Rise of the Idiots

A new and horrifying beast stalks our land. Young people everywhere are falling victim to the monster's ceaseless hunger for human minds. I speak, of course, of the rise and rise of the (mis)use of the term "literally".

Regular readers, both of them, will know me as something of a pedantic fascist (or, more accurately, a fascistic pedant). To this charge I can only plead guilty, but I still think this is a uniquely grave situation. Don't make this about me.

Thing is, poor English has been around for ever, but this is new. A ridiculous number of the people with whom I associate (and can't just kill - some of them are actually quite nice) use literally to mean virtually/almost/very much. I've even, gulp, done it myself. People these days do seem to exaggerate ("it was the biggest glass of wine I have ever seen") and literally seems have become the exaggerator's weapon of choice ("it was literally the biggest glass of wine I have ever seen"). For all of them. All the time. Not to exaggerate.

The worst offences I've ever seen (literally) are the following (from football - an incomparable source of stupidity):

• "He's literally on fire at the moment" - Jamie Redknapp, discussing Robin Van Persie's good form

And, most awesomely of all:

• "The defender is literally, literally right up his backside" - Andy Townsend, discussing some close marking. He said it twice!

None of my associates have quite reached these heights/depths yet, but it doesn't matter - I am jarred by the word's misuse about 15 times a day. I'm (not literally) going round the bend.

*Update* - While hunting for the above graphic I stumbled upon this article, which (literally?) blows my argument out of the water.

Kings of the Road

In the most recent of many vain attempts at self-improvement, I am cycling to and from work. I live at the top of a hill, so the way to the office in the morning is a breeze. The way back, however, is a beast. I seem to be sticking with it, though, at least so far, because of both my awesome levels of determination and the happy realisation that I can afford to give up on my existing press-up routine now that I’m getting some other exercise. Possibly more the second thing.

Some insights:

1. It is impossible for a cyclist to avoid being overcome with self-righteousness. I’m greener, leaner and meaner (in the economic sense) than all the bastard cars swarming around me and only partly because I can’t afford to run my own car and wouldn’t know how to operate one even if I could. This is a great feeling and one that frequently affords me the chance to swear loudly at (or at least think murderous thoughts about) my fellow road users, whose fault it almost certainly isn‘t, whatever it may be. A cyclist is quite simply never in the wrong.

2. Car drivers are more aware of the safety of other road users than cyclists. Because it isn’t our concern. We can’t hurt people (at least not really), but we can certainly be hurt. I have to say, though, that I expect a great deal more awareness and, well, competence from car drivers than I display myself. Me wobbling around (albeit at hilariously and possibly illegally low speeds) on a bike is basically the equivalent of a toddler behind the wheel of a car. Thank God most drivers seem to know what they’re doing, because I certainly don’t. I’m terrified that they will assume the same level of competency in me that I do in them. So far they don’t, possibly because of the aforementioned wobbling.

3. Good (by which I mean indulgent, patient and most likely pitying) car drivers treat cyclists like idiots. We require at least 1.5 metres of wobble room, dramatic reduction of your speed and probably a few extra minutes added to your journey, as well as constant vigilance. We offer nothing in return. Why, questionable moral superiority notwithstanding, do cyclists have the right to expect such indulgence from car drivers? We offer nothing and expect everything, it seems to me. Mystifyingly, this deal seems to be upheld on our nation’s roads. Flip knows why.

Cycling, then: practised by self-righteous, reckless and incompetent fools for their own benefit entirely. And car drivers get a bad press.

(Radio) One for all and All for (Radio) One

In the office this afternoon, there was a movement to fire up the aged communal hifi in order to listen to some music. A slightly awkward attempt was made to find a station palatable to all of us, which was eventually settled in favour of Radio 2. This was shortly dropped for Radio 1, but no matter, my point (there will be a point) applies to either.

I enjoyed approximately 5% of Radio 1. I can’t speak for my colleagues, but none of them were moved to dance either. It can’t have been that it was bad (though it was, dammit), because other people seemed to enjoy it immensely. Not my colleagues, but the endless stream of, to my mind, idiots that repeatedly and at their own cost called and texted the DJ. Dave in Godalming, for example, was having a whale of a time. “Heavy tune!”, he theorised. Someone else even went so far as to describe the tinny popfart that we’d all just gritted our teeth through as the “best tune in history” (I in no way exaggerate). That these people seemed to me to be actual cretins is neither here nor there. I dread to think what they would think of the stuff I listen to. Taste is subjective, which is news to nobody.

Although most people understand this, they fail to take the next logical step – that, in this wonderful market economy we live in, cultural output isn’t actually made to be everyone’s cup of tea. If I hear one more Guardian journalist ripping into the X-Factor, I may combust/roll my eyes, make inaudible tutting motions and carry on with my day. Yes, of course it’s shit, but that’s because pre-teens and idiots, who make up a huuuge percentage of the population, really like shit. It’s not for you, Mark Kermode. Similarly with the middle class's hatred of the Daily Mail. I mean, I find the bollocks they write as unpleasant as anybody. Doesn’t matter, though, they aren’t after what passes for my money. They get theirs elsewhere – from the thousands of angry, narrow-minded, moderately-educated (or they’d be reading the News of the World), lower middle class suburbanites that infest, sorry, reside in every area of the country. Everyone knows this, too. Marketing types even categorize people by their wealth, class, education, tastes and God knows how many other variables and attempt to flog them things accordingly.

What I find ridiculous, though, is the interest we all seem to take in what was clearly intended for others. Why are my middle class lefty friends (all of them, then) so hot under the collar about homophobic writing in the Mail? Alright, I’m being disingenuous – I know it’s because they (mistakenly, in my view) think the Mail influences what people think, but still. A better example is the X Factor. Why are you talking about how crap it is? Or how boring Radio 1 is? You’re right on both counts, of course, but what the devil’s it got to do with you? I think it’s a hangover from the days when there was so little cultural content produced that we all watched and listened to the same stuff/had the same experiences. Either that or we have nothing else to talk about. It’s probably that.

Bigotry on the Beeb cont...

23.27 - Dimbleby doesn't want the show to be all about the BNP, so invites a question about Jan Moir's homophobic article about Stephen Gately. Greer points out that freedom of speech trumps whatever we feel about the article/paper/views espoused therein.

23.30 - Turns out Warsi's no friend of the gays. Bigotry off all different shades. Stunningly, Griffin isn't either. Everyone pays lip service to free speech, though. Griffin says that men kissing in public is "really creepy". He also talks about "militant homosexuals". I'm blown away by the bullshit here. Nothing about Griffin should be a surprise , but that was. Gay audience member tells Griffin that the feeling of repulsion he has about homosexuals is mutual. Zing!

23.35 - Next question is about whether Griffin's appearance is "an early Christmas present for the BNP". The panelists think it wasn't, because they've cleaned his clock so thoroughly. Straw says it has been "catasrophic" for the BNP. Greer makes the best point: that people don't make up their minds on the basis of TV shows.

23.37 - Dimbleby draws things to a close and plugs for the next show. Everyone's shilling for something.

It's been emotional. Night.

Bigotry on the Beeb cont...

23.02 - Cracking question from a British Bangladeshi muslim: why risk alienating muslims, rathen than targeting fundamentalist Christians, for example? Dimbleby moves the show along before Griffin gets a chance to answer though, sadly.

23.04 - Audience member puts someone else on the spot for once, asking whether the rise of the BNP is due to the current Government's policies on immigration. Straw disagrees, obviously. He attempts a valiant defence of Labour's record, just like you knew he would. Dimbleby tries hard to get him to answer the question. He's a pro, though, so he won't.

23.08 - Warsi interrupts Straw to say that "there are some things politicians need to be honest about and that wasn't an honest answer". She says, quite rightly, that there are underlying reasons, quite apart from immigration, that have caused the BNP's rise (have the BNP really risen, though? I'm not convinvced). Warsi's shilling for the Tories now, sadly.

23.11 - Some toryboy in the front row says something smarmy about "liking the Conservative position on this". Why do they let these people in? It's like planted questions at PMQs.

23.13 - Everone's putting the boot into Labour for losing thousands of immigrants in the Home Office's systems. Griffin hasn't spoken for quarter of an hour. They're still talking about him, though. He's the belle of the ball.

23.16 - "Skin colour is irrelevant" says Griffin, to jeers. He's talking about the meaning of "indigenous". He's accusing the others of racism, which is an intriguing tactic. Bonnie Greer, who Griffin has repeatedly attempted to cosy up to, won't even look at him. She's literally turning her back to him.

23.21 - Griffin tries to claim that 84% of the British people support the BNP's policies on immigration. That is some seriously creative statistical interpretation.

23.22 - Straw mentions for the 2nd time that he "comes from immigrant stock". An Asian man asks Griffin where he wants him to go. Griffin very generously says that he's "welcome to stay". Such charity.

Bigotry on the Beeb cont...

22.47 - Bonnie Greer is American. I didn't realise that. She says her background is in culture and "knows nothing about politics". She comes across pretty well, though, despite her normalcy.

22.49 - We're still on Churchill. Will this QT be entirely about the BNP? Chris Huhne brings up Griffin's past quote about Hitler "going a bit too far". He wants to know which bit. Gassing the jews? Griffin says it's another misquote. He looks like he's enjoying himself. Dimbleby tells him to stop smiling.

22.52 - Griffin gets up Greer's nose by admitting that he's shared a platform with a Ku Klux Klan speaker. It goes down very, very badly.

22.53 - The panel members have all done plenty of homework. They keep bringing up quotes from the BNP constitution and website.

22.55 - Griffin drops the ball pretty tragically, saying that he "cannot tell you why I said these things". To be fair, he's making a point about the illegality of holocaust denial. Griffin says he's "changed his mind" about that, by the way.

22.57 - "Why is Islam a wicked and vicious faith?" asks an audience member? Griffin kicks off, smartly, by pointing out Islam's record on the treatment of women.

22.59 - We are a "fundamentally British and Christian" country, says NN, founded on Western principles that are incompatible with the Koran. Probably incompatible with the Bible too, I would have thought.

Bigotry on the Beeb cont...

22.35 - The panel are introduced. Dimbleby has what can only be desribed as a "loud" tie.

22.36 - We're straight into it with a question about Churchill and the BNP. Jack Straw fields it. Easy peasy. They're all going to stick the knife into Nasty Nick, I'm quite sure. Loud cheers for Straw's point about black and foreign soldiers in both world wars.

22.37 - Griffin asked why he thinks Churchill would be a BNP member were he around today. He answers reasonably well, but is still booed by the audience. I think how that's how it's going to be.

22.42 - Black man asks a slightly angry, but fairly articulate, question. He gets wildly cheered for pointing out that the majority of people in the studio find Griffin's views disgusting.

22.44 - Griffin says that there's a lot of misunderstanding about what he actually thinks. Dimbleby asks him to be specific about where he is misunderstood/misquoted. He struggles to do so.

22.45 They all have poppies, obviously, but Warsi's is the biggest. Score for Team Diversity.

Bigotry on the Beeb

I'm astonished how much attention Nick Griffin's appearance on tonight's Question Time has got over the last few days and weeks. Obviously, though, it's big news for the far right to be granted such an official platform, as all the main parties have up until now refused to share a stage with them.

There's been a great deal of comment for and against letting them appear, but I'm 100% behind it. Let's give these thugs a nice bit of rope to hang themselves with. That aside, though, the BNP have got 2 MEPs and 56 councillors. They should get a voice. That's democracy for you. This is British politics growing up.

Griffin, the leader of the BNP, will be joined tonight by Jack Straw, Conservative peer Baroness Warsi, Chris Huhne and black playwright Bonnie Greer. The host, as ever, is David Dimbleby. There have been huge protests outside the studio all day and it should be an inflammatory evening. Kicks off at 22.35.

BNP on the BBC

Really looking forward to this. Will attempt to liveblog the show. Tomorrow night from 22.35.

Getting Gone

In The Times today Matthew Parris thinks the UK might be shuffling nervously towards the exit door in Afghanistan.

One Giant Leap

Outstanding article from Simon Jenkins in Thursday's Guardian. To wit:

"The greatest social menace of the new century is not terrorism but drugs, and it is the poor who will have to lead the revolution. The global trade in illicit narcotics ranks with that in oil and arms. Its prohibition wrecks the lives of wealthy and wretched, east and west alike. It fills jails, corrupts politicians and plagues nations. It finances wars from Afghanistan to Colombia. It is utterly mad.

From the the deaths of British troops in Helmand to the narco-terrorism of Mexico and the mules cramming London's jails, the war on drugs can be seen only as a total failure, a vast self-imposed cost on western society. It is the greatest sweeping-under-the-carpet of our age."

This comes in response to the news that Argentina and Mexico are, at long last, standing up to the US and ending the War on Drugs. Of course, our own politicans aren't so brave. Jenkins has the last word on them, too:

"I sometimes realise that, if Britain still had the death penalty, no current political leader would have the guts to abolish it."

I really recommend the full article.

Chris Grayling - "Hopelessly Full of Shit"

I'm several days late on this, as I've been busy, but I just can't let such rubbish pass without comment. On Tuesday, the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, gave a speech comparing parts of "Broken Britain" to Baltimore, as seen in The Wire. Basically, crime is rife and our society's going to hell in a handcart. The remedy for this, as ever, is to hang 'em and flog 'em (more prisons, tougher sentences, the same old Tory bollocks).

The politics of it irritates me, of course, but what really gets my goat is Grayling's deployment of my favourite show as an argumentative prop. Some enterprising Beeb journalist asked him how much of the show he'd actually seen and was rewarded by Grayling's admission that he'd seen "most" of the first season. There are five, by the way. Had Mr Grayling bothered to delve a little further into his own source material, he would have found that the show's writer, David Simon, has little or no time for the kind of "remedies" Grayling espouses. That's the point of the show.

Here's Simon on Graylingesque tough guy politics:

"It is possible that a few thinking viewers, after experiencing a season or two of The Wire, might be inclined, the next time they hear some politician declaring that with more prison cells, more cops, more lawyers, and more mandatory sentences that the war on drugs is winnable, to say, aloud: "You are hopelessly full of shit."

Grayling likely wasn't aware of the show's message, as, by his own admission, he hasn't seen it. It takes a certain kind of arrogance to use the work of someone completely opposed to everything you stand for to buttress your own "argument", though. That's the Tories, though, I'm afraid.

Death by Bullshit

I'm knee deep in job applications at the moment, which is an inevitable and necessary, if tedious, part of life, but the process is rendered all the worse by so many organisations' love of management bullshit.

The language slays me. Yesterday I was tapping out a cover letter addressed to a Director of Continuous Improvement, for crissakes. That isn't a job title. That's meaningless. You might as well call yourself the Officer for Being Good. A small piece of me dies every time I have to deal with such an organisation and, worse, have to do so seriously.

Sometimes I even have to attempt to play their stupid game myself, never more so than when, shudder, filling out an application form. These companies are the absolute worst. Instead of the old CV and cover letter routine, these organisations, some of whom contain literally thousands of people and positions, make you fill out a generic application form with the same questions for all their positions. They have horrendous, generic questions like Show how you have exercised tolerance of diversity, with examples. By not being a racist? Isn't that enough? I once managed a meeting with a black person without assaulting them? Do you really want me to say that? It's humiliating. I'd absolutely love to be able to simply ignore organisations that require you to fill in application forms, but I'm nowhere near that secure in my "career", tragically.

Then, assuming you manage to hold your nose for long enough to wade through the rivers of bullshit and actually get the job, you get someone with such dreadful "communication skills" that you literally can't understand what they're talking about a good proportion of the time. I insist that it's not just that I'm too stupid to understand them, either. I've got a bloody Master's (he cried in anguish, more to himself than anyone else)! In theory! I've sat through enough waffle in my time.

I detest it. Why do they do it? Surely, surely they can see the ridiculousness of speaking in such a way? Thank God for the Campaign for Plain English. I need a job with them. Failing that, my sincerest wish is to somehow get myself into the position to influence an organisation's communications. My only Mission Statement will be to do away with all facets of management studies and what passes for its language.

Places to Visit on your Gap Year

Interesting addendum to this post: the world's first cocaine bar. It sounds like a speakeasy to me.

Also, note the prices. Outrageously cheap.

The Health of Nations

So, the Democrats are in charge of, well, everything, at the moment and what they want is healthcare reform, dammit. Unfortunately, they, led by the Pres, have run into typically staunch opposition from the American right.

Ever was it so, but this fight is of particular interest to Britons (well, a couple of us) because one of the weapons in this particular war happens to be our very own National Health Service. Derided by the right, or, specifically, by the Club for Growth (as opposed to the ever popular Club for Recession), the NHS is being held up as the very model of "socialism" and all things godless and evil.

Now, there's more than enough commentary out there in support of the NHS, so there's no need for me to dwell there, but I would say that this has just been a fascinating case study in cultural difference. Of course not everybody in the States thinks of the NHS as a Stalinesque socialist monstrosity and neither does everybody in the UK think particularly highly of the system, but the coming together of even the more moderate right-leaning political analysts with, frankly, the majority of the British people is something to behold. There is absolutely no common ground between these groups (language aside). There is very, very little trust towards anyone approaching the US right in this country. It seems they've all been tarred by association with their swivel-eyed extremist ideological associates. It makes me wonder whether this country was ever particularly pro-American, as is often said. We are literally and figuratively miles apart.

Love this City

In the spirit of the last post, I snapped this as I was going over Blackfriars Bridge yesterday on the 63 bus.

London by Night

I stumbled across these a while back. Lovely photos. Makes me think we might as well pack up and go home as far as energy conservation efforts are concerned, though.

The Horror of Helmand

This post has been along time coming, partly because every time I sit down to write something about the number of fatalities the number seems to have grown. The rather excellent http://www.icasualties.org/ informs me that the figure is now 191 for the UK (more than Iraq - though you already know that, unless you've been living in a cave). The US figure is 758. Nobody counts for Afghans.

This recent surge in fatalties has stimulated much discussion in the UK media about whether the price is worth paying in Afghanistan, or whether we should cut and run. I'm going to consider the arguments on both sides before arriving at the position I was in before - we should scarper.

First of all, it is worth acknowledging that there are real and persuasive reasons for our continued presence out there. The first of these, it seems to me, is that pre 9-11 Afghanistan was a terrorists' playground. If we don't do something about it, they'll be free to make it so once again. This is a real worry. Even if the Taliban weren't able to gain control of Kabul again (and maybe they would - I don't know), they already hold large swathes of the countryside. Should they be so inclined, they could welcome Al Qaeda back with open arms. This is a horrible scenario to consider. The question, though, is whether it is within our power to prevent such a thing. We've been there for almost eight years. We've spent millions, if not billions of pounds that we don't really have at the moment. We've lost 191 men and women (not to mention the hundreds of wounded). How long are we really prepared to keep this up? How long would it take to "secure" the whole country, so that AQ, or any other terrorist organisation, would find it impossible to set up camp there? As you'll see, these questions are reocurring ones.

The second best argument for staying the course in Afghanistan is the humanitarian argument that we shouldn't turn our backs on the many, many ordinary Afghans who have already lived under Taliban rule for a crushing 5 years. Make no mistake, these people (the Taliban) are truly awful. During their period of rule, they allowed no political dissent whatsoever and banned, among many things, clapping during sports events, kite flying and beard trimming. They were and are hideous towards women. This being said, we as a nation do not have anywhere approaching the resources necessary to deal with every regime and "government" around the globe that we find distasteful. It's an open question, I suppose, whether we should spend all that blood and treasure fighting for our ideals alone, but I'm not in favour.

The third case for continued action is that, without our help, the Afghan Government would probably fall. Furthermore, our absence would allow the opium growers whose wares end up in Westerners' veins in the form of heroin to flourish. The first point here, about the Afghan Government, is a rubbish one. They're corrupt as all hell. Their fall would only matter for the reasons discussed above, about the security of the country as a whole (or partial) entity. The second factor, the opium production, is, arguably, more compelling, but, even if we did have the power to stamp the trade out at source, is that really a good enough reason for a war? Not for me.

In opposition to these factors, there are many arguments for getting the hell out of there. The best of these, though, is that this operation fails the Powell Test. Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell listed the following questions (which he himself inherited for another former Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger), all of which must be answered, before a US military action can rightly be embarked upon:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?

2. Do we have a clear, attainable objective?

3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?

4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?

5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?

6. Have the consequences of our actions been fully considered?

7. Is the action supported by the American people?

8. Do we have genuine, broad, international support?

This war fails a number of these questions, particularly the second and fifth, but most interesting is the fourth - alternative, non-military options. Our objectives in Afghanistan, as discussed above, are worthy ones. They're just not worth the blood, treasure and risk of "endless entanglement" that securing them requires. This doesn't mean that we should just give up, though. Instead, we need to look seriously at what can be done with policing, diplomacy and governance. We also need to be realistic - Afghanistan is a long, long way behind the West in terms of development. We are tens and maybe hundreds of years away from seeing liberal democracy emerge amongst the tents, goats and mountains. What is within our grasp, though, is basic security. The right deals struck with the right warlords should see AQ kept out of Afghanistan, or at least operationally incapable.

The biggest reason of all, of course, that we won't cut and run in Afghanistan, is that His Majesty Barack O would be slighted. Whether he privately believes in this war or not, the Yanks aren't going to be happy if their main allies leave them carrying the can on their own. You can make the argument here that British lives should never, ever be expended just to keep non-Britons happy and you'd be (morally) right, but welcome to geopolitics.

We should never have got in in the first place, then. We should get the hell out now. We can't, though, so we should do our best to limit the damage and get serious about the "soft" options instead.

Bat for Ashes

I was there when Monty Panesar showed true English courage to held out against the barbarian hordes and snatch a glorious, er, draw from the jaws of Ashes defeat. It, my friends, was yesterday.

Despite my love of sport, I've tried up to this point to keep this blog free of all chat of a sporting nature, for fear of alienating my huge female readership (not that women necessarily don't like sport, I'm just lazily generalising. I do that sometimes). I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, though, so I'll allow myself a little one (which will include no disscussion of a tactical nature whatsoever, I assure you).

It was a glorious sunny day yesterday, despite the near-unanimous prediction of rain (a fact which, while admittedly rather nice, didn't help England's attempt to salvage a draw much). I got burned to a frazzle. I look ridiculous. I don't mind, though, as it was a lovely day out, as (test) cricket matches often are. It's a wonderful thing, a five day sporting event. You hardly even have to watch the actual sport. You can read the paper, eat a cucumber sandwich, nip off to the loo, or, indeed, get riotously drunk without there being too much danger of you having missed anything important. The last of these activities, in fact, seemed an immensely popular way of spending the day, with the crowd's singing getting more and more slurred and less and less coherent as the match wore on and the alcohol wore in.

It's a funny thing, crowd behaviour at cricket matches, as this most genteel of sports inches ever closer to the mainstream. Where once stuffy gents in striped blazers and straw hats stroked their chins and ho-hummed along, now cricket crowds are increasingly difficult to distinguish from football crowds, with many of the same songs making the crossover. It's self-evidently good for cricket to grow in popularity and to welcome those from outside its traditional social circles, but I do think the rise in multi-sport chants/songs is to be lamented. Actually, I don't mind all that much, except that it's the most tedious ones that seem to make the jump - the ones heard at every football ground up and down the country, with little or no local or idiosyncratic variations. That's a shame, if you ask me.

Still, my (partial) disappointment with the crowd aside, I do still think it's a grand way to spend a sunday. The Ashes are coming to London next, followed by Birmingham, Leeds and then London again. You should look into it, you really should.

Pokey for Cokies?

George Monbiot has an article in today's Guardian rather provocatively titled "Yes, addicts need help. But all you casual cocaine users want locking up". The thing, according to Monbiot, is that those people who casually and only occasionally use cocaine (i.e. that aren't addicts) are helping to promote the violence and criminality that surrounds cocaine production and sale in the third world, where the stuff grows. In fact, so heinous is the act of casual consumption of cocaine (a subject previously discussed on this blog) that all users should be criminalised, regardless of their behaviour, motivations and intentions.

This, it falls to me to say, is utter nonsense. No one disputes the horrors that seem to accompany the production, manufacture and sale of cocaine. Especially not in Colombia (which I courageously flew right over during my travels in Latin America a few years ago). What is ridiculous, though, is to blame the consumer for this mayhem, when there are such worthier targets for our righteous, Guardian reading-anger. It seems obvious to me that the only reason coke is such a bad business all round is because of its continued prohibition, both in the consuming first world and the producing third. There's no comparative trouble in the tobacco, or alcohol, producing industries, because it's done by grey men in suits with an interest in making money, rather than Colombian neckties.

At this point, were he to debate the issue with individual bloggers with approximately a fifth of his brain matter, Monbiot would no doubt point out that, whatever our personal political inclinations, prohibition is the status quo across the world and that we'd better get used to it. He's right, of course, in that cocaine isn't going to be legalised any time soon, here, in the US, or in Colombia. Especially not in Colombia, in fact, as the US has a death-grip on its drug policy, dangling as it does the possibility of the withdrawal of aid were Colombia to come to its senses and legalise the trade that's currently killing its country and therefore necessatating reliance on aid handouts .

He's quite wrong, in this imagined debate, however, in saying that we should accept that the system is as it is and that we should therefore modify our behaviour accordingly. Let me ask you/him this: during the prohibition of alcohol in the US early in the 20th Century, were people wrong to go to speakeasys? To want a drink at a funeral, at a wedding, or just after a hard day's work panning for gold in them thar hills? Or was the policy that prevented them from doing so wrong? Were these people responsible for the havoc wreaked by Al Capone and the other liquor traffickers of the time? If not, why the hell is that any different from the consumers of cocaine?

It's the policy that should be locked up, with the key thrown somewhere deep into the Colombian jungle.

Saturday Strollin' in Tehran

This video is well worth a watch. Stick with it for full effect. Awesome.

Speak (swiftly)

So, the grinning chappie to the left, John Bercow, has been elected speaker.

I feel alright about it, though I was really backing Widdecombe (not because of her politics - they're about as far away from mine as can be - but because I think she's got some integrity. Also, more importantly, she's utterly ridiculous and I think Parliament needs a touch of that). He would've been my second choice (along with Parmjit Dhanda). He's witty, articulate and, Lord knows, independent minded. He should do well.

Having said all that, the job probably isn't worthy of all the media attention it's got. Even I was swept along with it all, spending an indecent amount of time refreshing my browser for updates. When the final result came in at last, I was fascinated to note that, with the result announced in the Commons at 20.30, Twitter broke the news to the rest of us first at 20.31, followed, astoundingly, by Wikipedia, which was updated by 20.33 and lastly by the BBC, who "broke" the no longer news (again via Twitter - I can't speak for the main site) at 20.36. The most significant result of Bercow winning the Speakership, then, might just be the sounding of yet another death knell for the mainstream media.

If you had any doubts left in your mind, this provides incontrovertible (if anecdotal) proof that Twitter is fitter than the MSM. I need to look into how to get this blog linked up, poste haste.

Doin' the Dope Fiend Lean

The excellent Bad Science blog, written by Dr Ben Goldacre, says the unthinkable about recreational drug use. It's a cracking article from somebody at least somewhere near the mainstream (Goldacre has a Guardian column, where the article will also appear).

Amongst many truisms in the article are the following:

• Goldacre quotes a World Health Organisation study as saying that "Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use".
  
• Goldacre notes that the report goes "on to challenge several of the key principles driving prohibition, and was extremely critical of most US policies. It suggested that supply reduction and law enforcement strategies have failed, and that alternative strategies such as decriminalisation might be explored, flagging up such programmes in Australia, Bolivia, Canada and Colombia".

Both of these points, to my mind, are irrefutably true. The most, or perhaps the least, surprising fact in Goldacre's article, though, is that that report was suppressed by the US Government. I find it incredible that on neither side of the Atlantic are we able to have a sensible discussion about recreational drug use.

I would go so far as to say that no policy has been found so profoundly wanting, with so many disastrous consequences, as the prohibition of recreational drugs. The subject is screaming out for reform, but our politicans' craven attitude towards the tabloids all but ensures that we can't even talk it over publically without facing outrage and ridicule. It really is enough to drive one to drink, at the very least.

Knock the Vote

I didn’t vote on Thursday. I live in London, so it would only have been in the European elections, not the local, had I done so. Didn’t though.

My workmates are unanimously shocked and appalled that I’d wilfully refuse to do my democratic duty. I have done nothing whatsoever to keep the BNP out of London (though, I must admit, I am secretly pleased to see that they didn’t get in down here anyway). I couldn’t have complained if they had though. No vote = no say. More than that, my ancestors died for my right to vote, dammit, and I’ve betrayed them. And what about those living under the thumb of the Mugabes of this world, they’d give anything to be in my position!

There are a number of reasons for my failure/refusal to vote, many of them inconsistent and some of them even incompatible, I expect. But still. My reasoning was as follows:

1. Voting is basically irrational. No election was ever won or lost on 1 measly vote, but that’s all I’ve got. My contribution, were I to positively make one, makes precisely zero difference to the result. The result, it should be said, is all that matters here. I don’t buy that shit about participation for the sake of it. I’m not a lemming; give me a proper say or don’t, but let’s not pretend that 1 vote, diluted by thousands of others, counts as such.

2. Booooring. We live in a digital age. I can choose pretty much everything else I want at the click of a button, but I have to order, complete and post a voter registration form? By snail mail? Then, just in case that isn’t active or time-consuming enough, I have to walk to a polling station? (I could have done a postal vote, I admit, but that takes advanced registration, dammit, and I don’t do anything in advance.) This isn’t actually much of a reason for not voting. It probably was a factor, though, if I’m honest.

3. Not voting can be every bit as principled as voting. The big thing here is legitimacy. Turnout in Western elections is so low nowadays that legitimacy must be called seriously into question. Proportional voting systems, such as that used for Thursday’s European elections, are certainly a step up from first past the post, such as used in Westminster, but it’s impossible to avoid the turnout thing. How can it be legitimate, for example, for Nick Griffin (BNP) to represent the people of North West England, when only 8% of them voted for him? That’s a crashing 92% that didn’t. Nationally, only 34% of people cast their votes one way or another. That, for the eagle-eyed amongst you, is a minority. Despite this, though, those elected to the European Parliament will represent 100% of the inhabitants of this island. Frankly, that isn’t good enough for me. Every vote cast further legitimises a pretty bankrupt institution, I would argue.

While I’m at it, I want to knock down a few of the statements made about non-voting.

“If everybody thought like that, nobody would turn out”

Everybody doesn’t, though. As I said above, I only have one vote and my decision to not use it has no bearing whatsoever on anybody else’s. I’m not responsible for how other people think, so don’t flipping expect me to be so.

“Our forefathers died for the right to vote”

True, but our forefathers, busy fellows that they were, also died for the freedom to worship. Am I in any way compelled to believe in God? Why is it any different for voting?

“People living in non-democracies wouldn’t take a vote for granted”

Maybe not, but, just because a representative democracy is better than, say, a dictatorship, doesn’t mean it’s the acme of political and social evolution. Plus, there’s always someone, somewhere that’s worse off. This looks like an argument for stasis. Even Iran has some democracy. Haven’t they got the right to hold out for a better system?

“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain”

What? Why? Who says I have to play by the rules of the current system, whatever that may be? I may have missed a meeting, but I don’t recall being consulted as to whether one poxy vote was enough for me to be ruled for 5 years, in whatever way.

If I sound like an anarchist now, it’s because I sort of am. Not because I believe in freedom, anarchism, or self-government, but because I’m not really up for reinforcing the rules of the current system. It’s pretty rubbish and I won’t apologise for saying so. Trey Parker and Matt Stone agree with me too.

Keep on Rollin'

So, it looks like Gordy will be sticking around for now. These attempted coups are always fascinating to watch. They remind me of a playground scrap: everybody circling uncertainly, waiting for someone, anyone to kick things off.

The Cabinet heavyweights, (just about) James Purnell aside, don't seem too keen to get involved, whatever their true feelings about the Labour leadership. Straw, Milliband, Harman, Johnson and, interestingly, Mandelson seem to want to stand by their man, though all for their own reasons, of course. Maybe, as the above cartoon alleges, they were some of the ones organising the coup all along. Still, their public support makes for quite a security blanket for GB.

Make no mistake, though, it was by no means inevitable that knives would remain in their sheaths. I suspect that the main reason GB still has his job is that the alternatives aren't especially attractive at this time. Everybody thinks Labour will lose the next Election. It's pretty difficult to see that changing, even if the leadership did. Also, I understand that the pressure on any new PM to call an instant election would be overwhelming. Who in their right mind would want to risk their political skin just to govern the country for one measly month? That's not the way anybody wanted to go down in history.

Red Tide Rising

Proof, if ever any were needed, that the grey squirrel is a danger to our way of life.

In further amusing Guardian news, Paul Macinnes joins the campaign to eradicate the grey squirrel and liberate the shires of England for the poor, benighted, British red squirrel.

Having never even set eyes on a red squirrel, I can't imagine why this subject animates me, but it does, dammit. Do we want to live in a land where the natives of this island have no future? Where any old creature can get past our non-existent border controls and rape and pillage to his tiny heart's content? No? Then vote BNP. Or just join the European Squirrel Initiative. Either way. Freeeedom!

Update: A commenter has rightly pointed that the above post isn't entirely clear. I'm in no way suggesting that anyone should vote BNP (see my earlier post on the subject for proof!). Useful lesson about not blogging while sleepy.

Hydeolatry

The aforementioned Marina Hyde, attractive and talented with a single vice, as described in the comments a couple of posts below, that of knowing and consensual copulation with Piers Morgan, has a funny wee article in the Guardian today about the Jonas Brothers (they of chastity fame).

Worth your time, I'd say.

A Strange and Bitter Crop

I've been listenting to this Billie Holiday song (actually written by a whitey called Lewis Allen, interestingly) this afternoon. It's about the lynching of blacks in the American South. Haunting and beautiful. Pretty sure they don't write 'em like this no more.

The rather wonderful lyrics are as follows:

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.


Give it a listen.

Life's a Twitch

I watched a fascinating programme on Tourette's Syndrome on BBC1 on Friday evening. Give it a watch.

I have Tourette's, though I'm almost embarrassed to say that I have the same, well, syndrome as the two guys (one teenager and one 40ish) in the film. To be clear, I certainly don't say that because TS is anything to be ashamed of, but because mine has never been as severe or as debilitating as theirs. All the same, their expereinces chimed interestingly with mine and made me want to talk a little bit about the thing.

First of all, to clear up some myths, TS does not always involve swearing. In fact, only about 1 in 10 TS sufferers has to deal with that particularly difficult tic (or so I was told only this morning). Also, TS is a lot more common than people think - many people (myself included, these days) have such mild TS that you and possibly even they would never notice.

It's very difficult to draw the line between people who "have it" and those who don't. Many if not most people probably "suffer" from their own little compulsions and I've heard more than one person tell me how they are sometimes tempted to do the unthinkable, such as throw themselves in front of trains/off bridges. We're all a bit twichy, I guess.

The good thing about how widespread the symptoms of TS are is that most people can have some idea what its like to have tics. We've all had itches that scream to be scratched - that's pretty much what its like to need to twitch. It's not completely unconcious, so its not completely impossible to resist, although you try resisting the urge to scratch an itch. Unless you succeed in distracting your mind, you'll find it pretty flipping hard.

My TS has got a hell of a lot better as I've got older, from its inception when I was a kid (I can't really remember how old I was, but I certainly haven't always had it - at least not to my knowledge), when it was pretty galling at times, to now, where its hardly ever a bother, really. I think a huge part of what bother I have had from it, actually, was about other peoples' reactions to my tics, rather than the things themself. Now that I rarely show any physical symptoms (and am not a kid anymore), I don't have to put up with staring or teasing. The teasing was definitely the worst, as it usually is for kids on the receiving end of it for any reason at all.

My thoughts on how the condition actually works are pretty unformed and very ill-informed, so forgive me for any wrongheadedness, but I have a few notions or explanatory notes about the condition. First, I can't get past the thing about the urge to do the unthinkable. I actually think this explains a lot of tics, from swearing in the supermarket to fantasising about jumping in front of trains, or punching insanely nice people in the face - I've had (and successfully resisted) that one too. Once a rogue thought pops into you mind, it's like an itch. That's why I don't tic much anymore - because devilish ideas don't cross my mind, I'm usually thinking of other (normal, hopefully) things. Second, not all (or even most) of the manifestations of TS are physical. TS has links to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder, amongst other things, the latter of which used to cause me no end of problems at school. I was essentially an average, reasonably bright, sensible kid, but I never, ever finished my work. My teachers, poor souls, used to despair of me. I've never really been able to determine where the boundary is between my TS/ADD and my laziness, but I've never quite got free of that side of it, though, like all the rest, it has faded, or at least got easier to handle (I even have a couple of degrees to my name now, though by the skin of my teeth, I have to admit). The OCD side of it is an enduring mystery to me, largely because it manifests itself in common and inconsistent ways. I'm pretty freakishly clean when it comes to, say, washing up, but I can never really be bothered with cleaning the bathroom, to my long-suffering flatmate's horror.

Ultimately, like a lot of mental/cognitive conditions, TS is pretty mysterious, even to people that have have it all their lives. It's as enduringly fascinating as it is difficult, though, at least to this freak a bladdy nature.

Don't Just Take my Word for it...

Here's the lovely (and talented) Marina Hyde, making my point about the Wire somewhat, er, eloquentlier.

And here she is, accompanied by a Newsnight panel, extending her/my point.

Steady as she Goes

Personally, I still don't fancy it. Mebbe someday it'll be uncool not too, though...

Mein Bouff

It seems like everybody's getting their knickers in a twist about the far right at the moment. The possibility of Nick Griffin accompanying London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook (BNP both) to one of the Queen's garden parties has been scandalising the nation over the last week or so, though Griffin, PR objectives achieved, has now said that he isn't going to attend anyway, for fear of "embarrassing" Her Majesty.

The first thing I think we should do in this situation is congratulate Mr Barnbrook on coming up with someone we'd be even less keen on taking tea with than the Royal Family, and the second is to calm the hell down and talk this over. It seems to me that we, as a society, don't do enough talking about the far right, just hoping that they'll be good lads and scuttle off back to whence they came (much as they wish the darkies would do).

Let's face up to it, though. They're really nothing to be afraid of, after all. Most of them can't even read, I rather suspect. Not to stereotype. I'm an advocate, then, of bringing the nats into the light, where what passes for their ideas can be examined properly and dismissed out of hand by sensible people everywhere, which is pretty much everyone. Their ethno-nationalist twaddle bears no scrutinty whatsoever and deserves to be exposed for the sham that it is. That can never happen unless we give them the platform/rope with which to hang themselves. Let them have a panelist on Question Time, let them have a Member of the European Party, let them have Coventry, if they want them. Let's not flatter them with suppressal. They don't deserve it.

The Passion of the Spice

Islamic militants demonstrating against Pakistani military operations against the Taliban. I have no comment here, except on the level of passion on display. Literally nothing moves me to such extremes of feeling (or action). The closest I come is probably when eating a particularly spicy lamb saag. There's nothing like a hot saag.

"Catalan vs. Matalan"

Mad props to The Sun for today's headline, about Barcelona's dismantlement of Manchester United last night. Harsh but fair.

Other puntastic football-related Sun headlines include this old favourite, about Caledonian Thistle's 3-1 victory over Celtic in the Scottish Cup in 2003:

"Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious"

Awesome stuff.

Not a Shock Part Deux

So, early results from a Peninsula medical school research exercise suggest that...marijuana could indeed have some medicinal benefit. Well stone me.

Snappy Snaps

Photos that shook the world.

Independents Day?

On Friday evening I had a new and potentially terrifying experience: I found myself agreeing with Danny Finkelstein, former speechwriter for John Major and chief blogger for The Times. The conversation, on Newsnight, was about what is currently being called The New Politics (where everybody jumps on the political/constitutional reform bandwagon in the wake of expensegate).

The above-mentioned Tory made the point that political parties in their current closed, secretive and cabbalistic form would not survive the internet age, with its emphasis on openness and instant information. My slide to the right continued with David Cameron's pieces on the same topic in the Guardian over the last few days, which containted the following statement:

"In media, shopping, travel, entertainment and music, we have huge choice and control provided by many organisations that offer us incredible service and value. But when it comes to the things we ask for from politics, government and the state, there's a sense of power and control draining away; having to take what we're given, with someone else pulling the strings."

This is, it seems to me, an excellent point. Our political parties are hugely outdated. All the evidence suggests that, contrary to their media portrayal as feckless hooligans, many young people (who don't vote in droves) are genuinely interested in politics, but are put off by our heavily party-oriented political system. In pretty much every other area of life, such as those outlined above by DC, people have a real say on the things that affect their lives. If you don't like a particular newspaper, you can just read another one. There are an almost infinite number of opinions to read, bands to listen to, or TV shows to watch. In comparison, there are pretty much only two political parties that have any chance of forming a government and our influence on them is, at the very least, questionable.

The Point is How You Get There

Lovely (short and non-political) South Park-style animation of some of the ideas of the late philosopher Alan Watts. Enjoy.

Fillng the Chair

So, as discussed previously, there is to be a new Speaker of the House of Commons. The candidates and their odds, according to Ladbrokes (on Tuesday - sue me), are as follows:

4/1 Sir Alan Haselhurst

4/1 Frank Field

8/1 Sir George Young

8/1 John Bercow

10/1 Richard Taylor

10/1 Vince Cable

10/1 Menzies Campbell

14/1 Sylvia Heal

14/1 Richard Shepherd

14/1 Ken Clarke

14/1 Patrick Cormack

16/1 Alan Beith

33/1 David Davis

33/1 Norman Baker

50/1 Keith Simpson

50/1 Damian Green

50/1 Kate Hoey

50/1 Diane Abbott

50/1 Tony Wright

250/1 Gordon Brown

Perhaps surprisingly, this blog doesn't have any inside info on this, or any opinions, really. Two ladies at work are putting pressure on me to award the prestigious Paltry Offerings endorsement to John Bercow, though. He's a Tory, which is a worry, but he's super independent (to the extent that he has more support among Labour than Tory MPs), which is a definite plus. Critically, he's also an Arsenal fan, so I'm tempted to declare for him right now. He has his very own (unofficial, as far as I know) fan blog, which can be found here.

Other than that chap, though, I don't have strong feelings about who gets the gig. I just want them to be witty. Most of the House's proceedings are so tedious that any kind of levity, which the Speaker is uniquely well-positioned to provide, is to be welcomed.

Analogy of the Day

Author Julian Barnes in Talking It Over, likening life to invading Russia:

"A blitz start, massed shakos, plumes dancing like a flustered henhouse; a period of svelte progress recorded in ebullient despatches as the enemy falls back.

"Then the beginning of a long morale-sapping trudge with rations getting shorter and the first snowflakes on your face."

Update: it has now become clear to me that this is an equally appropriate analogy for maintaining a blog.

Not a Shock

I'm knee deep in crime stats for a work thing at the moment and the British Crime Survey 2005/6 contains this gem:

"People who read national tabloids were around twice as likely as readers of national broadsheets to worry about all crime types (BCS 2005/06)."

Scenes of a Legendary Nature

Just in case you don't follow my instuctions as a matter of course, this here video should provide you with incontrovertible proof of Mr Simon's scriptwriting genius. One day I'll learn how to embed videos on the actual blog, but not today.

Pawnography

As it does every year, the Guardian is currently laying on the hype for the Hay Festival, in Hay-on-Wye, which starts tomorrow and goes on for a crushing 10 days. I say crushing, but it's actually great, assuming you're as middle class as I am.

Anyway, I mention this because it gives me an opportunity to wank over their star speaker, David Simon, who's interviewed today in, you guessed it, the Guardian. It's quite interesting. Have a read.

The man is pretty close to deity status for me, though, I will admit, he does have some slightly irritating character traits, such as preachy moralism and the inevitable bloated ego that comes from producing the greatest show in the history of television. I speak, of course, of The Wire, about which, if you've seen it, you almost certainly already agree with me, and if you haven't, that you're almost certainly sick of hearing about from cheap pimps like me. I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see it, so much do its cheerleaders, er, cheer for it. I wouldn't blame you, but you'd still be making a horrible mistake. It's the best show in the history of television, for David Simon's sake, are you really too busy for that?

Notes on Moats

So, "honourable" members of all parties have been on the fiddle, much as journalists, bankers, writers, lawyers and pretty much all the rest of us have done on occasion. The point, that MPs hardly have a monopoly on low-level cheating, was made last week by Stephen Fry in a Newsnight interview. This is very true, but, for me, is wide of the mark. MPs' gaming of expenses is quite different from that perpetrated by the above for one reason: the money is ours.

I really, really don't want to come over all Taxpayers' Alliance on you, but the fact remains that nobody volunteered their money to HMRC (even if some/most of them tacitly approved), so we're entitled to some say on, or at least interest in, what happens to it. Regrettably, I don't own a newspaper, so I'm not entitled to fuss about journalists' expenses claims in the same way. Those claiming public money are manifestly distinct from those on private teats, about whom I don't give a shit, basically. MPs are paid for by us and, therefore, are answerable to us. I simply demand a moat in compensation.

B'more, Jo'burg...Holby?

I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me this is some kind of sick joke...

Hush, Speaker

So, the poor ol' Speaker is no more (or will be as soon as he resigns/retires later today).

I've got to say, I feel for the man. Maybe his response to the current expenses scandal wasn't ideal (he was more angry about the leak that led to the scandal than the actual abuse of expenses); maybe he's too much of a "shop steward" for MPs and the status quo in the House; maybe he's not a fantastic Speaker; I don't really know, though it certainly looks like a tough job to me.

All that being said, though, it's hard to resist the conclusion that he's been scapegoated here. Also, the Tories have been after him for months, well before the expenses story broke. I'm always fascinated by the way that current events, whatever they may be, only serve to re-inforce peoples' existing views. Thus, David Cameron thinks the expenses scandal demands a General Election (to restore the public's faith in the House, you understand, not because the Tories think they would win), Polly Toynbee thinks that the only thing that can save "our" politics now is constitutional reform along the lines of an elected House of Lords, limiting party funding and, her personal obsession, introducing proportional representation for the House of Commons. Nick Clegg thinks some things too, but you, I and John Snow stopped listening at that point.

I'm going to come back to the whole MPs' expenses thang later, so don't change your dial.

Birthing a Blog

Well, that was pretty bloody simple. They (Blogger) really have made the miracle of creation a painless one. According to scripture, though, I'm entitled to a day's rest. Sweeet.

Recklessly ignoring whoever the hell it was that wrote Genesis, though, let me witter aimlessly in your general direction about what I intend this blog to be about:

...Alright, so I have no actual plans. Neither, for what it's worth, do I have any real areas of expertise, interest or, well, ability. I do quite enjoy writing, though, so I vaguely hope to just babble on about whatever interests me on any particular day. This is most defintely going to work, oh yes.

It's highly likely, though, that my witterings will be based in some loose sense around politics, society, culture and the arts (broad enough for you, hmm?), comedy and food, cos these are the things what come closest to animating me. I'm also into football, but I'm going to try not to talk about that too much, for fear of the blog descending into ill-informed and interminable tactical waffle and circular argument (all my own). This is not, however, a promise.

I'd be really impressed with myself if I managed to post once a day, but a little self-knowledge is a useful thing, so we'll bloody see.

Finally, I will make no efforts whatsoever to avoid profanity and/or obscenity, so don't effing petition me otherwise.

Actually finally, welcome and enjoy.