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.

The eyes have it (Part 2)

"For those with eyes who choose to see, this nation is afraid of thee."

Brother B 'Counting Backwards To Zero'

There's a famous anecdote on social policy which goes as follows:

NERO was Emperor and the mob had been rioting uncontrolled in the streets of Rome for two weeks. The economy of the world's greatest empire was disintegrating.

The cost of maintaining Rome’s War Machine in addition to the heavy subsidies that had to be paid to the many nations dependent on Rome for support meant that the impoverished government had neither the funds nor the power to stop the riots.

In this tense situation, the Head of Shipping rushed by chariot to talk to the First Tribune.

"The merchant fleet is in Egypt awaiting loading,” he announced. “The ships can be loaded either with food for the starving people or with the special sand used in the Gladiator Stadiums. Which do you want?"

"Are you crazy?" screamed the Tribune. "Things here are out of control. The emperor's mental, the army's about to mutiny and the people are dying of hunger. For the gods' sake, get the sand! We have to get their minds off their troubles!"

Ignoring Western crimes and unconscionable iniquities is a staple of the corporate Western media. Its job is to keep us distracted and fearful enough to avoid asking awkward questions - anyone remember the tanks around Heathrow Airport?

Last summer in a Facebook conversation with a friend I posed a question, swiftly followed by an adroit observation: "Damn! What's with these Somali fishermen pirates? They're a bit intense." Further digging revealed that these fishermen police the waters of Somalia protecting the coastline from poaching (Western vessels steal an estimated GB£300 million in seafood annually from the region) and the dumping of nuclear and other toxic waste. These violations are, and have consistently been, routinely ignored by both the UN and maritime authorities. Thus, with the unswerving support of the population, the fishermen have taken matters into their own hands - a kind of Aqua Robin Hood and his Watery Men. So next time Bob and Lynne Everyman from Marple, holidaying in their luxury Bowrider Motor Yacht just off Puntland, Somalia get kidnapped and their captors demand a ransom of GB£1 million, you now know the reason why, because if you read the mainstream press you wouldn't.

During a night raid on December 27 last year, US-led troops dragged a group of 10 Afghan children from their beds and shot them dead. Afghan government officials said that eight of the dead were schoolchildren, and that a number of them had been handcuffed before being killed. UK news media obsessed with telling us about Jordan 'n Pete, Judy Finnegan's alleged drink problem, Wayne Bridge and John Terry, Ashley Cole, Gordon Brown's bullying and Tiger Woods' porn star texts reverted to type and managed to avoid mentioning it at all.

Assadullah Wafa, a former governor of Helmand province, led the investigation:

“I spoke to the local headmaster. It’s impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack.”

The Western myth or ideology is that, whilst there may well be “mistakes”, the aims of the government are benevolent. But children are a legitimate target: the inhuman spawn of the enemy which hates us for our freedoms. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, some lives are worth more than others. How else to explain the military's indiscriminate use of depleted uranium? The word "depleted" is of course pure PR spin. It makes it sound like the 'nuclear' aspect of the weaponry is insignificant. It isn’t though. It’s Uranium. U. R. A. N. I. U. M. We're conducting Nuclear War. Some facts:

Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapons of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.

Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. The global atmosphere is permanently contaminated, with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 2.5 billion years.

DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate" effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 microns and smaller.

In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before military manoeuvres in Iraq, 67 percent of their post-war babies are born with severe birth defects – missing brains, eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases.

In southern Iraq, scientists are reporting five times higher levels of gamma radiation in the air, which increases the radioactive body burden daily of inhabitants.

Two weeks ago, whilst we all cried for Becks and his missing this Summer's World Cup, a night raid carried out by US troops led to the deaths of two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials. This is an atrocity which Nato tried to cover up and has gone unreported in the western media.

General elections in Britain are a time for us to talk in reverential tones about democracy and the importance of genuflecting before the altar that is the ballot box. The media will endeavour to persuade us to vote whilst insisting on us taking the views of the two main political parties seriously, heaping scorn on those who point out the futility of trying to choose between different cheeks of the same unwiped arse. The media will spew endlessly that this, like all other elections which have come before, is the fulcrum point at which we decide the fate of the nation, but in fact it merely highlights that the media are the ulcerated sphincter.

My eye's much better, thanks.

The eyes have it (Part 1)

Dammit! I forgot to mention my eye problems. From time to time my eyes erupt and they look and feel as if a humongous mutant wasp bearing the talons of an eagle has become entangled in my eyelashes and is repeatedly attacking my cornea as a means of escape.

And that's what's been kicking off for the past couple of weeks preventing me from physically confronting the luminescence of my Mac. Which is kind of okay because this has been acting as a very effective counter-irritant to my left foot, but then I need a counter-irritant to counteract the counter-irritant - if you get my meaning.

As it was my birthday recently (Pretty average thanks. I spent the evening in rehearsal) I travelled to the Trafford Centre primarily to distract myself from the physical pain and to redeem the value of a Boots Gift Card received as a present. I'm not much for venturing out in public. To me there's nothing worse than the tide of humanity lapping at my elegantly shod feet as I attempt to go about my daily business. As a shy egomaniac, I only get on with crowds when they're applauding me or screaming my name, otherwise they're a scary monster which keeps me confined to my quarters. But a heady mix of agony and the thought of all the Original Astral All Over Moisturiser I'd be able to purchase drove me to the Catacombs of Conspicuous Consumption.

The first thing that struck me was the sea of females sporting jeggings and Ugg (tm) boots. And, most peculiarly, there were middle-aged women dragging around their daughters and their daughters' daughters who were dressed exactly the same. Three generations of sartorial vapidity. We've regressed so far as a species, we're all dressing alike and in the home Fathers jostle their Sons for precious X-Box time as they attempt to live a perpetual adolescence. Back in the day you knew you were grown up because they gave you a suit on the NHS at the age of 16. Fact!

These days the last, exclusive, ring-fenced province of the child in fashion is the baby grow, or romper suit if you prefer, and I saw Snoop Dogg wearing one of those in a video once. So give it a couple of years and everyone will be hitting the streets in designer nappies:

"Gimme your Pampers or I'll stab you up, innit?"

"They're Huggies."

"Huggies, Pampers, Asda's own, wha'ever, yeah? Don't backchat me, Bigfoot or I'll bus' you up."

A lot more fun is to be had in The Concourse, a charmingly dilapidated shopping centre over in Skelmersdale - or Skem as the locals prefer and, get this, they refer to their Superstore as The Asda - where I've been working lately. Perhaps I’m just ultra-sensitive, but I found the spectacle of a group of 14 year olds at half-term smoking, drinking super strength Kestrel and luxuriating in their world-class surliness a tad unsettling at first. Now, this represents part of its allure. That, the pie shops and the lovely fella in the newsagents who kindly enquires if I want a "Chewy?" whenever I walk past his establishment. You don't get that at the Trafford Centre.

My foot related health considerations run a distant second to the brouhaha surrounding David Beckham at present. It's funny how our lives have followed such a similar path, although I doubt he's thinking, "I haven't heard from this consultant for a while, think I'll go to the Trafford Centre and gawp at the human detritus to see if that makes me feel better."

He inhabits a different world, one in which I imagine Victoria has compliant vulva delivered to their house like pizza in a wifely effort to keep him amused.

"Vic, this one's all dry and dessicated!"

"Easy hun, there's a juicy Hawaiian coming in a minute."

In praise of Pussy

I may watch the Oscars tonight. It all depends on how much Pussy I can get a hold of. Plus I'm really into the taste so just one isn't enough. Personally, I tend to get through a couple at a time.

God, bless ya!

I'm only talking about the energy drink!

I manfully strode into my local corner shop yesterday and, as I browsed through the myriad of drinks in the open display fridge, the owner chirped up "I've got some of that new Pussy, if you're interested."

I paused...

"Ex-Cuse! Me?!?"

"It's just to the right, sir. Pussy."

Sure enough, bold as you like on the shelf of a refrigerator in my corner shop: Pussy. I delicately examined the vessel, gently fingering the light moisture on its surface, my mind awhirl as I moistened my lips, and shot out, "What does it taste like?"

"No idea. I never touch any of that stuff. It keeps you awake," he replied.

Aroused and intrigued I bought 7 cans. I've been sucking down its sensual effervescence in enthusiastic gulps ever since. Being an obsessive I also visited the website to read the manufacturer's mission statement:

Pussy is spontaneous, entertaining, optimistic and fun. It’s a starting point. A moment when something happens and when things begin – Pussy starts conversations. It believes in having a good time as often as possible.

So, as you make your way to bed tonight imagine me with the taste of Pussy on my tongue as I follow Oscar proceedings from the red carpet to the ceremony itself.

The big winner tonight will undoubtedly be The Hurt Locker. I'd heard nothing but good things about this movie and so, as a contrarian, was absolutely convinced even before I watched the recently released DVD that it would be yet more propaganda for US military intervention overseas. It is, but it's far worse than that.

As there is no contextual exposition Iraq and Iraqis are reduced to mere background noise as we exclusively explore the Hell of War through the eyes of the American Crusader. The only pain is that experienced by the soldiers. A bi-product of this wilful myopia is the crude fetishisation of their male bonding which reaches a climax when the central characters take off their shirts and wrestle. Kathryn Bigelow, the director, might as well have had them oiled, naked and going at it by candlelight. That would have been entertaining.

But it was ever thus and will remain so. Heinrich Goebbels contended that films were a "scientific means of influencing the masses," and a powerful tool for shaping attitudes. He stressed that, "a government must not neglect them." Under Nazi rule, over a thousand movies were either approved or commissioned by the Reich. Goebbel's ministry punctuated popular films with reiterative motifs and symbols evoking a fervour in the German public: "heroism," "sacrifice," "mass murder," "hatred for Germany." Sixty years later and the same themes are played out in the same manner in our cineplexes, the subtext: "hatred for America."

Black Hawk Down espoused this world view whilst neglecting to reference the hundreds massacred by American troops.

300 ostensibly a movie about taut male flesh and ludicrous abs cast Sparta as the protector of Enlightenment and the principles of reason, freedom, and liberty from the "Asiatic hordes": reinforcing the western indoctrination that we are the good guys and that our ideals are better than the ideals of our enemies.

Apocalypto is about how the Mayan culture, prior to the European Conquest, was so inhuman and barbaric that it was necessary for the Mayans to be 'civilised' by the Europeans. Christianity was the best thing that ever happened to these savages. The human sacrifice referenced in the film was actually part of the propaganda promoted by the Spanish conqueror Cortez, a man who himself revelled in butchery and extermination.

Hollywood seeks to turn reality on its head in its use of images which places all guilt for death and destruction in the lap of the West's enemies. It's Bum Syrup. Utter Bum Syrup.

I'd like to see them turn that into an energy drink.

No. Really.