Monday, 1 November 2004
Confederacy Of Dunces »
Jonathan Derbyshire has not only been kind enough to add me to his blogroll, he’s even referred to my drunken ramblings as very fine indeed. I take no pleasure in disagreeing with him, but I see little merit in Don Paterson’s polemics.
I blogged Harold Pinter’s anti-war poetry—and the response—as The Best Words In The Best Order. If you know your Coleridge, draw your own conclusions. Otherwise, look here. Here is Jonathan’s entire post.
Hurrah for Don Paterson, who has heaped much-deserved opprobrium on the head of Harold Pinter. Paterson has Pinter’s execrable “anti-war poetry” in his sights: “To take a risk in a poem is not to write a big sweary outburst about how crap the war in Iraq is, even if you are the world’s greatest living playwright. Because anyone can do that.”
One of the manifold reasons that I ditched the Grauniad as my dnoc was its liking for the use of “danger” in regards to art. Let’s be clear here. Writing a poem may send shivers down your spine; it may give you a hard-on (if you’re male); it may make you feel temporarily superhuman. It is not climbing Ben Nevis. It is not entering a burning building. It is not pilfering your mum’s cigarettes. It is not asking someone you love to marry you. It is not even being Alistair Campbell and signing up for the Mirror Group Pension Fund. There is no danger, no risk whatever, in poetry, or in painting, except being revealed as a tosser.
I hope that the Guardian piece linked to above misrepresents Mr Paterson’s views.
He calls for total eradication of amateur poets and of “postmoderns”.
I spent last summer on Craig Raine’s yacht and followed that with a week in Andrew Motion’s volcano hideout. Professional poetry, as we know, are where it’s at. Only fools think Raine teaches at Cambridge, and Motion writes newspaper columns and biographies. And they’re the famous ones. Larkin was a serious poet. He worked in Hull University Library for a laugh you know. And when I met Kingsley Amis, he told me that the best-selling novels and their film and TV rights were pocket money that he wouldn’t miss from the bullion rolling in from the verse. “No one reads prose any more, dear boy” he told me reclining in his early afternoon ass’s milk bath.
The “postmodern” jibe seems aimed at John Ashberry in particular. The Groan, again.
And he accuses postmoderns of keeping poetry as “mysterious as possible”.
By chance, I’ve got Helen Gardner’s “The Metaphysical Poets” on my desk.
Mean while the Mind, from pleasure less,
Withdraws into its happiness;
The Mind, that Ocean where each kind
Doth streight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other Worlds, and other Seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green Thought in a green Shade.
What the hell is that about, eh? Dr Gardner informs me that “It was a common opinion that all species found on land had their counterparts in the sea.” Don’t be daft, what’s like a hammerhead shark on land then? Or like a spider in the sea? Andrew Marvell is just being stupid. For “mysterious as possible” also see early Auden, all of T. S. Eliot, Pound, Dylan Thomas … None of whom, whatever their faults, were “postmodern.”
Incredibly, I’m with Stephen Pollard here—Harold Pinter is a great playwright. I stick by what I said before.
To my knowledge, noone has yet praised those 31 words for doing their job so well. He was asked to write to Bush, not to give an account of his personal philosophical or moral journey, and he was asked to do so to sell newspapers and cause discussion. He succeeded.
These 442 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:01pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 3 November 2004
Nooooooooooooooooooo »
Fuck.
This word was hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:21am GMT Permanent link.
Thursday, 4 November 2004
There Is A Bright Side »
Now we’ll know if there was anything to this. If Tony Blair leaked that he’d have preferred Kerry, the White House is unlikely to forgive him; and whether he did or not, a lot of the electorate here won’t vote Labour while Bush is in power. Bush has been elected with the economy having been run by idiots for the past four years. Last term, he could get by on the bequest from Clinton. Now the Republicans have to live with their own recklessness. Whatever happens, Iraq is still going to a mess. Now it’s Bush’s mess to clear up.
And, best of all, what The Poor Man said.
These 109 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:21pm GMT Permanent link.
Very Sad »
Suicide attack kills UK soldiers.
Three Black Watch soldiers have been killed and eight injured in a suicide attack in Iraq.
Still, every time a soldier dies an angel gets its wings, eh? I’m sure the MoD will snap that one up. Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram and Geoff Hoon, you’re doing a grand job. England thanks you.
There are times when I wish there were a hell, and James VI were in its lower reaches.
These 60 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:27pm GMT Permanent link.
Friday, 5 November 2004
If You're Using Typepad ... »
… You should read this and this before posting. (The update is announced on the Typepad homepage, but it looks like an ad, so you’re likely to ignore it.)
These 29 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:44pm GMT Permanent link.
Calling An Asshole An Asshole »
This is funny. (Sent to me by Will.)
So is this. (Found through Bloggerheads.)
I’m still working on my response to the US election, the usual levels of invective and howling at the moon will return presently.
These 37 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:53pm GMT Permanent link.
A Subtle Blend »
James Hamilton has a very good post (which merits some sort of reply) on George Bush’s Election Victory: the psychologists speak.
I generally think psychologists should stay out of politics (though it’s hard to say exactly how, as there are some crazy people around and the rationales for voting are reducible to factors other than the merits of the supposed “arguments"). I agree with James on the vapidity of much of the UK press’s response to the American election result (my dissatisfaction extends to the Telegraph’s tautologous Bush returned in triumph).
So as light relief from all this election stuff, consider Blendie (5MB QuickTime video), explanation and diagram.
In Blendie 2000 a mix of design, art, engineering, and psychotherapy inform the interaction facilitated between participants and the familiar blender. An empathic opportunity is made manifest emphasizing and utilizing the aspects of blenders that are not what have been traditionally designed into them intentionally — i.e. their incredible sound and vibration — but that nevertheless have large roles in our interaction and approach to them.
Found on MetaFilter.
These 111 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:16pm GMT Permanent link.
Saturday, 6 November 2004
A Sort Of Reply »
James Hamilton suggests:
I am sure that somewhere on the Tory benches in Westminster is a politician in their late thirties of whom we know nothing now but will know everything in ten years time.
Indeed there is (IMO) and his name is William Hague. (He’s in his 40s now.) I heard Mr Hague on Radio 4 scoring points against the Prime Minister regularly. He was as effective against the then invincible PM as Michael Howard is against the shadowy Phony Tony. The Tories ran their last three leaders in the wrong order. Howard should have been first as a fall guy who restructured the party. IDS should have continued the rebuilding. And Hague, who is far less good at internal issues, should have been saved for the main task, storming the citadel. He’s a nastier cut-and-thrust politician than Boris Johnson (a decent cove) is, and far more suited to the Commons rout. The Tories deployed him at the worst time.
Hague’s weakness in the 90s was that he was seen as this Treen-headed political wonk who first addressed the Tory conference when he was 15. “Get a life” said the voters. Put him next George W Bush, though, and his weaknesses look like strengths.
Like James I’m disappointed by the Guardian and Mirror response to the US election. (I share their disappointment; but I don’t want to be told what I think.) I’ve tried to articulate my position in the comments here.
These 211 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:30pm GMT Permanent link.
Cum Grano Salis »
Before you read the rest of this post, take heed of Matthew Turner.
The lesson of all this is of course — blogs are the best medium for very stupid people to mouth off about things they nothing about and given no thought to.
Now that’s out of the way, Ranting Greg posts on the R****t of the A******n E******n, and, as a change from the uninformed ululations coming from much of the press and practically all blogs, has something interesting to say about the Catholic vote.
I went to notionally Protestant schools; my father was an atheist and my mother an agnostic who became a Unitarian. Though most of my friends where I lived were Catholic, I know very little about the thought processes of either strand of Christianity. So, up front, I don’t really know what I’m talking about here.
The thought that has occurred to me as I’ve trailed along in the wake of the debate about the Democrats adopting a ‘moral’ position. (I think access to schooling, health care, equality of opportunity, and so on are moral issues, and my reading of US politics is that the Dems are the moral party, but then, I’m 3,000 miles away.) It’s clear to me that ‘morality’ is being defined by American Protestantism, and they (if I can speak of millions of people so glibly), especially the “born again” ones, think that they are ‘pure’, ‘free from sin’ or whatever. Catholics (though I find much that is distasteful — to me — in Catholicism) seem to believe that everyone is susceptible to temptation; we all have fatal flaws (to adapt Othello and Muriel Spark). Catholics (like liberals) seem wiser in this.
(On Clinton, for instance, my response was “So he likes attractive young women. There are worse vices.")
American sitcoms are generally better than home-grown ones. (I was struck by how slickly “Friends” last night adapted “Cyrano de Bergerac”, but I digress.) I can’t, however, imagine an American “Father Ted.”
This is a bit rambling because I’ve been thinking about this for a few days, but am several facts short of the basis of an argument. As so often, my views come down to:
- Anyone who tells you that they are moral/good/has a sense of humour isn’t or hasn’t;
- Any programme leading to conformity is to be resisted;
- Any prohibition on speech is probably wrong.
On Catholics and, for that matter, morality, Peter Cuthbertson quotes Andrew Sullivan.
The assault on Falluja is about to begin. It’s worth putting aside all our divisions at this point in praying that our forces succeed with the minimum of civilian casualties.
Andrew is right. Peter, in objecting to that, is wrong.
Among the worst consequences of the Iraq War and the subsequent absence of weapons of mass destruction has been the way the justification for war has now centred around the Iraqi people. To make this justification work, the Iraqis have been portrayed in places as virtual demi-gods, a whole nation of ancient Athenians, ready to democratise the Middle East by their example. I’m not so confident. This is not a people on the verge of Western liberal democracy, and it is not a people whose lives should be paramount over those of Western troops.
Peter, I’d say that they’re ready for Athenian democracy.
Marpessa watched too. Achilles—could it be true?—was digging into the soft flesh of Hector’s calf with the point of his dagger. Why? What was the reason? When he’d made a hole—that was what it looked like— in one leg, he let it fall to the ground, and picked up the other. No one stirred on the city walls. The sun suddenly vanished behind a bank of cloud and a livid darkness spread over the Plain. Holes dug out with a knife. One in each leg. Then Achilles took two leather thongs and threaded them through the torn and ragged flesh. He tied the ends to his own chariot, and climbed into it.
“He can’t … not even Achilles. He wouldn’t … would he?”
“Capable of anything …”
“Shameful … may the Gods come down from Olympus and strike the bastard dead!”
Marpessa stared. The only Goddess that she could see was Pallas Athene, who still stood on the Plain, calmly watching out of her grey eyes as Achilles’ chariot dragged the body of Hector three times round the walls. Bloodstained earth filled his mouth. His long, black hair was yellow with matted sand. Someone gave a cry that sounded like a bird tearing its own feathers from its breast …
Troy (P116) by Adele Geras (known to blog readers as WotN).
These 409 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:04pm GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 7 November 2004
The World's Gone Mad »
There’s a completely bizarre story in today’s Observer: Ferry fears ministers may die in hunt row.
The ringleader of the group of hunt supporters who stormed the House of Commons has warned that ministers might be ‘assassinated’ as anger mounts over a possible ban on blood sports.
Otis Ferry, the son of rock singer Bryan, said he feared that deepening resentment towards the government could result in people being killed. The 21-year-old, who remains on police bail for his part in the invasion of parliament, even fears that the Rural Affairs Minister, Alun Michael — whom he confronted across the despatch box during the infamous stunt — may be a target.
Why is a 21-year-old the spokesman for anything? Why is the Grauniad giving him a platform for such rubbish? And what happened to direct quotation? (Oh, right, Grauniad writers don’t do shorthand anymore, that’s kind of common isn’t it?) I can’t be the only person who doubts his protests that he’s “against violence” — incitement to murder someone is definitely a crime. It’s not something I say every day, but someone in the CPS should consider charges. The stupid boy is on bail, and he just stepped over the line.
These 106 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:51am GMT Permanent link.
Paula Radcliffe »
Paula Radcliffe makes her return to competitive marathon running in New York later today (it’ll be on BBC1 at 2:25). Not one of the articles on her comeback has mentioned her husband.
These 32 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:21pm GMT Permanent link.
Getting It »
Oliver Kamm November 04, 2004.
What appeals to me about President Bush is that it has never crossed his mind that he might be mistaken in his strategy of extirpating altogether the “evildoers”. Further, he has never doubted the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force, as an essential part of addressing the genuine “root causes” of Islamist terror — the tyrannies and failed states that breed theocratic fanaticism. A man without doubts and possessed of evangelical fervour is, on these issues, just what is required for the leadership of the free world.
Robert X. Cringely also on November 4, 2004.
I eventually finished the piece and decided to go see the war since I had been in Beirut and Angola, but had never seen trench warfare, which is what I was told they had going in Iran. So I took a taxi to the front, introduced myself to the local commander, who had gone, as I recall, to Iowa State, and spent a couple days waiting for the impending human wave attack. That attack was to be conducted primarily with 11-and 12-year-old boys as troops, nearly all of them unarmed. There were several thousand kids and their job was to rise out of the trench, praising Allah, run across No Man’s Land, be killed by the Iraqi machine gunners, then go directly to Paradise, do not pass GO, do not collect 200 dinars. And that’s exactly what happened in a battle lasting less than 10 minutes. None of the kids fired a shot or made it all the way to the other side. And when I asked the purpose of this exercise, I was told it was to demoralize the cowardly Iraqi soldiers.
It was the most horrific event I have ever seen, and I once covered a cholera epidemic in Bangladesh that killed 40,000 people.
Waiting those two nights for the attack was surreal. Some kids acted as though nothing was wrong while others cried and puked. But when the time came to praise Allah and enter Paradise, not a single boy tried to stay behind.
Now put this in a current context. What effective limit is there to the number of Islamic kids willing to blow themselves to bits? There is no limit, which means that a Bush Doctrine can’t really stand in that part of the world. But of course President Bush, who may think he pulled the switch on a couple hundred Death Row inmates in Texas, has probably never seen a combat death. He doesn’t get it and he’ll proudly NEVER get it.
Funny, only one of those is an American, and he’s the one who “gets it.”
These 28 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:16pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 8 November 2004
History Repeats Itself »
Free States and Slave States, before the Civil War found through Harry Hutton and Kevin Drum. (Harry has a bulging mailbag — Fnarr! Fnarr! — in response to his post. So Bush fans aren’t only brain-dead fascists, they’re humourless moronic bastards as well. It figures. That was a joke. Don’t write in. No, do write in. See if I care.)
Found through The Editors.
Slavery is endorsed by the Bible. As y’all know, you should live your lives by the good book. (No Southern stereotypes here.)
These 88 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:16am GMT Permanent link.
Morals And Morons »
Found through TBogg. Values and Bush’s victory.
Insulated from most Americans, the establishment left has managed to come across as having completely lost touch with an America that is trying to instill in their children the moral values that the establishment left has rejected.
That’s the take on the election by one Newt Gingrich.
But Gingrich, through his many public appearances, remains a self-appointed definer of the Republican Revolution, which counted family values at its core. These very values are called into question if the married speaker of the House [Gingrich] was having an affair with a much-younger congressional employee who ultimately reported to him.
Critics of Gingrich have long made much of the insensitivity he demonstrated in serving his first wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer. Nor did news of his efforts to cut life insurance coverage for the mother of his children always endear Gingrich to his family values supporters, but it was generally assumed that his marital errors were in the past.
This time, his approach was less personal. Marianne Gingrich told the Washington Post that she was informed of the affair and the request for a divorce last May in a telephone call from Newt to her mother’s home, where she was visiting.
After first expressing best wishes to his mother-in-law on her 84th birthday, he asked to speak to his wife, who was soon reduced to tears by Newt’s news.
“I said, ‘Marianne, what’s wrong?’ ” Gingrich’s mother-in-law told the Washington Post, and she said her daughter replied, “He doesn’t want me as his wife anymore.” According to the Post: “There was a second jolt soon afterward. Newt Gingrich, now 56, informed his wife that he was having an affair with a congressional aide, a woman 23 years his junior.”
I have an ow-you-say disconnect with Mr Gingrich’s values.
These 26 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:59am GMT Permanent link.
I Don't Want A Holiday In The Sun »
They used to tell me
I was building a dream.
And so I followed the mob
When there was earth to plow
Or guns to bear
I was always there
Right on the job.
They used to tell me
I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad
I made it run
Made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad
Now it’s done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Brother, can you spare a dime? Gorney, Harburg
Glad I didn’t speak too soon department. I did think of posting that I wouldn’t visit the States over the next four years, but Brad DeLong, Matt Yglesias, and the FT have convinced that this would be foolish. If the US is going to be cheap to visit, I mean Third World cheap, it would be stupidly self-sacrificing. I mean imagine being able to buy black-market Cuban cigars for a couple of Euros (do I look simple enough to change my currency? smart criminals won’t take dollars) … or sitting in a pavement Starbucks in some Red State and asking the locals if they voted for Bush, and if they say yes, putting a match to a $100 bill, knowing if wouldn’t buy you a sandwich back in Europe.
As the Dupe says in the Mirror.
How relaxing to admit what everyone knows — that the US doesn’t want French or German or Russian troops in Iraq, and never did, any more than these states want to send them.
France and Germany will have economies when the next Presidential election rolls round. 2005 isn’t going to be a good year for the UKIP.
These 160 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:33pm GMT Permanent link.
Four More Years »
You forgot what you came to forget?
Channel 4 showed the magnificent Apocalypse Now over the weekend, and it set me thinking how typical it is for the out-of-touch liberati to show rank anti-war propaganda which might influence impressionable young minds. Were the Moral Majority in control of the airwaves, we’d be spared films purporting to show the US military machine as psychotic and murderous. And that scene were Robert Duvall says “You either surf or you fight” as if to say that surfing is the better option. Have my eyes deceived me or have David Aaronovich and friends not been clamouring for the change to stick a bayonet into the Fedayeen? What was his last Observer column? “They don’t like it up ‘em, Captain Mainwairing.” Perhaps it was Michael J Totten, it’s so hard to tell these mugs moral guardians apart these days.
The films we want show gallant US soldiers defeating a chaotic, primitive and clearly amoral arab foe. You don’t have to be some East-coast clever dick to join the army. It probably helps if you aren’t, in fact. That even goes for the (whisper it) French Foreign Legion.
Still from one of the best war films ever made, though I have to agree with this assessment.
It’s a good film up to and including the scene where they request their discharge. From there, it drags along with an occasional good gag to redeem it. Everson was right on target about this one when he said “Four reels was a clumsy length for a Laurel and Hardy film; they never repeated it.” But the “Jeanie-Weenie” device is inspired, and Ollie crashing into the piano is one of their greatest-ever sight gags.
These 204 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:39pm GMT Permanent link.
Psephology »
Nick links to the Independent’s Even without Tory revival, Blair can lose out.
A study for The Independent suggests that Michael Howard could achieve a hung parliament without improving the Tories’ poor performance in 2001 if people disenchanted with Mr Blair and opponents of the Iraq war vote tactically against Labour in the election expected next May.
Labour seem worried.
Peter Hain, the Leader of the Commons, said the study showed the dangers of Labour supporters “having a punt on the Liberal Democrats in the mistaken belief that the election will be a cakewalk for us.They would be horrified if they voted to give us a bloody nose but actually elected a Tory MP and possibly even handed Michael Howard a back-door key to Number 10. In key Labour-Tory marginals, this shows that a Labour vote for the Liberal Democrats lets the Tories in.”
Peter Hain, short version: vote for us, fools. If Howard wins we lose our nice offices and Chimpy McSmirk (© James) won’t come back for another discreet visit. Note he’s not even mooting concessions to putative defectors. Withdrawal from Iraq or the internment of Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett in Abu Ghraib, for instance.
The pros and cons of Peter Hain, considered.
Pro:
- South African, but not actually a Nazi.
- Impressive fake tan.
Con:
- New Labour, but not actually a Nazi.
- Smug.
- Cunt.
Sod it, I can’t stand Alun Michael, even if I don’t want him assassinated by hunt supporters. I’m voting Liberal Democrat next time. Campaigning for them too, if I can be arsed.
These 135 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:12pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 9 November 2004
Have You Stopped Beating Your Wife Yet? »
Sebastian Holsclaw has an appropriately confused response to the Theo Van Gogh Assasination (his term). The bit I have doubts about is this extract from the Belmont Club.
The murder caused widespread popular anger, yet political correctness forced much of the public reaction into unconventional channels. The Mayor of Rotterdam Ivo Opstelten had a mural with the words “Thou Shalt Not Kill” removed in the aftermath of the Gogh murder because it might inflame Muslims. Gogh’s film “Submission”, which offended his murderers in the first place, was pulled from the Stedelijk Museum of modern art because it might cause an “uproar"; the same film was yanked off Rotterdam TV West for fear it would endanger their employees.
I sort of doubt this because it smacks of “looney left” demonising. So I looked up "theo van gogh” mural on Google News and the only references to this story were in the US press.
One of those papers was the Chicago Sun-Times (whose politics I covered here), another was the Berkshire Eagle.
In a disturbing incident later in the week, an artist’s mural depicting a dove and the words “Thou shalt not kill” were sandblasted off the wall by local authorities after the imam of a local mosque called it “culturally insensitive.” Sensitivity is all well and good, but the West has the right and the duty to defend its values and its civilization against those who would destroy them.
I can’t imagine why anyone would take the claim that “Thou shalt not kill” (and in the King James Bible version at that) is “culturally insensitive” seriously. But then, because I read this Index on Censorship piece (found through the Butterflies and Wheels weekly email) I looked up the Butterflies and Wheels notes page where Ophelia Benson calls it a “bizarre article.” Helpfully, she also names the artist as Chris Ripke, and a quick googling found "Thou Shalt Not Kill” = racist which has a photo of the mural, which is in Dutch, “Gij zult niet doden” with the date 02-11-04
A local journalist, Wim Nottroth, who wanted to protest against this by standing in front of the mural was arrested. His story, in Dutch, here. Video of the event, here.
It looks like some right-wing scare stories have something behind them after all. (The film needs Real Player, so I haven’t seen it.) As the Dutch blogger (whose name I can’t find, sorry) has it:
In my opinion, free speech is something absolute. “Thou Shalt Not Kill” or “All infidels must die” both deserve equal protection. Mind you, as speech. Not as actions. I firmly believe that if everybody is free to shout out his opinions as loudly as possible, it becomes a whole lot easier to spot the dangerous people. …
Also, the moment they make a move to put ideas into practice that harm others, it’s a whole other ballgame. Talking about killing somebody is okay, buying a gun to do it and staking out his house is not.
I agree with all that. Of course, that goes for Charlie Brooker’s right to make all the tasteless jokes he likes, too.
NB, my perspective on this story changed as I dug down, if that isn’t obvious. The title seemed appropriate for Mr van Gogh’s documentary as described by Index on Censorship, and, as I can’t think of anything snappier, I kept it.
These 280 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:18pm GMT Permanent link.
Mystery Of Eye Evolution Solved »
Darwin’s greatest challenge tackled. Now for the inveterate stupidity of Press Officers.
Researchers in the laboratories of Detlev Arendt and Jochen Wittbrodt have discovered that the light-sensitive cells of our eyes, the rods and cones, are of unexpected evolutionary origin—they come from an ancient population of light-sensitive cells that were initially located in the brain.
Unexpected to the lay person, but not to anyone who knows anything about eyes and brains. The very next paragraph:
“It is not surprising that cells of human eyes come from the brain. We still have light-sensitive cells in our brains today which detect light and influence our daily rhythms of activity, …”
Grrr.
These 33 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:37pm GMT Permanent link.
Dumb Show »
I bought The Times on Saturday because they were giving away DVDs of A Private Function, and I figured that would cost the Murdoch Empire more than the 90p the paper cost. I can’t say that I’ve read much of it. I read Alistair Campbell’s Bush is no buffoon and hating him won’t get the job done. Mr Campbell doesn’t say what “the job” is, though he does conclude with:
But for the next four years he [Bush] is the man in the White House. Hatred is not a sensible policy for dealing with that.
I don’t think anyone claims that hatred is a policy of any sort. It’s just how we feel.
One of the reasons that so many British people woke up shocked and angry on Wednesday is the extent to which George Bush is underestimated as a politician and campaigner. Last time round he, the multimillionaire son of a former President, turned himself into the man of the people, anti-Washington candidate.
I think the phrase “turned himself into the man of the people” reveals something about the hold spin has on Mr Campbell’s consciousness. Bush could no more turn himself into a man of the people than he could turn Karl Rove into a frog. If people in this country underestimate the President, and, more importantly dislike him, there are two reasons right there. Bush not only had a privileged upbringing; he was a Washington insider (maybe not over the Clinton years). His father was President, and most democrats have are suspicious of dynasties and nepotism.
Very early on, he [Mr Blair] saw in Mr Bush a strong campaigner and a conviction politician who would stake out difficult positions and stick to them.
Mr Bush may be a “strong campaigner” but his campaigns are predicted on cultivating a false impression of his qualities as Campbell even admits:
This time, his campaign turned John Kerry’s genuine war heroism into a problem, while he, with nothing like such a Vietnam story to tell, was the war leader.
Most on the left here and in the States doubt that Mr Bush has strong feelings either way about gay issues; again, his campaign was designed to look as if he did have. That isn’t conviction politics; that’s a pack of lies.
Mr Blair sees getting on with the US President, whatever his politics, as an important part of the job. It means that when Mr Bush is making foreign policy decisions at least part of his mind wonders what Mr Blair might think.
This is a classic non sequitur. Mr Bush may do so, if he has any parts of his mind to spare from considering his next holiday, but nothing in Mr Blair’s actions mean that has to happen. They’re bigger than us; we have to think about them. Nothing means that they have to think about us.
Mr Campbell’s article is lacking in enthusiasm for the President, whom I understood he personally liked.
If you’re a “None of the above” type, the Mike The Headless Chicken for President campaign was sadly underpublicised. “When a clear lack of direction is the obvious choice” is the slogan for me. Fuck the South is cool too.
These 362 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:27pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 10 November 2004
That Election Thing Again »
Jesus, it seems like four years already doesn’t it? Anyway, the seldom posting Middle Aged Curmudgeon John has only just woken up to the election result.
There were high hopes in Democrat circles that they ["young people who don’t want to be American idiots"] were going to do the business, but for the most part they stayed away. It wasn’t enough for them that Kerry wasn’t Bush. Which reflects pretty well on them and badly on those who took their support for granted.
Which may be right, but, as they didn’t show up to vote, and hence didn’t speak to any exit pollsters, we’ll never know. The theory floated in The Onion seems more likely to me.
Poll: Youth Totally Meant To Vote In Record Numbers
And U.S. Inspires World With Attempt At Democratic Election
Observers from around the world report that they were inspired and moved by America’s most recent attempt to hold a public election in accordance with the standards of a democratic republic.
Satire is not, as they say, dead. (I know, that was last week’s. Still good though.)
These 85 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:01am GMT Permanent link.
This Just In »
Correction to last post: satire may indeed be dead.
Will Rubbish just asked me to pass along a link to John Band. (I don’t know why: perhaps they had a tiff, perhaps Will just wants to prove there’s no honour among liberals, in which case he’ll be rather smug right now. Nope, he just didn’t have John’s email address.)
Will described Jesus speaks through the Republicans as “Possibly the best letter to the editor ever” and I can’t argue. (Oh, and Will, go back to the swearing stuff, I understand that; all this dialectic materialism is beyond me.)
I hope the election of George W. Bush is seen as a wake-up call to all the liberal Democrats who oppose God’s will.
It is His doing that George W. Bush is still our president. Millions of born-again Christians helped win this election through our prayers and votes. Jesus speaks through the Republicans.
The Democrats will not be able to win elections until they renounce their sinful ways and stop encouraging abortions, gayness, and trying to take away our guns.
Real homophobes say “homosexuality” when they’re being polite, “buggery” when they’re not, and “the sin of Sodom” when they’re off their heads. Sadly readers have left 52 comments so far, all apparently in earnest.
I should know better, but I can’t resist this from Ranting Gregory.
Take a look at the big picture. During the 1990s, the number of abortions in America steadily dropped year after year. There was a 17.4 per cent decline overall. Yes, that’s the 1990s, when Democrat Bill Clinton sat in the White House. Interesting that, isn’t it, that abortion was far more prevalent under the Reagan and Bush Snr regimes than under the supposedly more secular Democrats?
So what happened when supposedly strident anti-abortionist George W Bush took office? Did the decline continue? Apparently not. In fact, it seems that the abortion rate has been climbing since Bush took office. Curious that, isn’t it?
Gun-owning Christians: if Canada’s lower homicide rates don’t convince you, try reading born-again Elmore Leonard.
These 159 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:27am GMT Permanent link.
Me And My Big Mouth »
Last night I was sent an email in response to this.
I liked your post especially your offer to campaign for us! :)
I’m the campaigns organiser for Cardiff South and Grangetown Councillor. Where do you live?
Looks like I’ll have to now.
I believe that the terrorist threat is greatly exaggerated — but not entirely fictional. There have been terrorists in the UK before, and there doubtless will be again. As someone who (albeit reluctantly) supports our democracy, I think Parliament especially merits protecting. Therefore, consider these wonderful Recess Monkey posts: new MP passes and "bomb-proof” windows. They installed a security screen in the House of Commons, and since then there have been two security breaches: one when a member of Fathers 4 Misogyny threw a powder filled condom at Tony Blair; the other when five idiot hunt supporters invaded the chamber. The only useful people around were those Peter Hain referred to derisively as “men in tights.” Naturally, he wants to abolish them. We deserve better than this.
While I’m here, and boring you with how crap New Labour is, why not sign this nice petition against ID cards? Some reasons to Stop ID Cards. (If that won’t convince you, remember that David Aaronovitch is mustard-keen on them.)
Why oh why can’t we have effective politicians — like John Ashcroft who wrote in his letter of resignation:
The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved …
World peace and an end to crime in our lifetimes! Satire, thou art truly dead. Hat tip von.
These 221 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:02pm GMT Permanent link.
Merely Another Expression Of Multiculturalism »
Matt Welch, whose blog is described by Andrew “The Editors” Northrup as “the best blog in the whole wide world” describes the reactions of those in the “winners’ circle” as Gracious. I’m impressed by the insight of Town Hall’s Dennis Prager.
To most Americans, a man who wears women’s clothing to work is a pathetic person in need of psychotherapy. To the Democratic Party, he is a man whose cross-dressing is merely another expression of multiculturalism. […]
To virtually the entire Left, which includes the Democratic Party, the military is, at best, a necessary evil. Otherwise, the overriding doctrine is “Make love, not war.”
Why the hell didn’t I think of that! If the draft comes in, you know where to find me.
These 61 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:48pm GMT Permanent link.
Thursday, 11 November 2004
Submission »
From Bloggerheads, Theo van Gogh’s “controversial” Submission. It’s moving, but not really provocative. It certainly doesn’t live up to the attack from Index on Censorship.
Van Gogh’s juvenile shock-horror art finally led him to build an exploitative working relationship with Somalia-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose terrible personal experience of abuse has driven her to a traumatizing loss of her Muslim faith.
Together they made a furiously provocative film …
I don’t know what I expected after that, but it wasn’t the film I saw. Juvenile? Beyond bringing back the keen anger of adolescence, not at all. And there are times when that is appropriate.
This might be provocative, though.
These 65 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:25pm GMT Permanent link.
Friday, 12 November 2004
Music For A Sad Day »
As a great man — one who changed the lives of millions and still died much too young — is buried amid emotional scenes, perhaps the best way to remember him and his essential message of peace is here (MP3). Crackly and almost certainly pirated, as is only right.
These 49 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:17pm GMT Permanent link.
A New Career »
career: … 2 Go swiftly or wildly , rush headlong, hurtle. M17
Shorter OED
Found through the ever-exccellent Scottish Patient.
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters
These 11 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:23pm GMT Permanent link.
Only 160 More Bridget Jones Films To Go ... »
Damian didn’t enjoy Bridget Jones 2:
I am proud to say that I opened my cheque book for charity this evening, rather than for the cynical bastards responsible for this crime against film-making, not that it will make much difference. After all the other screenings they’ll be shovelling it into the back of people carrier, just like they’re shovelling their poisonous sexist myths into the minds of millions of impressionable young women: dye your hair blonde, get a girly job, totter around spouting pop culture bollocks, drink, smoke and talk about “shagging” a lot, and generally don’t bother your pretty little head with anything too challenging; and perhaps a nice old Etonian (an emotionally constipated one, naturally) with a title and an impressive-sounding, right-on, well-paid job will rescue you from your insignificance by asking you to be his wife.
Which reminded me of the Telegraph leader yesterday on Barbara Cartland.
We have the greatest admiration for Dame Barbara. But as a service to readers who may not have time to plough through her entire oeuvre, let us summarise: pretty, morally upstanding girl marries aristocrat, and lives happily ever after.
These 18 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:55pm GMT Permanent link.
Yasser Arafat »
Yasser Arafat’s undertakers gratefully receive their orders for a Newcastle shirt, Lazio shorts. and Tottenham socks. When they’ve dressed the corpse, the junior undertaker says, “This doesn’t seem very dignified, are you sure this is right?” The senior undertaker replies, “It says here that he wanted to be buried in the Gazza strip.”
These 53 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 8:44pm GMT Permanent link.
Around The Blogs »
Two people I’ve recommended before.
Mick Hartley posts without comment (the most powerful way, I’ve found) on The Rape of Nanking.
(I consider the success of the American program of “spreading democracy” in post WWII Japan to be the obvious counter-example to my resistance to the “democracy can be spread by force” movement. My knee-jerk rejoiner is that Japan declared war first (with Pearl Harbor) and their attempts to spread their rule failed spectacularly. We proved their offensive policies wrong very directly. This doesn’t apply to our invasion of Iraq. The Japanese experience, and the reactions of what must be children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the perpetrators of that crime is interesting, for want of a better word. I just hope that my readers consider Hiroshima and Nagasaki crimes too, and know when to condemn our own side.)
Jonathan Derbyshire (also always interesting) posts on The assumption of dove-ishness — and John Updike’s (surprising to some) support of the Vietnam war. I think he was wrong, but interestingly so.
These 169 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:18pm GMT Permanent link.
Moral Relativism »
Pursuant to the last post, here’s John Updike as quoted by Jonathan Derbyshire:
Updike: It was the assumption of what your political views are which slightly annoyed me. I luckily don’t live surrounded by writers and that was good. But even the bankers and doctors and plumbers that I lived among in Ipswich tended to be more dove-ish than I.
And here’s Andrew Marr in the Torygraph:
Other correspondents have asked about the upward inflection—that infuriating rise or lilt at the end of sentences now almost universal among people under the age of 18. I’m told it isn’t American in origin, but Australian, spread by the soaps. Others blame Birmingham.
I have been asking myself about its significance.
Here’s my theory. A rising note towards the end of a sentence gives it a half-visible question mark, turning a statement into something more provisional. It is the tentative tic. You see the same with the use of “like” as in “she’s, like, really furious, and I’m like, well, whatever, and she’s like, duh?” The “likes” are slips away from full assertiveness. Teenage uncertainty or a culture slipping into relativism? I’m like, interested.
Isn’t Updike’s use of “slightly annoyed” “turning a statement into something more provisional"? Words—on their own anyway—aren’t very good at conveying ambivalence, which is how most of us feel, most of the time about almost everything, isn’t it? John Updike is neither a teenager nor a novice with language. For my money, Updike was ‘bloody furious.’ But that’s just my opinion.
These 82 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:37pm GMT Permanent link.
Fascist! »
As Oliver Kamm says, with his usual pellucidity,
Christopher Hitchens’s latest column in Slate appears to have annoyed a lot of people with an assertion of good sense on secularism …
Those people include David Sucher, Chris Bertram, and Randy Paul, a motley collection of morons, I’m sure you’ll agree.
One of my most-revisited embarrassing memories is the time when I called the librarian in my university department a “Fascist!” because she fined me for keeping a text book past the date-stamp. I meant it in a Rik Mayall-ish way; it was taken seriously. Hitchens sneers “fascist” just like Rik. I hope he knows whatever came after “Whenever I’m near ter/The theatre …” because I don’t.
(Fascism copied the more deplorable attitudes of the Roman Republic; Islamism, though often objectionable, is utterly different.)
These 110 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:16pm GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 14 November 2004
Lest We Forget »
Found on Freewayblogger.
These 4 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:36am GMT Permanent link.
Boris Sacked »
Michael Howard hits new low.
The fraught relationship between Mr Howard and Mr Johnson was evident at a Spectator awards lunch last week when the Tory leader joked at the MP’s expense. Mr Howard congratulated him — some thought sarcastically—for his ‘tremendous enthusiasm’ and added with a grin: “There is nothing like The Spectator for stirring up and stimulating political controversy. Indeed, in all senses of the word, it could best be described as political viagra. All I can say is, ‘Boris, keep it up.”
Boris will get another chance at front-bench politics. The Spectator gig pays far better than a ministerial salary anyway. (Though if you think that would swing any market Tory, remember that Thatcher never took her full Prime Ministerial salary, and that Malcolm Rifkind is much better remunerated back in his Edinburgh chambers than he ever was in office.)
Mr Howard’s officials said the issue was one of “personal morality”. They suggested that Mr Johnson had been less than frank with the Tory leader when newspaper stories about his allegedly having had an affair with Petronella Wyatt, a fellow Spectator journalist, broke last weekend.
This reflects badly on Howard too. If Boris was “less than frank” this might have been something to do with the Tory leader’s slippery and untrustworthy aspect. There are bosses you can confess to, and bosses you can’t. Howard’s lack of personal sympathy may rally some hard-line Tories, but being the last to know what’s going on is nothing to boast of.
The question now is, what wing of the Tory party backs Howard? The Scotsman:
Lord Tebbit, a director of the Spectator for a decade before being ousted last month, only yesterday publicly advised Johnson to choose the magazine over his arts portfolio.
How many Tories will remember that when Norman Tebbit carried some weight in the party, it won elections?
Boris gets blogging. He knows how to listen to elder statesmen (a skill the Labour party badly needs). He seems to be a pretty good boss himself at the Spectator. The Tories weren’t far wrong when they picked William Hague as leader, it was just that the timing was bad. But they’ve made disastrous choices since.
These 214 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:59am GMT Permanent link.
Special Friends »
Boris (that Boris) nails the Special Relationship thing. Mostly he is exercised (and rightly) about the case of one of his constituents who is facing extradition to the United States. (I’m reading How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World just now, and why should we send our citizens to the country which held the Scopes Trial? What civilised person can contain the snicker that rises to the throat if the judge should trip over a knuckle as he enters the courtroom?)
I would not mind so much, if the 2003 Extradition Treaty were not so lopsided. Many will recall the chronic difficulties this country has had, over the years, in persuading the Americans to cough up IRA suspects. The American Constitution requires that the requesting country should show “probable cause” that the proposed extraditee is guilty of the crime in question, and, partly as a result, the total number of suspected IRA terrorists we have winkled out of the Americans is exactly nil.
We, by contrast, are far more supple in our approach. We make no such evidential demands. If the Americans request the extradition of a suspect from Britain, we merely require them to establish that the person we are sending is the person in question, and then, since we assume that the American judicial system is admirable in all respects, we hand them over without delay.
Michael J Totten called the IRA “Old school terrorists” (because they killed British people rather than Americans — the target of “new school” or “evil” terrorists) so that’s all right really. Your white-collar criminals are far more important than our mass killers.
Then along comes David Rennie in Washington who writes the special bond has soured into an awkward and unrequited love.
But Mr Blair’s expression ranged from tense to fixed, with the odd moment of looking ill. It was a stark visual reminder that only Mr Bush gains from this most unlikely of political friendships. …
It is hard to overstate what a remarkable friendship it is, not just politically, but culturally.
Mr Bush is not just very Right wing - on everything from the death penalty, gay rights and the use of military force—he is also suspicious of fancy talk, fancy food, and liberals with fancy university degrees. Discussing ideal summer holidays, he expressed his horror at those who “sit in Martha’s Vineyard, swilling white wine”.
Mr Blair’s inner circle of friends is not just solidly liberal. It is crammed with academics, and lovers of fancy food. In summer, you can hardly move for New Labour MPs on Martha’s Vineyard, the Massachusetts holiday island.
Now the strange part.
But not all Washington is so effusive. The high priests of America’s foreign policy intelligentsia openly view Mr Blair as damaged goods.
Francis Fukuyama, the author of the post-Soviet study The End of History said this week that Mr Blair had clearly “lied” about his reason for going to war in Iraq.
Francis Fukuyama, whatever else he is (and Mr Wheen’s book is not complimentary) is certainly endowed with a “fancy university degree.” If Bush lied less than Blair about WMD, it was because he failed to settle on a reason for the war.
His main motive, Prof Fukuyama told a symposium at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, was to protect the special relationship and “try to influence the United States from the inside”. But Mr Blair “didn’t really exert all that much influence”. “It may be that this is the last time that a Labour Prime Minister will behave the way Blair did,” he said.
Ivo Daalder, the head of European affairs in President Clinton’s National Security Council, said Mr Blair “lost” his gamble on Iraq, by failing to gather European support.
“Is Blair in a stronger position today, at home, in Europe, in the United States? The answer is obviously no,” Mr Daalder said. “You British have always been taken for granted here, frankly. The notion that you were somehow going to buy influence by being nice, we haven’t seen it to date.”
In last Saturday’s Times Alistair Campbell argued (no longer online, but I blogged it here):
Mr Blair sees getting on with the US President, whatever his politics, as an important part of the job. It means that when Mr Bush is making foreign policy decisions at least part of his mind wonders what Mr Blair might think.
It looks like Campbell’s calculation (or plain self-deception? you decide) was wrong. In the Torygraph today, Quentin Letts:
Around midday on Thursday, as the Prime Minister was preparing to board his aeroplane to Andrews Air Force Base, strange things were happening in the Commons. Gordon Brown arrived for Treasury Questions and was exceptionally perky. A Tory frontbencher, waiting to enter the Chamber while the Speaker’s chaplain said prayers on the other side of the swing doors, was subjected to prolonged and matey chatter by the entire team of Treasury ministers. The Tory could not work out why they were so jovial and even checked his trouser flies to make sure he had not caused the merriment by “flying low”.
Once Question Time started, an Old Labour stalwart, Gordon Prentice (Pendle), made a startling plea for tax cuts. Another Labour backbencher, David Taylor from Leicestershire, speculated openly about his party soon having a new leader.
All red-blooded men can permit themselves a sigh of relief to learn that the beloved leader is not under the thumb of his human-rights harpy of a wife as Guantanamo Britons are still a threat, says Blair.
Tony Blair reignited the row over Guantanamo Bay last night by claiming that former British detainees had been “causing difficulties again” after their release.
And now, the inevitable tasteless joke part.
A relative of Mr Dergoul, said last night: “After the disgusting treatment of Tarek at the hands of the Americans, he has one arm and is severely traumatised and cannot cope with life. What kind of criminal act does Mr Blair think that he can carry out?”
One arm, and a troublemaker? Isn’t Tessa Jowell bringing in new laws just for bandits like him?
These 281 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 8:17pm GMT Permanent link.
Recommended »
Marc Cooper interviews Gore Vidal.
Since Roosevelt, I can’t think of a single president who represented the people or did much for them. We’re the only country that doesn’t have health care for the people, or a proper education system or day centers for working mothers. No other country like this! I have just come from a tour of Germany, Austria, Sweden … they are all ahead of us.
This is “Old Europe,” as they now call it.
Yes, Mr. Rumsfeld’s Old Europe is way ahead of Aging America and its aging structures in which the people pay big taxes and get nothing back from them except armaments and wars to enrich the oil companies.
I’ve never understood the naming conventions of the rich (who are, as you know, different from the rest of us), but try to imagine how he’d have brung his second cousin’s (or whatever they are) Presidency down a peg or ten. I did think of saying that he’s too clever by half, flew a plane a 11, published a decent novel at 19, and is altogether too posh, but there’s no conviction. Gore Vidal is one of the best. (Shame about Al and Tipper of that ilk.)
The inevitable ad goes to Closer starring Julia Roberts, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, and Clive Owen. I don’t know anything more than it stars four of the best looking white people ever and is named after a ‘Joy Division’ album, so already I can’t resist. (Shit, this in the loserweb. The Joy Div reference was a joke; it would be great if it were, but I really doubt it. “Starring Jude Law as Ian Curtis…” Don’t see it really. First band I ever saw live. Happy Fairly happy Bearable Bloody miserable days.)
These 184 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:55pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 15 November 2004
Hygiene »
I’m still reading How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World. Some of it is more broad-minded that I’d hoped for from reviews (it was 4 quid from Amazon, and that wiped out the delivery charge on other books). Mr Wheen reads a lot, I’m really impressed by aspects of his research. Yet there is also a lot of rubbish.
All human knowledge is provisional, but it is also incremental: the sum of what we know is far greater than thirty years ago, let alone three hundred years ago.”
This triggered a reluctant memory of Isaac Asimov’s desperately dull “Foundation” novels—which in turn were modelled on Gibbon. It may be true now, but it ain’t necessarily true, nor always so. We vandalised the greatest civilisations we have ever known. Mr Wheen glosses too much of Paul Feyerabend, and fails to understand him.
’Culturalism’ supplanted materialism, dialectic was ousted by discontinuity, reason yielded to random reflexivity.
Yet isn’t this expected by dialectics? Didn’t Marx, Hegel, and, for that matter, Plato, predict other realms? To assert that this generation is in contact with the absolute: all who came before were mistaken, all whom come after merely inheritors is hubris is it not? Real scientists read science fiction, Much of it is boring. But try The Dispossessed in which a scientist finds a new communications system because he comes from a different culture. (And the book was written before the discovery of Pluto as a double planet.) Wheen should read The Dinosaur Heresies (my short version: Americans clever; Germans stupid) for a real account of scientific confrontations. Wheen naively thinks Dinosaur skeletons are “real.” (He’d hate those quotes.) Bakker shows that there is more than one interpretation of those bones. (Though only one is right.) But, knowing that, you also know that the present paradigm can be kicked over.
These 261 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:17am GMT Permanent link.
Radical »
From Pandagon:
You do not engender sympathy because you show up and look sad unless you are a kitten, and kittens do not make good leaders of the free world.
Why don’t they? I think kittens make excellent leaders. At least as good as Blair and Bush. You need leaders? What kind of degenerates are you? Make up your own minds. If you need to be told what to think, fuck the lot of you. Kittens for leader, at least they’re cute. And they can make you free. (Required reading: Nietzsche and Popper. Wittgenstein too, of course. Everything else is crap.) As the man said, “Watch the Parking Meters.” Leaders are for the weak. Choose kittens.
These 89 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:39am GMT Permanent link.
Drunk »
(Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in)
I woke up this mornin’ with the sundown shinin’ in
I found my mind in a brown paper bag within
I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high
I tore my mind on a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
I’ve been trying to rip this as the site theme tune but with no luck so far. I bought the album, ah, CD, to you young folk, in Spillers where the girl who served me congratulated my musical taste; she missed the Howlin’ Wolf record under it, which was for more important to me. And when she said that the Dude (Jeff Bridges in the movie, not the boiled-faced Public-Schooled tosser) drank the best drink ever, I demurred with, “I’m a beer man.” “So am I,” she replied, which threw me for smart replies (for no reason, they descended on me like an anvil on the way home).
These 108 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:43am GMT Permanent link.
The Good One Gone »
Not Boris for once. Colin Powell resigns. Had to happen, but still sad.
These 13 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:45pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 16 November 2004
Fancy That! »
Jamie of Blood & Treasure:
I suppose that the Labour Party will continue to call on Blair to separate himself from Bush. I think the real story is that Bush has no further use for Blair. And I think that the only way Blair can respond to this is by moving further towards absolute and unconditional support for the radical right in the White House, generating support for this by instilling an atmosphere of permanent crisis at home. This is going to be a really nasty election.
My emphasis. In yesterday’s Troygraph, Al-Qa’eda on doorstep, says Blunkett.
The Home Secretary has insisted that Labour will not use the “politics of fear” at the election. However, that did not prevent him issuing yesterday’s stark warning on BBC1’s Politics Show. “Al-Qa’eda and the international network is seen to be, and will be demonstrated through the courts over months to come to be, actually on our doorstep and threatening our lives,” he said.
That’s one of the great things about blogging—you remember the daft things these bastards say. Hark! Is that the door? Might it be Jehovah’s Witnesses or could it be al-Qaeda? Why not call the police? You know they love it. When you go to bed tonight don’t forget to search for Osama bin Laden. The man can hide anywhere. Panic! Panic! Boo! (That scared you didn’t it? What? You’re nerves aren’t in shreds? You unpatriotic hooligan! I bet you smoke and own a hooded top.)
If you’ve been living under a rock the past month (and if you have, I envy you), the US election has been and gone. U.S. government lowers terror alert. Fancy that!
These 131 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:03pm GMT Permanent link.
Say No More »
Man: Is, uh,… Is your wife a goer, eh? Know whatahmean, know whatahmean, nudge nudge, know whatahmean, say no more?
Squire: I, uh, I beg your pardon?
Man: Your, uh, your wife, does she go, eh, does she go, eh?
Squire: (flustered)
Well, she sometimes ‘goes’, yes.
Man: Aaaaaaaah bet she does, I bet she does, say no more, say no more, know whatahmean, nudge nudge?
Will Rubbish finds a few things to File under daft. My favourite is the campaign to change the name of Interstate 69.
“Every time I have been out in the public with an ‘I-69’ button on my lapel, teenagers point and snicker at it. I have had many ask me if they can have my button. I believe it is time to change the name of the highway. It is the moral thing to do.”
If wearing “an ‘I-69’ button” embarrassed you or me, we wouldn’t wear the stupid thing.
John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number.
Teenagers are obsessed with sex. Some adults grow out of it. (Though, like St Augustine, “not yet.") Mary Whitehouse was similarly fixated. It’s kind of sad.
Update: this appears to be a hoax. Dur.
Ogged (just to prove this isn’t a Yank-bashing post) has some useful facts about Mangaia of [sic] the South Pacific.
Boys about the age of 13-14 go through sexual instruction: emphasis placed upon techniques of coitus, cunnilingus, kissing, sucking, & bringing their female partners to orgasm several times before they ejaculate. The pubertal boys are taught this through physical instruction by older women in the society.
Funny how these sexually enlightened cultures are always somewhere far away. Margaret Mead had similar (dubious) observations, and Germaine Greer in The Female Eunuch remarked on some idyllic island where the women could keep a man inside them all night. (As a man, this sounds distinctly unfair. When do they get a chance to roll over and start snoring and farting?) Ogged’s other observation on our culture seems right to me, though.
These 155 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:58pm GMT Permanent link.
Wednesday, 17 November 2004
Tales Of The Expected »
Like the Grauniad, I was shocked—shocked— to learn that Prince Charles’s household is ‘elitist’. I don’t know about you, but I expected a hotbed of bolshevism.
“This is to do with the learning culture in schools as a consequence of a child-centred system which admits no failure. People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability.
“This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history.”
It’s uncanny how like Melanie Phillips Prince Charles sounds.
These 35 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:12pm GMT Permanent link.
Murder Prevention? »
Before Henry II’s time there were two kinds of legal trial, (a) the Ideal and (b) the Combat. The Ideal form of trial consisted in making a man plunge his head in boiling ploughshares, in order to see whether he had committed a crime or not. According to Henry’s reformed system a man was tried first by a just of his equals and only had to plunge his head into boiling ploughshares afterwards (in order to confirm the jury’s opinion that he had committed the crime). This was obviously a much Better Thing.
1066 and all that, W C Sellar & R J Yeatman
From the Daily Telegraph (tomorrow’s presumably): ’Arrest without evidence’ planned by Government.
The Government is planning a change in the law to allow police to arrest suspects without evidence, it was claimed today.
The world’s gone fucking mad.
Sellar and Yeatman again:
Henry II was a great Lawgiver, and it was he who laid down the Legal Principle that everything is either legal or (preferably) illegal.
Philip Johnson in the Telegraph (again) claims that With all these laws, our precious liberty is going up in smoke.
It is said, though less often now than it used to be, that the basis of English liberty is the rule of law, under which everything is allowed unless specifically prohibited. According to A V Dicey, the 19th-century constitutionalist, this was one of the features that distinguished England from its continental counterparts, where people were subject to the exercise of arbitrary power and were proscribed from actions that were not specifically authorised.
What’s a poor satirist to do?
These 47 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:44pm GMT Permanent link.
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World »
Well the men don’t know, but the little girls understand
Back Door Man, Willie Dixon
There are only two flaws to this otherwise excellent book. Mr Wheen does not convince that ‘Mumbo-jumbo’ has ‘Conquered the World’ and even the reader who is willing to indulge him in this is left uncertain as to how (or even when) this happened. Otherwise, it does what it says in the title.
(I thought some other blogger had mentioned it recently, but the only review I’ve come across is at Counago & Spaves which anticipates many of my criticisms.)
It’s really just 11 essays in search of a book, with a rather vain ‘interview’ added at the back. That worked in Existentialism and Humanism. I’m not saying that Mr Wheen isn’t an intellectual—he’s just not Jean-Paul Sartre.
The reviews I saw when this book came out concentrated on the coincidence of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 victory and the Iranian revolution. (For a book supposedly demythologising the mystical, is anything more ridiculous than invoking the Zeitgeist?) He makes a case for the unpleasantness of Thatcher and Reagan, but not one for their greater irrationality than their predecessors.
The other focus of reviewer interest (and the one that leant itself most naturally to photographic illustration) was Princess Diana’s funeral. Here is Wheen on a brave refusnik fellow hack (p202):
On that Sunday afternoon I was telephoned by a neighbour, a ferociously conservative columnist on the Daily Mail: “I can’t bear much more of this. Fancy a drink in the pub?”
And here is Wheen on p203:
As several therapists pointed out, ‘men didn’t get it’. Dr Edgar A.a Levenson of the William Alanson White Institute for psychoanalytic training said that while women considered her ‘a member of the family’, his male patients dismissed the event with a brusque ‘It’s too bad she got killed.’
But a good journo on the Indy and the Graun couldn’t be turning into Kinglsey Amis, could he? The Amis of Wheen has discovered, belatedly, that women are mad. My own theory of that episode requires reading Diana’s life as a text (something Mr Wheen also disdains). While the plot of a Jane Austen novel might feature a young woman deciding between two suitors (if you haven’t read Jane Austen, there’s always Bridget Jones) — Diana didn’t have the choice of two, she had one publicly disappointing marriage and an equally public second chance with a compatible if caddish man. Stories like that are supposed to end in disillusionment; instead the crash came at the top of the parabola. I’m sure it gave hope to a lot of frustrated women. We don’t have enough art devoted to this sort of thing. If more people went to the opera, we’d come across as more emotionally mature.
In the same chapter, however, Wheen provides a really good observation. Sadly, it’s not his, and it’s not recent. It’s from a long time before 1979.
Many people remember Lord Macaulay’s famous line: ‘We know no spectacle so ridiculous sa the British public in one of its periodic fits of morality.’ Few, however, have read the essay in which it appears, a review of Thomas Moore’s Life of Byron from 1831. In general, Macaulay wrote, scandals are discussed for a day and then forgotten. ‘But one in every six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous …”
Hardly convincing evidence for the decline of rationality at the end of the twentieth century.
There is also an unconvincing (especially as earlier chapter is a critique of the failures and unexpected consequences of US interference in other countries’ affairs) coda, apparently in support of the War on Whoever We’re at War with Today, and a chapter railing at postmodernists, whom he blames for newspaper horoscopes. He’s fair about the traditionalism of Colin MacCabe — whose methods really did resemble those of I.A. Richards and William Empsom, but he too easily conflates the loopier side of po-mo (like the unreadable Lacan) with more interesting writers like Foucault and Feyerabend.
Wheen also wrote the highly amusing Karl Marx. History repeated itself in Derrida’s last lectures.
In the early years of the 20th century, members of Paris’s cultural elite would send away a servant every Friday afternoon on a special mission. After traversing the bustling city, the servants would convene in the main auditorium of a large gated building in the center of Paris. There they would wait. A few hours later, their employers would come and take their places. And then a small man with piercing eyes and an amicable smile would enter the auditorium: the most famous philosopher in the world, Henri Bergson. Bergson’s friend William James once said of hearing him speak that “it is like the breath of the morning and the song of the birds.” This was, however, not the only note heard by intellectuals of the day. T.S. Eliot went to no small pains to energetically denounce the “epidemic” that was “Bergsonism.” The popular Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck suggested that Bergson was quite simply “the most dangerous man in the world.” The influential French author Julien Benda declared that he would willingly kill him if he thought death would limit his influence.
William James invented all that was worthwhile in turn-of-the-century psychology. Eliot was an obscurantist mystic. Found through Butterflies and Wheels.
These 538 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:22pm GMT Permanent link.
Friday, 19 November 2004
I Don't Believe It! »
No entries yesterday, not because I was celebrating this blog’s second birthday (which it was), but because I spent too much of the day drinking Beaujolais Noveau. Beaujolais Noveau sucks by the way, but it’s taken me ten years to realise this.
Last time I was here, I quoted the Guardian on Prince Charles, but didn’t expect the story to appear on the front page. Now in related news, the Guardian is also tipped to divulge that the Royals are all chinless toffs, collectively described as ‘not particularly bright’, and believed to be of German descent. “Just imagine if that last revelation had been known during either of the last two World Wars. It would have changed history. Now that we’re little more than an unimportant fringe region of the European Superstate, it hardly matters at all,” commented a Guardian spokesmammal. (’Person’ may be dubiously ‘speciesist.’) The Queen is also said to be head of a secretive covert organisation called “The Church of England”, no information on which is in the Guardian’s records.
Jeremy Paxman, author of The English said, “It’s no secret that the Royal Family isn’t intelligent, let’s just say there’s not much chance of a match between The Royal Family and New Labour Backbenchers on University Challenge — The Professionals any time soon.”
Jeremy Paxman (wearily, having taken 25 minutes to explain the rules): Fingers on buzzers. This is your first starter for 10. What is 2 + 2?
Watson: Whatever Tony Blair wants it to be?
JP: Nope. Royals?
Princess Anne: One didn’t do geometry, but one can ride a horse.
JP: No. How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Prince Edward: Ah, do footmen count?
JP. Of course they count, but that’s the wrong answer. Labour?
Paul “The Thinker” Richards: we’re considering introducing legislation which will forbid surrealists to change lightbulbs without proper training.
JP: And at the gong, we have a tie with the Royals and New Labour both on 0. You’re all hopelessly thick. Goodnight.
Even the Telegraph gets involved as Ministers line up to attack Charles as ‘patronising’.
In an interview to be broadcast on the Morgan and Platell programme on Channel 4 tomorrow, Mr Reid says that Mr Clarke was “a much bigger Charles in many ways”. …
It was “regretful” if the prince was saying that [’you have it in you, if you use your own endeavours and energies, to be almost anything in this country’] was not the case, but he acknowledged that the remarks — in an internal memo — were probably never meant to be public.
I is regretful, you is regretful, we is regretful that these idiots have any power and this rubbish gets into the papers at all.
These 373 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:27pm GMT Permanent link.
I Still Want To Direct Hamlet »
16. Battle scenes will not be presided over by a ridiculous contraption resembling a death-bot.
81. I will not fail to employ a dictionary if there are words in the text whose pronunciation is uncertain, and I will strongly encourage my actors to do the same. I will not allow an actor playing Richard II to go through the rehearsal process without being disabused of the notion that “Antipodes” rhymes with “nematodes” if he is in need of such disabusement.
133. 47 women in identical black wigs commuting on the train do not make good Three Witches.
146. I will not allow my extremely young Juliet to have caffiene before the performance. She’s supposed to be immature, not a Muppet on speed.
203. I will never dress Puck in a black t-shirt reading PCUK, even if it seems funny when I think of it.
259. I will never cast Hamlet as a horse just so I can have characters ride around on his back during the so-called sexually tense scenes.
265. Do not set fire to the actors to emphasise their emotions. It never helps.
302. I will not have the background music be loud drums and metallic sounds that makes it impossible for the audience to hear what is being said.
Hat tip to Jim Henley.
These 8 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:18pm GMT Permanent link.
Saturday, 20 November 2004
Catching Up »
It’s not often that I disagree with Nick Barlow (in fact, I can’t remember ever having done so — except on the obvious matter of the dullness of motor racing), so now (drumroll please) for the first time, I don’t agree with this post. Worse, it also means that I disagree with James of Dead Men Left and Matthew Turner, while being on the same side as Stephen Pollard and Marcus of Harry’s Place.
But first (and lacking the sophistication of Movable Type which lets you choose where in a long post the “below-the-fold” starts, so I’m sure this will wrap very soon), let’s do things in a semblance of order. James of Dead Men Left points out in the post that Nick links to that he also agreed with David Aaronovitch and, as that comes up first in his post, and I don’t, I’ll give my reasons.
I have no problem with Mr Aaronovitch’s title (All Muslims are not the same) which I regard as trivially true, nor with the first two paragraphs. However, I read the argument as a retread of the Index on Censorship one (which has now been replaced by a defence of the piece and extracts from responses). Ophelia Benson and I agree here. She usefully quoted the IoC piece:
Together they made a furiously provocative film that featured actresses portraying battered Muslim women, naked under transparent Islamic-style shawls, their bodies marked with texts from the Koran that supposedly justify their repression. Van Gogh then roared his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities. An abuse of his right to free speech, it added injury to insult by effectively censorsing their moderate views as well.
Mr Aaronovich:
What the film suggests is that, somehow, domestic violence and rape are linked to specifically Muslim ways of seeing the world and the relationship between men and women. Given the fact that the film is made by a non-Muslim (indeed, by a noted critic of Islam), the effect is disturbing. What is the film-maker’s intention? Who is the film aimed at?
I think that Mr Aaronovich is arguing that because the film may be racist, we should be uncomfortable. First, I think that free speech does not have to be in service of a politically correct end, or indeed, any end. If it were, it would not be free. Second, the issue (to me) is not was Mr van Gogh Muslim, but were the facts reported in his film true? (I am uncomfortable with the BNP Flash ‘election broadcast’ because it was total trash from beginning to end, and the freedom to lie is different from the freedom to tell the truth.)
When Mr Mr Aaronovich asks, “What is the film-maker’s intention? Who is the film aimed at?” all I can say is that I am responsible for this blog, and I’m not sure what my intentions are, or who this blog’s aimed at. (I read in the Torygraph Magazine today that Ian McEwan was surprised that Atonement was his most successful novel. He wasn’t a novice, and he’s a very clever writer, but he doesn’t know who will respond to his books. I doubt anyone does.)
Imagine a similar film being made here featuring Lubavitcher Jews and suggesting the plight, say, of a child in a closed community. The child might talk about paedophilia in one of the many unregulated weekend classes, about the code of silence, all set against the background of a seven-branched candlestick, with the words of the Torah passing across her body. Then suppose it was made, not by a Lubavitcher, but by a rightwing member of the Conservative party, who had once called a Jew, a “Christ-killer”, as Van Gogh once described a Muslim as a “goat-fucker”.
David, if you want to make a film about paedophilia among Lubavitcher Jews, you should do so, before anyone else does. And if any Lubavitcher Jews are covering up paedophilia, they should think about uncovering it, now. Mr Van Gogh rightly made a film against codes of silence. Forgive me, I feel a post-modern moment coming on. What young Muslim men need are narratives that say that men who hit women are not macho, are not real men; it won’t turn you into Heathcliff: it’s a despicable act, as is rape (which the film also alleged). Loyalty to your clan is medieval. And as for Mr Aaronovich’s Lubavitcher Jews, they’ve got the Bible on their side. You touch my kid, you’re going to fancy dress parties as a pirate for the rest of your life, mate. (Exodus, ch 21, v 23). But, as happened in The Sopranos, going to the police is better.
The story of Muslims is of a backward, super-sensitive religion which mistreats women and suppresses dissent.
As I said, the issue is ‘was the story in the film true?’ Muslims can think what they like, but assault and rape can’t hide behind any barriers. This is brilliant (found through Kevin Williamson). Unlike Kevin, I’m a Prod. I’ve even watched Rangers from the Bluenose end at Ibrox. Sure I’m PC — I’m so PC I can take criticism. One more thing:
Van Gogh once described a Muslim as a “goat-fucker”.
David, I live in Wales. Men are men. Sheep are frightened.
I can resist anything, but the thin-skinned.
Anyway, as I was saying sometime in the last century, I’ve posted on the Prince Charles thing before, and I think he was set up.
Elaine Day, who is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal against the prince’s household, was described by him in a memo as “so PC it frightens me rigid”.
Ms Day brought a (presumaby stolen) memo to the court:
It was written by the prince in response to a suggestion by Ms Day that personal assistants with university degrees should be given the opportunity to train to become private secretaries, the hearing was told.
Indulge me here. Let us suppose that Ms Day was denied the opportunity to retrain. Let us assume that Prince Charles was right about her PC-ness. What was she doing working for him? I can’t conceal my tiniest thought. I’m a republican; there’d be no point in my going to an interview in a royal household; they could smell me a mile off. Now assuming Ms Day is the bright ambitious person she claims, who loses by her being denied the opportunity to become a private secretary? Ms Day, who can’t be elevated to a job she’d hate with a boss she’d loathe even more? Or Prince Charles, forced (presumably) to take an inferior candidate? My guess is the latter. Snobbery (and I won’t deny the Prince’s denial of opportunity is snobbery) is self-defeating. Ms Day, whether she knows it or not, has been used as a Trojan Horse to open the Prince’s hardly surprising attitudes.
Now I have several criticisms of the Prince. I’m not convinced that his trust being involved in the setting up of 1 in 10 small businesses (as I read somewhere) is a good thing. (If it were involved in a much higher ratio of businesses which survive the first year, I’d be more impressed. But banks, as investors, should finance businesses, not charities.) I think his take on education is at some remove from reality. As Anthony says, Charles is still a loon. But what he says in the memo which Charles Clarke, among others, has attacked is not contentious. I’d love to be certain that my great hatred of New Labour hasn’t conquered my hatred of the Royal Family, but I can’t be certain.
I meant to cram in other stuff, but Fallujah: Riverbend has a reaction I understand, but I’m with John Cole here, and this found through the anti-war Jim Henley rather confirms that view.
I’ll get round to the Lancet soon, I promise.
These 996 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:11pm GMT Permanent link.
All Followers Of Rangers Are Not The Same »
Following (ahem!) my last post, here’s the lyrics to the “Dedicated follower of Rangers” song:
His teeth are green
His head is square
Wi’ a big moustache
An’ curly hair
One day he’s on Paisley Road
The next day he’s in jail
He’s a dedicated follower of Rangers
He hates the Tims
He loves the Queen
A naked burd (= “bird” = “woman")
He’s never seen
He holidays in Airdrie and his breath would make you scream
He’s a dedicated follower of Rangers
He likes to sing
(He likes to sing)
Hello, Hello
(Hello, Hello)
He likes to drink
(He likes to drink)
El Dorado
(El Dorado)
There’s one thing that he hates and that is cleanliness
He thinks that Derek Johnson is a handsome, witty man
He’s a dedicated follower of Rangers
His team get gubbed, on foreign land
And once again, he’s on remand
But he knows a real good lawyer from his local marching band
He’s a dedicated follower of Rangers
He bangs the drum
(He bangs the drum)
In Motherwell
(In Motherwell)
He bares the bum
(He bares the bum)
Ootside Cha-pell (ie Chapel, emphasis on 2nd syllable for rhyme)
(Ootside Cha-pell)
He niver smiles, he’s permanently ragin’
He probably be a champ, if bein’ a fanny was a sport
He’s a dedicated follower of Rangers.
Those of you who understand Scottish/Irish politics will have realised that this is a caricature of a nasty Protestant bigot. And why not pick on them? Their minds are as wide as a proton. Picking on reactionary Muslims is just as wrong. Because I hate each equally, and if Mr Aaronovitch is right about Lubavitcher Jews then I have a new priesthood to spit on. One day we’ll all be secular. If we’re not there’ll be no history. (Imagine the original ‘Planet of the Apes’ where the apes are people and Charlton Heston discovers the Statue of Liberty at the end. It could be 100,000 years hence, but because the Good Book says it ain’t, we were created by the Good (or paranoid or defensive or crazy) Lord 6,000 years ago. We always were. We always will be.)
These 154 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:40pm GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 21 November 2004
The Eyes Have It »
I’m fed up with the hunt banning lark. No one seems to care that hunts kill one fox if they’re lucky. Just keeping the dogs healthy, the kennel will account for several sheep or cows or pigs in a week, never mind that the hunters will between them consume a couple of animals in the Sunday roast. But foxes have their eyes at the front of their faces, so they look a little like us. Pigs are intelligent, sensitive, and clean animals. Unhappily for them, they’re not cute.
The ban looks to be somewhat comical already, according to the Observer.
Police chiefs have already warned of the practical difficulties of enforcing the ban, with nothing to stop huntsmen dressing up in pinks and ‘exercising’ their hounds in packs. Illegal hunting would also be likely to take place in isolated rural areas where the police would be unlikely even to know it had happened unless they had informants. Alistair McWhirter, Chief Constable of Suffolk, said police would have to take down identities of suspects and summons them later, rather than chase them on horseback.
I just love the idea of horse chases. I suspect that hunters, if they’re at all smart, will have alibis. No matter what Blunkett does to the law, the police will still need evidence.
Also in the Observer, Blunkett loses it.
With only a few months to go until a likely election, the Government is unlikely to get all the bills on its list onto the statute books. However Downing Street has made clear that four will be prioritised at all costs: the introduction of identity cards; a crackdown on serious and organised crime; sweeping powers to combat anti-social behaviour; and measures to break the link between drugs and crime. Opposition MPs who oppose them will be painted as ‘soft on crime’ in the election campaign.
I’m not convinced that ID cards will have any effect on crime, other than to create a new sideline for forgers. The Telegraph is clearly opposed, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the other right-wing papers take a similar line. When the Mail runs out of healing crystal and bible code stories, it likes nothing better than a crime wave scare. If it doesn’t buy the ID card line, the ‘soft on crime’ slur might backfire. Crime, by definition, is illegal. Is the government really alleging that the previous governments supported the mafia? Why do we need a bill for a “crackdown on serious and organised crime” I thought that was what the police did, when they had a moment to spare from sensitivity workshops and form-filling. Anti-Social Behaviour Orders are a joke, and I don’t see how yet more legislation will make any difference. The drugs thing … heard it all before.
Still there’s good news for hunters:
David Blunkett will also unveil a Sentencing Bill to slash the number of prisoners in Britain’s jails, by diverting them into toughened-up community sentences, or halfway schemes such as weekend jails. This will delight prison reformers — including Cherie Blair, who has campaigned vigorously for fewer women to be jailed — but it is one of few liberal measures in a draconian programme designed to buy it space for more progressive arguments during the election campaign.
As a letter to the Telegraph pointed out:
Sir – Reading your survey of hunts (News, Nov 19), I was struck by how, without exception, the female masters vehemently vow to continue hunting illegally and using civil disobedience to fight their cause. The men, by contrast, seem relatively conciliatory.
Well, at least they won’t get locked up, poor dears.
These 323 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:00pm GMT Permanent link.
Some Rubbish With The Common Denominator Of Matthew Parris »
Chris Dillow (who now seems to have settled into a daily posting groove) speculates on rising intelligence. (The phenomenon is known as the Flynn effect.) Chris quotes Engels to illustrate “how stupid people were in the 19th century.” Two can play at that game, I give you Jade Goody.
Chris was inspired by Matthew Parris in the Spectator (reg required but worth it, IMO).
I have just about had my fill of commentators who don’t like their country, don’t like the world, and don’t much care for the human race. I read television critics who don’t approve of television, radio critics who hate the BBC, social commentators who rage against British society, diarists who despise celebrities, religious correspondents who are sure the Church is going to Hell in a handcart, and as I plough onward through my Telegraph, Spectator and, sometimes, Times, I feel my spirits slowly sinking.
So Matthew writes for the Times, but doesn’t often bother to read it. Good for him. Elsewhere in the same issue Geoffrey Wheatcroft “says the ban on hunting demonstrates the sheer rottenness of our sentimental, warmongering and crooked political culture”. No one said a magazine has to be consistent.
Through The Honourable Fiend, I find that Matthew Parris’s Times colleague Michael Gove is calling for the reintroduction of Section 28. I do hope Boris Johnson asks Matthew Parris to record the Christmas parties of his various publications, and any Conservative Party bashes he attends.
These 158 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 6:57pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 22 November 2004
An Unfortunate Confusion Of Identities »
Never let be said that I’m not prepared to believe in any idiocy of the United Sates, so when The Panda’s Thumb reported on a radio show discussion on evolution and “intelligent design” whose “guests included Barbara Forrest, Casey Luskin, David Schwimmer, and John Calvert.” I was less than impressed.
It was, of course, this David Schwimmer, not this David Schwimmer. The real professor’s picture shows him putting a crocodile skull on his head, something Ross Geller would have been too serious to allow himself be caught doing.
These 88 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:15am GMT Permanent link.
Why I Hate The Passive Voice »
David Aaronovich trips over his own grammar.
… The Manchurian Candidate — a remake of the 1962 paranoid classic, this time directed by Jonathan Demme — is praised as possessing ‘a sinister buzz of context’.
He’s not wrong: that phrase was used of The Manchurian Candidate — as “The screenplay provides us with a sinister buzz of context” — by Tim Robey in rival paper the Telelgraph (he called it “thrillingly topical” too). But I’m not sure that Mr Robey meant ‘context’ in the way Mr Aaronovich reads it. Surely ‘context’ just means ‘background’ or ‘back story’ in this case. True, at the end of that paragraph, he says “And, yes, this is all meant to sound oddly familiar” but, again, note the “oddly” not “literally.”
Or course, Mr Aaronovich doesn’t want to tell us where his sinister phrase comes from — he wants to attach it to the movie like a barnacle to an injured whale. It wants it to be more than an ephemeral phrase in last week’s review section, but to carry the hopes and fears of all Southern California’s bien pensants.
An American film critic argued that what the movie told us was how little progress America had made in the period since the original was released.
Which American film critic? Ah, Mr Aaronovich kindly provides a direct quotation “War on Terror has taken the world right back to the same old Cold War fear and paranoia that prevailed when Frankenheimer’s version of the film first appeared — which is precisely why The Manchurian Candidate still manages to be as freshly frightening today as it was over 40 years ago.” Ho for Google. Whaddya know? Here’s the review: it’s written by Anton Bitel who with his shaved head, chin dimple goatee, and multiple earrings looks like an American college kid, but what’s this in his bio?
Anton Bitel is a freelance film critic at large. His Oxford doctorate in Classics, earned studying Latin ghost stories and adultery tales, is of little relevance to this. When MI6 failed to call, film criticism seemed the obvious option, for when he is not actually in a cinema, he can usually be found in the queue outside.
Do we allow Yanks to join MI6? I think not. He’s not an American, David. Neither review says that the film depicts anything like the truth, only that a) paranoia is this year’s alien invasion/giant monster attack and b) “The War on Terror” is as good a scaffold as any for a contemporary thriller.
Except, unlike Frankenheimer, Demme is completely unaware of the meaning of what he has done.
And your evidence for this is? Projection, David, projection. Know thyself.
These 322 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:27pm GMT Permanent link.
Just To Let Harry Know »
Harry of the Place has an interesting post comparing and contrasting Europe with the US. He includes the immortal line:
I’d just ask that when black sportsmen in the Superbowl have to put up with monkey noises and other racist taunts, let me know.
Black sportsmen in Europe shouldn’t have to put up with racist taunts. In fact, they don’t have to.
Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, said yesterday that he would have “supported” England’s players if they had walked off the pitch at the Bernabeu on Wednesday in protest at the racist abuse of the Spanish fans.
But that isn’t what Harry meant, of course. He meant that US fans are more civilised because they don’t do that sort of thing. Until just now, I thought he was right. The Guardian:
The NBA has never seen anything like it. It made Eric Cantona’s flying kung-fu kick on a Crystal Palace fan look like a minor disagreement. When two of the league’s top stars invaded the stands to punch and kick their way through fans, leaving nine people requiring treatment for injuries, unprecedented disciplinary action was required. A total suspension of 143 games spread between nine players was fair enough.
The incident happened on Friday night, when the Indiana Pacers travelled to world champions and Eastern Conference Central rivals Detroit Pistons. With the Pacers leading 97-82 going into the last minute, Indiana’s Ron Artest unnecessarily pushed Detroit’s Ben Wallace in the back as he went for a lay-up. When Wallace retaliated with a full-on, two-fisted punch in Artest’s face, all hell broke loose.
The 10 players on court, the replacements, coaches and security officials all became embroiled in a vicious brawl which took five minutes to calm down. Artest, resting on the scorer’s table, was then hit by a beer bottle thrown from the crowd, and proceeded to charge into the stands to find the guilty party.
Seeing his 6ft 7in team-mate take on this solitary mission, Stephen Jackson followed Artest, and the two traded punches with a posse of home fans. Eventually police dragged them back onto the court, only to be met by an invasion from angered supporters. Further fighting ensued, with Pacers superstar Jermaine O’Neal particularly aggressive in handing out right hooks amid a torrent of flying beer vessels, popcorn and, more seriously, chairs. Young fans were televised crying at what they were witnessing.
The NBA’s commissioner David Stern branded the scenes “shocking, repulsive and inexcusable” before imposing bans which American basketball has never seen before. Artest was suspended for the rest of the season — 74 games — while Jackson received a 30-game ban and O’Neal will be out of action for 25 games. Wallace escaped relatively lightly with a six-game suspension, while two more Pacers and three more Pistons also suffered disciplinary action of one sort or another.
“The actions of the players involved wildly exceeded the professionalism and self-control that should fairly be expected from NBA players,” Stern said. “The line is drawn, and my guess is that won’t happen again — certainly not by anybody who wants to be associated with our league.”
The players’ union has vowed to fight the suspensions as they believe they are out of keeping with previous punishments for similar offences. In 1995, Houston Rockets’ Vernon Maxwell was banned for just 10 games and fined $20,000 for attacking a Portland fan. The heaviest ban handed out for an on-court offence was Kermit Washington’s 26-game suspension for punching a player in 1977.
The union is particularly aggrieved that the suspensions are without pay, which for Artest amounts to losing approximately $5m in salary, while O’Neal’s $14.8m salary will be down by a quarter.
I haven’t been that ashamed of organised Labour for a long, long time.
These 85 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:15pm GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 23 November 2004
I'm Not The Only One »
I don’t believe that I fell for this. (I blame Will. NB He’s moved!)
So did lots of other people. Found through Snopes. This letter is particularly splendid:
With regards to your stated support of changing the name of Interstate 69 to I-63, the issue of morality has been cited. According to The Hoosier Gazette, you are quoted as saying, “I believe it is time to change the name of the highway. It is the moral thing to do.” This has caused my wife and I no little concern, as although we have been married for nearly ten years, we had never before heard a U.S. Representative deem the number sixty-nine immoral. This is undoubtedly a reference to the sexual position sixty-nine, but we are now wondering why this sexual position is less moral than other sexual positions of different numerical status, and hope you can offer clarification.
My wife and I have engaged in the sixty-nine sexual position on several occasions. And although it didn’t seem so bad at the time, in light of your recent comments, we both are now questioning our morality. Is all oral sex between married couples now immoral, or only in the sixty-nine position? I hope you’ll agree with me that our government has an obligation to illuminate its position on this important issue.
…
Instead of just banning marriage between homosexual couples, what if we made divorce punishable by twenty years in prison, no parole? For my money, that would really protect the sanctity of marriage. Or maybe the death penalty for divorce lawyers would serve as an effective deterrent.
Kill the lawyers? First thing we do … (Exit hurriedly, mumbling Shakespeare.)
These 40 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:56pm GMT Permanent link.
What Makes You Proud Of Britain? »
In a post splendidly entitled Fingers down throat time, the Honourable Fiend announced http://www.proudofbritain.org.uk/. What could this be? The recrudescence of the English Democrats? Perhaps the Kilroy-Silk Independence Party? The main photo on the site shows a posse of school students (or ‘kids’ or ‘yoof’) in neat school uniforms (yeah, right) one holding a Union Flag (which I regret to note is the right way up), and a black girl prominently in the front line row. They’re not proud of Britain; they’re proud of New Britain! It’s the New Labour Party! Don’t mention Cool Britannia. That was so last millennium. (NB I’ve changed the link.)
The site tells us that Britain is working. (Ouch! This must have really hurt.) So much so, that I can watch a video — if I were the sort of half-wit who has Real Player. (Part of this country actually works!)
Anyway, there’s a box where you can suggest what makes you proud of Britain. Here’s my effort (originally only the first two words).
Robin Cook, Radio 4 (especially John Humphreys), our proud tradition of freedom, exemplified by the abolition of identity papers not too long after WWII, trial by jury, habeus corpus, freedom of the press, the right to protest, freedom from state surveillance.
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Disclaimers »
I don’t know how many of you write textbooks, but, if any of you do, you might need this:
This textbook suggests that the earth is spherical. The shape of the earth is a controversial topic, and not all people accept the theory. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
Found through here.
What is this blog without a mention of nice Mr Blair?
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Not Cricket »
I’m not trying to drive a wedge between some readers (though it’s an idea), but it seems that bloggers and blog-readers who like Norm also have time for David Aaronovich (an utterly mysterious affection to me).
Whatever, here’s the Normster (or whatever Damian calls him) on Zimbabwe.
And here’s Aaronovich on “I’m a celebrity etc.”
Banishing Tony Parsons to the jungle is a bit a of joke. Julie Burchill? If only! But Bill Deedes? I think not.
Is this cricket, or something a little more unsporting?
Glancing at a shelf that holds all my books on cricket, I fell to wondering what a cricket historian of the future will make of our dispatching a side to Zimbabwe just now. Our men arrive at an unpropitious moment, just as Robert Mugabe drives a new set of repressive laws through his parliament and puts his foot on the necks of human rights organisations.
With the passage of time and a different perspective, I suppose it is possible that this future historian will find it easier than we do now to draw a clear distinguishing line between the brutality of Saddam in Iraq and Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
He may be able to explain to us why the behaviour of the first provoked America and Britain to war against him and the behaviour of the second was condoned by our sending a representative cricket side. It will be argued by Mugabe’s defenders that he does not pose a direct threat to us because he has no weapons of mass destruction. But now we doubt whether Saddam ever possessed such weapons.
So what is the difference between the two men? Mugabe countenances not only the murder of white farmers, but also of his own people if they oppose him politically. He cuts off their food supply. In terms of corruption, there isn’t the breadth of a hair between them. So our historian of the future will have his work cut out to make this tour look a feather in England’s cap.
Then we turn to a sports writer in the Guardian, who reports that our cricketers are going to Zimbabwe as mere pawns in a bigger game. Upset the Zimbabwean apple-cart, he declares, and you risk losing a substantial portion of the black African vote when it comes to voting for the 2012 Olympics.
There are a couple of sentences I’d have phrased a little more sensitively than Bill, but, damn, his heart’s in the right place. And, according to Norm, Mr Aaronovich’s papers are welcomed by Mugabe.
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Wednesday, 24 November 2004
For The Right Side Of The Road »
Huh-uough! Absolutely nothing!
Edwin Starr
Hey, I can’t be everywhere. I don’t take in every piece of news. And maybe British troops are too stiff-upper-lipped to ask for charity (or perhaps from the tatters of the communitarianism of WWII they still don’t need to). I think the occupation of Iraq is wrong. But while our troops are out there, why don’t we see anything like this on hawk blogs? I mean, ever?
Oh, BTW, I wore a poppy, as I always have. But, if anyone can explain the good that the 1914-1918 War did for humanity, I’d like 1000 words. Whenever you’re ready.
(Robin Cook still makes me proud of Great Britain. New Britain — where everything is illegal — can go fuck itself.)
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Opposition Is True Friendship »
At last I get to use one of the quotes which appear somewhere at the top to good use. I’m a little drunk, so this is likely to be less than brilliant. When we were warming down from tonight’s hill session, DP asked me what I thought of the proposed smoking ban, and I replied with the F-word (that’s the F****** word, not the F*** word). He asked if it that was because of my hatred of B****, and I said no, if some pubs wanted to declare themselves “no smoking” I’d patronise them; but that’s for the market to decide, not the state. A market solution seems perfect here. If no smoking bars are successful, they’ll spread, if, for some reason, they’re not, they’ll die out. DP and I disagree about freedom. He thinks I have the freedom not to be harmed; I think I have the choice to enter a pub or not (and accept the consequences either way). He climbs mountains for god’s sake!
And here is Edward_ on the ‘Land of the Free.” A comment which asked “Can you really sign away your first amendment rights like this?” sparked this post.
We need both. The rule of law (or a decent Bill of RIghts; real rights, not what F****** F***ing Blunkett thinks are rights) and the market. Libertarianism can’t be constructed ex nihilo; it needs well-defined state limits.
Hmmm. Health warning label: The Surgeon General says W*****G MAKES YOU GO BLIND. Could make Richard Desmond bankrupt. Then again, maybe I know the best place for your pension fund or mortgage endowment. Nothing as sexy as prohibition. Cancer sticks, a much better investment than the Dollar.
(I’m ethical. I wouldn’t invest in cigarettes; I was kidding. Phosphorous, perhaps.)
End of confused rant. Iraq needs a constitution. Is anyone writing one?
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Soul Mates »
Anybody else spot Ian Paisley standing next to David Blunkett during the Queen’s Speech? What was that Orwell line about Rugby League?
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Resign, Resign, Resign »
Yes! Democracy, it’s great, no? (Comme mes amis en France dirait.) The Gandhi “civilisation” quip springs to mind.
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I'm Proud To Be British »
It just took National Geographic to remind me.
Where do you bury someone like Darwin, a man who admittedly had lost his Christian faith and declared himself an agnostic? When he died on April 19, 1882, his family planned to bury him in the local churchyard beside the graves of his children. Some of Darwin’s countrymen, however, had other ideas and quickly began lobbying leading scientists and members of government to come together and ask the dean of Britain’s Westminster Abbey to allow Darwin to be buried there. The dean, Reverend George Granville Bradley, responded that his “assent would be cheerfully given,” and so Darwin, the agnostic, was buried in Westminster Abbey on the afternoon of April 26. Darwin’s old friend, botanist Joseph Hooker, was among the pallbearers, as were Alfred Russel Wallace, the young naturalist whose writings had pushed Darwin into publishing his own theory, and James Russell Lowell, the United States’ ambassador to Britain. In a part of the Abbey known as Scientists’ Corner, Darwin lies a few feet from the burial place of Sir Isaac Newton and next to that of the astronomer Sir John Herschel. It was Herschel that Darwin referred to in the introduction of The Origin of Species as the great philosopher who coined the phrase “mystery of mysteries” to describe the change of Earth’s species through time.
I’m ashamed of this Flat-Earth Moron, ‘a man who describes prayer as a source of solace.’
This isn’t Yank-bashing. Anyone who saw the Russell Crowe movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and recognised the Galapagos Islands and recognised the references would be pleased to know that the Master was welcomed by United Navy Admirals and taken on a submarine voyage. (According to William Waldegrave in The Yellow Admiral.) It’s ignorant Bible-basher-bashing. I admire the lions; the donkeys who lead, however, …
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Derrida, Of A Sort »
Lazily, flicking through the Great Man:
We no longer esteem ourselves sufficiently when we communicate ourselves. Our true experiences are not at all garrulous. They could not communicate themselves even if they tried. That is because they lack the right word, Whatever we have words for, that we have already got beyond. In all talk there is a grain of contempt. Language, it seems, was invented only for what is average, medium, communicable. With language the speaker immediately vulgarizes himself. Out of a morality for deaf-mutes and other philosophers.
Twilight of the Idols: Morality as Anti-Nature: 26.
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Modernise »
Rightly sayeth the Telegraph:
Every time a minister, or even the Queen, for that matter, utters the word “modernise”, your wallet or purse should twitch. Seven years into the Labour Government, we know from experience that modernisation means more bans, more regulations, more funny job advertisements in the Guardian, and, ultimately, more public spending.
Goes some way to explain David Aaronovich’s loyalty to Labour.
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An Infantile Disorder »
Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
He got an ice pick
That made his ears burn
Harry is too quick to praise the Foreign Secretary. Lenin’s Left-Wing Communism … etc is the most obnoxious book I’ve ever read. As Mr Straw says (quoted by Harry):
Lenin wrote ” … we were right in calling Trotskyism a representation and the worst remnants of factionalism”
Christ knows what “factionalism” is, but it sure sounds important. And if you have a word that ends in “ism” you’re a scientist, as Maureen Lipman ought to have said. As Mr Straw continued:
Lenin’s observations in Left Wing Communism were prescient, with his warnings of “splitism”, “ultra leftism” and “wider infantile disorders”, which have so characterised Trotskyist groups throughout their history.
“Ismism” is as scientific as my arse. See Karl Popper.
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And By The Way »
Jack Straw’s objections to Trotskyism. What was needed was a strong hand.
Grand Moff Tarkin was the Imperial governor of the Outland Regions, and the mastermind of the Death Star project. A brilliant and ruthless tactician, Tarkin was a loyal adherent to Emperor Palpatine’s vision of the New Order. He saw the Death Star as the ultimate weapon to ensure absolute rule over the galaxy. The power of the battle station’s prime weapon was enough to deter any rebellion, he reasoned. To demonstrate the Death Star’s power, he destroyed the planet of Alderaan.
Some questioned whether Tarkin’s methods were merely bids to aggrandize his own status, in defiance of the Emperor’s ultimate goal. The truth will never be known, …
If you haven’t seen the film, the New Order meets a bad end. Sorry if that spoiled the end for you, Jack.
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We'll Pull It Down When The Revolution Comes »
Sadly, this is for real. Found through Long story …, where a comment suggests that they misspelled ‘Dear’.
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The Sin Of Pride »
At the site with a url very similar to Proud of Britain, your comments are pouring in — like rain in Death Valley. Harry hayfield [sic] of Ffos-y-ffin says:
The Wales Millenium Centre: it’ll put Wales and the UK on the map.
About time too. While Zoe Gradwell of Bath thinks that:
In Bath bus drivers are far more considerate than in other areas, do lots to help the elderly.
Which doesn’t strike me as praise for the nation as a whole. But I’ve submitted two ‘stories.’ The second one was as ‘Mrs Edna Busstop’ (they refused ‘Edna Busstop (Mrs)’ presumably because brackets aren’t letters), which was, ambiguously, “Rupert Murdoch.” Really, I’m very glad that he’s not one of ours. I can’t think why they didn’t use mine. I really am proud of all those things. I’m also proud that we don’t have giant statues or billboards of our Dear Leader, but I’m sure they’re on the way.
I wonder if they’d publish, “I’m proud of our tradition of free enterprise. Quite unlike the French, who have no word for entrepreneur.”
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Hurrah For The Guardian! »
The Guardian reports:
Last night Zimbabwe Cricket informed the Sun, Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times and News of the World, as well as representatives of BBC radio and television news, that they had been refused accreditation.
The Guardian, Independent, Daily Express, Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, agencies Reuters and the Press Association, GQ magazine, ITN and two photographers from the Getty Images agency are understood to have been granted accreditation, and should be allowed to enter the country this evening when the England squad arrive.
The good old Guardian and the Indy are approved by Robert Mugabe. How nice for them. Is a boycott too much to hope for?
Michael Vaughan, the England captain, condemned the decision. “I think it is totally wrong and I am flabbergasted by the decision. Whatever you think of the media, they have a huge role to play in giving exposure to the game.”
And exposure to Zimbabwe. Come on, show some spine. Tell the International Cricket Council what we think of them.
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Thursday, 25 November 2004
I'm Proud, Me »
The Proud of Britain website is now number 3 on Google, and a few more links could lift it to its rightful place. It seems from the comments to Matthew’s post that a lot of people have had comments rejected. V. strange.
Back at the imposter site, does Dickie Attenborough really write as horribly as this?
I’m profoundly interested in communication between people, basically through education in its widest sense and of course the arts.
We have 28,000 new teachers and OFSTED have just announced that their generation is probably the best we have ever had.
How marvellous it is that our public galleries and museums are now entry free of charge with the result that there is a 70 per cent uplift in attendances.
Our government has just doubled aid to the poorest countries in the world and they are leading the way in the ruling out of the third world debt which of course would free funds for the treatment and cure of HIV/AIDS.
I myself am greatly interested in the ground breaking tax concessions made for the British film industry, which in itself is a major form of communication between peoples.
There’s so much to be proud of, Britain really is working.
I thought ‘uplift’ had something to do with helicopters. The “British film industry, which in itself is a major form of communication between peoples.” Yeah, right.
Michael Edwards of Nottingham is proud that
That the British people have maintained their commitment to a health service, free at the point of use for all who need it; and all involved have improved the quality of the service they provide.
And the headline in the Western Mail this morning is “Welsh doctors and nurses ‘are weeping in despair’.” Online, it’s the less hysterical, Medics ‘in despair’ at failing policies.
THE head of the British Medical Association in Wales has launched a blistering attack on the National Assembly, as doctors finally lose patience with its failing health policies.
Tony Calland said yesterday doctors were weeping in despair at rising waiting lists.
One in 12 people living in Wales is now waiting to see a consultant as outpatient waiting lists have hit a record high. One in 10 are on a waiting list when inpatients are included.
It means almost a quarter of a million patients are now waiting — sometimes years — to learn whether their condition will require surgery.
Many patients’ conditions will deteriorate by the time they eventually get an appointment with a hospital consultant.
You were saying?
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Another One For The Blogroll »
I’m adding The Young Fogey’s Agreeable World, which I found through Technorati. Despite the name, it’s not a parody of Peter Cuthbertson (whom I’m adding too, belatedly), and has rather interesting posts on Tony Banks ("When, exactly, did it become right on to call for the annihilation of the entire human race?"), Gudrun Schyman ("she sounds like the sort of person you want to have a few beers with"), and the excellent Variations on a theme by Niemöller.
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Another Reason To Be Proud »
Jude Law. He’s in six films out this year. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Alfie, Closer, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Aviator, and the splendid I Heart Huckabees, which I saw last night. (He’s the titular character in three of those, which may be some kind of record.) He’s not the best thing in Huckabees, which is probably a tie between Mark Wahlberg and Isabelle Huppert (though Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin are very fine). I’m not sure it adds up to much, and nine or ten people walked out of a half-full small multiplex auditorium before the end, but the script is very interesting, and some set pieces are excellent, particularly Mark Wahlberg’s fireman cycling to a fire and getting there before the truck, which will probably enter the shared culture of cyclists everywhere.
I did think of telling Proud of Britain of the many accomplishments of Ken Loach, Harold Pinter, Frederick Forsythe, and Brian Eno (whom I’ve particularly admired since I copied the tape a friend recorded off a French radio station where he was talking about and playing gospel music), but what’s the point?
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Friday, 26 November 2004
War On Terrorism »
A message from your government: “PANIC!!!”
Chris Dillow has an insightful and oblique angle on whether the government is stoking up fear.
Tim Ireland quotes Wednesday’s Snowmail:
Met an excellent group of brokers/dealers/traders in the city at lunchtime. Fell to discussing the ‘threat’ to Canary Wharf. No further evidence that there is even a scintilla of truth in the story that a plot was foiled.
Went back to my sources today (yes, two, Lord Hutton.) Both resolute in their dismissing of the story. So it remains strange tonight that such a story broke so conveniently upon a day when the government wanted to unveil ‘tough on terrorism’ plans.
Two newspapers which didn’t run the Canary Wharf attack prominently were the Independent and the Telegraph. Both sides of the the political divide. And both based there. In 1996, the IRA bombed Canary Wharf and even the unspeakable Home Secretary at the time (the Rt Hon Michael Howard, QC, MP, if memory serves) didn’t suggest risibly draconian measures. I suppose as Michael J Totten insists, the IRA were good old-school terrorists, whose arms suppliers were Libya (now our friend) and the US (then, as now, our bestest friend). Of course, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 11 September, 2001 were Saudi, and Saudi Arabia is also our friend, but let’s ignore that, and concentrate on enemies (or ex-friends) like Iraq.
Could David Blunkett be a liar?
Another Proud of Britain site.
’There’s so much to be proud of, my peerage is really working for me’
Oscar-winning film-maker Lord Lickhard Haddapeerage.
Chris Brooke calls the official Proud of Britain an “absurd new website.” I used to hate the Tories for trying to mingle the country’s identity with their own. There are some things mentioned on the ‘absurd new website’ which are worthy of pride — but they’re for pride in the Labour Party’s achievements since 1997, they don’t rank alongside Shakespeare, Darwin, Dickens, Newton, Winston Churchill, our record of legal decency (an independent judiciary, habeus corpus, trial by jury), and our wars on the tyrants Napoleon and Hitler. “Proud of New Labour” would be much less stomach-turning. But pensioners being warmer in 2004 than they were in the first seven winters of Blair isn’t something that leaps to mind as a source of pride in the nation, nor are polite bus drivers in Bath.
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Children Neither Seen Nor Heard »
Parents ‘unaware children obese’. Tasteless “elephant in the room” jokes to follow.
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Local Hero »
And a good lad.
One of the brightest of a new generation of heterodox politicians outside the mainstream parties, [Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price,] the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr discovered early on that he had inherited the rhetorical skills of a famous ancestor, the evangelical preacher Evan Roberts. But the MP abandoned the church for socialism when he reached the age of 15.
His father, Rufus, a miner at Bettws colliery, became a member of the A Team, an elite squad of flying pickets in 1984. His English mother, Ruth, was secretary of the local support group. The bitter experience of the strike turned him from Neil Kinnock’s modernising Labour into the arms of Plaid.
“I was a socialist before I was a nationalist. Even in the 1980s, Labour was shifting to the right. Boy, have they shifted,” he recalled yesterday.
It won’t be long before the denunciations start.
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The Flynn Effect »
According to the Flynn Effect, peeps are getting smarter.
According to Harry Hutton, they ain’t.
I side with Harry.
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Now And Then »
Asked about Peter Hain’s comment in the House of Commons saying the Government was against the England team touring in Zimbabwe and the Foreign Secretary’s more neutral stance that it was not a matter for the Government to decide and which of the two positions was accurate the PMOS reminded journalists what the Foreign Secretary had said on 6 May at a joint press conference with Tim Lamb, Chief Executive of the ECB, David Morgan and Tessa Jowell: …
“But it is right that in our system it is for sporting authorities to make the decisions in cases such as this.”
The Cricket Council has reversed a decision to allow South African cricketers to tour England this summer.
The move follows strong pressure from the Home Secretary, James Callaghan.
A Labour government would be a fine thing.
Update: I was Proud of Britain in those days.
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I'm A Celebrity, I'm Proud Of Britain! »
Some celebs they missed.
Liam Gallagher, Musician
I’m looking forward to my personalised cocaine cutter. Sure everybody will have one, but how many will have traces of grade A Columbian, eh? And they say you can find a policeman when you want one. Well, I never want to see a policeman, so Labour suit me just fine.
Have some cake.
Steve Bell, Cartoonist
The years between 1990 and 1997 were pretty lean. What was there to mock apart from John and his amazing underpants? Now, there’s so much material, it’s all low-hanging fruit. I love this country.
David Brent, Job Seeker
Like me, the Labour government listens. My door was always open, and Tony is just like me in that respect. He really listens, and everyone loves him for it. ‘Course, I’m a better guitarist.
More endorsements soon.
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Tablets Of Steyn »
I won’t hear another word against Steyn. Lord Steyn, that is.
Courts must never abdicate their duty to protect citizens from the abuse of power by governments, a senior judge said last night.
The United States government has already created “a hellhole of utter lawlessness” at Guantanamo Bay by committing such abuse, according to Lord Steyn, a leading law lord.
In a highly unusual move, he launched a public attack on Lord Hoffmann, a fellow law lord, for suggesting that the courts should not interfere with certain Government decisions.
On the contrary, Lord Steyn told a group of lawyers and judges in Belfast, it was the “democratic and constitutional duty of judges to stand up where necessary for individuals against the Government”.
“If the judges of today teach a new generation of lawyers, and judges, that complaisance by the judiciary to the views of the legislature and the executive in policy areas is the best way forward, one of the pillars of our democracy will have been weakened,” he added in a lecture to the Judicial Studies Board.
“In troubled times there is an ever present danger of the seductive but misconceived judicial mindset that ‘after all, we are on the same side as the Government’.”
This, he said, was a “slippery slope which tends to sap the will of judges to face up to a government guilty of abuse of power”. Even democratic governments sometimes abused their powers and needed to face open and effective justice, he said.
“The detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay has one single object: the United States administration wanted to place them beyond the protection of the rule of law. They created a hellhole of utter lawlessness where the prisoners are at the mercy of the American army, of which the President is, in law and in fact, the Commander in Chief.”
A good lad. Makes me Proud of Britain.
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More Attempts At Humour »
Suggestions for what makes us proud of Britain. (I did submit these. They might brighten the moments of the drones who person the website. Then again, they may not. You can’t please everybody.)
William H H Joyce
It takes a special person to really befriend someone with a mental handicap. So many well-meaning people just talk down to the disabled. Therefore I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on his hard work with George W Bush. He makes me so proud.
Euripides Fring
Most people I know are, to put it politely, stupid. They’re not the sort of persons I’d trust to make important moral decisions. I’m so pleased that, even if he had to lie, the Prime Minister did The Right Thing in Iraq. If he’d told the truth to Parliament, would we have invaded? I think not. Good for Tony!
Jessica Snarl
I really enjoyed the Millennium Dome! Boo to the nay sayers of the press. Mr Mandelson did such a splendid job, though I may say that some of the zones were a little above my head! I couldn’t see what they were for at all. Still, who says Oxford and Yale doctorates and a Nobel Prize make you clever? Not me!
I’ll live to regret this, I know.
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Don't Stop Me Now »
Dearie me, an open goal I missed:
I myself am greatly interested in the ground breaking tax concessions made for the British film industry, which in itself is a major form of communication between peoples.
Dickie Attenborough on the police state website.
Name some memorable British films.
Trainspotting. D’oh! 1996. Yes, but Cherie Blair used Carole Caplin’s healing crystals to send cleansing energy back through time.
Kes. D’oh! 1969.
Chariots of Fire. D’oh! 1981. Under Thatcher!
Aww. The Full Monty just scrapes into New Labour.
There must be other good British recent films. There just have to be. We’ve got tax breaks, quite unlike populist Hollywood. See in Star Wars, all the SFX were filmed in this country, and that was under Labour. John Williams (Dee dee, deedee dee Dee-dee, etc), he’s British. OK, it was James Callaghan, but who cares?
I’m still thinking of all the great British films made since 1997.
I can’t think of the names just now, but they’re wonderful, just trust me.
Update: See Michael Brooke for a list.
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Saturday, 27 November 2004
A Joke But Not A Joke »
True wits and madness sure are near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Dryden
Will “Good Lad” Rubbish sent me this. Which is funny except that is reminds me of Robert Lowell who spent years in therapy.
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull,
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind’s not right.
A car radio bleats,
’Love, O careless Love . . . .’ I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat . . . .
I myself am hell,
nobody’s here —
And indeed of T.S. Eliot’s own attempts with therapy, recalled as “On Margate Sands,/I can connect/Nothing with nothing.” (Whether his therapist recognised the King Lear reference ("Nothing will come of nothing” — to Cordelia) is unknown.) James Fenton satirised it thus:
“Jug- jug- jugular” he cried
Then leapt into the sea and died.
His corpse came back on the next tide.
They built a pyre.
"All through his wretched life,” they sighed,
"He had lacked fire.”
Artists may need to be tempermental. From the sleeve notes from Howlin’ Wolf: The Genuine Article:
The Wolf’s relationship with his guitarists were similarly volatile. Around 1956, the Wolf and Willie Johnson parted company, making space for guitarist Hubert Sumlin, also from Mississippi, to contribute to one of the most important junctures in the mighty man’s career. Of the breakup, Wolf admitted, “I didn’t mind the fighting, but he [Johnson] wouldn’t let me get no rest!”
Though the much older Wolf adopted a parental stance toward Sumlin, this didn’t prevent the pair from regularly punching out each other’s teeth: Wolf (usually) with his fists, Sumlin (on one occasion) with the butt of his pistol.
I regard the Wolf as one of the Greats in the History of music, perhaps the first after Wagner. To get back to the theme of the week, I’m Proud of Britain (also from the sleeve notes):
With electronic highways now capable of beaming sound and pictures to even the remotest corner of the planet, what took place on ABC-TV on 20 May, 1966 might, three decades on, appear almost insignificant. But, at the time, it was ground breaking.
WIth just over a week left to go of their third North American tour, the Rolling Stones accepted an invitation to guest on Jack Good’s primetime pop blitz Shindig.
Halfway through the show Brian and Mick beamed knowingly at the cameras as they introduced bluesman Howlin’ Wolf who — just one month short of his 55th birthday — bellowed out a hackle-raising performance of ‘How Many More Years’.
For many Americans, it was their first confrontation with the blues.
Americans had heard Elvis “Niggers are only good for writing my songs” Presley, but they hadn’t heard the Wolf. And who brought him to them? The British. According to Francis Wheen’s The Soul of Indiscretion: Tom Driberg, Poet, Philanderer, Legislator and Outlaw — His Life and Indiscretions, Tom Driberg, then a Labour MP, tried to seduce Mick Jagger into the Labour Party, without realising that he was a solid Tory.
I think I’ll miss the Labour Party like chemotherapy.
These 196 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:22am GMT Permanent link.
I Am Spartacus »
I didn’t think of this, but I really wish I had. (As Alex suggests, parody is listed under fair use.)
It’s Mr Harry Hutton’s idea. (I want to call him Mr, but we’re “supposed to call everyone ‘comrade’".)
I rather think Labour suing anyone is a bit of a joke, after Francis Fukuyama said “that Mr Blair had clearly “lied” about his reason for going to war in Iraq” and Jo Moore (who was supposed to be a civil servant, working for the taxpayers who paid for her) told her staff that that lying to those very taxpayers was more important that worrying about terrorist threats to, ahem, those taxpayers. Finding ways to say that the trains ran on time, even when they very clearly didn’t was the priority of a good Labour wonk. Never mind the real terrorist attack. Was she sacked? No. So sue away. You’d love this stuff to come to court.
Blair lied over WMD.
Blunkett lied about Canary Wharf.
Go on.
These 167 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:20am GMT Permanent link.
Booze An Fags »
Somebody had to do it. I think Mr Nightingale is being, ever so subtly, ironic.
Update: they—ve removed the quote and the photo (he was drinking a pint while holding a cigarette; his contribution praised state health care), just as they— removed the contribution Matthew Turner had the foresight to copy.
These 15 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:58pm GMT Permanent link.
Sunday, 28 November 2004
Another Liar »
Front page of this morning’s Observer: Revealed: how Britain was told full coup plan.
Britain was given a full outline of an illegal coup plot in a vital oil-rich African state, including the dates, details of arms shipments and key players, several months before the putsch was launched, according to confidential documents obtained by The Observer.
But, despite Britain’s clear obligations under international law, Jack Straw, who was personally told of the plans at the end of January, failed to warn the government of Equatorial Guinea.
…
Officials added that Straw and African minister Chris Mullin were personally told of the plot on Friday 30 January.
In December 2003 and January 2004 two separate, highly detailed reports of the planned coup, from Johann Smith, a former commander in South African Special Forces, were sent to two senior officers in British intelligence and to a senior colleague of Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, according to the documents seen by The Observer .
The new claims raise questions about Straw’s recent parliamentary answers in the Commons. In August officials flatly denied any prior knowledge of the plot, but earlier this month Straw was forced to admit that the government was informed in late January. On 17 November he admitted his department had received ‘confidential information’ on the plan, but played down its significance, saying in a parliamentary answer that the reports contained nothing that ‘significantly’ added to rumours of a possible coup reported in the Spanish media.
Now in They Work for You, Mark Simmonds asked Chris Mullin from what source his Department learned of the attempted coup plot in Equatorial Guinea, and was told
I refer the hon. Member to the reply my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gave to the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) on 17 November 2004 (UINs 198219, 198227 and 198228).
That would be this exchange.
Ancram: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when the Government was first informed of the Equatorial Guinea attempted coup plot.
Straw: In late January 2004.
The Guardian is more forthcoming:
At Westminster this week, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, gave a detailed explanation for the first time of the British government’s advance knowledge of the alleged plot. The government first heard of the allegations in late January, he said in a written answer to the Conservative frontbencher Michael Ancram.
“Confidential diplomatic exchanges” were, he said backed up by reports circulating in the media, particularly an article on January 30 in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
The Foreign Office could get no more definite information, he said, so took no further action, but it did review its civil contingency plan.
(My emphasis.) Now, is ‘Did they know?’ the important question? I think not. Phil Hammond (Runnymede & Weybridge, Con) takes an interest in the area, asking Patricia Hewitt about “the availability of ECGD support for investment in Equatorial Guinea” on 29 January 2003 and Bill Rammell about “the opportunities for British business in Equatorial Guinea” in 3 February 2003. Now these questions were put a year before the alleged coup was uncovered, but Bill Rammell’s answer is informative.
The British Government is aware of the increased opportunities for British business in Equatorial Guinea, in particular in the oil and gas sector. Trade Partners UK has recently appointed a consultant in Equatorial Guinea for six months, to identify opportunities and inform UK industry.
The Observer today says:
Officials added that Straw and African minister Chris Mullin were personally told of the plot on Friday 30 January.
Now, I’m sceptical of almost everything this government does, and, compared to most on the left, I’m a very small government person. Why do we even have an “African minister"? It must be because as the precocious Amelia in Hastings says:
I’m only one but I am proud of Britain because I am looking forward to growing up in a country that values the rights of the individual without forgeting that we are all part of a bigger society. I want to have a world to grow up into and I think that Britain is working hard on improving the environment for everyone in the world.
This jars a little with Denis McShane’s reply to John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington, Lab) on 2 July 2002:
In our statement we expressed deep disappointment at the African Group’s refusal to negotiate on the text of the resolution, appreciation for the work of the UN Special Representative, profound concern over human rights violations in Equatorial Guinea, and deep regret at the absence of any monitoring mechanism.
So the government thinks that the human rights record in Equatorial Guinea stinks, but it’s still encouraging businesses to go there. Good job they never really meant that ethical foreign policy stuff.
We I met fellow bloggers Chrises Brooke and Bertram in Bristol, we discussed the coup, and I was alone in thinking that it might be a good thing, because a) the government there was likely to be pretty horrid (a guess, but a correct one) and b) coups are less violent than wars. The others largely thought that anything Mark Thatcher was mixed up in would be very unlikely to improve the lot of ordinary people. I think they won, but I’d like to be generous to Mr Straw here. I think his position is this. We’d like to spread democracy; Equatorial Guinea’s regime is hateful; we won’t get it the way of its removal. Maybe I’m being harsh on Mark Thatcher, but I suspect that he was motivated by the oil and gas potential and not at all by the humanitarian concerns which pluck at the heart-strings of our altruistic “African minister.”
In short, while Jack Straw may have been hoping for the best, I’m sure no likely end of this could leave the people of Equatorial Guinea happier than before, and he seems to have dissembled to Mr Ancram and failed in his obligations under international law.
These 425 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:06pm GMT Permanent link.
Of Cats And Catholics »
If I hadn’t been up reading, I’d have been woken twice in the night by Gordon scampering upstairs and vigourously shaking himself dry before settling down to enthusiastically wash his groin.
Cherie Blair considers cats"unhygienic":
When Tony Blair was elected prime minister last May, Cherie Blair made it known she considered cats “unhygienic” and was not exactly elated to have Humphrey on the premises.
That was too much for the British electorate. It had voted out John Major, not Humphrey. There was a public outcry, and the new prime minister’s wife was forced to make amends by posing for photographs while cuddling Humphrey and pretending to enjoy it.
No one is saying Cherie Blair engineered Humphrey’s ouster, but the fact is he is gone and she is still at Downing Street. Draw your own conclusions.
The official story is that Humphrey has moved to an undisclosed London suburb, away from the political tensions of Downing Street, to enjoy a quiet life with a member of the staff.
The official excuse, as is so frequently the case when a government wants to get rid ofan unwanted servant, is ill health.
Downing Street claims Humphrey’s long-standing kidney complaint, believed to have resulted from his predilection for cookies at tea time, has worsened. It said he has become inactive and no longer takes any interest in food.
Nigel Evans, the Conservative shadow constitutional affairs minister, saw political significance in that.
After eight happy years under the Conservatives, he said, Humphrey had, in just six months under Labor [sic], lost all interest in living.
But then Cherie has odd ideas about hygiene (this is the best version of the Times piece quoted by Francis Wheen in How Mumbo-Jumbo, etc, p 131 that I can find).
The Blairs were offered water melon and papaya, then told to smear what they did not eat over each other’s bodies along with mud from the Mayan jungle outside.
Still, looking for that, I found A New Age Catholic for the New Millennium. If Tony Blair is ready to convert, I can only hope that the Catholic church sees sense and tells him to find a more suitable guru.
(There’s not really any point to this post, but I came across the Humphrey story looking up something else, and not liking cats is a huge minus in my book, and I’m not sure the English language has words for being less compassionate than Margaret Thatcher.)
These 153 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:59pm GMT Permanent link.
How Much Will ID Cards Cost? »
No really. I’m serious. We’ve never had a database of ID cards, nor universal retina scans and fingerprinting. We have had a benefits system, and that’s over budget and crap.
The papers keep citing £85, but don’t be surprised if the government tells you that you need to pay £300 or more for something you don’t want.
These 57 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:07pm GMT Permanent link.
Dear Mr Blunkett »
let me to congratulate you on recent success with the Queen’s speech. You’ve certainly given yourself a lot to do!
I know that one of the bills you are proposing will make the carrying of Identity Cards compulsory. As a concerned citizen, I wish to make a suggestion.
Since the 1960s, a decade I know that you, like myself, disapprove of, society has been, to put it in the vernacular, going to the dogs. Crime has been spiralling, people are no longer polite or responsible, and the cause is the breakdown of the family.
How are we to put Britain back on the straight and true path? By putting these sinners to shame! I humbly suggest that anyone known to have had a child out of wedlock have their Identity Card marked with a large letter ‘A’ preferably in scarlet, so it stands out. Then their bankers, the people in the post office, and the local bobbie will know what sort of people they are!
The children born outside marriage, who are practically feral, blasting this so-called “rap” music from the cars they can afford on too-generous state handouts, should be shamed too. I know that you have three sons from your marriage, and all young men can get into a little difficulty with the law. Officers should be made aware of what kind of person they are dealing with—a respectable lad, or a potential criminal. Therefore all children born outside marriage should be issued with identity cards bearing a prominent letter ‘B’ (also in scarlet). I leave it to your imagination what ‘A’ and ‘B’ may stand for.
This is the only way to save society,
yours etc etc
David Weeden
I can’t find an email address for him though, so I may have to post this.
These 298 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:43pm GMT Permanent link.
A Brush With The Law »
(Sorry, first title which came into my head; this isn’t about the cunning fox.)
The excellent Policeman’s Blog in a good post about the right to silence, reminded me that all of the time I’ve spent inside police stations has been as an appropriate adult. (As the site says, “An Appropriate Adult can be a family member, friend or more often a volunteer or social/health care professional” — that was me.) I thought I’d be thumping the table like Henry Fonda in “Twelve Angry Men” in defence of wee bairns bullied by the filth: the police were, without exception, patient and nice, and the kids were largely repulsive. There was one time I thought they were being overly heavy — because my charge was the accomplice of an older (over 16), much bigger boy with a sickening record of violence (he’d set a fellow glue sniffer on fire, amongst other crimes which got to court), and I thought that was in itself clear intimidation, only for them to find evidence from a traffic CCTV camera of my lad apparently leading the others home with videos under each arm (they were accused of burgling an electrical goods superstore). Appropriate adults don’t replace lawyers, they’re just an extra safety net; and I should have trusted the brief.
That’s not what I wanted this post to be about. I meant to finally write about my citizen’s arrest.
I’ve always felt that wearing a cycling helmet is a bit poncey, but then I crash enough to make wearing one more or less a necessity. I was cycling off to a health club I was briefly a member of for a swim with nary a thought in my head when I was hailed by a car heading the other way and a red-faced man running behind it. I don’t recall their words, but the gist was that they were chasing a guy on a bike (though someone really did say “Stop thief"). So I turned round and went in reluctant pursuit, thinking doubtful things like “How do I know this guy really is a thief?” and “What the hell do I do if I catch him?” I caught up with the car and the two girls in it said they were chasing a child’s bike which had been stolen in front of its owner and her father outside a baker’s in town. So I rode at what I thought was the equivalent of 10K race pace: fast but endurance pace. I thought I’d keep my man in site for a few a miles and with any luck hand over to a police car. Either it was the adrenaline, or I was fitter than I assumed, but I on top of him within half a mile, or I would have been if he hadn’t swerved right, turned a corner or two, and dumped the bike — and ran. Sadly for him, I’m an indifferent cyclist, but I am (or was) a reasonable runner. I did think two things — the bike was recovered, and if I go after him on foot my own machine can get stolen — but the adrenaline had taken hold, and anyway the car with the girls had caught up, so my bike (number one priority) was looked after. I may have looked a wally charging along wearing a cycling lid and rucksack, but it didn’t slow me enough not to catch the villain within a couple of blocks. Chasing is easy, I know the rules for that. After pursuit, overtake. Except, not in this case. So I grabbed his collar. Well, it was there. He said something like, “I’ll report you for assault.” This made me uncharacteristically furious — I wasn’t the one who’d stolen a child’s bike. All the same, it gave me pause. (A cliche helps at times of tension, don’t you find?) I think we argued round to a) if I hit him, he’d report me to the police, so I better not; and b) if he ran away, whatever he threatened, I’d hit him, and did he want that? So we had an impasse, with me holding his collar, so he’d have to hit me first (I’m a fast learner) until the police arrived. In numbers as it turned out — must have been a quiet day. They had enough witnesses, so I was allowed to go for my swim. Not that it was any fun.
Now, if I understand David Blunkett’s proposed legislation (which may get amended by Parliament), if our bicycle thief had complained about me and this had happened now as opposed to 1998, I’d be forced to give a DNA sample and my fingerprints to be held on a criminal database in perpetuity.
Would I act differently knowing that? As I say, the adrenaline took hold. I’d like to think not. But we had the stolen bike back. I had things to do. Other, hypothetical, less concerned citizens might have let him go. No name, no pack drill. No paperwork for the boys in blue. And no awkward “Why’s your DNA in the police database?” questions from insurers, employers and the like.
I have a story, but hasn’t everybody?
These 868 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:51pm GMT Permanent link.
Monday, 29 November 2004
Oh Yeah? »
The Guardian runs an exclusive article:
Go to any community in this country — particularly those that had the roughest time in 18 years of Conservative government — and you will see the impact of progressive government.
People in work, with mortgages they can afford; more children getting the right exam results; more patients treated faster and better; families benefiting from the minimum wage or tax credits or extra help for the poorest pensioners; Sure Start for young parents; regeneration in the poorest communities; more police and community safety officers. Of course there is still too much poverty; still insufficient opportunity. There are issues like Iraq that will continue to be very difficult. But a lot has been changed and for the better.
Mortgages they can afford? I moved here in 1998. I paid £38,000 for my house. A similar property in my street is worth £124,950 according to the estate agents. (I know a good investment.) The average income in Wales is pretty poor.
“[M]ore police and community safety officers"? Oh come on. I’ve spoken to a policeman about to retire and when he started, there were 30 beat policemen (ie those who actually do something) on the streets of Cardiff. Now there are are eight, and this city grew by roughly 10% between the last census and the one before. More policemen, maybe, but attending sensitivity courses, and taking sick leave.
There are issues like Iraq that will continue to be very difficult.
Ceasar divided Gaul into three parts. Where to start with Tony’s gall?
A short time ago, I stood in a police station with a drugs worker. She has been a single mother, unemployed and in trouble. The help for lone parents got her a job; extra childcare allowed her to balance work and family life; she got training and is doing a job in which she feels fulfilled.
“[A] job in which she feels fulfilled.” Anyone else read Dilbert? Bet she’s still a lone parent, and can’t afford a nanny, and if she could who would expedite said Nanny’s visa?
New Labour was created to bridge the political divides which had held Britain back. Politics in the 20th century was characterised as a choice between the Conservatives representing economic prosperity and Labour representing social justice; between the Tories being tough on criminals while we were tough on the causes of crime.
Funny, I’ve followed politics since before Tony won his first seat, and I don’t remember any of that.
Time and again the Tories won because this divide favoured them. People voted for them because, while their hearts might have been with us, their heads weren’t.
New Labour crosses this political divide. We have shown that we can combine social justice and economic efficiency and are demonstrating that we can tackle crime and its causes.
Which is why there’s a £10 billion deficit, and crime is rising.
Without security, there is no opportunity.
Huh? What happened to taking risks?
Instead of using the issue of crime to create a climate of fear, we are attempting — as with anti-social behaviour legislation — to tackle it to create a climate of hope.
(Just go away from 10 minutes or so while I count on my fingers. If you need a smoke, there’s a blind spot to the right of the telescreen on level 9.)
It is this optimism which will be at the heart of our campaign for the next election, whenever it is held.
There was a time when politicians thought paragraphs could be more than one sentence.
All the evidence shows that progressive parties win on hope, not fear. The whole point of our party is the fundamental belief that we can change things for the better. It will be the Tories who will fight a relentlessly negative campaign.
Now that we have Carole Caplin’s crystal ball, but sadly, not her legs, or the rest of her.
There are good reasons to be optimistic about our country’s future. I couldn’t disagree more with the notion, which underpins so much cynicism and pessimism here, that Britain’s great days are behind us.
At the Fall of Rome for instance, who’ve thought Germany would be a world power? Wait long enough and everything comes around.
Britain, as our slogan goes, is working.
No one knows what this means.
Yet, at the same time, we have increased public expenditure in health and education faster than any of our major partners in Europe. Our school results are the best ever. Deaths from cancer are falling faster than in the US, Germany and France.
We throw your tax pounds/dollars/euros at silly jobs in the Guardian. More middle managers. Fewer nurses. Those powerpoint presentations sure are impressive!
Our influence around the world is also increasing. English is now the dominant language in the European Commission.
I kissed George’s arse twice this week. The second sentence has something to do with the Swedes, the Germans, and the Dutch, and has no bearing on the first sentence.
None of this is to ignore the genuine problems we still face.
I’m v. reassured.
And without doubt, one of those challenges is security — from terrorism with its roots beyond our borders, and from crime and anti-social behaviour within our communities. It is this challenge we addressed in some of the measures announced last week in The Queen’s Speech.
Were there any other measures? Did Her Maj announce measures? Or possible bills?
The threat from global terrorism is real.
I should say that three times just to be sure.
It is a wider and deeper concern to people than it is fashionable for some on the left to imagine. Progressive governments ignore it at their peril.
And if it’s not “a wider and deeper concern to people than it is fashionable for some on the left to imagine” now, it will be when I’ve finished.
The Queen’s Speech was also strong on measures to tackle organised crime, drugs and violence linked to alcohol. The issues aren’t the territory of the right, particularly as it is traditional Labour areas that suffer most from them.
A Tory cynic might say that those issues are “the territory of the right” and that they work, and the proof is that “traditional Labour areas […] suffer most from [crime].”
But, of course, security alone will not provide opportunity. That is why our health five-year plan set out how we will provide faster, better treatment for patients. It is why the five-year plans for education will drive up standards in schools and the difficult reform of university finance will enable more young people to get a degree.
These 428 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:24am GMT Permanent link.
Tuesday, 30 November 2004
Another Bright Idea »
Few will mourn the passing of the NHS star rating system.
Star ratings sound as daft as the cones hotline and, having started in 2001, they’ve lasted just as long.
Good to learn Alan Milburn knew how to keep civil servants and hospital managers busy. As they say, “The devil will find work for idle hands to do,” and who knows what these public employees would be doing without his initiatives? Gadding about fathering illegitimate children or taking free train rides probably.
Go on Alan!
These 85 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:43pm GMT Permanent link.
Living Dangerously »
The BBC website:
He [David Blunkett] is also accused of using his government car to drive Mrs Quinn for weekends at his home in Derbyshire.
I’ll say this for her, she’s a brave woman. Still, if Al Pacino can do it …
These 20 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:09pm GMT Permanent link.
House-Trained? »
Jamie has his own reasons for linking to Simon Hoggart. But before I got to the bit that animated him, I read this paragraph:
Mr Blunkett’s dog, Sadie, seemed less enthusiastic and wandered off down the front bench, soliciting pats from various ministers. She seems rather more house-trained than her predecessor, Lucy, who once threw up in the middle of a debate.
Poor house-training, rather than something she ate or illness, must have been the culprit. Reminded me of this idiot.
When Mr Bush’s father attended a state visit in Japan in January 1992, he responded to the arrival of Japanese beef steak (French-style) with a projectile vomit into the lap of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.
Suffering from flu at the time, George Bush Senior then slumped under the table before getting up a few minutes later and announcing he felt great.
Mr Hoggart soon abandons his baseless allegations against innocent dogs, and reports on real questions (ie ones which had occurred to me).
He [David Blunkett] was asked how often he had voted for the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He could not remember.
Wikipedia on the Prevention of Terrorism Act.
Several famous miscarriages of justice, such as the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six resulted from the powers of the PTA.
But those were in the past, weren’t they?
These 80 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:10pm GMT Permanent link.
The Only Riff I Know »
I said last year, that I wouldn’t watch the third series of Spooks. And I meant to not watch it, but I was round a friend’s house, taking her out for a drink, and she was watching the first episode (and taping it), so I found myself following the third series. (Apart from the first one, which I didn’t get to see the tape of.)
Spooks has always suffered from distinctly ropey plotting, but it’s hardly alone in that. It’s made up with well above average dialogue, pretty good characterisation and acting, and an ambience of danger. Even though Spooks, like The West Wing, seems to take place in an alternative history, there’s a sinister buzz of context. Last week and this week, it’s got political. This may be another casualty in the spread of cancers since the fallout from the Hutton enquiry. Then again, it may be just the contemporary relevance aspect of the alternate universe. Last week, the government wanted to spin an undercover bust on a mosque (which turned out to be misdirection — who’d a thunk the following day, it was claimed that the real spooks foiled an attack on Canary Wharf); in this (Howard Brenton writing again), a government minister accidentally killed a prostitute, and it gets kept out of the news because of the potential damage to the government ("We could be at war with Iran in the New Year” according to the top internal baddie), and they got involved with a police case because it might make Number 10 look good.
Worst joke: “He’s done a lot for Wales.” “He’s Welsh?” “No, WHales.” The ‘he’ being ‘Riff’ a fictional cross between Kurt Cobain and David Beckham — a grunge musician with a model wife (as she’s photographed a lot, not that she’d pass a Tory party interview) — a couple who, for some reason, are loved by the country. The strange thing thing is that as portrayed (second photo down) by Andy Serkis he looked a lot like the Riff who played in my not-so-local local the other week. (Breaking up conversation thus. Me to DP (who was probably slagging me off for something): All Along the Watchtower. DP: This is … All Along the Watchtower. (I glower.) AC: Isn’t this Bob Dylan? (DP and I both glower.) Slagging continues.) I wasn’t going to mention him, but, checking his site, he’s a good lad.
The above image of the Hourglass Nebula is courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope [apart from the PhotoShopped eye]. A huge debt of thanks is due to the brilliant men and women that gave it to Humanity, and nothing but unremitting contempt for the blinkered, penny-pinching, war-mongering scum that will take it from us….
“[B]linkered, penny-pinching, war-mongering scum"? Who ever could that be?
These 411 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 9:48pm GMT Permanent link.