seems, whatever it is, to have sauntered across the lawn and towards the fence at the back. I bet the b****** took a crap at some point too. Bloody hell, that is all I need: some weird creature coming and evacuating its bowels over my garden! Yes, I will say on a future Channel 5 docu-drama, its turds were the size of tyres. No wonder my winter garlic is tardy to say the least (but then again it started badly, being saturated in cat's -or was it cats'- piss).
Blimey!!
England have won....again!!! England have just defeated Australia in a nail-biting ODI at Melbourne, thanks mainly to Collingwood's 120* and McGrath's failure to take any wickets. They've now beaten Australia twice in two matches. This is excellent stuff and frankly ridiculous.
Also excellent is the fact that I have a _second_ day off work owing to the fact that it's still snowing. I'm going to do a bit of reading, Primo Levi and Umberto Eco probably.
Also excellent is the fact that I have a _second_ day off work owing to the fact that it's still snowing. I'm going to do a bit of reading, Primo Levi and Umberto Eco probably.
Thursday, 8 February 2007
The Last Ditch
..is well worth a read at the moment especially; Tom seems to be on top blogging form, and recent posts have included a minor spat with philosopher and, unsurprisingly, liberal, AC Grayling; today has an interesting account of Will Hutton's speech to a conference - Tom is bringing us news here!
Excellent
A day off work: school is closed because of the snow which has been falling all over the Midlands for the last twelve hours or so. Accordingly I went for a walk to check out the village in its snowbound form: of course, it was beautiful (it's been about seven years since we had proper snow like this, about 8 inches' worth). However, this is the twenty first century, and Britain, so there was a big gang of teenagers on the village green throwing snowballs, with their rustic cries of: "Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!" with barely concealed genuine aggression; which also proves that such aggression is not merely drink-related (it was 9am). So the place was gorgeous - apart from the people, naturally.
Not so excellent is Ivan Lewis' (Labour health minister) brazen hypocrisy on the subject of maternity unit closures. I'm well behind Mr E on this, but I picked it up in today's Torygraph. Lewis is full of bluster and bullshit, opining that just because he is a minister, it doesn't mean he ceases to have views, or that he ceases to represent his constituents. Quite so. It _does_ however mean that when people from _other_ constituencies complain, they are told to fuck off. It is good for everyone in the country, it seems, except the constituents of Labour ministers. They still haven't explained quite how mothers in this village (for instance) will in fact benefit from a minimum 40 minute drive to a maternity unit, they just keep repeating it like a mantra. I'm sure that when we get a load of babies born called "A40"; "Sixways" and "a layby just off the A436" they might start to get the message, although I'm well aware that parents tend to name after place of conception rather than place of birth. Having said that, I'd be ok with being called "A40" as opposed to "Alleyway Outside the Pub".
Not so excellent either is the ridiculous silence, or at best whispers of mild discontentment from the Tories on the subject of NHS closures. We do have a Tory MP here but he has remained steadfastly silent on this issue - as on many others - as if he were contractually obliged not to speak. Cameron has lost his balls recently and pulled his punches (the two are probably related - loss of testosterone). After siding with Labour over adoption, asking pointlessly minor questions in the House last week and barely reaching the target this, I wonder what exactly _is_ his strategy for winning the next election. I am seriously beginning to fear that a Cameron govt will look, sound and act distressingly like a Blair one.
In fact, now I come to think about it, today has been a rubbish day. Bloody hellfire, I wish I were at work.
Not so excellent is Ivan Lewis' (Labour health minister) brazen hypocrisy on the subject of maternity unit closures. I'm well behind Mr E on this, but I picked it up in today's Torygraph. Lewis is full of bluster and bullshit, opining that just because he is a minister, it doesn't mean he ceases to have views, or that he ceases to represent his constituents. Quite so. It _does_ however mean that when people from _other_ constituencies complain, they are told to fuck off. It is good for everyone in the country, it seems, except the constituents of Labour ministers. They still haven't explained quite how mothers in this village (for instance) will in fact benefit from a minimum 40 minute drive to a maternity unit, they just keep repeating it like a mantra. I'm sure that when we get a load of babies born called "A40"; "Sixways" and "a layby just off the A436" they might start to get the message, although I'm well aware that parents tend to name after place of conception rather than place of birth. Having said that, I'd be ok with being called "A40" as opposed to "Alleyway Outside the Pub".
Not so excellent either is the ridiculous silence, or at best whispers of mild discontentment from the Tories on the subject of NHS closures. We do have a Tory MP here but he has remained steadfastly silent on this issue - as on many others - as if he were contractually obliged not to speak. Cameron has lost his balls recently and pulled his punches (the two are probably related - loss of testosterone). After siding with Labour over adoption, asking pointlessly minor questions in the House last week and barely reaching the target this, I wonder what exactly _is_ his strategy for winning the next election. I am seriously beginning to fear that a Cameron govt will look, sound and act distressingly like a Blair one.
In fact, now I come to think about it, today has been a rubbish day. Bloody hellfire, I wish I were at work.
Wednesday, 7 February 2007
"Enlightenment
...was the choice"; so goes the payoff in a deeply underrated but beautiful Doctor Story starring Peter Davison of the same name. The main focus of the story concerns beings - Eternals - who need to divert themselves with entertainments (they are currently racing sailing ships in space), but the snag is that they have no imagination: they possess great power but no real ability of thought or feeling. Manipulating the story's race - the prize being Enlightenment - are the two Guardians, black and white, the two halves of morality.
There are many many reasons why this is a wonderful story: its slightly elegiac tone being one of them, but I mainly love its two messages - the exercise of choice, for the right reasons, is Enlightenment - and the simple idea that the gods or godlike beings are flawed, bored, unimaginative creatures, while the quick-dying Ephemerals (you and me) are glorious creative things (even if we expend a lot of that creativity finding ways of dying). It seems to me part of the gently subversive nature of Doctor Who that it could undermine the concept of godlike beings, show us for the magnificent things we are - and chide us for our murderousness, all in the same slow, careful, ninety minutes of drama.
Tegan is at one point being hounded and harrassed by Mr Marriner, an Eternal with, it seems a deep crush on her, who continually tells her how important she is to him, how she makes him feel alive:
"Wait a minute, are you trying to say you're in love with me?"
"Love? What is love? I want existence."
There are many many reasons why this is a wonderful story: its slightly elegiac tone being one of them, but I mainly love its two messages - the exercise of choice, for the right reasons, is Enlightenment - and the simple idea that the gods or godlike beings are flawed, bored, unimaginative creatures, while the quick-dying Ephemerals (you and me) are glorious creative things (even if we expend a lot of that creativity finding ways of dying). It seems to me part of the gently subversive nature of Doctor Who that it could undermine the concept of godlike beings, show us for the magnificent things we are - and chide us for our murderousness, all in the same slow, careful, ninety minutes of drama.
Tegan is at one point being hounded and harrassed by Mr Marriner, an Eternal with, it seems a deep crush on her, who continually tells her how important she is to him, how she makes him feel alive:
"Wait a minute, are you trying to say you're in love with me?"
"Love? What is love? I want existence."
Tuesday, 6 February 2007
Nuclear Stupidity
According to Peter Allen on R5 Live Des Browne has just said that one reason for possessing nukes is that if we were subjected to a nuclear terrorist attack (by no means impossible), we could retaliate with a nuclear strike on the source of the attack. Apart from the obvious strategic, intelligence and moral problems of finding which country the terrorists came from, and making the inhabitants of (say) Riyadh pay for their actions, it would be an act of monumental idiocy: it would be a change in the balance of power so massive that it would simply invite further nuclear terrorist attacks, or more likely, a counter-strike from a non-western nuclear armed country. There is a reason we've never used nukes, and that is simply because retaliation is both unpredictable and certain. It could be: a) like for like; b)targeted heavier retaliation; or c) all out war. All three options are possible if one country uses a nuclear weapon in calculated anger. The other option, to do nothing, is unlikely - because of the sudden mutation of global policy and power it suggests. If the material is out there, and one weapon has been exploded, expect the terrorists to use our retaliation as an enormously powerful recruitment method for further strikes. There are also reasons why we had a hotline to the Kremlin and we don't have one to Al-Qaeda: namely that most of the time the rulers of the USA and the USSR didn't actually want to provoke massive, pointless slaughter. The leaders of Al-Qaeda (or whoever) don't play by these rules,as we've seen. Who can say that Al-Q wouldn't in fact be delighted if we destroyed the House of Sud in a nuclear attack? I'd say it was positively likely.
It is one thing for governments to talk in deliberately vague terms about the importance of a deterrent: it is another to make a threat, however hypothetical, about its use. MAD is, and always was, a grammar of survival, in which the certainty of reprisal and the near impossibility of guaranteeing victory plays an important part. To disregard these rules,for whatever reason, is ridiculous and foolhardy. It was with Reagan's talk of Star Wars in the 80s (whether or not it ended the cold war, it helped to bring it to another climax of paranoia); it would be now. Just because there doesn't seem to be an immediate superpower interest doesn't mean there isn't.
(Speaking of the grammar of MAD, the vocabulary of MAD is interesting too: "strategic weapons" involve very little actual strategy, being massive agents of destruction, while "tactical" weapons are only tactics in the sense that a blunderbuss is a targeted weapon. Europe was a "theatre" (I'm aware this has general military use too)."Fallout" and "ground zero" were used after 9/11 and the meaning of "megadeaths" is almost comically brutal (millions of deaths), "fire zone" surgically scientific, and "burst", as in "airburst" or "groundburst" reduces the concept to that of a balloon going pop. In fact this casual brutality is almost a sub-subject in itself (the US referred to their 25 MT weapons as "citybusters" - nice)).
I'd love Britain to disarm, unilaterally or multilaterally; and I'd love a world without nukes - but not because we've used them all. And it could still happen easily.
Remember:"If anyone dies while you are kept in your fallout room, move the body to another room in the house. Label the body with name and address and cover it tightly with polythene, paper, sheets or blankets..."
It is one thing for governments to talk in deliberately vague terms about the importance of a deterrent: it is another to make a threat, however hypothetical, about its use. MAD is, and always was, a grammar of survival, in which the certainty of reprisal and the near impossibility of guaranteeing victory plays an important part. To disregard these rules,for whatever reason, is ridiculous and foolhardy. It was with Reagan's talk of Star Wars in the 80s (whether or not it ended the cold war, it helped to bring it to another climax of paranoia); it would be now. Just because there doesn't seem to be an immediate superpower interest doesn't mean there isn't.
(Speaking of the grammar of MAD, the vocabulary of MAD is interesting too: "strategic weapons" involve very little actual strategy, being massive agents of destruction, while "tactical" weapons are only tactics in the sense that a blunderbuss is a targeted weapon. Europe was a "theatre" (I'm aware this has general military use too)."Fallout" and "ground zero" were used after 9/11 and the meaning of "megadeaths" is almost comically brutal (millions of deaths), "fire zone" surgically scientific, and "burst", as in "airburst" or "groundburst" reduces the concept to that of a balloon going pop. In fact this casual brutality is almost a sub-subject in itself (the US referred to their 25 MT weapons as "citybusters" - nice)).
I'd love Britain to disarm, unilaterally or multilaterally; and I'd love a world without nukes - but not because we've used them all. And it could still happen easily.
Remember:"If anyone dies while you are kept in your fallout room, move the body to another room in the house. Label the body with name and address and cover it tightly with polythene, paper, sheets or blankets..."
Today
...was the kind of day I remember or seem to remember from my childhood: sharp, cold and clear, with a hazy blue horizon and rows of tall empty trees all around. Frost spent the day trying to melt or evaporate but only half winning the battle. It was a classic winter's day of the historical imagination, of the kind you could be forgiven for thinking had disappeared completely. And above all it was just beautiful. The frozen and the freezing world, mechanical and natural, kept an angular beauty, ascetic in its lines and fragments. The kind of day, uncomfortable though it could be, that makes you glad to be alive and amazed that things are beautiful, as if just being here at all isn't enough.
No I'm not taking prozac, or especially happy, but days like today bring out the existentialist in me.
No I'm not taking prozac, or especially happy, but days like today bring out the existentialist in me.
Monday, 5 February 2007
Scepticism, Enquiry and Reason
As regular readers of my blog will know, but perhaps not care greatly about, I am a sceptic who wishes he wasn't. I look for patterns and sense in the world, as well as for things to counter my limited view of reality - the strange, the unaccounted for, and so on. You might also remember that I've mentioned in the past my disappointment that these things have failed to turn up in my life. Technically I suppose it is unreasonable or irrational to want there to be other things than I can see, but there are three main elements (rather than reasons) behind my belief:
1. I cannot believe that the perception of such a limited creature as myself should bear any resemblance to the great truths of reality or existence;
2. I do not want our cultural arrogance to turn out in fact to be the case;
3. I would like there to be purpose to life, irrespective of whether we can or choose to give meaning to it.
These have not been arrived at through logical thought; rather through experience, disappointment and irrationally choosing one position over another on the sole basis that I find it more morally-aesthetically appealing. I am a sceptic but a reluctant one - a position which for me refutes the idea commonly advanced in favour of hating certain groups of people and being able to express it loudly in law, that they "choose" their worldview. I don't. I have it. If I do become an atheist at any point (I'd rather not) it would be because I felt I had no choice in view of how I saw the world. I could not simply change the way I understand life, it would change me. I would like to be shocked (as I often pretended to be as a teenager) into a radically different view of the world, but as it happens I have never been.
I mention all this because of a recent post over at James's place in which he used a photo I was sure I'd seen before. Right enough it was a photo of the 1950 Trent Farm UFO sighting, one which though it has been put through lots of analysis has yet to be proved definitively fake. This means nothing of course, except that it is evidence in favour of a kind of faith (at the moment), and is a minuscule reason to hold to the idea of other things. I am often asked whether ufology is compatible with religious belief - I've never seen the contradiction myself (a la God, in the great Radio 4 series Old Harry's Game: "Do you really think you're the best I could manage?"). The Trent Farm photo proves nothing, suggest very little. To me it just means that there might, still, be something else. All too often evidence for the existence of ufos has been thoroughly and incontrovertibly smashed into fragments. Perhaps this will be (I've seen it happen often enough to "good" pictures). But it's still out there.
Alas I'm struggling to publish it here but you can see the photo here
It doesn't look much, but I'm told it's been terribly good in tests.
1. I cannot believe that the perception of such a limited creature as myself should bear any resemblance to the great truths of reality or existence;
2. I do not want our cultural arrogance to turn out in fact to be the case;
3. I would like there to be purpose to life, irrespective of whether we can or choose to give meaning to it.
These have not been arrived at through logical thought; rather through experience, disappointment and irrationally choosing one position over another on the sole basis that I find it more morally-aesthetically appealing. I am a sceptic but a reluctant one - a position which for me refutes the idea commonly advanced in favour of hating certain groups of people and being able to express it loudly in law, that they "choose" their worldview. I don't. I have it. If I do become an atheist at any point (I'd rather not) it would be because I felt I had no choice in view of how I saw the world. I could not simply change the way I understand life, it would change me. I would like to be shocked (as I often pretended to be as a teenager) into a radically different view of the world, but as it happens I have never been.
I mention all this because of a recent post over at James's place in which he used a photo I was sure I'd seen before. Right enough it was a photo of the 1950 Trent Farm UFO sighting, one which though it has been put through lots of analysis has yet to be proved definitively fake. This means nothing of course, except that it is evidence in favour of a kind of faith (at the moment), and is a minuscule reason to hold to the idea of other things. I am often asked whether ufology is compatible with religious belief - I've never seen the contradiction myself (a la God, in the great Radio 4 series Old Harry's Game: "Do you really think you're the best I could manage?"). The Trent Farm photo proves nothing, suggest very little. To me it just means that there might, still, be something else. All too often evidence for the existence of ufos has been thoroughly and incontrovertibly smashed into fragments. Perhaps this will be (I've seen it happen often enough to "good" pictures). But it's still out there.
Alas I'm struggling to publish it here but you can see the photo here
It doesn't look much, but I'm told it's been terribly good in tests.
Area Newspaper Harsh on Substitute's Performance
The Cotswold Journal is just that - a journal for the Cotswolds. Its sports reports are mainly those of ultra-non league clubs in the area, like, say Bourton Rovers. These guys are amateurs in the true sense of the word: they play sport because they love it, not for financial reward. They play in front of some trees, and enjoy doing so. Which makes this week's Journal's report on Bourton Rovers somewhat distressing (I imagine) for the local man (whom I vaguely know) who came on as a sub during a recent game. He gets the headline AND a paragraph all to himself.
Payne error causes pain!
By Sportsdesk
Kingswood 2, Bourton Rovers 1 ROVERS travelled to second in the table Kingswood confident of a victory after their six-goal mauling of Huntley seven days earlier.
...However, they still restricted Kingswood to only one effort on target but it was a crucial one as it found the net!
An initial shot was blocked on the line by substitute Mark Payne but, with the ball at his feet, he was caught in two minds and, instead of blasting the ball away, he tried passing it out and it hit a home striker and rolled over the line.
Now far be it from me to correct the work of print journalists but this guy works at something else and plays footie because he likes it. Now he's been embarrassed and humiliated in the local press. You mean bunch of bastards! Here's a new story for you then: "Local Paper's Stupid Reporting Contributes to Obesity Crisis as Area Grown Ups Refuse to be Humiliated by PissPoor Hacks."
What next? My puffing and panting in the gym, as my voluminous stomach wobbles alarmingly? "Drummer's Stomach 'Too Big' Says Local Gym Owner"?
Payne error causes pain!
By Sportsdesk
Kingswood 2, Bourton Rovers 1 ROVERS travelled to second in the table Kingswood confident of a victory after their six-goal mauling of Huntley seven days earlier.
...However, they still restricted Kingswood to only one effort on target but it was a crucial one as it found the net!
An initial shot was blocked on the line by substitute Mark Payne but, with the ball at his feet, he was caught in two minds and, instead of blasting the ball away, he tried passing it out and it hit a home striker and rolled over the line.
Now far be it from me to correct the work of print journalists but this guy works at something else and plays footie because he likes it. Now he's been embarrassed and humiliated in the local press. You mean bunch of bastards! Here's a new story for you then: "Local Paper's Stupid Reporting Contributes to Obesity Crisis as Area Grown Ups Refuse to be Humiliated by PissPoor Hacks."
What next? My puffing and panting in the gym, as my voluminous stomach wobbles alarmingly? "Drummer's Stomach 'Too Big' Says Local Gym Owner"?
Sunday, 4 February 2007
Shut Up, I Don't Like You
Iain Dale notes, but rather pulls his punches away from, another arrogant, selfish column from Polly Toynbee. This time she rails against - mainly right wing - bloggers, whom she accuses of rudeness and vitriol. This is rather rich, coming from someone who has earned plenty of money making unsubstantiated accusations and vituperative rantings, directed in part at people of my religion. She believed herself to be a greater moral authority than a man who worked underground in Nazi-occupied Krakow, and thought she knew a great deal more about the world than he did. Whatever. That's not my point here.
Iain quotes her thusly:
I have around 50 arch-enemies who seem to get up at about five in the morning — they have obviously never bought The Guardian, they wouldn't contaminate their fingers with it, and they are right-wingers who hate The Guardian and everything it stands for. Letters used to be quite polite, emails were a bit ruder, but this is of another dimension because you can't answer back unless in public because they're anonymous. I think that's wrong — they should have to put their own names up there. It would make them stop and think twice if they thought their colleagues and families would see what they wrote. Anonymity brings out real mischief in us. It is a debased discourse.
My two-pennorth on the anonymity issue is: so what? Writers and hacks have used pseudonyms and written anonymously for thousands of years: we've no idea who wrote most Anglo Saxon poetry. Doesn't stop it being good poetry though. Polly evidently thinks that rudeness should be the province of the left (read some leftist blogs to see what I mean), and that for rightists to be rude is beyond the pale. The fact is that with a left-dominated government, left ideals becoming law in various areas of public discourse and civil society (my school anti-racism policy reminds me - in bold print- that a racist incident is one defined as such by a victim or any other party - a total regression from basic notions of justice or ethics); with Labour's brazen hypocrisy on matters of human rights among other things being totally unhighlighted by the BBC and even the right media (the Telegraph is bloody useless) the right blogosphere needs to shout to be heard. And it's worked so far, though judging from the recent blogwars the left is starting to get its act together.
Another noise is getting louder though: from the government advisors we roundly fisked months ago, to left bloggers, to left columnists now - the movement seems to be on to shut the right blogosphere down or restrict it (the implication being that some kind of code of practice might need to be introduced). I've no stomach for fights myself, and I can quite easily be the good man who does nothing but I'd implore other right-leaning bloggers to get hold of this article and vigorously refute its premises and conclusions.
UPDATE: 4.30PM. As usual I'm very slow on the uptake. See the Devil for rather more substance on the idea of controlling blog-speech.
Iain quotes her thusly:
I have around 50 arch-enemies who seem to get up at about five in the morning — they have obviously never bought The Guardian, they wouldn't contaminate their fingers with it, and they are right-wingers who hate The Guardian and everything it stands for. Letters used to be quite polite, emails were a bit ruder, but this is of another dimension because you can't answer back unless in public because they're anonymous. I think that's wrong — they should have to put their own names up there. It would make them stop and think twice if they thought their colleagues and families would see what they wrote. Anonymity brings out real mischief in us. It is a debased discourse.
My two-pennorth on the anonymity issue is: so what? Writers and hacks have used pseudonyms and written anonymously for thousands of years: we've no idea who wrote most Anglo Saxon poetry. Doesn't stop it being good poetry though. Polly evidently thinks that rudeness should be the province of the left (read some leftist blogs to see what I mean), and that for rightists to be rude is beyond the pale. The fact is that with a left-dominated government, left ideals becoming law in various areas of public discourse and civil society (my school anti-racism policy reminds me - in bold print- that a racist incident is one defined as such by a victim or any other party - a total regression from basic notions of justice or ethics); with Labour's brazen hypocrisy on matters of human rights among other things being totally unhighlighted by the BBC and even the right media (the Telegraph is bloody useless) the right blogosphere needs to shout to be heard. And it's worked so far, though judging from the recent blogwars the left is starting to get its act together.
Another noise is getting louder though: from the government advisors we roundly fisked months ago, to left bloggers, to left columnists now - the movement seems to be on to shut the right blogosphere down or restrict it (the implication being that some kind of code of practice might need to be introduced). I've no stomach for fights myself, and I can quite easily be the good man who does nothing but I'd implore other right-leaning bloggers to get hold of this article and vigorously refute its premises and conclusions.
UPDATE: 4.30PM. As usual I'm very slow on the uptake. See the Devil for rather more substance on the idea of controlling blog-speech.
EastEnders and Moral Justice
One thing that the curse of postmodernism and the Age of Irony doesn't seem to have battered into total submission is our sense, innate or cultural, of moral justice. Generally, though it may be thrilling occasionally to see a villain prosper, we prefer to see good win over evil and people who act well to succeed. EastEnders has subverted this on many occasions, which is, oddly enough - for me, at least - why it keeps its position among the soaps despite its ridiculous storylines. It exerts a sort of gruesome fascination with its relentless close ups of human misery and gives us a vicarious suffering, one we can switch off. In today's combined edition of the previous week's episodes, we saw Kevin (Phil Daniels) be attacked and abused by his own daughter - for the crime of bringing her up with love and respect, but without telling her he was not in fact her father. She ended the episode by storming out, inviting him to "do what you've always wanted to and push off". With his life in tatters he drives away in the dark. This is why EastEnders leaves me feeling dirty and uncomfortable: a good man, acting out of love, duty and care, brings another man's children up without their mother, comes to see himself as their father, is torn - as you might expect- between self-fulfilment and duty and finding the synthesis of the two his real destiny. His reward, to be rejected by the adult child in a fit of hysteria. I don't know what it's like to be adopted or discover you aren't who you thought you are - but I do know good men when I see them (even if they're not real) and there is so much evil in the real world that it leaves me deeply dissatisfied to see them destroyed on television or in books. It is, no doubt, occasionally what happens: but it is wrong and disturbing. A man is destroyed and we just turn over to watch something else, caring only while we see his face. I'm not using this to make an argument that EastEnders is great literature, just to point out the pervasiveness of evil, the swathe of nihilism that surrounds us, and our moral balances which may have different weights on them but can be held steady.
Wednesday, 31 January 2007
Supporting the Police
No, it's not a post about Sinn Fein. They probably treat the police with more respect than the guy I've just heard (Clive Betts on Radio 5 Live).
He has three complaints about the police re their investigation of the Cash for Honours scandal.
1) It's taking too long
2)The police are deliberately leaking information
3) Arresting a woman at 6.30am is outrageous.
I have never heard such open criticism of the police from a politician of the governing party. His main point seemed to be that the police should now put up or shut up (preferably shut up). He has, however, no complaints about the conduct of the Labour Party which has led to this, or about the conduct of the party during this investigation.
Why should the police do anything for the convenience of Labour? So what if it's taking a long time? Complex investigations often do. The allegations of deliberate leaking and also of misconduct are serious and should be backed up with evidence or withdrawn - instead of which he simply repeated them like a little mantra.
As I read on another blog some time ago, Labour big wigs were much quieter about the shooting of an innocent Brazilian than about the investigation of their own for law-breaking. They would be screaming from the rooftops if it were another Tory financial scandal but instead we have the typically modern open armed bafflement that anyone could think we've done anything wrong and anyway you've no right to go about it like this.
Come on Labour. Shut up and govern properly or **** off.
UPDATE: 1.10pm: Well I guess Tony Blair _did_ shut up, in that he failed to answer any questions on it. And this to Lord Morris - no, my "noble" Lord, it is not distracting us from real issues, the corruption of the governing party is a very real issue. Nor is it making people suspicious of politics - only of Labour. There is a difference, Lord Morris, believe it or not.
He has three complaints about the police re their investigation of the Cash for Honours scandal.
1) It's taking too long
2)The police are deliberately leaking information
3) Arresting a woman at 6.30am is outrageous.
I have never heard such open criticism of the police from a politician of the governing party. His main point seemed to be that the police should now put up or shut up (preferably shut up). He has, however, no complaints about the conduct of the Labour Party which has led to this, or about the conduct of the party during this investigation.
Why should the police do anything for the convenience of Labour? So what if it's taking a long time? Complex investigations often do. The allegations of deliberate leaking and also of misconduct are serious and should be backed up with evidence or withdrawn - instead of which he simply repeated them like a little mantra.
As I read on another blog some time ago, Labour big wigs were much quieter about the shooting of an innocent Brazilian than about the investigation of their own for law-breaking. They would be screaming from the rooftops if it were another Tory financial scandal but instead we have the typically modern open armed bafflement that anyone could think we've done anything wrong and anyway you've no right to go about it like this.
Come on Labour. Shut up and govern properly or **** off.
UPDATE: 1.10pm: Well I guess Tony Blair _did_ shut up, in that he failed to answer any questions on it. And this to Lord Morris - no, my "noble" Lord, it is not distracting us from real issues, the corruption of the governing party is a very real issue. Nor is it making people suspicious of politics - only of Labour. There is a difference, Lord Morris, believe it or not.
Monday, 29 January 2007
The Keeper of Traken
*Doctor Who related post*
I've just seen Keeper for the first time in ages thanks to the new DVD boxed set with this, Logopolis and (My!) Castrovalva - which are all extremely cool.
It occurred to me watching it that there is a political subtext. Traken is a Union held together by an old boy in a chair (the Keeper) who organises the Union for maximum advantages using a bioelectric system (or something) - it guarantees crops, calmness, good weather and the ability to shrivel up evil whenever it appears. The Keeper is aided by 5 Consuls, who serve the Traken state. Into this haven at the end of one Keeper's reign, when his powers are failing steps Melkur, a poisonous individual -a statue, believed to be calcifying - who is able to exploit firstly a gullible Trakenite and secondly the increasingly weak powers of the Keepership to subvert decency and Traken law.
The analogy is weak but there: in 1979 the powers of the welfare and statist consensus "keepership" were failing in a society distrustful, like Traken, of money and individualism; an old keeper (Callaghan) unable to stem the flow of chaos but sensing evil (change). Into the mix falls the evil Melkur (Thatcher); it is wrongly assumed that this Melkur will fade away because the environment is just too nice for its horrid ideas (which is exactly what happened to Heath in 1970-4, who was forced -or really wanted to, whatever - to join the consensus). Melkur proceeds to smash the system, though he starts off slowly with his powers only growing bit by bit. By 1981 (transmission time for Keeper of Traken) the evil Thatcher was able to use Howe (Proctor Neman - "the man's too fond of money to be trusted") to ratchet up the pain, as Melkur does at the climax of the story. In which case the Doctor and Adric function as the unions - the moral authorities who could save everyone from this disaster.
Of course Melkur turns out to be the Master's TARDIS, whereas, unless you want to go even further and read the Master as Reagan, Thatcher was indeed the Master herself.
Time for me to get a proper job I think. But Traken is exceptionally cool and looks brilliant. Geoffrey Beevers has a top voice as the Master too. The trouble is, that like the 70s and 80s, none of it makes a lot of sense: meaningless pseudo-scientific verbiage is scattered around like "recursive integrator", "source manipulator" and so on, but at no point is it actually explained what is going on. I imagine people being thrown out of work because of "monetarism", or sitting at home watching pitched battles between miners and the police, or watching Threads - might have really wanted everyone to shut the **** up and make some sense for once too.
I've just seen Keeper for the first time in ages thanks to the new DVD boxed set with this, Logopolis and (My!) Castrovalva - which are all extremely cool.
It occurred to me watching it that there is a political subtext. Traken is a Union held together by an old boy in a chair (the Keeper) who organises the Union for maximum advantages using a bioelectric system (or something) - it guarantees crops, calmness, good weather and the ability to shrivel up evil whenever it appears. The Keeper is aided by 5 Consuls, who serve the Traken state. Into this haven at the end of one Keeper's reign, when his powers are failing steps Melkur, a poisonous individual -a statue, believed to be calcifying - who is able to exploit firstly a gullible Trakenite and secondly the increasingly weak powers of the Keepership to subvert decency and Traken law.
The analogy is weak but there: in 1979 the powers of the welfare and statist consensus "keepership" were failing in a society distrustful, like Traken, of money and individualism; an old keeper (Callaghan) unable to stem the flow of chaos but sensing evil (change). Into the mix falls the evil Melkur (Thatcher); it is wrongly assumed that this Melkur will fade away because the environment is just too nice for its horrid ideas (which is exactly what happened to Heath in 1970-4, who was forced -or really wanted to, whatever - to join the consensus). Melkur proceeds to smash the system, though he starts off slowly with his powers only growing bit by bit. By 1981 (transmission time for Keeper of Traken) the evil Thatcher was able to use Howe (Proctor Neman - "the man's too fond of money to be trusted") to ratchet up the pain, as Melkur does at the climax of the story. In which case the Doctor and Adric function as the unions - the moral authorities who could save everyone from this disaster.
Of course Melkur turns out to be the Master's TARDIS, whereas, unless you want to go even further and read the Master as Reagan, Thatcher was indeed the Master herself.
Time for me to get a proper job I think. But Traken is exceptionally cool and looks brilliant. Geoffrey Beevers has a top voice as the Master too. The trouble is, that like the 70s and 80s, none of it makes a lot of sense: meaningless pseudo-scientific verbiage is scattered around like "recursive integrator", "source manipulator" and so on, but at no point is it actually explained what is going on. I imagine people being thrown out of work because of "monetarism", or sitting at home watching pitched battles between miners and the police, or watching Threads - might have really wanted everyone to shut the **** up and make some sense for once too.
Sunday, 28 January 2007
Fucking Hell
I picked this up from Daily Pundit and Jeremy J:
Bolton Council Scraps Holocaust Memorial Ceremony
Jeremy, presumably unable to speak, passes no comment: many people pass their comments on the article, and many of those are in favour of the systematic attempt to exterminate an entire ethnic group using modern industrial means as quickly as possible not being mentioned in the context of a wider, wholly contentious "genocide" day in which the holocaust Europe failed to prevent on its own soil by its own people on its own people is not mentioned. I think we can all learn from this. In future, I shall not be commemorating anything as exclusive as my grandfather's death on 10 June, or my friend's on 20 January, but will replace it with an inclusive "death day" in which I remember all dead people, sometime in February probably. Just because I happened to know some people, why should I remember them especially?
Bolton Council Scraps Holocaust Memorial Ceremony
Jeremy, presumably unable to speak, passes no comment: many people pass their comments on the article, and many of those are in favour of the systematic attempt to exterminate an entire ethnic group using modern industrial means as quickly as possible not being mentioned in the context of a wider, wholly contentious "genocide" day in which the holocaust Europe failed to prevent on its own soil by its own people on its own people is not mentioned. I think we can all learn from this. In future, I shall not be commemorating anything as exclusive as my grandfather's death on 10 June, or my friend's on 20 January, but will replace it with an inclusive "death day" in which I remember all dead people, sometime in February probably. Just because I happened to know some people, why should I remember them especially?
Atlas (2)
Peter Allen in looter mode on Radio 5 on Thursday to Catholic adoption woman:
"But you must continue! It's your duty!"
No Peter, it isn't. If you can't offer a service on your terms within the law you are completely within your rights to refuse to offer it at all.
by the way V for Vendetta is a totally crap film. You have 10 years of authoritarian Labour government and you make your villain a...wait for it...Conservative. And the only religious character is a total bastard. Well, I couldn't see that one coming could I?
"But you must continue! It's your duty!"
No Peter, it isn't. If you can't offer a service on your terms within the law you are completely within your rights to refuse to offer it at all.
by the way V for Vendetta is a totally crap film. You have 10 years of authoritarian Labour government and you make your villain a...wait for it...Conservative. And the only religious character is a total bastard. Well, I couldn't see that one coming could I?
Friday, 26 January 2007
Dummer Bangs On
*in which the tin drummer speaks in the rhetoric of BB to give his thoughts on the Defending the Blog Controversy*
Comrades,
Why does the drummer bellyfeel Blogpower?
Comrades, you answerfind in the fundamental principles of drumsoc: goodthink, (which is also freethink), crimethink (which, comrades, is goodthinkful if you are drumsocwise, imagicomsocwise or highamsocwise) and otherthink. What is otherthink? Comrades, otherthink is a basic principle of drumsoc. It is allthink in allwise: but, comrades, a blog we must bellyfeel. Oldthinkers unbellyfeel blogpower. Blogpower means thinkwise. Otherthink and allthink are bellyfeeled by BPcomrades.
Comrades, thuswise we are problemwise. Allthink and otherthink are unstoplike concepts in the drumsoc mind. The drumblog goodwise is to the drummer. But the drumblog is the drummer's ownlife - all blogs are ownblogs. DTB is BP voicewise, is the sealike soul of allthinking bloggers.
Comrades, it is reasonlike that allthinks are good and plusgood. DTB is freelike, meaning it is unbounded by rules, like ingsoc: but, comrades, dtb is also adminworklike: it is fruitlike of admintoil, whose goodthink is to keep DTB as freelike as it is doubleplusgood.
So, comrades, it is with stalinheart that the drummer speaks dtb brothers and sisters that they must keep allthinks goodthinkwise on dtb: ungood thinks must not dtb existwise - blogpowerers bellyfeel friendness. Ungood thinks may be ownblog thoughts but blogpoweres must unpromote ungoodthinks on dtb or otherblogs. Blogpowerers must bellyfeel allfreeideas on dtb. Blogpowerers must bellyfeel freeness and existness of others on dtb and linkwise. Blogpowerers may crimethink erase if that is goodwise to them on ownblogs.
Comrades -
the drummer comradesloves. He speaks goodthink and happythink. Listen drummerwise and comment if you agree drummerwise. If you think drummerspeak is crimethink - then unspeak your thinks.
Comrades,
Why does the drummer bellyfeel Blogpower?
Comrades, you answerfind in the fundamental principles of drumsoc: goodthink, (which is also freethink), crimethink (which, comrades, is goodthinkful if you are drumsocwise, imagicomsocwise or highamsocwise) and otherthink. What is otherthink? Comrades, otherthink is a basic principle of drumsoc. It is allthink in allwise: but, comrades, a blog we must bellyfeel. Oldthinkers unbellyfeel blogpower. Blogpower means thinkwise. Otherthink and allthink are bellyfeeled by BPcomrades.
Comrades, thuswise we are problemwise. Allthink and otherthink are unstoplike concepts in the drumsoc mind. The drumblog goodwise is to the drummer. But the drumblog is the drummer's ownlife - all blogs are ownblogs. DTB is BP voicewise, is the sealike soul of allthinking bloggers.
Comrades, it is reasonlike that allthinks are good and plusgood. DTB is freelike, meaning it is unbounded by rules, like ingsoc: but, comrades, dtb is also adminworklike: it is fruitlike of admintoil, whose goodthink is to keep DTB as freelike as it is doubleplusgood.
So, comrades, it is with stalinheart that the drummer speaks dtb brothers and sisters that they must keep allthinks goodthinkwise on dtb: ungood thinks must not dtb existwise - blogpowerers bellyfeel friendness. Ungood thinks may be ownblog thoughts but blogpoweres must unpromote ungoodthinks on dtb or otherblogs. Blogpowerers must bellyfeel allfreeideas on dtb. Blogpowerers must bellyfeel freeness and existness of others on dtb and linkwise. Blogpowerers may crimethink erase if that is goodwise to them on ownblogs.
Comrades -
the drummer comradesloves. He speaks goodthink and happythink. Listen drummerwise and comment if you agree drummerwise. If you think drummerspeak is crimethink - then unspeak your thinks.
Friday, 19 January 2007
All the Words Used
I'm sorry but today's posts use some *explicit language*.
I am in a bad mood and they help soothe the pointless rage. You'll be pleased to note, however, that no taboos are broken, nor should they be. I've even sweared over at Colin Campbell's. No explanation, just wanted to. Like any little boy.
I am in a bad mood and they help soothe the pointless rage. You'll be pleased to note, however, that no taboos are broken, nor should they be. I've even sweared over at Colin Campbell's. No explanation, just wanted to. Like any little boy.
Mash Ups
I've just heard either a ghastly cover or a dreadful mash up of Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd and some other crap. A couple of years ago some beat combo or other mixed Are Friends Electric with something totally different, to, it has to be said, some good effect: it turns out this is, in fact, a completely new art form. The music of one track to er, the music of another.
The trouble with literature is that this is a lot harder to do, if you are looking to freshen up some classic offerings. Having said that of course, some works of genius lend themselves rather nicely to this treatment. here is an example: Martin Amis' The Information and Will Self's Great Apes:
Richard Tull looked at his word-crap-processor, urgling with word-fuck, pant-hooting his desire for a long and unsatisfying drink: conscionable with lazy thought. He could summon no pornography of grammar to express his end-wishes, his wank art: his imagery was just plastic tits swaying in the brightness where even light was fake, and his words a facial of the laziest, most eyelid-closed kind. As he looked at the badmirror screen he saw his hair, his crazily jutting jawline and thought to himself: "Jesus I am one fucked-up ape. I'm not even a good ape. Fucking Julian B---I mean, er, Gwyn Barry, he makes so many more shit bananas than I do: the arsehole has three breakfasts and five kids licking his effulgence, for fuck's sake."
It's only a matter of time.
The trouble with literature is that this is a lot harder to do, if you are looking to freshen up some classic offerings. Having said that of course, some works of genius lend themselves rather nicely to this treatment. here is an example: Martin Amis' The Information and Will Self's Great Apes:
Richard Tull looked at his word-crap-processor, urgling with word-fuck, pant-hooting his desire for a long and unsatisfying drink: conscionable with lazy thought. He could summon no pornography of grammar to express his end-wishes, his wank art: his imagery was just plastic tits swaying in the brightness where even light was fake, and his words a facial of the laziest, most eyelid-closed kind. As he looked at the badmirror screen he saw his hair, his crazily jutting jawline and thought to himself: "Jesus I am one fucked-up ape. I'm not even a good ape. Fucking Julian B---I mean, er, Gwyn Barry, he makes so many more shit bananas than I do: the arsehole has three breakfasts and five kids licking his effulgence, for fuck's sake."
It's only a matter of time.
Bloke with a one track mind
*warning, explicit language*
I've just been down the pub and I'm absolutely desperate to lay a cable. I mean, I've got the turtle's head and in fact I think I'm touching cloth. My guts are bursting with ale and crisps, not to mention the rotting remains of last night's dinner, now subsumed in bile and exhumed of water. Man I will enjoy it when I get offline and sit on the karzee: if I'm not careful I'll lay a stone of dog's eggs on my way. I'd better have the matches and the "courtesy noise" ready and some top notch reading material: bloody hell what if there's no khazi paper?? I'd better get some in just in case, but the Eye will do if the worst happens...Oh god, what if it's fizzy gravy instead of a nice fudge? Oh well, time to find out. Jeez, I love emptying my guts: there's nothing like it in the world.
UPDATE: 8.46pm: Well, it was the end of the morning fresh, but a little bit of bathroom origami makes everything alright. Get in!
I've just been down the pub and I'm absolutely desperate to lay a cable. I mean, I've got the turtle's head and in fact I think I'm touching cloth. My guts are bursting with ale and crisps, not to mention the rotting remains of last night's dinner, now subsumed in bile and exhumed of water. Man I will enjoy it when I get offline and sit on the karzee: if I'm not careful I'll lay a stone of dog's eggs on my way. I'd better have the matches and the "courtesy noise" ready and some top notch reading material: bloody hell what if there's no khazi paper?? I'd better get some in just in case, but the Eye will do if the worst happens...Oh god, what if it's fizzy gravy instead of a nice fudge? Oh well, time to find out. Jeez, I love emptying my guts: there's nothing like it in the world.
UPDATE: 8.46pm: Well, it was the end of the morning fresh, but a little bit of bathroom origami makes everything alright. Get in!
Thursday, 18 January 2007
Big Brother, Violence of Mouth
I've been following the controversry over BB with mounting disgust and horror. Luckily, just in case I wasn't disgusted, Radio 5 Live have been running regular reports on all their shows for the last two days. They even helpfully played some of Jade's vile outbursts at 7.40am today to soothe my journey into work.
Unfortunately this morally-putrefied episode is giving snobs of left and right full rein to slate the working classes as ignorant and racist, stoking the horrors of underclasses, white van men, ignorance and fear, and generally making comfortable people feel at once happier, with themselves, and more angry,with the vast bubbling mass of racists out there. But I don't read it that way at all.
Jade's outburst on Radio 5 Live this morning was hysterical, primal, and utterly without humanity or restraint. Hatred came spewing like a volcano out of her mouth. Language fails me: she was, as far as I could hear, animalistic in her total inability to control the expression of her hate. It had to be expressed, in buckets, with a violence of mind most of us spend a lifetime trying to calm or work out (and we all have it, to some degree - not racism I mean, but hatreds of one kind or another). It was, despite its uncontrol, a wild seizure of control of space and of other - the elemental cry of the baby and the wounded animal.
I had to teach citizenship today: luckily it was racism and discrimination, and in my leading the class "discussion" I could feel the anger boiling inside me - that this is culture, entertainment, funny - even if we disapprove, like me, there is a part of that which remains voyeuristic in its denunciation. I could feel a degree of the same unreasoning rage: "Why the hell are you watching this?" "Why are we giving this to you as how grown ups behave?" "What are you learning from us?"
And so, amid the debate and the recriminations, the pathetic defences (no Channel 4, it is not the whole of Britain that has the problem here - it is you, you and your cheating cynicism, your contempt and your slimy self-righteousness) - I ended up feeling betrayal. Not of me - I'm white, I don't suffer racism - not, to be fair, even of those who do (though I _do_ feel that, I'm just trying to point out what I felt at the time): but of the children who watch this hell-feed and have to listen to and read about its stinking offal*. There may well be great positives in our society - but we're betraying our most vulnerable people by letting them in on this - and as for that character who goes around in The Simpsons shouting "Will someone think of the children?" - you can fuck right off, you arrogant, cynical tv tossers, with your liberal university pisstake ethics. Fuck off. See what happens down here, on the ground and fuck off.
There's my burst of uncontrolled rage. The victims are the people who choose to come here. I take no payment and I feel no better. The ether is a better receptor for my rage than another human being: so too am I a better holder of it -better that it destroy or damage me than anyone else.
*=a special bang on the tin drum for anyone who can work out my source for this phrase.
Unfortunately this morally-putrefied episode is giving snobs of left and right full rein to slate the working classes as ignorant and racist, stoking the horrors of underclasses, white van men, ignorance and fear, and generally making comfortable people feel at once happier, with themselves, and more angry,with the vast bubbling mass of racists out there. But I don't read it that way at all.
Jade's outburst on Radio 5 Live this morning was hysterical, primal, and utterly without humanity or restraint. Hatred came spewing like a volcano out of her mouth. Language fails me: she was, as far as I could hear, animalistic in her total inability to control the expression of her hate. It had to be expressed, in buckets, with a violence of mind most of us spend a lifetime trying to calm or work out (and we all have it, to some degree - not racism I mean, but hatreds of one kind or another). It was, despite its uncontrol, a wild seizure of control of space and of other - the elemental cry of the baby and the wounded animal.
I had to teach citizenship today: luckily it was racism and discrimination, and in my leading the class "discussion" I could feel the anger boiling inside me - that this is culture, entertainment, funny - even if we disapprove, like me, there is a part of that which remains voyeuristic in its denunciation. I could feel a degree of the same unreasoning rage: "Why the hell are you watching this?" "Why are we giving this to you as how grown ups behave?" "What are you learning from us?"
And so, amid the debate and the recriminations, the pathetic defences (no Channel 4, it is not the whole of Britain that has the problem here - it is you, you and your cheating cynicism, your contempt and your slimy self-righteousness) - I ended up feeling betrayal. Not of me - I'm white, I don't suffer racism - not, to be fair, even of those who do (though I _do_ feel that, I'm just trying to point out what I felt at the time): but of the children who watch this hell-feed and have to listen to and read about its stinking offal*. There may well be great positives in our society - but we're betraying our most vulnerable people by letting them in on this - and as for that character who goes around in The Simpsons shouting "Will someone think of the children?" - you can fuck right off, you arrogant, cynical tv tossers, with your liberal university pisstake ethics. Fuck off. See what happens down here, on the ground and fuck off.
There's my burst of uncontrolled rage. The victims are the people who choose to come here. I take no payment and I feel no better. The ether is a better receptor for my rage than another human being: so too am I a better holder of it -better that it destroy or damage me than anyone else.
*=a special bang on the tin drum for anyone who can work out my source for this phrase.
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
CounterFactual
There is a brilliant chat going on at Paul Linford about the alternatives to Michael Foot for Labour in 1980, with some great detail in the comments. Paul's own preference would have been for Tony Crosland (hmmmm), whom he thinks might have saved Labour politics and hence (in his view) Britain in the 1980s. Counterfactual history achieves very little, but it is a lot of fun. Often you don't see it in such detail, though: usually you come across an essay which discusses what might have happened had a major global event happened differently, and more often, had Britain fallen in 1940 (I have at least 2 Doctor Who books and 1 old dvd on this theme). I suppose you could read Threads as being counterfactual, as its dates match up for 1983, rather than 1984 when it was broadcast.
Paul's post and the discussion is unusual in its depth and well worth a butcher's. I guess it's the kind of discussion I can imagine Labourites having regularly but to someone outside left politics it seems quirky and, in an odd sort of way, imaginative. Now - Tories - Willie Whitelaw in 75?
UPDATE: As Paul points out in the comment below, this is all predicated on the non-death of Crosland in 1977.
Paul's post and the discussion is unusual in its depth and well worth a butcher's. I guess it's the kind of discussion I can imagine Labourites having regularly but to someone outside left politics it seems quirky and, in an odd sort of way, imaginative. Now - Tories - Willie Whitelaw in 75?
UPDATE: As Paul points out in the comment below, this is all predicated on the non-death of Crosland in 1977.
Tuesday, 16 January 2007
Cricket Shock
England have won a match, against New Zealand in the second full ODI since the end of the Test Series.
The game is notable chiefly as further proof of "Brearley's Law", first formulated in Leeds in 1981. This law has three basic sub-laws, or by-laws:
1. A successful all-rounder shall not make a successful captain of the England cricket team.
2. When such a captain is relieved of his duties, he is replaced by a captain whose specific skill is that he takes responsibility for the performance himself.
3. Under these circumstances, the ex-captain shall once more perform to his ability, and take wickets and score runs.
It is staggering that the analysts and geeks in the ECB set up had forgotten this law.
The game is notable chiefly as further proof of "Brearley's Law", first formulated in Leeds in 1981. This law has three basic sub-laws, or by-laws:
1. A successful all-rounder shall not make a successful captain of the England cricket team.
2. When such a captain is relieved of his duties, he is replaced by a captain whose specific skill is that he takes responsibility for the performance himself.
3. Under these circumstances, the ex-captain shall once more perform to his ability, and take wickets and score runs.
It is staggering that the analysts and geeks in the ECB set up had forgotten this law.
The Shitbag's Shitbag
Regular readers of this blog will know that I loathe and despise Charlie "Lord" Falconer. He's just been on Radio 5 now, spouting his anti-democratic, arrogant, poisonous shit yet again. He's just said there are more than enough English MPs to force through any measure that England wants in the UK Parliament as it is, so an English Parliament is wholly unnecessary. You stupid fat git, how the fuck did we end up with tuition fees then, while Scotland didn't? Whose support was essential?
Why is this unelected idiot yet again commenting on matters of democracy? Yes I know the answer already. It's his job, believe it or not. One that he is no more qualified to do than I am to build houses. Whatever your views on an English Parliament (and I'm not convinced that I want another layer of govt), the right of this man to comment and worse, to make the rules, was given to him by a busted flush of a PM, his friend and flatmate, and not through his own ability - it is a calculated slap in the face to Britain and to democracy (Falconer made a big thing just now of saying "he" was happy with things as they are) to let Falconer anywhere near the constitution or indeed anything else.
If the revolution ever comes, I would like to have his very considerable guts; I have orders for plenty of garters.
Why is this unelected idiot yet again commenting on matters of democracy? Yes I know the answer already. It's his job, believe it or not. One that he is no more qualified to do than I am to build houses. Whatever your views on an English Parliament (and I'm not convinced that I want another layer of govt), the right of this man to comment and worse, to make the rules, was given to him by a busted flush of a PM, his friend and flatmate, and not through his own ability - it is a calculated slap in the face to Britain and to democracy (Falconer made a big thing just now of saying "he" was happy with things as they are) to let Falconer anywhere near the constitution or indeed anything else.
If the revolution ever comes, I would like to have his very considerable guts; I have orders for plenty of garters.
Sunday, 14 January 2007
Atlas Shrugged
I know this will cost me any leftish readers I still have but so what. I'm re-reading this for the third time and I love it. Yes - the villains all have "empty" faces and "lifeless" eyes, and the heroes are all supermen and women whose achievements are probably physically impossible, but I like it because I am a bit of a geek, and I find endless descriptions of railways comforting, and I like it because I agree with its basic tenet that a man without a purpose is a moral evil. I don't agree that no-one should respond any to non-selfish ideal or should work for the good of others, though I understand where Rand is coming from (even if I can't see a society that would function on those lines - Rand doesn't really draw one, as Galt's Gulch is not a real community in any sense). It does make me think (naturally) of myself, and of the need to get out, get working, achieve things, build things, create things, be happy and be satisfied in the sense of achievement - that my tribute to the wonder of existence is to contribute to the store of resources that the world has, and thereby to leave some kind of order as a defence, however temporary, against the entropy. That does affect me, and make me think: not only do you have to create your own meaning, but your own purpose, and stick to it, create real things with it (and as such, the heavy industry of the novel is a metaphor for tangible things generally). I wonder if Rand was, in part, writing mysticism without knowing it.
An interesting side issue, like a small plate of onion rings to the pizza of the novel, is that some of her heroes are scions of great dynasties (except, I think, Hank Rearden). There is, somewhere, a half hearted defence of the principle of heredity, as a set of values an individual has to prove themselves worthy of, but it still strikes me as odd that Dagny Taggart and Franscisco D'Anconia haven't created everything for themselves: they've been gifted a lot of what they have (talent, especially). If Rand wants us to grasp the greatest good as the creation by an individual of meaning and of material, then it is almost self-defeating to concentrate on people of such abilities and fortune. Or it's a two fingers to the critics, given that she knew what they would say (they pretty much appear in the novel anyway, as Bertram Scudder and various others).
Is a small blog an achievement, or a distraction? What is great work? Oh God, I'm sounding like Jim Taggart.
An interesting side issue, like a small plate of onion rings to the pizza of the novel, is that some of her heroes are scions of great dynasties (except, I think, Hank Rearden). There is, somewhere, a half hearted defence of the principle of heredity, as a set of values an individual has to prove themselves worthy of, but it still strikes me as odd that Dagny Taggart and Franscisco D'Anconia haven't created everything for themselves: they've been gifted a lot of what they have (talent, especially). If Rand wants us to grasp the greatest good as the creation by an individual of meaning and of material, then it is almost self-defeating to concentrate on people of such abilities and fortune. Or it's a two fingers to the critics, given that she knew what they would say (they pretty much appear in the novel anyway, as Bertram Scudder and various others).
Is a small blog an achievement, or a distraction? What is great work? Oh God, I'm sounding like Jim Taggart.
"Anti Trust" Rules
I picked this up from the Devil.
A quote from the Kent News website where you can read the whole story:
A police spokesman confirmed that Superintendent Joanna Young, an Area Commander for Kent Police, had told the six volunteers they would not be allowed back into Herne Bay police station from January 20 if they didn’t sign the forms.
Police say the information is needed in case the volunteers become “vulnerable to financial inducements”.
A police spokesman said the vetting procedure was due to a new computer system set to launch next month which would give volunteers “controlled access” that could be used “for personal financial gain”.
“We value tremendously their support but the Kent force is not prepared to compromise the security of our systems.”
In other words, for wholly paranoid and controlling reasons, the police are acting in deliberate mistrust of an organisation whose whole purpose is to support the work of the over-stretched police forces of this country.
This is the way private and public contracts of all kinds are being run now: out of fear, hate, self-loathing, whatever, we have less and less ability to trust those we work with. We demand of them to prove that they are not doing or simply are not something that we fear. Another example of this is the recent statute expanding CRB checks. This has an added benefit in that as well as automatically conferring suspicion on people, it requires a large number of people to be employed processing these claims. In this particular case a public service is demanding more information than it needs, for reasons of its own.
If the police cannot work with Neighbourhood Watch in a mutually beneficial arrangement, then which other organisations can do so?
A quote from the Kent News website where you can read the whole story:
A police spokesman confirmed that Superintendent Joanna Young, an Area Commander for Kent Police, had told the six volunteers they would not be allowed back into Herne Bay police station from January 20 if they didn’t sign the forms.
Police say the information is needed in case the volunteers become “vulnerable to financial inducements”.
A police spokesman said the vetting procedure was due to a new computer system set to launch next month which would give volunteers “controlled access” that could be used “for personal financial gain”.
“We value tremendously their support but the Kent force is not prepared to compromise the security of our systems.”
In other words, for wholly paranoid and controlling reasons, the police are acting in deliberate mistrust of an organisation whose whole purpose is to support the work of the over-stretched police forces of this country.
This is the way private and public contracts of all kinds are being run now: out of fear, hate, self-loathing, whatever, we have less and less ability to trust those we work with. We demand of them to prove that they are not doing or simply are not something that we fear. Another example of this is the recent statute expanding CRB checks. This has an added benefit in that as well as automatically conferring suspicion on people, it requires a large number of people to be employed processing these claims. In this particular case a public service is demanding more information than it needs, for reasons of its own.
If the police cannot work with Neighbourhood Watch in a mutually beneficial arrangement, then which other organisations can do so?
Friday, 12 January 2007
Borrowing...Stealing...Being Inspired
Following an inspiring post over at Sicily Scene, and trying to keep up with something Tom Paine said about me, I would like to recall something that means something to me.
I went to a private school (boo) with no real history of Oxbridge entry until my friend and I secured places in 1995. We liked to believe that we blazed a trail for the two genuinely talented guys beneath us, Peter Harrison and someone else to follow in 1996 - real name, for a reason that will become clear.
We were not great mates with the two, but once they came up to Oxford we became very close friends, playing snooker, getting babs (kebabs, not a misspelling of "babes" - heaven forfend - we were geeks' geeks), drinking cider, until some time after we left Oxford; when I at least, lost touch around five years ago.
I met a guy in the pub in June last year who was friends with all of us.
"Did you hear about Pete Harrison?" he said.
"No," I replied, thinking he'd become a CEO or been made a chess grandmaster.
"He died."
My world fell beneath me. Pete had been ill, and had been suffering the last time I met him, when he had told me, and because of some total inadequacy on my part, I had _forgotten_ - I mean, deliberately so. The memory of his telling me only surfaced at the moment I heard he had died.
Peter has, at least, if he is around anywhere, the satisfaction of a beautiful obit in the school mag: what it does not say is that he was teased for years - when he got to Oxford he finally met people of his intellectual calibre and was utterly unlike many of them. Unassuming, funny, modest, loving life, trying to discover- that was Peter, and friendly to boot. Pete was way, way above me. In all ways. He was a great man and he is a loss not just to his family, but to life. To the world.
Pete - I miss you and I am sorry for losing contact when I should have been close to hand. I think of your floppy blond fringe and your horse-like laugh, your intelligence and your humanity.
The soul...goes beyond being...and enters...the divine world...
I went to a private school (boo) with no real history of Oxbridge entry until my friend and I secured places in 1995. We liked to believe that we blazed a trail for the two genuinely talented guys beneath us, Peter Harrison and someone else to follow in 1996 - real name, for a reason that will become clear.
We were not great mates with the two, but once they came up to Oxford we became very close friends, playing snooker, getting babs (kebabs, not a misspelling of "babes" - heaven forfend - we were geeks' geeks), drinking cider, until some time after we left Oxford; when I at least, lost touch around five years ago.
I met a guy in the pub in June last year who was friends with all of us.
"Did you hear about Pete Harrison?" he said.
"No," I replied, thinking he'd become a CEO or been made a chess grandmaster.
"He died."
My world fell beneath me. Pete had been ill, and had been suffering the last time I met him, when he had told me, and because of some total inadequacy on my part, I had _forgotten_ - I mean, deliberately so. The memory of his telling me only surfaced at the moment I heard he had died.
Peter has, at least, if he is around anywhere, the satisfaction of a beautiful obit in the school mag: what it does not say is that he was teased for years - when he got to Oxford he finally met people of his intellectual calibre and was utterly unlike many of them. Unassuming, funny, modest, loving life, trying to discover- that was Peter, and friendly to boot. Pete was way, way above me. In all ways. He was a great man and he is a loss not just to his family, but to life. To the world.
Pete - I miss you and I am sorry for losing contact when I should have been close to hand. I think of your floppy blond fringe and your horse-like laugh, your intelligence and your humanity.
The soul...goes beyond being...and enters...the divine world...
Wednesday, 10 January 2007
Tin Testimonials
I've been meaning to do this for a while: it's an idea floated by James Higham and carried out by several, including, spectacularly, Tom Paine.
So, without further ado, here's my selection of 10 BlogPowerers:
Nourishing Obscurity. James Higham's prodigious work rate leaves most of us feeling like arthritic old stonemasons. His range of interests is huge, and generally, he lightly dusts his eclectic posts with his points of view, rather than browbeating us with rants. It is always a pleasure to read James and to uncover another nugget of news or culture that had completely passed me by.
Sicily Scene This blog is a ray of Mediterranean sunshine, with its mixture of food, drink, culture and everyday life. Sensitively written with love and thoughtfulness, it is an insight into both a life, and a way of life.
An Insomniac Matt is a very bright and well read man, whose views on subjects ranging from religion to Torchwood are invariably fascinating and, above all, humane. His blog, like many of the best, ranges from the nibble-post to the extensive argument and you can rely on it for something to amuse or interest you, and above all, to make you think.
Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe. Colin gives us a Scot's view of life in Australia, with personal stuff, politics, sport and things that make him laugh all included. I find Colin's style very amusing, wry and clever. His blog is the one to turn to for the latest Australian political outrage, or just for the latest bit of funny-but-true (or in the case of the cricket, unfunny-but-sadly-true).
Bel is ThinkingBel writes with passion and knowledge on politics from a right of centre perspective. Her style is very easy on the eye and extremely engaging: I can often feel my rage building as I read the latest governmental idiocy exposed. Bel also engages fully in the discussions on her blog, which are full, cover lots of viewpoints, and are invariably thoughtful. One of my daily reads, beginning to outrank Iain Dale for politics (for me)!
Not Saussure Not Saussure is one of the cleverest bloggers on BP and the one with the keenest eye for detail. He can be relied on to get right to the heart of a political or cultural matter, to dispel prejudice and ignorance, and to debate the subject fully in the comments. A real gem of a cultural and political blogger.
The Last Ditch It was a brilliantly thoughtful post on atheism which first drew Tom Paine to my attention and since then he has continued to inspire, with his well-reasoned and often furious posts on politics. His devotion to his series of testimonials has revealed a keen eye for character and a real interest in the motivations of the bloggers he writes about. A class writer and thinker.
Ellee Seymour Ellee is a blogger with a profile beyond most our dreams. Her writing on political issues is incisive and opinionated, usually very well researched: this is a blogger who really knows what they're talking about and who has really thought before deciding on her opinion. The debates in the comments are often extensive and reveal a range of views.
Morag the Mindbender. Morag is a very lively writer, whose work bounces along with opinion, rage, and intelligence. She takes strong views and explains them with humour and an appeal to the humanity of others. Her posts are generally detailed and knowledgeable, and reading her views is becoming an increasing necessity.
Corporate Presenter Jeremy Jacobs' blog is a fascinating mix of presenting, media, politics and humour. He writes with verve, irony and a dry wit. His presenting posts are always interesting to those of us who know absolutely nothing about it, but all of his posts are engaging and well worth a read.
There it is. Sorry for any inaccuracies!
UPDATE, 9.05PM: Quick extra-testimonial to WESTMINSTER WISDOM in the comments.
UPDATE 12/1/07, 7.40PM: Grammatical error fixed.
UPDATE 12/1/07: 8.10PM: Grammar/Spelling errors fixed. I am rubbish at writing.
So, without further ado, here's my selection of 10 BlogPowerers:
Nourishing Obscurity. James Higham's prodigious work rate leaves most of us feeling like arthritic old stonemasons. His range of interests is huge, and generally, he lightly dusts his eclectic posts with his points of view, rather than browbeating us with rants. It is always a pleasure to read James and to uncover another nugget of news or culture that had completely passed me by.
Sicily Scene This blog is a ray of Mediterranean sunshine, with its mixture of food, drink, culture and everyday life. Sensitively written with love and thoughtfulness, it is an insight into both a life, and a way of life.
An Insomniac Matt is a very bright and well read man, whose views on subjects ranging from religion to Torchwood are invariably fascinating and, above all, humane. His blog, like many of the best, ranges from the nibble-post to the extensive argument and you can rely on it for something to amuse or interest you, and above all, to make you think.
Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe. Colin gives us a Scot's view of life in Australia, with personal stuff, politics, sport and things that make him laugh all included. I find Colin's style very amusing, wry and clever. His blog is the one to turn to for the latest Australian political outrage, or just for the latest bit of funny-but-true (or in the case of the cricket, unfunny-but-sadly-true).
Bel is ThinkingBel writes with passion and knowledge on politics from a right of centre perspective. Her style is very easy on the eye and extremely engaging: I can often feel my rage building as I read the latest governmental idiocy exposed. Bel also engages fully in the discussions on her blog, which are full, cover lots of viewpoints, and are invariably thoughtful. One of my daily reads, beginning to outrank Iain Dale for politics (for me)!
Not Saussure Not Saussure is one of the cleverest bloggers on BP and the one with the keenest eye for detail. He can be relied on to get right to the heart of a political or cultural matter, to dispel prejudice and ignorance, and to debate the subject fully in the comments. A real gem of a cultural and political blogger.
The Last Ditch It was a brilliantly thoughtful post on atheism which first drew Tom Paine to my attention and since then he has continued to inspire, with his well-reasoned and often furious posts on politics. His devotion to his series of testimonials has revealed a keen eye for character and a real interest in the motivations of the bloggers he writes about. A class writer and thinker.
Ellee Seymour Ellee is a blogger with a profile beyond most our dreams. Her writing on political issues is incisive and opinionated, usually very well researched: this is a blogger who really knows what they're talking about and who has really thought before deciding on her opinion. The debates in the comments are often extensive and reveal a range of views.
Morag the Mindbender. Morag is a very lively writer, whose work bounces along with opinion, rage, and intelligence. She takes strong views and explains them with humour and an appeal to the humanity of others. Her posts are generally detailed and knowledgeable, and reading her views is becoming an increasing necessity.
Corporate Presenter Jeremy Jacobs' blog is a fascinating mix of presenting, media, politics and humour. He writes with verve, irony and a dry wit. His presenting posts are always interesting to those of us who know absolutely nothing about it, but all of his posts are engaging and well worth a read.
There it is. Sorry for any inaccuracies!
UPDATE, 9.05PM: Quick extra-testimonial to WESTMINSTER WISDOM in the comments.
UPDATE 12/1/07, 7.40PM: Grammatical error fixed.
UPDATE 12/1/07: 8.10PM: Grammar/Spelling errors fixed. I am rubbish at writing.
On Parliament
Today a Lib Dem MP appeared on Radio 5 Live complaining about the procedures and atmosphere of the House of Commons at PMQs. I have no problem with criticism of the procedures, but her attitude to the way debate was conducted was that fierce, aggressive debate, which includes attempted intimidation and humiliation was "no way to run a democracy". I couldn't disagree more. If you have what it takes to run the country, you must be able to promote and justify your views in the face of the fiercest criticism and the loudest laughter when you rise to speak. A vigorous democracy should not be run by a mealy mouthed "consensus" where everything is stitched up behind the scenes by people who basically agree with each other, like the EU has been for years (Tony's ambitions to be a leader in Europe never recovered from how he was completely stitched up over CAP reform). A healthy democracy should contain difference of opinion, dissent and disagreement, however offensive this disagreement may appear to some, however "right" one position may seem. And if you are a leader, which by definition MPs are, you should be able to handle the bear pit. I see no reason for governments to be treated with respect, nor for individual MPs to demand to be heard respectfully. If you can make yourself heard, and thereby respected, you deserve to be an MP. If not - tough. Do something else - become a teacher, another job where you are responsible for making people hear, and they have no obligation to listen unless you can inspire them.
Monday, 8 January 2007
If He Can Do it....
I've just seen lightweight 80s children's tv presenter Simon Parkin ("Simon Parkin's always larking" in the words of the immortal song) on Thames Valley Tonight - as the "weatherman".
Well with reference to Jeremy Jacobs' new year tag, if Parkin, chiefly known for being a professional prat, can reinvent himself, I'm sure I can.
Well with reference to Jeremy Jacobs' new year tag, if Parkin, chiefly known for being a professional prat, can reinvent himself, I'm sure I can.
Ghostwatch
I've been watching this classic 1992 mockumentary starring Michael Parkinson and the surprisingly good Sarah Greene again lately and I've been trying to put my finger on exactly why it leaves me feeling uneasy, despite being a 30 year old who has never experienced the supernatural in any direct way. It may well be that this is in fact the reason, but that aside, there are a number of threads in it I'd like to draw out. If you're unfamiliar with the programme, look it up on wikipedia. The following ramble does contain spoilers.
Firstly the setting is Northolt. Ever since I was very small I have always found the concept of a supernatural event in a totally banal setting quite terrifying. To the extent that for some years in my teens (caused by what I'm not sure) I found something deeply spooky about rows of terraces and semis themselves. In my twenties of course, this transmuted into a similar fear, via Threads,this time of the same streets being blown apart. For me as a child and in some lingering sense as an adult, to look at a switched off television, empty arm chair or dark landing - is itself disquieting.
Secondly there is something more than ghostly about it. As is suggested on the commentary on the DVD, poltergeist cases generally carry with them the hint of psychosexual drama: they ask us questions about what teenage girls (who are often at the centre of these dramas) are: are they children to be protected, or are they "people who can be reacted to sexually" (a slight paraphrase of the show's producer on the commentary). Our culture has a deepening conflict here, and I just wonder, watching the sensitive way Ghostwatch develops the elder girl as very much being on a cusp between vulnerable childhood and powerful, independent adolescence, how well we're dealing with it. Sexuality is later revealed to be relevant, albeit as paedophilia; and there are passing references throughout to girls going missing, and brutal (possibly sexual) murders.
Thirdly the conceit - of how a 90s style daytime tv show would handle a genuine supernatural event - is very well handled. It plays effectively on the unthreatening and cheerful screen personalities of its presenters, in the process exposing the reassuring distance and "control" we subconsciously expect from our tv shows. Yes, we can and have, many times, deconstructed television. But we all turn to it, still, as a source of information and comfort.
Fourthly, the poltergeist is thoroughly nasty. It is some kind of composite, or aggregate of historical evil: evil is here shown to have a real existence. We don't like this concept, generally speaking but for me at least it retains its power. Unlike real world poltergeist activity this one does actually harm people and has a plan, which it executes. Like with The Ring, I have a lot of trouble, intellectually and morally, with supernatural beings who just happen to be unadulteratedly nasty. I don't really know why. Incidentally, I find the US version of the The Ring more frightening than the Japanese original.
there had been discussion, before it was transmitted on 31.10.92, as to whether Ghostwatch was a real documentary or not. Quite apart from the credits, and the Screen One drama stand logo, and the Radio Times listing, the cue for disbelief is in the tree foliage you see within one minute, and the too-good home video footage. But it undeniably feels real, especially to someone whose childhood was largely spent watching Sarah Greene and Mike Smith on children's or childish programmes as well as Craig Charles on Red Dwarf.
If you have seen it, I'd appreciate your thoughts (on the show and on my neuroses). If you haven't - get it on dvd asap.
Firstly the setting is Northolt. Ever since I was very small I have always found the concept of a supernatural event in a totally banal setting quite terrifying. To the extent that for some years in my teens (caused by what I'm not sure) I found something deeply spooky about rows of terraces and semis themselves. In my twenties of course, this transmuted into a similar fear, via Threads,this time of the same streets being blown apart. For me as a child and in some lingering sense as an adult, to look at a switched off television, empty arm chair or dark landing - is itself disquieting.
Secondly there is something more than ghostly about it. As is suggested on the commentary on the DVD, poltergeist cases generally carry with them the hint of psychosexual drama: they ask us questions about what teenage girls (who are often at the centre of these dramas) are: are they children to be protected, or are they "people who can be reacted to sexually" (a slight paraphrase of the show's producer on the commentary). Our culture has a deepening conflict here, and I just wonder, watching the sensitive way Ghostwatch develops the elder girl as very much being on a cusp between vulnerable childhood and powerful, independent adolescence, how well we're dealing with it. Sexuality is later revealed to be relevant, albeit as paedophilia; and there are passing references throughout to girls going missing, and brutal (possibly sexual) murders.
Thirdly the conceit - of how a 90s style daytime tv show would handle a genuine supernatural event - is very well handled. It plays effectively on the unthreatening and cheerful screen personalities of its presenters, in the process exposing the reassuring distance and "control" we subconsciously expect from our tv shows. Yes, we can and have, many times, deconstructed television. But we all turn to it, still, as a source of information and comfort.
Fourthly, the poltergeist is thoroughly nasty. It is some kind of composite, or aggregate of historical evil: evil is here shown to have a real existence. We don't like this concept, generally speaking but for me at least it retains its power. Unlike real world poltergeist activity this one does actually harm people and has a plan, which it executes. Like with The Ring, I have a lot of trouble, intellectually and morally, with supernatural beings who just happen to be unadulteratedly nasty. I don't really know why. Incidentally, I find the US version of the The Ring more frightening than the Japanese original.
there had been discussion, before it was transmitted on 31.10.92, as to whether Ghostwatch was a real documentary or not. Quite apart from the credits, and the Screen One drama stand logo, and the Radio Times listing, the cue for disbelief is in the tree foliage you see within one minute, and the too-good home video footage. But it undeniably feels real, especially to someone whose childhood was largely spent watching Sarah Greene and Mike Smith on children's or childish programmes as well as Craig Charles on Red Dwarf.
If you have seen it, I'd appreciate your thoughts (on the show and on my neuroses). If you haven't - get it on dvd asap.
Sunday, 7 January 2007
Ashesto...Oh bloody hell, alright then
Although I've been leaving comments on various blogs, like little thought-turds, I've avoided posting myself about England's meeker than meek surrender of the Ashes.
That's because brighter and more knowledgeable folk than myself have already done it to death. It's also because the reason is simple.
Our players weren't good enough.
Yes - we have good players; yes, sometimes they play well. But in cricket, as in other sports, we Englishers have a remarkable capacity for self-delusion when it comes to the talent of our players compared to other countries'. It is of a piece with football and all the "The Premiership is the best league in the world" crap - something said by people who barely know other leagues exist, I suspect. I've spent part of the afternoon watching another "great" English sportsman - Wayne Rooney. He's a good player, sure - but at the moment he's very, very far from being a world beater. The English cricketers are good players - at the moment, nothing more.
Michael Atherton in his trenchant Sunday Torygraph article today carries extracts from an interview with Steve Harmison which exposes the man's utter lack of desire, commitment or even interest in winning cricket matches for England:
'Andrew Flintoff didn't give you the new ball again in this Test match. Do you feel that you are now at a stage where you can reclaim the new ball again and lead the attack?'
'Don't know. You'll have to ask Andrew Flintoff about that. I don't know. I really don't know. We haven't had a conversation about it. I haven't had it since Brisbane, so I think you'll have to ask him about it. At the end of the day, I've got no queries about it. As long as I'm playing I'm happy to bowl anywhere.'
'Would you like to have the new ball?'
'I'm not particularly bothered, to be honest. At the end of the day I'm trying to get wickets with a ball that's as hard as possible. If that means the new ball so be it.'
'You're off home next week. Sad to be going?'
'No [big smile]. I'm sort of looking forward to getting away from it. At the end of the day it's been seven weeks of hard cricket and I've made my decision, and I'm going home to hopefully recharge the batteries in time for the West Indies in May, if selected.'
'It's a long time before the West Indies get to England. May 17 is the first Test, I think. What are you going to do between now and then to make sure that you are in the best possible mental and physical shape so that you are right for that first Test?'
'I'm not sure, to be honest. I think you'll have to ask Duncan Fletcher what the itinerary and plan is for those players who don't play one-day internationals and just play Tests. I'm sure Fletcher, like he always does, will look after the players in the best way possible and I'm sure he'll do it again. I imagine there will be a lot of county cricket before then. Obviously, we've been going non-stop since India, so a nice little recharge of the batteries to be mentally fresh for coming into the Test series in three, four, five months' time.'
Those of us who've believed for a while that he doesn't really like cricket had these prejudices confirmed by his comments. England players are chock-full of "attitude" of a certain kind: the relentless almost hysterical self-assertion that leads to stupid haircuts, massive tattoos, ghosted columns in newspapers and adverts for this that and the other. But they lack the only "attitude" that matters in sport. The will to win, at all, any cost. Last year, Australia, seeing that they were at the top of world cricket by some margin, announced that henceforth they'd be doing everything in accordance with the utterly mythical "spirit of cricket" and that sledging, intimidatory play, failing to walk and so on were therefore not de rigeur any longer. This year all that has gone: it was just a device for ensuring no-one reached their heights by the same methods they did in the first place. Australian players want to win for Australia. They love the symbols (the baggy green), the history (only Australian cricket would deliberately connect a wartime massacre with a Test series) and the place itself they come from and are part of. Cricket, for Australians, embraces the developing culture of a country moving onwards and building its own cultural heritage. Cricket is not just sport for them: it embraces cultural achievement and a deep history within a context.
All of these are things we deeply worry about: we have no cultural confidence at all. Giving youngsters at the ECB Academy lessons in English Cricket History, quite apart from being hilarious, would be pointless. No one would care. The three lions tattoos that adorn some players' arms (I'm thinking of Flintoff and Pietersen) are symbols, not of love of one's country, but of one's insecure belief in that love. You cannot give English (or English-qualified) players the will to win the Australians have because we don't believe in anything to win for. We can, and will win, games and series. But the sustained excellence of Australia or West Indies is well beyond us in the modern world.
That's because brighter and more knowledgeable folk than myself have already done it to death. It's also because the reason is simple.
Our players weren't good enough.
Yes - we have good players; yes, sometimes they play well. But in cricket, as in other sports, we Englishers have a remarkable capacity for self-delusion when it comes to the talent of our players compared to other countries'. It is of a piece with football and all the "The Premiership is the best league in the world" crap - something said by people who barely know other leagues exist, I suspect. I've spent part of the afternoon watching another "great" English sportsman - Wayne Rooney. He's a good player, sure - but at the moment he's very, very far from being a world beater. The English cricketers are good players - at the moment, nothing more.
Michael Atherton in his trenchant Sunday Torygraph article today carries extracts from an interview with Steve Harmison which exposes the man's utter lack of desire, commitment or even interest in winning cricket matches for England:
'Andrew Flintoff didn't give you the new ball again in this Test match. Do you feel that you are now at a stage where you can reclaim the new ball again and lead the attack?'
'Don't know. You'll have to ask Andrew Flintoff about that. I don't know. I really don't know. We haven't had a conversation about it. I haven't had it since Brisbane, so I think you'll have to ask him about it. At the end of the day, I've got no queries about it. As long as I'm playing I'm happy to bowl anywhere.'
'Would you like to have the new ball?'
'I'm not particularly bothered, to be honest. At the end of the day I'm trying to get wickets with a ball that's as hard as possible. If that means the new ball so be it.'
'You're off home next week. Sad to be going?'
'No [big smile]. I'm sort of looking forward to getting away from it. At the end of the day it's been seven weeks of hard cricket and I've made my decision, and I'm going home to hopefully recharge the batteries in time for the West Indies in May, if selected.'
'It's a long time before the West Indies get to England. May 17 is the first Test, I think. What are you going to do between now and then to make sure that you are in the best possible mental and physical shape so that you are right for that first Test?'
'I'm not sure, to be honest. I think you'll have to ask Duncan Fletcher what the itinerary and plan is for those players who don't play one-day internationals and just play Tests. I'm sure Fletcher, like he always does, will look after the players in the best way possible and I'm sure he'll do it again. I imagine there will be a lot of county cricket before then. Obviously, we've been going non-stop since India, so a nice little recharge of the batteries to be mentally fresh for coming into the Test series in three, four, five months' time.'
Those of us who've believed for a while that he doesn't really like cricket had these prejudices confirmed by his comments. England players are chock-full of "attitude" of a certain kind: the relentless almost hysterical self-assertion that leads to stupid haircuts, massive tattoos, ghosted columns in newspapers and adverts for this that and the other. But they lack the only "attitude" that matters in sport. The will to win, at all, any cost. Last year, Australia, seeing that they were at the top of world cricket by some margin, announced that henceforth they'd be doing everything in accordance with the utterly mythical "spirit of cricket" and that sledging, intimidatory play, failing to walk and so on were therefore not de rigeur any longer. This year all that has gone: it was just a device for ensuring no-one reached their heights by the same methods they did in the first place. Australian players want to win for Australia. They love the symbols (the baggy green), the history (only Australian cricket would deliberately connect a wartime massacre with a Test series) and the place itself they come from and are part of. Cricket, for Australians, embraces the developing culture of a country moving onwards and building its own cultural heritage. Cricket is not just sport for them: it embraces cultural achievement and a deep history within a context.
All of these are things we deeply worry about: we have no cultural confidence at all. Giving youngsters at the ECB Academy lessons in English Cricket History, quite apart from being hilarious, would be pointless. No one would care. The three lions tattoos that adorn some players' arms (I'm thinking of Flintoff and Pietersen) are symbols, not of love of one's country, but of one's insecure belief in that love. You cannot give English (or English-qualified) players the will to win the Australians have because we don't believe in anything to win for. We can, and will win, games and series. But the sustained excellence of Australia or West Indies is well beyond us in the modern world.
R Tape Loading Error, 0:1
via Dizzy I found this website. I think that is all there is, but it made me laugh. In fact it's a myth that you'd load something for 15 minutes on a Spectrum and then it would trump your expectations with this oft-seen message. In the classic Speccy age (ie before Amstrad took over Sinclair) the 48K games generally took less than 10 minutes to load and many only a couple of minutes (less than it takes my pc to wheeze Age of Empires into gear). A brilliant game like Horace Goes Skiing took hardly any time at all and was extremely reliable. Of course it wasn't the games that were the problem, but the cable-connected tape recorder which sometimes had to be propped up, or the cables sellotaped in. It was really later, when the redesigned (and much less sexy) Amstrad Spectrums (or should that be Spectra) had built in tape decks and 128K that games could take the thick end of 20 minutes to load.
The point for me about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum for me was this: it was an idiosyncratic little thing, beautiful in its own way but quite hard to use (a clumsy 8 year old like me was no good with the rubber keys). The error messages like the famous one above were masterpieces of stubborn understatement, often insistently cropping up at the least appropriate moment. You couldn't type rude messages onto it because the keys always printed command words at the beginning of a line, which was a shame but it made writing (or in my case mostly copying out) BASIC programs easier. Even the data systems were idiosyncratic, like the microdrive, which I never had but always wanted: whatever else it may have been it was sexy and fitted the computer's design well. Its graphics were poor compared to the C64 and the Amstrad CPC464, but I always felt a little...underwhelmed using these devices. They lacked a joie de vivre that the Speccy made its own.
At least you got error messages regularly with a Spectrum: my pc just freezes or restarts with no warning at all most of the time and you've no idea what's gone wrong.
The point for me about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum for me was this: it was an idiosyncratic little thing, beautiful in its own way but quite hard to use (a clumsy 8 year old like me was no good with the rubber keys). The error messages like the famous one above were masterpieces of stubborn understatement, often insistently cropping up at the least appropriate moment. You couldn't type rude messages onto it because the keys always printed command words at the beginning of a line, which was a shame but it made writing (or in my case mostly copying out) BASIC programs easier. Even the data systems were idiosyncratic, like the microdrive, which I never had but always wanted: whatever else it may have been it was sexy and fitted the computer's design well. Its graphics were poor compared to the C64 and the Amstrad CPC464, but I always felt a little...underwhelmed using these devices. They lacked a joie de vivre that the Speccy made its own.
At least you got error messages regularly with a Spectrum: my pc just freezes or restarts with no warning at all most of the time and you've no idea what's gone wrong.
Saturday, 6 January 2007
Another Tag
Corporate Presenter has tagged me thusly:
We're a week into 2007. Do you know what you want to achieve by the end of January? Have you set goals to reach by the end of the first quarter?
If not, why not?
Have you taken on too much, or are you in a dither as to know what to do?
Just how is it for you on the morning of January 6th?
answer: This is too difficult to answer properly. No I don't have any real goals, never have had: but I am at a point in life where I do need to set some. I have no proper work (although I teach, it's not full time anymore) and I need some. I suppose I'm in a dither, have been for a good twelvemonth or so. I always think that the Divine Comedy foreshadows Jung with its opening about the fork in the road at the midpoint of life; I have been standing at this crossroads for a while now - both roads look difficult and unappealing and it is physically impossible to take the road back, as it has disappeared.
Sorry not to give a humorous or effective answer, CP: but it's a question close to my heart and one I struggle with.
Enough of the personal stuff.
We're a week into 2007. Do you know what you want to achieve by the end of January? Have you set goals to reach by the end of the first quarter?
If not, why not?
Have you taken on too much, or are you in a dither as to know what to do?
Just how is it for you on the morning of January 6th?
answer: This is too difficult to answer properly. No I don't have any real goals, never have had: but I am at a point in life where I do need to set some. I have no proper work (although I teach, it's not full time anymore) and I need some. I suppose I'm in a dither, have been for a good twelvemonth or so. I always think that the Divine Comedy foreshadows Jung with its opening about the fork in the road at the midpoint of life; I have been standing at this crossroads for a while now - both roads look difficult and unappealing and it is physically impossible to take the road back, as it has disappeared.
Sorry not to give a humorous or effective answer, CP: but it's a question close to my heart and one I struggle with.
Enough of the personal stuff.
Thursday, 4 January 2007
The Newish Martin Amis
A lot of people, rightly, suspected that the great man had gone off the boil a bit in the twenty first century. Although Experience was well received,justifiably, Koba the Dread attracted an awful lot of criticism, some of which was justified, some not. And Yellow Dog...well...put it this way. I remember nothing of that book. Nothing at all.
Let me summarise what I think Amis is brilliant at:
1. The startlingly appropriate and arresting turn of phrase.
2. Black comedy.
3. Endings.
4. Imagery.
5. He can create some ridiculously memorable characters, who can be, within the one person, cariacature, self-reference, and subtle (I think Richard Tull has a bit of this, and almost any character from London Fields).
But - when he gets too lost in his own turns of phrase, or is too clumsy with his political obsessions (nuclear war, the twentieth century's horror), he loses sight of his own story, and bad Amis is unreadable. I wonder if the closing of the C20 left Amis rudderless, without the motivating force of his imagination.
House of Meetings, his latest, seems to me to be Amis feeling his way slowly back to form. He has lost a lot of the ornament of Yellow Dog and previous books; he has moved off the well worn "low life" patch onto something more bleakly low; he has devoted a whole, though short, book, to the creation of a character based in pain. Other writers have done this lots of times, but I haven't read a lot of Amis that approaches this for consistency and feeling. His political concerns sit, sometimes foregrounded, sometimes not, even if the character reads himself explicitly as Russia. I think he is moving towards a stronger synthesis of an experience that (as I've said before here) I think we're still living through. But for me - the main thing is that the language is sharper, much more focused, much less pointlessly showy and is in fact consistently poignant and thought-provoking.
It's not a work of genius, but it could be seen as a revision of his last couple of books, a radical redrafting, and it sets him on a much more promising course than it looked like he was on in 2004.
Let me summarise what I think Amis is brilliant at:
1. The startlingly appropriate and arresting turn of phrase.
2. Black comedy.
3. Endings.
4. Imagery.
5. He can create some ridiculously memorable characters, who can be, within the one person, cariacature, self-reference, and subtle (I think Richard Tull has a bit of this, and almost any character from London Fields).
But - when he gets too lost in his own turns of phrase, or is too clumsy with his political obsessions (nuclear war, the twentieth century's horror), he loses sight of his own story, and bad Amis is unreadable. I wonder if the closing of the C20 left Amis rudderless, without the motivating force of his imagination.
House of Meetings, his latest, seems to me to be Amis feeling his way slowly back to form. He has lost a lot of the ornament of Yellow Dog and previous books; he has moved off the well worn "low life" patch onto something more bleakly low; he has devoted a whole, though short, book, to the creation of a character based in pain. Other writers have done this lots of times, but I haven't read a lot of Amis that approaches this for consistency and feeling. His political concerns sit, sometimes foregrounded, sometimes not, even if the character reads himself explicitly as Russia. I think he is moving towards a stronger synthesis of an experience that (as I've said before here) I think we're still living through. But for me - the main thing is that the language is sharper, much more focused, much less pointlessly showy and is in fact consistently poignant and thought-provoking.
It's not a work of genius, but it could be seen as a revision of his last couple of books, a radical redrafting, and it sets him on a much more promising course than it looked like he was on in 2004.
Tuesday, 2 January 2007
Erm...New Year
I've left the Happy off because I'm not at all delighted by the prospect of a New Year, nor am I sad or nostalgic for the old one. 2006 was a miserable, mean-spirited year, which ended with typical nasty prurience with the widespread viewing of Saddam's execution. I oppose the death penalty; and I have no sympathy for Saddam: but our media's obsession with the footage has been grisly and almost pornographic. Any optimism I might have had for the new year dissipated before it had even begun in the homespun yet exotic-and-enticing footage of Saddam about to drop (in some papers they helpfully showed the pictures of the drop itself). Rubbish and disgusting.
On a lighter note, thanks to all those who left messages for me over the holiday period. I wanted-and needed- a time off to recharge and to stop churning out rubbish ten or so times a week. I am back, but I don't feel any better about the world or the future. I'm with the french anti-2007 protestors from Nantes, who rightly opposed the relentless and damaging march of time, refused to recognise the new year and immediately, on the striking of midnight, starting anti-2008 protests.
Let us return to 1982: at least then we'd have 3 glorious years of Peter Davison as Doctor Who to look forward to.
On a lighter note, thanks to all those who left messages for me over the holiday period. I wanted-and needed- a time off to recharge and to stop churning out rubbish ten or so times a week. I am back, but I don't feel any better about the world or the future. I'm with the french anti-2007 protestors from Nantes, who rightly opposed the relentless and damaging march of time, refused to recognise the new year and immediately, on the striking of midnight, starting anti-2008 protests.
Let us return to 1982: at least then we'd have 3 glorious years of Peter Davison as Doctor Who to look forward to.
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