The Tao of 'Alien 3'

One cannot underestimate the power of rapport. It makes everything easier. Which is why I like to kick off my award winning workshops with a "getting to know you" exercise. The reason why this is so inadvertently entertaining as an "icebreaker" is that at this stage of proceedings people aren't quite sure where the boundaries of this new peer group are, so they tend to let slip a little more than intended, which is immense fun for all concerned. My top 3 "revealed and then instantly regretted quirky facts" are as follows:

1. "My left boob is bigger than my right."

2. "I have a physical aversion to Baked Beans. I'm not allergic or anything, they just freak me out."

3. "If I could be any animal, Basil, I'd be a tapeworm."

Riiiiight...

I also like to find out what the audience's favourite films are. You can find out a lot about a person from their taste in cinema. I'm a committed, card carrying contrarian and inveterate film snob, so you've probably guessed that I'd never offer 'Pretty Woman', 'Clueless', 'Die Hard' or 'Dirty Dancing' as my submissions for your consideration. Nope. The two I always cite as my faves are 'Ran' - directed by Akira Kurosawa, a retelling of Shakespeare's 'King Lear', which sets the tale in 16th century feudal Japan. And 'Alien 3' - directed by David Fincher - a study in existentialism which is officially the most hated movie in the 'Alien' franchise (even by the director himself "to this day, no one hates it more than me."). Both of which identify me as an insecure, pretentious tosser: a pretty accurate analysis, I'm sure you'll agree.

But I love the tone of 'Alien 3'. It looks beautiful. It sounds incredible (Elliot Goldenthal's atmospheric score melds seamlessly with the audioscape, it's difficult to tell when the score starts and the sound finishes). It's adult. It's provocative. It's arty. It asks you to have empathy for the wretched and the despicable. It poses questions about sacrifice and redemption. It credits you with a brain and allows you to appreciate the long, slow burn to the climax. Even at the time one could tell this was the work of a prodigious talent.

The recent release of Rashomonesque 'The Social Network' once again emphasises the genius of Mr Fincher. Back then, though, he was best known for music videos for Madonna and Aerosmith and sneaker ads for Nike. So, whenever he insisted on his vision in an attempt at something ambitious he was summarily belittled by the studio; “What are you listening to him for, he’s a shoe salesman!” and "Look, you could have somebody piss against the wall for two hours, call it 'Alien 3' and it would still do $30m worth of business."

I love that in a medium where the prime motivator is the selling of popcorn he attempted to create "a beautiful, delicate china cup," in a field full of beer mugs. It's commendable that in the wake of the mindless whizz bang shoot 'em up of James Cameron's 'Aliens' Fincher pulled such a spectacular left turn from the right hand lane in very heavy traffic for his debut.

There are those who label Mr Fincher an obsessive (there's a scene in the "Making Of" documentary available as a "Speshul Feature" in 'Zodiac: Director's Cut' where he makes Jake Gyllenhaal do 38(!) takes of dropping an exercise book on a car passenger seat. Even Stanley Kubrick would be prompted to suggest he's a touch picky), but I dig that he wants things right. In my personal, psychotic quest for perfection I use 'Alien 3' as my talisman. When everyone else is happy to shrug, and then drawl laconically "Yeah... That'll do," I'd rather aim for the exceptional. It means a hell of a lot of pressure and misery, but hey, life is just a series of heartbreaking disappointments with the promise of death, or so my Father said.

So, anyway, I'm a drummer for this band signed to EMI. The lucrative contract negotiations went on for an age, which means we need to get in the studio and get the album recorded pronto. The label choose the producer whose CV includes Diana Ross, Chic and Suede. We go in, record and then hit the road to build "the brand". Of course, playing the songs every night means that I've come up with a different, funkier pattern for the "big third single". During a week of proposed overdubs at George Martin's acclaimed AIR Studios (google it. You'll need incontinence pads. I've just had a look at some fotos of it online and I still can't believe I recorded there), I beg the MD to let me redo my drum parts (ever seen my pout? I call it "Black Magnum" and it's impossible to resist). He's sceptical. The drums are the first thing to be recorded and then every other instrument is layered on top. "It's not worth the risk, we could potentially lose the whole song," he says. "Besides, no one'll notice, Basil. It sounds fine."

But "fine" isn't good enough for me. What's the point of doing anything if you're not trying to blow people's minds? Finally, after much negotiation and the promise of physically impossible sexual favours, the "higher ups" relented.

Now I'm in a sumptuous drum booth in AIR. I'm staring at a poster of scantily clad models for inspiration (and when I say "scantily clad models" I mean "latex lesbian bondage"), and everyone on the other side of the glass is wondering what in the name of Tony Thompson I'm trying to prove. I put my headphones on, twirl my sticks and nod to the producer that I'm ready. "This is the biggest mistake of your life, take one," he announces in a malicious monotone. As the tape rolls and the lush guitar floats seductively into focus I close my eyes and repeat inwardly "Beautiful. Delicate. China. Cup."

I got it in one take. Come on, this is me. You didn't think it'd go any other way, did you? Afterwards, the flabbergasted producer pulled me to one side and said it was an absolute pleasure to watch me drum. "Yeah, I know. But how do I compare to Tony Thompson?"

"Oh, you're better than he is. Nile and Bernard would never let him do what you just did."

"I knew it. I just wanted to hear you say it."

I listen to that track occasionally for inspiration when I've spent a day having to deal with persons whose favourite movie is clearly something directed by James Cameron. Or whilst waiting for a "Thank you" for hosting an awards event (6 weeks and counting...). I've never been a fan of Mr Cameron's films. 'Aliens' was an abomination, a tawdry, brainless action movie for a world populated exclusively by Beavis and Butthead: a very bad joke after Ridley Scott's brilliant thriller. He may as well have had Bruce in a vest or Arnie mangling corny one-liners in a heavy Austrian accent. Dreadful. The filmic equivalent of 'Pride and Prejudice 2: Mr Darcy's Kicking Ass!'

Because Mr Cameron is unable to craft a narrative or develop characters his subsequent movies (apart from 'True Lies' which was so chock-full of negative stereotypes that it made the '50 most racist films of all time' list) are all love letters to technology and special effects. I've nodded off during 'The Abyss', 'Terminator 2', 'Titanic' and 'Avatar'. The last of these is barely a film: it's just a series of setpieces glued together with outrageous CGI. When Michelle Rodriguez slammed her Scorpion Gunship into the side of a mountain I stifled a yawn and then realised I was supposed to care about her character.

What I like about 'Avatar' a lot, though, is its subtext. It's right up there with 'Starship Troopers' in depicting America as a rogue state. Its succinct summarising of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the relentless expansion of America's Empire is a joy:

“This is how it's done. When people are sitting on shit that you want, you make 'em your enemy. Then you're justified in taking it.”

Bearing in mind he made the movie for Fox, the official cheerleader for America's murderous foreign policy, this is simply astonishing. A beautiful, delicate china cup.

Brother B in the Twilight Zone

JERRY: You know, this is like that 'Twilight Zone' where the guy wakes up and he's the same, but everyone else is different!

KRAMER: Which one?

JERRY: They were all like that!

It's the morning after the cuts before and I'm a baffled bystander, or bysitter, as a table full of people discuss the various intrigues of the 'X Factor.' I don't watch it. I have no opinion. Elsewhere in Europe there have been days of action, strikes and demonstrations. Here the front pages are filled with Wayne Rooney's contract negotiations. I awoke on Thursday morning expecting a universal expression of umbrage and ire and was instead presented with 'X Factor' speculation. I'm just waiting patiently to ask:

"So, what do you think of the Spending Review?"

When, eventually, the question is posed (there's loooooaaadsss to talk about with 'X Factor') it is met with a look redolent of Gamu being threatened with deportation. Until I reference the Institute For Fiscal Studies summary that the Spending Review is essentially, and at its very core, regressive - penalising and punishing the poorest. This provokes a vigorous colloquy amongst the assembled parties as they agree fundamentally with this notion and are of the opinion that the scrounging poor should be hit even harder.

3:00am the following morning and I still can't sleep, so I hit youtube, put my head on my unquestionably adequate hotel pillow, close my eyes and listen to Gideon Osbourne's Spending Review speech in the House Of Commons. Later I wondered, on my facebook status, how we let this happen. A friend responded:

Labour did it. Like they buggered up the country in 1978. They can't govern, then its up to the Tories to sort it all out, furthering their unpopularity in the process. Can't we just print more money Mugabe-style?

Genius! Although I don't quite agree.

The ConDem Coalition has successfully created a great myth that this present mess is Labour’s fault. It goes something like this: New Labour ran up huge public debts by wasteful spending on unnecessary public bureaucracies. The task now is to rebalance the economy by shifting resources out of the public sector and into the private.

However, a dispassionate independent observer would see this is as a ridiculous half-truth at best, if not a downright lie. Public spending, as a proportion of national wealth, was not excessive under New Labour. It was running at the forty year average in 2008 as Our Tone and the Capital G stuck religiously to the Tory spending blueprint. Nor was the cumulative debt – at about 40% of GDP – high. Many other "developed" industrial nations countries had far, far higher percentage levels of debt. Indeed, the Tories until recently insisted that they would not shift from the financial path set out by New Labour.

What caused the crisis in Britain to explode so abominably? The answer is the greatly skewed nature of the British economy and its largely amoral, derugulated-by-Thatcher Financial Sector. As the international financial system headed for meltdown, the tsunami of disaster swept through the British economy, leaving the rubble and the stagnant pools we presently survey.

The Coalition further embellish their myth that it’s all New Labour’s fault, by asserting the need to "roll back the public sector," and to make bigger and deeper cuts: the worshipping of The Big Market as we dismantle The Big State. The belief that the Coalition government is merely trying to sort out the country’s public finances has been unmasked for the sham it is. This is 19th century government, wanting a small state with little or no compassion for the ‘deserving poor’ and as little socialised provision as possible. It is setting out to achieve what Margaret Thatcher attempted: reversing much of the great liberal-social democratic reforms of the 20th century. There is no such thing as 'Society', it's every man for himself.

Spending on public services is set to reduce by 25% in real terms by 2014-15. That is the equivalent of around a fifth of all public sector staff or well over a million jobs. But the real impact is not going to be on public jobs, as vital as they are, it's going to be on the services that people get. The poorer you are, the more dependent you are on public services and provision.

I'm guessing you don't do this too often, but if you listened to Radio 4 this week you would have heard a rising chorus from those whose benefits will be cut. For example, the tearful mother of a disabled man who lives in a home rang in. At present he has an adjusted car so that she can drive him about. Under these new measures he will lose this vehicle. The more money you have, the more options you have to provide for yourself if you need to and public services fail to deliver. The effect on many vulnerable people will be devastating. But hey, they deserve it.

Another plank of the New Fiscal Orthodoxy is as follows:

“Public borrowing is only taxation deferred, and it would be irresponsible to accumulate substantial debts that would have to be paid off by subsequent generations in decades to come.”

In 2006 Great Britain finally finished paying off the debts accumulated through ‘Lend-Lease’ that allowed us to buy weapons and armaments from the USA during World War II. Only a buffoon or a cretin would say "I think we should have surrendered to Hitler because we shouldn’t be accumulating substantial debts to pass on to subsequent generations."

An extreme example, but one which works on the mind more forcibly than a precept and merely ponders whether the long-term benefits are worth the long-term borrowing. Our children and grandchildren who have carried on paying off the debt also benefitted from the original spending, unless you would have preferred living under the Third Reich.

This principle can easily be extended to some other obvious areas of public spending – schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and other infrastructure built today might be expected to last for decades and our children and grandchildren will benefit from them, so what’s so bad about asking them to contribute something to the costs of these benefits?

Mrs Thatcher may well be ill and languishing in hospital, but her wickedly divisive world view is in rude health. The current British fiscal problem was created not by profligate spending by the Big State but by an economic crisis caused by the Big Market. The more deleterious effects of this Big Market were then ameliorated by the very State which we're told now needs rolling back.

Do-do-do-do Do-do-do-do

Sorry, that was me singing the 'Twilight Zone' theme to wrap this piece with a pretty pink bow.

7 Days Ago I Was A Rock Star

“Since music is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man.”

Claude Levi-Strauss

7 days ago I was a Rock Star.

I was chilling in a dressing room as my alter ego fearless superhero 'Brozilla' waiting for the call to hit the stage of a packed Oakengates Theatre, Telford; a prestigious venue which, in the coming weeks, will play host to An Evening With Alistair Campbell, Joe Pasquale's Extra Sensory Pasquale and acclaimed Psychic/Medium Joe Power 'The Man Who Sees Dead People'. Illustrious company.

Tonight I'm in the communal lounge area of the North Stafford Hotel writing this in the midst of a distinctly elderly clientele, none of whom appear to have been born after 1937. They eye this interloper suspiciously, stiletto sharp glances jabbed in my direction: a faint whiff of incontinence pads as they whoop with mirth at "You've been framed!" An ocean of fawn cardigans and polyester slacks stretching towards the flock wallpapered horizon.

The online blurb describes the hotel rooms here as possessing "a classic style," which is certainly true in the sense that Fawlty Towers is unquestionably a classic and the decor, fittings and fittings here are resolutely 1970s. My bathroom is essentially a verruca repository and as a result I've taken to showering in my socks. Tonight's sub-par evening meal concluded I sashayed stylishly back to my room. As I passed room 239 I heard a dog howling plaintively. I'm no dog lover. They are pointless, yapping, smelly bastards. And here's a truth for you: if you own a dog, you smell of 'dog' too. We're just too polite to say anything.

Anyway, the sound was so horrifying it literally rooted me to the spot. Sweet Jesus! Was someone actually beating it? Was it dying? Did that yelp just then sound human. I moved tentatively towards the sound, raised a tremulous hand to knock, and then figured 'Nah...' Whatever lay on the other side of the door would be fine without my intervention. And what in the name of Julian Croot was a dog doing in the hotel? I grabbed my Macbook Pro (tm) and came down to the lounge to make use of a wi-fi connection so limited it doesn't even extend to the bedrooms.

7 days ago I was a Rock Star exhorting a smiling crowd to scream "Fuck You, Brother B!" at me.

I don't think I've ever mentioned my band in this blog. I guess I find it hard to talk about. How do you express yourself to other people on the subject of your nose, for instance? It's just a part of you, isn't it? That's what music's like with me. And, erm, all of us, actually.

Every culture on the planet is bathed in music. Both its universality and its antiquity suggest that perhaps it is something our species cannot do without. Did you know that music activates the same parts of the brain and causes the same neurochemical cocktail as other pleasurable activities like eating chocolate or, ahem, orgasms? Music can also be used as an antidepressant - hard to believe if you've heard McFly, but people in Western society use music to regulate their moods, whether it's playing something upbeat in the morning or something soothing at the end of a hard day, or something that will motivate them whilst taking part in vigorous cardiovascular exercise.

Right now, I've got "The Fragile" by Nine Inch Nails on auto repeat so that I can lose myself in its throbbing sensuous melancholy and let my creative subconscious come out to play as I write.

It's interesting to look at music from an evolutionary perspective. Dr Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests that music is essentially purposeless - mere ‘auditory cheesecake’ - and that it is piggy backed on the other resources we have to deal with sound to make sense of what we hear and the world around us. Were we to remove music from our culture, he says, everything else would carry on in the same way. Totally unchanged.

Charles Darwin, on the other hand, opined that music was selected by evolution because it signals certain kinds of intellectual, physical and sexual fitness to a potential mate. And recently completed research shows that if women could choose who they'd like to be impregnated by, they'd choose a rock star. There's something about the rock star's genes which signals creativity, flexibility of thinking, flexibility of mind and body, an ability to express and process emotions: whilst musical talent signals sexual potency - Justin Bieber, for example.

Modern neuro science posits that our brains are fundamentally geared to make and appreciate music as it is a gymnasium for the mind. The whole of the brain is engaged and represents a collaboration between the logical side of our cognition (to pick out patterns and make sense of any words) and our emotional processing centres. Music also manages to home in on our motor centres – making us feel an impulse to move. We may hear the same piece of music again and again and it still has the same effect. In fact sometimes our response, whether emotional or physical, can be amplified.

Music is so powerful it's used to rehabilitate stroke victims AND as an instrument of torture. James Hetfield said he felt proud to have the military use Metallica's music. On a visit to Guantánamo Bay Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch described his intense dismay when he witnessed a detainee shackled to the floor of a cell with heavy metal music blaring. The detainee was

“rocking back and forth, mumbling as strobe lights flashed.”

Colonel Couch said that

“the treatment resembled the abuse he had been trained to resist if captured; he never expected Americans would be the ones employing it.”

7 days ago I was a Rock Star and I held an auditorium full of people in the palm of my hand.

Good night, North Stafford Hotel lounge! I'd go upstairs and trash my room, but someone beat me to it.

35 years ago.

Oh, the dog? The owners had gone down to dinner and left it on its own in the room. I passed them later on this evening taking it for a walk down the corridor...

Bitter suite

And so "the world's most miserable and unsociable Man" (copyright Basil Creese Sr) undertakes a prolonged period of travel to far-flung corners and strange locales affording him the opportunity for reflection and self-analysis.

Chelmsford:

I complete the bulk of my journey on one of those leaning Virgin Pendolino trains. The word Pendolino is itself derived from two words; Dolino, as in Niña Dolino - a Filipina actress. She was one of the finalists of MTV's VJ Hunt in 2005. And Pen from the Greek number 5 (pente), referring to the number of times, on average, those of a delicate disposition will throw up before the train reaches London. I looked out of the window at one point and where the sky should have been instead were rolling green fields and yet to be slaughtered livestock. Freaky!

The hotel itself was located in a remote service area just off the A12 lending the establishment a distinctly gloomy Gulagian air further reinforced by the presence of a lifesized, inanely grinning Lenny Henry cardboard cutout. The online blurb for this hostelry boasts of "an integrated restaurant serving a mix of traditional and contemporary dishes." 'Dish' would appear to be stretching the point somewhat and their unwritten mission statement appears to be:

"Your standards will be compromised."

The steak I encountered had the consistency and taste of well worn brake pads. My jaw harrumphed a decidedly pissed off "Fuck this..." midway through the mastication of: The. Most. Gristly. Piece of meat ever offered for human consumption and thus I returned to my room to watch the fascinating spectacle of Andrew Marr fellating Tony Blair live on BBC One. I'm speaking figuratively, of course, but the subtext of the interview seemed to be "Please cum on my face, Tony!"

Tony: There can be circumstances in which it is legitimate to intervene even in another country's affairs where the oppression of the people is so cruel and where you can't simply say well, unless our national interest is directly threatened in a very specific way we're not going to have anything to do with it.

Marr (choosing NOT to challenge this vile assertion, but instead agreeing): So you can topple tyrants because they're tyrants, not because they immediately threaten other people. And so to Afghanistan. Another piece of nation-building.

Perpetual war in the hizzouse! The perfect illustration of "us against them" came a few days later when Tony had to abandon his book signing tour having been subjected to far more criticism and invective from the general public than any journalist - who jubilantly cheerled the invasion and equated those who opposed it to Islamofascists, before later deciding it might have been a little bit illegal (David Aaronovitch and Johan Hari take a bow) - could ever muster.

Manchester:

I hosted the Co-operative Bank Customer Service Awards at the Midland Hotel eschewing the Jean Paul Gaultier black leather kilt in favour of a subtle, understated, grey three-piece suit. I sashayed my way to the stage employing Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Baby” as my theme. It went pretty well (“Before we kick this baby off, can the owner of a white Popemobile…”), although an insecure, needy, extroverted introvert like me could have done with a more public display of gratitude for my services: y’know like a special ‘Basil’ award just for me being so ineffably me.

Leek:

The venue here is a jumbo-sized, labyrinthine Portakabin. Lovely! The taxi driver on the way back to the hotel (which sits near the local Odeon, a Marina and a Retail Park featuring a celebrated footwear store who quite cheekily ask for your postcode prior to purchase. I'm a very private person and so offer SW1A 1AA and smile smugly to myself as the sales assistant punches it sulkily into their database. Google it. See what turns up) provides a running commentary as we weave our way through the streets of Hanley: "That used to be a Garage," "There used to be a school over there," "That's the most popular club in Stoke-On-Trent." He uses my name for the first time as he points out, "Here you go, Basil. This is the red light district."

"I beg your pardon?!?!" I splutter in affronted response, making a mental note of the name of the road for future reference.

My Moat House Hotel room contains 4 beds in total: two twin beds and a set of bunk beds. I spend my week sleeping in a different bed every night, just for the goof, which incidentally seems to be the impulse behind Nick Clegg (whenever I see him with David Cameron I think "There's a conservative, with a little 'c'") stating that the recent budget cuts are “fair.” "This is completely different from the budgets of the past," said Little Nicky after the emergency budget. And he’s right, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the measures brought in by the new coalition are "generally regressive" – that is, hitting the poor much harder than the rich. If you are in a family with children at the bottom of the ladder then you come out worst in this government's reforms, with your income cut by more than 5%. The poorer you are, the poorer you will be under this new government. Haven’t we been here before?

Indeed the budget was so “fair” that the Fawcett Society has filed papers with the High Court seeking a Judicial Review. Not that you would have heard about this anywhere. No. Everyone was up in arms about the Pope's shoes, that woman putting a cat in a wheelie bin, or Wayne Rooney, or Anne Widdicombe on Strictly, or the ongoing spat between Dannii and Sharon, or Chantelle and Preston. Rather than that or, say, the obscene increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah which now officially exceed those experienced by Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Just read that last sentence back to yourself and weep.

That’ll be the depleted uranium then (see blogs passim).

I sat back in my seat in the Moat House restaurant having demolished 2 Bacon, Mushroom and Goat's Cheese filo baskets on a bed of rocket leaves (not quite as nice as a homemade Thai Green Curry, but still...) and cast my detached gaze about the diners - all texting on iPhones or tapping away on swish laptops and I wondered if anyone had stopped to consider the following, as summarised by Bill Blum:

"... the nation of Iraq, the society of Iraq, has been destroyed,
ruined, a failed state. The Americans, beginning 1991, bombed for 12 years, with one excuse or another; then invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, killed wantonly, tortured ... the people of that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their
physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women's rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives..."

"More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized,
in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up ... an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the American invaders; they left the country more militant, hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East,
Europe and Central Asia ... a river of blood runs alongside the Euphrates and Tigris ... through a country that may never be put back together again."

I sighed, trudged up to my room, swung himself onto the top bunk, powered up my MacBook Pro (tm), accessed 'Demand Five' and watched Neighbours.

Shitegeist!

As Summer issues its increasingly sodden proclamation I offer this most moist and delicious of blogs as an alternative gleam of sunshine to illuminate the coming weeks.

Back to hospital yesterday for my left foot which pulled yet another Bruce Banner turning into The Incredible Hulk-type freak out. It was kinda different this time: sure it hurt like a vicious bastard whenever I put weight on it, but it also smarted somewhat when I took weight off it. To avoid this I'd spent a couple of days dragging my left foot like Laurence Olivier giving a fully committed performance of the Bard's 'Richard III'. Finally, I grabbed my crutches, my copy of 'Newspeak In The 21st Century' by David Edwards and David Cromwell and gritted my teeth, winced and whimpered as I endured the 33,000,000 or so gear changes on my journey to A&E...

The Doctor finally called me in after a couple of hours and actually checked. His. Watch. As I painfully struggled to the consulting room. Cheeky fucker. And it got worse. He asked for a summation of my injury.

"Hmmm... I see. Well, pop your shoe off and let's have a quick shuffty."

"Ok."

"Those are interesting. Are they specially built up surgical shoes?"

"Erm, no. I believe they're supposed to be stylish."

"Ah, well...."

One day's ingestion of a new batch of Anti-inflammatories and Painkillers later and I'm less Richard III and rather more Heather Mills.

It was pointed out, by a Man I respect greatly, that my last blog may have been just a tad "heavy". This time around I thought I'd highlight those things which have brought a smile to my face.

1. See above. The A&E doctor moonlighting as a fashion critic. Twat!

2. The 56-year-old woman from Kent who set a new record by taking 28 hours and 44 minutes to swim the Channel. Jackie Cobell beat the previous record for the slowest crossing, set by Henry Sullivan in 1923, by a full two hours.

This was not, plainly, what Jackie set out to achieve. She ended up swimming more than three times (!) the 21 miles that separate Dover from Calais because she hadn't taken into account the tides. "I kept seeing the beach," she said, "and thinking I was there, then getting swept along the coast."

3. Robbie rejoining Take That.

4. The Sun. Abbey (Seriously, what's with the 'E'? Could it be in celebration of her font bottom?) Clancy and Peter Crouch are having relationship problems not unrelated to him banging a teenage Algerian prostitute in Madrid and handing over eight hundred pounds sterling for the experience. Their disagreement as to whether or not this conquest renders him more attractive means precisely nothing to me, or indeed you for that matter. But it turns out that Abbey has banished Crouchy to the sofa both to avoid getting thrush and to ponder their future. The Sun ran a foto of a pair of anonymous white sport socked feet hanging off the end of a chair with the caption:

"Ouch... How Peter Crouch might look on the sofa."

An unfeasibly evil publication, but that is ge-ni-us.

5. Inception. I went to see it twice. And enjoyed it immensely. Of course, the discussion my Brother and I had afterwards concerned the lack of Black actors playing significant roles in Christopher Nolan's non-Batman movies. Online discussion was far more blunt:

"There are no Black actors in Inception because niggers are too stupid to invade your dreams."

Quite.

My Brother found that funny.

6. BP! America has adopted a foreign policy which sees them cruising around the world raping countries of their natural resources and then destabilising governments should they attempt to give voice to their dissent. Along come BP delivering oil literally to their doorstep to save them time, money and energy and they kick off. C'mon fellas, make up your minds. Jeez.

To be fair to our American cousins they have merely appropriated the above template wholesale from the English.

In the early 20th century William Knox D'Arcy began looking for oil in Iran. Just like the baddie in Quantum Of Solace he struck a deal with the corrupt monarchy to own whatever oil he found in Iran and pay the government a derisory 16% of any profits he made. After the first oil strike in 1908, he became exclusive owner of the sea of oil beneath Iran's soil.

Soon afterward, the British government bought the D'Arcy concession, which it named the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It then built the world's biggest refinery on the Persian Gulf. From the 1920s into the 1940s, Britain's standard of living was bolstered by oil from Iran. Our cars, trucks and buses ran on cheap Iranian oil. Factories throughout Britain were fueled by oil from Iran. The Royal Navy, which projected British power all over the world, powered its ships with Iranian oil.

After World War II nationalism became a central theme for developing countries. In Iran it went like this: "We’d like our oil back, please." Their parliament voted on April 28, 1951, to elect Mohammad Mossadegh, as prime minister, a man dedicated to oil nationalisation. He promised that oil profits would be used to help Iran fluorish, rather than aggrandise Britain.

Under Operation Ajax our government co-opted the services of the Central Intelligence Agency to depose Mossadegh. Even the BBC participated by sending a coded message during a broadcast to confirm to the waiting Shah that the coup was about to take place.

The West deposed a leader it didn't like, and replaced him with someone who would perform as instructed - Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.

We not only overthrew Mossadegh's government, but ended democracy in Iran. We returned the Shah to the Throne and his repression drove the populace into the arms of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the, some would suggest, justifiably bitter anti-Western regime which has been in charge ever since.

The Anglo-Persian Oil Company rebranded itself as British Petroleum, BP Amoco, and then, in 2000, BP. In Iran, it operated as it pleased, with scant regard for the welfare or interests of the local people. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Ah, the sweet nectar of bitter irony.

You've gotta smile.

Good night, Chippenham!!!

The end of my critically acclaimed UK tour is in sight. 6 weeks of 7 hour car journeys, hanging out in hotels, dining alone and watching second hand DVDs purchased for £2.50 from Pink Planet Games Exchange in the Borough Parade, Chippenham on my wi-fi disabled laptop have simply flown by.

Toploader headlining the town's main music festival and Natalie Cassidy (Sonia from Eastenders) visiting a neighbouring village have been the highlights of Chippenham's social calendar this month* and I'm genuinely sorry I won't be there to imbibe liberally of its forthcoming pleasures. It's been huge fun, the peak being when I encouraged a group of delegates to regale me with the chorus of of my own mid-nineties dance club hit 'Gotta get up, gotta get down! Huh!!!'

So, it's back to the daily routine and being considered an Islamic Extremist/Jihadi Fascist/Al Qaeda Terrorist. Take a pew...

I set up this blog a while ago, so my memory is a little hazy and I can't be arsed to check, but I think I've described myself as either an 'ironic' or 'iconic observer'. Whatever, this merely means that rather than engage with people or life itself I'd rather stand on the sidelines and laugh at you. However, this default position very nearly changed in December of 2008 when Operation Cast Lead kicked off.

Over 2500 Palestinians were killed or injured in the bombardment which began on the 27th of that month and - despite the assertions from Israel that civilian casualties only represented a quarter of these deaths (The BBC's Mike Sargent said "Israel deserves much credit for the precision of its targetting.") - the majority were innocents. For example, the airstrike which killed Hamas 'Higher-Up' Nizar Rayan also killed 18 other people in the same house including all four of his wives and nine of his twelve children. Monster or not. Thug or not, this was perverse. As the humanitarian crisis deepened the leaders of the 'civilised' West seemed complicit in their resolute inaction.

When the BBC refused to air the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal for Gazans - presumably on the grounds that those dirty Arabs deserved to be killed by shells enhanced with white phosphorus - I looked at myself and beheld a sickening moral weakness and self-centredness. If I took a little time I could gather all the unwanted detritus from my life and transport it to those truly less fortunate than myself. George Galloway set up Viva Palestina to facilitate precisely this endeavour and one Sunday afternoon I had a loft clear-out...

...But, y'know what? Life gets in the way of what we really want to do and my worn beneficence remained in a dangerous pile by the front door for a few weeks before it eventually and inevitably went back up into the loft.

If I hadn't been distracted, had parcelled up my unwanted possessions and contributed to Viva Palestina then theoretically I could have been one of those in the Gaza Flotilla described as a 'Jihadi' or 'Al Qaeda Sympathiser' or 'Islamic Extremist' or indeed 'Terrorist' and would have been fully deserving of getting shot in the face.

I'm not the first to draw parallels with the Naval incident involving Iran in 2007. Then 15 Marines were arrested and detained after they were deemed to have unlawfully entered Iranian waters. The fact that the Marines surrendered was seen by Melanie Phillips (the most evil of the Daily Mail hacks) as:

"... a grim parable of the degraded state to which Britain has now descended and an alarming portent for the free world in its fight to
survive."

and

"... another terrible milestone in the west’s current suicidal trajectory of decadence and moral collapse."

Of the raid on the Aid Flotilla and the subsequent massacre of humanitarian workers, Our Mel had this to say:

"Conversely, as everyone could see from the video evidence, on the main boat the attack took place against the Israelis — who then killed nine of their jihadi assailants solely to protect themselves from being lynched, kidnapped and murdered."

So, that's all right. There was I thinking that because it took place in International waters it might have been a tad illegal.

The World Cup is now the news so what the Western media has reduced to a mere "Public Relations disaster for Israel" has disappeared from the front pages and the announcement that the investigation into exactly what happened will be conducted by Israel itself has gone practically unnoticed. I'm walking around with my arms outstretched and my palms turned skywards intoning "Anybody? Anybody? Anybody?" But then you haven't had my childhood.

I love my brother. He's cleverer than me and tuned in to a big picture which eschews my romantic world view. But we're brothers so we bicker and argue and it's always been this way, except that when we were growing up in Croydon it was waaaay more fun for me. I would have been about 4-ish and my brother 2-ish - just before he could speak or communicate clearly. So, if I, say, prevented him from watching his favourite TV programme he'd start crying and Mother or Father would ask, "Junior! What's wrong with Garfield?" And I'd say "I'll ask him," and then falsely report back that he wanted a Cormorant sandwich made with blue tortoise bread or something equally ludicrous and laugh inwardly. What my parents should have done was introduce a neutral third party (our younger sister perhaps, although probably not. She hated me back then) to launch an independent enquiry and spare my brother years of anguish at my cruel hand. After all, I was never going to say "It's a fair cop. I took his favourite red toy car. No, no. It's okay, I can find my own way to the naughty step."

* according to the Chippenham, Calne, Corsham, Malmesbury and Wootton Bassett Gazette & Herald

Change that works for us

The TV debates between the three main party leaders engaged millions of people and reversed the trend of dwindling voter turnout, but shifted the focus towards physicality and personality. Suddenly Gordon looked very much like a stranger in a very strange land, his face a tad saggy and that weird thing he does with his lower jaw - a movement so grotesque and pronounced it suggests he's attempting to dislocate it in order to feed upon freshly aborted foetuses - cast the fellow in a poor light indeed. He even had the temerity to refer to a person expressing unequivocally bigoted views as 'bigoted' (actually, I have to defend Gordy on this last point. Were I caught in an unguarded moment discussing the chauvinistic, xenophobic, small-minded views of that woman, then on April the 29th I can assure you that instead of 'Bigotgate' we would have been confronted with 'Ignorant Fucking Dickheadgate' which is far more lyrical, but perhaps a little too unwieldy to form a tabloid headline).

So it's May the 7th and there are 5 other people in the office, none of whom have voted and are happy to enunciate their bafflement with the difference, or lack thereof, between the 3 parties. A 6th, with a little gentle probing, reveals that her vote has been cast in favour of the Lib Dems as "I could never vote for Gordon."

I voted Lib Dem once.

Just the once.

And I was rather young.

An abandoned sofa in the bushes bordering Hazel Grove Cricket Club was an unconscionable eyesore which marred my otherwise idyllic walk to the train station. A letter appeared in the Stockport Advertiser on the Thursday and by the Friday morning - late and running frantically for the 08:03 to Manchester Piccadilly calling at Woodsmoor, Davenport, Stockport, Heaton Chapel and Levenshulme - I noticed it had gone. Buoyed by this prompt restorative community action I voted for the Lib Dems at the next local election.

I think it might have been a week later when I was confronted by my Father ('Dad' never carried the right amount of respect. From time to time I'd even throw in a 'Pater'): "You voted for the Liberals, didn't you?" he said in a level tone which nevertheless dripped with both accusation and disappointment. I looked down uneasily. A "What the fuck were you thinking?" hung uncomfortably in the air between us and remained unspoken. In my panicked defence I offered the settee, but Basil Tracy Creese Sr picked more holes in it than the abused and forsaken piece of furniture which kicked this episode off in the first place. He challenged me to read about the Liberals (this in the days before the internet - I had to traipse to the library to complete my task) and then try and justify a vote for their party. I did. And I couldn't.

I was thinking about this when the country fell in love with TV Nicky and the Lib Dems enjoyed their poll bounce. And when Shirley Williams, at the beginning of Election Night, forecasted 80-90 seats for her party. And when I saw William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Gove acquire their new posts within government (the last of these twats actually said the following: "The liberation of Iraq has actually been that rarest of things – a proper British foreign policy success. Next year, while the world goes into recession, Iraq is likely to enjoy 10% GDP growth. Alone in the Arab Middle East, it is now a fully functioning democracy with a free press, properly contested elections and an independent judiciary... ") And when Nicky and Davey C had that cringe inducing press conference on the lawns of No. 10. And again when our new coalition government announced that they were abolishing the Child Trust Fund.

I bought the manifestos for all 3 parties prior to the General Election for just such an event. The Conservatives made no mention of abolishing the CTF. Their policy was to cut back government funding to the poorest families. Nope. The abolition of the CTF is exclusively a Lib Dem thing as outlined on pages 16 and 102 of their manifesto.

The difference between the wealthiest and the poorest of our society is now a yawning chasm. The CTF was an attempt to reduce this inequality. Research by the Children's Mutual shows that the people saving into the funds were in the lower income bracket and children in this band would have no prospect of enough funds at 18 to kickstart their adult lives.

The CTF has been described as "the most successful savings initiative there has ever been". The number of people saving monthly, long-term, for their children, went up threefold, and the amount they were saving went up by 60% since its introduction. It is important to note that whilst the CTF is being abolished more expensive tax reliefs on middle class savings – private pensions and ISAs – are staying in place.

Since the credit crunch the dialogue has been about the need for personal saving and its importance for the financial health of the nation that this is encouraged. The one initiative which attempted to address this is to be axed. It's so spectacularly short-sighted it could only have been devised by incompetents or elitist numpties. If you see Nicky ask him how the dissolving of the CTF squares with their manifesto title of 'Change that works for you: building a fairer Britain.'

I couldn't understand why the country would vote for avowed representatives of the privileged to skew the game for their own ends, until I watched an episode of Fawlty Towers a couple of weeks ago. My namesake is looking rather smug having terrorised a working class oik for daring to breach the threshold of his hotel: this is in direct contrast to the deference with which he treats, say, Lord Melberry or the Psychiatrists. Sybil passes acid comment;

Sybil: You never get it right, do you? You're either crawling all over them, licking their boots, or spitting poison at them like some benzedrine puff-adder.
Basil: Just trying to enjoy myself, dear.

It's what we British do. We despise the working class and the fact that most of us are working class. Blair, Mandelson and the rest of the middle class New Labour acolytes embodied this contempt: Mandy saying the Labour Party didn't need any more "oily handed sons of the soil". They strategised to seduce the Great Satan Murdoch and enthusiastically implemented the inherently divisive Tory fiscal blueprint which has borne bitter fruit.

They say you get the government you deserve, but looking at the numbers the majority of us voted for the progressive, centre-left parties: 85% in Scotland, 70% in Wales, 67% in the North East of England and 61% in the North West. It was this flawed voting system which won the Thatcher Conservatives 4 elections on the spin. The seat numbers reflected the inaccuracy of the system, not the strength of the Tories, who at their very best only achieved 43.9% of the electorate.

So we've entrusted our future prosperity to the posh boys again. The diligent subscribers to the notion that if the rich get richer, we all benefit - they'll look after us and make things better, won't they? Did you know that Nicky has a blue-ish tinge to the sanguine fluid coursing through his veins? Yeah. Turns out his grandmother was a Russian baroness, whilst his great uncle was bludgeoned to death by his own peasants...

...Nah, too easy. I'll leave it there, I think.