Brown's Requiem (2nd movement)

And of course, operating from a position of weakness: where the press are keen to attack and every chancer MP thinks they can get their 5 minutes on the airwaves by protesting their opinions, Gordon Brown walked headlong into credit crunch.

Even though you could argue it was tangentially partly his fault, the recent financial problems would have faced any UK leader, and are, ironically, a lot to do with the Tory obsession with Reaganomics.Obsessive Chile-style privatisation of public utilities were sold on the basis that it would bring prices down. But after a bit of consolidation, it turns out your utilities are run by two or three giant companies who can then turn he screw and put prices up at will. The price of gas shadowing the price of oil is a myth peddled to us by greedy corporates in order to gouge profits. What used to be British Electricity is now EON and EDF, French and German corporates respectively, who care nothing for British customers apart from how much they can make from us.

The ridiculous acceleration of the oil price is the work of the Bush/Neocon oligarchs. Even if Britain didn't send a couple of hundred troops to Iraq, we'd still be at the mercy of the Sheikhs and the Texans. Similarly, the mortgage crisis and credit crunch is the result of rampant monetarism - not really Brown's fault. The problems that people are pinning on the PM really are the result mainly of global conditions. Perhaps Labour shouldn't have sold us the endless economic miracle of ballooning house values, credit and standards of living.

Basically he's done little wrong in policy terms, yet placed himself in prime position to take all of the blame.

Brown's Requiem (1st movement)

From where I am sitting, under fire Gordon Brown made two mistakes. The first was to let his advisors prepare the ground for an election and then call it off. The media has been narked with him ever since, because they were denied their moment of excitement and self-importance. You would go a long way to find a story about Labour or its leader that is couched in even neutral terms ever since. And most media reports are still informed by the bitterness of disappointment.

The second mistake was intertwined with the first. Brown allowed an attempt to portray him as cuddly and nice. There are two types of successful politicians. The likeable and the hated but respected. Blair was the first kind. He managed, for the most part, to put people at their ease and come across as a well-intentioned bloke, whilst in the background he had Campbell to shout and swear and issue threats to one and all. Brown already had the stereotype of the 'dour Presbyterian Scot' attached to to him, and foolishly tried to deny it.

When Brown took the helm, I suspect the 'advisors' were too bogged down in the Blair project, desperately trying to make their new charge into a doe-eyed sympathy magnet. Really they should have tapped into the dour Scot thing and thrown in a bit ofrighteous fury for good measure. The decision to bottle out of calling an election was okay, but he decision to soften up the media before a decision was made was idiotic and possibly fatal.

Brown should have been different to Blair. This is mainly because Blair did his thing so very well, but also because people need variety. Instead of being committed to the Health Service because it saved his sight when he was at school, he should have been committed to it because it is scandalous that any country doesn't have free universal health care. He should have challenged his opposers. "If you don't support the NHS then you support poor people dying in the streets." (which would have been pretty much correct for the Tories). When the 10p tax thing came along he should have stood up and said: We are right and we are not changing our decision. If some people lose a couple of quid then tough, those same people have a new hospital, a new school, child tax credits and a job. They are just going to have to lump it for the good of us all."

Instead he allowed himself to cave to that week's opinion polls and performed a pathetic, spineless U-turn. And now every little thing is ripe for pressure from the media and the back-benches. Brown looks weak whatever he does.

today : Summer arrived

today : unpacking from my holidays

One of the reasons that I have a link to Greg Palast is that I am a fan of his. His work is relentlessly depressing, confirming all that you thought about everything going to hell in a handcart (in fact just pulling into the car-park and ready to disembark) and the sheer amorality of a world run by globalised capital. But with jokes. It's a pretty difficult trick to pull off, but Greg manages to be write in a funny style. In one way this is a negative. Palast does come across like some guy in a bar with a slightly battered hat worn at a jaunty angle (the hat is another reason I quite like him - there are not enough people who wear hats anymore, at agles jaunty or otherwise) who will give you his version of the world over a series of ales. And this slight stylistic dishevelment does make it easy for people to dismiss him (and other protest people like Michael Moore) as NOT SERIOUS.

Maybe Greg should start wearing a pinstripe suit - looking like those he seeks to bring down; infitrating them by stealth.

today : bon vacances

My blog has decided to take a spontaneous vacation, booking itself on a flight to foreign climes for a refreshing and well-earned break.

today : Medicine Man

I am a great believer in medicine. I guess I have to be, given that I rely on them so much. I take an awful lot of painkillers to relieve chronic pain.

I love Strawberries and Strawberry Jam. My sister and brother cannot abide it. It all goes back to when they were given pills as children. The pills were always concealed in a blob of strawberry jam. Why I was never given jam with my pills, I don't know. But I don't possess that negative association.

Like food, medicines and treatments should taste and feel correct. Let me give you another example. I always take my co-codamols in soluble form. The act of drinking the bitter dissolved pills is part of a ritual. The taste of them on my tongue is the first stage of pain relief. Taking them in dry tablet form is just not the same.There is a psychological effect in the way they are administered, which feels like it aids the actual chemical effect of them.

Inhaling Vick's does little to actually dispel the symptoms of a cold. But the smell of it conjures priceless memories of being cared for as a child and therefore the smell of Vick's is one of care and of getting better.

The medicine cabinet is full of memories.

A quick off-the-top-of-my-head list of evocative medicinal smells and tastes would include:
Elastoplast
Germolene
TCP
Tincture of Myrrh
Calamine
Buttercup Syrup
Covonia Cough Mixture
Elliman's Rub (it smells like concentrated wood-shavings)

But the palliative effect of medicinal treatments also takes in actual feelings. The beauty of Whitfield's ointment is that it stings like hell for a few moments. Putting it in between your toes to treat athlete's foot is marvellous. The sting makes me feel like it is actually attacking the fungus. Okay, it stings. But a sting isn't proper pain - it's the extreme cousin of the itch family of sensations.

Al this a prelude to a complaint. I needed some anti-septic ointment due to the fact that I was cruelly attacked by rose bush whilst dabbling in the garden. Several thorny lacerations ensued. A visit to the chemist initially was disappointing. The only Germolene (my preferred brand due to it's wonderful aroma) available was some new-fangled odourless type. I simply don't understand the idea of odourless anti-septic cream. It's like making non-acidic vinegar or soda flavoured Whisky. I was about to leave empty handed when I spotted TCP ointment. I asked the chemist if the TCP ointment smelled like TCP and he assured me it did. So I bought it.

But when I got home I found that there was something wrong. It did smell a little like TCP, but not really. The makers of the ointment had decided that adding menthol would somehow help with the odour. It's a bit like that flavouring that in one concentration is used as almond flavour, but is actually nothing like almonds, then in another concentration is supposed to be black cherry, but is actually nothing like black cherry. This TCP had elements of the TCP smell but just wasn't TCP-y enough. The makers had been caught out by their laziness. Not only had they betrayed the aesthetic of their brand by adding menthol to the mix. But they had made their ointment less effective by taking away the reservoir of positive psychological side-effects associated with each user's personal history of TCP.

As a protest, next time I'm getting Savlon.

today : Maybe this time

When we first saw Barack Obama at the 2004 Democratic convention, it was clear that he was a gifted orator. This is just one of the reasons why I want him to be the leader of the free world. I though to myself - now wouldn't it be nice if THAT GUY was running for Prez. His 'victory speech' this week was truly great. I know he had a partisan crowd in a party mood but he blew the doors off the place. It's rare to witness that surge of emotion that goes through a crowd as the speech huilds to a climax. It reminded me of the surge of noise that accompanied the great UK earthquake earlier in 2008.

But even though it is splendid to have a potential leader who can not only string a sentence together but can use language and rhetoric to inspire there is the question of substance. And do my ears decieve me? Obama seems to be a man who is not scared of portraying the issues as complex, and describing them as complex. His speech on race was the first time I really wondered if he could be a serious contender. Most leaders ignore subtlety like Bush ignored New Orleans; the best they do is circle above it looking bemusedly out of the window.

Obviously, I am not American. But I guess I'm not alone. Already, just the fact that he is as close as he is has sent a huge message to the world. Previously, we were pretty pissed off with America's arrogant isolationism and tub-thumping dunderheaded Neocon blundering. Now we are thinking : maybe it was the government and not the people. Maybe the people are okay after all, and the idiot cabal does not represent them.

today : three! word! chant!

Of course, now the race is on there is one crucial thing we must focus on. Which candidate has the best three word chant? We need something like 'Where's the Beef?'.

Of course Obama has the early advantage because he has a three syllable surname, which helps. I guess McCain, not having a three syllable surname is on the ropes already. Maybe people can chant Sen-a-tor!, or failing that Ov-en Chips!

Why Americans don't do spontaneous community singing like us more cultured Europeans I don't know. I guess some of them probably even struggle with the three word chant.

today : I hold my own fuel protest

In a world so full of things to complain about I have chosen to focus on one thing. Not for me the woman who abused me for being a cripple, when I didn't move out of her way fast enough in the entrance to the supermarket, and then went into full-on Jerry Springer guest verbal abuse mode when I chided her for being so impolite. Not for me the guy, whom so keen to push to the front of the queue in a shop, failed to leave me time to actually put my sticks back to the floor and barged me out of the way, knocking me to the ground. Not for me either the person whom, when parked in a disabled space without accreditation, also verbally abused me (in front of his small children, who were sitting in the back)when he saw me simply looking at his windscreen as if I might be looking for his blue badge. I was, because I saw him pull into the space as his wife jumped out and ran into the shop, but until he began his shouting and threats I'd actually made the decision not to verbally challenge him.

Instead I am beginning my own fuel protest. Like lots of people I am not happy with the silly increases in fuel for my car. However, unlike lots of truckers I am not thinking of blockading the motorway (like they don't do that every day anyway). My protest is more specific.

At certain petrol stations, I sometimes cannot even get fuel into my tank.

What happens is that I follow the protocol : disabled drivers honk their car horns and flash their lights to get the attention of the station staff. The idea is that someone comes out and helps you put the fuel in, a little like a full-service fill up in the USA or how it used to be in England 40 years ago. It saves the immobile from having to get out of the car and walk to pay.

Except someone doesn't come out because they are either stuck running the station on their own due the oil companies cutting costs, or they have no idea what to do because they are blockheads or haven't been trained due to the oil companies cutting costs, or they cannot be bothered because they don't get paid enough to care due to the oil companies cutting costs. If someone does come to help, then it means an annoying and humiliating relegation. The disabled driver is often less important than restocking the drinks cabinet, sweeping the forecourt or straightening the newspaper display.

That's 2.3 million drivers on the road who simply have to sit and wait until someone decides they might be in as much of a hurry as everyone else.

My suggestion is that all disabled drivers should just pull up to the pump and wait until someone helps them. The oil companies might start training their staff if they realise that their pumps are blocked all day by angry crips, refusing to move or unable to move due to their empty tanks.

today : vroom

After a two week posting drought I still haven't had time or inspiration to do anything. So instead of a real post I am presenting a picture of my new car.

today : books yet to be wrote

Book One.
Title : Look At Me.
This is a factual book that explores the idea that, as the world gets smaller peoples' impulse to be noticed as unique individuals is becoming the major influence on society. It looks at the phenomena of personalised marketing, Reality TV. anti-social behaviour as an expression of a feeling of overwjelming 'dotness', the explosion in genealogy and the death of the collective mood for change. Lyotard + Friedman + Dawkins have synergised to attack our notions of individuality and individual freedom, leaving us with a caricature of real choice i.e. label shopping and the desire to make political choices based on personal impulse rather than collective good.

Book Two
Title : Really Rubbish Recipes
A collection of the most hideously inedible and unhealthy recipes culled from crap cookbooks down the years.

If anyone wants to commission me to write these then I will happily take offers. If anyone wants to nick my ideas then don't because it will cost you lots of cash.

today : In praise of shoes

I am obsessed with shoes. Not, I might add, in some Candace Bushnell kind of way. I have little or no interest in whantever is the latest hot designer. But given that I am a middle aged male that is no surprise. Neither do I have some kind of fetish. My obsession is lifelong but purely practical.

The fact is that, as I was born with bilateral talipes, my feet are just not normal. They are shaped unlike anyone elses and have an eccentric way of behaving. As a child I realise that my parents sacrificed a lot to buy me shoes. This was for two reasons: firstly, in the 1970s shoes were rubbish. My strangely shaped feet would chew a pair into unwearable shreds in a few weeks. Secondly, shoes that were wide enough to fit me were rare and therefore expensive. This meant my parents were forced to take me out shopping for shoes sevarl times a year. I'd place my foot on the measuring thing that they don't have anymore in shoe shops and find that I was at least a G fitting widthwise, if not an H or an I, when the widest shoes were no more than a G. I also have one foot much shorter and wider than the other. Even the most experience footwear salesperson would tut and look askance when we asked if there was anything in my size. They would disappear into the back room for what seemed like hours on end, before returning, shaking their heads.

Occasionally I will find a pair of shoes that fit me perfectly. By this I mean a pair of shoes that don't cause me extra pain than I already suffer when I put them on. They never actually fit me perfectly, as even bespoke made footwear doesn't fit me perfectly, as my feet have detailed demands that would shame the Palestinians and Israelis in the detailed demands stakes.

So, I was delighted last year when I found a pair of shoes that fitted the bill. Not only were they rather comfortable , but have remained so for more than a year. And this is in the face of the fact that even the best shoes i have ever owned during my adult life have only lasted about 3 months or so before my strange gait wears them away. These particular shoes appear to be indestructible. They quickly zoomed to the top of my personally compiled 'best shoes of all time' chart.

Now the thing is, I decided that it would be sensible to buy another pair exactly the same, and so went on the interwebnet to find some. To my chagrin, it turned out that these particular shoes, which I'd bought in a sale for a tenner, were a highly prized limited edition Skate Trainer - namely the 'Globe Chad Thomas'

The good people who decide these things had not taken me into consideration when they strategised their marketing. One of the common side effects of disability is a rapid decline into relative poverty. I just don't have £148.50 to buy the last remaining size thirteens on the planet

today : screw it!

today : crimes against culture pt2

...and while we're at it, can we please find out who it was who decided to 'adapt' Susannah McCorkle's perfect version of the The Waters of March in order to try and make us feel better about an electricity company that is fleecing the poor and elderly for more and more of their cash simply in order to keep the lights on and avoid hypothermia? These bastards should be wired up to their own supply for crimes against culture and also because they are greedy money grabbing amoral ****!

today : crimes against culture pt1

The fashion for using popular song on TV adverts is kinda fun. It's so obvious that I don't know why anyone didn't think of it until the late 1980s. Culture is resonant, and the association of certain tunes with adverts is a powerful thing. Currently, the singing dog advert for the VW Golf uses an old tune to brilliant effect.

However, there are some things that should be off limits. I am going to cite two current examples: the use of Edith Piaf to advertise spectacles and the use of The Irish Rover to sell butter.

The first one is just tasteless. Piaf doesn't deserve to be part of some cheap advertisement. You can just tell that the execs involved had no idea who she was until the 2007 film came out. And the joke is crap. No, rien de rien, no je ne regrette rien is translated in subtitles, and then the next part of the song is translated hilariously as 'apart from the fact that I didn't go to Specsavers'

Oh, the beautiful use of irony. My sides surely split with uncontrollable mirth.

At the same time, the people who make Clover - the non-butter butter - have decided to appropriate The Wild Rover and replace the words with some blather about eating Clover. Which is kind of blasphemous. Just because a song doesn't have copyright doesn't mean that it's fair game. The wild rover is a small but integral part of our culture - like Auld Lang Syne or Happy Birthday - and shouldn't be allowed to be butchered by these vacuous chancers.

Which is my point, really. This whiole mullarkey shows modern media types as shallow, insensitive fools who have no understanding of the way culture operates and no respect for culture as art, only as fleeting commerical opportunity.

today : flamin' 'eck!

"Their despicable activities tarnish the lofty Olympic spirit and challenge all the people loving the Olympic Games around the world,"

"We strongly condemn this vile behavior."

No, this is not an anti China protestor making a statement about the behaviour of the Chinese government towards its own people and the support of violent fascistic regimes, but the Chinese condemning legitimate protestors, whose 'vile behaviour extended to such crimes against humanity as shouting, setting off a fire extinguisher and getting in Konnie Huq's personal space.

They gave themselves up. Only a government so caught up in the mindset of ultra control and a poltical culture that despises protest and dissent would comment in this way. The first thing they need to learn is that they cannot control what happens beyond their own borders; especially when they have to resort to hideous tactics of violence and repression to control what happens inside their own borders.

today : Useful statistics

Usually I try to create my own content rather than pinch stuff from others. However, for this, I have made an exception, just because I though it was pretty funny.

today : Companion Wars

Freema : Is it because I is black?

There's something wrong. Something I can't understand. Something I don't quite believe. Everyone is playing a straight bat in the press but it just seems to be odd. This is the big question. Why on earth is Catherine Tate on Dr Who?

Now I have to admit that I am not a fan of hers. I think her feted comedy show was okay, but not the superb brilliant wonderful ground-breaking thing that we were told it was. I think there are plenty of comedic character actresses who could have done just as well.

But to make her into The Doctor's new companion is a mis-step. Her character of Donna doesn't fit the bill. I hate to say it but she is just too old. All the way back in history, companions have been ingenues who discover their strength and resourcefulness during their time travelling adventures with the Doctor. That's why Billie Piper's Rose was so spot on. She was a modern feisty girl who took on the mind-blowing adventures offered by the Doctor with aplomb.

Yes, there is something in the 1000 year old man showing a young the ways of the universe that perhaps requires some psychological investigation, but to have an older companion breaks the formula and frankly risks alienating the audience. After all, one of the functions of the companion is to be the eyes of the audience. An audience which is on the whole fairly young.

But here's the thing that just feels wrong. What did Freema Agyeman do to upset everyone? The character of Martha Jones was potentially terrific. Yet she was never really given the chance to develop much beyond being besotted by the Doc. I've seen this given as the reason for the character being shifted sideways into the rather dull Torchwood - a bit like when football clubs 'sack' their manager by shifting them upstairs to be director of football. But aren't all the Doctor's companions besotted by him? That's the idea - that he offers them a life so much more colourful and fantastic than being drearily earth bound. But he has to ditch them because he is immortal and they are not.

Dumping Martha after one measly season smacks to me as premature, as if there were some politics at play that we don't know about.

today : Maximum Bob

I don't like violence. I don't ever wish to encourage it. But...if Mugabe tries to steal the Zimbabwe elections yet again and it ends up with people on the streets I surely will support them, however violent their protests. Obviously, I don't want to see an orgy of killing but the dilemma of the non-supporter of violence is that it does work in many cases. In fact, bloodless revolutions are rare. And many extremely bloody revolutions are just in their intentions. For someone who abhors violence I was pleased to see Ceaucesu put up against a wall, not averse to seeing Saddam Hussain swing and glad to see many other tyrants given a good taste of their own medicine.

I want the monks of Burma and Tibet to get out on the streets. It cheers me to see people who feel so strongly about principles that tney are willing to risk their lives, even though I despair when those lives are lost.

The sensible thing for Mugabe to do is to take the exile package that would surely be offered and just give up. After all, he's in his mid eighties and could do an Ian Paisley, being remembered at least in part for the gracious slide into retirement. For not putting the army on the streets. People might even remember him as a patriot.

The sensible thing for China to do is to grant Tibet its autonomy. It will happen eventually so shy not cut out all the hassle and do it now. (I feel this way about Scotland too, although I doubt there would be similar bloodshed).

Hopefully, at the very least, the focus on Beijing in the Summer will prevent the Chinese from their ethnic cleansing. It is a massive job to seperate land from people by killing the people and I'd like to think they would look at history and see that it kind of doesn't work. Neither does it enhance anyone's reputation.

today : the blameless

Somewhere in an office in the bowels of British Airways HQ there sits a faceless, nameless man in a grey suit. He is satisfied, as he neither thinks or believes that the fiasco at Heathrow Terminal 5 is anything to do with him. The blame is someone elses, although whose he couldn't say exactly.
Around him are other offices occupied by other faceless, nameless people in grey suits. They all think and believe the same. At Terminal 5 people are missing weddings and funerals and hard earned holidays, cricking their backs trying to sleep on airport chairs. Somewhere underground there are 15,000 items of luggage with owners, but nowhere to go.

Nobody is to blame. It's nobody's fault.

Everywhere. Schools that send 40% of their pupils out without the ability to read or add up. Hospitals that wheel their patients, not to the exit, but to the morgue, because the operation was a success but the infection didn't respond to treatment. Banks that leave their mortgage holders homeless, building projects that overun by years and vacuum up taxes, innocent citizens locked up whilst the guilty walk away laughing, companies with tanking share prices and swathes of redundancies. Armies that are supposed to liberate but end up brutalising and pissing on the faces of the people.

None of this is anyone's fault. In fact it isn't even anyone's responsibility. It just happens. Like when kids kick people to death on the streets, stab each other in gang wars, steal anything they haven't got and terrorise their communities. It's not their fault because nobody has taught them responsibility. Just like the man in the grey suit, they are blameless.