today : from Motty to Totty

It's quite fantastic to witness the hoo-ha surrounding Jacqui Oatley's appearance as the first ever female footie commentator on Match of The Day. The headlines are fantastic when women get involved in football. The best was when Karran Brady took over as Chief Exec of Birmingham City. The headline : "It's Bummingham Titty!"

The fact is that I called it several years ago when Oatley was beginning her career at my local radio station. In those days she would commentate on local non league matches and, as far as I can remember, on or two minor Rugby League games. Nobody flinched and Western Civilisation remained intact, and she was a good commentator.

I thought to myself that Oatley should be signed by Five Live. It was about time women were given the opportunity. Unfortunately I wasn't (and still am not) the head of commentator recruitment for the BBC, so had little influence on her appointment. Later, they saw the light and employed her. Now she's made the step into TV and it is a delight to see dinosaurs like Mike Newell and Dave Bassett get their quotes in a twist about it.

In case you forgot, football is a sport that is peopled exclusively by Men, who roll around in mud, kiss each other a lot, spend thousands on haircuts and personal grooming products, massage each other and bathe together, but aren't gay at all. All they know is that women don't understand it and can't even explain the off-side rule, never mind commentate.

today : hungry like the wolf

Personally, I think it's quite cute that Paul Wolfowitz and Shaha Ali Riza are apparently in love. Good for them - especially good for a neocon for not shying away from hooking up with someone with a Muslim name. One wonders if Ms Riza has the problems at Newark arrivals that many other people whose names contain the word Ali seem to suffer? I don't frankly care who he spends his evenings with, or what he does with them. In fact I am happy if they have found some kind of personal happiness. However, if you are the political appointee of the leader of the free world, sent in to head up and spread ideology through an important international institution, then perhaps it's not a good idea to get your girlfriend (in whatever roundabout way) a fifty thousand dollar pay rise and a surprise promotion.

In itself, PW's actions are not the worst crime in the world. They are not half as bad as, say, urging, planning and cheerleading a stupid, bloody and unwinnable war based on invented evidence, pre-school level strategy and a quite crazy ideolgical stance. There is quite a valid argument that Mr Wolfowitz pulled some strings for his 'bird' at State in order to avoid a conflict of interests at the World Bank. After all, they were both quite open about their relationship and if they were to be seen working together in the same NGOrganisation people would inevitably leap to conclusions that may very well be false. A little nepotism (or, if we are being kind, the softer charge of cronyism) was, in this case, the lesser of two evils.

But the fact is that Wolfowitz and his ilk don't give a shit. What we are seeing is a government - and perhaps an entire class of Americans - down to the last red reminder of its moral bankruptcy. Their entire system is peopled by politicians and their cronies who believe that propriety and fair play is for the little folks. The American dream is now a dream of knowing the right people. Cronyism is the lifeblood of these people. That's how the pony club captain became Head of Fema (one wonders if that was through 'ponyism'?). In fact it's how Bush became President at all.

Wolfowitz's pronouncements sound just like the ones made by any selfish and corrupt person who believes their position of power places them above everyone else. "Let's move on, draw a line under this, get past this," are the PR bon mots I am hearing more and more. They are the mantra of politicians when they are desperate to get their negative stories out of the news cycle. The belief is that if a story lasts less than a week then people will forget about it and it will go away.

As I said. I don't care what PW or anyone does in their private life. But sometimes that private life crosses over into the public arena. This is one of those cases. Ms Riza should find have found herself a job somewhere else by using her talents and experience like the rest of us mere mortals.

today : The bikini 'line'

My pal Ibrar sent me this link the other day, suggesting that I would like to comment on it. The thing is, I have no real comment. The story speaks for itself. Attacks on 'Muslim' dress are another way for people to be racist and generally anti-other-cultures and its time we all grew up. The very people who go on about freedom are very quick to curtail the freedom of others, even to the point of attacking their choice of clothes.

If this woman was, for example, a burns victim, with a body covered with scars, some people would clamour for her to wear a 'Muslim' style swimming costume because they were offended by her scars. Others would get upset if her bikini was too revealing, offended as much by an unclothed human body as they are by a clothed one.

Their world view and response is just childish. In fact, they don't know what they want and their opinions are a porridge made of the fickleness of appetite and self-seeking aggrandisement.

today : whilst eating chocolate, I watch a bad film

It's become tradition recently at Easter on British TV for someone to show 'The Passion of the Christ', which is a shame because it has unfortunately thrown all previous TV and film versions of the Easter story into the vaults with an echoey thud, and turned the key: becoming the popular 'Passion' of choice.

It's also a shame because TPoTC is just not very good.

This seems to be because when it came out it took masses at the box office, but then again so did The Nutty Professor 2 - The Klumps. We also know that even films that are deigned to be 'quality' and win loads of prizes are also often not very good, such as that snore-fest 'Babble'. The reason TPoTC took so much money was that it played directly to an easy audience. Let's face it, plenty of the Western world consider themselves Christians and plenty of people in the USA are more or less vocational Christians. Show these people a Hollywood film that tells a Bible story without crtiticising and questioning and they will rush to it, even as they rush away from Hollywood's usual ungodly, morally corrupting and liberal, commie-homo-lovin' fare.

The problem I have is that TPoTC is just too much of a film, too tricksy and, whilst trying so hard to show the depth of suffering of Jesus in his last hours, is suffused with a gloss of unreality that ultimately puts it on a par with any high budget brutal horror film of recent times. SAW and SAW 2 have gory and 'realistic' torture sequences that are as thrilling and scary as the flailing sequence in TPoTC. I am reminded of the so-called 'powerful' moment in Schindler's list when the girl in the red coat is singled out in a black and white world - forcing us to feel sentimental emotion when it's just not needed (and an example of a Hollywood film-maker using technology because he can, and a bad error of judgement on Spielberg's part). So Christ is hanging on the cross and about to die. From above we see Calvary from a cloud's eye view, through a distorted lens. The camera then watches, spinning slightly as the 'lens' is shown to be a single raindrop, that falls away from the camera and plunges to the earth, where we are gven a close up of it hitting rock and exploding in the finest detail. Christ is still about to die, we have a softly lit flashback of the last supper. Jesus, luxuriant of hair and beard, saying all those last supper things that have led to centuries of arguments about transubstantiation and then we are put back into the 'real' world of his bloody and torn body, dangling on the cross again with the two Marys emoting wildly. All of this 'reality' is backgrounded with an endless loop of 'atmospheric' middle eastern music in lovely 5.1.

In the last shot of the film, a resurrected Jesus climbs out of his shroud and walks to the tomb entrance. He passes through shot and with the use of digital matting, the camera sees through the hole in his hand. It reminds me of the scene in the porn cinema in American Werewolf where Griffin Dunne turns and talks, despite the fact that half his face has rotted away and we can see through it. Fercrissakes Mel, unplug the damned computer. Make a film goddamit, and, by our lady, not a cartoon!

There is a reason why Passion plays, even for a determined unbeliever like me, have a power and genuine mystery that TPoTC completely lacks. By playing off the traditions of theatre and setting themselves within each culture where they are performed, they behave as art should, seeing past literal reality and telling a story of imagination and reflective humanity. In a play Jesus is played by a human being. Jim Cavaziel nailed to a cross with viscous trickles of blood pouring from his wounds and his flailed ribs exposed is merely another special effect, and this actually de-humanises the character of Christ. The film replaces imagery and imagination with simple and literal screen violence and the obvious use of cinematic tricks and cliche. Pilate the fat corrupt gold dripped baddie. The Pharisees almost comical stone faced cartoon clones of Archbishop Mikarios. Mary Magdalen, smouldering and sexy-sad. Gibson could have learned a thing from Spielberg and the most perfect horrifying moment in Schindler's List: when the women are herded into the showers and we literally hold our breaths as we wait in terror for taps to go on. People gasped with relief and real emotion when the shower heads brought forth merely water and went away feeling real, resonant, sympathetic emotion..

TPoTC has nothing of the true power and passion of, for example, the Manchester Christ turning to his tormentors, and to the acoustic backing of a rag bag band of buskers, singing "How does it feel, to treat me like you do-oo?"

today : my Easter message to the world

bless you and bless me,
bless the bees,
and the birds

today's slightly unhinged and crackers people are...

Ron & Russell Mael

Today : Ten things that annoyed me this week.*

1. Parking. Why can't people park their cars? The worst crime - pulling in and parking eight feet away from the end of a painted parking bay. What is that about?
2. Parking. The person who noticed I was exiting a parking spot and stopped just in front of me, waiting for me to exit, but actually blocking my way out. This person then saw fit to shout and swear at me out of their window for not exiting as fast as they wanted. They then abandoned the spot and drove off because they couldn't parallel park into it even though it was plenty big enough.
3. Parking. The person who consistently abandons their car on my street in such a way as to actually block the street.
4. Parking. The idiot who abandoned his van in the middle of the service road to the post office whilst he sat in a cafe window eating and watching people unable to get past.
5. Parking. People in giant SUVs who park six inches away and then open their doors onto your car making great dents in the bodywork (often while they are leaning in loading shopping and children). I watched someone do this yesterday in a car park (not, thankfully to my car) and when I mentioned it to them, they became very aggressive. I was surprised she swore in front of her baby.
6. Drivers, the idiot who killed a motorcyclist near my house by crossing two lanes of traffic without looking at what was coming up the inside lane - a now ex-biker.
7. People who have no manners and will not say, for example, 'excuse me please,' allowing you to get out of their way before they barge into you. Prime culprits : not teenagers but old ladies.
8. The crossing warden, whom, when I was in a rush, stopped the traffic with a lollipop until the children finished crossing, and then continued standing there with the lollipop holding up the increasingly frustrated traffic until the children had walked about a hundred yards along the pavement. Newsflash. None of the children are going to suddenly turn and around sprint back out into the road, as they are holding their parents' hands. I though this was a one-off, but the next day I wasn't running late and the same thing happened.
9. Virgin media. Okay, I think they are probably right in their argument with Murdoch, but please stop spending my money sending me expensively produced letters explaining why you are right and what a valued customer I am. Just give me a damned price cut and sort out that picture freeeze.
10. Almost everything else.


*okay, so this is a pretty lazy entry, but I haven't been so well and couldn't be bothered with anything too heavy today.

today : Life among the diaspora

So here I am, sitting in a room full of people. Many of them have given up their lives and are trying to start again.

There's a guy who has come from Afghanistan, a woman from The Congo, a guy from Sudan, at least one Iraqi Kurd, someone else is from Sierra Leone and someone is from Rwanda. All are here for one reason: the perception is that life here is better than at home, or in St Gate.

The Iraqi tells me that he left Greece because he was attacked for being a foreigner. Now the kids in his area throw stones at his house because he's been given it for nothing just because he's foreign. One of the women has three kids with her and three left at home. The young girl from Sierra Leone was sent away by her family because they didn't want her to be killed.

At thend of today I'll pocket my money (almost twice for one day what each of these people get in a week) and go home in my fairly nice car, to my comfy house. Maybe I'll switch on cable and watch as CNN show faraway, unreal images of people being shot and blown up, starving and struggling and dying, interrupted by advertisments for computer systems and five-star conference hotels.

today : Vietnam, Iraq, Israel

How do you proceed when you have made a decision that is so obviously imbecilically wrong, yet pride, stubborness, self-delusion and stupidity make you follow it for long enough that it cannot be easily undone, and you are currently mired in an increasingly bad situation?

This is the burning question of our times. Powerful people made foolish and ideologically driven mistakes, following advisors who had too much to lose to not behave other than as fawning yes-men. A campaign was started based on narrow, blinkered criteria. It was poorly planned and shambolically managed: and now we are all paying the price.

Yet this has always been the way. Lack of vision has stymied any real progress internationally. The powerful people fall back and make useless choices, retrenched in their need to retain power and caught up in their own little worlds.

Which is why the FA refused to employ Brian Clough when he was clearly the best choice to manage the England team. It's why they settled for Ron Greenwood, Graham Taylor and now Steve McClaren. Each time they reached a position where it was too late to turn back, yet what lay in front of them was only more disaster.

But where do we go from here? Apparently the FA are still paying Sven thousands a week to not be the manager, as well as paying McClaren to be the manager. If they sack him all the other decent choices are contracted to jobs it would be difficult to prize them from.

The mistakes piled up prior to the new regime being appointed. Firstly, Sven (as was his right) was recorded having a conversation during which he showed interest in a job other than managing England. As a knee jerk response, the FA lengthened and hiked up his contract, knowing a World Cup was six months away. Secondly, after Sven decided he was leaving the FA offered his job to Phil Scolari, on the condition that he accept before the world cup. Like almost anyone in the world Scolari said no, as he didn't want to go into the tournament as a lame duck coach. Then Martin O Neill, who was a free agent came into the frame. The most respected manager of his generation, the FA dithered on O' Neill because he is Northern Irish. Sensing that he might be taken off the club scene, while the FA dithered, several clubs came in to offer O' Neill a job. Aston Villa won the race and then he was off the scene. Next in the frame was Sam Allardyce. Unproven but a passionate guy whose work at Bolton showed intelligence and a great depth of tactical nouse, it turns out that maybe the FA shied away from him because (although this wasn't public at the time) his name had cropped up in the bungs enquiry. Then came Alan Curbishley. He anounced he was leaving his club, Charlton, at the end of the season. I wonder if he did this to get the England job and not mess Charlton around. He too was overlooked. One by one the FA, either by prevaricating or being outright stupid, narrowed their feild of candididates.

Which left us with McClaren. No more proven than Allardyce, clearly about a tenth as clever as O Neill and the totally boring safe choice. One thing the FA knew: apart from screwing around on his wife, McClaren was already part of their little club and had no skeletons in his closet. The least worst option left. Only, in actuality, not. Because if you go for the safe option, and it doesn't work, you cannot fall back on the claim that you took a risk.

McCaren must have taken advice when he made the idiotic decision to end Beckham's international career. Okay, drop him on form, but to do it in such a way that you'd look like a fool if you recalled him is just moronic. What if you needed him? At the time it was applauded by some as a brave decision. But at the time people thought the Charge of The Light Brigade was a brave decision.

In this evening's match away to Israel, McClaren, apparently short of defenders, picked Phil Neville at right back. Because, clearly Phil Neville is more worthy of a place than Beckham. He took him off after an goal-less hour and replaced him with another right back. He played Jamie Carragher (central defender or right back) at left back. Aaron Lennon (right winger or advanced central midfielder) on the left wing. Then, with not long to go and the match at 0-0, he substituted him with Stewart Downing (a left winger) whilst playing apparently nobody on the right wing. He replaced Andy Johnson, speedy but diminutive forward, with Jermaine Defoe, speedy but diminutive forward. etc etc etc

Great coaches are brave, visionary and inspired. They don't play safe. They don't take the consensus, let's-not offend the establishment option. That's why the FA never seems to ermploy them.

Eventually McClaren will have to be sacked. The press'll get on his back and if there are no scandals, they will invent them. How did the powers that be not foresee this, when pretty much 100% of paying football fans could?

today's tormented philosophical question is...

...why, when I am passionately against firearms and their use in any circumstances, do I smile whenever I hear anecdotes about people who shoot their televisions?

today's rubbish but completely brilliant thing is...

Chip Shop Curry Sauce

Back in the seventies our palates couldn't handle hot spices. These were life-on-mars times when, in Britain, we were just beginning to experience a whiff of multiculturalism. The days before Indian food became the staple diet of the English. On the scene came anglicised versions of what then was called foreign and is now called ethnic food. Bowdlerised and constructed from mainly traditional English ingredients we had Vesta curry. It's flavour still lingers in the form of McDonalds individual portions of curry ketchup. In those days a Vesta would cause outbreaks ofeye-watering, mouth wafting and people pointlessly lining their stomachs with milk in order to counteract the hotness (which is a coinage that I adore - a deliberate childish regulation of an irregular word formation - hot/heat - in order to create a subtly different meaning with only one specific application i.e. reporting the fierceness of chilli-spiced food) and stave off instant death from perforated ulcers.

And then there was chip shop curry sauce. It's absolutely nothing like curry and, despite research I cannot find out where or why it began appearing in chip shops. I bought some tonight with some Fish and Chips and it was delicious. Basically the bastard offspring of Vesta and lumpy school-dinner gravy, Chip Shop Curry Sauce is somehow the perfect accompaniment to Fish and Chips. Previously, we made do with salt and vinegar, but now for me the traditional, simple condiments are not quite enough on their own. You can even buy packets of Chip Shop Curry mix and granules. I never buy them, because in order to taste perfect Chip Shop Curry should be ladled from a stainless steel vat and served in a flimsy-lidded styrofoam pot with lumpy dribbles down the side. Perhaps it is the cultural memory of the start of ethnic food taking over our menus. Some throwback to childhood, but I nominate Chip Shop Curry as something that in itself is rather rubbish but completely brilliant.

today's almost totally bonkers and slightly scary person is...

Hans Moretti

today : I watch less TV than usual

Odd, and slightly pervy

I am pretty bereft of decent long-form TV at the moment. My cable has started offering on-demand series. I thought I'd catch up and watch Alias Season 5. Alias was more fun than I expected. Only I gave up watching Season 5 in the first episode when it became obvious that each shot was planned to disguise the fact that Jennifer Garner was pregnant. How ridiculous. Why did they not postpone making it until she had given birth - or just gone with it. And anyway I got tired of all the false identities and Rennaissance sub-DaVinci Code, Name of the Rose crap.

I more or less predicted the demise of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It was pretty clear from early on that it was an ill-conceived idea, and although it was interesting and almost very good - it ran it's course without reaching mid-season.

Spooks is returning in November and I am not optimistic. I think they've covered pretty much all the stories they could think of.

Gray's Anatomy seems to be getting more popular but also has kind of got repetitive. To have two main characters not speaking to each other for about ten episodes shows signs of a plot cul-de-sac. It's as if the writers are reluctant to follow the rules. You can't pair up main characters without having to split them up or there is no more drama. And when two (arguably three) of the five main characters start having their loved ones ill in the very hospital where they work then it just seems silly. And that's before I start on again about the increasingly annoying incidental music.

So what's left? Well, there's House, which actually needs more character stuff because the arcs move too slowly due to the formula of having a case to solve each week. Its still very watchable but needs to be unhooked a bit. More two parters are needed like last season's sweeps story - and the fabulous Lisa Edelstein needs to be used more.

Which leaves only Boston Legal, which here in Britain is starting season 3. Is there anyone more watchable on TV at the moment than James Spader? In BL he is still playing the slightly odd, pervy character that has served him well through an entire career only this time in a humorous and non-threatening incarnation. But nobody does likeable perv better than Spader.

Of course, BL just a wilfully politically incorrect, adolescent-minded remake of Ally MacBeal. Only this time they have cut out the itzy ditzy central character and killed the girly soppiness stone dead. Which helps, because Ally McBeal was one of the worst and most annoying shows of all time. BL is one of the few mainstream dramedies that actually makes me laugh, even when the jokes are pretty cheap and at the expense of dwarves, cross dressers, peeping toms, cannibalistic homeless people and other relatively easy targets. The skill in the show is that it does manage to balance the character comedy with the cases and treats the (usually taboo bending, bizarre and unsavoury) cases as comedy and the strange odious comedic behaviour of the lawyers as drama. Which is, all in all, rather satisfying. It's a shame about the 1980's style incdental music, though. But what can you expect from the same 'creatives' who gave, as their abiding gift to the world, the utterly memorable singing sensation that is Vonda Shepherd?

today : I do a lot of work for charidee

Well done to all the people who stage the Red Nose Day telethon. They are, apparently, sincere, giving people whose generosity cannot be called into question. I put what I could in a collection bucket to support the cause.

Just don't expect me to actually watch the show. The problem is that is Red Nose Day (and pretty much all) telethons are so predictable that there is no point wasting time actually watching them. The format never changes. And seeing newsreaders in sparkly costumes, sports presenters performing karaoke, pop stars doing videos with mugging comedians in the background, 'celebrity' guest stars appearing in sketch show sketches and all the other telethon staples is just not interesting or entertaining anymore. In the 20 years since Live Aid the power of watching celebs hugging aids babies in Africa ("this was the most life-changing thing I've ever done" - even more life changing than the Barclays Bank ad that paid off my mortgage), visiting well-digging projects and doling up porridge in homeless shelters to the backing of 'sensitive' acoustic music and sincere imploring voice-overs has diminished almost to zero. Not that these aren't supremely worthy causes, but I know what close up shots of undernourished African children with flies landing on their faces looks like. They've been on my TV screen for as long as I can remember. I know the world is a nasty, unfair place because it's on the news for 24 hours every day.

In total Comic Relief day raises roughly £1 for every person in the country. Defence spending per person per year from tax is £520. In fact, collectively in the UK we pay £70 per person per year on Overseas Aid anyway. This sum is pretty small compared to most countries but still three times more then the US gives (as a percentage of GDP - the UK gives about 0.3%, the US 0.1%, the Netherlands gives 0.8%). Anyone can look up these figures, and what they suggest is that, worthy as it is, a bi-yearly telethon is literally a drop in the ocean attached to a pretty unoriginal show. To make any real change needs a bigger and more attention grabbing gesture than Kate Moss saying three lines in a comedy sketch.

today; How to upset 'them'

One thing is certain. Adam Curtis's new documentary series The Trap, which aired on Sunday on the BBC will have 'them' up in arms. After all, 'they' hated The Power of Nightmares so much that, in the way that 'they' respond to these things, many unpleasant and downright abusive things were said about both Curtis and The Beeb. The attacks on Curtis in the past reminded me of the similar attacks on someone like Michael Moore, where even if people get to discussing the issues, it is always prefaced with a series of undermining and generally unproven accusations and smears.

The new series, rather than polemically examining the philosophical ideological seeds of the 'War on Terror', looks at the philosphical and ideological seeds of the modern Western economy. Curtis spends his time picking away at the interface between power elites, science, ideology and politics, and it is this that upsets 'them' so much. It doesn't even matter if he is wholly and proveably correct in all of his arguments, what Curtis does is make essays on the nature of the connection between high-falutin' thought and it's effect on everyday lives.The template for this could be James Burke's Connections, which introduced a wide-eyed TV audience to the nuances and sophistication behind ideas (although in 1979 at 12 years old I personally remember only being wide-eyed at the scene of naked Russian Peasant women bathing in large barrels and the arresting demonstration of what actually happens when a broadsword hits flesh. I can still picture it in my mind - the sheer violence of Burke hacking at a pig carcass).

The very simplest measure of how close to the bone people like Curtis get is in the response. If any of his hollering detractors had bothered to watch Century of the Self, they would have been introduced to some basic psychology. The loudest critics come at Curtis, Moore, Palast (who regularly reports for Newsnight), Amy Goodman or anyone who has a go at the status quo and tries to discuss topics with a measure of scepticism, with an edge of hysterical panic. Last week I heard a Neocon type on BBC radio trying desperately to peddle a line of defence for Cheney and Libby (Plame wasn't even in the CIA when she was named and therefore Libby shouldn't have been in front of a grand jury because the charges were bogus and wholly politically motivated and stoked up by the commie lovin' media and how dare the extreme left wing BBC reporter actually interrupt this rant to, God forbid, actually ask a question that is so loaded with bias that I'm not answering it and even if I do then you'll only edit it into syllables and put it into a sampler and make my synthetic voice say that I worship the devil because that's what you journalists do blah blah blah...yawn) that would've got the third substitute on the junior high debating team laughed out of the room. It's a simple equation: the more hysteria, the more insults and smears heaped upon journalist and film makers, the more outright lies told in response, then the closer to the bone the story/film/idea is. Have these impeccably educated elite people never read Shakespeare. Do they not undertand the concept of protesting too much? Methinks not.

So let's celebrateAdam Curtis. And even more let's celebrate the BBC. For all it's faults (Last of The Summer Wine series 117, Jim Davidson's Generation Game, not finding a settles slot for Seinfeld or CYE, Kombat Opera, buying the new series of 3lbs) at least it retains a measure of independence, having the guts to fund and show primetime TV that would be frightening and unpalatable in many other countries.

today : wearing complicity well

Ana Carolina Reston -dead at 21 from anorexia nervosa

The insanity of the recent and ongoing debate about 'size zero' models and actresses is quite stunning. The argument goes like this: the fashion industry is in no way to blame for the illnes and occassionally death that is brought upon its models because it is a model's job to fit into the clothes that the designers make.

Workplace laws in much of the world, as far as I know, are there to protect employers from damaging the health of their employees. If a coal mining company refused to change their health and safety policy on the grounds that 'sometimes miners get killed by falling roofs - that's what they get paid for' we would be rightly outraged.

The other claim that the fashionistas make is that is nothing to do with them that millions of people are neurotically obsessed with their body shape. I'm not just talking here about anorexic youngsters but the mass of people who spend their lives crash dieting, buying exercise equipment and whose worries about their bodies is perhaps not quite as out of control as those with clinical eating disorders, but verges on the obsessional nontheless.

What astounds me in the arguments bandied is that the representatives of the fashion and fashion media world really appear to be as shallow as their stereotype dictates. It is just not logical to deny responsibility for aspirant images whilst at the same time photoshopping photos to make people look smooth skinned and skinny. Perhaps nobody is prepared to break ranks but their self-delusion and self-justification comes across as monumental as someone like, for example, the Emperor Nero. Their logic is that of the driver who says : I drive better when I've had a few drinks, the rapist who just knows every woman is begging for it, or the person with their hand on the Auschwitz gas valve who was just following orders.

today : ...resentment takes hold

I was watching this catch-up episode of popular hospital dramedy Grays Anatomy. It's not, to be honest, my favourite show and recently there's something about it that has irritated me more than the normal things that irritate me - such as the endless pastel frocked and Birkenstocks pop-folk music and the way each scene's emotional direction is signposted by predictable music ('ironic' cartoonish pizzicato strings to tell us "this is a comedy scene!"). Anyway, I didn't set out to criticise the Sex and The City meets ER hospital drama which has a certain level of undeniable quality in its writing, acting and production. What I did set out to say was that some parts of popular culture transcend their popular status and make it all the way into a category that, for the purposes of this missive, we'll call 'art'. Art that kind stands outside of culture - sort of convincingly transcending history, context, nationality, that sort of thing.

Anyway, there was a very 'emotional' scene (signified by the abscence of cartoony pizzicato strings) in Gray's Anatomy where a family were having to make a decision. Do they switch off a life-support machine? In the show, romantic interludes are underpinned with that fairly jolly inoffensive pop that at one end of the market has Hilary Duff and at the other has someone like Kelly Clarkson. Medical dilemma scenes are underpinned with the aforementioned fragile female folky music (patron saint : Natalie Merchant). It's like all the artists and labels that supplied Dawson's Creek missed their old royalties and needed a new place for their songs to go.

The underpinning of the life-support machine switching scene was the usual Lillith Fair kind of thing. But this time it was a version of Love Will Tear Us Apart. I couldn't focus on the scene at all. In fact I became rather irritated by it. Why? Is it because I am just an ornery old grump? Perhaps. But the real reason was that I was thinking that a law should be passed banning anybody from doing a cover version of Love Will Tear Us Apart. In fact, it should be de-listed from popular culture. Nobody should ever be allowed to even think about a cover version of it, apart from maybe Johnny Cash. That's because the power of the song is so tied up in the sound of the original recording. Somehow, Joy Division, with their faltering, unskilled instrumentation and the stark production of the late Martin Hannett, created a thing that could neither be replicated or imitated.

Of course, I can't actually put my finger on it without sounding like a tossy musicologist, or worse, a serious music journalist. The fact is that Love Will Tear Us Apart is a whole package. Art that is untouchable and hermetically sealed unto itself. Some of its power is derived from Ian Curtis's suicide. Some of it is derived from the context in which it was first released, the time and even the geography from whence it was created. For me, some of its power is caught up in when I first heard it and my initial reaction (which was a kind of confusion). More pwer is derived from when I 'got' it and the context of my life at the time. The bottom line is that it is a devastating and magnificent sound. Using even a pastel version of it to underpin a soppy scene in a hospital soap is just wrong.

today : I feel (genuinely) sorry for some famous people

What has Tom Cruise done wrong? I ask this because whenever his name is mentioned in the media is accompanied by sneering and sometimes jeering, negative personal comments, innuendo and distaste.

A few weeks ago I was watching a comedy show which had a line of stars' dressing rooms. The presenter walked along pointing to them and mentioning who was supposed to be in them. When the camera reached Tom Cruise's room it dipped low, because the star and Tom's name were very close to the floor. The presenter crouched to address the camera and gave a wink. The audience fell about in paroxysms of laughter that left them literally split at the sides. This was only the fifteen thousandth time that they had witnessed a 'joke' about Tom Cruise being smaller in real life than he appears on-screen. Why him? Has he lied about his height consistently and then been found out?

A week or so ago I watched one of those Entertainment/Celebrity shows that featured the editor of some insider gossip mag (y'know the guys who make Danny DeVitos character in LA Confidential look like Bernstein and Woodward). The guy spent five minutes detailing the fact that Cruise had been dropped by his film studio. Apparently, not only had his latest action epic underperformed at the box office, but the studio head disliked him - nay - despised him. On the same show there was footage of Tom and his wife. They were kissing each other. Now I expect people to say in a whiny teenage voice : "EEEUUUWW. GET A ROOM!", which is exactly what the voiceover said, but the presenter in the studio suggested that Tom and his wife's PDA was a little too much. She implied that it was false.

And this, I perceive, is the basis of almost every negative that is thrown at Tom. Falseness. His religion isn't just an unusual one, but it is false, his marriage is clearly a sham and even his child is apparently false.

Tom started out as a teen star, playing good-looking teenagers at the Michael J Fox end of the brat pack. Then he started to get more and more serious. He took up dramas, action movies, historical epics - everything apart from comedy. Some of this he did very well. Some he did less well. Yet somehow he managed to develop his career. I am not a particular fan of his. I neither watch or not watch films because his name is above the titles. Sometimes I think he is very good, other times he is okay. Rarely is he a bad actor.

Each time I see him he seems to be working hard. I can't say I've ever seen him be less than professional. He doesn't do lots of interviews, but in interviews he pays attention and answers the questions. He makes an effort. On the red carpet the footage shows him spending hours chatting to fans, signing autographs, phoning their grannies on cell-phones and paying them attention. In fact, he does everything a movie star should, and he does it way better than average.

So why do people hate him so? Why is all they want to talk about and talk 'around' is that he is short and gay. Do these gossip insiders and celebrity correspondents know something that we don't? Has he got closets that are bulging with deep dark secrets worse than any other Hollywood actor? The impression given is that he is totally and utterly false in every aspect and only they know about it.

For a 'gay' man he has chosen his beards quite well. I imagine Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz and Katie Holmes could pretty much have their choice of relationship options (any one of them could give me a call whenever they wanted), yet they chose to play beard to Tom. Nicole even chose to adopt kids as part of the conspiracy. Yes, two of those actresses were foreign talent who subsequently broke through into the Hollywood mainstream, and we have evidence that these things do happen, as with David Copperfield and Claudia Schiffer. But so far, in 20 years, nobody has come up with anything other than hints and allegations.

And do you know what? Even if Cruise is closeted, I don't care. Freedom of sexuality is just another branch of freedom, which includes freedom of expression, privacy and personal choice. It's his choice. If he is bearding up with these women, then it's no more hypocritical than people claiming each other were a delight to work with in junket interviews, no more fraudulent than airbrushing and no more dishonest than Hollywood itself trying to sell us bad actors as good actors and bad films as masterpieces.

If Tom is a murderer or pederast who uses his fame to protect him, then please carry on dragging him down until he is exposed and caught. If, however, he is just an easy target who is reluctant to sue, successful, professional and not even particularly interesting outside of his roles, then why not leave him alone?

I would ask the same about Britney, or 'poor Britney' as she is now known. What has she really done wrong? She's yet another rich young star who for reasons of early success, apparently missed out on growing up. So she starts behaving oddly, rebelling against expectations and possibly suffering depression. I read that she has been taking drugs, partying and drinking. Just like the millions of other young women throughout the world who go out on a Friday night. Perhaps, like the millions of other people suffering depression, she's been self medicating with the drugs, alcohol and unexpected behaviour.

During her time as a popstar Britney has made one or two excellent pop records, put on some decent shows and, like Tom, worked hard and professionally. Has she killed anyone? Has anyone caught her banging her babies' head on the kitchen counter? Does she deserve photographers following her around ALL the time? I don't think so. Perhaps some clue lies in the fact that, whilst the public seems to be offering her some sympathy, the celebrity pundits appear delighted by her troubles. I know that many of them are talented and successful in their own right, and don't mean it to appear so, but sometimes it comes across as a little like jealousy.

today : I re-read some books

John Irving is not feted as a novelist as much as Roth, Updike, deLillo, Heller or Pynchon, or any of the other 'giants' of American literature for several reasons. Firstly, he didn't burst onto the scene. His first novel - The Watermethod Man - was pretty rubbish. Well, not rubbish, but just not brilliant. Secondly, he also is not from WASP or Jewish stock, which counts if you are to become part of the literary establishment. He is a rustic New Englander rather than a Metropolitan New Englander. Thirdly, he is popular and on top of that he is seen (even by himself) as a craftsman. Solid, reliable, even arguably predictable. An artisan rather than an artist. Perhaps this is because he sems to have failed to take any of his cues from Modernism, instead preferring sweeping, nineteenth century-ish chunky stories about characters, places and events. Just a look at his prefferred settings reveals an old-fashionedness: woodyards, stoneyards, schools, an old hotel, Vienna, lakesides, apple orchards, orphanages, the baseball field, small rustic towns, woods and swimming holes.

Butf these qualities are why his novels are so entertaining and re-readable. The four novels that saw him soar onto and stay on the bestseller lists: The World According to Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, Prayer for Owen Meany and The Cider House Rules are the very definition of thumping reads, whereas The Crying of Lot 49, for example, isn't really. As a craftsman, Irving chisels his world carefully, sticking to landscapes made from realism and nostalgia. As a craftsman, he hews each of his characters with a defined personality and a recognisable story arc that is satisfying believable. His characters change in such a way as we can easily follow the logic of their changes and go along with it. He also almost never peoples his novels with unsympathetic characters. Even the baddies (of which there are actually few) have enough dimensions that we can understand their badness.

In some ways, Irving avoids themes. Yes, there is some early seventies feminism in The World According to Garp, religious faith in Owen Meany, incest, racism and abortion in Cider House. But his novels are not critical commentaries, or allegorical treatises. They exist outside of modern American politics. By that I mean that peculiar brand of febrile political 'thought' and debate that powers swathes of the American Academe, and informs 'literature' as defined by the Eastern intelligentsia and power elites. He is no Gore Vidal; his conservative and liberal tendencies are spelled with small c and small l.

In fact, I'm not going to use the word novels from now on when talking about Irving. He actual writes stories. These stories, even when they do display complexity are based on very basic old-as-the-hills topics. Love, tragedy, redemption, and fate.

Irving writes in a straightforward way, which is where he gets his reputation as a craftsman. I could not quote you a sentence of his and delight in the construction and the poesy therein. In fact I could not quite you a sentence of his at all. This is because all the words in his stories are there to serve the story and not make a show of what a master of words he is; even though he is.

I can only think of one stylistic point worth commenting on in all of his stories. And that is his choice to have Owen Meany speak in capitals. It is a deviously plain and rather obvious trick, to manipulate the reader into creating a different voice when reading Owen's speech. Yet it is a piece of terrific literary engineering. A simple device that does its job perfectly.

In praising Irving as a rereadable writer I am, of course, revealing my own taste. Previously, when I wrote about Clive James, it was his affection and enthusiasm for his subjects that shines through his writing. Irving has a similar quality. If any of his stories does have a theme, it is the theme of growing up. People finding out how they fit into the real world. It's a pretty unexperimental and uncynical seam to mine, and not the preserve of 'clever' people, who know everything anyway.

today : I go car shopping

i've been thinking about buying a new car. luckily i am in a position to get one and it's interesting looking around to see what's on offer. i'm not a car nerd. if i had millions i would probably buy a ridiculously fast and expensive collection, and i would enjoy them. but i don't buy car magazines or even know anything about cars to any depth. I know a bit, but it doesn't interest me. in fact, even though i enjoy watching top gear on the tv i find the obsession with driving promoted and reflected by that show faintly pathetic. there are, as i see it, two types of drivers : those who see a road network as their own personal race-track and those who see a road network as a way of getting places. again, don't get me wrong, fast driving is thrilling, but not as thrilling as staying alive and not having the deaths of others on my conscience.

none of this is really my point. my point is that i get bored easily when faced with brochures and technical detail. i am also bored by car salesmen. some of them are excellent, but a couple, when i have stated my disinterest in detailed technical description, have treated me like they treat women and patronised me. one guy, when he pointed out features on a very nice car, explained what each feature did as part of the naming and pointing process. this went as far as saying : cruise control: by pressing these buttons you can make your car go at any speed and (drum roll) you don't have to touch the pedals. the best one was: the sun visors, which apparently you can slide down to stop the sun getting in your eyes when you're driving...

so anyway, i was looking at my options. when selling cars in britain, the car companies seem to have this idea that we are roughly 20 years behind the rest of the world technologically. it is only recently that they have started offering aircon as a standard option and then only in mid-price and higher price ranges. They are also obsessed with the tiniest dividing lines between grades of model. the gxsi l model has electric front windows but manual rear windows and a tilting sun roof, the gsxi LS model has the same but a sliding sun roof and a cup holder, the gsxi ls plus has electric windows front and back, a sliding sunroof, a cup holder AND brushed aluminium door bezels. It is also 7 grand more than the gsxi L. well worth it, I'm sure you'll agree, especially for those 8 square centimetres of brushed aluminium that look like high-school-project ash trays

So, as part of considering one model of car, there I was with a brochure containing one of those tables that lists all the standard and optional equipment on different models. it turned out that on the list was a car that comes complete with a radio cassette player. Just a reminder if you've lost track of time: it's 2007. This was basic model, but even the basic models cost thousands of pounds. For an extra 7 percent of the cost of the car you can upgrade to an AM/FM Radio CD player with RDS! Fantastic!

I use audio equipment as an example, but here in Britain you can still struggle to find a car with ABS or electric windows as standard. And the car industry in their unnecessarily thick and glossy brochures still list these features as if they are part of some tomorrows world techno future. As if I can't go to B&Q and buy an air conditioner for my house for a quarter of the price of having air conditioning fitted in my car, as if anything other than grey vinyl as an interior material is so exotic that it is almost beyond the realms of imagination, as if a switch that opens the boot of locks all the doors or

Quite frankly it's bizarre. This kind of attitude redefines the word disingenuous. It is almost as crazy as that of record companies.

Looking at the higher end and newer models I found that hardly any of them has mobile phone connectivity. One model had integral bluetooth and infra red so you can use your phone via the audio system. yet this car offers no charging or cradling options for an actual phone. One of the main brand new models that is apparently packed with innovations offers a CD player that (wait for it) can play those new fangled MP3 CDs. The salesman told me that he didn't understand it, but apparently you can get more songs on a disc, or something. When I asked about iPod (other MP3 players are available, by the way) connectivity his head exploded. A wifi/usb connection - for designers and marketers who think that a radio cassette is more appealing than an empty space in the dash this is tantamount to making a car with a flux capacitor as a standard option.