excretera.

Nick Nick Nick

2010-10-26T22:13:00.003+01:00

NickNickNickNickNickNickNickNick. Nick. You really are an asshole, aren't you?

And this, remember, coming from me, means something. It's not just some guy on your way into Parliament hollering 'Hey, Nick! You're an asshole!'. No. When I call someone an asshole, it is with the full weight of a man who knows about assholes. Knowing that sort of shit is how I make my living, so you have to believe me when I say, 'You're an asshole.'

It isn't just mere speculation. It's a professional opinion.

Like a diagnosis. You can take that your doctor, and when she asks what's wrong, say, 'excretera. says I'm an asshole.' She'll know what to do.

First, we had Nick criticising the Institute for Fiscal Studies, because they had the temerity to look at the numbers and realise that his coalition budget wasn't, well, very fair after all. 'But George and David promised me that it was!' he insisted, in the face of all reasonable argument. It's like he really believes his Tory friends. Like we believed Nick. Once.

The human capacity for self-delusion never ceases to amaze me.

The New Statesman's Mehdi Hasan points out that Nick and his pal George weren't always so critical of the IFS. Like, when the IFS's conclusions suited their own needs. They loved the respected IFS then.

See? Asshole.

And now we have news that Nick has made another another ill-advised attempt to seduce the Common Briton with his tales of his not-really-licentiousness. He likes a cigarette, apparently. He revealed this on Desert Island Discs, presumably thinking that no one was listening?

Of course he knew they were listening. He prayed that we were all listening. 'I know I shouldn't say this and it's a terrible thing,' he said, hoping Kirsty Young would chastise him with a playful slap on the wrist.

Oh you are a naughty boy, aren't you Nick?

(And no. I didn't listen to the programme, and I have no intention to do so. I don't feel a need to be a party to Nick's little masquerade.)

And immediately I was reminded, when I heard this on the news, of that time, do you remember? because this too was so very shocking, when Nick admitted/boasted in an interview with GQ that he had slept with 30 women.

I have no idea if 30 women is a lot to have slept with, or not many. And I don't care. To have slept with 30 women, 24 men and maybe three goats, now that would be interesting. But I still don't care. Both episodes reek of a sort of desperation, a plea for acceptance. 'Look at me, look! I'm not really That Person that you think I am.'

I think we've had enough of your duplicity, Nick. The point is now: shut up.

Precious little good news of late

2010-10-22T12:37:00.005+01:00

and I'm falling behind in my attempt to throw poo at all of it. We've just had the CSP, and I'm just getting really very fucking angry about that -- spurred on by today Guardian front page, that tell me that the IFS has checked the numbers and that 'Families with children will take brunt of cuts'. But don't worry, Nick Clegg says that the IFS -- the most respected independent financial organisation in the country -- don't know what they are talking about, that it's all 'distorted nonsense'. Alan Johnson hit the nail on the head the other day, but maybe didn't go far enough: between the closing of the ballot box and the opening of his ministerial car door, Clegg underwent a transformation that makes what happened to David Naughton in An American Werewolf in London look like just a few touches around the eyes.

BUT, before I can get all exorcised about the re-structuring of the British economy and all that, there was the matter a few days back of Lord Browne (remember him?) and his review of higher education. So, while we wait for the IFS to figure out just how shit the broad spending cuts will be, let's take some time and look at what we know: that is, just how very fucking awful implementation of Lord Browne's recommendations will be.

Let's start by ignoring for the moment that the Lib Dems campaigned explicitly on the pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees. And it looks like they will support Browne's recommendations, if the noises from not only Clegg but so-called 'lefties' Cable and Hughes are anything to go by. So let's forget -- just for this moment -- that this is further evidence that Lib Dem yellow really is the colour of cowardly, spineless, power-hungry slug-like sycophants who MUST receive their just desserts at the next election with complete annihilation. (Starting with Nick Clegg, my own dear MP. The cull must be merciless. It must be total.)

So, what's actually wrong with Browne's proposals? If more money is needed in these tough economic times, then shouldn't those who will benefit pay more? There are those who argue, rather convincingly, that the free or heavily-subsidised tuition involves the working (non-University attending) classes funding the aspirations of the middle and upper classes, and thus a perpetuation of social stratification and inequality, so would charging higher fees, and the withdraw of government money, be an important step in bringing 'fairness' to post-secondary education?

The real problem isn't the raising of fees, though that is fairly shit. No, the REAL problem with Lord Browne's reforms is the marketisation of the University. Yes, it is a word, and one that you'd better get used to using more and more often under this government (and the last, and the last before that, and the last before that...).

I've said for a long time that Universities are strange places. They are fundamentally medieval institutions redesigned on the principles of 19th century prisons, run by a tiny cabal who think they are late-capitalist CEOs (and sometimes are). They trade on the ancient, religious origins as purveyors of Truth to draw in staff and students who are driven by (largely) altruistic ideals of learning and education; bureaucratically, they are governed by a panoptic structure that is not at all confused that the primary purpose of ANY institution is the surveillance, management, hierarchalisation and governance of its population; and it is all overseen by a management class who pretend that their inflated six-figure salaries are necessary to support their efforts to run their domains in the name of financial prudence.

And now, it seems, the CEOs have had their way. Post-secondary education is going to be turned into a market.

Which makes sense, because past and recent history have clearly demonstrated that markets are completely infallible.

Oh. Wait.

But go figure. You ask a former Chief Executive of BP to conduct a review on how to manage higher education and guess what? He suggests you run it like a corporation. Why do we do this? Or rather, let this be done to us? (Check Catherine Bennett's excellent article in the Guardian on this.)

Turning British universities into a market now makes as much sense as leaving a child with a penchant for pyrotechnics at a nursery with a box of matches, a can of petrol and a glass of milk.

Why the glass of milk? because like the totally ineffectual 'regulations' imposed on the City after the banking crises, the bursaries and support for disadvantaged students that are promised to accompany the deregulation of university tuition will be of no use to anyone fleeing the burning nursery, except the pyromaniac who will stand giddy amongst the flames, a contented, white-moustached smile, asking the fireman 'What? What?'

Ok, one of my more fraught similes. But you see the point.

I might have accepted that tuition fees needed to rise. Maybe. I would have rather seen an increase in basic rates of tax (for higher earners) or, preferably, an increase in corporation tax (instead of the decrease that the Tories introduced in their first budget). Why not? The corporations reap the benefits of post-secondary education; it's a training of their workforce that they don't need to pay for. But I'm getting side-tracked: a simple increase in tuition fees would have been wrong, but that would have been other argument. But what the Tories are now likely to do, thanks to Lord Browne, is something else all-together more evil. Like their radical re-structuring of the NHS (which, incidentally, the blue-half of the coalition promised not to do), this is about more than cuts and crises. This is ideological-driven re-building of the British social institutions, the transformatiokn of Britain into a Thatcherite Wonderland of markets, competition and consumer-relations.

Just how very, very wrong that is will only become clear in the coming weeks and years. These reforms must be resisted.

Right now, I'm a tutor or lecturer standing before students. Though the titles won't change (a nice, sentimental throwback to the old days, that'll be) I'll become, essentially, a Product-Supply Officer stood in before customers.

Not that I expect to have a job in the modern Corporate University. There won't be many of those, either.

Though the lecturers' union, the UCU, came out against Browne's review, and I hope hope hope that they stand with the NUS against the proposals, I know that a lot of lecturers and professors aren't going to raise too much fuss about this. You might be surprised at how quiet so many of them seem. But they won't see what's coming, what with being blinded by all the pound signs flashing in front of their eyes.

Those pound signs? they're just a mirage. Anyone expecting to make a fortune from an academic career in the new Open Market Universities are going to be very, very disappointed.

(Unless, of course, you get to be a CEO. They're called 'VC's at university.)

But I'll go one step further. If Russell Group Universities seize on this report to deregulate their fees and capitalise on this market, it would be unethical for anyone who professes to favour progressive politics, as academics often like to do, to continue to work for a so-called 'elite' university.

'Fortunately', I expect to be forced out of work before I become a hypocrite.

Sometimes you have to say 'Sorry.'

2010-09-29T17:13:00.004+01:00

I didn't know who was going to win the Labour leadership election. I guess I assumed that it was going to be David Miliband, and the thought didn't particularly trouble me. But when his brother, Ed, won, I was a bit shocked and surprised, but not entirely displeased. I wasn't not overjoyed, nor was I particularly not underwhelmed.

I know. You're sick of coming here and reading such polemics.

And yesterday I fired off an angry post insisting that Nick Robinson and Jeremy Paxman and everyone just shut up trying to analyse every gesture, every expression of the brothers like a bunch of amateur psychoanalytic literary critics. It would have been nice, instead, had they focussed on the substantial issues of policy.

(I speak, too, I guess, as a professional psychoanalytic literary critic...)

Some people have suggested that there weren't any substantial differences in policy between the brothers, which is why everyone focussed on the 'psycho-drama'. But I don't think that's true: I think Nick Robinson and his ilk would have focussed on any of the gossip or tittle-tattle rather than the big issues anyway, because that's what the (post-)modern media likes to do, it's all they can do.

So now that David has (finally) announced that he won't run for the shadow cabinet (which seems like a perfectly sensible thing to do, and a perfectly sensible time to announce it, given that the media would have focussed on nothing else no matter when he decided to do it), and now everyone is saying 'Well, he couldn't be in the cabinet, could he? because the differences between the brothers are so great.' Except they're not, are they? I mean, were hardly talking Benn versus Healy here, are we? Of course not. This is a united Labour party. The differences on display, even those differences buried, aren't anywhere near as great as those between the Conservatives and their Liberal slaves, or even within the Conservatives (e.g. Europhiles versus Eurosceptics) or within the Liberals right now (between left, e.g. Hughes, and the right-wingers in Cabinet.)

BUT, there is one important difference, and it seems to be this difference that has seen David leave today. IF, on the Iraq war, David Miliband is unable to apologise, if he is unable to admit that the last Labour government made a terrible, terrible mistake into going into war -- whether because of ideological blindness or a more simply failure of intelligence -- then David needs to go. Because that was the issue on which the Labour government lost the support of the country, of the left and of their own supporters. And he should not be allowed back until he is willing to share responsibility for that horrid error. And no one who sat with their hands in their laps yesterday when Ed acknowledged the mistake should be allowed in the shadow cabinet either.

Ok. Now that's done. I'm going to go crawl into a hole and hide while the Tory conference is on, because I can't stand the thought of those smug, self-congratulatory bastards celebrating. (Unless Mr. Fox has any more private letters to his leader he wants to leak to the media? Keep it up, Mr. Fox -- you might have your uses yet.)

Jeremy Paxman is being a dick.

2010-09-28T23:19:00.005+01:00

And a bully. And it's got me so mad that I need to rant for a bit. I managed to keep quiet through the entire visit of the pope to the UK ('aggressive secularism'? PLUH-EESE. When atheists start locking men of faith, Torquemada-style, in iron maidens, or start knocking on doors like Jehovah's Witnesses, demanding, 'Do you know you are full of shit?' then call me and I'll denounce 'aggressive secularism'), and I've happily kept my head down and focussed on the work in hand (and on my lap and in my inbox), but now, enough.

It's all about this Labour leadership thing. I don't know who should have won, I hope Ed Miliband does well, really well, really really I do. But I am sick to frickin' death of the amateur psychoanalysts who want to scrutinise every gesture, every muscular strain of any of these politicians.

Worst of the lot of course is Nick Robinson, of course, who can apparently channel the spirit of Freud in his detailed analyses. 'This "psychodrama", as I called it...' he said the other day about the brothers running for the Labour leadership, wishing to enforce his 'intellectual' copyright, has distracted Labour and the public from the issues at stake in the leadership contest. Well no shit, Nick! Because reporters, including the BBC's own political editor, consistently eschew the issues to focus exclusively on this speculative bullshit. Of course there are going to be problems, and clearly there are issues that their entire family needs to address, but shouldn't someone tell Nick that he doesn't have a clue what these might be, that nothing in his history as a young Tory or a pathetically vacuous political reported affords him any insight into this 'psychodrama' of which he purports to be an expert.

In your quest to present yourself as a psychoanalyst, Nick, I'd say don't give up the day job, though clearly you are shit at that too, so you might as well. Please.

And now Paxman is having a go at Tessa Jowell on Newsnight. When did bullying pass for serious, probing interviewing? (cf. John Humphrys). I didn't really pull enough quotations from this interview to wave around and prove Paxman complicit in this game of wild analyses, but in addition to Robinson's narrative, Paxman was capitalising on Jowell's friendship with David Miliband to ask about his motives and plans, making assumptions he had no business making and digging in places he has no business digging.

Eventually, someone in the audience groaned. Jowell, even Paxman, realised that this groan really meant 'Shut up you massive prick.'

I'm back...

2010-09-07T22:27:00.004+01:00

from my holidays. Just three weeks, but it seemed an age. We walked into the town centre here and Sheffield and Jonah (just turned 5) starts panting excitedly.

'Oh, oh! Daddy! Do you remember that building?!?'
'That's Sheffield City Hall, Jonah. Of course I remember that building. It's been there a hundred years. We were just here three weeks ago.'

That kind of thing. And it is nice to see that not much changes, apparently, here in Britain in that time. Every time I go back to Canada -- which, granted, is only once every two years now -- it seems that the place is utterly transformed. Why, this time I learned that the Mall near my Mom's house has had its food court re-done. Again. But, fuck, hey, that's progress. It's only a matter of time before Sutton gets a Wal-Mart and everyone can stay there and drive to the local branch to get really cheap shit without having to go all the way to Newmarket.

(I should add that my Uncle Dave, a Councillor for Ward 3 in Georgina, is still fighting that very good fight against Wal-Mart in the town. So let me take this one chance excretera has to call you to Re-Elect Dave Szollosy in Ward 3! Not much use in me having a sign on my lawn, but anything I can lend to the cause. He's family, you know.)

So nice to see that not much changes at least in one part of the world I inhabit. Britain is much the same. Despite my desperate pleas, for example, some gin-drenched mum pushing her lump of baby in a GX Turbo 9000TT pram failed to notice yet again Jonah skipping towards the crossing light, his little face screwed up in excitement, his finger reaching for that happy spot on the button and, wouldn't ya know it, this crazy streetwalker -- oh, yes, she was! -- pushes the button ahead of him. Lady, if you're reading this, your pathetic little apology meant nothing to my son, and it certainly did nothing to help me console him as he turned to me, all hope and expectation in life suddenly destroyed: mouth curved to his chin, eyes soaked with the deluge of thwarted desire.

(One day, lady, it'll be your kid, slipping, slug-like, to the light. And I'll be there. Waiting. And I will bring the finger of almighty judgement down upon you and your off-spring, and ye shall know the tragedy of such iniquity. And I'll laugh. A triumphant, cruel laugh.)

AND the BBC is taking another beating. God knows what for this time. But this from The New Statesman offers another very good reminder of why the BBC is better than its rivals, and how generally shit (and not in the good way) life will be if Murdoch is allowed to take over the world. I'm sorry. I know he doesn't really want to take over the world. Oh, wait. Yes he does.

This deserves a wider audience. Watch the sycophantic little slut lie back for his sugar daddy. Christ. Crawl back under your shell, you shit-eating mollusk. (Does that even work as a metaphor? You get my meaning, anyway.)

I don't know whether or not Coulson is guilty. No, scratch that, too. Of course I do. We all do. We don't need intangible things like 'proof' to make up our minds. He's as guilty as hell, but that's not the point. The Tories trying to spin this as party-political posturing by Labour shows just how little interest they have in democracy. I mean that. I know that phrase 'contempt for democracy' is thrown by politicians at their opposite numbers every time a minster loses a paperclip, but there is a more important issue here, and New International have been getting away with it for far too long. It needs to stop. And not just swept away. Murdoch's strategy - not even denying it, just completely ignoring it -- is brilliant. (And remember, as The New Statesman article points out, this interview was conducted over a year ago, so it worked, at least once.) Let's just hope that the rest of the British press don't back down as cowardly as they have done in the past.

Honey, I'm home...

It's the end of the honeymoon

2010-07-20T13:09:00.005+01:00

I'm hearing from YouGov, via PoliticsHome (thanks to @MaximManchester). Here is a link to the YouGov article (if you have Diigo, you can turn it on and see where I have highlighted and commented on a couple of points.

There is a bit of the no-brainer about all of this, that when the cuts started... well, erm, cutting, that people were going to get a bit miffed. Two things on that: Well, serves you right obviously comes to mind. The Tories said they were going to cut, and they're cutting. And people don't like it, apparently. Which begs the question as to why we elected them with a workable majority so that they could implement their agenda unopposed... oh. Wait.

But also it's the Tories own fault if they're not loved right now, because they are cutting more than they have to. Yes, they are. Don't believe the hype, don't fall for the scare stories. They were always going to cut more than they have to. The are Conservatives. That's what they do.

But I'm confused by a couple of points raised by Peter Kellner's commentary. He explains that the public are getting disillusioned with the new coalition government much faster than they did with Labour from 1997. The statistics bear this up. However, Kellner's decisive interpretation of this seems a bit odd.

Plainly, part of the problem is that many voters are growing queasy about the coming spending cuts. No longer is it possible for most of us to believe that these will be confined to efficiency savings and services that affect other people. David Cameron’s warning that ‘we are all in this together’ is proving to be alarmingly true.

First, no, we're not all in this together, as the Tories' posh-boys, I suspect, will somehow survive these cuts relatively unscathed. Call it a hunch. But, no, it's not 'plain', Peter, no. Surely another -- perhaps even more likely -- explanation is that many Lib Dem voters are not happy that the party they voted for went into coalition with the Tories and so sycophantically support an agenda almost completely opposite to that on which they stood? Which surely the statistics themselves imply?

While approval for the coalition has risen among Tory voters, from 80% in mid-June to 84% , which is to be expected as they get to see cut in public spending beyond their wettest, wildest dreams, the situation amongst people who voted for the Lib Dems is rather different:

Among those who voted Lib Dem on May 6, opinions are divided: just 40% approve of the coalition’s performance, while 36% disapprove. No wonder Lib Dem support has slumped since the coalition was formed. Indeed, of those who voted Lib Dem on May 6, just 46% would vote for the party if an election were held now, while 18% would vote Labour, 9% Conservative and 5% for other parties; 22% are ‘don’t knows’ or ‘won’t votes’.

So Kellner's assumption that the coalition, who swept to power with 61% of the vote between them, is losing support now because of the cuts themselves seems like an assumption unsupported by the facts, doesn't it? I'm not saying that we can know for sure that the low approval rating for the coalition is due to disaffected Lib Dem voters, but isn't that the Lib Dem portion of that 61% are saying, 'Whoa!' -- because Lib Dems are like that -- 'Hold on one second here. I don't remember voting for this. I don't think I like this. No sir. Not one bit.'

Ok. It's how I feel, stupidly lured into voting Lib Dem as I was. So surely everyone else naive enough to vote Lib Dem agrees with me?

A plea.

2010-07-19T09:57:00.001+01:00

Ok, starting a new week with a topic of grave concern for the children of Britain, nay, doubtless the world.

I wish to call your attention to a worrying trend, something that is symbolic, I feel, of how badly we treat our children. I want to call for a swift and decisive change in the behaviour of each and every one of you. I want each of you to look into your hearts, into your souls, and take the action that is necessary to free our children from a terrible injustice that will, if allowed to continue unimpeded, have serious repercussions on our children's development and the future of this planet.

So, please heed the following: IF you see a four-year-old boy skipping happily towards a cross-walk this morning, keep your finger off the fucking button to request a cross. I don't know whether it is by pathetic ignorance of malicious cruelty, but every morning last week my four-year old Jonah, after asking so sweetly if he can edge ahead of me to press the cross-walk button (and this now that his older brother is much too cool to try to beat him to it), has had his hopes crushed at the last second by the merciless finger of a callous teenage boy or the foreboding wrinkled hand of an old man.

What kind of people are these? That they either do not sense the uninhibited enthusiasm of youth, or that they wish to destroy it? Have they suffered so much, have their own childhood experiences been so traumatic, that they are compelled to repeat the injustices done to them unto the youth of today?

Sort it out. Because I'm not having it any more. My son has suffered enough disappointment. Have a look before you press that button, or so help me you'll find it bitten off. I mean it.

Shock Breaking News!

2010-07-17T13:00:00.003+01:00

Wealthy white men in the United Kingdom are using their financial advantage, privilege and connections to get themselves elected to Parliament!

Unbelievable, I know. But apparently true. Hear all about it here.

What's wrong, Posh Boy? Not used to not getting your own way? (You could just see his stuff upper lip wanting to bark at the injustice of such an interrogation. And to tolerate that from a man who clearly buys his ties from Marks and Spencers! The horror.)

Oh, Zac. Zac, Zac, Zac, Zac, Zac, Zac, Zac. You poor fool. You've just joined Michael Howard in the annals of The Classic Political Interview. Jon Snow at last takes his position alongside Jeremy Paxman. Next time you'll remember to call Dave's media people, won't you, old chum? There's a good lad.

But seriously. Good investigative journalism from Channel 4 and all, but doesn't this feel a lot like getting Capone sent away for tax evasion? I mean, if it gets the job done good work and all that, but don't you feel like we're missing something in all the detail? When the Prime Minister and his Chancellor, yes, I will mention it again, thank you very much, were happy Bullingdon dinner pals in their youth, along with the mayor of London?

I just think there's a Bigger Picture here, you know?

Where have I been?

2010-07-14T10:39:00.001+01:00

Well, other than in a dentist's chair -- interminably -- I've been largely depressed. Not 'depression' like depression, but just sick sick sick of it all.

I'm not depressed that we've got a Tory government. (Yes, it is. For all the talk of a coalition, we've got a right-wing, conservative government. They just happen to have a yellow fig leaf for cover. We couldn't have got a more right-wing Tory government had we all rushed to the poles and voted overwhelmingly for it. Which we didn't.) I'm not depressed about that because, if I'm being honest, there is something strangely comforting about the axe-wielding bastard Tory villains coming at us while we sleep. Like the Pope being a misogynist schmuck and Russian spies being uncovered in the US and being deported. It all reminds me of snuggling warmly into my Star Wars sheets as a boy, fighting the certain knowledge that world was going to end in nuclear holocaust before the morning. It's like everything's conspiring to rid the world of its usual ambivalence, of Labour politicians taking us into a neo-con war, etc. etc., but hey, this is good, because it's what we know. It's less work. Let's get on with it, I say!

SO, I was ready for a little joy, Schadenfreude, what have you, in climbing back under the anxiety-soaked sheets of opposition, of complaining endlessly about what Those Bastards are up to now. But what's the point? Nobody's listening.

Have you been watching the news? Listening to the radio? Everyone seems to be receiving the Condem claims of Big Cuts Now on face value. Even Labour, who are putting up a shadow of the resistance they should be, seem to accept the Tory claim '... because of the mess left to us by Labour'. BBC interviewers seems incapable to thinking outside the Tory cage.

'Whose fucking mess?' I find myself screaming impotently at the radio in my kitchen. 'Who's fucking fault is it that the UK is in so much debt?'

'Is it the banks' fault, Daddy?' Will asks.

'Yes! The banks fault...!' and we carry on like this. (If your children go to my sons' school and have inexplicably started swearing in the last couple of weeks... well, I don't know where they got that from.) It seems like everyone has declared war on the public sector, forgetting it seems that it wasn't a bloated public sector that got us into this mess but an irresponsible private section.

And New Regime has emboldened every asshole who, for years during the Labour government, had the decency to at least moderate their bullshit. So you've got disgruntled men who have been laid off their private-sector jobs blaming everything on the 'cushy' pensions of teachers. You've got VCs -- both Vice-Chancellors and Vice Cable -- who for years pretended that they gave a shit about students, now slipping back into complete elitist mode: 'Don't cut our funding, just cut the number of places', daring to call for markets in a way that was, frankly, very awkward for them under Labour.

Everyone is suddenly calling for Markets to be introduced into everything - the NHS, schools, unversities -- forgetting that it was Markets that got us into this problem in the first place.

And of course it is worth remembering that MOST of us didn't vote for such dramatic cuts. Most of us wanted something different. What was it you said, Nick?

Oh, yeah.

So there was no mandate for these cuts, but the Tories are going to do it anyway. And as I said, that in-and-of-itself isn't what frustrates me. I was rather looking forward to joining the mass-uprising against what the Tories wanted to do, given that -- again -- MOST of us didn't agree that the Tories had the right idea. But it seems that we've all been lobotomised. Post-election, we have forgotten what the debate was, and instead of fighting the cuts, everyone is getting behind the Tory's plan, just because they've scared us into thinking that their ideological want-to is a pragmatic need-to.

It's not. These are choices. The Tories want to cut corporation tax so that it is, as they proudly proclaim, the lowest in the developed world. They raise VAT and make deeper cuts into public serves than are necessary to pay for their smaller state. Which I understand. They are Tories. It's what they do. But can the rest of us stop pretending to like it?

(Incidentally, thinking of such choices and the attacks on the BBC and very idea of public broadcasting, as another example, it is worth remembering that 15.1 million people chose to watch the World Cup final on the BBC, the publicly-funded model, whereas only 3.3 million chose the private model on ITV. These things matter, you know.)

The history lesson

2010-05-27T10:20:00.004+01:00

I wish I had before the election. You'll remember that I argued right after the election that I made the now-obvious mistake of voting LibDem on the premise that, as a (now determined) foreigner in your country, I didn't fully see your political spectrum in its true colours; that, having arrived after the election of Labour in 1997, I came to see the LibDems as the only viable (in a FPTP system) alternative to the left of the government.

BUT, now, Vernon Bogdnor's article in last week's New Statesman explains why, really, nothing of the Con-Dem pact should come as a surprise, and why many (my wife among them, who has been ever so good in not singing 'I told you so' as I mope around the house) were right not to believe in the idea of 'progressive coalition' on the left. Some highlights:

The present coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has long antecedents. The Conservatives were in coalition with dissident Liberals in 1895, when the Liberal Unionists joined them to resist Home Rule; from 1916 to 1922, when a group of Liberals led by Lloyd George joined with the Conservatives to win the First World War and secure postwar reconstruction; and again, in 1931, in the National Government. [...]
The Liberals have formed coalitions with the Conservatives, but they have never been in a peacetime coalition with Labour. Though it may be a bit much to conjure the ghost of Ramsay MacDonald, as John Reid and David Blunkett did during the fraught period that led to the creation of the new government, it should be rememberered that the Liberals have supported minority Labour governments - in 1924, 1929-31 and during the Lib-Lab pact in 1977-78.

Ominously, Bogdanor points out that 'coalition government has always benefited the Conservatives.' Uh-oh.

However, I was not the only one fooled it seems.

The last YouGov survey before the election, on 5 May, found that 43 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters described themselves as centre left or left, as compared with 29 per cent who described themselves as centrist and 9 per cent who described themselves as centre right or right. Moreover, 39 per cent of Lib Dem voters thought the party was left or centre left, as compared with the 33 per cent who thought it was centrist and 5 per cent who thought it was right or centre right. Nick Clegg appeared to agree with them: last year, he wrote a pamphlet entitled The Liberal Moment, in which he argued that "progressive conservatism" would prove a contradiction in terms. A Populus poll for the Times on 8 May revealed that, while a minority Conservative government was the favourite option, attracting 53 per cent support, a Liberal Democrat-Labour arrangement was preferred to a Liberal-Conservative one by 51 per cent to 46. In forming the coalition, the Liberal Democrats may have ignored the views both of their members and those who voted for them.

This we already knew, in a sort-of way, so it's nice to have the numbers to support it. So there are a lot of us naive numpties. But are we entirely to blame? Could Nick and the wafflers of the centre-right have been playing a bit of a game with us?

Nick Clegg was tactically shrewd in not making his preference known; had he done so, the Lib Dems would have secured fewer than the 57 seats they won. But in Oxford West and Abingdon, the seat lost by Dr Evan Harris, leaflets were delivered to electors telling them that voting Liberal Democrat was the only way to keep the Conservatives out, given that Labour, a distant third, had no chance. David Cameron agreed, saying that if one voted on the Thursday for the Lib Dems, one would wake up on the Friday with Gordon Brown. Perhaps the leaflet should have said that voting Liberal Democrat was the only way to keep the Conservatives in; indeed, after the election, the defeated Harris endorsed the coalition with the Conservatives. Perhaps in Labour-Lib Dem marginals, electors were told that voting Liberal Democrat was the only way to keep Labour out, since the Conservatives, a poor third, had no chance? As a campaign guide published by the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors declared: "You can secure support from voters who normally vote Tory by being effectively anti-Labour and, similarly, in a Tory area secure Labour votes by being anti-Tory."

Ah ha! So we was tricked! The LibDem manifesto was political Rohypnol, slipped into our drinks by the friendlier, left-leaning charmers of the party, while Laws and the right of the party rubbed their hands in anticipation of our drugged, compliant corpses. Vince, oh Vince! I believed you when you said - like Alistair - that cutting now would hurt the still-feeble recovery. I trusted you! And now look. I feel so... terribly, terribly... afraid of a double-dip recession. Have you no shame?

Bogdanor's full article, again, is here. He says a lot more, besides, about why the LibDems had no choice, really, and the truth about potential electoral reform, the only good thing that might come of all of this. Do check it out.

This can't be right...

2010-05-12T11:00:00.000+01:00

in this completely fucked-up election, it seems that there is no end to weird shit.

Just as Cameron's car was heading to the Palace, I received a tweet from someone called 'Dollywagon', whose analyses of the 'Twitter Political – Top 30 most influential tweeters today' reveals -- beyond any reasonable comprehension -- that our very own excretera was the THIRD most 'influential' political tweeter from the 7th to the 10th of May.

No. I don't believe it either. But here's what it says:

We used the Influence Engine to analyse political activity on Twitter for the period 1200hrs Fri 7th May until 1200hrs Mon 10th May (today). Our analysis looked at an individual’s success in having their tweets picked up and distributed to other people within the network of Twitter’s politico-sphere. Here is the list of the UK’s Top 30 most influential tweeters on political subjects

I mean, WTF Country doesn't even begin to cover it. I'm expected everyone else on Twitter to reply and inform me, pityingly, that they, too, received this message, that it's some kind of scam. In the meantime, I'm basking in happy ignorance at my apparent POWER. So, here's the list:

Yup. That's me. Just behind @nick_clegg and @c4election. And ahead of @guardiannews, @libdems and @uklabourparty. Obviously. I'm watching @bbclaurak on News 24, standing out in front of Number 10, and I'm thinking, 'What do you know? You're like, what? 22nd on the list? You know nothing!'

This tells us two things, without a doubt:

1) that search engine needs lubrication, or something.

2) Twitter really is full of shit. I've obviously found my home.

Last little goodies...

2010-05-11T22:00:00.000+01:00

There is NO WAY this should have escaped your attention:

I guess Boulton didn't like being outed -- again -- as a Tory-whore-boy. I'm sorry. I mean a Fat-Tory-whore-boy.

Well, now, what can I say?

2010-05-11T20:25:00.003+01:00

Short of 'Fuck off.'?

I suppose, 'I'm sorry' would be a good place to start, since it seems that my vote has gone to help elected a Conservative government.

I feel very dirty. And not in the good way.

Like Lady Macbeth, I'll try to scrub and scrub this shit from my hands. But I reek. I suck.

I don't know the details of the Conservative-Liberal alliance. Or the #ConDemNation as it's being tweeted. I'm too depressed to check, or wait. This is my fault.

I always write about how the British press, and the British public -- and, in the last few days, large numbers of British politicians -- don't really understand their/your own electoral system. And you don't. But it seems that I didn't completely get it either. Having only arrived in 1997, flying into an already-Blair Britain, I didn't really understand your political spectrum. Because for much of the last 13 years, if I've wanted to vote left of the government, I've had to support the Liberal Democrats. Against the war in Iraq. Against silly corporate tax breaks. But I didn't understand, really, what the LibDems were about, or what they stood for. I heard the words of left-leaning LibDems and assumed that they were ok. Kennedy, Hughes, Ashdown, Steel. Good eggs, I think.

Vote Nick, get Dave. I suppose I knew it was possible, but I didn't see it coming. Suffice to say, I won't be voting LibDem again. Even as a second choice in a alternate-vote system, which they'll be lucky to get.

Still, I suppose that it had to happen sometime, that the Tories would worm their way back into Number 10 at some point. And, if it had to happen, these perhaps aren't the worse circumstances under which it's happened: a weak government, uneasy alliance, about to face a fuck-hell of economic pain, which they will exacerbate with poor economic policy.

Let's just wait and see what happens. Hopefully, we won't have to wait for long. In the meantime...

Bring the Revolution!

Well...

2010-05-07T09:37:00.004+01:00

you fucked up. We asked you not to, but you fucked it up all the same.

However, you didn't fuck it up completely.

So, now we wait. But one thing is clear:

Nothing is clear.

The Tories have not won this election.

The Tories have no mandate to assume sole control of the government.

Cameron and his minions and The Mail and The Express will huff and puff and try to bully you into believing that the Tories have won, but this is wrong. This is how George Bush and his allies in the media and the Supreme Court -- and the baying Republican mobs -- bullied the Americans into suspending political process. We cannot let that happen here.

The Tories, their supporters, and the right-wing press need to shut up now and give the political process its time -- the proper and perfectly legitimate political process that all parties signed up to before this all started. And we must resist any attempts to subvert this process, even if it doesn't work out the way we'd like it.

It might very well happen that the Tories will get to work with a coalition or even work with a minority government (it would go everything they said they believe in, e.g. the need for strong government, but nevermind). Personally, I'm hoping for a Lib-Lab coalition, in some form, at least in the short term, to secure certain priorities -- electoral reform, and preventing the Tories' planned cuts. And it's GB's first call.

Let's see what happens. But DO NOT allow the Tories to hijack the process.

Here we go. Don't fuck it up.

2010-05-06T11:31:00.004+01:00

I'm off to vote this afternoon, after I pick up the kids from school. I can't wait for the questions from the boys. 'That one is David Cameron's puppet, isn't it, Daddy? Will anyone vote for him? Please tell me that pudding won't win, Daddy? Please?'

Ok. So, I wave my right to secret ballot. I think the secret ballot should be allowed anyway. You should have to justify who you vote for, and, if you're reason isn't good enough, you're vote shouldn't count. 'I want to vote for Cameron for change'. Nope. Fuck off. 'I want to vote BNP because we need to do something about the immigrants.' Nope. Fuck off and go learn something. 'I want to vote Labour because I think Gordon Brown would look good in a dress, and I really want to see that.'

Ok. I'm intrigued.

So: I'm probably going to vote for Nick Clegg. And I say that not misunderstanding how British democracy works. I know you don't actually vote for the party leader -- a truth the debates have somewhat clouded; more on that some other day. No. The Cleggster is really running in my constituency, Sheffield Hallam. And I know I shouldn't, really. I am not a massive Lib-Demmer. According to votematch.org.uk, I should vote Greens (though, strangely, Lib Dems came a close second -- I assume that's because there is no Nutty-Old-Lefty Party candidate in my area). So apologies to Steve Barnar. Maybe next time.

And I mean that. Because I am voting for the Cleggmeister not out of love, but tactically, in the expectation that this is the last time I ever need to vote tactically again. I am voting for the Cleggeramma to give him a mandate to reform the electoral system. This is the only clear mandate that can possibly come from today's vote. No party is going to obtain a majority to implement their agenda, not that they bothered to share their agenda with us anyway. No party will have a clear mandate to make the cuts they want. The only clear demand from the electorate, it seems, will be for a new political system, and for co-operation. (Perhaps, if 'Lib-Lab Coalition' was on the ticket, that might win, but it's not, so we make do.)

And if you are still in doubt as to who to vote for, here's a quick guide. A bit Lib-Dem Happy, but funny anyway. I've got a feeling we'll need a laugh tonight.

Ok. So go and vote. And don't fuck it up.

Seriously. Do not fuck this up.

This month, I'll be wasting time...

2010-04-27T10:59:00.001+01:00

playing this.

Oh dear oh dear. I am so vulnerable to the small joys of quirky, topical flash games. But since I always imagine flying is a bit of race to the death, this slaps me with it's sense of realism.

But it's the music, really, what does it. Heroic. I AM the daredevil pilot.

(BTW, my high score is a pathetic 37,986. Because really even this sort of flying is beyond me. Have fun embarrassing that record.)

Fear

2010-04-23T09:49:00.002+01:00

It's all about fear now, isn't it? Davey Cameron, poor boy, certainly looked afraid last night. The other parties are ganging up on us, he says. (Which is only right, really, given the centre-left majority of this country -- didn't you know that was the case? Oh yes. It's just that the rabidly right-wing, billionaire-owned media and the completely unjust voting system make it look like more people in this country are crazy. In reality, only about 35% of you are off your rockers.) The other parties are trying to scare you into not voting for us, Cameron says. Which is sort of like Dracula complaining about Professor Van Helsing warning people not to go on dates with Transylvania counts with pale skin and sharp teeth.

Yes, Labour and the Lib-Dems are desperately trying to make voters aware of the very real consequences of a Conservative victory. Should we be afraid? Yes.

BUT, in another classic case of long-used cooking vessels using recognisable appellations for similar devices used in the heating of water, the Tories themselves have been trying to scare us throughout this election, too. I've already mentioned their negative campaigning, using Gordon Brown as a the Bogeyman (while all the time claiming that they alone are running a positive campaign). But what else have they are their friends in the media been up to?

Well, this idea that there will be economic collapse is there is a 'hung parliament' is completely dishonest. It's like threatening children with eternal damnation, just to get them to eat their broccoli. Do as we say or you will suffer. This is simply not true. Countries all over Europe, Canada, too, have been steered these last years through the hard economic waters without one party in overall control of the government. A friend actually said to me, but what if there is a hung parliament? How would the country function? To which the answer is completely normally. Parliaments are absolutely capable of functioning without having one party in overall control. To say otherwise either shows a fundamental misunderstanding of our political system, or is simply deceitful. Just because the two-party hegemony might be broken does not mean that it's curtains for the rest of us.

The very term 'hung parliament' is dishonest. It implies stalemate, indecision. Like a hung jury, a body that has fundamentally failed and cannot continue without starting from scratch. What we would have would not be a hung parliament at all but one in which there was no disproportionate control. Unless one party gets more than 50% of the vote. Which isn't likely. Most countries see this as a desirable thing. They call them balanced parliaments.

Should we be afraid? Not at all. The encouraging thing seems to be that the people of this country aren't believing the Tories and their media friends when they say we should be.

But (un)dead parliaments aren't the only Monster that the right-wing politicians and media want us to fear. And so the opportunity arises for excretera. to bestow yet another Completely Inappropriate Evocation of Hitler Award! Yeah!

Let me explain. No, no time. Let me sum up. The Mail, as ever, have decided that Nick Clegg made a 'Nazi slur on Britain', dredging up this old (and actually spot-on) article from The Guardian when he was MEP in 2002. Desperate, yes, but entirely predictable. Almost as bad as The Mail's desperate slur on unlikely stud Lembit Opik in September 2009. But, again, you think The Mail would be a bit more careful, given their own black-shirt, anti-Semite predilections. (I will never tire of bringing that up, no. Not until they stop sounding so much like it in the twenty-first century.)

I think this scaremongering and intimidation stems from the right's sense of divine entitlement. Again, I refer you to my last post on the matter, but also Murdoch Jr's storming the barricades of opposition at the Independent. It increasingly seems, as the old right's petulant little shits throw one tempter tantrum after another, that the Indy might just be right, and maybe, for once, Murdoch will not decide this election.

Oh dear oh dear!

2010-04-19T14:01:00.001+01:00

What do we have here? Don't the Tories suddenly sound most very nasty, don't they? Like sleep-deprived three-year olds told that they can't have more Easter chocolate, not until they've finished their dinner, they're throwing a right proper strop.

Why is this, now, I wonder? Oh yeah. Because the Lib Dems are spoiling their election. I've heard Tory after Tory on the airwaves in the last couple of days and all of them, Retired Grandee or Cabinet-to-Be Bighitters, are to a man apoplectic that anyone should vote for the Lib Dems and that Nick Clegg. It is, to quote Vizzini, inconceivable! It is simply beyond the pale, old chap, that this should happen. He won't be PM, you know, they insist.

Well, see, that's not really up to them, though, is it? If the Tories have so spectacularly failed to capitalise on a very unpopular Labour leader, a weary government, economic meltdown, disastrous wars etc. etc., then they have no Divine Right to take up the mantle. But it's our turn! they insist. Listen to them, the petulant little asses. It is no wonder they alone of the major parties -- and in that we can even include the Greens, UKIP and the Scottish and Welsh regional parties -- oppose the electoral reform so desperately needed. What they are doing now is nothing less than an assault on democracy and the right of the British people to have a genuine choice.

Vote for Change! they declare.

NO! Not THAT change! they correct us now. We mean the same change as before!

Cameron and his minions insist that they have been running a 'positive' campaign, which is the biggest load of horseshit see on these Islands since the stables at Henry VIII's jousts, and if Today and Newsnight presenters don't start calling them on it I'm going to demand a refund on my licence fee. Cameron runs around, hugging hoodies and offering compassionate conservatism like a smiling rapist, but his entire campaign is built on 'Not Gordon'. See the posters up and down the country with Brown's smiling face and a list of his crimes -- which include high unemployment, a ruined economy and a greater inequality between rich and poor, all of which would have been much worse under the Tories. And every Tory when asked why people shouldn't vote for Clegg answers with 'Vote Clegg and get Brown', a mantra that by now must be distracting the monks in the Tibetan mountains so often has it echoed around.

I'm not endorsing the Lib Dems. I don't think Nick Clegg is the Second Coming. (He is my MP, though, did I mention?) And to keep the Tories out, I might vote tactfully for him, partly so -- with any luck -- I won't have to vote tactically any more. (It's worth pointing out, too, which the Tories aren't, that Clegg also went to a posh school. But I guess it's because Clegg wears it much more lightly. Like you don't want to punch him the same way you want to punch Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and those the Bully Boys.)

(Incidentally, above I corrected one of those Freudian type-os. I called what we have a 'demonocracy'. In the unconscious movement of my fingers, there lie the Truth.)

And now I'm loving the idea of the Tories as Vizzini. Maybe this is a new theme? the arrogance, the pseudo-intellectualism certainly suits the Tories. Nick Clegg is certainly Inigo Montoya, dreaming, obsessed with the single goal (is his case PR), looking into the distance and seducing us with 'Hello. My name is Nick Clegg. You killed my dreams of a single European currency and federal state. Prepare to die.' Try it! It works. So this means that Gordon is Fezzik. He should try this in the next debate:

Clegg: You took us to war in Iraq!

Brown: But that doesn't mean I deserve the sack!

Cameron: You destroyed the economy!

Brown: You've had a lobotomy!

Clegg and Cameron: You've nationalised a bank!

Brown: Why don't you both go and have a stimulus package relieving inflationary pressure.

See what I did there? Did you see? Did you? (You would be amazed at how little time that took me.)

Universities and election

2010-04-19T11:03:00.004+01:00

I'd just like to forward a couple of bits and pieces from a University and College Union (UCU) newsletter) that pertain to the election. Couple of things to munch on, anyway.

The first is over the notion of higher tuition fees:

Evening Standard poll confirms higher fees a vote loser

A poll for the Evening Standard has revealed that the overwhelming majority of voters are opposed to putting up university fees. The results of the poll are in line with recent polling by both UCU and the National Union of Students that show higher fees to be a vote loser.

Sally Hunt, said: “All the parties must clearly state their fee policies to ensure that students and their parents can make an informed choice at the ballot box and add their voices to the debate on the future of university funding. For the vast majority of people in this country higher fees would be a disaster. We would see the rich able to buy a place at whatever institution they please, whilst the rest scramble around for a place within budget.”

Further reading:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23822931-gordon-brown-continues-to-fight-ni-battle-and-plans-to-bring-morality-to-financial-services.do - Evening Standard

And less directly regarding the election, but something nevertheless interesting I think for most of excretera's readers, is this reality check about staffing levels at institutions across the country:

Universities actually spending record low on staff

The percentage of total expenditure spent on staff in UK universities has dropped to an all-time low, according to figures released on Tuesday. The figures, from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), show that staff costs as a percentage of total expenditure fell in 2008-9 to 56.8%, compared with 57.4% in 2007-8, despite a 5% pay rise in October 2008 that universities said at the time was on the brink of affordability.

Sally Hunt said: “Universities have been arguing against pay rises on the basis that they already spend too much on staff. These figures are from the last year of a pay rise we were told was at the brink of affordability. When put against the recent massive pay rises for those at the top and the offer of a pay cut for staff, the figures are further evidence that there is one rule for them and one for the rest.”

Further reading:

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4539&from=1676 – press release

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article7096704.ece - Times

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7586820/More-than-115000-students-could-miss-out-on-university-place.html - Telegraph

Like I said, a couple little droppings for you to chew over.

And how about that Nick Clegg, eh? He's my MP, you know. And the Second Coming, apparently, now that 80% of the country actually know that he's leading a third party. Wow. I expect...

Well. Let's not get excited. But he had a Good Debate, out-casualising Call Me Dave. (Is 'casualising' a word? Fuck it. It is now. That's why I got a PhD, so I could make up words.) I thought Great Big Gordie won on substance, though. Not that it matters. Funny. The next day, everyone correctly noticed that the debate had changed the face of British politics. But alas, not for the right reasons it seems. Did anyone catch the morning call-in on 5 Live? 'In the context of last night's debate,' texters, tweeters, callers were implored, 'who would you now most like to meet, have a beer with, you know, and why?'

It's enough to make you want to tear you're own eyes out. Or someone else's. (The latter I would recommend if you are new to this. That way, if you make a mistake...) There were issues discussed that night. This really is an issues election -- as most of them are, however that twenty-first century Prometheus named Apathy might swing it. And the debates were a terrific opportunity to hear ideas, or the lack of them. Nice to see, then, the media reducing the whole thing again to celebrity and personality, which seems to be all they are capable of grasping of late. Shame, really. Very shit. And not in the good way.

(Still wondering whether that Prometheus image works. I'm still in two minds. Literary analysis and opinions are welcome.)

Keep Calm Carry On

2010-04-07T11:50:00.002+01:00

And we're off!

Fuck.

I'm a politics junky, so I usually look forward to elections the way my sons look forward to... well. Anything involving chocolate. But, to quote Han Solo in Episode IV (and Obi-Wan in Episode I and Annakin in Episode II etc. etc.), I've got a bad feeling about this one.

Still. I'm encouraged by two things coming from the Tory campaign so far: They are running on a platform of change, which will reek of Obama-tail-riding sycophancy AND will soon be revealed to even the most brain-dead of the British electorate (yes, even them) that they are the party offering the absolute least amount of change: status quo on the electoral system, status quo on party funding, status quo on bank (un)regulation... so that helps. They also seem to be determined to run a personal attack against Brown, which should backfire nicely. Two things I've learned about the British: they don't like their politicians sucking up to the Americans (see above), and they always back an underdog who is getting picked on. Watch that space.

Anyway. Should make for some obsessive viewing, for an obsessive, obsessed as he is.

Assuming I'll be much too busy chewing the ends of my fingers in anxiety to blog much, I want to use this space to highlight some useful articles I find here and there. So:

Poly Toynbee in Saturday's Guardian. This is the brilliant riposte to the 'Business-leaders-back-tax-cut' story I promised. Contract sealed.

(And, by the way, if you haven't already, read Malcolm Tucker's election briefing column. It's like a delicious little sprinkle of Thick of It on your Saturday porridge.

Also today, read Sarah Ditum at Paperhouse on the choice agenda. Brilliant, as ever. That should help clarify a couple of things.

And finally, a note from Chris Sexton from the University of Sheffield's CICS on digital economy bill and the poverty of our democracy. This is why we need electoral change.

Shock News!

2010-04-01T11:01:00.003+01:00

Unbelievable! Can you imagine it?!? Who saw this coming:

Business supports George Osborne's national insurance cut

And this appears in The Daily Telegraph!!

Pluh-lease. Really? This comes as a surprise to who, exactly? Context, people, context! Cameron is all agog, obviously. (Here's how the in-house Tory paper spins it.) But is anyone else fooled for one second? I suppose the Tory plan, which doubtless will involve raising the level of some deeply-regressive tax (i.e. a tax that disproportionately hits lower-incomes harder), such as VAT, will sit much happier with businesses. But the rest of us, well... Here's another one: sometimes the interests of business are not those of the average voter. I know. I know. Too many shocks in one morning, eh?

Of course none of this banal shit would need to clogup your blogosphere EXCEPT that it seems the press report this as if it really was news, which we have already established it isn't. The Telegraph (and the usual suspects) will, of course, but does the BBC have to? Come on. Wake up. Apparently, there's an election happening soon, did you know?

I'll link to a suitable riposte here as soon as I can find one.

I'm sitting here now thinking, do I really need to actually hit 'Publish' for such an obvious no-brainer? Alas. It seems so. Do forward this on to any brain-dead potential-voters you know out there, please.

excretera addendum:

2010-03-29T21:18:00.004+01:00

... to which I should have added to my last post this little nugget:

Tory national insurance move 'clearly irresponsible'

An economist who signed a letter that appeared to support Conservative plans to tackle Britain's budget deficit said today it was "clearly irresponsible" of the party to partially reverse government proposals for an increase in national insurance without a full explanation of how it would be funded.

Professor David Newbery, of Cambridge University, said the Tories "don't seem to have a coherently worked-out" plan. "I would have expected more clarity about what their long-term strategy is. One assumes that scaling down the public sector is one of those aims, but how they will do that we don't know."

That would be one of the 20 dufi (you know, plural of dufus) who signed that letter saying that cutting the deficit needed to be done immediately -- well, that's how the Tories spun it. What they really said was that it needed to be done soonish, depending on economic conditions. But don't take my word for it: read The Freakin' Brilliant David Blanchflower in The New Statesman on this, and everything else, too. But specifically on The 20 Dufi here.

So now Osborne has pissed off his own propagandists, which has got to be a little like shitting on our own TV, or something, doesn't it?

Better metaphors apply within:

I really don't get how anyone,

2010-03-29T14:18:00.005+01:00

anywhere can think of voting Conservative. Or Republican, if you're American. That's just me. I suppose that's not entirely, true, because I can imagine that very rich people, that narrow percentage of elites whose interests are best served by right-wing economic policy, might want to see the Conservatives get in. And I guess 'social conservatives', you know, those sorts of Neanderthals that would still allow slavery, deny women the vote, foster racism, fascism, ... all that, yes, I guess I can see why they might vote for that same party, though why they imagine their quaint beliefs -- we'll call them errors -- could for any conceivable reason be represented by the same the party who serves the interests of the economics elite... well, anyway. You see my confusion.

But I really can't understand why anyone in the UK is thinking of voting for this lot of pudding-brained muppets. It's obvious to everyone now, right, that Cameron and Osborne aren't real politicians, but just public-school bullies that couldn't organise a end-of-term dance? I mean for fuck's sake.

I submit as Item #3,406,653 in a seemingly interminable list of evidence the following: Watch this video, where Cameron makes a complete dog's ass of questions from The Gay Times. Ok, yes,I tweeted this last week, but I've watched it twice since and it really is quite shocking. Not because Cameron appears confused on his policy on homosexuality (as if 'who-fucks-who' is something that political parties need to have a Policy on), or that Cameron seems afraid of his own party, or trying to apologise for his party's relationship to the rest of Europe, or any number of other problems of which this clip is symptomatic. No. I suspect that Cameron himself is probably pretty down with the gays -- some of his best friends, etc. etc. -- but that he can't say so doesn't surprise me in the slightest and should be a lesson for us all that the Conservative party hasn't really changed a jolly jot, as one of them might say.

HOWEVER, what's really shocking about this is the truly impressive level of complete incompetence that this represents. THIS, most certainly, is one idiot fully capable of blithering in a really special way. It needs to be seen again. And again. And not just for the comedy value. Everyone needs to see this. You've seen it, sure. I know you have. But now: Call your Mum. Forward her the link. Get your Dad in to see it. Send it around the office.

Oh, and hold the press! Today Osborne has demonstrated his macro-economical acumen -- by which of course we both mean political opportunism -- by offering a tax break should the Tories win the election and form the next government -- a caveat all too often mumbled as an afterthought these days. (Come on Media! It ain't over yet!) This is, I'm sure, completely pragmatic and not at all ideologically-motivated (thank-you to The Telegraph for being so... well, so predictable), and I'm sure he'll find the money for that, AND saving all public services AND slashing the deficit wildly.. or he won't. Obviously.

Well. Even The Torygraph reckons that this Gift from the Blue Gods will be worth... hold it... £150 a year to a British worker. Now. I am not the sort that makes enough money that I can sneer at £150 at any time, though I accept that yes, I am more economically better-off than some. But £150 a year? Really? That's only, like, 60 lattés! Really? Is that going to be enough? Are the people of Britain going to look at that and think, Yes. I want that £150. It will be well worth it. Are their souls so easily bought? Are they going to be happy enough with their 8Gb iPod Touch(TM)* that they won't notice it when Osborne and Cameron stumble through budget after budget, slashing away the NHS and education -- which, remember, they really want to do, regardless of anything else -- and so busy random-playing the X-Factor's Greatest Hits that they're not going to notice the Tories sending the country down river? Again?

Argh!! And now I don't know if this is a case of Death by Zombie or Death by Vampire!! Thanks a fuck of a lot. (Update on that little battle immanently.)

*Please note: it is not Apple stated policy that money bestowed by a reckless government should be squandered on such frivolities. Though doubtless it will be so, hey, you know. Why not?

Non-doms, ditty dom dom ... DOM...

2010-03-19T00:14:00.003Z

Such is the state of the world at the moment that I feel compelled to release myself from my self-imposed blog ban (or 'blan' -- I am sooo back), lest I damage my internal organs holding in all this shit that presses mercilessly upon my sphincters, desperate to be unleashed into a world so obviously in need of having violent poo flung at it. (And glad to see that my time off has tempered my penchant for dramatic metaphor.) Yes, those mysterious 'other projects' whirl away rather nicely, thanks, but needs must and like Superman, or Spiderman... whichever went away and then came back because they learned how responsibility weighs heavy on the shoulders of the hero... oh dear. That metaphor appears to have run it's course.

No matter! Because there are things that must be talked about, things that a 140-character tweet simply cannot contain. But where to begin? I want to talk about University funding. I want to talk about the ongoing war between the zombies and the vampires as they choose sides in the inevitable UK general election. I want to talk about those Dementors that lurk at the cross-walk outside my sons' school. But first up, the boring boring boring topic of Ashcroft and the non-dom political party donor. Because it's essential, because it is about the world we are making for ourselves, because it has massive ramifications for the election, but mainly, because it's quick and easy.

Look. It's simple. Does the average UK voter, as Nick Robinson repeatedly asks (happily unaware how this undermines his own existence), really care if Michael Ashcroft (fuck 'Lord') is a non-dom for UK tax purposes? Did William Hague know about blah blah and when did he know or not know blah or did he do a secret deal with so-and-so? When did Cameron become aware of whatever? Does Lord Such-and-Such of Somewhere pay lots or little or no tax? Because he once lent a fiver to Alistair Darling...

No. None of this matters. What does matter is that, once again, the British electorate, British politics and, in particular, the Conservative Party, are in the clutches of a mega-wealthy elite that are uniquely damaging to Britain's national interest. I say 'uniquely damaging' in that their role in British (right-wing) politics is directly -- and I suppose unsurprisingly -- related to an area in which they should be specifically and explicitly barred from participating. Like letting the grandson of a warmongering ex-prime minister complain about defence spending. Or like an Australian-American setting British policy on Europe. (And, once, a Canadian, too, but in a move that guaranteed Jean Chrétien a place on Canada's Mount Rushmore, if we can ever be bothered to make one, Conrad Black was stripped of his Canadian citizenship.) Or like, in this case, a Belizean man who does not pay UK tax (potentially worth tens of millions of pounds a year), demanding in this country a regressive tax policy that favours the wealthy, and funding potential MPs that will when elected argue for smaller government on the basis that we cannot afford such lavish public services. THAT is the real problem here.

There. A stupid, obvious point that shouldn't have needed making, I think you'll agree. Why we're not hearing this more vociferously from people who are much more intelligent, and much better informed than I, I do not know.

But this is only a symptom of what we face in the wider context of the election. As Polly Toynbee said in a recent (and always excellent) Guardian politics podcast: There is a difference between a party that knows they have to trim the budget and cut public services and a party that really wants to cut those services, that are salivating at the prospect like Dracula poised at a throbbing virgin's jugular. [edit: it's not really the innocent young virgin the Tories are after, but the saggy, wrinkled old carcass of its usual victim, already drained of most of its lifeforce who, despite a recent transfusion, nevertheless seems to be ready to offer herself up one last time to the evil that promises to finish her off. Yes. That's better.]

Spread the word before May 6th. Please.

In favour of the Tobin Tax.

2010-02-22T10:15:00.003Z

Here is my .1 of a cent's worth on the topic.

I was forwarded this from this website, which includes some interesting news:

The Guardian found that the website owners were surprised and disheartened when they received thousands of online votes against the idea of the tax in a period of just a few minutes, until: "After a bit more investigation, though, the unlikely backlash against the rob-the-rich plan – almost 5,000 no votes against the Robin Hood tax within 20 minutes – turned out to emanate from just two computer servers, one of which was registered to the investment bank Goldman Sachs." The Telegraph reports that a Goldman spokesman confirmed that they just received the information and "are investigating fully."

The Robin Hood Tax website reset the counter after the vote onslaught, and as of Monday the public votes are running nearly 10 to one in favor of the tax.

Hm. Surprised?

Oh My God! Richard Bacon you confuse me so!

2010-01-28T13:06:00.004Z

I don't know what to think any more. For years, I despised that brain-vacuum that was Richard Bacon and his late-night Radio 5 show. ('Can you solve the country's economic woes? Tweet us your ideas!' 'Should paedophiles be allowed to live? If so, should they be allowed to ride horses? Call in with your thoughts!').

THEN, he does that sorta cool turn on The Thick of It, doing sort of maybe a parody of himself and even, perhaps, the sort of callers he gets, and he was almost, I had to consider, Ok.

Then he moves to Radio 5's daytime slot, and lots of (otherwise intelligent) radio critics are giving him good reviews, and even I accidentally caught a few minutes of one and it wasn't total shit, so there's a chance, I'm thinking, that he is Ok.

But today it's been a reckless, crazy day of incessant Bacon news that's left me dizzy from the vicissitudes of his actions. FIRST, I'm ready to give him a green light to cruise down You're Ok Boulevard when I read this blog from the New Humanist. It seems that our just-about friend Richard slapped down God-loving monkey Stephen Baldwin (I don't fucking know! Apparently Celebrity Big Brother), particularly over the latter's ideas on creationism. 'I'm no Darwin', Bacon admits, 'but...' and then sets out a few facts that does, in a Radio 5y sort of way, put Baldwin Jr. Jr. Jr. in his place. So much the better, I say.

But just as I was about to sign his invitation to dinner next week, I hear that the Independent has criticised Bacon for his praise of David Cameron. Apparently, he said:

"That's the sort of many we should have leading the country. A bright, intelligent, dynamic, handsome man we really respect and admire who would be a brilliant prime minister."

Shame shame shame, you Tory toss-pot! Well, at least that sorted that.

BUT, just as was tearing up his invitation, I read the rest of the link in a tweet from the Guardian, confirming the Independent's story. Or does it? Apparently, the Indy missed something. What Bacon said, in full:

"I've just started a new job at BBC 5 Live – I've taken over from Simon Mayo at 2pm, Monday through Thursday, and I'm loving it. On my first show, I sat down for an hour-long interview with David Cameron. Don't know if you heard the show, but I know what a lot of you are thinking: 'That's the sort of man we should have leading this country. A bright, intelligent, dynamic, handsome man we really respect and admire who would be a brilliant prime minister.' And it's very kind of you to say so, and I'm very flattered, honestly I am, but I'm happy just doing the show for the time being. But thanks, it really means a lot that you think so highly of me."

So, you see, I don't know WHAT to do. Looks like I'll put that veggie meat roast back on a slow cook, as Bacon's dinner invite might be some time coming yet, but I'll not rule out the idea. If he could only say something really, really rude about George Osborne...

(I know I know. I should have come up with some clever pun on 'veggie meat' and 'bacon'. I just can't be bothered.)

I can't decide which I like best...

2010-01-15T13:20:00.004Z

I think maybe this one:

Or maybe this one, for it's perfect absurdity:

(click either for a better, larger image. And disseminate widely.)

Either way, I obviously have some unresolved issues with 1980s fashion advertising. Or maybe Cameron just lends himself to it so neatly.

See these and MANY, MANY more, each as brilliant as the last. You can even make your own!

http://mydavidcameron.com/

Thanks Chris!

Protest prorogation

2010-01-13T11:22:00.004Z

Stephen Harper needs to eat a big pile of shit. That is my reasonable, measured response to what is happening in Canadian politics right now. So, for my Canadian ~~readers~~ reader, this (a little uncomfortably patriotic) video is for you -- spread the word, protest this nonesense.

For anyone in the UK who sees this, beware: This IS what happens when you give Conservatives even the smallest minority.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-11T17:33:00.005Z

and happy 100th dropping here in excretera. But let's not get excited: I am probably the world's only blogger who's New Year resolution is to write less in cyberspace, so that I might work in a more concentrated way on 'other projects' (he said, mysteriously), at least temporarily. However, whenever needs must, I will do what needs here, just, hopefully, you know, in a more concise, less time-wasty sort of way.

And if there was ever a cause more in need of a movement from excretera, Britain's snow-flurry-fury is it. I am, after all, Canadian, and therefore omnipotently qualified to explain to you, the poor people of Britain, how to survive the snow. (These are the people who took the Blitz on the chin, as a mere annoyance? I ask myself. Hitler's bombs fine, but a dusting of snow... geez.)

Now I could write volumes and volumes on how to drive in the stuff (DON'T try to go faster when you're wheels are already spinning) how to brake in the stuff ('pump' the brake -- lots of little stops, rather than skidding through one long one) how to walk in the stuff (slide when you walk, with your feet slightly splayed, as if you were skating) how to make the perfect snowball, etc. etc. etc., but that would go against my New Year's resolution. SO, I have to be brief, and address those few concerns that are most making me explode in impotent rage (as I increasingly seem to now. Do they make a Viagra for self-righteous indignation?)

And so, first, it's Stop Whining. Ok. Good.

Now, stop throwing so much grit all about. You wonder why you're running out of the stuff? I walked through a mud bath on Crookes' high street today. Not wet snow. But mud. I have a grit box across the street from my house and watched, yesterday, as a man tossed 5 spadefuls of grit on the road, where there was no snow, and then took 3 spadefuls of grit to pour around his car, so he could move it forward 3 feet, which he still failed to do. (I went to push - when pushing, let the car rock, forward and backward. That does not mean let it go forward and then pop it into reverse; you will crush the kind man that's helping you, which is less good.)

When I first got a car in this country, my father-in-law made sure that we had a 'de-icer': some toxic spray that was meant to magically melt the snow on your windshield. 'What's wrong with a scraper?' I asked.

And here is the problem: you, people of the UK, think that grit is some magic pixie-dust that will keep all that nasty snow away. You expect there to be a vaccine, a chemical defence against the ice. Nope. What you need is some old fashioned digging. Get on with it. In my part of the world (i.e. Ontario), you are legally obliged to clean the snow from the path outside your home or business, within a certain specified number of hours. And remember, we know snow.

Which leads me to ask this: I heard, a rumour around work, that if someone falls and injures him or herself outside your house and you have done nothing, you are fine, but if you've shovelled the snow from in front of your house and someone falls and injures him or herself, you are deemed responsible for those injuries and could be sued.

Surely that's not right? Tell me that's some Daily Mail reader's tale? Like Council Cancels Christmas! and Immigrants Ate My Dog!.

Don't bother. Just get shovelling.

Death by Zombie, or Death by Vampire?

2009-12-17T11:15:00.000Z

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Well... no, Mr. Frost. Bullshit. Because when the world does end -- and it will end. Horribly. -- it will not be anything so benign as fire or ice. This is I have realised. The fate of our world will, quite simply, be a matter of either death by zombie or death by vampire.

Everything that happens in our world, it seems clear to me now, is inching us closer and closer to one of these inevitable conclusions. It's only a question of who will get there first, who will inflict the final blow. Will it be death by zombie? gruesome, rotting flesh of the undead inevitable masses clawing through our skulls to feast upon what little nutrition might yet be housed in our increasingly spongy brains? Or will it be death by vampire? the slow, seductive sucking of our lifeforce by evil overlords who, having taken from us whatever they need to survive and thrive, will toss our empty bodies away like yesterday's copy of The Daily Telegraph.

Both are kinda sexy, I suppose. In their own way.

Why have I come to this conclusion -- or rather, you might ask, why I have only just come to this conclusion? Look around you! It is hopeless. Whenever the will of blank-eyed, thoughtless masses wins, whenever the mind-eating banality of the crowds takes another bite of our cultural body, it is a victory for the zombies. In this way, the triumph of the Twilight saga is a triumph for not the vampire, no, but for the zombies that would throw themselves at Robert Pattinson's feet. And if, for example, Lord Monckton and the rest of the climate change deniers, fuelled by the ancient evil of corporate money, manage to derail the Copenhagen talks, what is that if not a victory for the vampires, who will leave not only our species but the whole planet in ruin just to stave-off their insatiable thirst?

So I'm now, finally, going to see everything in this world of ours in its proper context, as either a step closer towards death by vampire or death by zombie. Which does raise one small conundrum, however:

If the X Factor single gets to Christmas #1, is that a case of death by zombie or vampire? have the zombies won the day, with their text-voting and brainless iTunes addictions? or are they merely the Renfield-like servants of the true Master, the Prince of Saturday Night Darkness himself, Count Cowell?

What's it going to be? Not that it matters, I suppose. But I'd like to know what's killing me softly this week.

Of course, there is an increasingly likelihood that X Factor won't win at all, which will be some small comfort to all us chainsaw-weilding, garlic-wearing amateur Van Helsings out there. (So, if you haven't already, get out there and buy 'Killing in the Name'.) It's only delaying the inevitable, but hooray for small victories.

Hitler: More than just a maniacal mass-murderer.

2009-12-14T11:40:00.000Z

WAY too busy to be writing blogs, oh, for weeks now. And who'd want to bother with creative self-expression when there are student essays to mark? Anyway, I have managed to pull myself away for just a mo to pass along this little gem. Forthwith, I present to you, Viscount Monckton of Brenchley!

The Guardian account is here.

And who could pass up yet another chance to comment on a use of Hitler by right-wing fear-mongerers? Oh, not I! Because it was not so long ago that I was pointing out how the insidious little pigeon-shit AN Wilson -- in the Mail, where else? The Official 'You're Like Hitler, You Are!' Newspaper -- was likening Hitler to scientists whose research had the temerity to disagree with his fairy-tale Weltanschauung. Or was that the other way around? I don't remember. Anyway, here we go again. Thank you Lord Monckton, you giant bug-eyed hereditary shitface, and Congratulations!; you are this week's recipient of the Completely Inappropriate Evocation of Hitler Award.

The Completely Inappropriate Evocation of Hitler Awards -- or FUCKWITs, for short -- is bestowed whenever I feel like it to those public figures who, through a Completely Inappropriate Evocation of Hitler, demonstrate an obsessed-paranoid of the world, a foot-stamping, superstitious obstinacy and a Cyclopean view of history. Sorry. I shouldn't say that. It's rude to Cyclops (who, By God! really ARE Hitler!). But the recipients of FUCKWITs also demonstrate a relationship with morality that, optimistically, kindly, one might describe as merely perverse.

Because why is it that the winning FUCKWITs invariably and inevitably seem to be those people who, in all likelihood, would have spent the better part of the 1930s stood before the mirror in the boudoir, dressed in standard issue brown suits learning to say Willkommen! like they really meant it? No, I don't think it is an accident. It may be because their view of the world is so completely back-assward that they actually do see themselves as the victims, the last defenders of truth and justice. (Though I rather like the explanation I heard earlier today, that they are just sublimating their own guilt.)

So, just for the record, Lord Monckton, AN Wilson, Melanie Phillips and whoever else aspires to a FUCKWIT, not to dampen your ambitions (because, hey, you've got to make your name some way), but it's like this:

Hate-spreading, mass-murdering fascists with unfashionable facial hair: Bad.

Seed-eating, hemp-knitting, pro-environmental activists and glass-eyed, Bunsen-burning, University Challenge obsessives: I'm sorry, just not in the same league. In fact, in terms you can understand: UnBad.

On the other hand, paranoid, self-serving, profit-seeking mouthpieces of capitalism who thought the Crusades were a bloody good show?... Well. Keep up the good work. You'll be surrounded by more FUCKWITs before you know it.

Wall of the Times

2009-11-06T09:46:00.001Z

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. What a spectacular cock-up.

New Berlin wall built for U2 gig to mark fall of old one.

Twenty years ago, thousands of Germans converged at the Berlin Wall to watch as the hated barrier between east and west was torn down. But tonight, many fans hoping to catch a glimpse of U2 as they played a free concert to celebrate the anniversary of the historic event would have found a small obstacle in their way: a hastily erected wall.
The organisers of the event, the music network MTV, erected a two-metre high "sight barrier" to exclude those without one of 10,000 free tickets from catching a glimpse of the band. The irony was not lost on fans, some of whom said they would boycott the event in protest.
[...]
Listeners to Star FM, a 24-hour Berlin rock music radio station, voted tonight to boycott the concert in protest. The station's leading DJ, Wolfi, said: "Is this is a sick joke? A band whose leader, Bono, campaigns for world peace and freedom, puts on a concert to commemorate the fall of one of the most monstrous barriers in history, and they erect a wall to stop fans from taking part?"

Really, though. There's nothing more to say, right? I mean, we all get it right? DJ Wolfi gets it, anyway. There's just nothing more to say. We can all just sit in stunned silence in front of our keyboards, wondering just how stupid the whole world has become. Death of satire and all that. Death of the invective blogger commentary, too, if this level of odious obviousness continues unabated.

I hate it, too, because it again makes me sound nostalgic for the Cold War, a time when walls were built to separate bodies and people and governments with competing ideologies, complete Weltanschauung, and not just protect the intellectual property of smug capitalists. Alas, I suppose this is 'progress'. Less ¡Mas vale morir de pie que vivir de rodillas! and more 'Well, I'll see a pirated copy on YouTube later.'

Anyway, a Big Numpty of the Week award to the twenty-year old MTV Executive who made the call, having never read a history book in his life. Bono's got no excuse, though.

Ps. Any suggestions for hash-tags on this? #wallgate? Inevitable, really, that someone will call it that. I like the more direct approach: #mtvdumbasses? #boobybono?

Ps. Professor Nutt and Freud's Ghost

2009-11-04T14:51:00.001Z

Just to follow up my little rant this morning, Professor Nutt has written an editorial in The New Scientist that is well-worth examining. Some of his sensible words are at least worthy of repeating here as Wilson's immoral invective.

No one doubts that heavy users of marijuana are risking trouble with their mental health. What I have simply pointed out is that we need a consistent policy, recognising that heavy users of alcohol and tobacco are more numerous and are causing themselves – and others – even more trouble through their indulgence.

Policies that ignore the realities of the world we live in are doomed to fail. This is true for just about all the biggest issues that we confront, from energy and climate to criminal justice, health and immigration. I'm not arguing that science dictate policy; considerations such as cost, practicality and morality also have a role. But scientific evidence should never be brushed aside from the political debate.

Yes. Exactly. No Dictatorship of Empiricism here. Nutt recognises that science alone cannot dictate policy, that governments need to consider other factors. But they should NEVER simply ignore scientific evidence when it proves inconvenient.

The current British government has said repeatedly that it wants its policies to be evidence-based, but actions speak louder than words. On ecstasy, for example, it made policy first, sought advice second – and cynically rejected the advice it was given. The result is shambolic policy-making which gives great cause for concern if that is how governments operate more generally.

The results of a government inventing its own reality and acting on it can be seen in the appalling consequences the George W. Bush presidency had for world peace, the environment and human rights. The message for the British government is a simple one: don't exclude rational argument in order to exploit a visceral public response. Politicians have to win the hearts and minds of their electorate. If your policy is informed by an underlying moral imperative, be open about what that is, and don't try to disguise it with a veneer of pseudo-science. We ignore scientific evidence at our peril.

Raising the Spectre of George W. Bush is much more appropriate and reasonable than the Daily Mail and Wilson's use of Hitler. For starters, I suspect that The New Scientist and Professor Nutt are at least consistent, and that neither officially endorsed George W. Bush, only to later -- when History has proved them spectacularly wrong -- use him as a Boogey-man to incite fear in an already nervous readership. It is exactly this sort of right-wing-knee-jerkism, that Bush so neatly embodies, that we must battle here.

And in support of Professor Nutt, the second comment on this story, by a certain 'Freud's Ghost', seems to share excretera's take on the issue:

Not insane just sad, inward looking & immature. Trapped at the anal stage politicians are more interested in toilet paper than they are research papers. If they had a interest in the real world they wouldn't be in politics. Voter appeal is the only reality for politician.

That's what I like to see! I salute you both!

No. A country run by THESE arrogant gods of certainty would truly be a hell on earth.

2009-11-04T10:14:00.000Z

Sometimes -- no, most times -- I cannot believe the fucking Daily Mail. This 'debate' was put forward by A N Wilson yesterday, and was promptly tweeted around. (I heard about it from Berto54, Ben Goldacre and Dara O'Briain, so thanks all, because there's no way I'd go within a million gazillion thrillion miles of that rag's website otherwise):

Yes, scientists do much good. But a country run by these arrogant gods of certainty would truly be hell on earth

Oh fuck. This coming from the Daily Mail, right? The newspaper for head-in-the-sand camels, racists, homophobes, bigots and superstitious nuts (one t) of all stripes. It's a Big Tent. Full of assholes.

Wilson is talking about the Professor Nutt scandal, or as it's becoming known on Twitter, #Nuttsack. Listen to this, which is, if anything ever was, truly worthy of the epithet Shit.

Now he has been sacked, the scientific establishment is in an uproar of self-pity and self-importance. How dare mere politicians question their judgments? They are scientists, aren't they? And what scientists say must be taken as true.
The trouble with a 'scientific' argument, of course, is that it is not made in the real world, but in a laboratory by an unimaginative academic relying solely on empirical facts.

Would that 'real world' be the world of the Daily Mail and it's narrow-minded, ill-informed ideology masquerading as 'opinion'? Of course. And why would we ever want to regard something as flimsy as 'empirical facts' over such heaven-sent Truth. I'm sorry. I mean horseshit.

This whole debate between David Nutt and the Government is about much more than the simple academic question over the relative dangers of cigarettes, drink and other drugs. What is on trial is the reputation of science.

Yes, it is. And this is an argument that science must win, over dogma, over ideology, over blind-prejudice and fear. I'm not saying that the government has to accept Nutt's recommendations on drug policy. As I said in my last post on the matter, governments have to make nuanced choices based on more than scientific evidence. But such decisions must be taken with careful consideration and due respect paid to those empirical facts. To reject 'science' outright, to turn this into a debate into the legitimacy of research and facts, as the government has shamefully done, only feeds the ignorance and arrogance of people like Wilson, and Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips -- no, no links to their similarly-scented articles in the same (toilet)paper, fellow denizens of the Mail, the Official Paper of the Dark Ages.

Unbelievably, it gets better.

Going back in time, some people think that Hitler invented the revolting experiments performed by Dr Mengele on human beings and animals.

Ah-ha! There it is! You knew Hitler had to get in here somewhere. And apparently, the original article on the web was accompanied by a picture of the Fuhrer himself, in case Daily Mail readers forgot who is was that the Mail once supported. Oh yes! If the Mail's commentary writers are going to irresponsibly bring Hitler into the debate, then I am sure as hell going to remind everyone (again) that the Daily Mail was explicitly endorsed him.

But the Nazis did not invent these things. The only difference between Hitler and previous governments was that he believed, with babyish credulity, in science as the only truth. He allowed scientists freedoms which a civilised government would have checked.

To suggest that what the Third Reich called 'science' has anything to do with real empirical fact shows a contempt not only for facts, science and truth but also of history and human decency. But maybe he doesn't mean it:

I am not suggesting that any British scientists are currently conducting experiments comparable to those which were allowed in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Russia.

I'm sorry. That's big of you, then. You're not saying that scientific research into the physical effects and social consequences of drugs is the same as genocide. Silly of me.

But I see the same habit of mind at work in Professor Nutt and his colleagues as made those mad scientists of the 20th century think they were above the moral law which governs the rest of us mortals.

Oh, but you ARE saying that they are equivalent, though. It's a slippery slope, isn't it? from social policy research to Holocaust in half a paragraph.

Enough. I suppose Wilson's not worthy of the attention or the energy it's taken to refute such bullshit. But it's obviously an argument we haven't won yet. And by 'we' I really do mean sane people. So, in conclusion, it's worth remembering:

Science rules - and it does so with just as much energy as the old Spanish Inquisition that refused to allow any creed other than Catholicism, and with the Inquisition's need to distort arguments and control the brains of men and women who might otherwise think for themselves.

No, Mr. Wilson. Science does not lead to Inquisitions, or to Final Solutions or to climate catastrophes or fake MMR scares. It is ignorance, closed minds, hatred and fear that does that. The very stuff you pedal in your sorry excuse for a newspaper. Shame on you, and shame on anyone who would believe you.

'My mind's made up,

2009-10-30T19:09:00.001Z

don't confuse me with the facts!'

An old t-shirt I remember, you know, one of those ones your Mom puts you in when you're a kid because they think it's cute and there's nothing you can do about it because you don't yet have disposable income. The picture was of a cartoon turtle, arms folded across his chest defiantly, vigorously shaking his head. OR, it seems, they could have just put up a picture of this Labour government, fingers in ears, heads all shaking. Maybe that turtle should be Labour's new symbol.

Again the government has rejected the carefully researched findings of an apparently objective, non-political body. Well, that's not really the news -- they've already done that. Now they've gone and shot the messenger. Not only does this undermine public confidence in the government's social policy, it represents yet another missed opportunity to engage with progressive politics and policy, it's a boon to the Opposition, who won't be able to believe their luck: can you see the headlines? Come on! The guy's name is Professor Nutt!

I don't object in principle to governments rejecting scientific findings. On the contrary -- it is their duty to evaluate any such evidence and construct social policy based on decisions that necessarily need to take into account factors beyond the scientific evidence. It's just the particular way this government seems to reject findings it doesn't like, that doesn't fit it's increasingly narrow -- and unfortunately right-wing -- ideological bias. Their knees are jerking up so fast that my chin is really starting to hurt.

Like when all the evidence demonstrates that certain services are more effectively delivered by the state, using a publicly-owned, centrally-organised system, and they persist with privately-funded initiatives... Who says ideology is dead? Forgive me. I'm coming over all old-school Marxist again.

Excretera now on...

2009-10-29T19:21:00.000Z

That's right! I finally get it, well, get it enough that I've started tweeting. So now you can enjoy not only long, drawn-out movements of excretera, but also micro-tweets, those tiny little grunties to get you through the day.

A few reasons for this monumental decision, actually. First, like I said, I actually geddit now. For weeks I stared blankly at my friends' tweets, the language of the thing completely going over my head. But once I figured out @s and #s and RT, i.e. once it started making sense, I was hooked. Especially, seguing neatly into reason #2, as I had a rather nasty case of the flu last week, and anything beyond 140 characters was beyond my powers of concentration.

('Was it H1N1?' everyone asks. How the fuck should I know? I was sick. It was flu. I would have asked the doctor had he let me within 100 metres of his surgery. Maybe. Does it matter? I felt shitty. And now I'm better.)

Finally, and (you'll be relieved to hear) more substantially, it was watching two terrific examples of what Twitter can do that made me realise that this is more than narcissistic self-promotion going on here. Oh, don't get me wrong, there's that, too, and that's fine. We've all been hanging ourselves out on the Book of Faces too long for anyone to complain about that anymore. No. It was, for me, first the completely deserved attacks on Jan Moir's despicable Daily Hate article on Steven Gately, and then exposing of Trafigura's and Cater-Ruck's super-injunction against The Guardian that made me really fall in love with Twitter. Anything that can make such loathsome assholes feel so uncomfortable is worthy of my love.

I may never have a 5-digit list of followers (for which I will be forever grateful to the masses), but I will, now, revel in my connectedness. So come on over, follow me. Let me know if you're already on there; I'm looking for interesting people to read (other than Stephen Fry, obviously).

That wasn't as satisfying as I might have hoped.

2009-10-23T01:41:00.000+01:00

But then my hopes were never that high. True, Nick Griffin got a right proper pounding on Question Time tonight, and there was some comfort in that. But, as many of us expected, the very format of Question Time made it all seem like a hollow (and I hope not Pyrrhic) victory. The cheerleaders were out in force, and the BBC should be congratulated for both the producers' careful, or brilliant, selection of the audience, and for Dimbleby's performance, which was effective (though lacking a real knock-out blow; and was that really the best tie in which to confront the Spectre of Fascism?)

What I found most disappointing was entirely predictable. For instance, in the whole debate on whether the BNP have hijacked the glorious image of National Hero Winston Churchill, no one, not one person, questioned whether Churchill is at all deserving of this sacred reputation. He's not, by the way, in case you're wondering -- I wouldn't go so far to say that the BNP's claims for Churchill as on honorary member is 'correct', but it's not far off.

And that, really, was the problem. Everyone was so busy trying to stab at that disgusting pig on the panel that they still couldn't bring themselves to take on some of the sacred cows that lead to the recent electoral success of the BNP in the first place. Like whether Churchill really was the unbesmirchable hero everyone holds him to be. Like why nobody is calling UKIP -- a 'mainstream' party in the eyes of the media, but more like the bourgeois face of British xenophobia -- to task for their use of Churchill in election pamphlets. (See reminder on the right.) There was no real debate on immigration -- the parties, platitudes aside, fell back to their usual squabbling as to which of them was more against foreigners pouring onto these shores. And might there have been a sophisticated discussion of Britain relationship with Europe, given the BNP's hatred of them, too? Not likely. This fell into the usual childish noise of party-political squabbling.

There is an opinion that the far-right hasn't risen in Britain, not even in the 1930s, because that taste in the political spectrum in Britain is already well-catered for by the existing right (i.e. the Conservatives), which is plenty far-enough-right already, thanks. And though everyone had a nice pop at Nick Griffin and his despicable vitriol -- I won't call them 'ideas' or 'policies', which would give his hatred too much credence -- the continued failure of the politicians and media in this country to really challenge those leanings was in evidence on Question Time tonight. The strategy employed by so many panellists, to cast the Griffin and the BNP and Nazis completely misses the point. There is plenty of racist, authoritarian traditions indigenous to these shores for the British far-right to draw upon without them having to resort to importing the habits of Germans.

Some comment highlighted on the BBC website claimed that no one landed a knock-out punch tonight. Had Bonnie Greer have actually stood up and clocked him over the head, I would have been much happier. I'm petty that way.

A study in what, exactly?

2009-10-16T12:10:00.001+01:00

I want to offer my initial, tentative support for the new Cambridge University-led study that graces The Guardian's front page today.

Too much too young: start school at six says key report

The report, to sum up, suggests that students in England begin formal lessons too early, and such structured schooling shouldn't begin until the age of six. It also offers a 'damning indictment of Labour's education record since 1997,' accusing the government of interventionism with 'Stalinist overtones' and narrowing the curriculum to a point that would shame Victorian institutions (not generally known for their plural, open approach to education).

Now, I talk to other parents, from a variety of schools, and I watch my son -- only turning six tomorrow, happy birthday Will! -- and his friends at school, all of varying levels of academic ability but generally bright, intelligent boys and girls, and I do see them being put-off school, the idea of education (learning to read, write, do sums, etc.), by what they feel is too much work. They complain of being tired, at the end of the day of suffering from headaches. Though, being five and six year olds, they have a tendency to whinge whether presented with anything other than exactly what they want to be doing at that very minute. But yeah, I think the ideas in the report that I've read so far sound good: delaying the start of formal lessons until children are six, scrapping Sats and league tables that put undue stress on children, a general review of the ciriculumm and an attempt to introduce a greater variety of subjects (history, music, languages, for example).

But don't believe me. I'm just speaking anecdotally. And, frankly, that should mean jack-shit. In England, you/we seem to privilege the anecdote out of all proportion, with it's phobia of public intellectuals and 'don't confuse me with the facts' mind-set. Hence TheSun's campaign against Labour supported by anyone who have suffered in the last 12 years . I'm sorry, sirs, but having been in the military or having had a relative die in hospital of infection or being stabbed in the face does not give you any particular insight into the political system or how to best plan economic and social policy in this country, and should not entitle you to be regarded as 'an expert', except perhaps as, say, an expert in getting stabbed in the face, and not even then, really, because while you may have a particular insight as to what it's like to be stabbed in the face your experience is still not definitive; other people may have a very different idea as to what it means to be stabbed in the face, and I want to hear from them, too, before making up my mind. And from the looks of it, having endured these tragedies makes your political opinions even less reliable, even more skewed, as bitterness and the desperate search for someone to blame seems to have clouded your judgement.

(My wife keeps promising to photocopy a Joan Scott essay that addresses this -- I'll ask again and offer a review when I've had a look at it.)

So, again, don't take my words as some sort of definitive proof, or refutation, for this report. Read The Guardian's report. Or the BBC's. Or anyone's. Read them all. Read the report itself, which I haven't yet done which is why I'm reserving judgement.

The government, alas, can't be bothered, and has dismissed it out of hand. Which is really, really sad. It seems another triumph of narrow, complacent and misguided ideology over genuine debate.

But perhaps this was inevitable. If anyone thinks the Conservatives would act any differently, despite how they are trying to play it, to exact maximum damage to Labour, is very, very silly. (Like, one might suggest, someone's who's judgement is so clouded by being stabbed repeatedly in the face that he thinks crime will be reduced in an increasingly inegalitarian Britain led by the Tories. Poor numpty.) The point is, if I might indulge in a little Foucaultian flourish, the increasingly rigorous discipline and training of our youth, and the increasingly incessant surveillance, management and normalisation of people in all sectors of society, particularly education, are not going to be abated by any report that suggests we move in a contrary direction, no matter how objective, conclusive or well-supported that proposed policy might be. Consider, as The Guardian explains:

The review is the biggest independent inquiry into primary education in four decades, based on 28 research surveys, 1,052 written submissions and 250 focus groups. It was undertaken by 14 authors, 66 research consultants and a 20-strong advisory committee at Cambridge University, led by Professor Robin Alexander, one of the more experienced educational academics in the country.
Last night the review's conclusions were backed by every education union in England.

But no matter. Power, it seems, will have its way.

So, again, sorry for donning the Foucaultian cilice. It would be nice to see this as an ideological battle, one that we might be able to win by fighting the right fight and voting for the right people, but I don't see it happening.

Beware Canadian-eating Americas

2009-10-09T10:40:00.000+01:00

I love this kind of thing. And nice to see Ellen Page doing something really worthy for a change, not like that movie, whatever, she did.

What's not to like? Ignorant, uninformed Americans as Canadian-eating cannibals. On the surface, they're like us and they like us, but really they can't wait to get their genetically-perfect teeth into our tender, universal-health-cared for flesh. That's our National Grand Narrative, that. Don't give me any 'Oh! Being Canadian just means being not-American,' like that's some kind of bad thing. Yes. That's the point. That's why we got together in the first place. Google 'Canadian confederation' or something. That'll explain it. The whole idea of Canada came about to stop British colonists in North America being devouredby Americans. That's what their Manifest Destiny was really all about. Gobbling up everything on the continent. We banded together then, and we venture south now at our own peril. Look at poor Ellen. The same thing happened to Jim Carey. Sad.

I got the link from the CBC website, by the way.

Swine Flu? Forget it!

2009-10-08T13:52:00.000+01:00

A much more serious, much more debilitating virus seems to be threatening countries on both sides of the Atlantic. This from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.:

Conservatives Extend Poll Leads Over Liberals

Honestly. There is little one can say other than What the Fuck?!? What is going on? I mean, you could almost understand the Tory lead in Britain; the Tories always do well here, and it's just the swing back around to the assholes you know. But in Canada? Where the Liberals are the natural party of government? (It's on the Constitution, isn't it? Someone get back to me on that.)

What I find amusing in this poll is that we've apparently stopped measuring leaders' approval, or do so only as an afterthought. Realising, I suppose, that no politicians are popular, not really, they've taking the more sensible route and to measuring just how deeply unpopular they are. But honestly. 39% of Canadians think Harper is doing a good job? I would have thought that this is the same 39% who think that it's ok to eat babies. You know. Properly cooked. They're not animals.

Well, I guess there's nothing for it. If you are one of those 39%, please do email me personally, so I can come to your house and find the leak.

Knock their undead heads off, Daddy!

2009-09-29T11:24:00.000+01:00

Time to share a long-kept, dark secret: I have a penchant for those cute little Internet games that provide bursts of edification during the working day. (If, by 'penchant' you really take it that I mean 'life-threatening addiction' and by 'bursts of edification' I really mean 'ways of wasting entire days to square-eyed, brain-dead uselessness', you'll have a better of what I'm actually talking about.)

But too long have a lived with this truth closeted up in the very private list of shameful cookies. I feel now I need to share this love with the world. (Yes, well, that, and I might as well stop wasting so much time in futile endeavour and instead transform these useless hours into something productive. We'll call it 'research'. I did train as an academic after all, so I do know how to turn personal obsessions into objects of nominal public interest.) So, allow me dear reader to introduce a new feature on excretera: an enumeration of the shitty, but highly entertaining ways I waste my time.

The first I would like to share with you is, as you might have guessed from the above image, is Ashes to Ashes Zombie Cricket. The premise: the Australian cricketers are undead brain-eaters that you need to batter into re-death with an imaginative range of cricket balls. Extra points for a direct decapitation; even more for a decapitation with a special exploding ball. Note the special roles for Ricky Ponting, Crocodile Dundee, Dame Edna and, I think,what are supposed to be anonymous Shelias.

Terrible, terrible stereotyping. Of Australians. Brilliant.

For the record, I have won back the Ashes twice. Top score: 177. Good, but not insurmountable. I'm sure that any seven year old can double that with only ten minutes practice. (Suffice it to say, it took me much more practice to get there. I'm just about 3 1/2 years too old to 'get' video games. My brother, who is 3 years, 9 months and a bit younger than me, is of a completely different generation: you know, those younger people that can pick up any video game and immediately get it in a way that makes you think that maybe they really did start inserting gaming components into embryos in 1974. And have gotten much better since, obviously.)

Which brings me to the real shame: my sons (Will, 5 and Jonah, 4) caught me playing on Sunday, and insisted on watching. 'Good one, Daddy!' Jonah congratulated me as I knocked a zombie-cricketer's head clean off. 'Get him! Get him with a fireball!' Will screamed as a massive outback zombie got closer and closer. Did they want to try? 'No way!' Will laughed at the ridiculous suggestion, thinking that he had no desire to have his brains eaten by green-capped zombies. Oh dear.

Easy Rider

2009-09-22T09:20:00.000+01:00

Looks like I got back just in time, too, to once again save Britain from itself. (Having spent the summer solving the problems of Europe... more on that later.)

It's long been pissing me off what an easy ride the right have been getting in this country's media, and by the left-centre parties for that matter (hence the title, geddit? I see Cameron as Peter Fonda and George Osborne as Denis Hopper). And it's not just the far-right who have benefited from the impotence of this country's media; the Conservatives have been lapping up the adoration of the uncritical press (lead by the badly-disguised Boy Tory double-agent, Nick Robinson, who gets all gushy whenever he sees blue and who is lulled into a teary longing when he hears trickle-down economics explained in an Etonian accent).

Two articles I've read recently make this case much better than I could. First, in the latest edition of The New Statesman, Alastair Campbell complains of how Cameron is being treated as PM-elect, rather than a shallow, inconsistent rich-kid who's, erm, 'policies' should truly frighten anyone interested in a tolerant social democracy. And this is from a man who should know something about dirty tricks and media incompetence, especially given that the BBC crises-of-confidence were sparked by Campbell's shameless, and entirely unfair, persecution of Robinson-clone-turned-unlikely-hero Andrew Gilligan -- if this is Campbell's attempt to make amends I welcome it, but he's got some way to go yet.

Another article from an altogether less-ambivalent, less-smelly source is from Sarah Ditum at the almost-painfully excellent Paperhouse, who shows how the more popular media are trying to paint Cameron as the King of New Cool Britiania, with 'Conservatives' as the new 'Revolutionaries' responsible for all the latest, hippest trends in fashion, pop-music and xenophobic, homophobic European social policy. The crazy kids! Take down your posters of half-naked Kenneth Clarke and Cliff Richard, girls! make room for David Cameron, staring wistfully out of the back of a chauffeur-driven limo. Nice touch.

Wakey wakey, people!

And incidentally,

2009-09-22T00:32:00.000+01:00

in case you didn't see this (and I suspect you have, because it's probably been blogged to death), there was this remarkable item in The Guardian on the weekend.

Jedi religion founder accuses Tesco of discrimination over rules on hoods

Daniel Jones says he was humiliated and victimised for his beliefs following incident at store in Wales

I feel obliged to pass on this story to you for a number of reasons: Yes, I was one of those that entered 'Jedi' in the last census form, in protest, though normally, as you know, I think of myself more as a Pastafarian, and you will also likely know that we are always interested here in all things Star Wars, and that there are at least two actual Jedis in my house. (NOT Padawans, I've been told, definitely, on more than one occasion).

But what I really like about this piece, rather unsuspectedly, is Tesco's response.

Tesco said: "He hasn't been banned. Jedis are very welcome to shop in our stores although we would ask them to remove their hoods.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all appeared hoodless without ever going over to the Dark Side and we are only aware of the Emperor as one who never removed his hood.

"If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they'll miss lots of special offers."

Normally I would defend my Jedi bretheren to the hilt of my double-ended lightsabre, but commendations here to Tesco who, in addition to being technically right, also prove to have something more of a sense of humour than Mr. Hehol.

(Oh christ. I've just sided with the Empire. I truly am becoming the Dark Father. Get me fitted for my Evil scuba suit and cape. I've always wanted a cape.)

I'm back.

2009-09-21T10:27:00.000+01:00

A so excretera returns from holiday like all that foreign food that looked good on the plate the night before.

In the months since my last post I've got a new house, a very handy new computer and, er, oh yes, a new baby. So, if sleepless nights and the etcetera a parenthood have left me a little less erudite and wordsmithery than usual, do forgive me. I will happily update you on my holiday musings and predictions for the future soon, but for now just let me say

Fuck the CBI.

Needs saying, yet again, I'm afraid, based on this:

Charge Students More, Say Bosses

This would be the very same group, our true leaders, this country's economic spine who, only months ago, rather jelly-like, collapsed into pre-adolescent pleas to the taxpayer to save them from their high-flying incompetence. (Holy shit, I am out of practice. I'm mixing my metaphors like a blender at a sperm bank. [?!?] Blame the new computer.) The point IS, the CBI have been telling us how to run the country for a very long time now and it simply doesn't seem to be a good time to be doing that, not after their colossal failures in the past months. Maybe not everything should be run like a business, do you think?

And it strikes me as very tediously predictable that I'm not at all surprised with the frequency with which I greet any CBI statement with a spluttering 'Fuck You!' over my morning tea. My children probably think 'CBI' stands for 'You're Fucking Kidding?!?', so I can blame them, too, when my son flunks spelling.

Oh well. Nice to be back.

Welcome to the Middle Ages?

2009-07-14T13:27:00.000+01:00

Now this is news. Apparently, the 'Vatican gives Harry Potter film two thumbs up'. Which is terrific for me in that the long slumbering Catholic in me -- you know, the one who still thinks that God hates me because I'm an atheist -- can go see the film and not experience any lingering unconscious guilt for transgressing an Edict of the Infallible Father. And it's nice to know that he can change his mind, of course.

But then that means I'll have to work harder than £10 for a ticket and popcorn to keep myself on the radical fringe this month. So obviously I'm a bit torn.

Really? The Vatican still cares about such things? Or, perhaps more to the point, they still think that any of us give a shit about what they say about such things? Please, people, help me out. If you are a Catholic, or not, and you've decided now, thanks to this most sacred blessing, that yes, actually you will go see the new Harry Potter film, now that's it's ok in the eyes of the Lord, please let me know. Write me a short note in blood on a goat-skin parchment or something.

What worries me, though, is what's different? Doubting -- as is my wont -- that the Roman Catholic Church ha suddenly had a Damascus Moment, or in this case a Hogsmead Revelation (geddit?), perhaps, what's different with this film that it suddenly gets the Holy Seal of Approval?

In other words, what's wrong with it?

Apparently,

In the newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican gave the film two thumbs up for its treatment of adolescent love and stated it was the best adaptation yet. The newspaper also said that the Potter film achieved the "correct balance" and helped deliver the message that good prevails over all evil.

I would have thought that the whole Good defeats Evil thing would have become clear a while ago. I will welcome, therefore, the forthcoming commendation from the Vatican for my parenting, creating in my children two Star Wars obsessives. But I think we can see what's really going on here. 'Two thumbs up for its treatment of adolescent love'. The Pope, it seems, is happy that HP6 shows boys and girls kissing, being in love, and most certainly not staying up all night playing with their wands, riding on each other's broomsticks,... oh I just can't. Not that's it's beneath me; just that I don't have the time. Any other suggestions?

Someone, please, send me the link for the fan fiction that addresses this oversight. I'll print off copies and mail them to His Holiness myself.

I wonder if Benedict has figured out that Dumbledore is gay? I wonder how that's going to go down.

(By the way, I found the picture up top by entering 'Harry Potter is satan' in a Google search. On a whim, you know. Not only did it return 793,000 results, I didn't even have to finish typing it as this was a suggested search phrase. Brilliant. I found the picture in the Harry Potter entry in Uncylcopedia, and should probably give someone credit for that. But also you can find this nutter

and from this blog, by someone who is on our side, i.e. actually opposed to banning books, comes this image that is just too wonderful not to share:

I know! Brilliant! There are more out there, too. Try, predictably, 'Harry Potter is gay' as your Google Image search. We could make a photo album and mail it His Holiness. J K Rowling can thank us later for increasing the next films' box office takings when the Pope condemns this Satanic outrage.

The responses

2009-07-10T09:34:00.001+01:00

so far are just as predicted. The Met leapt to deny that there was anything further to investigate, and just in time for the six o'clock news, too. But the Met's attempts to muddy the waters are neatly clarified by The Guardian who, it seems, aren't going to let them get away that easily.

The PCC, on the other hand, seem a little more open to the idea of wrong-doing. You can check their statement here, which sounds as though someone tipped a little piss and vinegar into it, but ultimately, there's no point; they can bark all they like, but this is a dog lacking even a pair of second-hand dentures.

In perhaps the weirdest development in all of this, BBC Political Muppet and Professional Numpty Andrew Neil is somehow looking... intelligent. Just listen to him:

Like a person who has done some things and understands some things. Like he has uses. The segment on this scandal on This Week, normally a sub-juvenile giggle-fest from beginning to end, was actually a sober, serious and insightful evaluation of what has happened and what might come of it all. (Before of course descending back into cosy playground sniggering... we mustn't expect miracles, after all.)

I should perhaps add what I find so compelling about this story. Because, perhaps just as with the MPs'-expenses scandal -- when we already knew that MPs are generally posh-troughing swine -- or the bankers'-bonus scandal -- when we already knew that bankers are greedy little amoral bastards -- surely we already knew that tabloid reporters in the UK are despicable wood lice who would gladly crawl under a rock or worse to dig up the dirt on public figures, both relevant and irrelevant, just to sell some piles of flattened trees that, because of certain quirks of history and the English language, we still call 'newspapers'. But I suppose that there is a potential here that I find so promising, that this might, just might, be the moment that they stop getting away with it, something gives and we get a better, more responsible media, and so a better, more intelligent debate.

Writing that, of course, I realise now that I am deluded. When the banking and credit crises broke, and empty-headed prophets ran around declaring that 'capitalism will never be the same again!', we all knew that was horseshit, that it was just a matter of a very short time, a heads-down play of humility until the angry mob looked away, distracted by pretty flowers, butterflies or some other, less-consequential scandal, before bankers were up to business and usual and capitalism breathed free and happily once again.

Oh well. At the very least, it will nice to Murdoch and his cabal of snakes (what do you call a group of snakes? a herd?) get a kick up their collective bollocks.

Initial response

2009-07-09T12:36:00.000+01:00

to the burgeoning News of the World phone-tap scandal is that this, finally, is really a story worth dominating the front pages for a few days. Whether or not it does so, I suspect, depends almost entirely on the tenacity of The Guardian, because I think that -- unlike the bankers'-bonuses scandal or the MPs'-expenses scandals -- the press will have to be ruthless in interrogating their own practises, which they repeatedly demonstrate themselves incapable of doing. (As so brilliantly highlighted over at my friend Sarah Ditum's Paperhouse -- see this, for example.)

The sad point being that with News of the World, the Sun, the Times, The Sunday Times, thelondonpaper, SKY News, the Conservative Party, the Metropolitan police, the Press Complaints Commission, and the entire British legal system all now directly implicated in illegal activities and/or a cover-up of said illegal activities, I wouldn't expect of deluge of media interest in this story. I can just see everyone grabbing some very big brooms in one hand and the edge of some very large carpets in the other. Add to that the current toothless impotence of the BBC, and the Daily Telegraph's wish to not stir up old questions about where and how news outlets get their information, and that leaves us, by my count, with the Daily Mail to join the Guardian in this crusade. But somehow I just don't think the Mail will carpe that diem, despite this having all the hallmarks of a classic Mail headline: the ubiquitous foreigner who has infiltrated noble British institutions and used them to conduct illegal operations against poor, helpless celebrity darlings such as Boris Johnson and Gwyneth Paltrow.

(Brilliant headlines on BBC News 24 this morning, saying that victims included 'John Prescott and Gwyneth Paltrow' and then 'Max Clifford and Elle MacPherson' -- you just know that the news writers are trying to imagine the dream-series of Celebrity Love Island...)

I'll wait to see how this develops and how bloggers more considerate and less reactionary than I respond to this, but you just sense that this will all go away as the mass media try to distract us and divert our attention to hate figures they deem more acceptable vessels into which we can drip our scorn and and disdain. (For precedent, refer again to the MPs scandal being thrown up to let the bankers get on with the real business of robbing the British people.)

But it may not rest there: the British public love a hate-figure, a straw man that they can let fire to and dance around. Fred Goodwin, Peter Viggers... could Rupert Murdoch be next? Just maybe? in an Ashes summer?

Also, I'll be most curious to see where David Cameron's defence of Andy Coulson leads him, particularly his claim that 'I believe in giving people a second chance' -- surely that means Brown deserves another term as PM?

(The basic point is that Coulson is guilty guilty guilty as fuck, unless he's going to try to hold on to the claim that he knew nothing about it, in which case he's guilty guilty guilty as fuck of complete and utter gross incompetence, which I'm not sure makes him look any better.

And could the PCC pull its head out of its ass, realise that self-regulation is a farce and suddenly, emboldened by the public and enabled by proper legislation, 'grow a pair'?

In an election year? Not likely.

Other voices on BNP

2009-06-23T12:31:00.000+01:00

Support for my earlier post, where I say that the media must assume a large share of responsibility for the rise of the BNP, seems to come from this week's New Statesman diary column, written in this instance by Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT.

Here's Crow's bit on BNP from the diary, in full:

In the recent Euro elections, I stood as lead London candidate for NO2EU (No To EU – Yes To Democracy) [I added the link]. We were still waiting for the London declaration in the early hours of Monday morning when we found out the British National Party had won two seats in traditionally Labour-voting northern heartlands.

Labour’s historically low vote share came as no surprise to me: the anger and disillusionment with the political Establishment has hit Labour hardest of all. The government’s humiliation collided with an unprecedented surge in media attention for the BNP. The party was presented as a sort of celebrity attraction, allowing its leader, Nick Griffin, to seize a level of publicity for the far right not seen since the days of Mosley and his blackshirts.

Meanwhile, NO2EU, which like the BNP had no MEPs before the election, experienced a total blackout across the mainstream media. Nobody, it seemed, was interested in Euro-critical voices from the left, although every nutter and fascist from the spectrum of the right was plastered across the news pages.

But we still got 153,000 votes, and ran a great campaign based solely on the energy and enthusiasm of our local activists. In many working-class areas we were the only direct challenge on the streets to the BNP. I am proud of what we achieved in a very short space of time and I pay tribute to the work of our colleagues at Searchlight/Hope Not Hate, who undoubtedly stopped the BNP from securing an even bigger breakthrough.

It's always nice to see that part of me still corresponds to the Old Skule Left. Like part of me isn't dead. But I don't support NO2EU; in addition to being morally offended by their cooler-than-thou moniker, I see myself as a pro-Europe lefty. I'm willing to listen to their concerns on Europe, I have a lot of sympathy with many of their specific arguments, and could still be won around to their position. I know that there are problems with the EU, for those interested in progressive politics, and I would have really liked to hear more from them. But we've never had a grown up debate about Europe in this country, which is, lest I repeat myself, a key reason for the victory of the BNP in the last election.

So what's really interesting here is how Crow raises the issue of the media's culpability in the BNP's success. The media greeted the BNP threat hysterically, doubtless for reasons as banal as they allow for the sort of scaremongering headlines that the British press specialise in and because it gives The Daily Mail and The Telegraph et al. an easy-target, a chance to draw a rather artificial line between their sort of racism and the undesirable (i.e. lower class) sort of racism. And so without the language and without any intelligent strategy to properly discredit them, their hysteria merely provided oxygen to feed the BNP fire. Whereas, though I consider myself a well-informed voter, I heard of NO2EU only twice before I placed my X, and the second time was when I scanned the ballot paper in the voting booth.

Little funny

2009-06-12T11:06:00.000+01:00

in a conflicted sort of way, yesterday in my most-usually overlooked daily email from The Guardian's The Fiver, a football newsletter, who said... wait for it...

between Nick Griffin's BNP winning two seats in the European elections and Him [Cristiano Ronaldo] agreeing to join General Franco's Them, it's been a good week for fascism in the north-west of England.

A little clarity

2009-06-12T10:21:00.000+01:00

on this issue, again, of file-sharing. A timely intervention by The Man Who Single-Handedly Resorted My Faith in Science, Ben Goldacre at Bad Science clarifies some of the lies being put about by the increasingly desperate recording industry, who seem to be an object lesson in how to do yourself no favours. (As Dr. Goldacre says, 'as far as I’m concerned, everything from this industry is false, until proven otherwise.')

Bad Science pops, in its usual indomitable way, some of the recent myths about money lost in the UK due to file-sharing, and its consequences for the creative industries. And a supportive piece appeared in yesterday's Technology section of The Guardian.

Is it any wonder that the Pirate Party did so well in European election last week?

Who's fault is the BNP victory?

2009-06-08T21:50:00.000+01:00

Like every other person living in the UK that has any human decency and functioning brain-cells, I am distraught to learn about the election of two BNP MEPs last week in our European elections. HOWEVER, I'm also more than a little frustrated at the media coverage and finger-pointing that has been taking place in the last couple of days. And even now, as I write this with my laptop burning a hole through my knees, I have to endure Nick Robinson, Tory Puppy and BBC political editor, explain to the nation at the 10 o'clock news that the fault of Labour alone that these BNP MEPs have been elected.

Well, it all smells a bit like bullshit, doesn't it?

By way of further example, Monday morning on the Today programme John Humphrys took on Nick Griffin -- the slug-face who aspires to lead the British fascists to power -- and I'm sure Humphry's fans up and down the country waited in anticipation of their hero mauling the wannabe fascist. So did The Mighty Humph put the fucker in his place? Finally given a chance on national radio to turn his powers against the anti-Christ of British decency, did he provide the blood-bath we all wanted? Alas, one could only have concluded that the Humphrys, the Scourge of Westminster, wielded a very blunt, rusty blade and came off looking flaccid. Impotent. THEN, as if to re-assert his Manhood, he turns immediately to his next interviewee, Harriet Harmann, and does not suggest, but insists, repeating a familiar mantra, that it is all Labour's fault. Now against a mainstream politician (and woman), he looked very manly, where against Griffin he seemed to... lack something.

So how can the media better tackle the BNP, how can they confront their lies and misinformation? well, for a start, they could confront the lies and misinformation of the other parties, and their hypocrisy. Taking the stage in their post-election victory celebration last night, the Tory candidate (who's name I can't be bothered to look up), says something like 'It is incumbent upon me..' blah blah blah to condemn this election of the BNP in our riding'. He was followed by the recently-elected UKIP MEP -- who's name interests me even less -- who denounced his new fellow-parliamentarian as 'scum'. And too right! You're thinking. So they should! Except that when you look at successful UK parties dominated by white males, praying upon fears of immigration and racism and stroking the pathetic sentiments of British Nationalism, you don't need to turn too far right down the Road of Lunatic Fringe. In fact, glaring examples sit right along Main St. Politics UK in the Conservatives and UKIP. For when you look at the BNP campaign literature, it is really not at all that much different from that of the Tories and UKIP: save for the BNP promise to bring in 'voluntary repatriation' -- the hideousness of which should not be under-rated -- all three parties talk of bringing Britain out of the EU so that our common-sense is not trampled upon by the Brussels illuminati, all three parties talk about limiting immigration, more general threats to British values, British currency, British national identity.

(In fact, when I got my pre-election campaign literature through the door, I thought the BNP's looked rather more sophisticated than UKIP's, with it's shock sloganeering and the picture of Winston Churchill captioned, 'He would get our money back!'. Of course the BNP were being silent on their more insidious policies, but so were UKIP and the Tories.)

So it's their fault? the rise of the BNP can be blamed on the mainstream right-wing parties? Well, yes, and we need to call these mainstream parties on their hypocrisy. I am sure that the disdain those Conservative and UKIP MEPs felt for the BNP colleague was governed in no small part by class, i.e. they aren't as sophisticated in their racism. And Labour, too, is guilty, when they so inexpertly flirt with such populism, for that is their real crime in this, not (as Robinson and Humphys would have it) just being a tired old party drunk on power, as are all parties who have been drinking from the well of legislative privilege for so long. HOWEVER, it is incumbent upon the media to challenge all parties on such lies and vote-grabbing ploys. For if they do not, when confronted with the real thing -- and do not mistake me, the BNP is a much nastier, but more ugly and more dangerous beast than the Tories and UKIP -- the media lack the language, the rhetoric and, most importantly, the moral authority to attack them effectively.

If more evidence were needed, tonight -- again, while I write this -- BBC Yorkshire news, after a lead-item describing their shock and horror at the election of a BNP MEP in our region, has just run a happy little piece on the new Mayor of Doncaster, another who's name interests me very little. The problem is, of course, that he is an English Democrat, and is like-wise anti-immigration, anti-PC -- for which read misogynist, racist, homophobic -- and anti-democratic. These issues were raised in the report, but briefly, and the overall tone, as I said, was playful and cutsie, a harsh contrast to the more appropriately disgusted tone of the report on the BNP victory that immediately preceded it.

Wake up, assholes. Racism in this country isn't confined to the lunatic right. (Which is why, incidentally, historians think that fascism never really took off here in the 1930s -- racism was already main-stream, and the Conservative party of Britain typically panders to that extreme-right racist sentiment in this country.) Stop fucking around with your Westminster intrigue, stop hanging out in front of No. 10, pretending that you understand what's going on, stop thinking that the gossip of MPs represent the real issues of the country, and maybe we can avoid more of these bastards getting in next time.

On a happier and altogether more hopeful note, I was greeted at my door on election day by a small group of students from the University who were out canvassing, trying to get people out to vote for anyone except the BNP. One of them, to my further joy, was an ex-students of mine. Unfortunately, I can't pretend that I had a special hand in shaping his politics -- I seem to remember Sam's politics being spot-on long before he arrived in my dark, basement seminar room. (I can celebrate, at least, that I didn't fuck him up and 'turn him right' or anything. We must learn to celebrate even our limited successes.) But such activism goes some way in filling the massive gap left by our limp media, where we might one day hope to see a real, interrogating journalism. In the meantime, taking to the streets seems the best way to defeat the fascist bullshit.

Been a bit busy lately...

2009-06-04T12:01:00.000+01:00

moving house and all, so not so much time for the blog, especially since I have no Internet connection at my new (and deeply temporary) digs. (As essential as water? Too right!)

But it's Election Day here in the UK today, and so I feel it incumbent upon me to make sure that you know that I am not the only person that has been very busy of late. It seems that the Tori leader, Davey Cameron, has been very busy as well, making all sorts of new friends in Europe. Here is the gist to consider before you retreat into that dark space of the polling both, thinking that maybe it's time for a change or some other such stupid idea for voting Conservative at this election (or any other):

Anti-gay, climate change deniers: meet David Cameron's new friends

Global warming is a lie, homosexuality is a "pathology" and Europe is becoming a "neo-totalitarian" regime, according to one of David Cameron's new European allies.

and so on.

Obviously, it should go without saying that I do not then endore UKIP, the bourgeois face of British racism, or the BNP itself. (If, by chance, anyone stumbles upon this blog who is thinking of voting for the BNP, just a word: Do so and it is proof of nothing other than your own utter and total abdication of humanity. No, no. Don't argue. Vote BNP and you are, make no mistake, below ant shit in the Great Chain of Being.)

But, I suspect that I am preaching to the converted, i.e. if you are here, reading this, you are doing so because you are already too smart to vote conservative. Still, best to put it out there, just in case.

Do NOT listen to Radio 5 Live

2009-05-15T09:32:00.000+01:00

when the public is all in a tizzy about something as easily accessible to thoughtless venting as these MPs' expenses 'crisis'. (Yes, bad, but there are Bigger, SCARIER Problems out there people. Focus. Focus.) I heard a phone-in on for 10 minutes this morning. A selection of thoughts expressed:

'I can't trust any of them. I'm going to spoil my ballot.'

'I was going to vote but now I just don't fancy it.'

'I'm not a BNP supporter, but at least if they got some votes it would make the other parties take notice.'

'I want to vote for "None of the Above"! [Followed by some long complaint about the injustice of not being able to register "None of the Above" on a ballot paper. Oh, the inhumanity.]'

'I was going to vote Tory, you know, because I thought I would give it a go. But now, I'm not voting for any of them.'

What all this really reveals is:

a) radio phone-ins are inundated with ill-informed, knee-jerk reactions by no-nothing, never-thinks who are convinced that they are omniscient. (But we knew that already, of course. Once again: They might not know anything, but I bet they reckon something.)

a) sub-section 2) I'm an idiot for listening to it for any longer than it takes to extend a finger to the 'Off' switch. OR I like to wallow in the stupidity of others. But we knew that already, of course.

b) this all shows again a serious, fundamental problem with the very notion of 'democracy' -- people do not think before they vote. 'I don't fancy it.' 'I thought I'd give it a go.' Seriously? A couple of the more articulate callers actually suggested that this election -- implying, therefore, a paradigm shift in their practices at previous elections -- that they might have to give a long, hard think of who to vote for. Really?!? You think it's worth it? Normally you what? Go on who's name sounds the 'happiest'? Consult a spirit-medium, to see who your dead ancestors reckon will best steer the economy to higher GDP?

This is still not the post I thought I should have written earlier this week, when I realised I should have been ranting less and instead saying something more profound about the relationship between our corrupt, duplicitous elected officials our corrupt, impotent media, but it's a push in the right direction. So, Ok, sparing you all the 'your vote is a privilege' shit, and assuming someone other than my three regular readers find themselves on this page, it's like this:

Democracy only works if there is an informed electorate, making choices in the interests of themselves and the wider community. IF Labour or the Conservatives demonstrate that they are too indifferent to corruption and the voices of you, the electorate, there are other parties, other independents, who, you might learn with a little reading, do not intend to take advantge of their office for personal again. AND, if you are not receiving the information you need on your country, county or city to make an informed choice on who might best represent your interest , there are other media outlets, other sources of information out there. Get off your ass and have a look.

AND, if you are really unhappy with your electoral power, or lack thereof, there are alternative systems out there, some of which are even explicitly endorsed in the manifestos of main stream political parties (Lib Dems, Green). Again, get off your ignorant ass and learn something about how your government works, and why it doesn't.

Useless sermon to the converted, I know. But I feel better having got that out there. As ever.

[I spared the LIb Dems a little there, and may have come dangerously close to endorsing them, so let me just be clear that no, I'm not, really, though they would be a lot better than the Tories if you're looking for an anti-Labour vote. But mostly it's because I'm used to supporting a third party -- the NDP back home -- and though I would like to see the electorate swing more dramatically left, I have to repeat now what I usually say at every Canadian election when people whine 'they're all the same', 'it doesn't matter who gets in': People, there is a third party who, with only a relatively small shift in the popular vote, could conceiveable take a first shot at government. Maybe give them a chance first. Then complain 'they're just like the rest.' It's really not that hard.]

Self-serving assholes, right?

2009-05-12T14:23:00.000+01:00

Oh dear lordy is the British press all a quiver with the -- alleged -- furore over MPs expenses. Is it just me, or is this another case of the press being a little bored, and over-compensating by being a little too unnecessarily outraged on our behalf? According to numpties like our dear friend, the award winning Nick Robinson, this has forever tarnished the reputations of politicians and disillusioned the Good People of Britain.

Excuse me? How many of you, honestly, last month, before all of this was made public, thought that politicians to be right honourable men and women who weren't on the take? So far, I've actually been rather impressed that most of the expenses for which they are claiming aren't of the £800-for-a-crate-of-champaign variety. £5 for dog food?!? That's it? Take it. It's yours.

That's your scoop, Telegraph? That's the best you can do? Wow. Your ace reporters are a bit shit, aren't they?

(Incidentally, on the Today programme this morning I heard some complete nut -- a Tory candidate in the up-coming elections -- splutter incredulously when it was put to her that the Telegraph was a right-wing paper. 'What?!? The Labourograph?!?' she said. Oh fuck. Think about THAT before you put your X beside a Conservative name in an election 'because we need a change'. [Side note: it is my long-standing belief that anyone who chooses who to vote for based on 'because we need a change' should have their vote taken from them. Forcefully, preferably. Let me know how you get on.])

To my happy surprise, this morning's Metro -- you know, that free paper you sometimes move before you sit down on the bus -- had the best comment today, in their front-page cartoon:
A picture of two well-groomed Tory MPs looking at a paper with the headline 'Now Tories Apologise for Exes', with the caption, 'Wait a minute -- second homes and tax avoidance are what we stand for.' More to think about before voting.

[Terrible pun removed]

2009-05-08T09:34:00.000+01:00

This is the more detailed response to Word Geek's response to my post yesterday, which all got a bit too much for the comments section of our respective hovels in cyber space. (And if you haven't already, you really should bookmark The Geekster's terrific blog, The Cunning Linguaphile.) ['the Sloz'? really?]

Thanks, first, for setting me straight (ah ha! that's good. I'm using that as the title. See?) on the 'going/turning' debate. Though of course, really, I would never use either, for the exact reasons you cite, which are completely true. Raised Catholic in a typically homophobic setting -- i.e. no more or less than any other setting in the 70s/80s, even though it was in Canada which, I'm very proud to say, has a good record in at least trying now to remedy the situation -- I remember very clearly a not exclusively unconscious assumption that you 'went' gay because of something traumatic that happened to you.

Of course the BIG assumption can be made (and though I don't always write about Freud he helps us here, too) that what this really expresses is an unconscious fear that once given a 'taste' of The Gay one might actually like it, thus undoing years of careful repression and denial in the service of a heterosexual identity in a homophobic culture. (Like why people don't like to imagine their parents having sex, I suppose. Oh. Sorry about that. Too late to take it back now.)

It's the Freudian assumption all over again, pathologising 'perverse' sexuality. Though of course Freud wasn't alone in this, and despite some of the rightly often-cited shocking phrases, Freud was actually quite good for his age, working from within that (or this) episteme. (As ever, it was more often the case that his followers mis-used Freud's ideas to condemn people for what they considered to be unacceptable sexual choices. The same can be said of the use of Freudian and Darwinian ideas by racists. Don't blame the cow if the milk goes bad because some frickin' bigot left it out in the run to curdle with the spite of hatred.) For Freud, and to his credit he acknowledges this himself, anything fun in sex, that is anything other than the single heterosexual act of penetration for the purposes of procreation, is 'perverse', so he didn't really mean to damn people with the tag, you know, that includes all foreplay, and because being Freud he was into all that. Oh yes.

Thanks, too, for catching that I nicked the toaster joke from Ellen. When I saw that I thought it was brilliant, and I've been using it liberally ever since. I've never really claimed it as my own, but sometimes it's too hard to explain, you know? (I think I calculated, roughly, once, that 3/4 of everything I say is either a direct quotation from or an allusion to film, tv or stand-up routine. You think that's funny? You think that's funny? What, like I'm a clown? I'm here to amuse you? etc. etc. ad naseum.)

And thanks also for explaining that I'm 'totally down with the gays and all that'. (By 'down' do you mean condemned to be forever licked by the flames of eternal damnation? No? Oh.) In case anyone was in doubt. Though I could hardly save said, 'No, really, I don't mind... some of my best friends... [insert your own personal homophobic rationalisation here]'. Now I forget if I'm worried about being accused of being homophobic or anti-Semetic. Probably both.

But, at the risk of some of this Gay Goodwill, I need to ask: you say that you think the 'coming out' issue is more complex than merely learning to accept a pre-existing sexuality. What did you have in mind? Without denying that as the case with many/most people who come out, does the notion that one accepts a pre-existing sexuality not in some small way cast a homo-sexuality in an (unnecessarily?) restricted box? I know this discussion might well lie well beyond the remit of your blog (intelligent commentary how lanaguage is used in our society and what that reveals about us) and mine, too (throwing shit at people), and I'm pretty sure that someone will have written on this, so I guess I'm really asking for you or any reader to suggest some readings for me. (For the record, I ask not only out of interest but to help with future questions in my Foucault seminars, so any help will not just help lift me out of ignorance but potentially an entire generation of young minds.)

Finally, I've already got a salad spinner. A really nice one. Can I keep collecting Veggie Convert Points until I have enough for something else? (A home cheese-making kit! That's what I really want. If there was a Santa Claus, that's what would be waiting for me under the tree this December. If there was a Vegetarian Reward Scheme -- and there should be, if karma worked -- I'd pick that.) What will you give me if I hoard my points?

Another argument for vegetarianism

2009-05-07T10:25:00.000+01:00

if it were needed. Or, at the very least, for eating less meat. Or against intensive animal rearing, which amount to the same thing.

The pigs' revenge

Just as an unsustainable financial system caused the current banking crisis, the intensive farming of animals is at the heart of the swine flu pandemic

No. Eating animals won't give you swine flu. But the way that we eat animals has lead to this, and all sorts of other problems.

And to file in your incessantly burgeoning folder labelled Opportunity Wasted, instead of using this world-wide problem to re-evaluate past practices and remedy the situation in the long term, vested interests are seeing to it that while they make the right noises to some people, debate on the Larger Picture is muffled by small, inconsequential token gestures that do nothing to change the reality that got us into this mess in the first place. (Sound familiar?)

Lawrence says it very effectively, for me:

But instead of addressing these wider issues, the response to the flu pandemic in terms of food production is "carry on as normal". Urged to spend our way out of ecological recession, we are exhorted to keep eating pork products. Keen to protect the economic interests of its meat industry, the US government took to calling this swine flu "H1N1 flu" a couple of days ago, in order not to put people off their chops. The World Health Organisation, which depends on the US for a large part of its budget and has been bullied by it before, has now followed suit, rebranding the flu influenza A (H1N1). But simply saying "as you were" is no more an adequate response to the cause of this current crisis than it is to the banking collapse. If we carry on as before, the pigs may yet have their revenge. And if not the pigs, the chickens.

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen (and dignified folk of unspecified or alternate gender) is a postmodern, post-industrial solution to a very industrial problem, so remind me to cite that as an example when you ask me later because I'll have forgotten.

Remember, if you go veggie tell them that it was me who convinced you: 2 more converts and I get a free toaster oven!

A serious debate

2009-05-06T09:44:00.000+01:00

could be had, I know, about this:

US 'hate list' DJ to sue Britain

about the universal liberal imperative for freedom of speech versus the equally imperative duty of states to protect their citizenry from the abuse and provocations of hate. I could talk about the legislation introduced in the UK, the publication and very existence of such a list of people deemed undesirable and what this says about the British nation and the Labour government. About similar Canadian laws against hate and how such laws, though distasteful in a modern democracy and perhaps incompatible with an age of borderless information access, may be necessary to guarantee for all those competing, paradoxical obligations.

BUT, instead, I'd rather just revel, in my usual, juvenile way, in the widely known truth that 'shock'-DJ, testosterone-throated, rabid conservative political ideologue Michael Savage -- Grrr! Hear me ROAR! -- has changed his name from the rather less intimidating, rather less virile Michael Alan Weiner.

Te-he-he. Geddid? Weiner.

Paging Dr. Freud. Dr. Freud. We have a terminal case of castration anxiety on American radio. Dr. Freud.

I say we let him into the UK; let him say whatever he wants. IF, and only if, he has to use his real name. To preface every sentence, every opinion. (Something like 'I may only be a Weiner who wants to be Savage, but...') That would work for me.

Te-he.

(I am such a petty, superficial shit. BUT, I'm not a right-wing, hate-filled asshole. So that's something.)

Happy Birthday!

2009-04-23T11:04:00.000+01:00

I don't normally celebrate Lenin's birthday (April 22), in fact, until I got a message from my Marxist Cultural Network emailing list (where I've lurked for years, in a corner, by myself, afraid), I didn't know it WAS Lenin's birthday. But given a 50% top-rate tax in yesterday's UK budget and, you know, the collapse of the late-capitalist mode of production, I thought this year I might raise a glass.

So, cheers!

(And, now that I look at it, who thinks that his hat and facial hair are viable solutions to my impending baldness? Am I looking at my future? Have a found The Answer?)

((Hey, if we can't adopt his economics and politics, perhaps we can at least take his sense of style into the twenty-first century. Not a bad consolation prize.))

No really, I'm sorry but fuck me...

2009-04-22T22:30:00.000+01:00

I was visiting Sarah Ditum's blog again and reading another excellent post on the hypocrisy of the press, when I followed a link that somehow took me to The Daily Mail's homepage.

Now, I know none of this should have come to me as a surprise. I've certainly been warned. And though The Daily Hate is no longer posting as regularly as I'd like it to -- alas -- I have to admit that I really had no idea just how utterly and completely insane that paper is. (Note: that isn't just silly speculation but a professional opinion. I am a 'Lecturer in Mental Health', after all.) It's not the reader's comments I'm talking about-- those can be rationalised away with all sort of explanations (when even the BBC's Have Your Say can be inundated with so much gloriously scented bullshit). And not just one or two prominent, fashionable darling nutters. Every paper has those. I'm talking about what is apparently their entire raison d'être.

I have been a naive, ridiculous fool. I have seen the paper, lying in the newstand, even on the kitchen tables of some relatives (egad!). But I had no idea just how completely, unashamedly, absolutely fucked these people are. Collectively. I mean, I knew Peter Hitchens, Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips, on the political spectrum, are only a shade pinker than Hitler and that such voices have been supported by a very long-standing, very public editorial policy against, well, all humanity. But I had no idea that they were this blazen, so audacious and positively vocal in their let-them-eat-shittyness. ('Small "c"' my ass.)

You're saying 'Duh! What did you think?!? How stupid, how naive are you?!?' I know I know. But so amazed am I, so in awe of the horrors into which I have just tonight for the first time had the courage to stare, that I took the trouble to clip this right-hand navigation bar from a page that dares, dares with a contempt for reason that would leave Stalin blushing, call itself 'Debate' and re-print it here.

I mean ferchristsake just look at it! I imagined, I suppose, that I would print that picture here and tell you what it wrong with each little bit, an extended analyses... but you know? I really don't think I have to. Or maybe I do, but I'd rather eat shit, which is apt, actually.

I'm sorry but I need to say it again. Fuck. Me. These people must be stopped.

Any ideas?

(What a useless rant that was. True, but useless. I should delete the entire post. Just ignore me today. I'm in a foul mood.)

Dora and Little Hans in the 21st century

2009-04-22T19:54:00.000+01:00

This is very amusing and silly and The Guardian shouldn't be publishing such rubbish and really you shouldn't waste too much time reading it.

The birthday present

When her husband turned 40, Charla Muller couldn't decide what to give him, so she offered him guaranteed sex every night for a whole year. Could they manage it? And what would be the effect on their marriage?

though yes, you should forward it to your wife/husband/partner and have a fun, if ultimately futile discussion about sex, which will soon get tied up into teasing considerations of marriage and relationships in late capitalism and, then, finally, winding up with a penetrating exegesis of the Old Testament and full-frontal thoughts on post-feminism. I know I will be.

('Charla Muller was reading Galatians 5.22-23 in her Bible study group'? I might have to take back some of my earlier comments about the pointlessness of religion. Actually, no. Make that double.)

But what really disturbs me were these bits, which leapt out at me like a flasher, i.e. unwelcomed visions of genitalia at those rare times when you don't expect it.

...how would they ensure that the kids (aged seven and five) didn't intrude...

...in her book Muller recalls...

Oh, really? I mean, we ban corporal punishment, but we allow this? Do you think those kids will be dreaming of wolves in trees? In a book?

Happy reading, children. At least you can save time in therapy, cutting through the wild speculation and straight to Exhibit A.

Blogs I wish I had written...

2009-04-17T13:37:00.000+01:00

this one:

http://yourblogisshitandyoureanidiot.blogspot.com/

If the owner of this site ever wants to make a go of it, I would be avid reader AND willing subject.

He was probably put off by the daunting task of endless updates...

The Eventually Revolution.

2009-04-17T12:36:00.000+01:00

Two things have come into my cyber-view this week, both of which should, in five years, be regarded as Historic Moments, as the last victory spasms of the headless chickens that are the Old Media.

First, this terrific post about about newspapers' complaints against Google et al. as traditional print bemoans the ground it is losing to t'Internet. And, as Sarah foresees in her blog, today we have the decision to jail the Pirate Bay privateers. And here. Everywhere, no doubt. (Read the first link from the CBC and see some of the really terrifically stoopid comments. I wouldn't say that I would concur with the numpty that claims 'Murderers get less in Canada', but 1 year of hard time does seem... harsh? Maybe the judge misunderstood the whole case -- the poor old gadge -- and thought that it was real pirates he was trying, and thought that he had to thrown them under the incessantly marching feet of the Law, even if they didn't have patches over their eyes, parrots on their shoulders and speak to each other in ooo'arrg Cornish...)

So doubtless there are champagne glasses clinking at Corporate HQ of The Times and Warner Brothers and Sony this afternoon -- surely all of these companies are owned by the same people now, right? And so I thought that this would be a nice time to add my voice to the discussion, which is only really an echo of much more informed opinions. But it seems to me that a little of undiluted Marxism comes in handy here, that we don't even need to overly-complicate things.

It's quite simple, really: The print media, the recording industry, the film industry all argue from the assumption of their inalienable right to exist. They talk as though it was thus beginning, is now and ever shall be profits without end. But these industries are really quite new and fresh, and were only enabled by a very specific mode of production. And when that mode of prodiction changes, as it most certainly has done, their market disappears.

It's like monks filing an injunction against Gutenberg for lost earnings and expecting the printing presses to be smashed to pieces to protect their neat little monopoly on knowledge. Well, I'm sure the monks probably did try that on, but that doesn't mean that they should have been indulged.

That's it, right? Or am I missing something?

Perhaps, instead of trying to present themselves as the unassailable Megaliths that enjoy God-given rights to pick our pockets that transcend time, technology and reason, the print media, the film and recording industries should try to keep themselves alive by creating a sense of nostalgia for overpriced CDs, or play on our sympathies for the lost arts of A&R men. Like people who make candles with their hands. Or small-town newspapers, I guess.

(I'm doing a lot of this straight-up Marxism lately... remind me to see someone about that...)

Someone spray-painted on my favourite bathroom stall

2009-04-03T12:25:00.000+01:00

GOD LOVES YOU

Yes! Spray-painted. And not in some random, crap way, or even with some artistic, Banksy-esque flair, but with a stencil. In block letters. I mean, fuck, where do I start? Ok, the stencilling is perhaps to be expected, lest the missionaries and their spray cans accidentally write, I don't know, 'God Lives You', and need to be excommunicated for the heresy. But I'm pretty sure that there was something in the 10 Commandments about thou shalt not committ random acts of public defacement, wasn't here? A subsection of the 'Don't worship false idols' law?

(Or maybe it was number 12?)

I love that. I could watch that forever.

Anyway, not to worry! Redemption is at hand. Some intrepid, hell-bound little imp has scribbled in a fading blue ink 'Tube' at the end of this, thereby ensuring that the Parker's ballpoint truly is mightier than that unsheathed sword of God's most verile urban guerilla.

John Humphrys has been pissing me off for a while

2009-03-19T10:06:00.000Z

but yesterday I was on his side. Surely I am not alone amongst Today listeners in thinking that at some point (I think about 35 months ago, perhaps longer), Humphrys's 'tough interview technique' tipped over into the dangerously spiteful naysaying of a Mailesque curmudgeon. But the last item on Thursday morning's programme (go to the last story at the bottom of the page and you can hear the bit as I did), when I thought it might all go horribly wrong, he pulled it out and gave a bloody good bashing to a very silly man.

The silly man in question was a Commander John Muxworthy of the National Defence Association. Yes, really. I thought it was a joke, too. Like something out of one of those... whathisname's books? You know the one. Commander Muxworthy (to give him his full title, not out of respect but simply for fun) was there apparently to threaten politicians and scare the rest of us into staying with the ludicrous £20 billion decision to replace the Trident nuclear sub deterrent. (That's £20,000,000,000.00, right?)

Now, I don't suspect the National Defence Association has an agenda (!!??!!), but far from the question that Humphrys posed -- not do we need it, but can we afford it in a recession -- Commander Muxworthy persisted with the very predictable line that we need the nuclear deterrent so much that we simply can't afford not to have it. History is repeating itself, it seems, because in the depression of the 1930s, one brave voice stood up and argued against all logic for re-armament. And of course Sir Winston Churchill was proved correct, so therefore, presumably not to be a bunch of namby-pamby Chamberlains -- and assuming nothing else has changed in global politics in the last 80 years -- we must heed those courageous voices that once again rise and call for the maintenance of Her Majesty's fleet. I think he means Elizabeth II. This is courageous, in case you were wondering, because it runs against all logic and most realistic, sane analysis of the twenty-first century defence needs.

Humphrys's moment of grace came in the face of Commander Muxworthy's claim that the deterrent has been working effectively for the last 80 years, and is therefore absolutely essential to maintain peace in the future. Cue Humphreys's scepticism, at least this time well-directed: 'It is quite difficult to make the claim that something is essential if it has never been proven', he begins, going back on his own promise to discuss the need for the deterrent, rather than its affordability, but never mind, this was going to be good.

Commander Muxworthy guffaws gamely at the naive commoner. 'That's the whole point!' he says, entirely missing the point. The deterrent has been there, he explains like only a man of irrational faith can, and we know it has worked because it has defended us all of these years.

But Humphreys was not to be fooled. 'We don't know that,' he says. 'It could be a thousand other things. It could be because one day someone said "It's because I put my trousers on left leg first". There is no way of proving that the deterrent has worked.'

The good Commander then complains that defence spending should be the first priority of every government, but that in modern Britain it isn't, it's seventh (good lord!), and that for the last 25 years money that should have been spent on defence (that's guns and shit) has been 'poured' (i.e. away, wasted) on the 'big budgets of health and education'. At this point, Humphreys cuts the militaristic lunatic off. 'So we should take money from hospitals and schools and all the rest of it and spend it on Trident, which we'll probably never use.' Humphreys then talks to his other guest, the much saner Defence economist Professor Ron Smith, having to smack down Commander Muxworthy's interuptions, before concluding with the cheeky check-matey, 'Commander, you've got 10 second to tell why we would unilaterally -- not under the American umbrella -- use a nuclear weapon.' And this is another good question, and one that the Commander has to avoid with burbling, empty threats of voter power (i.e. politicians better pay heed because defence is important to them), which if I recall is a very dishonest manipulation of some dodgy stats, but never mind for now. He was spanked.

And why I enjoyed this particularly, I suppose, beyond the fact that it restores some of my faith in the quarterback of the Today team, is that it exposes the nuclear deterrent for the religious, devotional irrationality that it really is. And that also has the advatnage of exposing the devotional irrationality of religion itself as, well, akin to the madness of putting faith in the nuclear deterrent. It's like John Humphreys has created a brand new, rational and entertaining, argument against the nuclear deterrent akin to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose Noodly Appendage has touched me on several occasions.

So here's what we need to do. We need to find this man that Humphreys has revealed to us -- the one who single handedly has prevented the Prussian invasion of these shores, who has held back the tides of Commie ICBMs, simply because one morning 60 years ago he decided to put on his left trouser leg first. And we offer him £10 billion pounds to ensure that he keeps putting on his left trouser leg first, every morning, to keep our British children safe from the threat of slavery or total annihilation. A snip at half the price of Trident, and just as likely to work! Who's with me?

Of course Commander Muxworthy reminds us, too, that the present President of the United Kingdom National Defence Association is none other than the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill. No, that's not a type-o. Confusing, isn't it? Commander Muxworthy raises this as irrefutable proof that his argument is right. Which is even more ridiculous, because I would have thought that good sense dictates that being the nostalgically-monikered grandson of Sir Winston Churchill would have explicitly prohibited one from occupying the position of President of the United Kingdom National Defence Association. But then only in Britain can a direct descendent of a famous and morally ambivalent holder of public office rise to prominence in a field from which their ancestor's behaviour should, by law, exclude them. Oh well the US, too, I suppose. I forgot about that last president and all.

Of course in Canada we would never do such a thing. By all accounts, Pierre Trudeau's son would already be Prime Minister of Canada -- he's smart, charming, articulate -- if his father hadn't already held the job. From what I'm hearing, Canadians are looking at him, all aglow, and get all excited, all wet with happy nostalgia, and then feel guilty, like it's a pleasure that they know they shouldn't be allowed to indulge. So he'll have to wait. And Brian Mulroney's son, I am pleased to report, had followed his father into public service. As a game show host. He gives prizes and money to contestants, not corporations. A small but important difference. But that is all he will be allowed. (And, to be fair, he's good at it... weird, eh?)

Bush girls, your destiny beckons.

Enlightenment.

2009-03-11T22:18:00.000Z

So on my favourite toilet wall I see this one day:

BACON IS GOOD

written in big, confident capitals with blue marker. Which wasn't particularly interesting to me, a vegetarian. But then, beside it, a couple of weeks later, in a meek, fading black ballpoint, I see

Locke is better.

And suddenly it all makes sense. I have no idea if it's true, but I like the the idea of fans of seventeenth century English philosophers turning all tribal and nasty on each other, and using public toilets as the site of their vitriol. But then there's the matter-of-fact, scoffing tone of the response, like suddenly snarky teenagers are really into conceptions of reason and the social contract. Bless.

Today, I talked to a Communist.

2009-03-10T00:07:00.000Z

He was on the University concourse, right out in broad daylight. He was a proper Communist, too, with a grizzled beard, bad posture and even a red, hammer-and-sickly adorned flag waving behind him, in case we couldn't guess from the rest. He called a friend 'Comrade'. Everything. They were setting up a table with photocopied papers on Marx and Mao folded into leaflets on sale for a pound. I sniggered at the 'Capitalism is Crap!' banner hung across the table -- partly because, as you know, I find anal and faecal imagery amusing, but also because I thought that this new Communist Manifesto, such as it is, barely begins to cover it. Still, probably looks good on Twitter.

He saw the red star, hammer and sickle pin on my man-bag and took me for a kindred spirit -- sort of. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I bought it off an impoverished ex-soldier in a park in Belgrade. (There's no greater statement, is there, of capitalism's victory over the Soviet Bloc than a Canadian lecturer buying a trinket that once stood at the front line of the Iron Curtain and wearing it, ironically, on a metro-sexual fashion accessory.)

But, you know what? He didn't sound at all crazy. Certainly not as blindly doctrinal as the Christians that too often parade up and down the concourse on most days, or as vacuous as the bankers' cheerleaders that used to set-up shop here, offering free MP3s downloads to students in exchange for a lifetime of debt and just a small piece of their souls.

It reminded me of what I found so exciting about reading The Communist Manifesto when I was 15 and Thatcher and Regan and Mulroney looked set to rule the world forever. Maybe time to tape the cover back on the copy of The Essential Marx and trim the facial hair into a less apologetic Che.

Global capitalism is collapsing, and I'm getting all nostalgic. It seems wrong, somehow.

Everyone can play! Don't spoil it.

2009-03-06T09:45:00.000Z

Nice to see Plane Stupid getting into the whole throwing food thing.

Green custard thrown at Mandelson

I mean, the idea of throwing food at people you don't like was hardly a new idea, even in its heyday in the Middle Ages I suspect, but I really think this is the way forward, and don't mind taking some credit here. (And sometimes, I appreciate, the whole locking them in medieval torture devices before hand isn't possible, yes, ok, so this is fine with me.)

May I also applaud Ms Deen, 29, for her inspired choice. Green -- get it? -- custard. Not sure WHY custard, really, when there are plenty of other foodstuffs that are more naturally green, but then maybe that's the point.

And know what? I blow a big raspberry at anyone who calls it 'adolescent' (Mandy himself) or 'childish' (doubtless all the Usual Morons on BBC's HYS), because why the hell not? As Ms Deen, 29, herself says, 'When democracy is failing you have to resort to any means necessary as long as it is peaceful and does not harm other human beings.' And why shouldn't that involve non-toxic edible pudding toppings? Plus, IMHO, it is just really, really funny.

'But where is it all going to end?' I hear the outraged Daily Mail reader cry, 'What will become of us in Food Projectile Britain?!?' Frankly, I LOVE the idea of people walking around throwing food at each other. All the time. For whatever reason. Bring it on.

Though hold on. Now that I think about it, Human Nature would intervene and spoil the party, wouldn't it? I mean, you'd have some idiot, inevitably taking the whole thing too far, not knowing when to stop, driving by with bottles pointing out of car windows, spraying children at bus stops with cola, which is just cruel. Kids at high school would come to identify themselves with what they threw at each other, so it would just exacerbate those sad divisions that already exist: the jocks would pour protein drinks down the computer geeks' pants, who could only limply reply by inexpertly lobbing the firm bananas their moms packed in the lunch. The emo kids would clutch their useless porridge as the heavy-metal rockers sadistically whipped beef jerky strips at them (those things are sharp, you know!) Then you'd have class warfare playing itself out in the wider society: Little chav boys and girls would try to earn their asbo-badges by hurling around the most inappropriately covered chips (curry, mushy peas and gravy) while posh kids would toss osetra caviar from the windows of their chauffeur-driven Land Rovers... oh dear how the clichés do pile up!

Is there no hope for Humanity? Can we not even indulge in this happy sport without succumbing to our basest, most primitive instincts?

(Me? I'd walk around slapping people with marinated tofu steaks. That's really no better, is it?)

I wish I had...

2009-02-27T22:22:00.000Z

... one of those really quaint Southern US sayings to express how I'm feeling right now.

Obama declares end date for Iraq war

Determined Obama vows to renew US

Obama administration offers olive branch to Russia and Iran

Obama seeks to woo Canadians

You know the kind of of saying I'm thinking of, right? That folksy kind of (often mixed) metaphor or simile or saying that references some strange, mangy mammal or down-home cookin' food thing that you've never heard of. I've been trying to think of one all day, but I just can't do it. I guess I don't have the touch, or the appropriate points of reference.

Something like 'Well hit me with a coyote!' or 'Well stick with a BBQ fork and call me a weiner!' You know? Like that.

I'll keep working on it, as long as Obama keep this up, anyway.

(I mean, even to this cynic, this is almost beginning to look not shit!)

God help us...

2009-02-24T21:57:00.000Z

... or not. Preferably.

I'm waking up from the nightmare of essays and deadlines, thinking of all the nice, happy things I can write on my blog now that I won't actually have a deficit of time, and I'm listening to this on the Today programme: according to a new BBC poll, apparently 'most people want religion and the values derived from it to play an important role in British public life.'

Come on! Seriously? Still? Here? We've long teased the likes of the Americans for their fundamentalism, and feared the likes of the Afghanis for theirs, but it seems the British are as enamoured of the Old Fella as the rest. Oh dear.

This, too, despite the efforts of the 'increasingly militant atheist movement'. I didn't know we were arming ourselves. Let me take the opportunity, then, to encourage you to be touched by the noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Don't fuck with us atheists -- we fight dirty. (With things like reason and logic and satire...)

What also sucks is that people want religion to govern their lives, but don't seem to be very committed to the cause. The BBC report explains that baptisms, church weddings and Sunday service attendance are down, regardless of this professed desire to live by the dictates of the religions we can't seem to be bothered to turn out for. When I was Catholic -- and I was very Catholic (new of which is causing many of you to nod knowingly, I'm sure) -- I was really Catholic. If you are going to believe in the existence of an omnipotent being -- and an omnipotent being with a serious personality disorder, it has to be said -- it seems like a very, very bad idea to piss him off with your indifference. And it's like not voting: if there is any chance you can influence public policy, however slight, shouldn't you at least show up and register your voice? 'Please Lord,' you might pray, 'Please make adultery ok... just for this weekend?' Or something like that. You never know.

Will (my oldest son) and I were walking home from school one night before Christmas. Obviously, they've been teaching them about Jesus and the nativity story in class that day -- which is fine, good, even, because I want him to know the stories (as stories, thanks). So he asks me, 'Daddy, who's your favourite god?' Which is a great question, no? So, knowing he's been looking at Christianity, I say I like Jesus, because he had some great ideas on the importance of forgiveness and love, and that I like Buddha, because he had some good lessons on the importance of inner peace.

Will says, 'I like Jesus, too.' And that's good, I'm thinking, that he agrees with me on this. But then he adds, 'And I like Zeus, because he's got lightening bolts and can fry people!'

All of which understandable and cute in a 5 year old, but I'm thinking that far too many of that 62% of British respondents who want religious values reflected in British public life have not a very different conception of their god. And that makes me very nervous.

I know that not everyone has the five-year-old-boy view of religion, but my Uncle Dave just sent me a quotation I'm liking:

"God is a sound people make when they are too tired to think anymore."

More here. Do enjoy.

Ok! Good start...

2009-01-22T19:38:00.000Z

I'm a cynic, but like I said, I'm hoping for the best. This was a happy surprise this morning.

Fingers crossed for more of the same...

Good luck, USA.

2009-01-22T00:50:00.000Z

I wish you well. Really I do. Hopefully all the hysterics of the inauguration are behind you now and you can just down to it. I remember at the time of the election, though, being a little nervous of the toxic combination of unrealistic expectations and inflated hyperbole, and it looks like things are getting worse.

There was a strange tone to Obama's speech. The rhetoric did soar, at times, or aspired to do so, but too often I thought it sounded like Martin Luther King, Jr. reading the shipping forecast. Which is preferable to George Bush II reading the shipping forecast, so I suppose that's progress. But what speech could done everything that speech was supposed to do?

I liked the more prosaic bits. The bits about the real economy and the hard words about world affairs. There wasn't a 'The only fear...' or an 'Ask not...' moment, but that's a good thing, I think.

And it again we need to make the point that the US does not get to clothe itself in glory here. You do not get credit for getting rid of one of the most idiotic, disastrous men to ever lead a modern democracy. That was constitutional necessity. And what was he doing there in the first place?!? Two terms! That's not an accident. It's not even unfortunate. It's just stupid. And just because the President's father 50 years ago wouldn't have been allowed to eat in a restaurant around the corner from his son's new work does not now mean that you are the World Leaders in Freedom and Opportunity. It just means that you've caught up with the rest of the world. Welcome to the twentieth century, America.

I don't want to rain on the parades, professionally, but without a realistic view of what this actually means the real gains will be lost, and the ongoing problems -- again -- glossed over. African-Americans have a right to celebrate, yes, and others who have been disenfranchised for so long by such a narrow-minded conception of democracy, too, but should these be celebrations or collective sighs of relief? less triumphalist and much more of the about-frickin'-time, this-is-an-adequate-start! school, perhaps? And we should hear nothing from the White Men of Washington about This Day confirming American's long-recognised place as the Greatest Democracy in the Free World; the mouths behind those grey beards should still be busy reciting apologies for ongoing injustice and long-overdue reparations only just begun.

The other worrying thing is how little, it seems, might actually change. God was Everywhere in front of the Capitol Building, which can't be a good sign. There was too much of the old certainties, the old self-belief in divinely-bestowed national privilege. Manifest Destiny for the twenty-first century? I hope not. There were other noises, too, a New Humility, perhaps, which after the Bush Days would be most welcome, yes. Let's just hope there's more of that.

Chomsky has always argued that the world would not have been substantially different had Al Gore won in 2000 (passim; please don't make me find the original quotation), and any detailed investigation of Democratic Presidents' records beyond the broad brushstrokes of nostalgia will suggest that he's right. (Of course Chomsky's right. He's always right.) I hope it's not the case this time, but I don't think it looks good. Let's hope the overtures to Iran are more than just empty gestures, though it might have been good to start with not remaining silent on the Israel-Gaza conflict?

As ever, someone else says this much better than me. Here's a clip of American 'comics', post-inauguration. Go to the Daily Show clip at 1.20-ish. Why IS cheese nice on Italian food, but disgusting on Chinese food?

Here's hoping he doesn't mean it.

Futility, stupidity and counter-productivity

2009-01-14T11:46:00.000Z

In light of my complete inability to say anything about what is happening in Gaza right now, I'm afraid it's time to revisit Newsgaming.com, who explain it the best. And do so in an entertaining, let's-avoid-work sort of way. It's the kind of thing that education should be all about.

First, play the game (picture above). Beat the terrorist baddies.

It's called September 12, which is even sadder, because it shows how little we learn.

Then, when you've learned your lesson and are feeling smug, for a further exercise in futility, to really depress yourself, play Madrid.

Which game is more fun to play? (And no, that's not a rhetorical question. I really want to know. I think the answer explains a lot.)

And let me know who wins.

Fascism or Bureaucracy?

2009-01-12T19:03:00.000Z

What little joy I've been able to reap from the barren plains that was the second half of 2008 (yes yes other than from my children, blah blah blah) has still come from that Eddie Izzard Star War Canteen Lego Dramatisation that I first encountered and blogged about, oh, three months ago.

Students in my seminars this term will know exactly what I mean, but here's a reminder:

I could watch that over and over again. And I have been. But I can finally put my finger on what I really like about it: it is the narcissistic injury, the puncturing of omnipotent phantasy. The undoing of the Nietzschean Superman by the Everyman or, rather, the anonymous face of Bureaucracy.

Well, of course it is, Shitforbrains! Such 'insight' is hardly worthy of even a few bytes of an increasingly crowded cyberspace. But what's interesting, for me, is where my sympathies lie here. Now, normally, I would revel in such a fall. I want to be there, feeding Nietzsche's Superman the kryptonite enema. (Does one 'feed' an enema? Clearly more research is needed here...) But here I'm definitely on Jeff Vader's side. Maybe it's because I am the Dark Father now. But I definitely feel like I'm getting slapped with a wet tray by Mr. Steven's minions.

So what's wrong with that? Well, it means that I've got some phantasies of omnipotence of my own. An inner asshole I need to come to terms with. But we knew that. No, I can't kill catering with a thought. What it really means is that the choice we all face is now, finally, clear. If we can choose not to be governed by the will of the Superman, does that mean that we are condemned to be ruled by the mediocracy of the bureaucracy?

But I can't credit for this insight, this sagaciousness. We were discussing these very ideas -- narcissism, authoritarian tendencies, anal aggression, the transcendental signifier, you know, as you do -- in a seminar last month. (The fact that I cant' remember which seminar, for which course, is symptomatic of my state of being last term. And maybe my teaching in general?) And one student, in some frustration, blurted out, 'So, that's my choice? Fascism or bureaucracy?'

Brilliant. Succinct. And completely right. Remind me to give an 'A' to whoever said it. (If it was you, I'm sorry; I must be repressing the knowledge that most of the really intelligent things said in my seminars are said by other people.)

So, is that the choice? Well, at least it feels that way at the moment. I haven't decided if that says more about the structure of power and authority in our culture, or my own mental state. Or both. I'll get back to you. Maybe I need to go back and read more Bakunin et al.

(Now I've done it. I'll have to come back to that Bakunin article at some point...)

Wishing you a not quite so shitty 2009...

2009-01-04T23:05:00.000Z

was how I rang in the New Year. Someone wished me a Happy New Year and I quipped that I would settle for...

There's been worse years, and certainly I've not had it so bad. But I gave up writing -- of any sort -- from early November. I haven't even managed so much a smudge here in cyberspace for two months. I gave it up, to stop the guilt from yet another unfinished job from tearing its way, Alien-like, from its fertile incubation in my guts. For which I blame, not uncharacteristically, the Protestant Work Ethic -- oh, well, that, and the absolutely depraved culture of academia -- but I'll give you grief about my 8 weeks of 20-hour days another time. (Hopefully when the pain has subsided and I can be a little more philosophical about it all.)

Anyway, while other bloggers have been busying themselves over the holidays, it seems (from the evidence of my 'unread' folder), I took a couple of weeks off, from working, from blogging, from just about everything (except, of course, being a Dad, which I rather enjoy). But I'm back now, and my determination to write -- here, there -- isn't so much this year a resolution as it is an opportunity, given that I'll have less teaching to do this term than I have since the first year of my PhD. Which, for the record, was now 12 years ago. Fuck.

Don't ask me, exactly, what I'm going to put here, though. More of the usual shit, I suspect.

Watch this space.

More genius from Prozacville

2008-11-06T11:11:00.000Z

And *crash*, back down to earth Prozac brings us with a soft landing.

Though everything changes around us, we will still be the same as before.

Question:

2008-11-06T00:00:00.000Z

Assuming the theory of evolution is true -- (and, yes, it is, Sarah Palin, I'm sorry) -- why haven't British people developed gills?

Why no webbed feet? A waterproof, retractable flap of skin that extends over the head?

'Like living in tupperware' my wife once said, back in the days she was happy not to live here.

Go on. Have a look. It'll be raining.

Oh it depresses me depresses me. Depresses me.

Now I can go back to sleep.

2008-11-05T04:58:00.000Z

Well, thank fuck for that.

I stayed up late, to make sure this time. (Last two American elections I went to bed with a Democrat President-elect, to wake up with George Bush. You can imagine...)

Still, I must admit feeling a little underwhelmed by the whole thing, now, at 5am GMT. I don't feel any of the hope or change that I was promised. Just relief.

And I'm more than a little fed up, already, with the renewal of the over-inflated estimation of America the Greatest from the American 'left'. Yeah, I felt bad for a lot of people in the US who had to endure under Bush, but this 'Once again we prove that America is the Greatest country on earth' refrain is puzzling, really. And a little annoying. Amnesia is a terrific thing, eh?

Something has happened, something has changed, so I'm told. But I have a bad feeling that it isn't anything more than the birth of a new symbol. A new idealised container, in Kleinian parlance. Which might be something in itself, and might be worthy of some celebration. And certainly the importance of Obama's election -- as a symbol, as a reality -- for the blacks, and race-relations generally, in America, and beyond, shouldn't be ignored. That, unproblematically, is a Good Thing.

But how much will really 'Change'? In foreign policy? economic policy?

(Is it the comparisons with Kennedy, who's record never really bears up to the romanticised fantasia, that makes me nervous? I've heard at least a half-dozen references to a 'new Camelot' already. Innumerable 'new dawns'. Lazy, lazy, complacent hyperbole. Let's hope for something more... substantial.)

Good luck, though. It would be a really cynical bastard that didn't will Obama to live up to at least some of the hype.

Trickle down is melting?

2008-11-03T20:49:00.000Z

A brilliant article from Simon Schama in today's Guardian.

I love Simon Schama, even when I disagree with him, which happily doesn't happen that often. He's just that right amount of completely barmy. And he writes 'on the edge', by which I mean in this instance 'very nearly over-the-top'. It's the closest I've ever read a historian emulating Angela Carter, which sums it up nicely, I think.

But there was one passage in particular I liked here:

The Bush presidency is the spectre haunting the feast in more than tactics. Although every conservative administration since Ronald Reagan has promised to deliver, through supply-side stimulation, economic growth without bloated deficits, they have never been vindicated in their blind faith in what Bush senior once rashly called "voodoo economics". Consistently, they have brought the US Wall Street crashes and recessions along with massive deficits; and yet somehow, the stake that history attempts to drive through the heart of their economic theology never puts the ghoul away.

No weight of evidence to the contrary has ever shaken the totemic belief that tax cuts can grow the economy robustly enough to compensate for drastic shortfalls in revenue. George W Bush clung to this belief even as the Clinton budget surplus was converted into a mountainous deficit, and John McCain continues to parrot the same belief with the shining face of a true believer.

And about time, too. I've lost patience, you see, with whatever misguided notions of 'neutrality' stop the press in this country, that country (and mine own, too), from blowing the whistle on this bullshit. For more than thirty years, from Thatcher and Regan and Mulroney to Cameron, McCain and Harper, right-wing politicians have foisted the lie that tax cuts, trickle-down, 'supple-side' economics stand any chance of working for any one but the very richest in our society at the expense of everyone else.

It is a lie. My first day of Economics 101 lectures at U of T they told us this. Well, first week. It can't be that big a secret.

Parliamentary privilege stops MPs from saying so, but why is the media so apparently happy to repeat these lies as legitimate 'policy', I wonder? (Ok, stupid question, I know. Sorry)

Anyway, good on you, Simon. Keep it up and all that.

Monsters in America

2008-11-02T16:23:00.000Z

I've been too busy to post here for ages, but I found this -- very worthily -- doing the rounds and thought I'd like to bask in some of its ridiculous, but somehow strangely apt, glory:

JibJab - Frankenstein for President!

(Thanks to Magia Posthuma -- an excellent blog on the real history of vampires, by the way -- for posting it on from Frakensteinia, which I've never come across before but also looks curiously worthy of exploration...)

In reality? Obama strikes me as vampire-like, without all the capitalist overtones (the slightly exotic charmer?), McCain a werewolf (it's the eyes), Biden as Frankenstein (again, due to nothing more insightful than remarkable verisimilitude).

And Palin? Pit bull hockey mom?

Did you see Dead Set?

Mr. Romero, I think we've identified your next project.

Sweet Victory.... ish.

2008-10-22T15:37:00.000+01:00

'Marx popular amid credit crunch'

So. Well well well. Not to be one to say 'We told you so...'

Karl Marx is back in fashion, says one German publisher, who attributes his new popularity to the economic crisis.

That's great, except isn't saying that Marx is 'back in fashion' demonstrating, first and foremost, a fundamental lack of appreciation for his concept of commodity fetishism?

"It's definitely in vogue right now," said the publisher's director Joern Schuetrumpf.

"The financial crisis brought us a huge bump."

Apparently so. The kids this season won't be caught dead without a hardback, gold-leafed copy of Das Kapital in their Gucci rucksacks and their diamond-studded, Arctic fox fur Cossack hats.

Unfettered capitalism is sooo 2007.

STOP IT stop it stop it stop it

2008-10-21T22:58:00.000+01:00

The BBC, especially. But everyone, PLEASE, stop asking for listeners'/readers'/viewers' opinions on things. We know shit, absolutely nada, and cannot be trusted. Haven't you worked that out already?

'Call in, write in, email us with your views' should never, ever, be heard on the airwaves again. If I want to whiff the ignorant, ill-informed, lienteric stools of the great incontinent masses, I'll hit the blogosphere, thanks a heap. :-)

When I listen to the BBC -- the BBfuckingC, fer Christ's sake! -- I want insight. Analysis. People with letters after their names. Respected leaders, movers and shakers, nattering on, explaining things. Even if they themselves are full of shit, I want to hear them spew that shit themselves. (Line up government ministers, bankers, regulators... the lot.) I don't really want to hear, nor particularly trust, Nick Robinson or other self-important reporters, but they, for now, are inevitable. What I certainly don't want is 'You, the Viewer.'

It's not that I'm elitist. It's not that I think I know more than everyone else. I don't call/write in to these things because I know that I know nothing, and I don't want to take up the very limited airwaves with my own uninformed drivel. That's why God invented the Internet and the blogosphere -- a public lavatory for ideas. And it's not like I believe everything I'm told by experts and specialists -- on the contrary, I don't believe most of it. But I want the chance to hear what I don't believe at least from someone who has some illusory pretext for having said opinion, who has thought about it for more than the minute of that particular news story. Especially when we're talking about this financial crisis. I don't get it all and, as I've argued elsewhere, I'm not sure that the banker-boys get it either, but I have no doubt whatsoever that 'Jon from Hackney' and 'Sue from Gateshead' know absolutely squat.

Ok. I think I've done all this before, and, like, within the last two or three months. Which shows I've either run out of things to say, or that this is one of things that especially pisses me off. If I don't write here ever again, you'll know why.

And here are Mitchell and Webb on the same issue. See? Experts do things much better. I'll keep my amateurish bile in cyber-space, so long as the pros do this good a job...

Quick Question

2008-10-15T16:01:00.000+01:00

Ok. Who voted for this guy? Show of hands, please.

Muppets.

Seriously. I would really like one of the hand-up-their-ass animated socks who bestowed their sacred privilege to vote on this clown to write in and tell me what, in the name of something I can't fathom, made them do it. I don't care what else you say; insult my mother, threaten my pets, tell me where to stick it, what to eat. Whatever. Just tell me why.

My fault, really, for being so smug a couple of weeks ago. I watched the (English language) debate, and was actually quite pleased. Seriously, hold your chuckles. I heard a lot of shit, yeah, and a lot of lying and posturing (why did every leader start their discussion of arts funding with a catalogue of which instruments are played by various distant relatives?!? 'I can't read music, but my wife plays harpsichord... [no pun intended, unless someone can come up with a good one]'), but I realised that the level of debate in Canada isn't half bad. Well, compared with the UK consensus politics, where three parties are fighting over the same minuscule plot of land -- you know the one, that bit with an expectant hole and marked by a granite rock engraved with the word 'Thatcher'. And when compared of course with the Mickey-Minnie routine happening south of the border -- which to be fair is more interesting this year than it has been in the past.

What I saw in that debate were four leaders with some decent ideas, representing the centre-left (more centre but we're getting there) and one monkey who kept bashing his head against the button that said 'No comment', which apparently to 37.63% of Canadians sounds like Henry V. And so that 37.63% of you voted for the monkey. Muppets.

Maybe I need some perspective. It was only 37.63%. Scary, but could be worse. If the centre-left got itself organised, they would be a small, small opposition party. So there's hope, BUT only if...

If we are going to have real, serious debate in Canada, we need to get rid of this 'vote for a King' first-past-the-post system and organise a proper system of proportional representation. It really saddened me that the NDP seems to have abandoned that policy this time around (is Jack getting as delusional as the rest? Say it ain't so, Jack!), leaving Green leader Elizabeth May to make the argument on her own (and gaining some moral high ground, if not some seats, in the process).

PR will make our government representative, and make government work. Let's get on it and make it all matter for a change. (It might even do something to help that record low turnout pundits will wring their hearts about for a few days.)

But do I blame Harper? the smug, vacuous asshole blowing a foul wind across the Prairies? No. Anyone (just about) can run for public office in Canada. So, a big Medieval Torture Tour of Canada for another two or three years. The fruits of Canadian land and labour to be thrown at all of those who voted Conservative yesterday, a sentence to last until your next opportunity to get it right, i.e. when Harper reckons he might get another majority. (If you want to avoid that, by the way, insist that Canadian federal elections be run on a system of proportional represention? Please?)

What do we throw at these straw-brained democrats? In the interest of regional diversity, and to have fun with stereotypes, let's make the punishment provincially-specific. Logs up the asses of right-wing British Columbians. Wheat blighted by plague for Saskatchewan (50%+ of you voted Conservative! you've come a long way from the CCF, and it's not good!) Stinking cow-flesh at Albertans -- who are for me only saved from being chucked out of the federation by the Good Folks of Edmonton-Strathcona. Southern Ontario breaks my heart, and it's boring old fruit for you, I'm afraid. I wish we could do something special for the 905, like making you go away. Maybe the best thing would be for Toronto, finally, to secede, to leave you to stew in your own vacuity. (Though more NDP would have been nice, Toronto. Look down the road. Hamilton can help, yes.) Rotting cod for the Newfoundlanders... oh wait. They didn't elect a single Conservative to Parliament. That should put an end to 'Newfie jokes'... let's just hope they don't realise how stupid the rest of us are.

'Have you heard the one about the 37.63% of Mainlanders? They voted for Harper! Those idiots!'

Yes, I laugh, too.

2008-10-07T11:32:00.000+01:00

Excretera is feeling too mired in the shit lately, the bad kind, wading through the unremitting stench of American elections, the downfall of capitalism, etc. etc., AND now, to cap it all, I've finally been struck down by the Freshers' Flu. (What a dirty little bunch of snotty germ-bags first years are. Best avoided. Ew.)

So into this mucky-yucky haze of unreality I found myself Sunday night convalescing in front of the TV watching a repeat of a Graham Norton show (when else would you watch a Graham Norton show?), with special guests Harry Shearer -- yup, him off The Simpsons -- and Eddie Izzard. And you know, I forgot just how incredibly funny Eddie Izzard can be.

Proof, if it were needed, in the clip below, which I've played more than two dozen times from YouTube since Graham used it in his show. Apparently, you've all already seen it already -- 5 million of you have viewed this, though it might only be the same dozen or so over and over and over again (like the counter on this blog... it's just me logging in from different computers, really. I know it). But, for those of you who might have missed it, here it is.

It's a Lego dramatisation of an Eddie Izzard stand-up routine on Star Wars. I would love to add my own insightful commentary, on how it is a remarkable imposition of our mundane, bureaucratic reality into a world of fairy tale and omnipotent fantasy ('I can kill catering with a thought!'), but since that is Izzard's point already I'll shut up and just let him do it.

'Jeff Vader'. Oh! That reminds me. An update is called for on my 'Star-Wars-instead-of-Sunday-School' lessons for my boys. Watch this space...

United Socialist State Republic of America

2008-10-04T11:32:00.000+01:00

Hardly.

This from the pile of 'want to read' newspapers beside my bed, finally being recycled after a long and busy week.

It's not a remarkably original article, but Monbiot very neatly reminds us that the US is not a free market, that it only 'works' -- such as it does -- because of vast amounts of corporate welfare. That public money, taxes primarily from the poorest, is always used in the US (and Europe, too) to support and bail out and subsidise the richest and the largest companies.

I love way so many of the American free-marketeers are falling into Cold-War relapse over this.

According to Senator Jim Bunning, the proposal to purchase $700bn of dodgy debt by the US government was "financial socialism, it is un-American". The economics professor Nouriel Roubini called George Bush, Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke "a troika of Bolsheviks who turned the USA into the United Socialist State Republic of America". Bill Perkins, the venture capitalist who took out an ad in the New York Times attacking the plan, called it "trickle-down communism".

A lovely collection of images, no? I mean, totally mad, obviously. But... [and here's the second paragraph]:

They are wrong. Any subsidies eventually given to the monster banks of Wall Street will be as American as apple pie and obesity. The sums demanded may be unprecedented, but there is nothing new about the principle: corporate welfare is a consistent feature of advanced capitalism. Only one thing has changed: Congress has been forced to confront its contradictions.

What follows is a pretty thorough picking over of the evidence to back all this up. Very Chomsky-like, which is high-praise by any standard. So I heartily recommend the rest of the article, notwithstanding some legitimate criticisms of Monbiot on the Anarchist Writers blog: they made him their Muppet of the Week for his misunderstanding of what 'anarchism' really means (though surely anarchists need to target Greater Evils that that? well, I guess that's the difference between a 'muppet' and an 'asshole'); to which I say, yes, he should know better, so go do some homework and get that right but otherwise, good effort.

Dumb Dumber Dumberest

2008-10-03T11:02:00.000+01:00

Could it be that, finally, Americans are starting to tire of the suffocation of debate and dampening of expectations that has led to idle-brained idiots like George Bush Jr. and (maybe) Sarah Palin getting within a sniff of the White House?

Bush claimed victory after debates only because he remembered to turn up, not fall over anything, memorise a handful of 60 second, meaningless anecdotes and... well, that was about it, wasn't it? As long as he didn't fuck up in some way so obvious that even Fox News couldn't re-spin it as an valid interpretation of the facts (e.g. he knew that Iraq is somewhere in the Mid-East, Idaho is in the Mid-West, Canada's up there that way and Mexico down there somewhere), he could claim a victory.

And I've never really bought the whole Obama=change thing -- do even Democrats? does anyone? does anyone really care how Obama sells himself, as long as he wins that election? -- but I'd be really curious to discover how McCain and Palin sell themselves on that same empty mantra of 'change'. Enlighten me, please, someone. Becasuse it seems that right now in the White House we've already got a pro-War, anti-abortion, oil-mad, root-tootin'-shootin', planet-hating, evolution-denying fundamentalist -- yes! why do Islamic religious nuts get called 'fundamentalist' and Christian religious nuts (most of whom believe in the same shit anyway) get called 'evangelical'? Let's call a spade a fuckin' shovel from now on -- folksy-charmer with an aversion to foreign travel and 'details'... I'm sorry. So the difference is where, again, exactly?

Sarah Palin is less of a pig in lipstick than she is Bush Jr. in a dress. And I know which one I'd rather kiss.

Sorry. Another stating the bleedin' obvious blog entry. I seem to specialise in that lately. There are better blogs out there with real news about what's happening in America. Go read those. I need to do this everyone once and a while. For my health, you understand. I need to let it out.

Erumpo, ergo sum.

An end to it

2008-09-20T09:40:00.000+01:00

Everyone can now put to rest forever, I think, the idea that I am a class-snob with the news that I have decided to unashamedly like Vampire Weekend. I think this should provide ample proof of my open-mindedness, regardless of any previous pronouncements, such as my firm belief that any one who has attended Eton should be banned from public office (sit down Mr. Johnson, Mr. Cameron) and that anality is the defining characteristic of the upper classes (based on the formula money=shit).

I mean, I still don't like VW as much as I like the Arctic Monkeys, which should go without saying really and should offer sufficient succour to those that fear I am being seduced by Tommy Hilfilger's new Autumn collection. I would still burn Tommy Hilfiger clothes on sight, naturally -- it's just with Vampire Weekend, mostly thanks to 'A-Punk', I would allow Ezra Koenig to change into something more appropriate to a popular musician before poured the gasoline.

I still retain the option to change my mind, of course. And if there next albumn is shit, or they decide somewhere down the line to go all medieval mandolin, singing songs in Middle English about knights' underpants -- and let's remember they just get away with the harpsicord as it is -- then I will say I always knew it, that such frat-boy, trust-fund rock was inevitably going to suck.

A few statements of the frickin' obvious

2008-09-18T23:53:00.000+01:00

Sorry. Just need to get this off my chest. But I think we can all agree now a few basics:

Capitalism does not work -- market forces cannot sustain themselves. (Points awarded to Bakunin, I think. That means it's been a century and a half and political debate has yet to clue in...)

The market is immoral. The invisible hand wields one very sharp, fucking brutal knife with the expertise of a blind butcher in a bee-swarm.

Bankers, investors and financial organisations do not act in the public interest. They only act in the interests of greed for the few, and will always do so. When prevented from doing so, they will fight to be permitted to do so. Like a toddler who wants chocolate ice cream, then more chocolate ice cream, blames you when he feels sick, vomits in your hair and then insists you serve him more ice cream.

Don't feel bad if you don't understand the mechanisms of global capitalism. The traders in the City and on Wall St. don't either.

The political debate in the UK is on par with school-yard taunts heard at the 'finest', i.e. most exclusive, public schools. It's all very manipulative but essentially chummy and there's actually very little substance behind the words because nobody has a clue what is actually going on beyond the very high walls that shelter the privileged little shits from the scary world outside...

... but it still looks like Plato's Academy when compared with the medieval squabbling that is going on in the US. (Canada is in the middle of a general election... I'll get back to you.)

As bad as things are, if we leave it to the the Conservatives, in the UK, in Canada, and the Republicans in the US to try to right this mess it will only be a fuck of a lot worse.

That is all. And I do apologise. Completely self-indulgent. Nobody with a functioning brain need have read that.

In praise of...

2008-09-16T22:56:00.000+01:00

Most people who read this blog (yes, both of you) will already know this, but for the others that might happen across these humble offerings, maybe from Canada (are you listening?), you might not have heard about Ben Goldacre so I implore you, go to his website, Bad Science, and just revel in the first rate journalism and arguments.

He really has renewed my faith in empiricism and science itself -- well, given me faith in empiricism and science, which I was never too big on, to be honest. He gives rationalism a good name. And in pointing out the bullshit that tries too often to pass itself off as truth, he demonstrates how capitalists, in the shape of Big Pill Companies and the popular media, operate as skilled snake-oil salesmen of the most damaging sort.

Just go. Read the blog. Buy the book. Wear the t-shirt. (No shit! You really can...)

That's my public service for the month. Back to being a cynical, sniping asshole.

I give up...

2008-09-11T09:54:00.000+01:00

Exasperated Thursday morning. What can I say?

!!

She's powerful. She's evil. She's, perhaps, the anti-Christ. Moose-hunting, gun-totin', flag-wavin', elitist, economic fantasist, God-loving', anti-rational misogynist -- yes! she hates women! make no mistake... at least, she hates women as much as, though perhaps in a different way, than this lot:

Really? I mean really? I mean, plastic, ok sure. I get that. But a doll? with a choice of a man's suit, a Lara Croft outfit or a school-girl uniform?

(Think of the middle aged Republican men... in their pressed suits... oh christ.)

I'm off to donate some more money to the SETI project. We're getting pretty desperate now.

Only American capitalists and the tabloid media could make me feel sorry for that ignorant, corrupt, reactionary politician. (I say 'politician' of course because irrespective of gender, she is all of those things, though I accept that you cannot look at her as a 'politician' irrespective of gender. The fact that she is a young woman would have been her one redeeming quality in this election that already has an impressive record of beating the living shit out of young women, IF it wasn't for the fact that the only reason she is there is that because she is a young woman... We're just never going to get it right, are we? We don't need feminism any more? oh, I think there's a way to go yet, don't you?)

The Guardian has the same report here. I don't know what it is -- they use the same pictures and interview, but maybe it's just when wrapped in The Guardian's warm, wooly liberal jumper, the irony becomes more evident than in that ITV, irony-free offering...

Scary things...

2008-09-05T10:07:00.001+01:00

...late at night, after hockey practice. I can never sleep after training, I'm too wound up, even at one in the morning. My best bet is to sit on the couch with a cup of peppermint tea and watch BBC News 24 until sleep just grabs me. I don't fight it.

So the other night I'm drifting in and out of consciousness, on the couch with a hot water bottle on my back, and I open my eyes long enough to become aware of my surroundings to see John McCain droning on at me with a 27-inch head. Why, I wonder, do all Republican presidential nominees have something so undeniably of the monkey about them? In the cold light of day -- well, I say 'light', but this being Sheffield, there's actually not much of that around at the moment -- I realise its some sort of sublimation, an unconscious acknowledgement on the part of Bible-wielding Republicans that yes, Darwin was right, and we'll prove it to you by offering the world endless opportunities to examine glaring evidence of man's lineage.

But what was even scarier, the other night, was the whole performance of the convention, where we were presented once again not only with irrefutable proof of natural selection (and that it doesn't work in the US), but that there is an undeniably . If anyone had any doubts of America's Imperialist credentials, last week one Presidential candidate -- the nice, lefty one, at that -- stands before Roman columns and addresses his followers in a toga and crowned with a wreath of olive leaves. (I might have dreamed some of that.) This week, we get a funny little man standing before a crowd hysterical with adoration, all being seduced by inflamatory, hate-filled rhetoric and supporting all sorts of right-wing policies that promise to make a Once Great Nation great again by going to war.

Sound familiar?

Ok ok ok. A cheap shot. And not a very original point. And I'm realising that it's hardly a point I need to make. Because the RNC doesn't look like this, does it? But, in the twin-cities of St. Paul-Nuremberg, we are getting to see the Republican-American version of this sort of nationalism -- a laissez-faire fascism. (You like that? I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with it. Any more authoritative citations would be appreciated.) The policies, the hate, the fear, the penchant for fetishism, while decrying others' 'deprived' sexual practices; the crowd's cheers are all very America uber-alles (USA! USA!). But, this being America, of course there's no one forcing anyone into this compliance.

It all reminds me of that scene in The Life of Brian, you know?

I love that. Anyway, I particularly wish to applaud that man a few rows up, waving the placard that read: 'Peace Through Strength!' Alas, he must of been standing in front of the man with the 'Truth Through Lies' sign. And an honourable mention to the 21-year-old university student I heard interviewed the next morning on Radio 4 who, when asked why she supported McCain, responded 'Because he shares the values I hold most dear: protection for the unborn, freedom...' at which point she ran out of steam. Maybe she forgot the rest, but really, what more did she need to say?

Sorry if I'm not accompanying this rant with some intelligent analyses. I would cast my psychoanalytic-eye over the lot of them but well, I'm too busy at the minute to go out and buy a new throw for my couch.

Thomas King's Medicine River

2008-09-03T22:11:00.000+01:00

A review I put up on goodreads on Thomas King's Medicine River.

Medicine River by Thomas King

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Really terrific novel. After reading Thomas King's Green Grass, Running Water I had very high expectations. This was a very different book, but no less enjoyable. While Green Grass, Running Water played decadently with meta-texts and inter-texts and was very upfront on its dealings with the Big Ideas, this book is much more subtle and understated, but as effective and, in many ways, does the same sort of thing, only not so loud.

The principle characters in Green Grass were flamboyant, grabbing the narrative and tossing it around wantonly, here we get Will, who so often seems to the one being grabbed and dragged and tossed about.

But at the heart of both texts is the trickster. In Green Grass, we get Coyote and Changing Woman and the Lone Ranger, Hawkeye, Ishmael and Robinson Crusoe (and a particularly mischievous narrator) ripping stories, past and present, to pieces, leaving Noah and John Wayne and others stunned and castrated and confused. In Medicine River this role is subtly staged by Harlen Bigbear. Like the trickster in Green Grass, Harlen trips through the text, trying to make good and set things right and create the world as it should be, and like a trickster it rarely, if ever, goes to plan, but somehow all works in the end as it should, according to some unwritten, easy code of righteousness, justice and balance.

So, Medicine River doesn't come with the bells and whistles of Green Grass, but there is a different joy to be had in its subtlety, the way it does so much without seeming every to try. Terrific.

(Incidentally, if you live in Southern Ontario, Thomas King is running in a by-election for the NDP in Guelph. Visit their site here and support him -- we need people like this in government!)

Another slice of tofu, anyone...?

2008-08-20T14:25:00.000+01:00

We're all going to have to go Veggie soon.

This article from today's front page of The Guardian:

Revealed: the massive scale of UK's water consumption

A vegetarian diet we all already know is better than a meat-based one for Oh! so very many reasons. Here's the numbers in terms of water:

Different diets have different water footprints. A meat and dairy-based diet consumes about 5,000 litres of virtual water a day while a vegetarian diet uses about 2,000 litres.

Before I get too smug, though, there are some other disturbing facts on water consumption here.

That's excretera's public service message for the day. Happy munching.

Another sec...

2008-08-16T00:14:00.000+01:00

Back to the Russian-Georgia-South-Ossetia-USA mess.

Another useful, insightful article. This time from the New Statesman:

'Superpower Swoop' by Misha Glenny

On the one hand, says Glenny, 'Clearly, Russia has been goading and provoking the Georgian government for several years into making the big mistake.' But the US has also been playing its part, the neo-con hawks (lead by the always off-target Cheney) lobbying the Georgian government and allowing them to 'believe the farcical proposition that Georgia's armed forces could take on the military might of their northern neighbour in a conventional fight and win.'

Why? 'For the Bush administration (or for its hawks at least), the Georgian mistake presents an opportunity - let us recast Russia as a threat to global stability and a potential enemy.' In addition to reviving the Cold War paranoia that is so effective in governing America (remember the Project for the New American Century, where many of the neo-cons sharpened their claws), this has the added advantage, Glenny explains, in an election year: by shifting the focus from the economy (where Obama has the advantage) to foreign policy (where McCain has the advantage, inexpicably, since his foreign policy is the same as Bush's, which Americans profess to now despise) the Republicans are trying to ensure at least (gulp!) four more years of the same, Bush-by-proxy.

And don't forget the implications for Ukraine and Iran. Read the article.

PS. Incidentally, Jonah (now 3 -- Happy Birthday!) loves hearing all about this on the news. Everytime someone on the radio or television mentions 'Georgia' he thinks they are talking about his cousin. He thinks she must be very famous.

PPS. Explaing to Will the idea of 'bodies' (as in '... were pulled from the rubble', '... were laid out in a make-shift morgue') is a little more complex.

Schandmentel is back!...

2008-08-14T11:03:00.001+01:00

For THIS guy!

Look at that. A face at which even a mother would like to throw rotten fruit. Medieval torture was designed with this guy in mind.

This is Dr. Tim Leunig, Lecturer in Economic History at LSE. He is also works for right wing think -- and I use the term loosely -- tank Policy Exchange. Now, normally I don't want to subject members of right wing think tanks to medieval forms of humiliation and torture (I just secretly hope that their caves collapse, burying them alive), but yesterday this fellow released a report, Cities Unlimited, calling for people, or rather the unemployed, to abandon Northern English cities, where regeneration projects have failed or are pointless because ... well, they're all Northerners, aren't they?... and instead move all these people down South, where they can all fly somewhere else more easily. (So, he hates the environment at least as much as he hates people, it seems.) And no, that's not an unfair paraphrasing. Check out the BBC report here.

Specifically, the report urges the expansion of Cambridge and Oxford, because obviously there are just thousands of unfilled academic posts, just waiting for the Sheffield's ex-steel workers and Liverpool's ex-dockers. And, really, who wouldn't rather live in Cambridge or Oxford?!? This guy makes a brain drain seem like a really good idea.

But, hold those vegetables for a moment and consider just how remarkably courageous a proposal this is to bring forward. Only a brave, radical thinker, a thinker so far tunnelled into the vast anal cavities of Oxbridge that all humanity has drained away into the darkness, could have come up with such an idea.

Now, here's the cruncher: he's right, you know. The report says that cities such as Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield expanded greatly in the 19th century, to meet the demands of the economy, the industry -- the mode of production -- of the time. Now, we have a new economy, a new mode of production that no longer requires vast numbers of people -- did I say 'people'? I mean labour -- in industrial areas; vast numbers of cheap, available labour are now required in the heart of those economies dedicated to the new knowledge/service economy, to keep low the cost of other commodities needed there (lattes, sandwiches, clean toilets, Tesco's shopping trollies).

So Leunig is right. IF you regard people as nothing more than labour, commodities to be kept cheap and readily available in a capitalist economy. IF living breathing humans mean nothing more to you than statistics in economic history books, or figures on balance sheets that prop up the profits of shareholders. IF you regard communities as collections of labour, and not places where people live, i.e. enjoy an existence that is beyond their utilitarian value to the economy. IF, in other words, you are an inhumane, Gollum-twinned number-cruncher -- or a lecturer in economic history, it seems -- who has no relationship to fellow humans (or maybe just Northeners) as something akin to cattle, or machines, or coffee beans: commodities that must be kept cheap and available.

In my other life, as a psychoanalytic literary/cultural critic, we have all sort of words to describe such a psychopathology, any of which might fit here: sociopath, depersonalisation, psychopath, normotic, schizoid, conservative capitalist asshole... take your pick.

So, I sentence Dr. Leunig to a Schandmental Tour of Northern England! Let them throw rotten turnips at him in Carlisle, potatoes in Newcastle, cabbage in Sheffield and tomatoes in Liverpool (they are the European Capital of Culture this year, after all).

But maybe we're being harsh. Dr. Leunig is an academic. An intellectual. And so as a man dedicated to the revelation of Truth I'm sure he would be more than happy to discuss these ideas and explain to us his reasoning in more detail. I notice his LSE faculty page helpfully provides his contact details. So why not give him a call at +44 (0)20 7955 7857 or fax at +44 (0)20 7955 7730. Or perhaps you would like to send him some thoughts via email -- which is t.leunig@lse.ac.uk; perhaps you'd like to send him some pictures of your local community (some very very large photos, that take up lots of room on his server), and I'm sure he'd be more than happy to help find you accommodation in the new boroughs of Cambridge and Oxford he wishes to construct.

Hold on a sec...

2008-08-13T20:52:00.000+01:00

Ok. I'm no expert on all the mess that's going on in Georgia. (That's Georgia, in the Caucasus, not the state in America... I don't know if the rumours are true about Southern confusion, but Canadians have learned not to take anything for granted when it comes to the intelligence, or otherwise, of our southern neighbours.) However, I'm not liking a lot of what I hear.

Russia is hardly innocent. Certainly not a angelic defender of the rights and freedoms of the South Ossetians. I don't like superpowers, and I don't trust them. (Until, that is, Canada is a superpower, but I can hardly reveal that plan to you here, could I? By the way, any one remember the Canadian World Domination Home Page? Long gone, it seems, but happily remembered relic of the Early Web.)

But I also don't like the (mostly) narrow-minded, clichéd reporting of the conflict that I'm hearing, mostly from a Western media that, let's be honest, isn't world renowned for its Powers-That-Be busting, sceptical stance to the official truth.

In fact, it seems to me that the press have been suddenly awoken from a surreal Olympic dream to discover that, Oh! It's 1985. Or 1968, or 1956. Whatever. And yes, I can see Imperialistic aspiration at work in Russian actions. BUT, but but but... well. I'm no expert. But here are some links to stories I've read that offer a little balance, a slightly different perspective.

Mark Almond on Saturda y: Plucky Little Georgia? No, the Cold War Reading Won't Wash
Jonathan Steele on Monday: This is No Pipeline War But An Assault on Russian Influence
Simon Jenkins on Wednesday: Bush Rebuking Russia? Putin Must Be Splitting His Sides

Olympics again...

2008-08-12T21:47:00.000+01:00

I'm totally addicted to the Olympics(TM), already, as ever. This, despite the contempt in which I hold the entire, bloated, consumerist enterprise. I hate myself, really, but nothing new there. I found myself watching weightlifting with Will and Jonah today -- weightlifting! Really. Not exactly an enthralling spectator sport. But I'm a hopeless procrastinator, desperate for any crumbs of televisual distractions for my hyperactive pre-schoolers that I can rationalise in any twisted way as being Good for them. You know, international sport, learning about different countries and all that. No. I don't really believe it either.

This weekend, Marina Hyde wrote a neat comment piece in The Guardian on why, fundamentally, the Olympics are despicable and morally corrupt. It's raises some of the same issues I did months ago, though this being Marina Hyde, it's much wittier and cleverer than I could manage here.

I can't be bothered to write about everything that pisses me off about the Olympics. The sport itself is fine, though why the BBC brings us dressage and archery and shooting and not fencing I don't know. And I hate the medal table: it is fundamentally wrong that a gold medal earned by a single man splashing around a pool for 60 seconds is weighted the same as, say, a gold medal earned by a full team-squad that struggles through a whole tournament of 90 minute games... oh. Now, see? You've got me started.

But I won't tolerate any talk of 'Olympic values', as they were once conceived. Commercialisation and (then) professionalisation make it very clear what the Olympics value. Picking Beijing as the host city, makes it even more clear. The elevation of individual achievement over team achievement, the awarding of the games to a country that efficiently deal with 'security issues'... there's little left to admire, really. Vacuous calls for World Peace? PLEASE!

Note to the BBC and everyone else: Let me just waste my time watching humans push themselves to silly extremes peacefully, without all the notions of nobility and honour. Just let me enjoy the orgy of capitalism and sport and self-loathing.

Magia Posthuma

2008-08-08T21:47:00.000+01:00

After nearly two months away -- Canada and various campsites around the UK -- I'm dipping back, catching up with some reading. And making some new discoveries, so I thought I'd announce my blog-return with something new. I can't even remember where I got tipped to this, but I found reading Magia Posthuma very interesting. (If anyone can remind me who pointed this out, I would happy to credit it.)

Magia Posthuma is a blog dedicated to the study of vampires, but not in a vulgar, another-goth- freak-thinking-death-is-cool sort of way. As the blog's mission statement makes clear, it's about contextualising the idea of the vampire in the social and cultural history of knowledge.

It is the sort of history, the sort of project, that Foucault would applaud, and one that I find particularly fascinating. Just look at this summary, from the blog's sidebar:

Magia Posthuma is the title of a book written by the Catholic lawyer Karl Ferdinand von Schertz in 1704. In the book von Schertz examines the case of a spectre that roamed about and harmed the living. Several of these cases were known in Moravia where von Schertz published his book, as well as in neighbouring areas. Only two decades later, a similar case was investigated by Austrian officials in North Eastern Serbia. The local people called the spectre a vampire. This incident inspired the deacon Michael Ranft to publish a study on the mastication of the dead. Just a few years later, in 1732, another case of vampirism was investigated in Serbia. Reports of this investigation were published throughout Europe with the consequence that the interest in vampires exploded. Vampires became the topic of numerous learned articles and books. Cases of magia posthuma or vampirism, however, kept occurring. In 1755 empress Maria Theresa aided by her court physician Gerard van Swieten began passing laws against the exhumation and destruction of corpses as well as other acts of superstition.

Terrific, isn't it? Another example of a delicious disconnect in Enlightenment thinking. When totally ridiculous, impossible phantasies pass themselves off as rationally, even scientifically viable. Like spiritualism in the 19th century, or trickle-down economics in the twentieth.

Anyway. More on vampires to follow shortly.

Are we really so fragile?

2008-06-12T10:42:00.000+01:00

Yup. I do believe that we are. But remember, the next time someone complains about 'being Canadian means only not being American', that that is exactly the point. Back in the mid-19th century, after failed Fenian invasions and before the debate between capitalist and socialist health care, some men with terrifically ridiculous facial hair said, 'We don't want to be them! Who's with us?' and the not-necessarily-so proud Dominion of Canada was born. (Apparently, things might be shifting on this... I'll let you know when I check in back home next week.)

But I'll take that sort of ribbing from Colbert any time. He's my favourite neo-conservative asshole. Well, the only one I don't want to punch in the face. Which, again, is the point, I know.

[Note for British people who might be wondering: it's like ITV buying the rights to the Match of the Day song. It would be like Manchester United obtaining the exclusive rights to sing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' at Old Trafford. That bad, yes.]

Oh well. I'll miss the theme, of course. And I don't even think that the media has gone over the top with this one (though TSN's 'CTV saves "The Hockey Theme" Song' was a wonderful piece of attempted spin, even if it didn't really reflect the general mood.)

We will recover.

The Great Book of bathroom Graffiti, Interlude?

2008-06-06T11:43:00.000+01:00

What's with the dearth of quality bathroom scribblings in this day and age? This, today:

Reality is made of ants.

Very poor. Well, not bad. But have people stopped thinking while they shit? (And, if so, what are they doing?) Are witticisms being constricted? is it something we're eating? What happened to the art?

I'm starting to think that life is like a shit sandwich
Because it seems to me the more bread you've got, the less shit you have to eat
And why can't people commit random acts of kindness, and senseless acts of beauty?
You know, like Ramone and Louise, 100% true love forever?

That's the Lowest of the Low again. In what public forums are young men finding the place to smear their wasteful thoughts?...

... asks he who is 3 months into his new blog...

What a tragedy! The collateral damage of Web 2.0 are clean toilet stalls? I want my money back.

Still, I'm off to the Old Country in a week -- Home of Sneaky Dees, Capital of the Porcelain Literati. The site of classics like

God's Dead.
Nietzsche.

Nietzsche's Dead.
God.

...and

Jesus Saves!
(... but Gretzky gets the rebound!)

I'm coming home, Toronto. Don't let me down.

What? Really?!?

2008-05-27T16:56:00.000+01:00

File under 'Oh My! Haven't Things Changed!'

Apparently, the Communist Party in Russia is complaining about anti-Soviet propaganda in the new Indiana Jones film. (Here for the BBC report, here for a Toronto Star article.) You can read about it at the Communist Party's website; I can't, because it's in Russian and I don't understand Russian, but I loved the look of it. (It's where I got this picture.) It was the vision of.... sweet nostalgia.

The Star explains:

Russian Communist party members condemned the new Indiana Jones' film on Friday as crude anti-Soviet propaganda that distorted history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens.
...
"What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame," said Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.

One is tempted to ask whether they bothered to wait for the translation. Chuckle, chuckle.

But, I mean, really? Complaining that the Western capitalists distort history, and calling for a ban? They have no 'shame'? Oh, please! What happened to the days when they simply wouldn't let the fetishised commodities of American capitalist pigs' Cultural Imperialism anywhere near the People's Screens, and in silent retaliation fund a insurgency movement in a Latin American country lead by a US puppet regime?

(It almost makes one nostalgic for the 1980s and the Cold War. Almost. No.)

Is this the end of history as we know it?