Bucket Of Tongues

End of Blog

2009-11-19T21:16:00.003+08:00

I really don't think I'll be able to keep on with this blog any more. Things are happening in my personal life and career that will make keeping it going too time-consuming. It's been a real pleasure, but there comes a time when you have to prioritise, and this is the least pertinent to my current needs.

If you liked reading me, you'll probably enjoy:

Darren's View From The Couch

Wardog

The Secret Diary of a Scout Leader

Between the Hammer and the Anvil

I hope I'll be able to pick this up sometime. Until then... ciao.

Scottish Football

2009-11-15T07:04:00.002+08:00

Destroyed 3-0 by Wales. Can it get any worse than this?

Dear William

2009-11-14T18:10:00.002+08:00

A message to William Carlos Williams:

Review - Zombieland

2009-11-12T10:41:00.005+08:00

Zombies are surprisingly useful satirical devices, for shuffling undead cannibals. George Romero mocked consumer brainlessness in Day of the Dead, while Shaun of the Dead sent up everyday banality. Zombieland takes a slightly different tack, starting after the zombie apocalypse, where isolated paranoid individuals are left to defend themselves in a lawless violent world. Zombieland combines this premise with a gleeful mocking of modern life, celebrity and pop culture, making it a great (post)modern zombie flick

Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, a nerdish, neurotic everyman stranded in post-apocalyptic America. His deadpan narration as he sets out the rules for survival (well illustrated with bloody zombie deaths) sets the ironic tone for the rest of the film. Meeting Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson reprising his Natural Born Killers role of Southern badass), the two make a typically odd couple (Columbus notes “I’m his Sancho Panza”), killing zombies and searching for twinkies. But when they meet sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and the twelve year-old Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), they decide to head on for Hollywood and an amusement park – what else would you do in an empty country?

Deciding to visit “a real A-listers” house in Hollywood, we are treated to one of the best cameos in recent cinema. It’s a perfect spoof of fame and celebrity – with tough-guy Tallahassee reduced to gushing tributes, and Wichita laughing at an especially unfortunate moment - "This guy, he gets me every time!"

Columbus overcomes his clown phobia, wins some respect and draws some heart-warming moral lessons to end the film. Zombieland may be short in real horror (there’s none of the claustrophobic tension of Night of the Living Dead), but with its satirical intentions all on the surface, it’s a welcome addition to the zombie canon.

Cormack's Theory of Musical Progression

2009-11-09T21:25:00.007+08:00

I would like to postulate my theory on how music acts progress and develop, and why, in general, later albums nearly always suck in comparison with early ones.

If we look at album groups (acts who manage to stay together for more than three albums, let's say), there are three types of act:

1. Groups who make the same basic album over and over again. AC/DC, for example. Iron Maiden have two basic styles: heavy metal which is kinda punky or kinda proggy. Marillion never strayed far from their basic template. Morrissey has been a solo artist for three times as long as he was in The Smiths, and although he sounds more inspired at some times than others, Moz's songs remains the same. Portishead are Portishead are Portishead. The Ramones have never been anything other than The Ramones. Electronica acts like Orbital don't change much, even when they manage to string a few albums together. Boards of Canada spend years refining their albums, but it's still essentially the same kind of album. The Rolling Stones haven't done anything new since Mick Taylor left.

Groups like this - they work within the basic framework outlined in their early work. Sometimes a later album is really good, if they are challenged or emotionally adrenalised, but mostly it's their early work that gets people going, when it was freshest.

Such (successful) acts are quite rare - it's hard to do the same thing over and over with great conviction.

2. Groups who use music to articulate. These groups are the rarest. They're the real artists - who use music to express a vision, or some specific content. I'm thinking of The Beatles, the Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan. Take Pink Floyd for example - the increasing bitterness of post-Dark Side of the Moon is perfectly reflected in the aggressive guitars, in Water's dark cynical lyrics, and the sharpened song-structures. Kraftwerk, of course, constructed sound pictures on aspects of modern life, whether computers, travel, or machines. The Beatles combined form and content in astonishingly articulate, imaginative, immediate pieces that rightly make them acclaimed as the best rock group ever. (Who else could do "I Am The Walrus", "Revolution" and "Martha My Dear" in just over one year?)

These groups develop organically during their career. Often their later albums are better than their earlier ones, but not always. They know what they want to say and how to say it. They are rightly lauded as the best in their field.

3. Groups who have an idea... and that's it. This is the vast majority of groups, in my opinion. Acts who have an initial burst of inspiration, have a collection vision, who articulate something new and urgent and expressive. Maybe it's a new form altogether (c.f. Roni Size's groundbreaking drum and bass album called, ahem, New Forms), maybe it's a synthesis of two or more inspirations, maybe it's just making it faster or slower or harder or more complex or darker or whatever.

They've got an angle of some kind, some new sound - so they get popular. They can release more albums. But... whatever inspiration they had has dried up. No fault of theirs - such inspiration is a rare thing, and comes and goes with whimsical abruptness. Maybe they can refine their previous vision, but they, like most human beings, want to progress and develop. So what do they end up doing? They end up with craft, with pop. Whatever was raw, edgy, new and exciting becomes more refined, mature, professional... and dead. Rock music is by nature transgressive - it pushes at and goes beyond the boundaries (which is why the dirty sound of the electric guitar defines rock music). Rock music which stays within known boundaries is dead as dodo shit.

Take as an example Belle and Sebastian, perhaps the best Scottish group of the last twenty years. Their first albums did indeed articulate something new, something unique - poetic, literate, understated yet rich tales of failure, loss and childhood. Great stuff; some remarkable albums. But once this seam had been mined, they turned to Trevor Horn, who gave them a professional sheen, a more confident sound... and lost what had been so special about them in the first place. The group playing "The Boys Are Back In Town" (!!!) from their Live At The BBC album is a confident, professional rock band, with nothing unique about them at all. All the rough edges has been smoothed out, and all their character.

Or, from another angle, The Stranglers. A savagely aggressive pub rock band gets all mature and produces songs like "La Folie" and "Golden Brown". Mike Oldfield - a distinct musical vision, as seen in Tubular Bells, is gradually diminished and diluted album by album (even his side-length later pieces like "Crises" are visionless, crafted pieces), leading to pop tunes like "Moonlight Shadow" and "Family Man". Nice and all, but... Public Image Ltd, meanwhile, show one of the clearest bifurcations between early abrasion and dissonance, and later poppy-hooky tunes:

REM, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Tricky, Roxy Music, Moby, U2, Metallica (who as they can't go pop instead cannibalise themselves - anyone telling you Death Magnetic is a "return to form" is deluding themselves), Oasis, Gang of Four, Hebie Hancock, Manic Street Preachers (a classic case), Pearl Jam, Madness (who actually did it rather well), Stevie Wonder, Animal Collective, Add N To (X), New Order, Blondie, Black Sabbath, Genesis, The Buzzcocks - it happened to all of them. Sometimes they may even do it well, as I've suggested with Madness; Animal Collective are certainly having more success than ever. But whatever was new, unique and glorious... it's gone.

To continually create (not to produce) is the hardest task in any artform. That we have groups of the calibre of the ones I listed at #2 is a minor miracle in itself. Go listen!

Epic Tale

2009-11-08T11:22:00.003+08:00

My razor-shredded throat wrenched a lung-destroying cough from my sandpaper windpipe. My nostrils were stuffed full of fibre-glass, my head beaten by a Brazilian samba ensemble and the drummer from Megadeth. I tore open my gluey eyelashes, whereupon sunlight-spears eviscerated my retinas. I groaned in a manly, silent agony, shielding the worries from my nearest and dearest, who were gathered round in a candle-lit vigil, singing hymns and praying. I heroically made it to the bathroom, retching phlegm like an Victorian consumption victim in the final throes of the gruesome disease, and endured the vicious onslaught of nostril-evacuation. I returned to my hard, unyielding bed, and surrendered myself to the course of the brutal viral infection rampaging through my weakened body.

Man-flu. It's a pisser.

Guns Don't Kill People, People Do

2009-11-06T10:49:00.004+08:00

Tell that to the familes of the twelve dead.

How long will it take for Americans to get some gun control? The unholy list of atrocites grows longer and longer and longer. But when some nutjobs go to public meetings (on healthcare, no less!) with guns visibly strapped to their ankles because they can, you have to fear that America is condemned to further such incidents. And it's the lack of suprise that's the worst thing about it.

Writing

2009-11-05T22:54:00.002+08:00

I've always wanted to be a writer, but it's one of those jobs where many are called and few are chosen. Contacts and (let's be frank) nepotism play a big part - when did you ever see a job advert for a magazine writer, for a film or music reviewer? Any idiot with a computer and some ready-made opinions can babble about stuff, after all. (It's called "the blogosphere").

However I'm pleased to say that I am now writing for the good people of Tianjin Plus and its sister magazine, Business Tianjin, as their Contributing Editor. No doubt this here blog will have less updates than before, but I'll see how it goes.

PAEDO DANGER part 2

2009-11-02T18:56:00.005+08:00

Just when you thought PAEDO DANGER couldn't get any worse: now visits by schoolchildren to pensioners are having to close down because of the need for vetting.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Mark Lewis, responsible for community work at Millfield School, said home visits had been abandoned after they were advised the elderly and the pupils would have to be checked.

“The idea of going round for a friendly chat, running off to get the newspaper or befriending them in that way is finished,” he said. “We now only visit nursing homes.”

Another cup of milk of human kindness turns sour. Another valuable tradition ruined by petty bureaucracy and priggish do-gooding.

Although Obnoxio The Clown is running on the point that both pensioners and children would have to be vetted, he obviously didn't read to the end of the story, where it quotes a DCFS spokesman saying, “Unless there were special circumstances, such as the elderly person being particularly vulnerable or if the volunteering included some form of caring on a frequent or intensive basis, these informal arrangements won't be covered by the vetting and barring scheme. No CRB check will therefore be needed.”

Which doesn't make a great deal of difference, ultimately. But, hey! At least the kids are safe, from... eh... you know...

A Systemic Analysis of "Hey Jude"

2009-11-01T19:03:00.003+08:00

Hat-tip to Obnoxio the Clown.

YOU WHAT?

2009-10-30T22:07:00.003+08:00

You know how sometimes you are talking with someone and suddenly you become aware of the vast yawning gap that seperates you? (Don't you?! It really can't just be me... I hope). It happened to me today.

I was talking with a early-20s guy from Canada about Bob Dylan. I said I'd been making a concerted effort with Bob, and really rather liked albums such as "Nashville Skyline" (the one with Lay Lady Lay). He started saying how much he liked The Band, and let me listen to a track on his i-Pod ("Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"). I liked the thin trebly sound which reminded of the Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" album and said, "The guitarist reminds me of Lou Reed".

He said, "Lou Reed? Who's Lou Reed?"

A world fell away.

Blair Blocked for Big Boss Bash

2009-10-30T13:34:00.005+08:00

The Guardian is leading on Tony Blair's prospect of being European Union president "sinking". Typically, much of the debate about this was viewed through an exclusively British prism - especially the discomfiture of Gordon Brown or David Cameron having to deal with Blair, in what EU leaders want to be an important role. (The reduction of important institutional developments to BLAIR vs BROWN and BLAIR vs CAMERON tells you everything you need to know about British media).

But the EU has its own self regard. It has a communitaire ideal, which wants to set aside "narrow" national interests for the greater good of the union as a whole, and give strong representation to the smaller member-states. (Which is why Luxembourgeois politicians are so popular on the Commission). It isn't so much who's the biggest hitter, but who has worked with the EU?

Judged on this, Britain continually falls down. The key quote comes from Jean-David Levitte, who is Sarkozy's senior foreign affairs adviser (think Charles Powell). He said: "The UK is not in the eurozone, nor in the Schengen [free travel area in the EU] and it has a number of opt outs. These are not advantageous in this search for a candidate."

Two-speed European Union? Here is is. Welcome to the slow lane.

New Blog

2009-10-30T00:12:00.002+08:00

There's a new blog in town. A friend of mine, whose film and TV knowledge dwarfs that of any other sentient being bestriding the known universe, has started a blog about his likes and loves, his hates and hope, his idle rantings and his idolatrous virgin-before-Christ enchantments, on the small and the big screen. I've never met anyone with whom I could trade Withnail and I dialogue with such crucial accuracy before this bloke. (His Simpsons impressions are ROFL-inducing).

So, without any further ado, ladeeez uhn gennlemen, please check out Darren's Thoughts From The Couch.

(Can I have that fiver now?)

Can You See Children? You're a PAEDOPHILE

2009-10-29T09:55:00.003+08:00

British attitudes towards children verge on the schizophrenic. On the one hand, we seem to want them to grow up as soon as possible: children habitually view adult-orientated programs like South Park or watch films that would, twenty years back, have been called video nasties, with nary a glimmer of a complaint. They increasingly attend "parties" - proms are increasingly popular, another American import I could do without. Alcohol consumption amongst young teens is rampant. The fabled secret island of childhood, according to child psychologists, no longer exists. Children are launched into an adult world far sooner than is good for them, with sexualised clothes, school-stress, consumer-anxiety, and access to information at their fingertips. (How many kids have computers in their bedrooms now? A very high proportion, I would wager, based on my experiences as a Scout leader and a high-school teacher). We know these things aren't good for kids, but they are an extension of adult desires, and we only have ourselves to blame for them.

On the other hand, we seek to protect children to a degree that would surely seem ludicrous to prior generations. We can apparently do something about paedophiles, and so child safety in any public context becomes a stand-in for our anxieties. Everyone seems to know that the vast majority of child abuse comes from trusted, known people, particularly relatives, yet the narrative of stranger abduction retains a powerful hold on the public imagination, after the terrible case of the Soham Murders, amongst others.

Child "safety" laws and practises have long since breached the farcical and beomce grotesque. Rather than making children safe, they assume that every adult in the slightest contact with a child needs state clearance - thanks to the Independent Safeguarding Authority. The presumption of guilt is a clear breach of all that is right about British law.

The latest misguided attempt to ensure child safety is Watford mayor Dorothy Thornhill, who has barred parents "from watching their own children enjoy two council-run adventure play areas because they have not been vetted by police." Explaining the policy, the mayor said, "Sadly, in today's climate, you can’t have adults walking around unchecked in a children’s playground."

Of course not! They might have X-Ray vision and be able to see under the kids clothes! They might have a CAMERA! They might obtain their email addresses and WHO KNOWS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN THEN!

Jeezus. What's become of us?

State of Blogging 2009

2009-10-28T10:38:00.004+08:00

Although it's an American website, can I draw your attention to Technorati, and its State of the Blogosphere 2009 reports? They have done a great analysis of the hows and whys and whos of the US blogging world. There are some interesting stats and pie-charts for the mathematically-minded among us (such as Jeff). Here are some which I have, ahem, previewed for you.

Communitarianism

2009-10-27T12:18:00.005+08:00

Communitarianism is a philosophy that "emphasizes the role of the community in defining and shaping individuals. Communitarians believe that the value of community is not sufficiently recognized in liberal theories of justice". It's a refutation of existentialism, that adolescent wrong-headed idea that we are utterly free and utterly isolated (see also: punk; Sartre; Alexander Trocchi). Communitarianism sees the individual as socially constructed, rather than adhering to the "Robinson Crusoe" isolated-individual-in-the-world idea which permeates classic liberalism, existentialism, American capitalism and right-wing ideologies in general - without the Marxist baggage of communism. (Not that I want to decry Marx: he was a towering genius, and his "Communist Manifesto" remains one of the finest piece of political writing ever produced. But he belongs to an earlier age).

As I've got older, this view of the world becomes more and more true to me. "No man is an island" and all that - we are within a social context which shapes us profoundly. Maybe it is an age thing - as an adolescent you kick against the boundaries of school and parent, and so anything about freedom seems cool to you. Rock music, existentialism, jazz, whatever floats your boat. Later on, as your perspective increases, you realise how generational everything is, and that those unique feelings you had were the exact same as your parents had gone through; christ, even your teachers! You are not alone, as MJ said: it's all an endless procession of age and stage.

I also became aware of how much knowledge was passed down from generation to generation. Before I became a teacher, I decided to see if I could get on with kids without wanting to kill them and so volunteered as a Scout leader, having been a Scout myself when younger. Passing down all my (minimal) Scouting skills, and encouraging and enabling the kids to have the same kind of fun as I had had, were fantastic. But more than that, these things showed me the importance of social relations in forming who you are. Someone in a good context will almost always come out a good person; and sadly the reverse it true also.

What's this got to do with anything? Well, I for one think that a future political opposition will be framed liberal/communitarian. The left-right label is looking increasingly shopworn, especially when no party outside the fringes fundamentally disagrees with current economic ideas. (Of course there are differences in emphasis or strategy, but the essentials of a mixed economy and free-market enterprise remain. No major politician is arguing for mass nationalisations, or indeed mass privatisations, any more).

Gordon Brown evidently believes in the role of the state in reducing inequality etc. He's an centralising, étatique man. The state intervenes on economic and on social issues: what matters is what the government decides. Cameron on the other hand seems to be the other way, seeing the state as inefficient in allocating resources, and pointing out the clumsiness of government in handling numerous tragic cases. He is (or will be) a curious mixture of Milton Friedman on economics and Edmund Burke on social matters. He wants to reduce the size of government, but also wants to improve social problems. The state (I would argue rightly) is seen as causing more problems than it solves here, so he can't centralise more powers to himself. Hence his interest in "Nudge" and "The Tipping Point", which look at changing behaviours without recourse to law or state power.

In Britain today we have emphasised personal freedom over almost every other goal. It goes well with the consumer society, but it's deeper than that: a result of the death of God, who promised Heaven for self-denial. But I would argue this pursuit of (negative) freedom has gone too far. We need to emphasise the community (not the state!) and remember the wisdom and social benefits that come from a strong community. We also need to remember that the community is not the state, and that people are able to make their own decisions.

Take some recent examples. The ludicrous case of two policewomen who operated a kind of mutual child-care system, where one watched the other's child when not working: what right had the state to get involved? Of course, Health and Safety, bla-bla-bla - but have we really got to the point where the state decided about babysitting? And what about that terrible case of Fiona Pilkington? A stronger community would be able to intervene without fear of arrest. In fact, a stronger community would not have let such a situation arise.

What I'm trying to say is that social condemnation is much stronger than anything the state can offer. A society bound together only by law is doomed. A society which has a dense set of norms, traditions, punishments and rewards is much stronger. Sadly, we as a nation have spent the last thirty years eroding these, in pursuit of economic and social freedom, and misguided ideas of law and order. In fact these aspects of a community are to be cherished. They are the glue that holds communities together. Without them, they wither like plants in polluted soil: which, sadly, seems to be the case for too many parts of Britain.

Rangers Football Club

2009-10-26T08:13:00.007+08:00

As a Scottish football fan, I am genuinely saddened to hear of the financial strife in which Rangers finds itself. Personal interest - I am a Celtic fan, and have been since I can remember paying attention to football, which I think was the 85-86 season. (So I supported the team through the dreadful early 90s era of Cambuslang and Carl Muggleton - no gloryhunter accusations please..!).

The quality of a team is determined the strength of the teams it beats. A weakened Rangers team only (further) weakens the strength of the SPL, and by implication Scottish football as a whole. I would much rather Celtic beat a quality Rangers team, such as that in the early 2000s, when they had Van Bronkhorst (one of the finest player to grace Scottish pitches in the last twenty years) and Numan.

Now the report is that the banks have been placed in charge of Rangers, with Donald Muir from Lloyds TSB placed on the board to "assist" them in reducing their £30m debt. This comes after David Murray's company, Murray International Holdings, delayed publishing its annual accounts for six months, which can only raise suspicions about its ability to sustain Rangers' debt.

Rangers' financial problems have been gathering for some time. The entire squad is effectively up for sale; there have been no transfers for a year; and Walter Smith, Ally McCoist and others are coming to the end of their contracts and have been offered no extensions. A large downsizing looks entirely likely - it's not so much that the debt is so disproportionate to turnover (around 66%), but that Rangers continually make losses. With the banks themselves deep in the mire, there's no more "understanding" loan managers.

I do not want to gloat; schadenfreude is no good thing. Rangers predicament mirrors that of Scottish club football in general. As I said in a previous post (here), the problem is with the structure of European football, which minimises real competition and acts as an oligarchy, the rule of the powerful. A setup designed to profit the strongest teams in Europe can only ever be monopolistic, eviscerating the strength of the lesser leagues. And so the great teams of the smaller leagues, such as Ajax, Benfica and Anderlecht are floundering in "the slow lane" of European football.

It does not have to be a major disaster for Rangers. A renewed emphasis on youth football, on training and selling players for a profit, would be a good thing. It's an indictment that Scottish clubs sell so few players for a profit - just compare with the Dutch league! I can only hope that the days of buying aging foreign journeymen and letting them take all the money out of the game in wages and "amortisation" (depreciation of value, to you and me) are over. We can see all too well the effects of this on the dearth of talent for the Scottish national team.

The days of playing stupid have got to be over. Scottish football as a whole depends on it.

Talent Shows

2009-10-24T22:55:00.005+08:00

I have the misfortune to be currently watching (having gouged into my eyeballs) a Chinese talent show, because one of my wife's friends, an American guy, is on it. You think Britain's Got Talent or The X-Factor is bad? (Well, I hope you do...) Well, this is excruciating.

The audience all have China flags, pandering to base nationalism (think Downing Street, May 2nd, 1997), and they clap during songs in a completely a-rhythmical, I'm-having-fun-at-a-school-pantomime kinda way. Sound effects come courtesy of a Talbot Rothwell Carry On circa 1973 (i.e.: "wah-wah-wah..."). "Smooth" guys sing to bland, mechanical r n' b. Some performer have military uniforms on - probably singing about the great peacefulness of the Chinese army which is increasing expenditure at over 10% a year. Groups of hand-picked little girls dance about the stage to provide "impromptu" backings to individual performances.

Right, time to listen to something a bit more edgy - where's my copy of Aphex Twin's Ventolin?

BNP on Question Time

2009-10-22T08:40:00.004+08:00

I'm really in two minds about the BNP being on Question Time. On the one hand, they are repugnant, vile, fascist etc - let's not be in any doubt about that. They might be trying to position themselves as championing the white working-classes in Britain, who they argue have been abandoned by Labour. (It's not just the white working class who Labour ignore - it's the working class in general.) But they want to halt all immigration, repatriate "immigrants" (who might well be British, but they mean coloured people, of course) and "restor[e]... the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948". Such lunacy stands self-condemned, and it's right that the BNP is reviled.

However, sadly, they seem to be becoming more popular electorally, with two MEPs, and fifty-three councillors (out of twenty-one thousand in the UK). The debate is: should they be acknowledged and challenged head-on, or ostracised and reviled?

Hegel said somewhere, "All that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real.". The BNP are self-evidently irrational. Expose them to the light of exposure and argument, and the fears, paranoia and vapours which they feed off might well shrivel up and die. Excluding the BNP from the democratic process means their arguments go unanswered, their ludicrous claims and pre-war nostalgia unchallenged. Articulating it exposes it for the folly it is.

But, then, as G.W. Bush proves, many people aren't rational in their choice of vote. Fear is a tremendous motivator. And in a time of rising unemployment and a steady haemorrage of manufacturing jobs which formerly kept C2DE voters going, the BNP are finding some encouragement.

So, are the BBC right to invite Griffin? Overall, I think yes. Expose him and his grotesque policies for the absurdities they are. Mel Brooks had the right idea about fascism - laugh it out of town.

The Fat Lady Has Sung

2009-10-21T22:31:00.003+08:00

The hoary old cliche says "It ain't over until the fat lady sings." Well, for British banks, there's a woman of large proportions in Threadneedle Street giving it the old Whitney Houston. Mervyn King's speech yesterday was, for the understated world of international finance, a Molotov cocktail of aggressive intent lobbed directly at its target.

Labour have, predictably, been utterly supine towards big finance. Angela Merkel, from right-wing Christian Democrats has been trying to drum up EU-wide support on capping bank bonuses, while the (allegedly) centre-left Labour government under one G. Brown have been blocking it. (Yeah, that's right. Can't piss off the bankers.)

So to read the Governor of the Bank of England's words was quite wonderful. Not everyone has been taken in by the lure of money!

To paraphrase a great wartime leader, never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many. And, one might add, so far with little real reform.

Anyone who proposed giving government guarantees to retail depositors and other creditors, and then suggested that such funding could be used to finance highly risky and speculative activities, would be thought rather unworldly. But that is where we now are.

[I]t is in our collective interest to reduce the dependence of so many households and businesses on so few institutions that engage in so many risky activities.

The sheer creative imagination of the financial sector to think up new ways of taking risk will in the end, I believe, force us to confront the 'too important to fail' question.

Nicely put. So will the banks be broken up? Gordon Brown was asked about it at PMQs today by Nick Clegg. He dodged the question. A fitting comment on his stewardship.

BNP Member List

2009-10-20T17:54:00.004+08:00

A list of BNP members, with their names, addresses and phone numbers has been published on the internet. (I'm no going to say which site - you can find that for yourself). It follows previous leaks of member lists in 2008, and of course comes with the hotly-disputed BBC Question Time appearance of Nick Griffin coming on Thursday.

I abhor fascism and fascists as much as the next person. As something of a World War II buff, I find it incredible that anyone could have any truck with such a vile ideology. But it cannot be right to have these lists made public knowledge. Everyone has the right to privacy, even horrible racists and fatuous "woe-is-the-white-man" Sun readers.

These people should be argued with, and condemned for their opinions. They should not be condemned as people - everyone has the possibility for redemption (to use that word outwith its religious connotations). No matter how much I might disagree with their opinions, they have them, and are entitled to have them, if they do not clash with the ethics of a profession such a medicine or teaching.

Posting their names and addresses robs them of their right to privacy. Rights cannot only apply to people with whom you agree. Otherwise you become something like Dick Cheney.

(Meanwhile, on a lighter note, here are some "BNP Babes").

Common Fisheries Policy

2009-10-20T07:58:00.005+08:00

Ask any Scottish fisherman what they think about the Common Fisheries Policy and watch as steam comes from their ears, fists are clenched and a deep sense of rage wells up from within. Supposed to maintain stocks by establishing quotas for fish which could be landed, the CFP failed completely - stocks are lower than ever, and caused bitter resentment as caught fish often had to be thrown back - even though they were already dead. A ludicrous 45% of cod caught last year was dumped overboard. Imagine seeing money not just slip through your hands, but having to voluntarily throw it away, and you'll have some idea of the strength of feeling against the CFP (and, indirectly, against the EU itself).

Finally in April the European Commission saw some sense and in effect scrapped the CFP. Now The Economist reports that Scotland is taking the lead in new policies which seem to be having a positive effect. Known spawning areas are avoided, as are areas with high concentrations of cod. In return fishermen are getting more days offshore. I can only hope the policy is effective. The days of abundance are long gone, but it's surely not impossible to devise a policy to maintain fish stocks without returning 45% of caught fish to the seas.

The Economist notes that fishing now counts for less than 1% of UK GDP. However, in some ways it's the equivalent of northern English mining communities - the industry holds the community together in far more ways than economically. Socially, a skipper is a man is some importance; towns like Peterhead, Fraserburgh and Buckie have a sense of self which comes from the industry. A long nexus of history and experience is contained within these towns. It would be a crime to let that die out.

(Here's a clip from Trawlermen, the BBC show which followed a group of boats operating out of Peterhead. Brave, hardy bastards, those fishermen).

Atlantic League Proposals

2009-10-19T11:57:00.003+08:00

It's not easy being a Scottish football fan. The national team have been in decline since about 1986, the standing of the league since 2002 and the withdrawal of the Sky money. We no longer seem to produce skillful players such as Davie Cooper or even intelligent ball-players such as Eammon Bannon, Jim Bett and Paul McStay. Getting beat 4-0 by Wales was a sore, sorry day that still causes cringes and twitches.

So there are often enquiries into what's going wrong, and league or administrative reorganisations. SFL, SFA and SPL - the fragmentation of control does no-one any favours. And now the talk is that Celtic and Rangers are too big for Scottish football and should participate in a mooted Atlantic league, with the top teams from Holland, Belgium, Sweden, even Portugal. The argument is that these countries all the same problem of a few dominating teams and consequent lack of competition, as they gain entry to the Champions League (and Champions League money). Surely it'd be better if all these teams (such as PSV, Benfica, AIK Stockholm and Anderlecht) played each other instead, leaving more competitive leagues behind them? And wouldn't fans of smaller teams such as Aberdeen or Hearts go more frequently if they had a chance of winning the league?

This is short-sighted in the extreme. Firstly, teams would mostly play to home fans only, as very very few people can travel to European games every week. National leagues have histories and rivalries that no European league could ever hope to replicate. It really does pain me to hear football men like Walter Smith saying that the Scottish league is no good - what, the league he's worked in for the vast majority of his footballing life? Far better to strengthen the league.

The problem is not national leagues per se (though Scottish football could obviously do with producing better players), but the structure of European football finances. The Champions League has become too big for its own good. It has utterly devalued the UEFA Cup (so that challenging English teams still in the competition after Xmas send out weakened teams, as possible Champions League is seen as far more important) and become an oligarchy, a cartel to suit the Real Madrids and Manchester Uniteds of the football world.

It would be far better to UEFA to distribute the Champions League money on a fair basis to the national associations. At the moment, it's done by share of TV pool - so that a Scottish team gets much less than, say, a Turkish or Ukrainian team, even though all would probably get knocked out at same stage. Even with this lesser amount, it's still a massive bonus - for Celtic, it counts for 20% of a turnover of £75m (from six games!). So smaller countries, even if their teams are as successful as teams from Germany or Spain or England get discriminated against in the rewards for the game, not for sporting reasons, but simply because they are from smaller countries! A better method to ensure the dominance of the bigger countries I can't think of. (Apart from Porto, the last "small country" team to win the champions League or European Cup was Ajax in 1995 - one small country in fifteen years!). So, the rewards for entering the Champions League should be the same for all, regardless of the size of TV market.

Similarly, as this is a UEFA competition, the money should be allocated to the league, not the individual clubs, and divided in a much fairer basis - in a similar manner as national TV deals, with 40% divided equally, and 40% divided by placing in the league the year previous. (20% could then be allocated to the lower league teams).

This would surely ensure the strength of the national leagues, would reduce the gross distortions of Champions League money (see this article for a Celtic fans take on the financial gulf) and ensure greater competition. That's why people love football - not to see endless processions of rich teams beating poorer teams. It's no coincidence that gates are significantly down in European games with mismatched teams.

Why can't this be done? Take a look at American football. I'm no lover of the game, but they surely have the right approach. To ensure maximum competition, the weakest teams one year receive the strongest players from the "draft" of college sports teams. They also have salary caps, based on league revenues, again preventing the distortions likely to prevent fair competition. (See also: Man City; Chelsea; Real Madrid; Shakhtar Donetsk).

The Atlantic League accepts these heinous problems as fixed. They are not; they are the result of UEFA abdicating its responsibility to ensure the strength of its competitions, in favour of appeasing the richest teams. No: the Champions League is a monstrous oligarchy which has ruined the competition in every domestic league. The monies must be radically redistributed, or football faces a lonely, boring, unwatched, unloved death.

Public Libraries: An Ode

2009-10-15T08:24:00.007+08:00

For various reasons, I was brought up in a single-parent family. My mum elected to stay at home and raise her four children rather than work, which I think was the right thing to do, but meant that money was tight. (I'm not saying we were poor when I was young, but "holidays" meant staying with different relatives for a week, and "new clothes" came when older cousins had outgrown theirs..!).

So entertainment was at a premium: no buying computer games or videos etc. Fortunately, I was always a reader, and my mum would take me to the public library every week or so. Now, the town we were living in was small, a mere 8000 or so people, so the library was hardly a thing of grandeur or autodidactical resonance: this was a small library in a hick town, with lots of Maeve Binchy, Judy Blume, and dross like that.

And yet..! Looking back, I'm often amazed at the quality of books which somehow managed to slip through the net. Somehow there was a remarkably broad selection, showing that whoever spent the book-buying budget had an eye for readers of all hues and stripe. It was there, for example, that I first read William S Burroughs, he of Naked Lunch and Queer and Junky. There I first read Martin Amis (there was only ever one novel of his, Success, which rather went over my head at age of fifteen, but whose prose stylistics I relished). James Kelman, probably the most important post-war Scottish writer I first encountered there - how, I don't know. I don't recall ever reading or hearing about him from anyone. But there on the shelves were The Burn, an awesomely moving collection of short stories, and A Disaffection, a bleak tale of a teacher at the end of his tether. Iain Banks: The Bridge was one of the most stunning books I'd (or have) ever read, a tri-partite narrative that gradually coheres into a single strand toward the end - a stunning piece of literary engineering, and a great, moving story of a man's movement through life. (There were also A Song of Stone and Whit, which seemed to prove the unreliability of inspiration). Then of cours there was Irvine Welsh, whose Trainspotting, The Acid House and Marabou Stork Nightmares I devoured, was engrossed by, and exhalted for some years after. (But, oh, the pity of his subsequent work...). EM Forster, DH Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Stephen King, Sue Townsend (whose Adrian Mole books are an unsurpassable comment on 80s Britain), Kafka... so many doors opened.

But that's just the fiction. It was in that there public library that I read numerous biographies of leading politicians, from Neil Kinnock to Charles de Gaulle, where as a heavy-metal obsessed young pup that I read books about the occult and Satanism (as you do), where I read about the Battle of Berlin and the darkest histories of World War II, discovered Schrodinger's cat, and learned MS-DOS. Amazing.

The music collection, too: I am to this day surprised by the sheer variety. You could take out a cassette for a fortnight for 50p as I recall. In this morally-dubious but aesthetically-acquisitive way, I, ahem, acquired albums as various as Slayer's Show No Mercy, The Very Best of John Coltrane, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, The Pixies' Dolittle, Poison's Flesh and Blood, The Black Crowes' Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, and so on. Amazing!

All of which, of course, opened innumerable doors for me. But, as importantly, they helped me feel that culture was as much there for me as for anyone else. You didn't need to have great amounts of money, all you needed was an open mind, a willingness to try out these books and albums. So, thanks be to public libraries, and especially to whoever spend Moray Council's library allocations budget.

Thank you.

Is War More Important than Healthcare?

2009-10-14T10:50:00.004+08:00

It sometimes amuses me how, when out of office, Republicans become stern financial conservatives, endlessly railing against government spending. Clinton managed to acheive budget surpluses, the first since 1969, but of course Bush, cutting taxes for the rich and fighting a ridiclous, pointless war in Iraq, reversed this trend.

Now President Obama is trying to push through an almost-universal healthcare program. It's generally opposed by Repblicans on the grounds of cost - estimated at $829bn. But how much has the war in Iraq cost the US?

$691bn and counting...

I know which one I'd rather have government spend money on.

China: World Leaders in Media Openness

2009-10-10T19:49:00.002+08:00

From the China Daily:

BEIJING: Chinese President Hu Jintao said Friday the Chinese government will safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of foreign news media and continue to facilitate foreign media coverage of China in accordance with the law.

"We will continue to make government affairs public, enhance information distribution, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of foreign news organizations and reporters, and facilitate foreign media coverage of China in accordance with China's laws and regulations," Hu said while addressing the World Media Summit in Beijing.

"We sincerely hope that media organizations from around the world can make new contribution to deepening the world's understanding of China, and helping consolidate and develop friendship between the Chinese people and those in the rest of the world."

Hu said the government has always attached great importance to the development of the media, encouraging the Chinese media to be close to national conditions, life and the masses, and to create new concepts, new content, new methods and new means in order to make the media more accessible, attractive and appealing.

The Chinese media are also encouraged to play a key role in beefing up healthy trends, reflecting social conditions and public opinions, orienting public focuses, soothing public dissatisfaction, ensuring supervision by public opinion, and safeguarding the public rights to information, participation in public affairs, expression and supervision.

Emphases by yours truly. Kind of says it all without me needing to comment more, huh?

Conservative Economic Pledges

2009-10-06T20:11:00.003+08:00

Having personally derided the Conservatives for a complete lack of policies, George Osbourne has today unveiled their economic manifesto for what woud be the whole next parliament. There are some substantialy weighty pledges in there, so let's take a quick look at them.

1. Scrap child trust funds for the wealthy. There's no detail on how "wealthy" you would have to be to miss out on them. But I fail to see why middle-class children would need these, anyway: they have the benefit of being able to inherit something from their parents, which most working-class kids wouldn't. (Hence the fervour about the inheritance tax pledge - it represents the Tories fundamentally, in that they want their children to have as many advantages as possible). But for a working-class kid, to have this money in the bank would be a great relief come college or university, or even moving out time. So I agree with this move.

2. Raise inheritance threshod to one million pounds. (This is more of an aspiration, it seems). Given Cameron's urgent search for the centre ground, this seems a bit of a strange one. But when you consider that with the ridiculous property bubble, a subtantia number of households in the south-east are worth around £1m, it makes sense. Also, as said above, it's a classic middle-class desire to give their children as much a headstart as possible. But it can be attacked as a tax break for the rich - it is, after all. Disagree.

3. Pay freeze for pubic sector workers earnign over £18,000. £18k? Now I know this is something like the average wage... but £18k is not by any means a comfortable income level. It's entry-level for any professional career, for example. This is going to cut the living standards of millions of workers, directly - no stealth here. I would support it on salaries above, say, £25k, but £18k seems very low to be taking a cut. Disagree.

4. Restore the tax dividend credit. I'm not entirely sure how much Brown's "pension tax raid" (as it is perenially called) affected the pensions undustry. But anecdotally, and thinking of the spate of companies ending final salary pensions, I woud guess it had a strongly negative impact. Pensions, and savings in general, in Britain are far below what they need to be, less than 5% of income (from memory). A shift from debt to savings woud not only help individuals, it'd help Britian PLC - as long as it encouraged individuals and corporations to save. Agree.

What do you think? Agree or disagree?

Referendum Quiz

2009-10-05T20:21:00.001+08:00

Q. When is a referendum not a referendum?

A. When it's a consultation.

Sexist Bullshit 2009

2009-10-05T02:04:00.001+08:00

Isn't this a piece of utterly offensive sexist crap? How do they get away with publishing such grotesque smears?

(Of course the story can't substantiate the headline at all. It focuses on sneers and carping jealousy against the Blairs. Meanwhile, has anyone written how much the executives of the Daily Mail receive? In 2008 the editor Paul Dacre received a 8% pay-raise to take him to £1.62m, while the chief executive of the Daily Mail Group received £1.87m. Meanwhile they sneer and crap at the EU president post receiving £270,000).

The Mail Group are grotesque hypocrites of the first order, stirring up the discontents of the struggling middling classes to further their own political aims. They are everything which is rancid and sour about Britain - the petty jealousies, the sneering, the class bitternesses, the hypocrisy and cant, the net curtain-twitching suspicion of others, the social-climbing pretension which they make out to be self-improvement.

What did Radiohead say? When I am King, you will be first aginst the wall...

Recent Reads #2

2009-10-04T23:57:00.006+08:00

I recently had to visit the UK, and took back as many books as I could squash into my baggage. I have been on something of a reading kick since then (then, I am always on a reading binge), so here's what I've been enjoying.

1. Churchill, by Roy Jenkins.

I intensely enjoy reading political biographies, diaries and memoirs, having read ones on or by Crossman, Foot, Thatcher, Kinnock, Major, Brown, Wilson, Ken Clarke, Jenkins, Healey, Hattersley, Blair, Alan Clark, even Julian Critchley (whose A Bag of Boiled Sweets is an inobtrusive delight). I say this not to boast but to establish the context that Jenkin's biography of Churchill is one of the best of them. Of course it helps that Churchill was in charge of Britain at such a life-or-death moment (what Jenkins calls "the terrible beauty of 1940"). But there's no doubt that Churchill was an astonishing specimen of humanity. No contemporary politician is remotely close to being as good a writer, for example, and his speeches contain phrases which will echo down the centuries. Jenkins takes a rather establishment approach to Churchill, following his political career far more closely than his family or personal relations. Also there's a real flabbiness to the prose - sentences have endless minor clauses which branch off hither and tither, subjects occasionally agreeing, diminishing the impact of the main verb. Also there's (to me) an exasperating profusion of Latin and French tags: surely nowadays we do not need them to buttress the writer's sense of superior intellect. They just bug the crap out of me. What Jenkins, however, does do well is evaluate each source for its partiality and reliablilty, which is important with someone as documented as Winston. All in all, a great, highly readable book.

2. Selected Letters of JRR Tolkien.

You may not be surprised, if you have read The Lord of the Rings, to learn that Tolkien was somewhat verbose. But my god! I appreciate that letter-writing is something of a lost art, but he could write letters like other people eat breakfast. It's also moderately shocking that a large number of the included letters are unsent drafts - letters of several thousand words which he decided not to send. Extremely garrulous and self-important or self-deprecatingly modest? Tolkien was an unusual combination of the two. When he received enquiries on aspects of LOTR, he could plunge into a deeply profound discussion of minor aspects of his cosmology. Yet he was unfailing modest, though his preface to LOTR is amusingly combative. Apart from sheer volume, his letters are of great interest. His letter to Milton Waldman, a 10,000 word exposition of his ongoing creation of the whole Middle Earth cosmology, must be one of the greatest literary letters of the Twentieth Century. However, if you're not a fan of Tolkien's works, these letters will be of no interest. Unlike Philip Larkin's letters, there's very little gossip, jokes or smut to interest the general reader. Tolkien's numerous fans should enjoy them, as long as they haven't just watched the films and thought they were cool.

3. Required Writing, by Philip Larkin

When Andrew Motion's biography of Larkin came out in 1994, there was rather a Larkin-backlash: his racism, addiction to pornography, virtual alcoholism and general unendearing traits, although implicit in a number of his poems, caused some revulsion. ("A fresh-peeled voice gone rancid", I remember one headline saying). But when I came to study his poems during Higher English the year after, I greeted him like an old friend. An old, grouchy, gloomy-tender, fiercely intelligent, lyrical friend, but a friend all the same, one who seemed to know how to make me laugh and sigh and cry. I've enjoyed reading anything he wrote ever since. (My favourite book might well be his letters, which provide the closest thing to a Larkin self-portrait). Required Writing, on the other hand, is a selection of his prose writing, divided into reminisces, writing in general and writing in particular. Most of these were commisioned works (for example, his introductions to Jill and The North Ship provide the bulk of his autobiography, along with two long-ish interviews; he reviewed books for the Guardian). There's therefore a dutifulness about them which is entirely absent in the Letters, which is far more ribald, personal and funny. (Hence the "required" of the title). However, Larkin's wide knowledge of jazz, Hardy, Yeats, Betjeman, Auden and others are clearly shown, and his ideas and opinions are expressed lucidly and with no little finesse. If only he could have cracked a few jokes!

Pics from China's National Day

2009-10-02T13:04:00.004+08:00

Some of the pictures from yesterday's National Day celebrations are stunning, whatever you may think of the government of the country. I've snaffled some of them for your viewing pleasure.

Wow.

China - This May Be Taboo

2009-10-02T01:22:00.003+08:00

I was watching the Chinese National Day celebrations today on TV (as you do... if you live in China, that is). What I saw this afternoon were two parts of the all-day celebrations - first the military display: numerous planes, helicopters, guns, tanks, nuclear missiles etc. (It was with a joyous heart that I learned that China is commited to never use nuclear weapons first and endeavours to ensure peace with all nations). It was familiar to anyone who'd seen an Armistice Day parade, though this was clearly about the assertion of strength rather than a sad memorial.

The second part was a vast parade, an enormous display which went past the gates of the Forbidden City, where the various member of the Chinese politbureau were ensconced. Impressively-choreographed floats and perfect grids of perhaps fifty people squared, each one representing some aspect of the marvellous new China, proceeded down the broad avenue. (Sorry if I sound cynical, but the panglossian emphasis on China's sheer wonderfulness strikes this observer as very odd indeed.) There was a parade representing China's ventures into outer space, one to each leader since the revolution, one on education, one for each of the provinces (including Taiwan). Each one was dutifully reported by the English speaking presenters (this was on the English language state TV channel, CCTV 9).

The one about "Chinese democracy" was especially interesting. Why? Because at that moment the sound feed suddenly reverted to Chinese, and only came back on when the next float came by. Evidently the Chinese state's description of its own positon on democracy is too delicate for foreigners to overhear.

Fortunately, my wife is Chinese and she translated it for me. It had stated that Chinese democracy is perfect, as it embodies the Chinese nation. Same with the legal system: both are perfect for China.

No wonder they changed the feed. No-one who had ever been outside China could ever say that without audibly gagging!

The Sun: Myth and Reality

2009-10-01T01:27:00.002+08:00

Can't help but feeling the loss of the Sun's support is less a deal for Labour than it was for the Tories back in 1997. It's the ITV of newspapers. It has lost one-third of its circulation since its 1996 peak. (OK, other newspapers are declining too, but it's notable that the Daily Mail's website is the biggest newspaper site, not the Sun's). Media in the UK is becoming increasingly diffuse. Since broadband has become standard, I know many people who now never buy a daily newspaper. The loyalty and hold of newspapers, like the mainstream TV channels, has declined substantially in the face of digital competition and the plethora of alternative news sources.

Also, on a different note, while the Sun was ostensibly a Labour paper, it continued to produce (or Trevor Kavanagh continued to produce, more to the point) sharply right-wing editorials. Has everyone forgotten the front page declaring Tony Blair "the most dangerous man in Britian"? The Sun has, since the late 1970s, been a right-wing newspaper. Everyone knows that. Its alliance with Labour was remarkable, but unsustainable.

Why is this a big deal? Because of the myth of 1992. Labour couldn't understand why it had lost the General Election from what seemed a favourable position, and took refuge in blaming the crowing Sun. The Sun wot won it? No. John Major, poor, decent, forgotten, John Major won it. More people voted Conservative in 1992 than for any party before or after - and that includes Tony Blair's two absurd landslides.

But still, it is another step in the sorry decline of Labour (I won't say "of Gordon Brown" because clearly the malaise is party-endemic), no matter how they may protest. It's actually nice to see Labour kicking into the Sun now. I just wish they had done it twelves years ago, when they had the chance.

Beijing: Locked Down

2009-09-30T14:04:00.001+08:00

Tomorrow (October 1st) is National Day in China, the equivalent of the American July 4th. It's the sixtieth anniversary of when Mao proclaimed the People's Republic of China from Tian'anmen Square, and so another chance for China to show its strength to the world after the Beijing Olympics last year. (It's called "an occasion for a rare display of national strength and pride after 30 years of reform and opening up" in Xinhua, the state news service, although quite how the public are supposed to get involved is unclear, as will be seen below).

Security measures are rigorous in the extreme. China Daily has a good feature on the various security procedures will close down central Beijing (especially, of course, Tian'anmen Square) on October 1st.

Traffic authorities will shut down many roads, mostly within the third ring road, for nearly the entire day on Thursday.

A total of 241 bus routes will also be affected today and Thursday. Some will cease operating, and others will take passengers on detours, the municipal transport authority said on its official website yesterday.

Subways will also be heavily affected, as Line 1 will stop operating between 11pm today and 3:30pm Thursday. Other subway lines will skip certain stations Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Beijing Capital International Airport will shut down for three hours starting from 9:30am Thursday.

Some 180 flights will be affected. The airport handles at least 1,000 flights per day, or at least one flight every minute.

So, if you somehow mabage to get there, by bicycle perhaps, you can still watc events from the square, right? Wrong.

Beside the difficulties of getting to the spot, only about 30,000 guests from the public are lucky enough to be invited to watch the parade or evening gala at Tian'anmen Square. The guests include representatives of residents living close to the square, said Ji Lin, vice-mayor of Beijing.

The capital's uninvited and those in other parts of China and the world have to compromise with watching the celebrations on TV.

Police suggest that Beijing residents try not to go out on Oct 1 to avoid complications. The public is recommended to watch the celebrations live on TV.

Iconic venues including the Forbidden City, Tian'anmen Rostrum, and the Great Hall of the People were sealed off at 3pm yesterday, and will reopen on Friday at the earliest, the Tian'anmen Square managing authority said.

Not taking any chances, are they?

Brown's Speech

2009-09-30T00:06:00.002+08:00

I couldn't watch Brown's speech to the Labour party conference, being in China and all - couldn't even find a live stream (I did look, I'm that much of a geek. I sometimes watch PMQ's this way or major HofC debates this way...). So going by the live blog provided by Andrew Sparrow at the Guardian (who I think is possibly even more of a politics nerd than I am), the speech seemed quite good. Although some of the policies had already been trailed beforehand, announcements such as fully democratising the House of Lords, restoring the link between pensions and earnings, and integrating the various care agencies all seem good, worthwhile policies.

Then Brown goes and throws something a bit leftfield - to put it mildly. I don't know yet exactly what he said yet, but the live blog said, "Teenagers on benefits will go into some network of supervised homes."

Come again?

"Teenagers on benefits will go into some network of supervised homes."

Ah, Prime Minister... are you sure you've thought this one out? It's rather... brave.

Welcome to Britain 2009. Next up: workhouses for the unemployed.

Britain Is Fucked Part II

2009-09-29T01:48:00.001+08:00

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this:

[T]wo police officers... were told they had to stop looking after each others' children or face prosecution.

Detective Constable Leanne Shepherd, from Milton Keynes, was warned by Ofsted that she could be prosecuted if she did not end the "illegal" reciprocal arrangement with her friend, DC Lucy Jarrett.

The women, both 32, have taken turns looking after each other's daughters twice a week for the last two and a half years while they worked a ten-hour shift at Aylesbury police station in Buckinghamshire.

However, the pair were reported to Ofsted by someone – thought to be a neighbour – and an investigation was launched. New legislation means that people who baby-sit for more than two hours at a time or on more than 14 days a year should be registered and follow childminder rules, including undertaking first aid training and following the so-called "nappy curriculum" for under-fives.

What did the relevant minister say? Did he say that these rules are an absurd folly and an ridiculous invasion of privacy, not to mention encroachment of the state? Can you guess?

The schools minister, Vernon Coaker, said: "The legislation laid out by the Childcare Act 2006 is in place to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children. However we need to be sure that the legislation does not penalise hard-working families."

I'm trying hard not be reactionary and think that all was rosy back in my day... but what kind of path have we gone down? What absurdities are being legislated and enforced? How is this on the statute book?

The Dollar Declines Slowly, Oh How Slowly

2009-09-29T00:10:00.002+08:00

Here's a damn interesting story: the World Bank president Robert Zoellick has said that the dollar will no longer be the world's default currency but must earn the trust of the financial markets, as the euro and Chinese reminbi become more popular.

Global financial developments like this are tectonic - nothing for years, perhaps decades, and then a savagely abrupt earthquake when new realities become apparent. However there are those whose ears are finely attuned to the undercurrent of forces. Zoellick must count as one.

US debt is remarkably large for a country which has been the world's sole superpower for almost twenty years. It is living off not only the products but also the savings of China. Obviously this can't continue indefinitely. China now has over $2 trillion of dollar holdings,and has long since passed the point where it feels forced to keep buying dollars, to prevent their holdings losing value. But how can this grossly assymetrical relationship be altered? Will it be a gradual, decline in US spending and consumer capacity, or a short-sharp-shock?

Basically, it comes down to: which US president will be the first to tell the voters that the party is over? Looking at the reaction to Obama wanting to put in even a limited public healthcare option, I would not bet on this happening any time soon. It would produce, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the rage of Caliban seeing his face in a mirror.

Public Debt

2009-09-28T01:50:00.002+08:00

David Cameron and George Osborne really should be taken out and shot. Their claim that the UK faced bankruptcy or having to call in the IMF a few months ago was a clear example of national short-selling.

The Economist magazine, that excellent and non-partisan publication, puts this into perspective.

Even with a massive deficit, UK national debt is projeced to peak at a level lower than that of USA or Japan, the world's first and second biggest economies.

These are uncertain times. But when the government is responsible for 40% of GDP, cutting goverment spending is the same as cutting economic activity. And will the savings recoup the subsequent costs in unemployment and associated social ills ?

British Press: The Best in the World

2009-09-27T23:12:00.001+08:00

Two things which might be connected.

1. Gordon Brown being asked if he's losing his sight, or on medication to help him with stress. This is really low. But when the British press smell blood, they really go for it, eh? I have an image of them being like slavering blood-hounds, hunting in merciless packs. It's not pretty. My respect for Andrew Marr, who I always thought of as a decent guy, has slipped several notches.

2. Journalists are the third-least trusted of all professions. 22% believe what they say.

Random Things That Annoy Me #2

2009-09-27T11:04:00.003+08:00

Number two in what I am sure will be a long-running series.

1. Footballers diving in the penalty box because there is "contact" (Robin Van Persie being a good example, at least for admitting it). God sake, stop being such pansies! You're supposed to go down if/when the opposing player makes you fall down, not because he touched you.

2. Politicians being in utter terror of the media and being frightened to say anything. There's such a myth of The Sun winning the 1992 election that politicians are terrified to say anything worthwhile in interviews. You've probably seen "Newsnight" or similar in which Alistair Darling or Yvette Cooper etc talk for five minutes and say NOTHING WORTHWHILE AT ALL.

Then there are newspaper interviews. The Guardian has had two in two consecutive days with Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson, each a classic in prevarication, equivocation and a complete failure to say anything worth mentioning. Complete pygmies, these people. They should be making a stand against the horrific Daily Mail/Daily Express lies, but they can't bring themselves to do it.

3. Pop music and Hollywood films today, both completely cannibalising themselves. Pop music often featuring not-very-subtle samples, or being straight covers. Hollywood remakes of classics which you know well in advance will be steaming piles of shite, and duly turn out to be so. Why was good money spent remaking The Wicker Man, and Get Carter? (Films which are all CGI, no character and no plot outside of a series of orchestrated explosions are as bad, of course. I almost walked out of the cinema during Transformers, and fell asleep during Pirates of the Carribean 2). Where is the creativity, the ideas, the passion, the soul which drove these industries to the top?

4. That will do for now. There will be more...

The UK Is Fucked

2009-09-27T01:15:00.001+08:00

Right, I've reached the point in my life where I believe that it's all fucked and going downhill/to the dogs/to hell in a handcart, or whatever cliche you want to use. I'm not thinking about the country being overrun by dodgy-looking eastern Europeans, or the youth of the day taking drugs and listening to funny music, or the EU ruling our green and pleasant land, or politicians troughing the public purse for all they can.

What's made me feel this way? This story about a school dinner lady who was sacked for helping a bullied child and mentioning it to the child's parents.

Sacked.

How insane is the current climate towards children? No-one sensible wants any harm done to any child. (Well, give or take a few... I've taught in secondary schools after all *KIDDING*). But the current trend, which comes not only from central government but also from local government, children's organisations like Scouts, and various NGOs, is insane. It completely emasculates the rights of adults to deal with issues as they think appropriate. Having to refer everything to the law and to the state is, as Alec Salmond once said, "an unpardonable folly".

I'm sure you can also think for yourself any number of incidents where well-meaning, probably upstanding individuals have gone to assist in incidents of bullying or assault, or intervened to stop vandalism or minor disturbances, and duly been punished for their efforts. In our efforts to protect children we are now actively punishing those who seek to do right. The notion of being a free citizen with the right to do as we see fit, within the context of the law, has been changed to a presumption of guilt unless proved otherwise. The state is not an enabling state (as once was, perhaps), but rather an oppressive Orwellian monolith. Bureaucrats now enforce legislation where all social relations are reduced to legal rights and obligations.

We are truly fucked.

On a lighter note, a fellow blogger (a good and worthy Scout leader, for his troubles) wrote a funny/pathetic story about sending the Scouts off on a game to get pictures of themselves in various poses or in a phone box, forming a human pyramid and so on. One pic was to be with a policeman, but as they couldn't find one, asked a traffic warden instead. His reply?

He refused on the grounds that "he couldn't be sure they were scouts (they were all in uniform, all 12 or under) and that they might post it on the internet or give it to terrorists."

*Shakes head in utter despair and wails a desperate groan at such savage stupidity*

Christianity

2009-09-26T22:05:00.001+08:00

My thoughts on Christianity are rather akin to this:

Thanks to the superlative b3ta.com, which is an endless source of bad jokes and inspired Photoshop lunacy.

Cormack's Law

2009-09-25T23:30:00.002+08:00

I first posted this as a comment on Tom Harris' blog, where he discusses an analysis of MPs' twittering. But I think it merits repeating.

I would like to proclaim an update of Godwin’s Law. Cormack’s Law states (1) that as an internet discussion on Twitter grows, the probability of the use of “twit” as a perjorative becomes 1.
and
(2) People who use “twit” in this way are morons.

That is all.

Back

2009-09-25T11:02:00.003+08:00

Guess who's back... Back again...

Internettage has been at a severe premium recently. I've changed flat and job, am expecting my first child and experienced a bereavement, and there's something of a proxy blackout here in China because of the imminent National Day celebrations. (Physical security is equally heightened. Think USA post-9/11).

I've struggled mightily and eventually managed to find a proxy. Hopefully it'll keep on working. I'm even considering paying for a secure proxy connection... maybe.

However, there's lots to say. But that'll have to wait until later...

Lack of Posts part XVI

2009-09-15T17:20:00.003+08:00

Sorry about the lack of posts, folks. Some family stuff is taking up a lot of time. You know how therse things go. Things like that make the internet seem very unimportant, really.

The Dark Horse

2009-08-28T23:52:00.004+08:00

One of the minor oddities about teaching English in China is that most Chinese choose an English name, sometimes based on a similarity of sound and sometimes just on a name they like. (I had a university student last year called Lolita - I circumspectly told her that it was an unusual choice because of the book and films of the same name. She just told me that she had read it, so there wasn't much I could say to that...) But sometimes when the kids are young and are new to the English biz they haven't chosen one. This happened in one of my classes recently, a group of seven- and eight-year old kids: so, taking the chance to exploit my Beatles addiction, I titled the two nameless boys John and Ringo, and the girl... Yoko. (Ahem).

So I taught that class for two months and, the course finished, prepared to pass them onto another teacher, a tall late-20s guy from New York state called Craig (not his real name). As well as the teaching staff, in the office there are a number of (Chinese) course monitors, who act as go-betweens for the students, teaching staff and fretful parents, and today the relevant course monitor was talking to Craig about the class. She mentioned John, who hadn't been the most enthusiastic of students - he would have been perfectly content to have been left alone the entire two-hour class and just day-dreamed the time away. So she said, "John doesn't really like English, but he's not too much trouble, he's quiet."Craig replied, "Wait, I thought George was the quiet one..?"

BA-DOOM TISH!

That's the best quip I've heard in ages.

Immigration

2009-08-28T10:01:00.007+08:00

How many times have you read stories about how easy Britain is to get into, how much of a soft touch we are for foreigners, and all that other bullshit? Obviously intra-EU migration has gone up - that's part of the whole point of the EU, to make it easier for people, as well as goods, services and capital, to move throughout the whole EU. Net UK immigration has gone up, which is generally a good thing, considering our otherwise static birthrate and the consequent demographic problems. But tales of cattletrucks of shifty foreigners coming here to spread venereal diseases and crime belong in the mythology of the Daily Mail, not reality.

Well, here's a cautionary tale. I have been in China for three years and am now married to a Chinese woman. We applied for a visa recently for her to come to the UK for a honeymoon and to meet the rest of my family. We included in our application our work contracts, our pay slips and financial statements to show we could afford the two week stay, invites and property deeds from my mother who would put us up for the family visit time, our marriage certificate and related documents... the goddamn kitchen sink might have been in there as well, I forget. We were documented to the hilt, man!

But her application was still refused... AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

On what specious grounds? It seemed like the *EXPLETIVE DELETED* at the Borders Agency didn't even read the application properly, saying that she wanted to come to the UK to visit me. After I'd put in my (Chinese) work-contract, and said that I would be travelling with her, and showed that we lived together. It also said that because of her "lack of close links" in China it was a bit suspect that she wanted to come to Britain. LACK OF CLOSE LINKS - with a country she had lived in all her life, where her job is, where her family is!!

The mind boggles at what idiotic and petty rule-worshipping bureaucrats must work there. But worse, the mind boggles at what insane farcical rules must be in place to lead to such asswipe decisions.

I am so angry that I might do this:

Chinese Government Eats Itself

2009-08-27T10:08:00.003+08:00

Here's an interesting story on China, which connects nicely with the report of local government (well, in Tianjin at least, but it's a start) being made to be more responsive and accountable to the local populace. Some back story: a boy was allegedly beaten to death in an "internet addiction cure camp" in Nanning, Guangzhou a few weeks back, which was quite widely reported, in China and the rest of the world. But now the China Daily reports that the editor who broke the story was fired, and even quotes the boy's uncle, who says that instead of sacking the editor, the local government should praise and encourage the newspaper to do more timely and accurate reports on citizens' interests.

Why is this interesting? This article has come from China Daily, which is one of the two English language newspapers. It has the imprimatur of the government all over it; this article was doubtlessly approved, whether explicitly or implicitly (just as the Sun editor does not need to phone Murdoch to know what he wants). What we're seeing now is the central government turning local people's dissatisfaction against the local government. As the wealth gap in China becomes ever larger, and the number of "mass incidents" rises exponentially (58,000 in Jan-March 2009 alone), there is a great deal of anxiety at the top of the administration. Too much of this and they could lose power, and they know it. Consequently, they are using this anxiety to force the bottom level of governance - the local officials - to be more accountable for their actions and more responsive to local wishes.

Which could have fascinating repercussions. Is it the start of government accountability in China? Are the two levels of government splitting apart? What will happen if people start protesting about central government decisions? Is it wise for central government to turn the people against local government? After all, once people get a taste of power over bureacracy, it can't be turned back. Just ask Lech Walesa.

Stop Moaning About Tax

2009-08-26T15:55:00.003+08:00

The right-wing argument about tax is that raising it is a disincentive to work and economic productivity. Care to explain this, then? (From The Economist). Why then is Germany the richest nation in Europe, with an excellent manufacturing sector?

Answers on a postcard.

One for the teachers...

2009-08-26T13:04:00.002+08:00

Books - An Ode

2009-08-25T22:39:00.010+08:00

I've always been obsessed with books. I don't remember actually learning to read, but they have always been a delight, an inspiration and a respite for me; maybe even more than for most people. For example, when as a youngster I was having a troublesome batch of nightmares, my mum suggested I put something I liked under my pillow. Several hardback books under my solitary pillow didn't facilitate an easy night's sleep, but still...!

As soon as I could I was taking books out of the local library. In fact I still remember joining up - my sister taking me; the green tickets into which the book's stub was placed; the imposing entrance with portraits of powerful and learned men leading to the wood and wire-mesh glass inner door; the desk with various books of "local interest" for sale, requests and the friendly, somewhat mumsy librarians.

Still being a wee one, I vociferously frequented the children's section. I quickly discovered Enid Blyton, and obsessively worked my way through as many of her collections as possible - The Famous Five in particular, but also the Five Find-Outers, Malory Towers, St Claires and the Secret Seven. Man, I devoured those books. I loved the fresh outdoorsiness and jolly-hockeysticksness of it all - though of course preferring to read about it rather than trying to do it. There were so many, too - finding an unread part of a series was always a delight, as the stock in the library was never enough.

I also adored the Asterix books, though the topical references, satire and a good deal of the puns went straight over my head, which just goes to show how great those books are when you only understand 30% and still think they're terrific. There was Roald Dahl too, of course - "The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me" was one of the first ever books I took out, and its anarchic humour and fantastical imagination seized me like a dozen uplifting hands. My mind soared with the possibilities. His other books were usually as exciting (though they sometimes missed the target - "Charlie and The Glass Elevator" was just dull), with "Matilda" and "The Witches" especially pleasurable to read. And there were of course the Narnia books. "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" was one of the first books I read which seemed epic, to go on and on, getting better and better, drawing you in, delighting you, amazing, you, and deeply touching you.

By age ten or eleven, I had moved onto Stephen King, Shaun Hutson and James Herbert, and the "Fighting Fantasy" role-play books by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Ah, the ripping times I had!

But the real formative reading experience at that age was when I read first of all "The Hobbit", and then shortly afterwards, "The Lord of The Rings". My dad and several uncles were Tolkien nuts, and had probably been waiting to thrust them upon me. Someone lent me "The Hobbit" and it was good, but a little childish, and I determined to go for the real thing. I popped down the familiar route to the library and asked the elderly, gentlemanly librarian (he used to wear a panama hat and reminded me of JR Hartley) if they had a copy. There was one to hand, and he passed it to me with a fantastic look in his eyes which I've never forgotten, as though to say, "Edify your mind, my boy; you'll never forget this." Goddamn, he was right. It was a hardback edition with an awe-inspiring front cover of Barad-Dur, the Black Tower, ferocious and inviolate. Leafing through the first pages, with the Dwarvish script at the top and Elvish script at the bottom, I had the sense of complete otherness, of entire worlds created solely through imagination. It was intoxicating. The majesty and complexity of Tolkien's world were ideally suited by the Hobbit's rustic charm and humour, and the plain common sense of Sam Gamgee, whom I felt from the first reading was the real hero. (And I'm somewhat proud to note that Tolkien agrees with me!). All of which gave an amazing totality to Tolkien's Middle-Earth, and I happily resided there imaginatively for some years.

Tolkien, in fact, overwhelmed me, and I got stuck in something of a rut, never able to enjoy "The Silmarillion" or the various books of lost or unfinished tales. My first attempts at writing were dreadful Hobbity plagiarisms, knowing no better. The horror novels I was also then reading were alright, but... I knew already that books could do far more. Eventually EM Forster shone a light, and all around I could see the fertile literary lands, for he lead directly to DH Lawrence, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and many others. But that's a tale for another day.

Blackwhite

2009-08-24T10:02:00.005+08:00

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'

Dear old Humpty, how he would have approved recent political debate.

David Cameron - "The Conservative party wants nothing less than radical decentralisation, to reach every corner of the country." David Cameron "plans late-night drinking crackdown".

George Osbourne - "the modern Conservative party is now the dominant progressive force in British politics".

"The US should have blown Megrahi's plane out of the sky. That would have been justice."

"Showing compassion is a laudable character trait... the only emotions I feel towards al-Megrahi are contempt and anger. His failure to comprehend the magnitude of his crimes and say sorry to those affected by them should have meant that he died in the place he belongs. Prison." - Iain Dale

"Which is to be master", indeed.

Whitehall Fail

2009-08-23T21:28:00.003+08:00

Sometimes a headline really says it all. Here's a cracker from the FT: "High cost of Iraq war surprised Whitehall".

Ha! Ha! H-

Oh yeah. It's not funny.

They're Takin' Our Jobs!

2009-08-22T20:37:00.006+08:00

Sometimes you forget that the large majority of people in Britain read the rightwing tabloids and broadsheets. Coming from Scotland, which votes lefter than England, and working in education and to a lesser extent media, most of the people I meet are moderately leftish. Goes with the territory. Of course amongst people my age I know several Tories - I used to live in Aberdeen which is a prosperous engineer's town, not always sympathetic to redistributive urges- but I always feel that it's just a lack of imagination on their part. It's like they feel "I am successful, hence: a. So can anyone, and b. I shouldn't have to give up any of my hard-earned to help those less fortunate than I". Maybe this is a gross misconstruction on my part... but maybe not.

So today I was on the subway talking to one of the summer teachers, whom I'll call Jane (not her real name). She's a pretty young home counties type who'd come over to China for two months to get some teaching experience, having recently graduated. We were talking about my trials and tribulations in getting a British visa for my wife (who's Chinese), and Jane said, "I mean it's ridiculous, when you think about all the immigrants coming to Britain and taking our jobs and getting free housing."

I was flabbergasted. Here's someone who is intelligent (having done a degree in psychology), but had swallowed the BNP/tabloid/Tory lies hook, line and sinker. I responded by saying something like, "They're not our jobs; they're on the open market and whoever is the right candidate should get it." She didn't look convinced. 25 years of ingesting EEC/EC/EU suspicion, foreigner-phobia and lies about asylum seekers, Muslims and whoever the hate target of the month is will do that to you.

I didn't mention the fact that she was an immigrant in a foreign land herself.

Anyone Lend A Fiver?

2009-08-21T09:20:00.008+08:00

A fact which doesn't seem to be getting enough attention: the UK had to borrow £8bn in July, rather than the £500m that was expected.

Repeat that to yourself. One month. £8bn. Oh. My. Lord.

Public debt in Britain is now 56.8% of GDP. While lower than the public debt of Japan, Germany and the US for example (see this blog post for a comparison), it is rising excriciatingly fast - by over 10% in less than six months.

However, given the unprecedented nature of this economic crisis, surely it's better to maintain public sector support, when the debt was relatively low, instead of cutting government spending and making more people unemployed. Gordon Brown famously paid off substantial amounts of debt (such asht eentire 3G auction income) when GDP was rising, so it makes sense to let debt rise when GDP is falling. Otherwise unemployment payments will balloon, crime, ill-health and other social problems will require more money, and the net savings will be much less than anticipated. Remember the 1980s, people?

The Tories want to cut these public services. Given the narrow demographic from which Tories especially are drawn (not that Labour are much better, nowadays...), it's unlikely they know too many people who are dependent upon state help. In many cases such help can be the difference between stability and destitution, between respectability and collapsing self-esteem.

I know which I'd prefer.

Poverty Notes

2009-08-20T23:41:00.009+08:00

I'm not one for reading the Daily Mail, but here's an amusing story: banks are to start re-stocking £5 notes in ATMs which have low average withdrawals, such as student and low-income areas. I recall all too well my student days and wishing that the ATM would let me only take out a fiver rather than a mighty tenner. I wasn't particularly destitute as a student - for such a low income I managed it fairly well, despite only having a job during my third year (I did want one, but my university was in a small town with few student jobs).

But there were a few unpleasant scrapes. Fourth year students, for example, received a smaller loan, the insane calculation being that as you graduated in May it didn't have to support you for the whole year. (Most students I knew had spent all their money by then and depended on parents or summer work to see them through: my first two summers were mostly spent in a fish factory). So there was one pleasant weekend where all I had to eat was bread and margarine. "Toast or marge sannie? Hmmm!"

During my summer holiday between my third and fourth years, too, rather than having another year in the fish factory I decided to move in with friends in Aberdeen, figuring that I'd be able to get a summer job easily enough. I was wrong: all I found was a very part-time bar job, and then a month later, a soul-destroying telesales job. The flat was an all-male personification of student grot. Cups and dirty plates lay unwashed on the Formica-topped kitchen table for days and weeks, growing pungent stenches and pluming mouldy beards (one of them was nicknamed "Albert" and became the kitchen mascot). Filled black-bags piled up higher and higher - we were on the fifth floor and naturally had no elevator. Ancient shaggy carpets, tatty wallpaper, a vile bathroom with the cheapest possible toiletroll and an array of Mach 3 razors and aftershave, posters clipped from "Empire" and "FHM", bigger poster of Bob Marley, Lord of the Rings and Homer Simpson - boy, were we 19 year-old students... Food was at a minimum, but we always seemed to have money for beer.

One day that summer, my brother returned from the stand-by boat he was working on with left-over food - loaves of bread, frozen mince, canned plum tomotoes, large slabs of orange cheese, pork chops, frozen gateauxs and so on. We began slavering like Pavlov's dogs and hatched a plan. Next day we (i.e. I) cooked a four course banquet, starting with garlic bread (toast with garlic salt and marge), salad, an enormous lasagne, then some gateaux for pudding. We even had some rose wine, being sophisticated and that. All three of us fell asleep shortly after finishing this gargantuan meal: I've never felt as satisfied by food, before or since.

Silly days. I guess everyone has their "Withnail and I" period...

Rage

2009-08-15T18:25:00.008+08:00

Unlike the pose adopted by some bloggers, it's not that often that I feel genuine anger when reading the newspapers. But reading the story about the "Trainspotting Generation" in today's Guardian made me feel... desperately sad, yes, but also ferociously angry about how Scotland's poorest and most most vulnerable people are treated. The spread of heroin addiction within the housing schemes is a blight of unimaginable proportions.

Now the whys and wherefores of it can be debated - was it caused by mass unemployment in the late 1970s and the subsequent phenomenon of multiple-generation worklessness? Was it the decline of family bonds? The anything-goes attitude which debased 60s ideals? The social set-up of the schemes themselves, physical manifestations of disenfranchisement from the rest of the cities? I don't know for sure, but guess it's a mixture of all the factors; you can't pigeon-hole everyone's experience neatly.

But maybe why this modern plague is happening isn't the pertinent question at the moment. (Sure it's an important question, but the heroin pandemic has going on for so long that's almost a historical point - in the article Irvine Welsh points out it's a 35-year issue). What's more important right now is what's being done about it? What is the Scottish government doing? What are the cities of Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow doing? Here's what the article says:

"[O]ver the last 10 years [heroin use] has increased so much it's unbelievable," says Mikey [a heroin addict]... He is particularly exercised by the recent closure of the Links Project in Leith, where addicts were taken in before being referred to rehabilitation units. There is a new programme called Leap, but, Mikey says, they don't take anyone on anything above 30ml of methadone a day; many people he knows are on 130-160ml. "There's nowhere for them to detox now. I know of three or four deaths that wouldn't have happened [if it was still open]." According to Audit Scotland, there are more than 50,000 heroin users in Scotland, and waiting lists of up to two years for treatment.

Meanwhile there is a great ream of data about drug use in Scotland - such as here and here. So easy to collect; makes such nice PowerPoint presentations. But real concerted action to tackle the problem at the source (which is the ordinary addict, not the dealer)? The 2009 NHS Scotland Report on drug treatment waiting times shows (on page 21) that over 30% were waiting over a year for first intervention treatment.

Over a year... Can you think how much robberies are committed, how many punters are picked up by prostitutes, in the space of a year by an addict? How much human misery are we prepared to tolerate as a society? It seems the answer is a limitless amount, as long as it's put out of sight and out of mind.

Best British Film EVER

2009-08-14T06:59:00.021+08:00

Drum-roll... rising tension... golden envelope... hostess with big hair... older man with tux and cummerbund... spotlight... fake smiles..."AND THE WINNER IS..."

OK. The best British film ever is "Performance" from 1970, co-directed by Nic Roeg and Donald Cammel, and featuring (I'm loath to say "starring") James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg and some real East End heavies. (Let's not get too public-school boy/Guy Ritchie excited about that - but they do add to a convincingly brutal opening half of a subsequently psychedelic film). It's worth noting the directors, too: Roeg made his name as a cinematographer ("Performance" and his later films such as "Walkabout" and "The Man Who Fell To Earth" are highly arresting visually), whereas Cammel was a painter and writer soaked in Genet, Borges, Burroughs and London/Parisian bohemia.

"Performance" is a film where nothing is as it seems. It questions the various dualities which make up our culture: male and female, nature and culture, fantasy and reality, heterosexual and homosexual, interior and exterior, image and reflection. Obviously this isn't a straightforward plot-driven film: it's something of a diptych (a film in two distinct parts, jargon-fans), with a violent gangster opener and a psychedelic mind-fuck closer. The relation between the two sections of the film only gradually becomes apparent; texturally, cinematically, atmospherically they are completely different.

"Performance" is a master-class of cinematography. It is densely allusive, symbolically rich and eyeball-grabbing visually. I do not exaggerate when I say I have never seen a film like it; although "Walkabout" has some visual similarities, they are nothing alike in terms of theme and tone. Perhaps the real union of minds in "Performance" is not between Chas and Turner, but between Roeg and Cammel, the visual genius and the ideas man.

The plot is relatively straightforward (bearing in mind, this is not a plot-driven film). Chas (played by Fox) specialises in "putting the frighteners up flash little twerps" for his gangland boss. When he oversteps the mark and kills a fellow mobster, Chas goes on the run, hiding from "the firm". He takes refuge in the basement flat of a reclusive faded pop star called Turner, played by Jagger, and his household of two women (played by Pallenberg and Michèle Breton) and one odd servant girl. The longer Chas stays in Turner's house, and the more he interacts with the residents, the more his boundaries and sense of identity are unsettled, through mindgames and psychedelic mushrooms. But this works both ways, and the similarities between Chas and Turner become increasingly apparent, to the point where both share the same death.

Much of this is suggested visually rather than dramatised. For example, when Chas goes further into Turner's house, seeking a telephone, this suggests his further entry into Turner's world and mindspace. This is shown by a juxtaposition of their two faces whilst they talk, which evokes a deeply uncanny feeling. Similarly, there is a constant use of both mirrors and mirror images throughout the film, to suggest two things. Firstly, mirrors suggest the dualities such as male/female and fantasy/reality which are explored during the film. But secondly, mirrors symbolise the self-projection with which both Chas and Turner are fundamentally concerned, both being "performers". "Performance" shows how the gangster and the rock star are all too similar in their masculine, violent displays, suggesting the male ego's need for dominance and power, whether expressed sexually or through group dominance.

But "Performance" also critiques this, with Chas undergoing psychedelic initiation, altering his "image", and having his masculinity and sexuality questioned. Pherber (played by Pallenberg) uses mirrors upon Chas, projecting his face upon hers, and having both faces side by side (see top photo), and asking if he has a male and female half, like Turner. Chas angrily replies, "There's nothing wrong with me - I'm normal!" The film also plays with the androgyny of Lucy (played by Breton) and Turner: at one point we see Chas in bed caressing someone who appears to be Turner; a moment later it turns out to be Lucy. The recurrent tactic of dislocation (further heightened by the extremely jumpy editing) effectively suggests Chas' disorientated mind.

Further aspects of the film which merit mention for their imaginative use are the music, with some nice early synthesiser work, deep blues, rock and roll (the "Memo To Turner" scene, where Jagger sings to what is more like a conventional rock video, must be the only time where Warner Bros actually got what they wanted), proto-rap, and an eerily unsettling orchestral finale. The editing, as mentioned above, is extremely jumpy, so that you really have to watch the film a few times to understand what's happening, as scenes intercut rapidly. Camera angles, in case you didn't guess already, are somewhat extreme. All of which may seem somewhat overcooked, but "Performance" is one of those rare and happy times where content and method match exactly.

Obviously, Hollywood, this is not: the nearest comparison I can think of is Pink Floyd's "The Wall", a film which is similarly non-linear and told through images and music rather than narrative. But "Performance" is a far more literary film (with Borges being a major inspiration), where "The Wall" is naturally more musical, with next to no dialogue. And "Performance" captures a specific moment in British 60s culture, when the rock/drug subculture met with the criminal world, as embodied by the Kray twins (whereas "The Wall" captures Roger Water's alienation and little else). The utopian dreams of 1967 would turn darker and more violent, reaching a deadly apothesis in Altamont in 1969, where by some ghoulish coincidence, the Rolling Stones would be playing "Sympathy For The Devil".

Consequently, numerous myths have sprung up around "Performance", also prompted by Pallenberg's subsequent heroin addiction and Fox's retreat from acting to door-knocking evangelical Christianity. (Jagger, typically, walked away unharmed, like a cat daintily leaving the scene of a carcrash). There was, too, the sticky matter of Jagger's love-scene with Pallenberg being rather too graphic for Keith Richards, her then-partner. But this is essentially gossip. What we have a film which is both specific and timeless, literal and metaphorical, intensely visual and deeply literary, and ultimately an astonishing piece of cinema. That's why it's the best British film ever made.

China: Increasing Accountability?

2009-08-13T07:32:00.010+08:00

Here's an interesting story: the prefecture of Tianjin (one of the three city-level prefectures in China, equivalent to a province, along with Beijing and Shanghai) is to enforce a rule requiring internet complaints against government officials to be replied to within fifteen days.

This is important in many ways. Firstly, the lack of government accountability enrages people who feel wronged and sparks off "mass incidents", a euphemism for popular political protests. According to chinaworker.info, there were 58,000 such protests in the first three months of 2009. Obviously these protests indicate large social discontent within China. Forcing front-line officials to respond promptly to grievances should help resolve these problems (for which read: force officials to take the local population into account, not just those giving back-handers).

But secondly, and more importantly in the long run, it opens the whole system of government up not only to accountability but to transparency. Since 1989, and the split over what action to take over the protests in that Square we are not allowed to mention, opacity at the top of the government has been a specific policy. Individual ministers are never named behind specific policies. In both the China Daily and the People's Daily, there is no coverage of individual politicians, their actions, their decisions, even their day-to-day business.

In the China Daily story, it quotes a vice-dean of political science, who says "People choose the Internet for its efficiency and transparency". He added, "Some government staff take a hard line against people who complain, but they need to realize that online complaints should be viewed as a cushion for social unrest rather than as a nuisance".

This is it a nut-shell. The rapidly-rising number of protests (there were "only" 90,000 in all of 2006) is a danger to the entire rule of the Communist Party. What we are seeing is an attempt at the top level of the Chinese government to enforce some local transparency and efficiency to save their own bacon: to "cushion social unrest" as he said. (And isn't it indicative and damning of the whole Chinese bureaucracy that some see complaints "as a nuisance"?)

Will it work? It might well be that the complaints people have are because of decisions made higher up the food chain of government. And once demands for accountability are offered at a lower level, they will continue to press for further and further information. And who knows where the demands for accountability and transparency will end?

D'OH!

2009-08-12T16:15:00.007+08:00

You know those times when the realisation of something hits you and you realise what an idiot you have been/are being? That has happened to me twice this fortnight.

1. A friend of mine was visiting me here in Tianjin, having lived in Japan for three years, before heading home to Scotland. After a week with me he went off to Qingdao for a few days to check it out. When returning, he phoned me to say he'd be at the West Station, the train should take about five hours, as that's what it took there. OK, I thought. So what did I do? Only went to the wrong train station, and waited there for an hour, wondering where the hell he was. I knew he had my address written in Chinese so come 11pm I was away to give up and go home, when a blinding flash hit me. I WAS AT THE WRONG STATION. So I quickly taxied home, hoping he'd be there, but no, he wasn't. So I taxied to the West Station (a 30 min drive), and he still wasn't there... By this time my wife had checked the internet and found that two trains left Qingdao at the same time - one arrived at 10pm, the other at 4am. You can guess by now which train he had got...

2. Bloggers will relate to this one. From doing this blog I had set up Google Analyics to track visits, locations and so on. Then about three weeks ago I changed the look of my blog using a template I found - pretty snazzy, huh? This coincided with the start of peak-season at work (six-day weeks), my laptop going on for some minor repairs, and the proxy I was using (Hotspot Shield) not working so I barely blogged for three weeks. But what I couldn't understand was that I was getting no visits at all. Not one. Zero. Totally flat-lining. WTF? I had build up a small but steady readership, and had some interesting Twitter followers, so surely someone was logging on? Then today I started tootling around aimlessly with Google Analytics, just to see - and found I'd forgotten to reinstall the script which tracks visits... D'OH! *SLAPS HEAD*

Best British Films #2

2009-08-11T08:49:00.009+08:00

So, now to part two: the second greatest British film ever, as decided by my good self and therefore completely impartial and scrupulously fair! :) I have to admit to having seen very few Ealing comedies, which do regularly rank high in poll of classic British films, but apart from that there's few gaps. I've even seen Carry On At Your Convenience, for gods sake. (Oh my, but aren't there a lot of stinkers! Off the top of my head, Peter's Friends, The Ali G movie, and The Sex Lives of the Potato Men - oh, the shame).

"if..." however is magnificent. But even topping that is my favourite youth-orientated film of all-time, Quadrophenia. It's the film of The Who's 1973 concept album of the same name, the story of Jimmy, a mod, who is unsure of his identity and subsumes his own within the mod movement. Mods, of course, were the youth movement of the day, who dressed sharply, took speed in the form of pills called purple hearts and blues, rode Vespa scooters and listened to sharp modern pop. They were in opposition to, and antagonistic towards rockers, who rode larger motorbikes, wore leather and idolised fifties rock like Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. Being a mod gives Jimmy a sense of identity at a time (he must be seventeen or so) when you are unsure of yourself and need to fit in: but this comes at a cost, as Jimmy eventually finds.

Amongst the numerous qualities of this film is a absolute dedication to the reality of the context. There are no compromises in setting, dialogue or tone. The strong London accents are undiluted, giving some memorable exchanges, such as "Feel asleep on the train and waahnd up in bloody Neasden!" or "The people who ride these things are state, third-class tickets." Similarly, the setting is unvarnished but completely recognisable as a working-class environment: Jimmy's home is a plain council house, with crude newspaper cut-outs adorning his bedroom wall and evidently no bath. The scene where Jimmy sleeps out in their shed and just misses his dad leaving for work, with flat cap and wax jacket, is tiny but acutely detailed, which goes for the film throughout.

Despite this verite, there is a depth to the film which is constantly dramatising larger themes. The way it does this using everyday dialogue is just amazing, and a real lesson: you don't need to be "educated" to have ideas, you don't need to have upper-class characters to illustrate larger issues. (James Kelman, the greatest writer Scotland has produced since Lewis Grassic Gibbon, was no doubt taking notes). To take one example: we see Jimmy paying another HP installment on his suit (no store cards in those days - and where else have you ever seen such a frank depiction of the realities of consumer spending for the young?). As he pays, another mod and his friend is being measured for a suit, angrily querying the tailor, insisting it be made much tighter and sharper. "Stop fuckin around and bring it in ere!" To which the agitated tailor loses his rag, insisting, "Look here, sonny! You keep that kind of language to yourself! You don't like it, you can go and get your own suit." The mod asks his friend what he thinks. "Fucking rent-a-tent, innit." The tailor looks angry but does nothing; he doesn't want to lose the sale. There, in a nut-shell, are big themes like Youth Consumption and Generation Clash and Consumerism.

Or to take another scene: a former school friend Kevin, now a rocker (the enemy) pays Jimmy a visit, biking up Jimmy's garden path. Jimmy is in the shed tinkering with his scooter, and hearing the deep thrum of the bike, picks up a spanner. They talk about why one is a mod, one is a rocker. The conversation is just brilliant:

Jimmy: But it's not just the bikes, it's the people. And the people who ride these things [gestures to Kevin's motorbike] are states, third-class tickets.

Kevin: Do what?

Jimmy: Rockers, all that greasy hair and clobber. It's diabolical!

Kevin: I don't give a monkey's arsehole about mods and rockers. Underneath, we're all the same, ain't we?

Jimmy: Nah, Kev, that's it. I don't wanna be the same as everybody else. That's why I'm a mod, see? I mean, you gotta be somebody, ain't ya? Or you might as well jump in the sea and drown.

Kevin: That's why I joined the army: to be different. To get away from all this. But wherever you go, there's always some cunt in stars and stripes who wants to push you about.

God, that's great. Identity, conformism, ambition, belonging, group identity - all in one completely realistic conversation. (And the irony of going into the army to be different - delivered completely straight-faced, whereas any hamming it up would shatter your belief in the character).

So there's all that. But I haven't even mentioned the Brighton scene yet! This must be one of the most visceral scenes in all cinema - those fuckers are really beating each other up on that beach! It's completely compelling, sheer euphoric teenage kicks: not just the fighting, but when they are "kettled" by the police into one small street, the battle cry of "We are the mods! We are the mods! We are, we are, we are the mods!" sends lightning into your soul and sets your hair on end. It's just electric.

As with speed (which Jimmy is shown taking fairly often), or any stimulant, there's the rush and then the hangover. So it is with Jimmy. After the amazing climax of Brighton, the rest of the film is an unravelling, as Jimmy finds being a mod can't support a life. The euphoric camaraderie splits apart as soon as it achieved. Jimmy retraces his steps, unable to let go and clinging on to the mod identity. He returns to Brighton, but what was once alive with mods is now a sleepy resort. And once all his illusions are shattered, eventually he manages to let go. At the end he's shown walking away from it all, alone.

Other things worthy of attention: the direction is excellent with the camera inobtrusive; you really do get the sense of watching a slice-of-life. It's not flashy or showy, concealing its artfulness behind a self-effacing realism. The cast are terrific (a show-case for acting talent - Phil Daniels, Leslie Ash, Ray Winstone, Sting, Toyah Wilcox, Michael Elphick, and Benjamin Whitrow) with the characters well-sketched. You really get a sense of the group dynamic, the boys aiming for the leadership of the mod gang, and the top girl knowing it all too well.

So that's my second favourite film of all-time. No, it's the second-best British film of all time! Here's a clip to prove it.

Phew!

2009-08-07T09:46:00.008+08:00

Wow, that was some break there. The unfortunate thing about living in China is that sometimes the proxy you were using (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blogspot and Wordpress are all STILL blocked) stops, having been busted by the Great Firewall. And it can take some time to get another one which works as reliably. Hotspot Shield was working fine, but it was a bit iffy, but Freegate has since come to my attention, and works fine and well. (Interesting that Freegate is in effect funded by a US democracy-promotion organisation... ah, the links, the links...).

Still, the internet is amazing at breaking through all known blocks and impositions. The Man isn't yet all powerful...

Yet.

Best British Films #3

2009-07-20T08:45:00.006+08:00

When it comes to films, I'm a true Brit. Not that Hollywood doesn't produce some good films - Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Chinatown and so on - but the best British films seem to be more truthful, more lifelike, where the best American films seem more stylised. Films like Personal Services, Get Carter, Quadrophenia, Scum, if..., Performance, Withnail and I, Trainspotting, Wish You Were Here, Rita, Sue and Bob Too, hell, even Educating Rita capture a reality I can relate to far easier than any other films.

(I know there are large amounts of British-made pish, but I'm talking about the best ones, as compared with the best American or French films for example. I'm not going to defend The Sex Lives of the Potato Men).

So... (drum roll please!) I'm going to list my my top three.

3. if...
if... was famously filmed at the time of the evenements of May 68 in France - as the film is an allegory for revolution against the repressive, reactionary old-order, this was entirely fitting. (John Lennon was at the same time writing "Revolution" while meditating in India - clearly there was something in the air). It is also the first film of Malcolm MacDowell, and while he doesn't steal the show (for a film almost entrely about boys who are actually played by boys, he cast is highly impressive), he does grab the attention.

I said if... is an allegory of revolution - but the school is also an allegory of Britain, with its all from past glories, repression, incompetent, class-based leadership, absurd rules, appalling education, and gross archaic longings. It works remarkably well as a simple story of school boys revolting against repressive discipline (enforced by prefects called "whips" - a magnificent little detail), but almost every scene has a symbolic meaning. For example: one boy confessing to having "dirty thoughts" to the Chaplain, who can offer no real advice - a condemnation of British sexual ignorance and hypocrisy. The new boy being told by a senior boy that "You don't talk to us" and that the youngest boys are called "scum" - the power of seniority. The chaplain being (literally!) kept in a drawer in the headmaster's office - the use of religion in controlling and disciplining the masses.

As suggested by the chaplain being in the drawer, the film flips between realism and surrealism. The realism is noteworthy - there's no idealisation of the boys, who are no Hollywood lookers and the film looks frankly at bullying, public-school homosexuality, beatings, and pretentious pseudo-intellectualism, and the school itself is shabby and past its best. But remarkably this realism is commented upon by the surreality of some episodes, such as the schoolmaster's wife wandering naked through the school (a comment on sexual repression and longing) and the encounter with "the girl", especially the tiger-fight between her and Mick (the leader of the rebels, played by MacDowell). Similarly, while the pretty junior boy is realistically portayed as having older boys prey upon him, he is surrealistically seen in bed with one of the rebels, who had actually taken the time to talk to him.

The film itself similarly filps between colour and black and white. Don't believe anyone who tells you that parts were shot to save money, as parts of the same scenes alternate. It's another trick to break up the film, a Brechtian "alienation effect", as with the realism/surrealism dialectic. Both add to and heighten the other.

The rebellion gradually gathers pace, once the school and the characters are established. (Viewers may note the pictures of revolutionaries pinned up throughout the boys rooms, such as Mao and Che - it was that kind of era). The end is obviously allegorical, ending on a freeze-frame of MacDowell raining down shots on the school and the gathered dignitaries. After Columbine this feels a little awkward to me, but no-one is suggesting that this should be taken literally. It's a fantasy - that's why the film is called if...

If you haven't seen the film, watch it. Savour it. Devour it. If you have seen it - spread the word.

School for Charity?

2009-07-19T19:07:00.008+08:00

Interesting article in today's Guardian, about a report from Alan Milburn about the various advantages which private schools afford their students. Quite apart from the educational benefits (smaller class sizes, highly-motivated parents, high-aspiration students), the extra-curricular activities on offer also help the pupils a great deal, by giving them a rounder CV and greater social skills.

Which leads Milburn to conclude - if the schools are charities, then why shouldn't their facilities be for the use of all? Not the educational elements, but the sport, music and drama facilities which so enhance an education.

Which brings up a few thoughts:

1. Why the bloody hell are private schools charities in the first place? Who do they benefit - the children of the upper-middle classes! Are they really so needy? I know that having children in such schools saves the state sector a lot of money, with 7% of children being so educated. But why should we, ordinary tax-payers, support private schools? The frequently-demanded for tax-breaks for privately educating children would offer state support for educational apartheid.

2. Let's imagine that it does happen (unlikely as it seem to this jaundiced, cynical observer - woe betide anyone that interferes with the privileges of the fee-paying strata!). The public school would no doubt take the opportunity to join the oiks in a "We're all part of the same community" falsities. A nice way to stir up class resentment, there. It's amazing to think that thirty years after "Eton Rifles" the song is still the same: What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?

3, OK, it's a Guardian story, with Milburn writing in the Observer tomorrow. But it's notable that The Times, The Independent and the Daily Mail aren't covering it. (I'm not even going to bother looking at The Sun).

4. Nice to see Milburn looking at how may industries now require unpaid internships - namely, the ones reserved for the middle classes, such as journalism, PR (check this sadly typical advert), advertising, international development, politics (how does one get to be a "special advisor", after all? Or attempt to gain nomination as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate at age 22?) If universities are accepting 50% of school leavers, after all, how else can the plum jobs be reserved? The narrowness of the political class has been often-mentioned recently, in analyses of its insulation from ordinary men and women who wouldn't dream of claiming for moat-cleaning. I suggest that Parliament is the UK in a microcosm: there may be more people of varying ethnic origins and more who are openly homosexual, but the class basis of the upper strata of the professions has become increasingly rigid. New Labour might have been intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich. But evidently they didn't give a damn about comprehensive-school children being denied opportunities they took for granted.

5. Why now? Let's just call it Operation Shoring Up The Vote.

New Look

2009-07-17T07:18:00.007+08:00

Thought it was time for a general sprucing-up (is sprucing a verb?) of the blog. Mostly to have the blog text on the left and the gadgets on the right, but you might also notice a picture of yours truly, a new header, and more contact info. Tranparency, huh!

I saw a nice picture on anonymity and the internet yesterday - this one:
(Hat tip to @beijingdaze).

Thought it said a lot about how people interact online! So here I am, without the rage.

David Cameron Demands Action!

2009-07-16T09:42:00.001+08:00

At PMQ's yesterday, David Cameron bravely demanded "action" from the government. He said, "Someone should do something." Setting clear blue water between Conservatives and Labour, he said, "The government needs to take action. Something must be done." He added, "We would show leadership," announcing a new policy in the House of Commons.

Staff Politics

2009-07-14T06:58:00.005+08:00

Regular readers (yes, both of you, her-her-her) will know I live in China. As well as writing/blogging/wasting time on the internet, I teach English in a company which takes all ages. The staff are roughly half Chinese (admin, sales, finance and general management) and half Western (teaching, and managing the teachers). There's a consequent fascinating contrast in outlooks and approaches, between Chinese and Western, and between administrative and educational - there are, I should say, several Chinese English teachers, so the split isn't precisely racial.

This makes for some bumpy incidents. Crossed wires, muddles and misunderstandings - especially where some of the Chinese staff have moderate English at best and the Westerners, of course, have next to no Chinese! Old E.M. Forster would have loved it; it's sometimes reminscent of A Passage To India. But there's also some mean staff politics going on. There's are two de facto bosses - the head of teaching and the centre manager, an American and a Chinese woman, who joust for control.

Take a small incident a few days ago. Let's call the American woman Mary and the Chinese Ann. There was a staff dinner arranged for three new teachers, and to help teachers know admin etc staff and vice-versa, to be held on a Sunday (weekends being our peak times). Ann wanted one of the teachers to organise and run an English speaking activity. The teacher was resistant, as the general level of English amongst the Chinese staff isn't strong enough, and it would be more work for her, at the end of a long working week when we were already having more "work-time" in the form of the dinner anyways. So Mary explained to Ann that this was a no-no.

"Can she organise another game for the dinner?" Anne asked. (This obviously isn't verbatim, but it's the gist of the exchange, if you can go with that).

"She doesn't want to run a game," Mary explained. "It would be like still being at work for her."

"Oh," Anne thought for a moment. "What will we do?"

"Do you have any ideas?" Mary countered.

"My idea... My idea is the teacher does a game."

"No, Anne," Mary said, patiently but with increasing force. "The teachers don't want to run a game. They do them all day at work, they don't want to do them at a social dinner. So do you have any idea of activities?"

Anne didn't of course. Mary was trying to point out that the admin staff have little concept of what we do on the teaching side.

"Well," Mark, another teacher, blundered in. "You could do an introduce your partner thing, or you could play '5 Questions', or you could -"

"Thanks Mark, but I'm asking Anne. What do you think, Anne?"

"We could do what we did last time."

"With the questions for each pair and then they introduce each other?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Let's do that then."

A tiny incident, but its illustration of power, different outlooks and the stresses of management is quite telling.

Another Thriller Tribute

2009-07-13T06:40:00.004+08:00

Had to post this: an excellent Thriller tribute. I love the way that it's become a staple of pop culture and has so many takes on it. The way the brass plays that insistent da-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum hook is pretty funky, too.

Random Things That Annoy Me #1

2009-07-11T23:07:00.007+08:00

I have the feeling this may become a long-running series...

Why was Meg Ryan cast as Pamela Morrison in "The Doors"? Just WRONG.
Ewan MacGregor saying "These sandstorms will slow them down" in "The Phantom Menace", probably the worst-acted line in the history of cinema.
Having to queue at a special till to buy deodorant.
People trying to get on subways/elevators before you get off.
The Daily Mail posting pictures of women's bodies not at their best... in the women's section of the newspaper. Because they need that extra pressure.
Sue Barker.
Alan Carr. We know you're gay, ffs.
Sky TV adverts being louder than the programs.
People saying "ZaNuLiebour".
Americans saying that Obama is "hard-left". Get some political education, people.
Twitters links from people marketing their marketing sites. Look, just because your website is called "Success" or some such optimistic appelation, it doesn't make it (or you) successful.

There will be more...

Bugs and Defences

2009-07-10T11:11:00.004+08:00

(Pic by Steve Bell).

Andy Coulson is one of a venerable list of tabloid journalists rectuited to be political spokesmen (they're always men) for the leaders of the two British parties. Joe Haines was the first to be well known, Bernard Ingham discarded any previous Labour loyalty in service of Margaret Thatcher, and Alistair Campbell brought the role to its apothesis, integrating policy and presentation as never before.

But given the allegations against Coulson now (and the fact that the PFA's Gordon Taylor was paid 700k in recompense looks like an almighty admission of guilt), it's inconceivable that he can stay in service of David Cameron. Were he in charge of the News of the World when it was habitually bugging politicians, celebrities and sportsmen, he should not only be sacked, he should be thrown in jail. It would be great to see some action taken against the NOTW too, but political expediency will doubtless rule that out. (Murdoch's papers having"power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot" as Baldwin so rightly said).

It's been interesting to see the reaction in the blogosphere. There are two common defences posed by the right/Tory strain:

See how you like it, AKA the state does it so you can't complain. This is disingenuous at best and completely fucking stupid at worst. OK, Labour's record on privacy isn't good. But two wrongs don't make a right, they make two wrong things! And there's no Staasi in Britain, bugging regular members of the public (despite the febrile imaginings of some...). Monitoring wheelie bins and bugging mobile phones are on a completely different scale.
"It's a political attack" or "It's revenge for Damian McBride". Well, duh. Of course it's a political attack! The man's been caught, it's impossible to defend; he has to go. Given Labour's failure to land a real punch on Cameron so far, it's no surprise how quickly this has been taken up in parliament. OK, it's an important story - but it has given an open-goal for Labour. If they screw it up (as Kinnock did with Westland for example), that's surely their final chance to win the 2011 election gone.

But, regardless, Coulson must go, and he should stand trial.

Big News

2009-07-08T06:38:00.005+08:00

Apologies for lack of recent postings (yes, my one or two readers must be getting so impatient...). But big things have been happening in the real, non-cyber world - you know, the one that doesn't exist as pixels on a screen and where people don't say "Lol" or "teh internets".

Anyways, my wife and I are expecting our first child. The forthcoming seven months will no doubt be the last where I can have a complete nights sleep until I'm, ooooh, about fifty. Postings may feature me starting to ramble on about baby milk and the relative advantages of various buggies. You have my permission to bitch-slap me if I get out the baby photos.

Sarah Palin: You Couldn't Make It Up

2009-07-06T12:32:00.003+08:00

From the "You Couldn't Make It Up!" school of spin, here's Sarah Palin, she of limited world knowledge and odd eye afflictions.

Resigning from her Alaskan governership, she said:

... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”. Nah, only dead fish "go with the flow".

So only quitters don't quit, huh?

She added:

Some Alaskans don’t mind wasting public dollars and state time. I do. I cannot stand here as your Governor and allow millions upon millions of our dollars go to waste just so I can hold the title of Governor.

Which begs the question: why did she take the post in the first place? She's arguing that she's competely ineffective as governor, "allowing millions upon millions of our dollars to go to waste". Not exactly a high self-commendation.

I look forward to her pronouncements on algebra (2+2=5; only pointy egg-head liberals could disagree!), God (He talks to her, just like He did to Bush and Blair) and Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson: A Tribute

2009-06-26T09:49:00.003+08:00

Let's remember his best moments and performances.

Here he is with the Jacksons at the Motown 25. Although they are all great dancers (I love their synchronised moves at the end of "I Want You Back"), Michael clearly shines brightest.

Here he is at the same event, performing "Billie Jean". In front of a highly discerning audience, this is the moment when MJ claimed the mantle of the world's biggest pop star for himself. He does things with his ankles that no-one else ever could.

"Thriller" is regularly voted the best video of all time. It's a killer trio of Jackson's peerless dancing, John Landis' horror schlock and Rick Baker's special effects. The link to the full video is here. It's passed into pop culture as much as Star Wars has, so here's my favourite takes on the Thriller video:
Star Wars meets Thriller!

The wedding Thriller dance!

And, er, 1500 Philipino prisoners!

"Scream" was my favourite Jackson song of the 90s, with an awesome video (another record-breakingly expensive job).

"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" is the first song on "Off The Wall", his breakthrough 1979 album. A delicious vocal, an utterly funky song and a warm, organic production from Quincy Jones, it announced Jackson as a real contender. The proper video has embedding disabled, but here's the song with some nice 80s MJ pics.

There's many more where that came from - the "Smooth Criminal" video, "Beat It", and so on. Hope you enjoyed these.

Michael Jackson Dies

2009-06-26T07:33:00.007+08:00

Sad to hear about Jackson's passing, as broken on the TMZ.com website. I always felt doubtful about the July O2 concerts - they seemed a bridge too far, and the numerous stories that he was at the end of his life (suffering from flesh-eating diseases and all) seemed to point one way only. I can only hope that his work is remembered more than the circus of his life; he was the foremost pop artist of the twentieth century and deserves to be remembered as such.

Weird how he looked like one of the Skeksis from Dark Crystal, though, huh? Kids, stay away from the plastic surgeon.

BBC Expenses

2009-06-26T01:24:00.003+08:00

Now (as the Daily Mail might say) there's a big stramash about BBC expenses. Is that the sound of a bandwagon being mounted I hear? Anything to work the masses up into a rage, eh? I would imagine that the expenses at the top of the corporation are hardly "lavish" - though it is easy to whip up jealousy at the expense of the people at the top of the pile. But of course these two rags are pursuing the public sector, whilst the City bonus culture goes unchecked and unchastised (performance bonuses being awarded when the performance indicators are negative? Trebles all round!)

It's no surprise that the Daily Mail and The Sun are leading on this; their antipathy to the BBC is well documented. The self-serving logic of the Murdoch press is transparent, while the Mail wants to strike down anything which acknowledges Britain as it is, rather than Britain as is desired by vociferous stratum of the middling classes. But what's curious is that the BBC willing go along with it. There is a dreadful, forelock-tugging, kowtowing, masochistic behaviour about the BBC. Were I the Chairman or DG of the BBC, I would go around proclaiming its superiority to all known broadcasting rivals and its irreplaceable place at the heart of the nation's cultural life.

But the dogma of private sector good, public sector bad has infiltrated every nook of public life. No-one feels able to stand up for the BBC on its old terms as a bastion of public life untrammelled by the imperatives of commerce (with the noble exception of Stephen Fry, whose speech on the future of the BBC was wonderful), as something which is for the good of all, something which retains the paternalist desire to improve the minds and lives of viewers.

Shame. Now, more than ever, such values are needed; which is of course why now, more than ever, such values are under attack.

China vs UK university systems

2009-06-26T00:00:00.004+08:00

I was an English teacher in Scotland before coming out to China to do TEFL, and the differences in the educational systems and attitudes have been really striking. In Britain Chinese students have a reputation for being hardworking, so some of the differences at least weren’t a surprise; but others have been eye-popping.

When I first arrived in China, it was to work in a university as an oral English teacher. The university, in Huai’an province, was a small one for China - a mere 20,000 students, nearly three times the size of my home town, and four times the size of my undergraduate university. Right away I could see the differences in the education style and in the overall student experience. Many of the students said how disappointed they were to be at that university, for example – not a statement you’d really hear a British student say, as it might seem arrogant. Later on I found out about the horrors of the goukou (the university entrance exam), and how important a good university is, and understood where the students were coming from. If I’d slaved away, studying in every waking moment, for a year and then not done as well as I’d hoped, I’d be pissed off too!

The university itself was a campus university, all in two self-contained areas, with a library, student and staff accommodation, sports facilities, a few small shops, and the teaching and administration buildings. But being a typical Scotsman I thirsted for some beer and wondered, "Where are the bars?" There weren’t any. "Where’s the student union?" I then pondered. There wasn’t one. A student union, you may know, is the social heart of a Western university. It will have a few bars selling cheap alcohol, cafes and restaurants selling cheap food, shops, newsagents, and facilities for the vast array of clubs and societies that students are encouraged to join. These range from interests like politics, photography, singing, role-playing games, hillwalking, religion, to those devoted to their subjects, to support groups such as for female, lesbian and gay, or for mature students. If the library is the head of a university, a student union is the heart.

But there wasn’t one in Huai’an. Which seemed strange to me: I knew from experience that it can be quite difficult adjusting to moving away from home, making new friends, adapting to university-style study. So I was curious how the students organized themselves. I knew where they ate, because I ate there too. The canteen was more like a State Repository For Educational Food Consumption, with serving assistants with white facemasks, like the crack factory workers in New Jack Hustler, and the unerring, inexorable lack of variety – the same food, every single day.

The living accommodation was a bigger surprise for me, though. I had thought that university accommodation was standard in most countries – one tiny box room with a single bed, sink and some cupboards, with maybe ten or twelve sharing a kitchen and bathroom. But no! I was completely wrong here. My students told me that six of them shared one dormitory, with no cooking facilities. There was no socializing space, either. They had no hot water for washing clothes, and I remember seeing several of them with cracked skin in the winter. Scrubbing your clothes in icy-cold water will do that to you.

So the students themselves provided their own social and support networks. And to be fair they did seem much more integrated than I remember British undergraduates being. Loneliness and isolation are very real hazards of the British system, which often lead to drinking too much, in an effort to compensate. There’s no real oversight of what you do, other than studying. You can get up and go to sleep any time you want (I knew someone who usually got up at 4pm and went to sleep at 8am). You don’t have to do sports, you can come into your Halls of Residence any time, you can lock yourself away in your room and it might be a few days before anyone noticed. Outside of classes, there’s very little structure for British students. There are great opportunities, but it’s down to the individual to make something of them.

My Chinese students had no such luxuries. Their electricity was promptly turned off at 11pm every night, and every morning at 6am, the campus awoke to music being played through the network of speakers throughout the grounds. Sport was mandatory, and woe betide them, if they did not return to their dormitory by 11pm, for the doors were locked.

Will Chinese universities become more Westernised, as the economy develops? That’s beyond my ability to foresee. What I can say is that Chinese students at the moment have very intensive relations with each other as a result of living together, yet often seek refuge in the internet, chatting and online gaming. British students are less close, and use alcohol to overcome that distance from each other: neither system seems perfect. Let’s hope the two systems can learn from each other.

Why I Hate Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings

2009-06-24T09:24:00.006+08:00

I have a confession to make - lean close and I'll whisper it in your ear... I'm a Lord of the Rings nerd. Only the novel mind you (not a trilogy!! It is a novel which was published in three parts due to the postwar paper shortage); I've never managed to get into The Silmarillion, despite numerous attempts. I first read it in 1990, and have read it at least once a year since then; it's one of the staples of my reading life, along with Shogun, Bad Wisdom, and Howards End.

So when the film trilogy came out (yes, the films are a trilogy) I was pleased. I saw them all at the cinema and was astounded at numerous parts - jumping the falling bridge in Moria, the battle of Helms Deep, the magnificent part played by Andy Serkis. I devoured the extended versions and savoured the success of the films, financially and critically. (Especially when Return of the King was awarded so many Oscars - it almost made up for the monstrosity that is Titanic being so grossly overrewarded).

However, as time has gone on, the weaknesses of the films have become ever more apparent. They are not films which age well, films which pay repeated viewings (like Chinatown or Pulp Fiction or Groundhog Day). I can imagine them in ten or twenty years time being viewed as historical curiosities, like epics such as Ben Hur or Cleopatra, rather than living parts of cinema which are vital parts of beloved film collections. I'd go so far as to say that the 1978 animated version by Ralph Bakshi is a superior cinematic experience which is far closer to the spirit of the novel, although it's not by any means perfect.

Peter Jackson took a lot of credit for the success of the films. He must take the blame for their failings. (There is a story that he only read the book once - whether it's true or not I don't know. But it would explain a lot, especially his superficial treatment of the whole concept).

So what are the failings? Let's go through them. (I have a feeling I might be some time on this...)

Characterisation. This is completely off, to such a degree that it must be deliberate. While some modifications and condensations are to be expected (especially in such a large novel), why Jackson felt the need to change numerous characters for the worse I'll never know. Gimli for example - reduced from a representative of the noble dwarf race to a Snarf (from Thundercats, for readers over 30), a figure of fun for cheap laughs. Frodo loses all his nobility and "stature", becoming a tepid victim. Merry and Pippin are reduced in a similar way to Gimli, becoming joke-figures - and without their apotheosis in "The Scouring of the Shire" chapter, there's little personal development. Gandalf - the difference between him pre- and post-Moria is too great; it's like he's a different character, rather than revealing different aspects of the same person. In the "Fellowship", he's a kindly old man, with a bit of a temper; in "Return" he's a sage, a philosopher-king. There's little connection between the two. Denethor should be stern, cold and proud - introducing him as broken by the death of Boromir removes all the dramatic tension from his escalating hopelessness, and reduces the impact of the palantir.
Mishandling Scenes. Several scenes are understandably telescoped (we're dealing with a novel that's over one thousand pages long and whose principal action takes place over one calender year). Nonetheless, there are several examples of Jackson getting them completely wrong. The Council of Elrond for example - Jackson usefully gives some backstory at the start of each part of the trilogy, which reduces the need for such a lengthy, unwieldy scene. So what does he do with it instead? He has the various characters squabbling and then Frodo pipes up with "I will take the ring" and all fall silent. This is just utterly ridiculous. Arwen making the river rise up is foolish, suggesting that any old elf can do "magic", whereas it is Elrond who can do it, as he possesses one of the Three Rings. In Moria, we see the skulls of dead dwarves right away, rather than an rising feel of dread, and the battle in the Chamber of Records is much longer than it should be, reducing the impact of the later climactic scene with the Balrog. And what the hell is with that scene with Aragorn being nearly drowned in "The Two Towers"? With so much choice material being cut out, why add more? We know he loves Arwen already, for christ's sake! I also hate the entire section with Faramir - gone is Frodo's nobility, gone is Faramir's ability to resist the temptation of the Ring. It's his ability to withstand the temptations of power which make him worthy of power - just as Aragorn announces that he will never set foot in the Shire. But such subtleties are beyond Jackson.
Directorial Tics. There are several terrible examples of these littered throughout the films, things which become increasingly grating. The habit of showing the Ring in Frodo's hand, the camera zooming in on the hand and Ring is one. The ridiculous elven music which comes out of nowhere at especially vital moments (Gandalf riding out to rescue Faramir, for example) is unwarranted by any dramatic necessity, and just seems absurd. And worst of all, the Hulk Hogan-esque displays performed by Gandalf and Galadriel when they display their hidden powers - these are frankly embarassing. Tolkien was a man of great sensibility and subtlety - there is no the slightest chance he would have them rampaging in such an absurd fashion. And when Frodo is variously injured, the camera lingers on his pained expression far too long, emphasising his victimhood at the expense of his other qualities (which are never really shown).
The Scouring of the Shire. This chapter may have added little to the overall plot and action of the film, but it is absolutely fundamental in terms of theme, atmosphere and dramatic synchronicity. Tolkien himself said "it is an essential part of the book, foreseen from the outset". The chapter shows not only how much the hobbits have grown, but that after wars, the Shirefolk choose to revert to their prior mode of life. Wars traditionally bring mechanisation, regimentation and industrialisation, all of which Tolkien deeply opposed. The Lord of the Rings is not (let me emphasis that one million times over) a sword-and-sorcery epic, it is a deeply-felt parable on the hidden powers of the "little people" based on the heroism of ordinary men Tolkien saw during the First World War. That the hobbits come back and reclaim their land from the usurpers and despoilers is a metaphor for what Tolkien wished that the ordinary soldiers could have done. In this sense, it is similar to Lewis Grassic Gibbon's "Sunset Song", where the First World War is won at the cost of the freedom of the small farmers amongst whom Gibbon sets his novel.
Frodo and Sam. Frodo (still less Gandalf or Aragorn) is not the hero of the book, Sam is. It's that simple. Although Frodo gets top billing, this just goes to show Tolkien's ultimate sympathy is with the underdog. To be fair, Jackson does acknowledge this to some extent by showing Sam and Rose's wedding, but because Jackson omits the Scouring of the Shire chapter, there's nowhere to show Sam's growth, his leading role in the restoration of the Shire, his planting of the mallorn tree. (Trees being a symbol of lineage, as Tolkien well knew).

More could easily be said. But my fundamental faulting of Jackson's films are that they are action films, sword-and-sorcery epics. They fundamentally miss the archaic tone and atmosphere of the book, the freedom, the sense of maps with areas not yet explored. The films do the action sequences remarkably well. But I expect more than that from any adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, of which Jackson only ever captures the surface. For such a thorough, all-encompassing, deep book, that has to count as an failure.

New Speaker

2009-06-23T23:08:00.003+08:00

I can't help thinking that the election of John Bercow as Speaker is a dreadful mistake. I rather admire him as an MP - his speech on why he had changed his mind and was supporting the right for gay people to adopt was one of the best I can recall in the last ten years (up there with Robin Cook's resignation speech and Tony Blair's speech before the vote for the Iraq war in 2003). He did a good job at knifing the over-promoted Iain Duncan Smith as a backbencher, too: anyone sensible in the Tory party must have been raging at IDS's lamentable display as leader.

But as Speaker? Bercow is far too inexperienced (having held no ministerial posts and as far as I can tell no select committee posts). He did contribute the Bercow Review on children with communication difficulties. But this simply isn't enough top-level experience. Also, he appears to have riled his (former) Conservative colleagues with the speed and depth of his political damascene conversion.

Whatever the reasons for this (and I'm sure that there's more to it than meets the eye), he does not seem to command the respect and confidence of the whole house. If, as has been alleged, he has been chosen because he is the most Labour-style Tory out there (Lib Dems not being acceptable because Labour knows it will lose the next general election and is jealously guarding its two-party priviliges), then the Speaker has been chosen for his political affiliations rather than competence.

We're right back where we were with Michael Martin.

(The other possible explantion for his election - that he looks young and "dynamic" and "reforming" - is too depressing for words. Surely he can't..? Surely...?)

Young People Have Sex Shocker

2009-06-19T12:13:00.006+08:00

An Elgin doctor has been suspended for not reporting a 14 year-old girl who came to him with an STD to social workers.

Great! So if you do have under-age sex, and have the misfortune to be infected with an STD as a result of it, the powers that be at NHS Grampian expect the doctors to summon up social workers (and no doubt some angry parents).

Which leads to that great law of unintended consequences - those who do have underage sex (let's face it, some do) and are infected cannot have it treated. Rampant chlamydia all round!

Freedom

2009-06-16T00:16:00.004+08:00

Since I've been in China, I've been thinking about the concept of freedom a lot. It's the sine qua non of our days, extolled from the USA (and other Western countries, albeit to a lesser extent) as though it were something measurable and tangible, something concrete, whereas it's as indeterminable and context-bound as other abstract values such as democracy and justice and ethics.

(Before I start, I know that China is an authoritarian, one-party state. But from living here I have come to find that the ordinary citizen has freedom in their day-to-day life which the Western citizen does not.)

So what is "freedom" for someone in the UK?

Freedom to shop at Tesco
Freedom to get drunk.
Freedom to be educated to age 18.
Freedom to use nationalised hospitals.
Freedom to drive, not to cycle.
Freedom to vote or not; to vote for fascist parties or not.
Freedom to surf any part of the internet, unless you are at work or school.
Freedom to retire, on a state pension.
Freedom to protest, except when politicians are nearby.
Freedom to choose from 200 TV channels.
Freedom to shop from high-street shops which are the same in every high street.
Freedom to have sex, unless you can't find anyone, in which case it's your fault.
Freedom to watch football.

I'm sure there's lots more. But you get the idea.

Recent Reads

2009-06-10T21:15:00.004+08:00

As I mentioned some time ago, I recently got married. Since I've been in China, I've been enduring a painful seperation from my book collection. So as twelve (count 'em) members of my extended family were coming out, I asked them to bring a few books each. Hence, recently I've been on a vast book-reading jag recently, and been mighty enjoying it.

So, dear reader (no doubt my use of the singular is correct..!), here's my thoughts on recent reads.

Oscar Wilde, by Richard Ellman. One of the greatest biographies ever written. Incredibly literate, lucid, and wonderfully detailed with stories and and tales from Wilde's remarkable life. Only problem is the procession of names which are introduced with little explanation, assuming you know who they are. This is okay for Andre Gide but not for the minor characters he does it for, too. (I found this book in an Oxfam book store for 2 pounds and snaffled it up immediately).
The Blair Years - Alistair Campbell. Utterly fascinating. Raw, unpasteurised politics. The stuff of a thousand PhD thesis'. A portrait, too, of the utter sidelining of cabinet government, as well as the humanity of the participants. (A present from my best man - cheers, Darren!).
The Ode Less Travelled - Stephen Fry. In which Fry's pedagogical tendencies come to the fore, with superb results. I finally feel I understand metre. (A 29th birthday present from my brother Barry)
The Last Diaries - Alan Clark. Markedly inferior to his, classic, Diaries (now referred to as Diaries: In Power). Outside the loop for much of it, and a slight feeling of scraping the barrel. His frank truth-telling only has full effect juxtaposed against the pomposities of politicians - saying that Douglas Hurd "when in 'display mode' might as well have a corn-cob shoved up his arse" is a classic example. Another charity-shop job. How I love finding something wonderful in charity shops...!
Now starting on Tai-Pan, by James Clavell. Have read his Shogun and King Rat more times than I like to remember (books I like I usually read once a year - I first read Shogun in 1991....), so I'm looking forward to this one a lot. Should be quite interesting regarding the founding of Hong Kong. As Stephen King says, fiction is the truth inside the lie.

Generally, though, the book-buying situation in China is not good. The Wordsworth editions of classic, pre-1900 novels which sell for one pound in Britain, are quite plentiful, as are pulpy-popular writers like Stephen King and JK Rowling. Literary novels and political history - my books of choice - are as thin on the ground as prospects of Susan Boyle posing for Playboy.

China Whacks Back On Clinton

2009-06-05T14:45:00.001+08:00

From the China Daily. It's extremely rare to get such a discussion. Check out the comments, too. No report of Clinton's actual statement, though!

China Thursday expressed deep dissatisfaction and resolute opposition to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks on the 20th anniversary of the events of June 4.

"As to the political turmoil and problems that happened in the late 1980s, the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government have already made a clear conclusion," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular press conference in response to a question about a statement released by Clinton on Wednesday.

He said China had made great advances in economic and social development since the country began its reforms and opened up 30 years ago.

Facts had proven that the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics suited the national conditions of China, complied with the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people, and reflected the aspirations of all Chinese people, Qin said.

The remarks from the US disregarded the facts and made random accusations against the Chinese government, Qin said, adding that Clinton's comments violated basic norms governing international relations and principles set forth in the three China-US joint communiqus and grossly interfered in China's internal affairs.

"We urge the US to put aside its political prejudices and correct its wrong-doings so as to avoid interfering with and damaging Sino-US relations," Qin said.

Goons With Umbrellas

2009-06-05T00:03:00.006+08:00

How to make a fool of your great nation before the world's media.

*** EDIT ***

I think the embedded videos have been blocked. Well, you can get the idea from this picture: goons with umbrellas deliberately obstructing journalists and their video cameras. History repeating itself as farce, as Marx said.

Here's the links to two videos of umbrella goons blocking off BBC and CNN jounralists.

A Year of Limbo?

2009-06-04T11:11:00.001+08:00

SO Hazel Blears has gone.

It's impossible to see Brown continuing as PM - he's doomed. All authority drained away. But there's still a year to go before a General Election. It's hard to see how he can cling on, and if he is dislodged, whoever gets is must go to the country swiftly. As things stand, Labout would lose heavily.

This is why Cabinet is letting him cling on. A year of limbo awaits.

But could a new face revive Labour?

That's the million dollar question. Don't be surprised if you get a call from Mori asking how you feel about David Millband or Alan Johnston.

Chinese Great Firewall

2009-06-03T14:11:00.005+08:00

Just after proseltysing about the freedoms of China, along comes a series of internet blocks! Yesterday Hotmail, Twitter and Flickr were blocked. Youtube, of course, has been blocked since March, and Blogspot was blocked in May. The reason for these blocks are transparent - yup, it's the 20th anniversary of that thing that didn't happen.

Today Hotmail was restored - according to one source (twitter.com/stinson), "I'm pretty sure the blocking of Hotmail was caused by blocking the rest of Live to get rid of Bing.". Twitter and Flickr remain blocked.

The opening-up, hoped for subsequent to the Beijing Olympics, is not happening. Incrementally, the internet restrictions are becoming more severe. The effectiveness of these policies is doubtful: these websites, especially Twitter, are used by people to explicitly exchange information - especially links to interesting news stories and pictures. Proxy websites are easily used to overcome the internet blocks (I'm typing this having gone through one (accessmeproxy.com) myself. It only takes another ten seconds).

It's a shame the Chinese governing class is so paranoiac. But without explicit consent, I guess it would be. Which is kinda ironic, because by and large, most people are supportive of government policies. (To the extent that a poll of Chinese people put China as being more democratic than Japan; a remarkable 94% agree with the statement "Our form of government is best for us,", according to a Carnegie Endowment report). But cover-ups make people suspicious, cynical and untrusting.

Scouts

2009-06-01T22:27:00.002+08:00

I had wandered idly through my early twenties, in a drug and alcohol haze. As twenty-five approached, the sense of time wasted, of a career not underway, of money pished against nightclub urinals, of friends have far more money than me, began to weigh on me oppressively, toad-like. Of course, I’d had a blast since leaving university, with a degree in English and Politics (the “useful subjects”, I ruefully noted), in 2000. The first year especially had been a wild, lengthy drugs binge. I’d been a good boy all the way through school and university, studied fairly hard, read very widely, not gone out too often, nor got into large amounts of debt or got naïve freshers pregnant. I had, though, smoked pot especially during the last two years, and was just discovering pills (ecstasy) at the end, through friends in Aberdeen. So when I’d finished my degree, clutching my 2:1 with youthful optimism, to Aberdeen I moved, seeking the thrills and sensations that I felt I’d missed out on during my studious days. I was sure that I would get a Good Job soon enough, as that was what always happened, which would allow me to experience the thrill, spills and bellyaches of an active clubbing lifestyle. As, academically, I’d always considered myself a rebel, devouring Marx, Ginsberg, Alex Trocchi, Zen Buddhism, William Burroughs, and Nietzsche, it was great to finally be living the rebellious life. I loved music that was leftfield, outside the mainstream: acts like the Velvet Underground, Death In Vegas, Roni Size, Daft Punk; genres like techno, drum and bass, and alternative rock. I was a hard-left, ultra-republican, nightclubbing, postmodernist model of defiance of authority. I loathed the police and landlords with all the contempt of the aristocratic rebel.

I didn’t get a Good Job, however, only scraping a bar job. This did allow me to go to allnight parties when finished, so that was good, as my friends were either in barwork too or working offshore, and so available to take whatever concoctions we could conjure up. For example: one day I got a hold of some acid, which four of us took. We ambled dreamily to a local park, but split when we saw there were stalls for young kids there. En route, two of us took half a pill each, so that when we got to the local JD Wetherspoon’s bar, we were manically buzzing. We got some jugs of vodka and Red Bull, to add caffeine to our over-stimulation, so all four of us were now utterly wired, like hairless chimps on several wraps of quality speed. But this became too much, as the bar was completely filled, a football match being on that day, with burly men giving us malevolent glances. So we retired to one of our flats, where we smoked pot and entered a remarkable mental state where we were all on bizarre tangents from each other, operating in some individual headspace we could neither articulate nor control. This also became too much, the layers of reality feeling peeled back and some dreadful Ur-existence seemed ready to strike me. So we decided to go and get drunk, which we did until midnight, then went to smoke pot until about 2am. A twelve-hour binge like this was not particularly unusual, nor did it seem to take its toll as alcohol would. Pot was plentiful, acid easily obtained, pills came with the nightlife lifestyle I had adopted, and mushrooms were free. It was a gloriously free time, for a while. We were rebelling, but having so much fun with it; the hedonism was tinged with an anti-authoritarian slant, which I found utterly fulfilling.

But not for too long. Things became skewed and fucked up. We had binged on stimulants in particular for far too long. Returning from a major drugs frenzy at T In The Park, one of my friends was completely spaced out for an entire week, enduring several out-of-body experiences. Another had nearly died after taking some unusual pills acquired from some random chancer in a dodgy nightclub, suffering severe paranoia for months afterwards. I had had my head blown apart and painfully stitched back together after accidentally smoking what I must assume to have been a joint of liquid acid, with acid scars leaving a grim trail behind for ever after. After that, things had fallen apart; we retreated fearfully back from the great socialising days into smaller, self-protective groups. If we had carried on like we had, it would have been Syd Barret-time.

But nothing came along to fill the space, apart from drinking, which we then began to overdo. And watching others get on with their lives and careers, whilst I felt utterly held back, banging my head against the brick wall of closed opportunities, was soul-crushing. I had to do something. Having only a degree in English to really fall back on, I decided to apply for teaching, the great fall-back career. But to ensure that I could handle kids, and just get on with them, I decided to become a Scout leader in the nine months before the course actually started. I had been a Scout as a teenager, all the way until leaving home for university, and enjoyed it a lot. Scouting is the most successful youth association in the world, but the chronically unfashionable status it has in Britain suggests the views we hold of our children. There are over a million Scouts, Cubs, Beaver and Explorers in Britain, thousands upon thousands of adults lending their time and work-pressurised efforts, helping young people develop their skills and attributes and gain self-reliance. Yet people tend to look at it highly dismissively, perhaps because it’s not rock and roll enough. But it had certainly taken me out of my book-ridden bedroom and into the vibrant outdoors, developing self-reliance and socialising skills in a way I needed; also introducing me to drinking, nobly aided by the leaders by the time we had got into Venture Scouts (now called Explorers), for kids from 15-21. The reading I’d been doing never let me deal out the old right hook to dirty dogs with twice my size, so this was fantastic for a bookworm like me. Thinking that I might be able to recapture some of those feelings, I phoned up the Area HQ and was given a contact number and an address. I was told to come along next Tuesday.

Off I went, clueless as to what to expect. My old Scout hut had been dingy and frowsty, embedded with the sweat of generations of boys from playing games like British Bulldogs, Midnight Murder and infinite variations of Dodge Ball, and had a shabby stock of patrol tents, canes, gas stoves, ropes, maps and so on; yet the worn and eroded equipment was a sign that they had been well-used, by generation after generation of Scouts. As I entered the new “hut”, what I found was a modern hall, well built, recently painted and decorated with photos and posters showing modern Scouting in all its glory. The scrum of boys kicking a ball about the hall was a familiar sight, while the half-dozen or so girls sitting chatting on a bench weren’t. I was ushered into the leaders room (another radical development) and introduced to the others. They were a contrast from my usual friends; whilst about the same age – only the leader was out of his twenties – they didn’t seem the type to go on a pill frenzy to some dirty jungle beats. On the contrary. They all seemed happy and well-adjusted, and welcomed me in, asking jokingly about why on earth I’d volunteered, where I’d been a Scout and so on. Jokes about previous incidents and people I didn’t know still excluded me, but of course they had the shared experiences of camps unknown to unite them. I was coming in cold, but they tried to overcome my nervousness and make me feel part of things.

Almost the next week was the Scout Gang Show. I had never heard of these, as they are city events, but assumed it was something like a Boys Brigade Inspection, which I had previously experienced, with sketches, skits and the like. In fact it turned out to be a series of musical medleys on themes such as “School”, “Cats and Dogs” and “Halloween”, with songs from pop music, musicals, TV programs, and (I guessed) some Gilbert and Sullivan, and with costume and background changes hidden behind comical skits of the most deliberately-bad variety. There were a few sketches by middle-aged leaders taking great delight in dressing as women; they were that kind of camp heterosexual male that you guess has had homosexual experiences in their past. The jolly-hockysticks flavour was acute, particularly at the encore, which was a type of “We Are The World” song, performed in full uniform, woggle and all, in front of an array of the world flags, with a solo section by an angelic girl before rising to a rousing crescendo.

In previous years this would have provoked a number of reactions – fits of giggles (if I was stoned), nausea, or anger at the smug bourgeois attitudes displayed. However, after the years of placing myself in the alternative, this sort of thing was appealingly new. I felt that I was going from a lifestyle that was jaded, dark, cynical and closed-minded, to one that was fresh, light, optimistic and open-minded. It was a new thing, a new avenue.

So I continued on with it. I got to know and distinguish the leaders. All of them were essentially suburban young professionals, with cars, little taste in music (Queen was the general consensus), good credit ratings and relationships with parents, and so on. Coming into this from the outside, from a lifestyle of dishevelled flats, rapid flits to avoid Council Tax, no driving licence and small-scale drug dealing, I found this oddly interesting. Here were this pocket of people, some of whom had known each other since schooldays, so different from “my” kind of people, into which I was now joining – how would I fit in?

To begin with, the weekly meetings were unremarkable The kids seemed much less rough-and-tumble than I remembered being, and with girls making up about a quarter of a Troop, there wasn’t the same rough-housing – games like British Bulldogs, the playfighting like lion cubs testing out their strength in controlled conditions – that is a part of a boy’s growing up. Or should be part of growing up, as too many children are mollycoddled and wrapped in cotton wool. So there were kids there who would not compete in games and just get themselves out as soon as possible. Contact games were out – “Health And Safety” again, presumably. But then the Troop served a specifically suburban area, whereas mine had had a large number of working-class boys, who didn’t partake in such niceties. “Chalk rugby” was a favourite but vicious game to play. I remember winning a point by grabbing the chalk, running shoulder-down into an older boy, ramming him against the wall, being grabbed from behind, giving a bruising “tit-nip” to my opponent and scrambling, still being held onto, to the end of the hut to mark the point, emerging sore but victorious. It made a change from reading Tolkien.

I especially looked forwards to the camps. They had been such fun when I was a Scout. My own Leader had not been lax, but we had a considerable amount of illicit fun, which I imagine he must have known about and implicitly condoned. We had raided each other’s tents, giving those inside a friendly thumping; stolen other patrols’ food when on Area camps; and eventually been allowed to drink, when in Ventures. Then we had been allowed to stay up all hours, drinking dreadful cheap cider and stubby bottles of beer, with the leaders who were drinking whisky and getting merry. Songs would spill forth, hilarious banter and micky-taking went on, and the mornings would feature hearty fried breakfasts to salve the tired and hungover. Great times, especially after spending all day busily outdoors, building enormous pioneering-pole contraptions, or going round bases doing archery, mountain biking, orienteering and so on.

It was rather different going as a leader. Firstly, there wasn’t the same camaraderie we had enjoyed as kids, for there wasn’t the same level of shared experience that enables groups to bond closely. However, everyone was fairly friendly and welcoming, and so although there were inevitably leaders who I found more congenial, there was never any cliquishness. However, I found a number of changes, reflecting a difference of emphasis. The Scouts Own, where all gather round at the end of the camp and a leader mouths some high-minded generalities about teamwork, cooperation, self-improvement, had taken on a religious character, going so far as to praise the Pope, or conducting formal prayers. (Similarly, when filling in my details, I had to specify a particular religion – atheism is not an allowed option. Fortunately, I had read and respected some things about Buddhism, so that was my choice). This I find rather suspect. I respect spirituality, but don’t think that in today’s multicultural society that we should enforce particular religious observations. Give others the freedom to do so, but it should not be a part of the diet of a youth organisation. However, a spiritual component is part of the Scouting framework, and the leaders being who they are – white, middle-class, and of Christian upbringing – this tends to ensure a Christian practise. Which is unfortunate, because one of Scouting’s great strengths is in its emphasis on internationalism and diversity.

The attitude to alcohol had also changed. Where it had been seen as an opportunity to socialise young people into drinking sensibly with their elders, now with the legalistic approach required by the sacred Health And Safety Act, we could not been seen or known to be drinking whilst in charge of the kids, so it was all hush-hush. And the older Scouts, now that the age range had changed to 11-14, weren’t old enough to drink with us. This was a shame, because laughing at the younger ones making a fool of themselves was one of the great rituals and pleasures. One particular memory I have is a Venture Scout Area Camp, where during the Saturday night one Venture from a neighbouring Unit got horrendously drunk on two cans of cider, and was bundled into the patrol tent where they would all be sleeping. He was so drunk that he pissed not only himself but also all over everyone’s kit. How we laughed!

Nevertheless, Scouting was and remains great fun. To be sure, there are aspects of it that are less admirable. It can be contemptibly materialistic and middle-class (there’s a competitiveness about expensive camping gear), complacently smug (no mention of the poor and needy, unless they are in Africa), and explicitly concerned with rank and status. Where the Scouts have their award badges, younger leaders have badges denoting camps and jamborees attended, and the senior leaders with vast experience wear only the basic badges, as if to say that they had been to so many events that they were all much the same to them. It is a highly bourgeois organisation, as the Marxists would have it. The ideology of the organisation is that of the managerial class, and it explicitly aims to train young people to take command (Army Cadets, the working class equivalent, teaches young people to take orders), just as it preaches diversity, equality and achievement with all the fervour of similar upper-middle class organisations like the BBC, the Duke of Edinburgh Award, and the Labour Party. The adherence to God, the Queen, and the flag is explained much more easily if seen in these terms.

And yet… and yet is it is great fun, which cannot be denied. There is something immortal about the pick-pack-pock of tents pegs being malletted against a warm dusk sky; about the campfire singsong, where Ging-Gang-Goolie is passed down, hand actions and all, from generation to generation; about enlightening the newer Scouts with the innumerable techniques and skills of camping, from airing a patrol tent to lighting a fire without matches or lighter to constructing a camp entrance; about the wide games, Hounds and Hares and British Bulldogs especially, played in near-dark lit by torches and punctuated by boyish cries and laughter; about the smiling, knowing greeting of the parents picking up their youngsters after camp; about the jokes and catchphrases which brighten up any good camp and are summoned up, years afterwards, in laughing memory; about battered old frying pans cooking charred bacon over eye-watering smoky fires; about the outdoors most of all - the imposing trees silhouetted against the pale night sky, the beckoning warmth of the fire, the sibilant rasp of the water boiler ready for consoling mugs of hot chocolate, the patrol tents proudly erect, the shared formalities of breaking the flag when opening and closing the camp.

These images continue on, these events go on and on, year after year, rendering their ghostly silt on hallowed camping ground. No dryads walk there in the woods, just memories which live forever. Sometimes you can almost feel it, a never-ending procession just a glimmer away from tangibility. May it never fade away.

Western vs Chinese Freedom

2009-06-01T00:07:00.004+08:00

I have just been reading articles by the philosopher AC Grayling on China, specifically concerning the human rights and freedom situation. (The articles are here and here).

One of the best comments comes from the poster "MilesSmiles", who lives himself in China and has a much better grasp of the reality of life for most Chinese people. (Maybe I have a soft spot for him choosing his username from that glorious Miles Davis album). He says, "The Chinese regime is authoritarian, for sure, but westerners vastly overestimate the control it has over ordinary people's lives.".

This is actually very true. Westerners are used to the way the state intrudes upon their life; however, when they hear upon a different set of instrusions, they consider them insufferable. Now, I understand that the Chinese human rights record is appalling. What I want to record here is the way that life in China is often freer - in terms of being left alone by the state - than life in Britain.

Health and safety as it exists in Britain is non-existent. Street-vendors sell food with nary an inspector looking to close them down. Transporting things across a city often involves a motorbike or scooter and a basket, whether for chickes, gas cannisters or children. No-one wears seat-belts. Driving may well be more hazardous because lanes and other rules have less import, but then there's less rage and aggression in driving than in Britain. Cars will slow down for you if you're crossing the road.

The police are officious, but often they let people sort out things themselves. Traffic accidents (surprisingly rare) generally work on the basis that the bigger vehicle is at fault, and those involved will generally come to a settlement between themselves.

There's a pleasant anarchy when it comes to shopping. No-one gives a flying fuck about copyright infringement; shops selling pirate DVDs operate openly on busy thoroughfares; shops selling fake clothes and accessories are everywhere. If you want to buy the real deal, that's available too. Brands have less status, therefore there's less difference between "real" goods and copies. It's up to you how much money you want to spend.

Alcohol and cigarettes have very low taxes (unless they are imported!) and freely available. Prostitution, often under the guise of foot-massage parlours, is similarly implicitly condoned.

There is a remarkable gender equality. You don't get men openly slavvering over women in China. Women who wear revealing clothes do so with impunity, and there are rarely situations where women feel in danger.

Public spaces are actually used by the public, instead of being taken over by drunkards or hordes of teenagers. There isn't the gender divide as there is in Western countries; streets, parks and squares teem with all mannner of people, all varieties of life. Compared to Britain, where night streets are surrendered to the drunken and the aggressive, and where gathering are frowned upon for potential distrurbances, this is a highly refreshing change.

As I suggested earlier, I don't want to defend China's worse aspects. But I do want to suggest that Chinese people have freedoms that we generally don't have in the West, and that there is a balance to be struck. At the moment, obviously the Chinese government is ruthlessly illiberal in some areas, yet it does leave the average citizen free from the state in numerous ways which the Western citizen is not.

Best Album of the 1990s

2009-05-28T13:53:00.007+08:00

It's a bit of a shock to find that it's almost 20 years since the 1990s began. Musically, I'm old enough to remember what was going on in British music from the off. "Baggy" Madchester music started it all off, there was the rave explosion of 1991-1992 (Bass Generator, Oceanic, even The Prodigy), then there several years of increasingly soulless dance music (e.g. Snap's "Rhythm Is A Dancer") before Oasis and Blur reminded everyone of the merits of the electric guitar. Dub-influenced electronica countered this brash confidence, with Tricky, Portishead and Massive Attack leading an inspired, pessimistic wave of electronica. But then came the Spice Girls, who reinvigorated the pop world and ultimately led to its demise, as successive manufacured bands (Boyzone, Westlife, et cetera et fucking cetera) completely emasculated the power of the independent performer and gave it to the Svengali manager/producer type. Which led us to Simon Cowell and the idea of pop music as pure commodity, only judged by popularity, and completely without cultural significance. (Insipid covers of 60s songs only reinforce the utter poverty of this approach.)

Rant over...

People tend to think of Britpop when it comes to 90s British music, but there was so many countervailing trends as to make the idea of a generic "90s music" as ridiculous as pigeon-holing any other decade. (It always irritates me when I see "Greatest Hits of the 70s!" type compilations which are all the glam, disco hits - where's the punk? the reggae? the prog?). So the album I'd like to nominate - no, to proclaim - as the best British album of the 1990s, Belle and Sebastian's "The Boy With The Arab Strap".

Released in 1998, it came out at a time when Britpop was dying from its excesses (see Oasis: Be Here Now) and manu-pop was in the asendancy. Being neither, it was missed by the pop markey but instead built on the word-of-mouth successes of their previous two albums, and the three EPs after their sophomore effort, If You're Feeling Sinister". It in fact reached #12 in the British album charts and earned the group "Best Newcomer" in the 1999 Brit Awards, much to the chagrin of acts like Steps and 5ive (a good indicator of the tension between quality and success).

So why's it so good? Let me take you, dear reader, by the hand and let's look at its numerous superlative qualities.

Music
Belle and Sebastian are sometimes labelled "chamber pop", which means they use more instruments than your average pop or rock group, without going as far as employing the sterotypical orchestra for like, totally emotive sections (see Metallica, Guns N' Roses etc etc). Cellos, violins, trumpets, pianos and trumpets enrich and broaden the musical pallete, but, importantly, they are not overblown, as rock bands are so fond of doing. They are employed subtly and with great refinement, in the manner of Nick Drake for example, or with the Velvet Underground's more subtle, less-is-more arrangements (such as "Pale Blue Eyes" or "I'm Set Free").

"Sleep The Clock Around" is a great illustration of this technique. It fades in quietly, hypnotically, vocals murmured. But as it goes on, it gradually builds in colour, charge, potency and musical richness, to an ending on an incredible feeling of hope, defiance, yearning, wishing and desire, articulated (not embarrassingly, which is remarkable) by a bagpipe's wail. It's all about the build-up, the almost drap opening important because of the colour and potency and feeling of the ending - just as Philip Larkin often started his poems with everyday colloquialisms and ended on transcendentals. (And like Philip Larkin, both examine the everyday and find the sublime - as in the soaring strings which end "Dirty Dream #2" or the dream of laziness in "A Summer Wasting").

Belle and Sebastian have no bombast - their songs are often musically delicate miniatures. But this does not mean they are insubstantial! They are extremely potent, just as a poem can have greater emotive force than a novel. The shimmering beauty of "Is It Wicked Not To Care?" and the childlike whimsy of "A Space Boy Dream" could not be sustained across an album without becoming tiresome. Instead, they are intriguing, suggestive of private dreams and epiphanies.

Lyrics
Belle and Sebastian's lyrics are consistently stunning poetic vignettes. They have all the hallmarks of greatness - humour, wit, compassion, a sharp eye, felicity, and technique, and easily compare with the great lyricists in pop and rock, such as Roger Waters, Nick Drake, Morrissey and Patti Smith. Their general subject matter is the daydreamers, losers and could-have-beens, sometimes compassionately, sometimes waspishly (and the sting comments on the sweet music to great effect). Let's just look at some examples, which show how good they are better than I can. :-)

She had a stroke at the age of 24
It could have been a brilliant career
Getting clients to finance her strategies
Filling time in on Safeways on Saturday
She wears the clothes of an emperor
But her paintings are a sham
And they're going for a grand
When the dealers come to view
Do they ever see the real you?
- It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career

Take Judy, with her bow and arrow, she's a mastermind
Too frumpy for the teenage population of her time
Car coat, she has a quilted jacket with a hood if it rains
Big pockets for the pharmaceuticals she takes to fix her brain
- The Rollercoaster Ride

Met the cigarette girl- took a note of her charms
But no cigar
- Chickfactor

The other astronauts were going to be my dad and my sister
My dad would come first after me
- A Space Boy Dream

And the puzzle will last till somebody will say
'There's a lot to be done while your head is still young'
If you put down your pen, leave your worries behind
Then the moment will come, and the memory will shine
- Sleep The Clock Around

Promises of fame, promises of fortune
LA to New York- San Francisco back to Boston
Has he ever seen Dundee?
Won't he hire a limousine?
Seymour bring her back to me
- Seymour Stein

I think those speak for themselves. Fantastic.

There's also several nice touches which deserve further mention. At the end of "Summer Wasting" which until then had repeatdly mentioned the "seven weeks" of reading papers, feeling guilty etc, it finally becomes "seven months of staying up all night", so that the lazy summer becomes a wasted year. The title track has a chirpy rhythm but has a stinging, scathing portrait of someone "making free with your lewd and lascivious boasts" who "We all know you are soft cause we've all seen you dancing / We all know you are hard cause we all saw you drinking from noon / Until noon again". And the portrait of three failures in "It Could Have Been A Briliant Career" is savage, especially the closoing couplet, "And you can tell by the way she looks he is sorry and resigned / As he wets himself for the final time". Bittersweet tales, compassionate character sketches and stinging satire mix easily on a chiming, wonderfully lush musical frame.

Conclusion
The conclusion is obvious. "The Boy With The Arab Strap" is a fucking amazing album, one which is incredibly articulate musically and verbally, and has enormous heart, imagination and compassion. Buy it.

(What do you mean, you've never heard of it?)

Farewell, Common Fisheries Policy

2009-05-26T23:22:00.003+08:00

One of the most despised EU policies is the Common Fisheries Policy. It was meant to conserve fish stocks across the EU - a good idea, and one where the EU would be the best forum for action because it would prevent countries from free-riding on the conservation efforts of others. But it completely failed. The EU insisted on a quota system, setting limits and sizes for different types of fish, which resulted in fishermen having to throw back fish which exceeded their quotas.

So the fishermen hated it. Coming from a fishing town, I know how they resented, reviled and despised it. Imagine, having to throw back fish which were already dead. Imagine having to throw away your own livelihood, when the job is already one of the hardest in the UK, and is the most dangerous. Imagine seeing money tossed away on the altar of an utterly futile policy. And scientists liked it no better, as it failed to prevent fish stocks from declining.

Now it's gone, no more, set adrift to a watery grave, unmourned and unmissed. The EU has in effect scrapped the entire policy.

Good riddance.

Roll Up! Roll Up!

2009-05-25T11:21:00.005+08:00

Police Chief Dave Cameron furrowed his smooth Oxonian forehead.

"People hate the police. They think we are seperate from them somehow, when we are meant to be part of their community. How can we change this?" he asked his deputies rhetorically.

"How?" his effeminate assistant and dogsbody Proctor-Osborne squeaked.

"Recruit people with absolutely no experience whatsoever!" Cameron said, thumping the desk. "Invite anyone! Drop all pretensions of having any standards! We don't want to be seen as elitist, do we?"

"Well, no, but, but, but..."

"But what?" Cameron asked disdainfully.

"But getting rid of any recuitment standards means we'll end up taking any old Tom, Dick or Harriet - "

"Precisely, you fool!" Cameron growled. "We don't want people who can think for themselves! They'll be putty in our hands. Remember the great Blair Intake of 1997? How infantile, passive and pager-led were they? That's exactly what we want for our backbenches, I mean, new recuits!"

"What a brilliant idea, sir!" Proctor-Osborne simpered.

Suffer The Children

2009-05-24T19:16:00.003+08:00

I work teaching in China. Sometimes I am literally flabbergasted at things the students tell me, whether through the breadth of the cultural divide or through the simple unpleasantness it demonstrates of their lives. This is one of the latter: a primary school (grade seven) student's timetable.

Each period is 40 minutes, with ten minutes between each.

MONDAY
Chinese Maths Maths Maths English LUNCH Chinese Chinese Maths Maths Chinese Maths

TUESDAY
Chinese Maths Maths Maths English Maths LUNCH Maths English Chinese Chinese Chinese

WEDNESDAY
Maths Chinese Chinese Chinese English LUNCH Maths Chinese Maths Chinese English Maths

THURSDAY
Maths Chinese Chinese English Chinese LUNCH Maths Maths Maths Maths English Maths

FRIDAY
Maths Chinese Chinese Maths English LUNCH Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese Chinese English

Yes, that really was five periods of Chinese on Friday afternoon.

Apart from this horrific concentration on three subjects, the teaching method remains (fortunately now archaic in Western countries) rote learning. What an amazingly sterile, arid, soulless education system. I really am completely shocked at this.

Laugh or Cry? A Tale of Modern Britain

2009-05-19T11:46:00.016+08:00

I'm don't really enjoy tabloidy stories - too much schadenfraude. But this one really just boggles the mind:

Teenager Alfie Patten was "extremely distressed" to discover he was not a father, it can now be reported.

The 13-year-old was thought to have made Chantelle Stedman, 15, pregnant but a paternity test proved this untrue.

Another boy, Tyler Barker, 15, who lives on the same estate as Chantelle in Eastbourne, is in fact the father of baby Maisie, according to reports.

If schoolboy Alfie had been the father he would have made Chantelle pregnant at the tender age of 12.

Alfie, who lives with his mother Nicola, 43, in Eastbourne, told The Sun - when he believed he was the father - he "thought it would be good to have a baby".<

No more comment required.

(Copyyright PA).

Chinese Firewall

2009-05-18T18:16:00.001+08:00

The Great Chinese Firewall has struck again! Blogger.com is blocked. I've managed to find a working proxy and will blog more later on the restrictions online in China.

Adios.

Frozen in the Headlights

2009-05-15T07:40:00.005+08:00

Can you believe this?

Nick Brown, the chief whip, is to ask Labour's ruling national executive committee to rule next Tuesday on Morley and on Fabian Hamilton, the MP for Leeds North East, whose expenses were questioned in today's Telegraph. (Guardian)

What the hell is Gordon Brown doing, while parliament's reputations is crumbling and Labour are down to 22% in a Yougov poll (a record low)? Why on earth is he having the Chief Whip ask the NEC for a decision? When is he going to wake up and get a grip?

I can see him as a Hamlet figure, endlessly procrastinating while a disaster burns the house down; dazzled like a rabbit in the headlights, frozen in fear, unable to commit to any action. Obsessed by the long-term, he can't perform in the here-and-now; brooding on history and mortality, events pass him by, until it's too late.

He's doomed.

Quote of the Week/Month/Year

2009-05-14T22:37:00.005+08:00

"The pool came with the house and I needed to know how to run it." - Stewart Jackson, Conservative MP for Peterborough, on his 300 pound claim for upkeep of a swimming pool.

*** EDIT ***

It gets better: "Once I was shown that one time, there were no more claims. I take care of the pool myself. I believe this represents value for money for the taxpayer."

(Thanks to lukewaterfield for the additional killer comment.)

Chinese Nightclubs Suck!

2009-05-13T21:24:00.001+08:00

I have been in China for two years almost, and in this time I have come to a considered conclusion: Chinese nightclubs suck; they are appalling, joyless, amateurish, status-mad cess pits. Now I am willing to believe that there are good ones, out there, somewhere; just as I am willing to believe that there really were some good Nazis and that they were only obeying orders. Bars, on the other hand, are usually adequate, if you are willing to put up with poor service, inane music and a limited repertoire of drinks (why so much staff? why do they obstruct each other?)

So, how do the nightclubs suck, then? Let me count the ways.

Status
Let’s get down to brass tacks. Chinese nightclubs often are about conspicuous assertions of status and rank. The whole set up is these places is geared to demonstrating who’s got da money. Many nightclubs have seated areas only available for those who buy a certain quantity of drinks upon entering. This is an absurd system for several reasons: pulling rank is a dickish, vulgar thing to do, if all you’ve got to offer is money; partitioning groups off from others reduces the spontaneity and fun of the evening; and buying and paying drinks at the start of the night does similarly (no chance to get up a round of shots just for the sheer stupid hell of it), and also ensures the beers and soft drinks sit there getting warm.

Music
Now I’m sure that there are some nightclubs that play good music in China: with 1.3 billion people, surely there must be, somewhere. I haven’t found one yet however, instead finding sugary pop music more often listened to by lovesick fourteen year-old British girls; dance-pop music of a kind that is ten or fifteen years old; or bland r n’ b, both American and its Chinese knock-off counterpart. Where’s the techno, the drum and bass, the house?

Toilets
Oh, the toilets! The fecal, vile rancidity of the toilets! When in a small city in Jiangsu last year, men kept missing the urinal, instead pissing on the floor, which meant they stood further and further back from the urinal, thus getting more and more piss on the floor: horrible. Usually they aren’t as bad as that, but they’re generally smelly and dirty, through a simple lack of consideration and hygiene.

Buying Drinks
Nightclubs often have weird labyrinthine system for purchasing drinks, quite apart from the private-VIP-area aspect. Maybe you have to pay for the drink before you get it; maybe the barstaff don’t get the drink but pass a chit to another member of staff, who takes five minutes to prepare one spirit and mixer and a beer; maybe you are sitting around at a bar where a bargirl tries to get you to buy her drinks when you are buying your own. None of these inspires confidence in the club.

Getting Jiggy
From my experience in China, I don’t see that there’s the singles scene that there is in Western countries. It’s all about getting the long-term relationship with a view to marriage. Which means that single guys don’t have many options if they are single; their sexual energy gets sublimated into touchy-feely horseplay with each other, or them standing slavering at the female dancers often employed. Neither of which is much fun.

Conclusion
I’m sure, as I said, that there are good nightclubs in China – where the music is edgy and energetic enough for dancing, where the male to female ratio isn’t too boarding-school, where the toilets aren’t a septic foul morass, where the beer is cold and the spirits not served by the bottle, and where the staff are able to do their job competently and promptly. Maybe there is.

Somewhere!

Chinese Import-Export Growth

2009-05-13T16:11:00.004+08:00

Purloined from the China Daily.

Interesting: the Chinese surplus is a good indicator of how unbalanced the world economy was when the credit crunch took its toll and became an outright shock. Sadly, things look like they are going to head right back to where they were.

Shit.

Tinanmn Squ*re, 1989

2009-05-13T06:33:00.005+08:00

I'm just going to post the link here to some amazing pictures - http://bit.ly/3mqSzB. They are of Ti*nanm*n Square, before, during and after the protests which shook China to its core. An amazing historical document.

(Hat-tip to Matthew Stinson (twitter.com/stinson)).

Why Labour Are Doomed

2009-05-12T16:34:00.006+08:00

Let's ignore for a moment (it's difficult I know) the abysmal sclerotic mistakes of the present Labour administration and look at the underlying reasons why Labour are intellectually bankrupt.

Previous Labour administrations came into power with the specific aim to tilt the balance of power towards working men and women. The October 1974 Labour Manifesto (the most left-wing manifesto ever to win an election in the UK) stated that "our objective is to bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people". No such claims were made, of course, in 1997, 2001 or 2005.

This is not to say that there have been no benefits of having a Labour government at all; on the contrary, the minimum wage, investment in education and health (waiting times, it's easy to forget, were up to eighteen months in the 1990s, and are now around a maximum of six weeks), increased maternity and paternity rights, homosexual equality and sustained increases in international development are all good policies which would probably not have happened under the Tories (with the possible exception of the NHS, which has been more often been run by conservative than Labour governments).

But, as so often, Marx diagnosed future trends with breathtaking astuteness. To him, Blair and Brown would be "conservative or bourgeoise socialists" who are "desirous of redressing social grievance in order to secure the continued existence off bourgeois society". Such 'socialists' "desire the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat".

This attitude explains Labour's disdain of manufacturing and worship of finance (those nice white collar jobs). Such an attitude was sustainable only during years of economic boom - when working class incomes rose, though nowhere close to executive pay, untethered by notions of economic return or even fairness by being in the delightful position of setting the framework from which they benefit. (Sounds all too familiar to MPs bleating about "not breaking the rules".)

But in times of recession, Labour can't continue to give increasingly large slices of the pie to everyone. And in such times, the failure to shift power and wealth towards the workers means they have no protection from the onslaught of economic turmoil. Larry Elliot in today's Guardian lists the means by which Labour controlled the market in the 1950s and 1960s -"strong curbs on the market – exchange controls, import controls, credit controls, full employment policies, strong unions, a large state-run sector".

Without these controls, the working classes are left powerless against the market. And what's the result? The widest income gap since records began in the 1960s. (And some seem amazed at this..!)

This is not an accident. It's the direct result of Labour's poverty of ideology, its failure to see that without altering the power relations between capital and labour (to use those archaic but still relevant Marxist terms), any benefits for the working class are easily reversed. Poverty levels in the UK are a direct consequence of Labour's poverty of ideas. There is therefore no reason to vote Labour presently. Labour have failed.

Fractured Politics

2009-05-12T09:54:00.004+08:00

Holy fuck there's some shit going down. The expenses farrago/scandal has Westminster ablaze, and there is a motion of no confidence seeking signatures against the Speaker - the first in 300 years. These are interesting days, as the Chinese proverb has it.

As far as I can see it, the expenses can be split into two:

Opportunistic penny-pinching. Bathplugs, toilet seats, lightbulbs, fucking funeral wreaths.
Systemic property fraud. Margaret Moran changing her second home to have dry rot treated, costing 22,000 pounds. Douglas Hogg claiming 2000 quid to have his moat cleaned - in what way does that help him serve his costituents? Claiming money on properties with no mortgage. Using the secondary-home allowance to pay for accommodation which is upgraded at the taxpayer's expense and then sold on for the MPs profit.

Banks famously privatise profits and socialise losses. The exact same thing has been going on with our MPs.

I had been been sceptical of the anti-politician claims, which I felt were part of Rupert Murdoch-inspired cynicism towards government. Faithlessness in civic virtues leads to a shallow materialism, which is ideal for Rupe - more advertisers = more $$$.

But it seems our elected leaders have been infected by the same tawdry virus, unable to distinguish the dignity of office and the financial benefits they feel themselves entitled to. They have shown themselves unfit for office and completely lost any moral authority. How can they hope to lead a nation during a recession, when there will be three million unemployed within the year? We need a General Election.

NOW.