Monday, June 29, 2009
Boris on Jacko
Michael Jackson: It would be wrong to sneer at this outpouring of public grief - Telegraph: "[...] Never was someone so obviously and so literally unhappy in his own skin, and by his obsessional suffering he earned the potential sympathy of everyone who feels doubtful about their appearance, which is a fair chunk of the human race. [...] And by his musical triumphs, he proved the essential point, that you can look weird, feel weird, be weird – and still be a genius. In one sense Michael Jackson was beaten by the star system, in that it made demands about how he should look and behave which he felt he could never satisfy. In another sense he beat the system. He beat it by writing Beat It." (Boris Johnson)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Virgin Mobile insurance con
"3 months free phone insurance. Cover your Virgin Mobile Pay Monthly phone, and the first 3 months are on us. After that, its just £5.99 a month."
£5.99 per month to insure your phone? What a rip-off, a tax on the busy parents of impressionable youngsters who demand mobile phones, not anticipating that this financial trap is being laid for them when they click through online. All "first 3 months free" schemes should be banned.
Feargal
£5.99 per month to insure your phone? What a rip-off, a tax on the busy parents of impressionable youngsters who demand mobile phones, not anticipating that this financial trap is being laid for them when they click through online. All "first 3 months free" schemes should be banned.
Feargal
BBC - Glastonbury - 2009
BBC - Glastonbury - 2009
Lots of videos, including Neil Young and extended highlights from Bruce Springsteen's brilliant headline set
Lots of videos, including Neil Young and extended highlights from Bruce Springsteen's brilliant headline set
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Richard Littlejohn's racist rants etc.
Happened to be in the barbers today and nothing else to read but the Daily Mail rag. To be fair, this housepaper-in-waiting for the genocidal BNP dictatorship had one good double page memoir about sexual mores in France, which was worth reading - an eye opener as they say. However it also contained a pageful of brutal and racist rants by a big Jeremy Clarkson-like buffoon called Richard Littlejohn. Like Clarkson this blatherer Littlejohn has made a living out of being an arse in the media for years.
He criticizes the police in a strange backhanded way, for example he complains that a guy was Tasered three times while spreadeagled on the ground while also describing him as "a piece of lard who probably deserved a good kicking". He gets some things sort of half right, probably by accident, including pointing out the stupidity of Tasering a sheep that was blocking a road. He then goes on in another strange backhanded sort of way about police swimming lessons being cancelled in Wales because it would put Muslim women off joining.
What I really didn't like was how he then went on via a tenuous link to say (and I quote) that "the Warwickshire police are holding a pikey's picnic this weekend, inviting all members of 'the travelling community' to a day of festivities at the force's Leek Wootton headquarters. The manicured lawns of the country house HQ will play host to a traditional Roma band, story-telling and even 'a graffiti project'. I hope they remember to lock up their lawn-mowers." [My emphasis]
It's not just the word "pikey" - which is offensive enough, I think, but that remark about locking up their lawn-mowers. I don't think you need me to draw the historical parallels of vilification that little jibe evokes. Have people like him learned nothing from history? As long as this country thinks he and people like him are, in the American term, "good old boys" we are headed for the horrors.
Remember today, remember everything you see around you: the communities, the arts, the hospitals and hospices, the schools and special schools, the languages you hear everywhere, the public transport passes for pensioners, welfare for people in hardship, benefits, pensions, freedom, rights. All these things will be violently and wilfully destroyed and disappear forever if people like him have their way, if they ever gain power. All that will be left is a feudal system of mansions, with unrepaired roads between them and surrounded by hovels, the Brazil of Europe, a banana republic with no bananas and no republic, run on the divine right of inherited privilege.
We can start the fight by binning the Daily Mail. Let's also oppose the Tories 10% cuts proposals and their alliance with the far right parties of Europe. New Labour sucks, and Gordon's expenses fiasco (yes, let him own it all) sucks majorly but look around, there is regeneration everywhere: new sports centre, rebuilt secondary school, rebuilt community hospital all within five minutes walk of where I live. When you go to a hospital appointment, you don't have to wait as long to be seen. There are new tests that are pro-actively promulgated for preventive medicine. There is a minimum wage. These are just some of the things one could list.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, let's purge lazy and concupiscent MP's but let us not install Lord Snooty and his friends to try to turn the clock back. Don't let them dismantle and sell off the investment that has been made. At the very worst, a Lib-Lab pact can survive. It is by no means over till it's over. Cameron is "measuring the curtains for 10 Downing Street" and therein lies his party's Achilles' heel: they think they have it in the bag, they have seen the winning post too soon.
Feargal
He criticizes the police in a strange backhanded way, for example he complains that a guy was Tasered three times while spreadeagled on the ground while also describing him as "a piece of lard who probably deserved a good kicking". He gets some things sort of half right, probably by accident, including pointing out the stupidity of Tasering a sheep that was blocking a road. He then goes on in another strange backhanded sort of way about police swimming lessons being cancelled in Wales because it would put Muslim women off joining.
What I really didn't like was how he then went on via a tenuous link to say (and I quote) that "the Warwickshire police are holding a pikey's picnic this weekend, inviting all members of 'the travelling community' to a day of festivities at the force's Leek Wootton headquarters. The manicured lawns of the country house HQ will play host to a traditional Roma band, story-telling and even 'a graffiti project'. I hope they remember to lock up their lawn-mowers." [My emphasis]
It's not just the word "pikey" - which is offensive enough, I think, but that remark about locking up their lawn-mowers. I don't think you need me to draw the historical parallels of vilification that little jibe evokes. Have people like him learned nothing from history? As long as this country thinks he and people like him are, in the American term, "good old boys" we are headed for the horrors.
Remember today, remember everything you see around you: the communities, the arts, the hospitals and hospices, the schools and special schools, the languages you hear everywhere, the public transport passes for pensioners, welfare for people in hardship, benefits, pensions, freedom, rights. All these things will be violently and wilfully destroyed and disappear forever if people like him have their way, if they ever gain power. All that will be left is a feudal system of mansions, with unrepaired roads between them and surrounded by hovels, the Brazil of Europe, a banana republic with no bananas and no republic, run on the divine right of inherited privilege.
We can start the fight by binning the Daily Mail. Let's also oppose the Tories 10% cuts proposals and their alliance with the far right parties of Europe. New Labour sucks, and Gordon's expenses fiasco (yes, let him own it all) sucks majorly but look around, there is regeneration everywhere: new sports centre, rebuilt secondary school, rebuilt community hospital all within five minutes walk of where I live. When you go to a hospital appointment, you don't have to wait as long to be seen. There are new tests that are pro-actively promulgated for preventive medicine. There is a minimum wage. These are just some of the things one could list.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, let's purge lazy and concupiscent MP's but let us not install Lord Snooty and his friends to try to turn the clock back. Don't let them dismantle and sell off the investment that has been made. At the very worst, a Lib-Lab pact can survive. It is by no means over till it's over. Cameron is "measuring the curtains for 10 Downing Street" and therein lies his party's Achilles' heel: they think they have it in the bag, they have seen the winning post too soon.
Feargal
Let's do this
Auto-ban: German town goes car-free - Europe, World - The Independent: "Vauban hopes to forge a model community without that great staple of modern life – the car. Now the sound of birdsong has replaced the roar of traffic and children can play in the street"
He made some good records
Michael Jackson - One Day in your life
Michael Jackson - Earth Song
The symbolism in the Earth Song video is messianic. Jackson redeems the world at the end by stamping his foot. The stamping of his foot as the world is regenerated is a primitive dance element and also (perhaps appropriately) how a petulant child demands something.
I don't know if he was guilty as charged although acquitted but that child abuse trial must have destroyed him. There was a chance of suicide at that time, I thought. Some good things are made by people who are not all good. Just one opinion.
Jacintha
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Pointless violence
Battle of Barbaji: A fight for hearts and minds in Afghanistan, but none are to be found | UK news | The Guardian
"[...] The wide street, lined on each side with garage-like concrete alcoves that serve for shops, was strewn with rubbish and, the Jocks discovered, eight separate IEDs. The only people in the shops were youthful members of A Company, who spent their time frying up some of the potatoes the traders left behind. ... His company finally found two local people to engage with on the fourth day [...] The first was a teenage boy caught foraging for stale bread in an empty compound [...] The second was a grey-bearded old man the British found sitting under a tree, outside a tiny mud-brick home the size of two telephone boxes – the only inhabitant of an otherwise entirely deserted village to have stayed behind. Only his bad legs, and the trouble he has walking, had prevented him joining the exodus. ... No fewer than three British officers set about trying to extract information and to deliver their key messages. [...] The old man wasn't having any of it: "Last year a big British bomb in Nowzad killed 600 people," he said. "Another 170 were killed at a wedding party."
Meanwhile, John Bercow and the government are fiddling while Afghanistan burns.
Zoz
Update 26/6/2009: Obama must call off this folly before Afghanistan becomes his Vietnam: Senseless slaughter and anti-western hysteria are all America and Britain's billions have paid for in a counterproductive war (Simon Jenkins)
"[...] The wide street, lined on each side with garage-like concrete alcoves that serve for shops, was strewn with rubbish and, the Jocks discovered, eight separate IEDs. The only people in the shops were youthful members of A Company, who spent their time frying up some of the potatoes the traders left behind. ... His company finally found two local people to engage with on the fourth day [...] The first was a teenage boy caught foraging for stale bread in an empty compound [...] The second was a grey-bearded old man the British found sitting under a tree, outside a tiny mud-brick home the size of two telephone boxes – the only inhabitant of an otherwise entirely deserted village to have stayed behind. Only his bad legs, and the trouble he has walking, had prevented him joining the exodus. ... No fewer than three British officers set about trying to extract information and to deliver their key messages. [...] The old man wasn't having any of it: "Last year a big British bomb in Nowzad killed 600 people," he said. "Another 170 were killed at a wedding party."
Meanwhile, John Bercow and the government are fiddling while Afghanistan burns.
Zoz
Update 26/6/2009: Obama must call off this folly before Afghanistan becomes his Vietnam: Senseless slaughter and anti-western hysteria are all America and Britain's billions have paid for in a counterproductive war (Simon Jenkins)
Neda Soltan family 'forced out of home' by Iranian authorities
World news | guardian.co.uk: "Parents of young woman shot dead near protests are banned from mourning and funeral is cancelled, neighbours say"
The world doesn't need the Willesden Herald to blog about this and Iran is not a so-called ally like Israel, so there is not as much imperative to disown its atrocities, which are like the atrocities of many tyrannies around the world. I don't feel I have to keep saying "Not in my name" for every shameful lower-than-rats activity of every crawling politician in power around the world - or else I'd spend my whole life going around like a town crier, bewailing the state of the world. However, that doesn't mean I can't say anything ever, either.
Feargal
The world doesn't need the Willesden Herald to blog about this and Iran is not a so-called ally like Israel, so there is not as much imperative to disown its atrocities, which are like the atrocities of many tyrannies around the world. I don't feel I have to keep saying "Not in my name" for every shameful lower-than-rats activity of every crawling politician in power around the world - or else I'd spend my whole life going around like a town crier, bewailing the state of the world. However, that doesn't mean I can't say anything ever, either.
Feargal
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Setanta can battle the (air)waves no more
Setanta Sport goes into administration this afternoon after the collapse of the business in Britain (Belfast Telegraph)
It is doubtful you will find this combination of picture and newspaper very often.
It is doubtful you will find this combination of picture and newspaper very often.
Roll away the stone
PG newsletter, June 2009
"Changes for the next Willesden short story competition: a small entry fee will be introduced to cover running costs. Any extra will be donated to a charity and the accounts published online. As you know, this is not the first time we have donated to a charity. Last year we donated $10,000 to Comic Relief (I think most of you have read about that exciting time in literary history). If we can't make money, the least we can do is give it away." (More)
New Judge
Following on from Zadie Smith and Rana Dasgupta, the esteemed Richard Peabody has kindly agreed to choose the winning entry for the 2009-2010 competition.
Richard Peabody is an author and poet based in Washington, D.C. A native of the region, he is perhaps best known as one of the founding editors for Gargoyle Magazine and editor for the anthology series Mondo. He also runs a small press called Paycock Press; aside from acting as the official publisher of Gargoyle Magazine, Paycock Press has released a number of anthologies and works by individual authors.
"Peabody's own fiction and poetry is often set in Washington, D.C. and the surrounding region and is often noted for strong influences from the Beat Generation and experimental authors of the 1960s like Ken Kesey. During his writing and publishing career, Peabody has taught fiction writing for the University of Maryland, the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, and the Writer's Center. He currently resides in Arlington, Virginia with his wife and two daughters." (Ref: Wikipedia)
You can read an interview from 2003 with Richard at Write This.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Unlucky fledgling
I saw this young pigeon (a bit more than a squab) in trouble about an hour and a bit ago. No point in me phoning the RSPCA or trying to pick it up and take it home - I've been through this before. You just get a recorded message telling you to leave it where it is and the other birds will take care of it. I think, however, it is more likely that the urban foxes will take care of it. I know from bitter experience that there's nothing I can do for it, but if any of you think you can help it, it's at the bottom of one of the trees opposite Hassops car dealers. It's not in a place where many people will see it, as there is a wide swathe of pavement there and few go near the spot where it's lying.
Ossian
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Hedgehog in the fog
hedgehog in the fog (yozhik v tumane - ёжик в тумане)
"Classic Russian animated short film from 1975. Based on a story by Sergei Kozlov, directed by Yuri Norstein. In 2003 'Hedgehog in the Fog' won the '№1 Animated film of all the time' at 'All time animation best 150 in Japan and Worldwide' contest in Tokyo, Japan."
What the symbolism of the bear cub and the hedgehog means is something to ponder but it's a beautiful film.
Booted thugs stand on woman's feet
Kingsnorth video shows surveillance protesters bundled to ground by police | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "Women arrested for challenging officer with no badge number"
They asked for an officer's number, which they are entitled to do and which the officer should have been displaying but was not, and for their trouble they got their necks held and pressure-pointed, pinned face down on the ground, handcuffed and ankles taped together. At one point one of the police gang is seen standing on a woman's feet, and she asks him to stop while this so-called "officer" (I could think of a better word) denies it. I repeat, surely a revolution is at hand?
Zoz
They asked for an officer's number, which they are entitled to do and which the officer should have been displaying but was not, and for their trouble they got their necks held and pressure-pointed, pinned face down on the ground, handcuffed and ankles taped together. At one point one of the police gang is seen standing on a woman's feet, and she asks him to stop while this so-called "officer" (I could think of a better word) denies it. I repeat, surely a revolution is at hand?
Zoz
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Y'know what Gordon - go ahead
Gordon Brown: I could walk away from this tomorrow: Prime minister is 'hurt' by attacks (Guardian)
The man takes everything personally. He is incapable of recognising his utter inadequacy for the role he has usurped. The last thing he should ever think about is how sorry he is for himself; instead it is always the first and last thing he thinks about, and the only thing that guides his decision making process. As a result he gets every decision wrong. He is purblind to the concerns of most people.
This is the man who gave pensioners a 50p raise, who abolished the 10p tax rate (and would have done so without compensation - still hasn't restored it), who in just the last week announced an inquiry into the Iraq war to be held in private (unbelievably), and who is the origin of the whole expenses scandal by refusing to accept the independently adjudicated pay award for MP's four years ago.
Like all natural misers, he is wildly profligate at others' expense, showing no concern whatsoever for your costs. This is a condemnation of his record. His personality is his own and would not be of any consequence, were it not causing him to drive the good ship U.K. (or the creaking old rustbucket, if you prefer) full steam ahead onto the rocks. As for that pathetic mutiny attempt: apart from Purnell, the whole crew has been exposed as feeble and more interested in expediency than in the fate of the country. It's been obvious from the time of the election for deputy prime minister, when ten of them queued up for a sinecure and mansion, that they are a bunch of political minnows with few principles.
I don't like myself for having a go at the Prime Minister. I'm sure that as a human being he is a fine chap. I'm not even going to say anything about the other people who were nice to their families now. He's ok, no doubt. Just not as PM - anything else, yes probably.
Zoz
The man takes everything personally. He is incapable of recognising his utter inadequacy for the role he has usurped. The last thing he should ever think about is how sorry he is for himself; instead it is always the first and last thing he thinks about, and the only thing that guides his decision making process. As a result he gets every decision wrong. He is purblind to the concerns of most people.
This is the man who gave pensioners a 50p raise, who abolished the 10p tax rate (and would have done so without compensation - still hasn't restored it), who in just the last week announced an inquiry into the Iraq war to be held in private (unbelievably), and who is the origin of the whole expenses scandal by refusing to accept the independently adjudicated pay award for MP's four years ago.
Like all natural misers, he is wildly profligate at others' expense, showing no concern whatsoever for your costs. This is a condemnation of his record. His personality is his own and would not be of any consequence, were it not causing him to drive the good ship U.K. (or the creaking old rustbucket, if you prefer) full steam ahead onto the rocks. As for that pathetic mutiny attempt: apart from Purnell, the whole crew has been exposed as feeble and more interested in expediency than in the fate of the country. It's been obvious from the time of the election for deputy prime minister, when ten of them queued up for a sinecure and mansion, that they are a bunch of political minnows with few principles.
I don't like myself for having a go at the Prime Minister. I'm sure that as a human being he is a fine chap. I'm not even going to say anything about the other people who were nice to their families now. He's ok, no doubt. Just not as PM - anything else, yes probably.
Zoz
United Kleptocracy of Britain & N.I.
MPs' expenses: MPs made inflated council tax claims - Telegraph
They're taxing us but claiming back the tax on expenses when it hits them. Those expenses to pay their personal taxes are also taken from your income-taxed money. Surely a revolution is at hand? We need a general election NOW - the fabric of UK democracy is being damaged by running on these flat tyres.
Zoz
They're taxing us but claiming back the tax on expenses when it hits them. Those expenses to pay their personal taxes are also taken from your income-taxed money. Surely a revolution is at hand? We need a general election NOW - the fabric of UK democracy is being damaged by running on these flat tyres.
Zoz
BBC iPlayer: Leonard Cohen - Songs from a Life
BBC iPlayer - Omnibus: Leonard Cohen - Songs from a Life: "Portrait of Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen, originally recorded in 1973. Featuring interviews, archive film and live performances from London, Paris, Athens and New York. Broadcast on:BBC Four, 10:00pm Friday 19th June 2009 Duration: 70 minutes Available until: 11:09pm Friday 26th June 2009 Categories:Factual, Arts, Culture & the Media"
Friday, June 19, 2009
Blackwash
The great MPs' expenses cover-up
"Despite a pledge from Gordon Brown that “transparency” was the only way to restore public faith in democracy, the files released by the Commons authorities withheld details that would have exposed the worst abuses of the expenses system." (Telegraph)
We've been had.
"Despite a pledge from Gordon Brown that “transparency” was the only way to restore public faith in democracy, the files released by the Commons authorities withheld details that would have exposed the worst abuses of the expenses system." (Telegraph)We've been had.
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