backword

Saturday, 1 January 2005

Not A Surprise »

As I think this study shows the deleterious effect families and friends have on quality internet time (via Jim Henley) this score isn’t all that surprising.

Via Jim Henley and Tim Lambert.

These 33 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 3:01pm GMT Permanent link.

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Sunday, 2 January 2005

As Promised, Labour Lives Up To Promise On Freedom Of Information »

Those of us who voted Labour in 1997 (and, even, alas, campainged) remember the manifesto.

We will clean up politics

• End the hereditary principle in the House of Lords
• Reform of party funding to end sleaze
• Devolved power in Scotland and Wales
• Elected mayors for London and other cities
• More independent but accountable local government
• Freedom of information and guaranteed human rights

(I didn’t understand the second last one at the time, and still don’t.) Ending sleaze was the trump card over the greedy and apparently amoral Tories. “Freedom of information and guaranteed human rights” are the pillars of a credible left.

So, I’m pleased to read in today’s Observer that human rights and religious freedoms are now on a par with Latin American dictatorships.

A British detainee at Guantanamo Bay has told his lawyer he was tortured using the ‘strappado’, a technique common in Latin American dictatorships in which a prisoner is left suspended from a bar with handcuffs until they cut deeply into his wrists.

The reason, the prisoner says, was that he was caught reciting the Koran at a time when talking was banned.

And our allies respect freedom of information too.

[British lawyer Clive] Stafford Smith has drawn up a 30-page report on the tortures which Begg and Belmar say they have endured, and sent it as an annexe with a letter to the Prime Minister which Downing Street received shortly before Christmas. For the time being — possibly forever — the report cannot be published, because the Americans claim that the torture allegations amount to descriptions of classified interrogation methods.

But I promised that Labour had struck a blow for freedom of information.

News of the embarrassing association between [French millionaire Alain-Dominique] Perrin and Blair also gives a foretaste of the kind of revelations that might soon pour from civil servants’ files as a consequence of the new Freedom of Information Act which came into force yesterday — though the list was only passed to Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP, after an 18-month secrecy battle with Downing Street. Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office’s permanent secretary, fiercely opposed releasing names.

Labour promised freedom of information, and they give out information. What’s 18 months?

Lamb asked parliamentary ombudsman Ann Abraham to intervene in April 2003 after Blair refused to answer a parliamentary question on whom he had met at Chequers. Omand wrote to the ombudsman to complain that some of the individuals entertained on official business at Chequers were ministers and civil servants and that to disclose their names ‘could harm the frankness and candour of internal discussion’. Omand was also concerned that revealing those who visited Chequers would ‘prompt speculation about why certain individuals were meeting the Prime Minister and what was said at those meetings’.

Remember that ‘stakeholder’ rubbish? How I laugh when I look back at the days when I thought that we were their bosses, at the very least like shareholders in a company and we had the right to know what our employees were up to in our name. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Using her powers under an old parliamentary code on government information, Abraham overruled fierce resistance from senior officials and ordered the Cabinet Office to hand the list over to Lamb last week.

So as promised all those years ago “an old parliamentary code on government information” saves the day. Spread democracy? I wouldn’t trust Blair to spread manure.

These 188 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:40am GMT Permanent link.

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Mild Winter »

I know the weather’s mild, but why isn’t this little fool hibernating?

These 13 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:08pm GMT Permanent link.

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Puff Of Logic »

Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Douglas Adams

Found through Butterflies and Wheels: the Westboro Baptist Church. Headline: Thank God for Tsunami & 2,000 dead Swedes!!! Ah, revenge for the England Football team’s humiliating performance under Graham Taylor. Yeah, die Swedes, think you can kick a f***ing ball, etc? Alas, no, nothing so important as football. Our friends in Westboro quote Rev 16:18, more or less.

And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not seen since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

Stylists among you will shudder at the emphasis on ‘and’ never mind the redundancy of ‘mighty’ and ‘great’ which are surely the same thing as far as earthquakes are concerned. So you may miss the interesting implication there were mighty earthquakes before there were men.

Genesis Chapter 1. God makes light, and divides the light from the darkness — “And the evening and the morning were the first day” Gen 1:5. Note: no men, also no earthquakes. God makes the firmament and the waters. “And the evening and the morning were the second day.” Gen 1:8. Note: no men, also no earthquakes. God makes land, and grass, and fruit. “And the evening and the morning were the third day” Gen 1:13. Note: no men, also no earthquakes. God makes the stars, the moon and the sun. “And the evening and the morning were the fourth day” Gen 1:19. Note: no men, also no earthquakes. God makes fowl and whales and every living creature. “And the evening and the morning were the fifth day” Gen 1:23. Note: no men, also no earthquakes. God makes cattle (which for some reason he hadn’t thought of as living creatures, and I grant you, cows are pretty boring) plus creeping things (this means snakes, rather than politicians, we’re getting to them). Gen 1:26, the good bit. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: …” Men, note no earthquakes.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit that the Bible is a self-contradictory pack of fictions.

These 315 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:48pm GMT Permanent link.

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Monday, 3 January 2005

Millie Tant Versus Miliband »

OK, it’s a cheap joke, but I’m impressed with this splendid letter on David Miliband’s adoption of a child in the Telegraph today. (I’m copying it here, because I don’t have much confidence that the link is permanent.)

Sir — The adoption of an American child by a British cabinet minister is a matter of public concern (News, Dec 31). The process of early planning — committing the natural mother to giving up her child from the first weeks of pregnancy — then allowing adopters into a mother’s delivery room, handing her baby to them at birth and immediately legalising the adoption is criticised internationally and in the US, not least by adopted people.

Hasty adoptions are illegal in civilised countries, not least because it allows the mother no space to consider alternatives or discover what support is available to help her keep her child, and because it in effect dehumanises her.

Bonding starts during pregnancy and research over decades has established that separating mother and baby at birth results in long-term trauma for both. What happens now, when the mother discovers there are means available to her to keep her son, having been deprived of her right to raise him?

Clearly the Milibands knew very well what they were doing in taking a child from America; that a member of the current Government can “joyfully” collude in the breach of a mother and her child’s fundamental human rights is an issue of concern for all of us.

Heather Powell, Birmingham

You go, girl.

If Mr Miliband wants to adopt a child who isn’t a blood relative in any way, he should know there is no world shortage of orphans. Adopting a survivor of the recent Iraq conflict would have been a nice gesture.

These 81 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:47pm GMT Permanent link.

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Tuesday, 4 January 2005

Michael Howard And The Disaster Area »

I didn’t listen to much of the Michael Howard interview on Today this morning because I turned it off in disgust. Asked a perfectly fair question on what he would have done differently from the Prime Minister he turned into an inarticulate wreck. My best guess is that his intention was to position himself to the left of Labour (ie more in favour of government intervention) but couldn’t bring himself to do it, so the best he could do was praise the generosity of the British people. As Andrew Marr had noted earlier, Hilary Benn seems to be making a good fist at Overseas Development; money is pouring in: the absence of Mr Blair may actually be a good thing.

I’m not sure if Matthew d’Ancona was on to anything at all in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph.

No: the mystery — a mystery that baffled many of his ministerial colleagues — is that Mr Blair, of all people, decided to sit this one out for so long. He is, after all, the Prime Minister who thought the death of Frank Sinatra an event of sufficient global significance to break off from a G8 summit in Birmingham in 1998 to deliver a eulogy to the great crooner. In the week that British voters were donating £1 million an hour for emergency relief, the man who used his first party conference speech as Prime Minister to demand a “Giving Age”, stayed pointedly off the global stage.

This isn’t so damning really. If Blair has a fault here, it was his earlier attempts at always being in the vanguard at any newsworthy event. His absence hasn’t harmed the relief effort.

Mr Blair’s belated appearance yesterday brought to mind the role he played after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, coaxing the Royal Family down from Balmoral and the Queen herself to make a televised tribute to the Princess. On that occasion, it was the Prime Minister who, in his homage to the “People’s Princess” only hours after her death, captured and to some extent moulded the mood of the nation. In this instance, however, Mr Blair has been – metaphorically, at least — the one stuck in Balmoral, puzzled by the clamour for his return.

I feel he’s missing Alastair Campbell’s antennae here.

I was astonished last week when one of the Prime Minister’s closest allies asked me, in apparent seriousness, whether “the tsunami story will run until the weekend”. It was clear that he shared his boss’s extraordinary blind spot. As worthy and eloquent as Mr Blair’s remarks were yesterday, they were too late to make much impact upon public opinion in this country. On this occasion, the Prime Minister’s instincts failed him: he did not lead the nation, but told us what we already knew.

All of this strikes me as correct, but Michael Howard’s attempt to use it against the Prime Minister reveals him even further as a snide opportunist. Mr Blair can return to Number 10 at will. Mr Howard isn’t going to have that chance.

These 220 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:11pm GMT Permanent link.

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Wednesday, 5 January 2005

Management Style »

There’s an astonishing paragraph in Steven Weinberg’s review of a biography of Robert Oppenheimer. (Found through Butterflies and Wheels.)

Oppenheimer never used his position of leadership in physics research to play the part of a mandarin who tries to control what other physicists do. In that regard, he presents a sharp contrast to Werner Heisenberg, a greater physicist, but one who did what he could after the war to force German physicists to work on his ideas. I am convinced that one of the reasons the US was successful in developing nuclear weapons during the war and Germany was not is that we had Oppenheimer while the Germans had Heisenberg.

It’s astonishing because there are so many other explanations: Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen is about Heisenberg and the Bomb; also most of the talented pre-war physicists were Jewish, naturally they left Germany as soon as they could, and one hopes that others would have been reluctant to work for the Nazis. But Weinberg, who remains one of the smartest people I’ve ever read, puts it down to management style.

Well, he met Oppenheimer. Not that Oppenheimer was happy.

Even his beginnings as a physicist left Oppenheimer with some unhappy memories. I remember that once as a postdoc at Columbia University, I was invited to give a talk at the Institute on some of my recent work. My talk was terribly formal, bristling with mathematical complications. Oppenheimer interrupted me and said that I reminded him of himself when he was my age. I stupidly blurted out “Thank you,” to which he gravely replied, “It wasn’t a compliment.”

These 97 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 8:54pm GMT Permanent link.

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Amazonian Grace »

Stupidest Tech Central Station article ever. There is hope — and it’s a slap in the face to those of us who claim the right of the blogosphere is filled with cheering dittoheads — every single comment is critical.

The original argument — that taking donations by individuals as well as government contributions into account may be the best way to decide which nations are ‘stingy’ is fine. The methodology — compare donations to the Red Cross through Amazon.com with other Amazon donations (when a higher precentage of Americans have internet access than almost any other country; the Amazon.com donation page went up before similar pages at Amazon.co.uk, .fr, etc and that Mike Power paid through the .com site, despite “living in England"; that there are other charities and other appeals, and so on) is merely silly.

Found through Tim Lambert.

Since the word ‘stingy’ reminds me of Mark Steyn’s typically blunt Telegraph article yesterday, I’ll say something about that. This paragraph (the second) loses me entirely.

I’ve never subscribed to Macmillan’s tediously over-venerated bit of political wisdom about “events, dear boy, events”. Most “events” — even acts of God — come, to one degree or another, politically predetermined: almost exactly a year before the tsunamis, there were two earthquakes — one measuring 6.5 in California, one of 6.3 in Iran. The Californian quake killed two people and did little physical damage. The Iranian one killed 40,000 and reduced an entire city to rubble - not just the glories of ancient Persia, but all the schools and hospitals from the 1970s and 1980s. The event in itself wasn’t devastating; the conditions on the ground made it so.

I think Mr Steyn is attempting to imply that the smaller earthquake in Iran did more damage because of poorer infrastructure — if that’s the correct deduction, the greater robustness of American architecture owes a debt to interfering politicians who insist on building regulations: the sort of busybodies Mr Steyn prefers to deride. It’s more likely that the epicentre of one was a lot closer to human habitation. The only earthquake I’ve been in killed 200 people — in Albania; I was in Yugoslavia, as was, at the time, and the tremor was more like a very long high speed train rushing past, except that there wasn’t a railway for miles.

It’s good, of course, that he gives examples, but he isn’t aware, or doesn’t consider it worth mentioning that the Richter Scale is logarithmic.

An earthquake measured as 6.1-6.9 (at its epicentre) on the Richter scale is described as “Can be destructive in areas up to about 100 kilometers across where people live.” One of 7.0-7.9 is a “Major earthquake. Can cause serious damage over larger areas.” While 8 or greater (ie the one in Asia) is a “Great earthquake. Can cause serious damage in areas several hundred kilometers across.” The earthquakes in Iran and California are really not at all comparable to the cause of the Tsunami.

Steyn is having one of his funny moments.

But even Telegraph readers subscribe to the Great Universal Theory [that whatever happens, the real issue is the rottenness of America]. On our Letters Page, Robert Eddison dismissed the “paltry $15 million from Washington” as “worse than stingy. The offer - since shamefacedly upped to $35 million - equates to what? Three oil tycoons’ combined annual salary?”

That would be the second letter here, which was clearly written in anger, but is Mr Eddison really the only person Mark Steyn can gainsay? He mentions Polly Toynbee, but is more reluctant to lock horns with her.

One of the heartening aspects of the situation is how easy it is to make a difference. By the weekend, the Australians had managed not just to restore the water supply in Aceh, but to improve it. Even before the tsunami, most residents of the city boiled their water. But 10 army engineers from Darwin have managed to crack open the main lines and hook them up to a mobile filtration unit. This is nothing to do with Egeland and his office or how big a cheque the Norwegians sent.

That continuing source of bias, Reuters, reports Thousands need water in Aceh, and Mia Shanley and Dean Yates don’t belittle the Australian military contribution.

In Banda Aceh city earlier, an Australian military water purification station doled out large plastic bags of water.

“This is probably the most important thing. If they can get clean water, it’s going to have a major impact,” Australian air force Corporal Peter Clarke said.

“People want to shake your hand. They say ‘bless you mister’. They say ‘Indonesia has problems, but you help us’.”

But, contrary to what Mark Steyn says, it’s not enough.

These 466 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:48pm GMT Permanent link.

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Thursday, 6 January 2005

One More Into The Breach »

According to the Torygraph, Assistant chief whip and Mid Worcestershire MP Peter Luff “says that the BBC is “betraying its public duty” if it airs the ‘crude and explicit’ [Jerry Springer: The Opera] and has written to the director-general, Mark Thompson, urging that it not be shown.”

BBC2 just got one more viewer on Saturday night.

These 56 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:01am GMT Permanent link.

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You'll Go Blind »

In the comments to Harry’s post on the lowlights of the Guardian, Alex Higgins (not that one) says:

Political blogging risks descending into a strange and joyless form of Onanism and pedantry.

What does he mean by “risks” and “descending"?

These 26 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:17pm GMT Permanent link.

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When The Botox Comes In »

Mark Holland has a splendidly titled post She sells sanctimony on the three minute silence issue.

I understand the Remembrance silence; that’s for being glad we won and honouring the dead if we’re too young to remember and for both of those plus the comfort of shared grieving for those who were there. I’ve no idea what we’re supposed to think about dead people we’d never thought of before, and whom we don’t miss, apart from “Poor buggers.”

It just shows how wrong Orwell was. Instead of the two minute hate, we have the three minute piety.

Guido Fawkes has the real reason Blair wouldn’t come back from holiday. Who’d have thought Tom Stoppard and Terry Gilliam’s excellent Brazil (below) would get the future so uncannily right?

These 129 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:55pm GMT Permanent link.

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Saturday, 8 January 2005

With The Cross Of Jesus Burning On The Lawn »

As Michael Brooke points out, you’d sooner get five elephants into a Mini* than 8,000 swear words into a two-hour opera. When I was a nipper, my mum used to say, “Speak the truth and shame the devil,” not a motto for today’s God-botherers. They’ve always been impervious to logic, and now counting is beyond them, large numbers being rendered as ‘seventy times seven’, ‘the hairs on your head’ or just pulled out of some preacher’s arse. Whatever, I tried to best Stewart Lee’s libretto’s obscenity count in the course of a one-hour run with DL this morning. We hadn’t been for our usual mid-week drink partly because I’m cutting back and mostly because he’d been in Birmingham validating a proposed course on “Practical Theology” (it sounds like a contradiction in terms to me too). With universities cutting back on useful wealth-creating courses like Physics and Chemistry, planning new degrees whose course material is one book, a week’s reading if you aren’t too dim and bother to apply yourself, and whose graduates only learn skills in talking shite and molesting children—being too stupid to put their shirts on the right way round, never mind get proper jobs. And the state pays for this! It’s obscene. I said all of the above emphasised with many gerundives of the vernacular terms for pundendum and the copulative act.

Taxes shouldn’t pay for hokum like astrology, so why should they pay for a get out of jail free card for racist murderers?

Harmon Rasberry, who will turn 91 soon, still recalls details of the 1967 trial in which 19 people faced charges of violating the civil rights of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner. Seven defendants were convicted and served time in prison. The jury was hung 11-1 in Killen’s case.

Rasberry confirmed that one of the factors that led to the federal government’s failure to convict Edgar Ray Killen was that Killen was a preacher.

“I well remember one lady saying that they couldn’t convict a preacher. I don’t know who it was, but I remember that remark,” said Rasberry.

Rasberry says there was no question in jurors’ minds about the seven defendants who were convicted.

Yeah, he’s a preacher. Not innocent, mind, just that you shouldn’t convict him. Why are these people so reluctant to meet their maker ahead of schedule? Lord, let the US repeal the death penalty, but not yet.

*Trying would be an adventure though, especially if Norm came to dust them first.

These 299 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:30pm GMT Permanent link.

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Sunday, 9 January 2005

I'd Be Upset Too If My Name Rhymed With 'toilet' »

Billy Connolly talking about some silly cow who didn't like his language on 'Parkinson'

I’d like to say a big thank you to John Beyer of ‘Mediawatch.’ If I ever get to meet him I’ll give him a nice hug and a kiss on both cheeks. Perhaps some tongue if he’s lucky.

Tim Ireland can be Mr Angry Pants, I’m off to buy the soundtrack.

These 51 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:15am GMT Permanent link.

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Monday, 10 January 2005

Weeden's Complaint »

As I said in the comments to this Michael Brooke post, I did write to the BBC. I received a reply with the subject “Jerry Springer The Opera [T2005010809V3S060]” which opened

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the transmission of ‘Jerry Springer The Opera’, scheduled for 10pm tonight on BBC TWO.

We are sorry to hear that you have concerns about the programme and hope we can give you some reassurance about both the BBC’s reasons for the planned broadcast and the nature of the production itself.

Yet I wrote to them with the subject line “Good on yer for going ahead with Jerry Springer” and this is the full content of my email:

Dear Sirs/Mesdames,

I pay my licence fee every year without complaint, yet there is very little on television which is actually worth watching. Good for you for ignoring the fundamentalists at the Sun and elsewhere and actually screening some art,

yours

Dave Weeden

When you read of all the complaints received by the BBC, remember that that was one of them.

These 76 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 12:31am GMT Permanent link.

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Photos »

I’ve had trouble getting online today (mutter mutter, that line in Jerry Springer - The Opera about the devil, aimed at NTL), so here are a couple of photos of the Wales Millennium Centre while I try to catch up.

These 42 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 5:19pm GMT Permanent link.

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MemeP3 »

From Mrs “Spider Woman” Tilton (who got it from PZ Myers).

Fire up the ol’ MP3 player, set it to random play, and list the first ten songs that pop out.

I’ve got ‘Party Shuffle’ on iTunes which shows 20 tracks at a time starting from the 6th: the first 5 are ‘recently played’ even if they weren’t. (By default of course: you can change all this.)

• Born, Never Asked; Laurie Anderson; Big Science
• You Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It); The Undertones; Cher O’Bowlies
• Act I Scene II “You know we’ll meet with your confrere/The Democratic candidate/If he should win."; Edo De Waart — Orchestra of St Lukes; Nixon in China (Disc 1)
• Nr. 4 Rezitativ und Arie: Oh zittre nicht mein lieber Sohn! Zum Leiden; John Eliot Gardiner; Mozart : Magic Flute (Disc 1)
• Opus 1 (Intro); Courtney Pine; Closer to Home

That’s the first five, which I don’t think count. And this is the ten.

• Intermezzo in E flat major, Op. 117, No. 1; Bauer; Brahms Grand Piano
• Andante; Edward Elgar; Elgar: Violin Concerto - Cockaigne
• True Confessions; The Undertones; Cher O’Bowlies
• Cello Concerto II. Allegro appassionato; English Northern/Paul Daniel/Tim Hugh; Walton : Violin Concerto : Cello Concerto
• Rags To Rags; Eels; Beautiful Freak
• The Times They Are A-Changin’; Bob Dylan; MTV Unplugged [Live]
• Iii.: Sarabande; Jaqueline Du Pre; Jacqueline Du Pre - Her Early BBC Recordings Vol. 2
• Dancehall 2 (Interlude); Courtney Pine; Closer to Home
• Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles; Captain Beefheart; The Big Lebowski
• They Say; Billie Holiday; Best Of Vol 3

I’m a little sceptical about the randomness with two albums making two appearances, when I’ve got 2277 songs (7.2 days) on there.

These 268 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 6:14pm GMT Permanent link.

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When Doves Fight »

In one of Konrad Lorentz’s books there’s a chapter on ‘the territorial imperative’ (the phrase may be Robert Ardrey’s) which describes fish settling the boundaries of their domains and how if two doves are confined in a cage, they fight to the death.

Everyone knows that a cornered animal has to fight. That is the principle behind the way crowds form around a playground brawl, and boxing rings. I think that boxers — Ali, for example — can be extremely noble, and there has been much good writing on pugilism by Hemingway, Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Camus; all the same, there’s something sordid about fighting as entertainment.

Which brings me to Jerry Springer. The point of the TV show was to provoke confrontation by denying participants any escape, and then revealing a secret which would result in slammed doors and thrown plates in the most pacific households, with the baying audience and the awareness of millions of eyes across the country. The producers were interested in conflict, not conflict resolution. I’ve Googled around a bit, and if any advertisers refused slots on the show, I’m not aware of them. While Jerry Springer — the Opera is hyperbolic, who needs Kinsey when daytime TV brings the polymorphous perverse into every home? The surprising thing is that they kept finding mugs to appear. Do they never learn?

Paul in Michael Brooke’s comments points out that “Christian Voice is going to mount a blasphemy prosecution against the BBC” and notes that “Some people never learn.”

Nick quotes from Jim White’s splendid review of JS:tO in the Telegraph.

That was my Saturday evening decided. Jerry Springer: The Opera might have slipped under my radar. Had the evangelical wing of the BBC’s publicity department not mounted such a campaign on its behalf, I would probably have caught just a few seconds, as I flicked from Match of the Day.

Instead, I made a night of it; from the moment Kirsty Wark warned me that very strong language could be expected, I had my calculator out, ready to tot up the expletives. As it turned out, I didn’t get a chance to use it: I spent too much time laughing.

That goes for me too. Well almost, but I’ll get to that.

James Walton, the Telegraph’s erudite (he also hosts Radio 4’s literary quiz) TV critic never makes the online version of the paper, but he defends the production too.

When I saw Jerry Springer: the Opera at the theatre last year, it sometimes felt like an extended (although beautifully done) student revue — where the main joke was singing rude words about rude things in an operatic way. Seeing it again on BBC2 on Saturday, I have to say it’s far richer than that.

Admittedly, even on a second viewing, the work still seems more a loose bundle of ideas than anything truly coherent. The ideas themselves, though, are consistently engaging — and certainly wide-ranging. Among much else the audience is required to ponder the role of television, the decline of American idealism and how human being find moral values in a world without God. A lot of the tunes are great too.

I agree that JS:tO is stuffed with ideas, which is why I demur from Chris Brooke’s view in his own comments to this post:

I mean, JS:tO isn’t terribly highbrow, now, is it?

I think James Walton’s description forms a pretty good defence of the show as ‘high brow.’

As we know, some church groups have objected to the programme on the grounds that it’s anti-Christian. Well, it is — but speaking as a Christian myself, this has surely got to be allowed. Indeed, you could argue that some of the questions that Jerry Springer: the Opera raises are ones that believers should take more seriously more often. You could definitely note that such conclusions as it does reach tend to be the solid tradition of heretics like Milton and Blake.

For my money, this thoughtfulness makes the moments of gratuitous blasphemy (which do happen, but are surely allowed too) disappointingly glib and unworthy of the rest of the script.

Told you he was erudite. Note how he anticipates and rejects the suggestion that religious groups should be allowed to doctor the script as was asked — and refused — in Birmingham. See here:

But many Sikh representatives argue that the issues have been misunderstood. Harmander Singh, a spokesman for the advocacy group Sikhs in England, said concerns about the setting of the play had gone unheeded for days before the violent protests. Sikh representatives had suggested that the play would be far less offensive if the setting were changed from a temple to a community center, a proposal the theater rejected.

James Walton goes on:

They don’t, however, undermine the bracing mix of comedy, authentic enquiry, undercutting irony and straight mischief-making.

Finally, here’s a thought for anybody tempted to go for the familiar (and entirely true) like that the BBC wouldn’t broadcast anything comparable about Islam or Sikhism. At the risk of sounding chauvinist, isn’t that a good reason to be proud of Christianity?

If there is any kind of blasphemy trial, I hope someone cites him as an expert witness. Though if the Christian right really are squeamish about language they’ll be targeting anonymous writer of this leader.

The late Earl of Arran moved only two Bills during his parliamentary career. One had to do with culling badgers, the other with legalising homosexuality. Noting the packed benches on the second occasion, he is said to have remarked that, while no one was interested in buggering badgers, everyone seemed obsessed with badgering buggers.

When I said earlier that I didn’t go all the way with Jim White, that was because I didn’t watch the introductory hour on JS:tO. I was watching Big Brother instead. I should know better. So should Germaine Greer. Will they never learn?

These 461 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 7:10pm GMT Permanent link.

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Tuesday, 11 January 2005

What I Believe But Can't Prove »

Everyone seems to be playing the What do you believe to be true but cannot prove? game from Edge.

So here’s a couple of mine, inspired by a story in the Telegraph (and only in the Telegraph, as philosophers would say) yesterday, Aliens ‘could exist on Saturn moon’.

The Florida team identified two absolute requirements for life to exist a suitable temperature range to allow chemical bonding and an energy source (for example, the sun or radioactive decay). Titan meets both requirements.

“This makes inescapable the conclusion that if life is an intrinsic property of chemical reactivity, life should exist on Titan,” Dr Benner says.

“Indeed, for life not to exist on Titan, we would have to argue that life is not an intrinsic property of the reactivity of carbon-containing molecules under conditions where they are stable.”

I pretty much believe that “life is … an intrinsic property of the reactivity of carbon-containing molecules under conditions where they are stable.”

Further, in contradistinction from John Searle* who argues that because computers could be made out of beer cans, ‘semantic processing’ can only be done by biological beings (like us). It seems to follow (though Searle is careful not to say so) that aliens can’t think. So the second thing I believe but can’t prove is that aliens made out of whatever, living at whatever temperature will be able to manipulate symbols or otherwise pass Turing Tests.

I don’t believe that Cassini will find life on Titan. Even if life is an ‘intrinsic’ property of matter (which is a little strong for me), there’s no reason for it to survive and spread, given the likelihood of asteroid and comet impacts in the outer solar system.

Lastly, I believe, but can’t prove, that without a shared set of referents and, even more importantly without a shared biologically constituted grammar, translation between species would be impossible.

*I know that that’s a hostile review; it was the first out of Google. Anyway, I haven’t read anything by Searle which has made any sense to me whatever: it’s all playing with words, and then denying that he plays with words because he’s a materialist, and attributing semantic games to anyone who disagrees with him. The only proper response is a punch in the eye. (That was a philosophical joke, BTW.)

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Wednesday, 12 January 2005

There's More To Life Than Books, You Know »

First up, my take on Norm’s non-fiction list. I was originally hesitant to post this, as my reaction to most of the names was “Who?” but here goes.

1. Charles Darwin
2. James Boswell
3. Roy Jenkins
4. Richard Feynman
5. Primo Levi
6. Friedrich Nietzsche
7. Hunter S. Thompson
8. Stephen Jay Gould
9. Umberto Eco
10. Denis Diderot

The fiction list is easier:

1. Philip Roth
2. Thomas Hardy
3. Muriel Spark
4. Jane Austen
5. Patrick O’Brian
6. Ian McEwan
7. Jonathan Coe
8. P.G. Wodehouse
9. Fyodor Dostoevsky
10. William Shakespeare

Second, when I’ve talked about books before, I’ve given Amazon links, but usually bought the things from Waterstone’s (now very much the dominant bookseller in Cardiff — the only competition being WHSmith’s, Forbidden Planet, FOPP (who’ve moved to DVDs), and a shop whose name I forget in the student union building. Looks like Amazon for me, then. This, FYI, is the ‘offending’ blog.

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Letter To Waterstone's In Edinburgh »

I’ve been reading Joe Gordon’s story on his blog and it’s fired me up enough to write to his ex-manager in the Princes’s Street branch (source: the Scotsman). The Manager’s email address is manager@edinburgh-eastend.waterstones.co.uk, and copied it to the manager of the Cardiff branch I used last and the flagship store in London (manager@piccadilly.waterstones.co.uk).

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you about your recent sacking of Joe Gordon, apparently for keeping a journal (which seems to be the reason one of your predecessors hired him).

I come from Edinburgh, though that’s not particularly relevant (only in that I feel more strongly about events there than elsewhere). I now live in Cardiff which has two branches of your company. You never had me as a customer, so you haven’t lost one in me. However, the branches in Cardiff certainly have.

Since Christmas I have bought from Waterstone’s:

The Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe
My Cat Hates You, Jim Edgar,
Chronicles, Bob Dylan
Good Morning, Midnight, Reginald Hill
Arms And The Women, Reginald Hill
Get The Most From Your Digital Camera. Simon Joinson
The New Photographer’s Handbook, John Hedgecoe
The Reason of Things, A.C. Grayling
On Photography, Susan Sontag

I can only find one receipt for some of these; it’s dated 31.12.04 and has the number 124 CASH-1 3012 0072 001.

I’m copying this to the managers of the Cardiff Branch and your flagship store in Piccadilly. I’ve always found the staff in both Cardiff branches to be courteous and helpful, and I regret to say that I shall no longer be shopping with you.

If you deign to reply, I’d like to know where you received your business qualifications, so I can tell my friends to avoid it,

yours

Dave Weeden

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And This Is Me ... »

Found through Fontana Labs of Unfogged, Montage-A-Google.

Full sized montage. It includes backword.jpg (I don’t know what it is; I’d guess an early computer); the cover of ‘Jilted John’ by Jilted John, and this totally cool photo. Not sure what any of it has to do with me.

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Thursday, 13 January 2005

Only Make Believe »

Thanks to Tim (superb Photoshop effort; surpassed himself this time) and John I’ve learned about the outcry because some teenager went to a party in fancy dress.

I’d be more impressed by the Sun’s “shock” if it had given a Norm-like consideration to Auschwitz: The Nazis and “The Final Solution" instead of devoting “news” pages to EastEnders and Big Brother, or spent less time demonising gypsies and asylum-seekers. For a ‘newspaper’ they have problems distinguishing fantasy from reality. There are more important issues than what some drunk chooses to wear.

And what do these clowns think they’re up to?

At least the one on the right is logical, so they can’t be ignorant bigots.

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The Googlebomb That Jumped The Shark »

Not the ignorant bigots but this. Er, Yikes!

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Friday, 14 January 2005

They Might Be Titans »

Book cover from the Punkrockpenguin bad covers. Assuming that CET is one hour ahead of GMT, as I write this, Huygens has deployed its drogue parachute and is falling through the atmosphere of Titan with instruments still to be turned on. Huygens descent timeline.

This is “where no man has gone before” stuff, and very likely no man ever will.

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Happy Titan Day »

That’s what Patrick Moore called today on Newsnight. Only Hak Mao and I seem to be interested, but whatever else happens this year, today will go down in history. First images from Titan will have more pictures in the coming days. Huygens apparently landed — and it looks like Mars. Call the conspiracy theorists.

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Saturday, 15 January 2005

Rhyming 'Life' And 'Faith' »

A couple of quickies this morning. (I should be so lucky.)

Through Chris Brooke, I found Andrew Motion’s poems for Prince William’s 21st, the second of which the BBC unfairly describes as being “in more traditional prose form.” (One suspects the writer couldn’t tell prose from prosody.) The abcd abcd efg efg rhyming scheme isn’t traditional, but it’s not bad for occasional verse. I’m clearly in a minority in finding it rather good. (Not least in that it’s open to a republican interpretation of leaving the poor boy alone to get a life like everybody else.)

Kieran Healy posts on the Relics of the Passion exhibit which will tour part of the US during Lent, which includes such authentic items as

A replica of one of the nails used to hang Christ on the cross also will be part of the display. Though it’s not an actual nail used in the crucifixion, organizers say it’s made from shavings of some nails that were.

I vaguely remember an exercise in my primary school on relics of the cross. I’m not sure now whether it was to familiarise us with the story or inure us against phonies like this, though it certainly the latter effect for me.

Much more scary is:

“After the election, everyone is saying God is back,” he said. “Really I think the fact that the relics are coming to Tucson on the first weekend of Lent will make it very popular. It will be good for morale. Our church is under stress right now, especially the Diocese of Tucson. This will reinforce people’s faith.”

I’ll never understand how anyone can say, “God is back,” with a straight face. If you believe in God, surely he has to be the essence of being, not someone who pops up now and then like the ex- when it’s time to hand over the kids. I get the Bishop Berkeley idea that things only exist when God thinks about them; that God is not sempiternal but only exists when some people think about him is bizarre.

When I say a couple, I mean three, OK. Ogged has added “marmoreal” (which I thought meant ‘pertaining to marmosets’ — and, worse, I thought they were cats) to my vocab. Now I have to use it three times. You have been warned.

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You Say You Want A Revolution »

Image via just about everyone, but I pinched it from Jackie D. I’ve really nothing to add beyond noting that the SWs have been around and preaching revolution since the 1960s. As our Americans friends would say, “Either shit or get off the toilet.”

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10 Songs Redux »

I made my provisional selection (for this poll) while drunk, but in vino veritas and all of that, so I’ll keep the original seven and take three more from the rest.

1. Mack the Knife: Brecht and Weill; Frank Sinatra does it best; but it’s hard to get wrong.
2. Teenage Kicks; O’Neill. Perfect pop.
3. How Soon Is Now? Morrissey/Marr. The best song of the 80s.
4. Anarchy in the UK; Lydon et al. Still a good idea.
5. O Superman; Anderson.
6. Whole Lotta Love; Page/Plant.
7. Come As You Are; Cobain.
8. Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye; Cohen
9. Creep; Radiohead
10. Grown So Ugly; Vliet? Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band

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Sunday, 16 January 2005

Access No Areas »

I’ve a bit late to blog, but it’s not over yet. In the week I was sent a round robin email about the closure of access to Llanishen Reservoir by Western Power Distribution. There have been protests attended by all political parties, and questions in the house but it’s not enough.

I meant to write a long post on the right to fresh air being fundamental, but it didn’t convince. I still believe it though. They can’t just build everywhere. Cities need decent parklands.

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Monday, 17 January 2005

Oh Crap, I'm A Racist Now »

I’m an old colonial and I’m uncomfortable with different cultures. I thought I was simply in favour of the right of any playwright of any colour or creed to write what she thought fit.

But then, I don’t think Ron Atkinson is a racist, and comparing Derrida to Sikhism is laughable.

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Snark! »

You know, I hate it when people try to box in the diverse writers of the Guardian as this or that. The last thing I read was utter rubbish, while the digested read is divine.

Samedi, le 1 novembre. French is so sophisticated and sensual. It also reminds you that I’m middle-class and respectable, because no one’s really interested in working-class or foreign prostitutes. Did I mention that I am actually rather clever? Oh, I did. Well, Martin Amis is cool.

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Tuesday, 18 January 2005

News For 2005 »

While we were all watching Titan, Hubble spotted a potential exoplanet.

If they give it a name, I hope it’s “Carl Sagan” so we can enjoy the cantings of astrologers. (As that’s a “news” page, without a permanent link, here’s an archived copy. Scarily, there’s a para on some twat who managed to score a PhD from the University of the West of England. I nearly studied a post-grad degree there. I’m glad I didn’t.) After all, if Jonathan Cainer can claim:

Why should a new planet at the edge of our solar system make a blind bit of difference to anyone? Many people are wondering this right now. They just can’t see how a heavenly object so far away can have any influence at all. From a physical point of view they are quite right. It can’t. There’s absolutely no gravitational pull. The connection is symbolic. That though, makes it strong, not weak.

A planet 225 light-years away should have an equal symbolic connection. I’ve made an archived copy that page too, so I can refer back to it at the end of the year.

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Wednesday, 19 January 2005

Because I Know You're All Bleeding Hearts »

Readers may have been worried that out of the 220,000 now reckoned to have died as a result of the Tsunami, one or two may have been known to Paul Johnson. Well, set your minds at rest, the answer is a resounding ‘No!’ On A Fistful of Euros, Mrs Tilton has more. Breathe easy once more, reader.

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Thursday, 20 January 2005

A Lesson For Geoff Hoon »

I doubt the Defence Secretary reads the Guardian, so he’ll have missed the moral in today’s Doonesbury.

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Sick, But Funny »

Jim Henley discovers an exciting new talent competition. Sadly, the talents required (as described by Jim) mean that John Band’s out, and I’ve never heard him sing.

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Al The Young Dude »

Last week, Chris Brooke pointed the comical finger at Andrew Motion’s pomes for Prince William (and not, as I hoped, for the prig Prince Hal). I’ve nothing against Andrew Motion qua poet, he’s certainly no worse than his predecessor Alfred "Across the wires the electric message came: / `He is no better, he is much the same.’" Austin. The only thing I have against Motion is his decision to edit The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry and market it as a successor to Al Alvarez’s The new poetry and in doing so slip the ‘gentility’ Alvarez derided back into English verse.

There’s a profile of the splendid Alvarez in the Sunday Torygraph but it’s not online. The only reference to him on the Telegraph is in Andrew Marr’s column yesterday.

Mind you, I have discovered a useful word for the long stretches of electioneering ahead. Al Alvarez, the poet, poker-player and sometime friend of Sylvia Plath, was on Start the Week with a new book calling (I’m delighted to say) for a bit more straightforward elitism in literature.

The word is “Jerkish”. Originally coined by the Czech novelist Ivan Klima to describe the thoughtless, boiled-down language acceptable to Stalinist censors, he announced that Jerkish had been invented in America for communication between people and chimpanzees; it consists of 225 words.

Now, says Alvarez, Jerkish really has spread to the West and its “codified stupidity” continues to flourish as the “sentimental and intolerant moral coercion of political correctness … the power of kitsch and cliché”.

I’ve said before, and as that’s never stopped me for saying something again, I’ll say it again, that I just don’t believe that the West is going through some kind of dark age of the intellect. I fear that people like Alvarez are comparing their university discussions with the goings-on in Millbank and the Sun. Evelyn Waugh was satirising the “kitsch and cliché” of Fleet Street before Alvarez was born. Anthony Cox and Damian both post on the strange case of Martin Kallikak: if the graphic Damian found isn’t simple minded, I don’t know what is. Worthy Quakers are the highest type of human being. The BBC has a tale of two citizens; I’ll leave it to the reader to decide which side of the family was the virtuous one.

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Friday, 21 January 2005

Four More Years »

Well, don’t get too excited.

Image from TBOGG.

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An Explanation For Geoff Hoon »

Today’s equally splendid Doonesbury.

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Fancy A Snort Of Yank Bum? »

Posters from Whitehouse.org found through Mike Power.

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Saturday, 22 January 2005

Confession »

Guido Fawkes has a revealing photo: Leading Tory — “Drunk Gun Nut” Claim. I’d jump on the bandwagon of derision — if I didn’t have a fridge magnet from the same photocall I bought from the Imperial War Museum North.

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Doublethink Working Overtime »

Guido Fawkes again. As a self described old Catholic freedom fighter (though I think blowing up Parliament is a little extreme to be described as “freedom fighting” — still each to his own) his heart is warmed by the devotion of Ruth Kelly.

Guido also hints that the PM may be sympathetic to Opus Dei whose members he describes as “conservative on the major cultural issues — such as divorce, abortion and homosexuality.” Naturally if this were the case, Blair’s friendships with Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett would be strained. Somehow I suspect the PM will cope.

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Reportage »

Mark Dery’s take on the intertextosphere is discussed all the way down to Crooked Timber. Shorter Mark: less discussion, more actual out-in-the-world stuff. This is what we want.

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Horns Sign Bemuses Continentals »

You know those HSBC ads with the apparently innocent gestures which mean something rude somewhere in the world. I can think of someone who could use their local knowledge. Found through Jamie.

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Some New Blogs »

Some blogs I’ve either added to the blogroll or will do forthwith. All are crazy enough to link to me.

(Guardian)Ista has been around for a while, but on my browser the text was black-on-black until recently, so I couldn’t read what she was saying. As is often the case with women bloggers, she’s less of an intertextuality fiend, and more the welcome-to-my-world sort. She reads John B too, which is a plus.

The Law West of Ealing Broadway is “Musings and Snippets from an English Magistrate” which also takes Mark Dery’s advice about blogging what you know or do rather than what you read. Newish, but looks promising. First-hand accounts of the law (something we’re supposed to understand as citizens, but few of us do) are rare in the ‘old’ media; expertise blogs could be the future (see also The Policeman’s Blog).

Mike Power is very good at finding weird stuff from everywhere, and worryingly prolific. He also emailed me to thank me for the link (which guilt-tripped me into this post), so he’s a nice guy too.

At Any Street Corner takes its title from Camus (from The Myth of Sisyphus at a guess). Gareth who writes it hasn’t settled into a rut yet, but writes more about what he’s recently read between covers or seen on a screen than the greater swell of bloggers.

Lose the Delusion bears the tag line “Proudly Battling Euroscepticism.” As a partial eurosceptic myself (I like the idea a lot more than I like the reality) I’ve found it well-informed, not surprising as the author is Dr James Ker-Lindsay, who “is Director of Civilitas Research, a think tank analysing politics in South East Europe.” More plausible than Christopher Brooker’s ranting, and less harmful to blood-pressure too.

Bill Cameron describes himself, reluctantly, as a “Conservative ‘Libertarian’” (and he links to Mark Holland though not for that reason). Bill is eclectic, with a leaning toward criticism (intended constructively) of the current Tory party (the one led by Michael Howard). I’ve had problems summing up other people’s blogs, so I’m very pleased that he says of me “I find it quite difficult to ‘classify’ the writer.” So much for Norman Geras:

The combined information in this story somehow put me in mind of this: ‘reading’ the personalities of people you’ve never met from their presence in the blogosphere?

International Man of Mystery, that’s me.

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Sunday, 23 January 2005

Multiculturalism »

The splendid van of a local halal butcher. Some people hate America, but everyone loves the Simpsons.

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Monday, 24 January 2005

Vote Early, Vote Often »

The Satin Pajamas Awards are now open and voting has begun. If any 19-year-old Afghan hotties want to vote for me, don’t be put off by not being the first. I don’t wish to influence the outcome in any way (as I haven’t even got a brother, there’s not much chance of that), but in the unlikely event I win Best Weblog From the United Kingdom I’ll add

I used to be a lap-dancing pre-operative transsexual

(from JS:tO) as a tag line to the top title thing.

Of course I’m aware that this may attract the wrong sort of readers, but how am I supposed to know that I get the right sort now?

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Tuesday, 25 January 2005

It's A Meme! »

See Hak and Andrew. ‘Meme’ was coined by Richard Dawkins, and has nothing to do with Norm’s homonymous cat.

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It Wouldn't Have Happened To Christopher Walken »

Actor Christian Slater escapes knife attack in London, and he usually plays psychos (and Donna Moss’s short-lived boyfriend in the West Wing). You never hear of Christopher Walken being mugged.

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Wednesday, 26 January 2005

You Don't Have To Be A Soulless Automaton To Work Here, But It Helps »

Henry Farrell started a Crooked Timber discussion on Paul Feyerabend, Alan Sokal, and the corrections and clarifications Francis Wheen’s How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World needs. Commenter Andrew C points up the book’s fatal flaw (in response to an anonymous snob comment).

But that’s precisely the trouble with Wheen’s book — it isn’t addressed to a ‘broader audience’. It’s not designed to change the minds of people who believe in mumbo-jumbo; it’s designed to flatter the prejudices of people who don’t.

It’s one of the best CT threads this year. And it provided a link to D-squared’s old site Adequacy.org, which is not for the time-challenged. (I’ll discuss Adeuqacy’s beloved mascot in a future post.) Walt Pohl also says something interesting in the comments.

My honest reaction to your post, Seth, is that you just hit play on some prepared speech you had. You have no idea of how scientists feel about poetry or about art, or about all of the subtleties of humanity. You can be offended by misuses of scientific terminology without being some sort of soulless automaton; you can be in a quantitative discipline without approaching every aspect of life with the green eyeshades of the accountant.

Which brings me to this morning’s Dilbert which I was going to post on anyway. I laughed for about five minutes. It’s the self-recognition factor, you know.

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Khalid Mahmood Is An Arse (Again) »

I found this story through Stephen Pollard who doesn’t give a link, so here’s the Sunday Times.

This weekend the boycott by the leaders of Britain’s 1.2m Muslims was condemned by Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr. “I’m proud to be a Muslim. But if people are boycotting this then I think it’s a mistake. People who were exterminated in the Holocaust were not just Jews. There were Romany gypsies as well. Anybody who is interested in human rights should support this remembrance.”

Words fail me. The election’s in 99 days. No sign of his being deselected.

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Baby, You Can Call Me Alex »

I was in Virgin today, for reasons I’ll explain in my next post, and I came across Roger Norrington’s Beethoven: Symphonies 1–9 which was stupidly cheap. (It’s even cheaper at Amazon.) I’ve already got a few, but I was disappointed by Simon Rattle’s Ninth (though I’ve only listened to that twice, which may not be a fair hearing), so, what the hell, I bought it. Beethoven really is the business, and these may be better than Karajan.

Title Joke from Stanley Kubrick References ‘R’ Us.

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You Can't Keep A Prude Down »

I went to see Closer last night, I think it’s just incredible.

Roger Ebert gets it largely right, and Christian Spotlight on the movies gets it entirely, hilariously wrong. The only flaw in the whole film in my opinion is toward the end when Dan (Jude Law) asks Natalie Portman why she chose him as the Film Threat review says of his other relationship, she “is drawn to the way Dan looks a lot like Jude Law.” Duh.

Film Threat didn’t like the score, which I’ve forgotten already: the soundtrack has “How Soon Is Now” and lashings of Cosi Fan Tutti. While the reviewer from Bible Bashing Nutters found it “one of the most morally offensive films I have ever seen.” The notes on the Karl Böhm recording I bought today say

No other of Mozart’s operas was tampered with and altered as much as Cosi fan tutte through the nineteenth century. It was thought to be both immoral and trivial, and the story unworthy of Mozart’s sublime music.

Plus c’est meme chose.

Trivia on Closer from the IMDb site.

At the beginning of filming, Natalie Portman gave Julia Roberts a necklace that said “cunt” in honor of their characters’ foul mouths. At the end of filming, Julia Roberts gave Natalie Portman a necklace that said “lil’ cunt”.

Splendid.

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Thursday, 27 January 2005

Spotting The Good Guys »

Ogged reminds me that They’re still torturing people in Iraq. (Link goes to Unfogged archive of a CNN story.)

That’s interesting, but not news, really. What does shock me is the accompanying photo from CNN. Tell me these aren’t the cops. Yes, I know Iraq is very dangerous, so was Ulster, so is much of the West Bank. The police dressing up for a paramilitary funeral is no way to win hearts.

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Asylum Seekers Have Only Themselves To Blame »

I was as surprised as Melissa was when I opened the Torygraph this morning. This is what happens when you have a ghost-written blog, Boris.

What a shock to open the paper and see Boris transmuted into another face in his column slot today.

Not sure what all this is about but immigration and Michael Howard obvioiusly win the day.

And what a contrasting pair of opinion articles: Migration needs to benefit all Britons by the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard, QC, MP, etc and Holocaust survivors can remember without hating by Jonathan Sacks.

The Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition:

And [Tony Blair] cannot set a limit on the number of asylum seekers Britain should accept, because his Government has ceded control of huge swaths of immigration policy to Brussels.

Whose party joined the EEC, Michael? And anyway, like the Prime Minister, I find the idea of quotas and limits for those escaping persecution unutterably disgusting.

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Holocaust Memorial (for Michael Howard) »

Auden’s Refugee Blues.

Say this city has ten million souls,

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:

Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew:

Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.

The consul banged the table and said,

“If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead":

But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

Asked me politely to return next year:

But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;

“If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":

He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

It was Hitler over Europe, saying, “They must die":

O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,

Saw a door opened and a cat let in:

But they weren’t German Jews, my dear, but they weren’t German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,

Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:

Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;

They had no politicians and sang at their ease:

They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

A thousand windows and a thousand doors:

Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;

Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:

Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

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No One Left To Speak Up For Me »

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

Boris gets it right. (And this is a good day to remember Martin Niemoller.)

As I came in, a distinguished Tory of vaguely wettish tendencies was saying that it was perfectly right that there should be a conflict between Tory desire for liberty and Tory desire for authority and security, bla bla bla.

I nodded my head in approval. We are all a bit schizophrenic on this one.

But there come moments, surely, when every Tory must want to stick up for ancient freedoms, as they are being removed by this Labour government.

Just what the hell does Charles Clarke think he is doing, arrogating the power - TO HIMSELF - to detain people indefinitely without trial? We have seen nothing like this since the 1940s, the decade in which the state made its most signal advances in eroding economic and personal freedom in this country.

Why are so few voices raised in defence of the principle of habeas corpus? Isn’t it blindingly obvious that if the state has enough evidence against a man to incarcerate him, it must have enough evidence to put him on trial?

What is the justification for this massive expansion in the power of government?

They say we are at war, and wartime deserves special measures.

Well, that is a premise I reject. We are not at war.

We face a terrorist threat from a group of maniacs, who have no discernible or intelligible political agenda except the restoration of the Caliphate, a project - unlike, say, communism, or the unification of Ireland - that means absolutely nothing to people in this country.

If we think these people are a threat, we should try them for conspiracy. The excuse, apparently, is that a trial would be damaging to the interests of the security services, since it would expose their wire-tapping operations.

That is not a good enough excuse for taking away a freedom that has existed in this country since the days of Wilkes. By all means bang them away. But it is a disgrace not to put them on trial.

Like many others, I’ve been guilty of lazily describing Tony Blair as “that Tory cunt.” I’m beginning to realise that I was wrong. He’s far worse than than I imagined. He actually meant the “forces of conservatism” stuff. David Blunkett’s hatred of judges was not an aberration, but a principle of New Labour. Soon they’ll be calling trials “bourgeois” and “reactionary.” Tony and Cherie are the Webbs of the New Age.

Charles Clarke, bite me.

These 89 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:07pm GMT Permanent link.

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Friday, 28 January 2005

Sometimes To Protect Peace You Must Go To War. »

John Band points to some pretty shocking comments in the BBC’s Guantanamo men released: Your views

This is tough one. Sometimes to protect peace you must go to war. Sometimes to protect democracy and freedom you must deny others their freedom. However if in the long run you actually lose the freedom you are trying to desperately protect by draconian legislation then you must ask what it was you were fighting for. We have a delicate balancing act to perform in that we must protect all our citizen’s safety and their rights even when some of our citizens would harm us.

Ged, UK

Shorter Ged

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

Then there’s the case for overturning centuries of English Law.

The fact that people who know nothing about the individuals involved, other than what they read in the press or hear from their families, can simply assume their innocence, and greet their release as proof of their innocence, is proof of the naivety of a large percentage of the public. Just because the law as it stands today and the nature of the individual’s detention would not now support a criminal conviction, does not prove that they were engaged in doing no wrong.

Richard, Swindon

Um, Richie, presumption of innocence?

The big question is… what were these men doing in a war zone? You simply do not go on holiday when USA is invading. Maybe common sense would have told them to get out of the area quickly.

Keith, Worthing, UK

I think Keith means ‘when’ not ‘where’ the US is invading. George Bush goes on holiday all the time. I’ve always fancied going on holiday in war zone. There might be a book in it. Decent money for once, ‘Front Row’, ‘Richard and Judy’ ‘Celebrity Big Brother 19’ …

A certain ‘John B’ (a different John B to John Band) in the UK replies:

If these men are genuinely criminals there is no reason to release them. However, last time I checked it wasn’t an offence to visit Pakistan, Afghanistan etc and the only accepted way to establish guilt is by a fair trial. I have to wonder how the US would respond if four of their citizens were kept in solitary confinement in the UK without trial for three years on the basis that we thought they might be plotting against us.

But most are for throwing away the key.

This is so bad. Can people not see through the pink mist? These guys were told not to be where they were and chose to ignore that advice. They chose to ignore it either because they are particularly stupid, or because they had an ulterior motive. I suspect the latter in which case they deserve to be put on trial for treason. The lawyers involved will come away with a nice fat wallet either way.

Rory, Scotland

Remember that last sentence about the lawyers; we’ll come back to it. For now note the very swift move from “I suspect” to “in which case” as if it were already proven.

Why does the UK media and various people below treat these people as if they’re some form of homecoming war heroes? True they’ve been deprived of their freedom but there was a reason for this, they were caught in a country led by people that fostered terrorists of the most diabolical kind. Until we are 100% sure they were there in an innocent capacity we should be very suspicious. Why take chances with our lives?

Pete, Birmingham, UK

Again the presumption of guilt until 100% certainty of innocence. I’ve been brainwashed by higher education, and I’m barely 80% certain that I actually exist, or that I really typed the words I think I just have typed and I didn’t hallucinate them and indeed my temporal existence. I’d do the old ‘I think therefore I am’ thing, but I’ve never come across an adequate definition of ‘thinking’.

Charles Clarke pushes the old panic button.

In his view, however, the measures are justified by the level of the threat Britain faces after the September 11 attacks. “I’ve been frightened by the things I’ve been told since I became Home Secretary,” he says. “There are serious people and serious organisations trying to destroy our society. We are in a state of emergency.”

I don’t understand what he means by ‘our society’. Our society is devolved and pretty indestructible. What I’d recognise as ‘our society’ came into being some time between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Sometimes the best of it was mostly in Italy, at others in France, Germany, the US, or the UK. All of these, with perhaps the exception of this country has undergone dark times, and what is recognisable as ‘our society’ has survived. The Luftwaffe were far better prepared, briefed, armed, and determined than a few disaffected Brummies without ‘O’ Levels. Like Boris Johnson I simply don’t accept that we’re at war with anything.

But I should give the last word to my opponents.

Why should a conspirator who is caught out by the Government, and who knows that he is caught out and that no denials or hypothetical fairy tales will help him to escape — why should he degrade himself uselessly by a mock defence, instead of at once facing the facts and discussing his part in them quite candidly with his captors? There is a possibility of moving them by such a friendly course: in a mock defence there is none. Our candid friend submits that the Russian prisoners simply behave naturally and sensibly, as Englishmen would were they not virtually compelled not to by their highly artificial legal system. What possible good could it do them to behave otherwise? Why should they waste the time of the court and disgrace themselves by prevaricating like pickpockets merely to employ the barristers? Our friend suggests that some of us are so obsessed with our national routine that the candour of the Russian conspirators seems grotesque and insane. Which of the two courses, viewed by an impartial visitor from Mars, would appear the saner?

Sidney and Beatrice Webb. “Merely to employ the barristers” is that not the same as “The lawyers involved will come away with a nice fat wallet either way"?

These 350 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 1:02pm GMT Permanent link.

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Terrorists »

Or the return of Friday cat-blogging.

Two of Gordon’s enemies plot his downfall from their secret lair.

These 18 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 4:35pm GMT Permanent link.

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Hooray For The Telegraph »

Two splendid and cheering things in today’s Telegraph. Sam Leith, the Friday cheeky chappie, is on top form.

You have to hand it to New Labour. You might have thought that discovering it was illegal to hurl foreign nationals summarily in chokey would prevent the Government from hurling foreign nationals summarily in chokey. But no. That would be far too simple. They drew the opposite lesson and, in the interests of fairness, extended the privilege of summary internment to the whole population.

…

To disagree, I’m sometimes told, is “naive”. But is it any less naive to swallow it whole? I can’t say it’s wrong. How could I? All the evidence is secret. We just have to accept that Britain’s 100 per cent fiendish plot-prevention rate is testament to the resourcefulness of our guardians, rather than to the crapness or non-existence of said fiendish plots in the first place.

Reminds me of an old story. Man leaves house to find stranger rushing back and forth on front lawn, shaking some sort of powder over grass. “What on earth you doing?” he shouts at stranger from safe distance. “What’s that stuff you putting on my lawn?” “Anti-kangaroo powder!” shouts stranger. “Very bad things, kangaroos!” “But there aren’t any kangaroos in Surrey!” shouts man. “HAH!” retorts madman at top of voice. “See? It’s working!”

I think, more and more: get the f—- off my lawn. I’ll take my chances with the kangaroos.

And then there’s the letters. (As that link’s got a session id, I suspect it may not work for you.) Jonathan Notley of High Wycombe, Bucks writes:

Sir – Auschwitz stands as a warning as to how power can be abused by a democratically elected government. Hitler demonised a section of society, detained them without trial and then had them murdered en masse, supposedly for the protection of the community.

This week, the British Government is proposing to detain people indefinitely without trial, without any evidence publicly presented, purely on the judgment of the Home Secretary.

There is a real danger that these powers will be abused in future to lock up people with inconvenient views, from animal rights activists to mere political opponents. The first targets, of course, will be Muslims.

We went to war in Iraq either on flawed intelligence or the flawed judgment of politicians. These same people are now taking carte blanche powers to declare war on our “undesirable” citizens.

If you do not have enough evidence for a trial, you do not have enough to lock them up indefinitely.

And the second letter is even better.

Sir – In all the talk of how to cope with any Islamist terrorists, the Government resolutely refuses to mention three letters – IRA. Yet the similarities are stark.

Some IRA killers were citizens of the Republic of Ireland, others of the United Kingdom. We treated them both the same. When we found no one dared testify in open court against them, we held hearings in camera. When juries were terrified of convicting the killers, we introduced the one-judge Diplock courts.

The single judge could be trusted with classified information and no-name testimony, and security breaches did not take place via the judges of courts.

Add to this formula the admissibility of phone tap and eavesdropping technology and the road is open for both our safety and British justice.

The Blair Government is setting up something I recognise - East Germany circa 1964. A political opponent has only to be designated “a threat to us all” and he can be treated like a terrorist.

It’s signed, splendidly, “Frederick Forsyth, Chief of Reuters Bureau, East Berlin, 1963-64, Author, The Odessa File, Hertford, Herts”. The man is becoming a national treasure.

These 77 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 10:31pm GMT Permanent link.

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Cool, Dude »

The boss doesn’t even go to our own soldiers’ funerals, so who gives a fuck about some Europeans? Tell the Jews they can’t have their votes back, and fuck them. Thanks to World O’Crap and Kieran Healy.

I was going to post the rest of this under the title ‘A Theory’ but it might as well go in here, as the photo makes it a lot less ridiculous.

I have a theory. I’m dead, and possibly you are too, if you’re reading this. This is what being dead, and in hell, is like. It’s like in The Third Policeman, just like life, but very odd. But just to torture us, and let us know we’re in hell, we’re allowed to glimpse the real earth, or the real heaven, or something. Once a week, for around 45 minutes they show this place where politicians care. Where they worry about global warming and pollution. Where they didn’t invade Iraq. Where the President reads books and even has a PhD. Where everyone in the White House has principles, and they’re not just making money for their old employers. Just to rub it in there was a conversation between the wife of an NCO who’d been kidnapped by guerillas in Africa (an NCO’s wife in the White House, not in this world) and the White House Chief of Staff where the wife made a remark about politician knowing only the comfortable chairs, and he assured her, in a roundabout but polite way, that he had served his country in a war, and what was the point of that except for the saved to roar with laughter at our torment (the way they do in Dante) when we compare Barlett and company to the complacent chickenshit warmongers we’re stuck with?

These 296 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:29pm GMT Permanent link.

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Saturday, 29 January 2005

Yglesias On Parkagate »

Even the man with the brain the size of a planet can be wrong.

Thinking it through over the course of a very cold day in New York, I’ve come to the following conclusion. Cheney probably wore the parka because it was cold, and parkas are warmer than formal overcoats. I note also the following wrinkle. A good hat does a great deal to keep you warm. It’s been widely noted that Cheney definitely does own a proper overcoat. What he probably does not own, however, is the sort of fur hat (see Israeli President Moishe Katsav in the photo next to Cheney) that is both warm and considered acceptable for formal events that one tends to see in the colder parts of Europe but not in, for example, the United States where such hats are regarded as comical. Now shouldn’t Cheney have just bit the bullet and shivered a bit, or else bought himself a Polish hat?

Well, perhaps Dick doesn’t own an appropriate hat. I know this is very left-field to some of you, but if you go on holiday, and you don’t have the appropriate clothing, you go out and buy it. (Gasp.) Cheney sure ain’t broke. In 2002, Cheney’s total assets were valued at between $19.1 million and $86.4 million. In 2003, the Vice Presidential salary was $196,600. And, since he was at a memorial service, he should remember what the inmates had to wear (see picture) for months on end.

And now, hats with the legend “Staff 2001” are regarded as comical in the United States.

Dick? Fuck you.

Image from here.

These 125 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 11:55am GMT Permanent link.

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The Rotters' Club And The Closed Circle »

I’ve meant to write something about Jonathan Coe’s The Closed Circle since I read it over two days just after Christmas. I found the reviews on Amazon and in the Guardian unfair. Even James Hamilton (who at least recommends it) was disappointed.

I think James is right about much of the good stuff. Coe merits the comparison to Martin Amis (except that Coe also does plot, which I’m sure Amis has heard of with his First in English and everything; he just seems not to bother with it). I think James is wrong about two important points.

I particularly admire the sense of disconnection, the characters’ world views beginning to shade out of sync with reality.

The first novel is primarily about adolescents. The ‘adult’ parts are a sort of background. (I intend not to give any plot points away, especially as Mark Holland has asked me not to.) Miriam’s affair with Doug’s father is mostly seen through her diaries as read by Claire. That the characters don’t know what’s going on is very important. It’s not giving much away I hope to point out that the guy from the Fast Show who says “I’m not one for making predictions …” ends the book on the day before the 1979 election predicting that Margaret Thatcher will lose. I don’t think the characters are “beginning to shade out of sync with reality” — they were never fully in sync. (This is a common literary conceit: Pinter’s Betrayal; Patrick Marber’s Closer where characters find they don’t even know their significant others.) James’s other point follows but has its own interest.

I’m left wondering whether The Closed Circle will be seen in the future (and Coe is one for posterity, of that let there be no doubt) as the perfect illustration of the strange moment in the life of the left when it abandoned universal human rights, humanism, common humankind and the future to take on … just one President, just one Prime Minister.

Jonathan Coe himself writes about the making of the series in the Observer. (Warning: contains important plot spoilers.)

Although The Rotters’ Club does try to give a sense of how Britain was changing as the 1970s drew to a close, that’s not, essentially, what its story is about.

Both books cover periods when Britain was changing (but when is it not?) — the former has the advantage of reflection. The Closed Circle is more ambitious in that it tries to do the same thing for very recent history.

A Blairite mentality might find the political ideals of Hugo Speer’s philandering shop-steward, with his commitment to full employment and his awareness of class war, every bit as comical these days as the romantic daydreams of the teenage Benjamin.

Coe tries to accord the adults in the sequel the same depth. On the Amazon site, a disappointed reader complains:

I can’t help feeling that this kind of thing is the fault of publishers who seem to demand sequels, instead of allowing writers to progress at their own pace and make their own choices.

Whatever the faults with the sequel, it’s not the publisher’s fault

In Coe’s new novel, “The Rotters’ Club” (the first half of which will essentially be one large novel — he is currently writing the second half, “The Closed Circle") …

Salon interview with Coe. There’s actually very little about politics: less than in the first book, because that was partly driven by the Birmingham Pub Bombings, while there are no contemporary equivalents.

I’m particularly upset by Steven Poole in the Graun, who is blind to the literary ambition and technique.

While we’re at it, we should also have our characters commentate on the absurdities of modern life as though they were tired feature columnists: people driving sports-utility vehicles to supermarkets ("a vehicle more suited to transporting essential food parcels along the treacherous supply roads between Mazar-e Sharif and Kabul”, ho ho), or mobile-phone users wearing earpieces ("you really do think they must be care-in-the-community cases"). All this feels dutiful rather than necessary.

This is an enormously unfair extract. Here is most of the opening of chapter 26 on page 55 (chapters are numbered backwards; they’re not around two pages long).

Half way across Lambeth Bridge, Paul braked to a halt, steadied himself with one foot on the kerb, and rested a while to recover his breath. His thigh muscles pulsed with dull pain from the unaccustomed effort of his one-and-a-half mile ride. After a few seconds, he swung the bicycle through ninety degrees and pedalled over to the eastern side of the bridge. Just as he was dismounting, the driver of a huge bottle-green people carrier, a vehicle more suited to transporting essential food parcels along the treacherous supply roads between Mazar-e SHarif and Kabul than taking — as seemed to be the case this evening — a rather comfortably off family of three down to the local Tesco and back, honked her angrily as she swerved wildly to one side, mobile phone in hand, and avoided killing Paul by about three inches. He took no notice, having quickly come to realise that such near-death experiences wer a daily occurrence in central London, where car drivers and cyclists lived in a permanent state of undeclared war. And besides, it would make a good episode for his new column, ‘Confessions of a Cycling MP’, which Malvina was planning to pitch next week to the editor one of the free magazines that got distributed on the Underground every morning. …

There are several things going on here which Poole misses. Paul (Ben Trotter’s irritating and pushy younger brother) is a New Labour MP; he’s also cycling for the first time since he was a teenager in order to write a column about being a cycling MP. Why is he writing like a “tired feature columnist"? Well, you tell me. I know this seems to be in the authorial voice, but it’s quite clear from the context that it’s Paul’s rough thoughts we’re reading. Paul is ambitious, but also gauche. A bottle-green people carrier, eh? “Paul took no notice” isn’t an actual description of the event, but Paul’s narration of it. (Coe used to be a journalist, and knows about journalist’s stunts.)

Then there’s the humour. Another review on Amazon.

His style was didactic, often patronising, and the jokes were thick-cut. Coe’s signature, subtle humour, seemed to have vanished.

I think the jokes are still there, and still subtle. Mark Holland liked the adaptation.

Got to love the Dick Clement & Ian La Frenais comic touches in amongst the serious drama. The bit where the power cut just as the art movie on BB2 was reaching its, er, climax was a hoot.

That joke is in the book, but Coe would approve of Mark’s sentiment.

I have always loved the way their writing collapses the distinction between comedy and drama, investing their sitcoms with a weight and a poignancy that seems to elude most of today’s slicker productions, products of a more cynical age.

The humour and the ambivalence (and I read “The Closed Circle” as a very ambivalent work) elide. Page 305.

Benjamin sighed and walked through to his bedroom. He liked his neighbour and didn’t want to antagonize him. A middle-aged Pakistani who worked as an informations officer for the City Council, Munir — like Benjamin — was single, and had got into the habit of coming upstairs from the ground floor flat most evenings to drink tea and to discuss politics, of which he was an avid follower. Sometimes the two of them would also sit and watch television together: Munir didn’t own a set — claiming that British television was corrupting and decadent — which meant that he frequently had to come and watch Benjamin’s for hours at a time.

I find the last sentence very funny — as I’m sure it was meant to be. But Coe isn’t making a joke at Munir’s expense. Here’s Philip trying to write a book on the far right. (Page 273.)

Philip found that following the logic of these conspiracy theories was deeply treacherous and disorienting. He kept finding himself arriving at conclusions he agreed with (that Western society was decadent and valueless, for instance) and then having to retrace his steps and anchor himself in simple facts, concrete objects eliciting a gut response in which he could trust: the foul, racist language used in the anonymous letters to Steve, or the hate-filled lyrics on the Auschwitz Carnival CD. In the absolute incompatibility between these things and the mystical, almost poetical outpourings of the more articulate neo-Nazis, with their talk of Folk Culture, Soil and Honour, Philip struggled to find a moral position of his own. His overriding sense was that every system of values seemed to be in a state of flux. of meltdown, and that somehow New Labour itself was symptomatic of this, constantly talking a language of beliefs and idealism but in fact behaving with as much ruthless pragmatism as anybody else, and as deeply in thrall to its own God (the free market economy) as any Muslim fanatic. The figure of Paul Trotter kept coming to mind.

Then the question of humour appears at least twice. (Page 392–3.)

There seemed to be a good deal of laughter to be had at the Abbaye, despite the warnings against it which were inscribed in the rulebook of Saint Benoit (a copy of which was deposited in his cell): ‘54: Ne pas dire des paroles vaines ou qui ne portent qu’à rire. 55: Ne pas aimer le rire trop fréquent ou trop bruyant.’

And of another character. (Page 375.)

He talked a lot about all the books he’d written. None of them had been published. But then he said that he’d “renounced” humour, like someone would say they’d given up smoking or converted to a different religion. Apparently he’d spent some time in a monastery … and he told me about this saint called Saint Benoit and how the monks tried to live according to his rules, and one of them was not to make jokes, and another was not to laugh too often.

I think Coe is very aware that the humour is different in The Closed Circle, but he hasn’t renounced it, and it hasn’t deserted him. The characters are middle-aged, and the middle-aged laugh less than teenagers. But there’s a serious streak too, just as in The Rotters’ Club. The sequel may even be the better book, and I look forward to the adaptation.

These 711 words were hurriedly scribbled by Dave @ 2:42pm GMT Permanent link.

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