Deptford. Toffs & Junkies and...?

So now we know. Another documentary telling us that Deptford is populated by heroin addicts, alcoholics and other dysfunctional derelicts; all rummaging in skips, getting into fights and looting local shops.
Needless to say, this is a complete travesty and an insult to the tens of thousands of decent hardworking people who live in the area and on Pepys Estate. Even the gallant Les Brooks, who fought a long battle with Lewisham council to stay in his home, was made to look like a crank. I mean, circus skills - what do you expect?
This orgy of gritty camerawork completely overwhelmed the serious issues of why, if this block is good enough for the rich, why it is not good enough for the people who have made their homes there for decades; and why was the money not available to maintain the estate for the local community when it is readily available to dislocate and divide the community; and how those buying apartments in the new 'Z block' for the view and to impress their business contacts will manage to get in and out of their barracks without being pelted with half-bricks.
As for the famous 'trickle down' effect promised by the developers, that will largely be felt in picturesque Greenwich, which is only 2 minutes by Porsche.
Aragon Tower may seem attractive as a lofty pied a terre for the refined to sneer from, but there will be few if any families living in it. And without children, it will serve as just another dormitory for Canary Wharf, no doubt with its own gym, swimming pool and restaurant. And surrounded by razor wire to either keep the natives out or the inmates in.
We might get to find out which in the course of the rest of this series. But somehow I doubt it. The lure of lots of lovely squalor will be too much for the camerateam and director to resist.

There's Only One Shirley Bassey

Comparisons aren't fair. Nefarious even. Fun too, so here goes.
 It was a big week for women at Glastonbury. The lovely Lili Allen dinked delightfully, and was a triumph when helping out The Specials in their prophetic masterpiece 'Gangster'. The 2Tone revival is overdue. and necessary.
If Lili Allen follows, can Amy Winehouse, or as the BBC presenterine knows her, Lili Allen, be far behind? Growling out her current brand of retro Fats Domino and Berry Gordyness. The opening to 'Back To Black' is the first 8 bars of 'Baby Love', in case you were wondering, but without the snap.
And if Her Sleaziness wanders abroad in the mud, then leaping from tree to tree in the nearby magic forest must be her alter-diva, Bjork. And so it was. And she too was obviously aware of the competition, and yet strangely oblivious, as she always is, and stormed out her weirdness with her usual guts.
A veritable confluence of serious female talent, then. Anyone who is anyone 2007. Well almost. Because these young hopefuls had to sleep with the knowledge that a performance was due which would either anoint or exile them. Shirley Bassey was playing Glastonbury.
 The Bass is no singer-songwriter examining her complexes in public. She is the ultimate performer, and much despised as a result. Not that she cares. And she's old. So against the hottest young talent around, what chance does she stand? After all, this was the token Oldie slot at Glastonbury. The Sunday tea-time Antiques Roadshow, Songs of Praise, Last of the Summer Wine concession to faded legends available at reduced prices.
 Anyone who saw her show yesterday will know the answer to that one. The pride of Bute Town gave an object lesson in how to grab an audience by the throat. And also showed that youth and marketability are not everything, which must have been a consolation to the gathering of young pretenders left to gaze upon the magnificence of The Bass as she rode by. A revolution in pink organza.
There's only one Shirley Bassey. Youth and cheek will always be defeated by age and talent.

Sir Salman Rushdie.

CBS
BBC
Both staunch U.S. ally Pakistan, and bitter enemy and dark heart of the Axis of Evil - Iran have condemned the Rushdie Knighthood, announced today.
We could hope that at some time, The Satanic Verses 1989-2007 will be seen to bookend a relatively brief period of religious medievalism. That the Fatwah of 1989 merely represented the last gasp of a doomed ideology in the face of the explosion of global telecommunications.
Sadly the combined effects of information technology and a dwindling supply of oil will guarantee that religion is used as a battering ram for some time. And the potential liberation of thought and expression offered by the wider access to the means of production, distribution and exchange of information is instead threatened by C9th theological propaganda spread by the same media.
If this were only true of one religion, we might breathe a sigh of relief. As it is, the terrified reaction of religion under threat spreads from the Taliban of Afghanistan to the Scientologists of Los Angeles. And as a result, many people are suffering far more than Salman Rushdie.

I'll never forget Michael Ignatieff, from the safety of The Observer, calling for 'A Trade Union of Intellectuals' to confront the Fatwha. Inconveniently disregarding the principles of unity which underlie all unions.
If he meant business, he would have committed a correspondingly blasphemous act to match Rushdie's. And all his 'colleagues' would have joined in. Spartacus style. The entire liberal publishing industry from Mills & Boon to the OUP should have commissioned a pan-blasphemous logo or masthead, offensive to all religions and superstitions, and emblazoned it on all their publications.
But nobody was ever knocked off their feet by intellectuals storming into action.
The only trouble was that the gutter press were even bigger Quislings in the affair.

BNP Leader Accuses BBC of "Demonising Racism"

In the debate on Margaret Hodge's self-seeking inflammation of the immigration issue on tonight's edition of Newsnight, British National Party leader Nick Griffin accused the BBC of "Demonising racism". Bewildered presenter Gavin Estler couldn't help blurting out:

"What? There's a good side to racism?"
To which Griffin, aware of his Freudian slip, muttered something incoherent about the word 'racism' being a fiendish Trotskyite plot to do something or other. The BBC being naturally in league with Trotsky. As presumably have been Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, a number of U.S. presidents, more than one British prime minister, most of europe since the war, and the Pope. Rabid commies all.

So what did he mean? What is there not to demonise? If anything is fair game for demonisation, surely it is racism - cheating someone out of their rights because of a microscopic genetic variation, and all that has meant in history.

Presumably, Griffin would like to 'reclaim' the word from its devilish left-wing captors. Show the world the racism with a song in its heart, the racism he loves.. to steal from Mel Brooks, who knew a thing a two about racism.

The mask has slipped. This was not territory Griffin had wanted to stray into, and yet it had been so near the surface that the first red light on his monitor screen had thrown it into his mouth. Twitching visibly by the end of the ordeal, he spluttered about the destruction of the 'British Way Of Life' by Polish small businessmen. And that was that.

In the meantime, his adversary, the pathetic Keith Vaz, smiled beatifically in the background, knowing that all he had to do was repeat his challenge to Griffin for evidence of any of Hodge's claims. None was delivered.

When someone does decide to renew Britain's public housing stock and break the stranglehold of the market, creatures like Griffin will crawl back into whatever swamp spawned them. Until then, the British people will be regularly bombarded with this kind of hate campaign, as it has been since the emergence of the mass media and before. Their genuine concerns about the cost of housing should be directed at the people profiting from the shortage, not those who legitimately seek to put Norman tebbit's famous words into actions.

Virginia Tech Massacre - the N.R.A. Solution

If, as the nutters of the NRA would like, every student in Virginia Tech carried a gun, there would be far more nutters carrying guns, and they would be used more often. Killings would be a regular occurrence, and the college would close.
On the street, anyone would be fair game at the slightest provocation, the 'Precautionary Principle' would see to that, and the killer could always claim self-defence as the victim would also be carrying a gun. It would be a return to an even darker age of barbarism than the one America is now in. Which is the object of the exercise.
The Nutter Tendency reassures us that guns will only be issued to the 'decent and responsible'. Who are these 'law abiding citizens'? And how do you spot them?
What criminal tendencies did the Virginia suicide killer display?
The truth is that this insane fantasy that more guns means less killing has been disproved by the entire history of America. So what this boils down to is that if the patient nearly dies from the medicine, double the dose.
In fact it is nothing but an opportunist rabble-rousing designed to create even more fear and division in America than already exists - exactly the factors which create the deranged individuals who kill their fellow students without warning or apparent motive. Exactly the same factors which fuel Neo-Islamic suicide bombers - appropriately enough.
So if they have their way, the profiteers of the arms industry will create a society in which everyone is a potential murderer and no-one is to be trusted. A complete breakdown in the social fabric, with only fear holding together a basic level of functional barbarism.
The world of 1984, in other words.
So will the NRA appear next week in Blackburg to cash in on the slaughter and bring its brand of comfort to the bereaved, as it did in Columbine?

Astrology - Just A Bit Of Fascist Fun...

Most mysticism denies the possibility of progress through human action. Astrology for instance claims to be able to predict an inevitable future. If it's inevitable, there's no point in trying to make people's lives any better. Only The Great Cycle, or 'Gyre' can do that, and it will turn in its own good time. And so any real progress is impossible, and any attempt a futile vanity by a vainglorioius speck of insignificance calling itself Mankind - which is the core agenda of fascism, after all. The delusion that all virtue lies in a mythical past which shall be reborn in the hands of a great redeemer. A Superman in contact with the forces of history.

This cyclical world-view, in which things happen over and over again is embodied in the favourite reactionary slogan 'There's Nothing New under the Sun' and is routinely used to belittle all achievements which might make people's lives better while also reinforcing the idea that Man is a base animal who only responds to cruelty and force. This cyclical universe was most famously depicted in the Swastika, of course, and is in reality, nothing but political wish-fulfillment. A classic symptom of the poverty of reactionary thought. If it can be called thought.
Which is why there are always far more classified adverts for mystics in right-wing publications than in progressive ones (if any). And many more column inches devoted to this kind of mumbo jumbo.
And before anyone tries to put a fag paper between religion and Mysticim, ask The Endtimers if the future is predetermined or in the hands of mankind. They are Christian, Jewish and Muslim, after all.

EndTimers

The political power of mysticism lies in the fact that there has to be a secret code or lore to the understanding of The Cycle and predicting its stages. This secret is naturally too dangerous for anyone but a semi-devine sect with special 'gifts' and 'crafts' to have access to. They, in turn must be protected and nurtured and feared as befits their elite status. The member of the sect who succeeds in monopolising the lore becomes the natural leader, in constant touch with the very workings of time and space. The Divine Leader, repository of all justice and wisdom is created. All others are inferior by definition, but those nearest are less inferior, and most likely to survive and prosper, thereby promoting the myth of the lore even further. And so a rigid, exclusive hierarchy is encouraged, relying on inequality and fear to maintain itself. And there are publicly funded 'courses' in Tarot-Reading and Astrology in adult education establishements all across the country. You don't hear the Daily Mail complaining about that.

Every week, evening classes of the bewildered are solemnly instructed in the 'science' of knowing the future, based on the date of birth of the subject. Conveniently forgetting that life begins, and is susceptible to the 'Astral Forces', nine months previous to the birth, a fact the Bronze Age codifiers of Astrology were'nt sure about. This throws all their municipal calculations completely out of the window, but they never notice. Now while they may have had some excuse for this oversight 3,000 years ago, there is none now except the desperate desire to escape from the real world and trust in any nonsense, as long as it is delivered with authority.

I wonder why there is so little tabloid outrage at fascism being taught at the taxpayers expense and peddled everyday in print. After all, these harmless bits of fun are promoting a very Un-British, anti-democratic world-view. The evening classes by Madam Arcaty and the endless columns for the hopeless are, in their turnip-headed way, the Madrassars of Suburbia, and every day their assumptions are backed by the most popular newspapers and the richest men in the world.

Perhaps this is their idea of promoting a British Identity. A nation of gullible sheep, accepting every disaster and injustice as divine inevitability. But how different is that from the 'Inshallah' used to justify the actions of the suicide bomber?

__________________________________________________________________

update: 13/6/07
Melvyn Bragg. 'In Our Time. 'Renaissance Astrology'

While accepting that this was entitled 'Renaissance Astrology', I was nevertheless disappointed at the failure of the programme to examine the political uses of astrology throughout the ages, which would surely have answered the qustion of why it survives in spite of centuries of scientific refutation.

In his essay on WB Yeats and other places, Orwell (who else?) notices the correllation and sympathy between cyclical, closed exclusive systems of thought dependent on trusted custodians of the keys to supernatural knowledge - and reactionary thought in general. A world in 'there is nothing new under the sun' and which everything is predictable given knowledge of the secret code is not compatible with any notions of human progress. This, combined with a predictable nostagia for feudal trappings in general makes astrology and predestination highly attractive to fascism and other methods of political stagnation and reversion. As happened to Yeats, who abhorred the idea of progress, and also, in a more refined form, to Joyce in Finnegan's Wake with his infatuation with Vico (when Joyce 'went off his coconut' according to Orwell). Orwell mentions that fascist magazines of his day were always full of advertisements for clairvoyants.

It is true that astrology is a coherent system, and therefore attractive in a pseudo-aesthetical sense, and therefore marketable in the popular press, and therefore profitable. But how could it be anything else? It is essentially cyclical, and like the most succesful logos, possesses an ordered graphic symmetry which it seeks to impose on the world. Like a popular soap opera of the cosmos. Or the swastika.

Symmetry is comforting, but, as Orwell points out, the enemy of human self determination and struggle, and therefore anathema to political action. It's message, suitably enough, is Resistance is Useless. Or, put more cosily, Know Your Place. Or less cosily, Arbeit Macht Frei.

I thought when Reagan was mentioned that we might be getting somewhere, but then we lapsed back into the same cyclical acknowledgment of the continued existence of this superstition, while refusing to examine its modern appeal, which is a political question, the ignorance of which (in its literal sense) has led ultimately to the subsidy of this cyclical narcotic quasi-philosophy by the taxpayer in numerous sponsored community education classes across Britain. Which naturally gives further validity to the superstition, and reinforces the notion that people are ultimately unable to shape their own destinies. As Orwell says:

"...the theory that civilisation moves in recurring cycles is one way out for people who hate the concept of human equality. If it is true that 'all this', or something like it 'has happened before', then all science and the modern world are debunked at a stroke and progress becomes forever impossible. It does not much matter if the lower orders are getting above themselves, for, after all, we shall soon be returning to an age of tyranny."*

I was disappointed at the failure of the programme on astrology to examine its political uses throughout the ages, or to blow away the smokescreen that Kepler, Brahe and Galileo all seriously practiced astrology, and therefore endorsed it.

The fact is, of course, that they did it for the money. Their feudal patrons required cosmic endorsement of their actions, and used every means they thought available. There is no evidence that the predictions they were paid for were correct. It is no surprise that these pioneers and codifiers of post-Classical European science, the people who broke the bonds of superstition, actually grew up under it. Newton was still trying to make gold from manure until he died. He is often referred to as The Last of the Wizards. Darwin dithered for decades from revealing his discoveries because of his residual religious feelings and fear of the outrage which would greet his destruction of theological law.

This is an old and ridiculous drone of an argument. It assumes that the people who have new ideas have already completely rejected the ideas they are in the process of overturning. That they somehow knew the existing orthodoxies were absurd before they made the scientific discoveries which disproved them. Which is not only absurd and a hilariously gross misconception of how science works, but which also assumes that that Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton were not influenced by the societies they grew up in. Which is another ideological twinning with fascist thought.

* 'W.B. Yeats' Orwell's Collected Essays.http://www.george-orwell.org/W_B_Yeats/0.html

Petrolhead Pride - Letterbombs Not Clarkson's Fault

As the sole guardian of the rights of motorists, when will Top Gear do one of its hilarious films about the car which can demolish the most speed camera posts in a 0 - 60 dash?
That would be one in the eye for all the facist leftie councils raking in huge wads of cash from innocent motorists exercising their basic human rights to fund their totalitarian PC agendas. Good luck to you Jeremy and Co. The backlash against commie car-hating green fascists starts here.
What? What did I say?
After all, it's not as if anyone takes what Jeremy Clarkson or anyone says seriously. It's all just a bit of fun. Only the humourless embittered tofu eating, eco-fascists and their Blairite masters don't see the joke. It's not as if anyone was ever going to be influenced or feel justified by a constant stream of misinformation. Let alone misinformation dressed up as entertainment. How could that possibly happen?
I mean, Goebbells tried it, and look what happened to him.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarkson and Co and Quentin Wilson and all the other rodeo clowns of the car industry are beginning to look more sinister than usual after the events of the past few days.
The letterbombs will be blamed on 'Loners' as they always are, but nobody is a 'loner' today, unless they truly live in a cave on an island. The fact is that people are influenced and have their grievances vindicated by the likes of motoring propagandists, however many laughs they get.
In fact, I take offence at laughter being abused in this way to further such an agenda, and give impetus to actions such as the destruction of speed cameras and the letterbombing of businesses associated with making drivers obey the law of the land.
But then you have to admire Clarkson for some things.
Famously, his interview with Hugh Grant last sunday.
After Huge had finished painting the grahic picture of his naked anal probe experiences, Jeremy simply couldn't help himself from blurting out:

"I want to get on to your lap!"

I hope the millions of viewers will be more sympathetic and understanding of the complex Clarkson sexuality from now on.
There are regular calls for Clarkson to be removed from the BBC, as if he cared, but then who would sell the message that:

'You're Always Alive In A Car'?

That driving a powerful machine very fast is the most alive it is possible to be, and that everything else is basically the salad on the kebab. That Speed is for Winners.

British Identity Lessons...

'Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary wants schools to teach Britishness to 5-16 year olds. Is that what education should be about? And what should be on the curriculum?'

says the header on the BBCs Today forum. This is a futile and devisive project.The productive thing to do would be to get this generation of children to create a modern concept of Britishness, rather than stuffing them with the rules of some synthesised EnglandLand, palatable to the mobsters of Canary Wharf and Wapping.
To be valid, any modern British identity would have to engage with the facts of modern communication. So any examination of national identity in schools would have to involve a complete dialogue between as many regions and groups in the country as possible. This would be worthwhile in itself, overcoming the physical barriers to exchange which class, and the property market, and artificial hostility have raised.
The idea of a curriculum is not constructive. The aims and objectives should be to understand and unearth the different strands of British culture as seen through the eyes of its children. The method has to be the dialogue between them. As usual, the government have hold of the wrong end of the stick. British identity is like the ever growing family quilt, where each generation makes their contribution, no matter how tedious or brilliant or immoral or saintly.
Other cultures are more like a beautiful copper vase, polished and cared for by each generation, but essentially unchanging. Isolated tribal cultures, for instance. Beautiful and harmonious, but static. Or more disturbingly, like the visions of totalitarian dictators or religious despots, rigid and infallible.
The essence of British identity is change. The people best placed to monitor and report those changes are the people who will live with the consequences of change, namely the young. There is nothing 'British' about values like 'justice' and 'fair play', or even 'change'. They are the required values of any civilisation. But by whatever geo-cultural accident, Britain is definitely one of the countries most dependent on, driven by and addicted to change and novelty. It has never benefited from attempts to pickle its identity. And the attempts to do so are generally forgotten or ridiculed.

Africa Leapfrogs a Generation of Technology.

The fascinating Newsnight report ('Kenya's Mobile Revolution'), broadcast this week, shows how the arrival of modern communications technology can provide genuine hope for the future of Africa.
The arrival of internet access via the UN clockwork laptop could even show the way for a new kind of economic system, suited to Africa's hostile geography and climate. To allow farmers to bipass the normal outlets for their harvests and sell (or exchange) directly on the international markets, for instance. Information really does confer power.
It would also seem reasonable to expect that when different regions of the same post-colonial African state are in regular trade and dialogue, that the post-colonial version of tribalism will change, and that synthetic hostility between tribes will become more difficult.
The traditional power structures may also be subverted by the increased role of women. And with access to free online education of the highest quality, such as the M.I.T. project, the goal of a dynamic Africa, unburdened by debt, geography or history must be a big step nearer.
In short, the implications for Africa are enormous, as the Newsnight report on the effects of mobile telephones will show. But with the first UN laptops arriving in communities from July, not to mention the long-term effects of 'micro-banking', the western world can expect to be dealing with a very different Africa in the future. And by implication, a different world. The hopeful predictions are beginning to come true. What will the pessimists say now?
And what will the Man from Del Monte and Nescafe say when he arrives to find the harvest has already been sold?
More interesting, if possible, is the light this all sheds on the ways in which technology and social change are interwoven. That an inhumanly hot, almost un-navigable, harsh terrain need not be subjected to the devastation of C20th technologies, or economics, in order to become a viable, humane, prosperous nation, able to care for its people and free them from the dehumanising drudgeries which in Britain are now folk memories, or the grittier scenes in TV costume dramas.

Why Microsoft Tried to Kill the $100 laptop

Saddam Execution Disaster

This
http://tinyurl.com/y2hj7m
seems the likeliest image for iconisation. Note the almost beatific expression. It is the face of a martyr by Raphael. The mobile phone footage vindicated extreme Sunni opinion, that the Shia dominated government is intent on their destruction. The still image visualises the morality for any self-martyrdom required in the cause of Sunni self-defence, as they see it. Along with the lynch-mob tone of the video itself, this image is as deadly as any Patriot missile - together they will kill at least as many people. The shouts of SADR! are the cherry on the cake. The inescapable message to the Sunni minority of the mobile phone footage is "Look Out, We're Coming To Get You".
The single line message of the still shot is 'If They DO Get You, You Can Die Like A Man.'
It seems now that the Iraqi government was aware of the potential for disaster but was unable to control its own security service.
In Washington, it is unlikely that some of the finest diplomatic minds on the planet didn't also understand the same danger, and not propose some serious PR advice to this immature and vulnerable dependant ally. It is almost inconceivable that Washington would not point out the risk of inflaming the Sunni militias by the mishandling of Saddam's execution.
Unless the US doesn't actually care that Iraq is in a state of constant civil war, that is. Then Washington's apparent indifference makes some sort of sense. But why they should want that is anyone's guess. Unless it is the case that a quarrelsome partnership is easier to bargain with than a sole trader. In this case for oil. Not forgetting the need to alienate Baghdad from Tehran for as long as possible.
Not forgetting the regular contracts which keep the Malls open and the burgers sizzlin'.

It's now generally agreed that this was an unmitigated disaster, one of many, and does have the clumsy thumbprints of the Washington PR department all over it.
Did the State Department or any other White House arm offered any PR advice to the puppet regime? You'd think it would be a top priority for them, seeing as American troops are likely to die at the hands of a Sunni minority made even more paranoid by the vision of the Sadr militias running the country, as seen in the execution footage.
If they did not offer any advice, why not? And if they did, why was it not taken?
The potential answers to these questions are very interesting.
If advice was not given, then America is either too stupid to call itself a superpower and should not even be put in charge of a lawnmower, let alone a cruise missile - OR - America is quite happy for war to continue indefinitely. War is good for business, no matter how many US troops are brought home secretly under flags.
If advice was given but rejected, America is being ignored by Iraq - The Puppet Bites Back - but in the form of the Shia doctrine America has been at war with since the fall of the Shah.

Killer Dogs

Another child killed by a pet dog. Last night, at her grandmother's house by her uncle's bull terrier.
Dogs are nature's genetic meccano set, they are one of the most malleable and flexible species associated with human civilisation. As a collection of genes, they can be organised to perform a vast range of specialist tasks.
Some breeds of dog have been bred to attack human beings, either on command, or merely on sight. A dog like this has been designed with as much care and attention as a Colt 45, and those characteristics cannot be simply wished away by calling it Poopsie and making it wear a collar. To expose a family to such a breed is as foolhardy as leaving a loaded shotgun leaning against the TV. It was designed as a weapon to defend property, and it is not capable of knowing which is the genuine threat and which the sleepy toddler blundering around in the darkness.
The dog is no more to blame than the shotgun. But why do we need shotguns or killer dogs in the first place?
The Argument pops up..

"As for pit bull terriers they are no more dangerous than their owners make them. I had one many years ago and he was a gentle beauty"

Not true.
The genes of a pit bull have been systematically manipulated over generations to produce an aggressive fighting machine. It is as perfectly designed for that purpose as a shark or a gun. It attacks according to a set of preconditioned reflex actions. It can be coddled and conditioned into accepting a child as a sibling, and its master as pack leader, but if the trigger is pulled it will attack.
This tragic case today may well be simply a case of mistaken identity. The dog mistook the child for an intruder. But any number of stimuli may trigger the attack reflex. And the more these genes are spread throughout the wider canine gene pool, the more likely are the resulting mongrels to be liable to unstable behaviour. even more dangerous because the resulting dog might not look like a fighting dog, but would carry some of its characteristics.
It would be a bren gun in a violin case.

Fat Is the New Famine

The government is proposing that the NHS should be able to carry out stomach surgery on obese children. Why is there so much obesity, and what is it for?
Before technology became as prolifically productive as it is now, one of the main weapons for ennervating the masses was shortage. Up to a certain point, a hungry workforce is a compliant workforce.
But hunger is no longer a viable tool in a world which is not only conspicuously capable of easily feeding everyone adequately, but also relies on consumption to preserve the economic structure. So instead, the masses are made too fat to walk, let alone man the barricades. Fat is the new famine.
So the answer is no, spending NHS money on patching up the casualties of this economic fact of life is pointless and a waste of resources. It cannot succeed and does not address the causes of the terrible disability of consumption.
The Politics of Diet and Obesity

The Real Meaning Of Xmas.

Christmas, or Xmas as it is properly known, has been under attack for over a hundred years from those seeking to make vast amounts of money from it.

It is under constant bombardment by the biggest guns of the advertising industry from the 1st of november every year until Boxing day, when it is thrown aside like an old knackered horse.

Xmas is the cash cow of the retail industry. Without the income it generates, many businesses would simple fade away, from theatres to mobile phone shacks.

And this is not new or untraditional, in fact. Even before the christians stuck their noses in, the midwinter was, in essence, the same as it is now in accountancy, the period when the first two quarters returns are in and the projections can be made on the next two. In the prehistoric, early argicultural context, that meant knowing roughly if the harvest gathered in september would last until the spring brought new sources of food.

Hence the celebrations and the feasting - if the projections were good.

London Tornado.

1.
The house at the corner of Chamberlain Street in Kensal Rise had its entire gable end sucked off and dumped on a hapless Fiesta in the street, leaving the gas-guzzling people carrier behind it unscathed. Bloody typical. Bloody class system.

The bedroom revealed inside was really nice and tidy, as if prepared. Like the boy who really does put on a clean pair of underpants in case he gets knocked down by a bus. The painting was still on the wall. And the radiator left standing against the missing chimney breast.

Round the corner, the massive plane tree snapped of at the base like a toothpick.

Headphone Furore. Sennheiser's Syndrome.

3 weeks ago, a petition calling for a ban on loud music was handed to Transport for London.

A word in favour of in-head music.

One symptom of Sennheiser's Syndrome is a feeling of complete goodwill towards those around you. The effect of hearing a favourite piece of music seems to act in the same way as a movie soundtrack, enhancing the 'visuality' of what you see. And if what you see are rows of faces, they begin to gain humanity, the narrative of the music means you look at people in a different way. They acquire stories of their own, becoming individuals, as opposed to the usual anonymous stream of potentially hostile competitors you were once used to.

Street Kicks and Why

The report asserts that while financial gain is a common motive for many offenders, the proceeds often spent on "non-essential, status-enhancing" items, much wider forces were influential.
Co-author of the report Trevor Bennett says:

"The decision to commit street robbery can be explained in part by particular characteristics of the street culture...
"This finding is important, because British research has tended to explain robbery in terms of rational choice and to focus instead on the role of cost-reward calculations.
"Our research suggests that any explanation must primarily take into account cultural factors associated with life on the street."
University of Glamorgan's Centre for Criminology Report into Street Crime

On the BBC today, the father of Tom ap Rhys Pryce said he understood that some street robbers were seeking thrills. "We have to try and divert that desire for excitement or kicks or a buzz...into a different direction," stressing the need to "help people who are in a disadvantaged situation... to get educational facilities." saying this "could mean sport or music as well as ordinary academic help so that they can achieve their potential... rather than just wandering the streets".
He has set up a charity to do just that.

Also on the BBC, Camilla Batmanghelidjh, of Kids Company, said street crime was a "systemic problem", adding

"It would be really sad if this report got translated as a bunch of young people robbing for fun. It is not about that.
"It is for 'kicks', but you've have to understand what the 'kick' is. The 'kick' is people who are victims for prolonged periods of time developing a cycle of revenge so that they then get a high from victimising someone else."

The reaction of Tom ap Rhys Pryce is quite amazing, given the prevalent tide of opinion. It is more than mere charity, it is an act of deep understanding. His interpretation of the general conclusions of this report give us all direction.
We live in a vast commercialised bureacracy. It is failing, and the only solutions being offered are those which will merely add to the bureacracy and make it even more inefficient, while doing nothing about the commercial values it promotes. And it is the commercial society which creates the Street Culture which the report uncovers.
We also live in a culture of power and money. Which are essentially the same thing. Together or apart they are the measures of status, either in the boardroom or on the sreet, and once achieved, status tends to excuse the methods by which it was achieved. We don't care how most billionaires got rich, and neither does the culture we live in. All the law really says is: Don't Get Caught. It delivers no incentive to social responsibility whatsoever because a consumerist competitive economy is not a positive force, encouraging people to take pride in being part of a community, but a negative one, urging everyone to clamber over their fellow human beings in order to escape from any resemblance of community and live in encapsulated isolation surrounded by toys, chemicals and sex. Its property laws are therefore only there as a sanction against actions which disturb the commercial process.
Every millionaire alive got rich by winning that Rat race, and every teenager mugging 'for kicks' is simply doing the same thing for the same reasons. The ones who go on to become millionaires, and there will be some, will be forgiven in turn, while their mates, who lost the race, will be known as Losers. Nothing is worse than being branded A Loser. Either in the street or in the boardroom.

Calls for more education, more punishment, 'individual responsibility' and more parenting are, of course, futile. And worse, a distraction. Until people feel genuine community responsibility, the streets will be no safer. And before there can be community responsibility, there has to be a community to feel responsible towards. At the moment, very few people live in a community of any kind.

It is impossible to say how much time and thought and money it will take to create a viable society, in which people are law-abiding because they naturally sympathise with the victim, rather than through fear of punishment, but that is what must be created, and must be started sometime, and to ask how much it will cost is almost to cause it never to happen. The cost of not creating it will always be much higher.
The current approach of blaming anyone in reach is a road to hell, and a further reinforcement of the culture of division which has created the devaluation of human life and values which the report of Professor Trevor Bennett and and Dr Fiona Brookman has highlighted.

'Geriatric 1927' and You.

As many are beginning to appreciate, the age of 'Push' broadcasting is fading fast. We are no longer passive consumers, hypnotised by the miracle of moving pictures on a screen. We no longer look behind the TV to see who's there. We want to produce as well as consume.
Hence the latest digital success story. Geriatric1927. A seventy something online phenomenon. In his first week 'on air', his account at YouTube has generated hundreds of thousands of hits in its first week. Enough on a standalone blog to generate thousands of pounds of income.
But more importantly, he represents the point where the technology of broadcasting becomes available to practically everyone. The implications are obvious.
Not only are people of his generation offered an entirely new role in society, but anyone or any organisation can distribute and promote itself or its productions anywhere in the world. The role of the commissioning editor will be radically altered, and scheduling will be a thing of the past. Our days of being mere consumers, tethered to rigid schedules and the vagiaries of the production industry, will largely disappear.
The implications both for society and mainstream broadcasters are stupendous. It is at least as significant as the transition from Steam travel to the internal combustion engine. It is "The fastest generation of technological change since fire." as Alan McCulloch of Saatchi & Saatchi once described it. Richard Eyre called it a 'communicopia'. And now it's here. Everyone is a TV channel now.

Deputation. 10 Downing St. 5/8/06. 2.29pm. Lebanon Solidarity

Lebanon Solidarity

'Shame On You!'. Lebanon Solidarity Opposite 10 Downing St. 5/8/06. 2.30 - 3pm.

Lebanon Solidarity

Thrown Shoes. Whitehall. 5/8/06. 2.50 - 3.10pm Lebanon Solidarity

Lebanon Solidarity

































Israeli flag laid on shoes, quickly removed.