out

gorgeous george galloway has finally been booted out of the house.
how do i know - no not through jay or emma texting me. but through radio 5 banging on about it.
now i haven't changed my opinion on the gorgeous one - he is still an oppurtunistic tosser who is only really interested in himself. but i did find the tone of the cricitism to be a bit odd.
sure point out that the man went in there for the wrong reasons (he was never going to get his anti-war, anti-blair message across - only the dumbest of people would have thought he could), he "abandoned" his constituents, missed an important debate about the crossrail developement (it has long term implications for my local area) and has not been aroud for the debate over the royal london hospital, or for the eid celebrations.
all in all pretty useless for those of us he represents.
these are all good reasons to loathe him.
i don't think you can have a go at him for doing what was required by the show.

having said that his media agent is truly an unctous woman. she also represents ally campbell, so no quality control there. she spent the whole of her time going on about what the future holds for george and that great things were going to happen in the next few months all because of his increased media profile. when asked if 3g would appear on the radio 5 programme that was banging on about him she did say "it's not going to happen...."
she was a tosser.
george galloway is a tosser.
and lets hope he decides to make a career in tv and quit politics.

liberals

kennedy - oooops
oaten - ooooops
hughes - oooooops

now it is just getting silly.
i have nothing against people doing silly things in their private life, but to run for the leader of your party and not to expect the newspapers (oh ok i know i am crediting the sun with a little too much gravitas here) not to go out of their way to dig for dirt is just silly.
oaten appears to have been foolish in thinking he could escape any scrutiny.
hughes was just stupid because he got caught in a lie of his own making, if he had stuck to a cameron style defense of "i am not telling you nana nana nah" rather than barefaced lie, then perhaps there would be sympathy for him. and frankly is anyone shocked by the revelation?

oddly the sun's terry kavanagh was called to defend the headline "another one bites the pillow", and could only say it was funny (i confess it made me chuckle, but i know why it made me chuckle)and that people who didn't find it funny were po faced. however kavanagh wasn't going to explain the pillow biter joke, because he knew it was a crass one (even if it made me chuckle, but i am not sophisticated).

who would be a liberal democrat right now?
david cameron has to be laughing to himself right now. he was accused of doing drugs and gets away with it. more and more i have the scary feeling that the new tories will do very very well in the next election.

democracy

it seems it only works in certain countries.
it seems governments will only get on their high horses over certain countries.
hamas look to have won in the palestinian elections.
the people have voted, the people have decided.
but...

"US President George Bush also warned on Wednesday that Washington could not sanction a government led by Hamas in its present form.

"A political party, in order to be viable, is one that professes peace, in my judgment, in order that it will keep the peace," Mr Bush told the Wall Street Journal."

ah that would be why you deal with china and russia then.
more and more democracy (like freedom of speech and thought) only counts if the result is the one you agree with.

back

got sidetrcked by other stuff recently so have not been on here to add my words of wisdom to the world wide web (because that is what it was invented for!)
but am back and raring to go.
you lucky people.

respect

no i am not talking about that stupid party that gorgeous george galloway is involved in, he is so committed to it he has to escape it by going into the celebrity house. he must be a bit pissed at the moment if he was out and about he could see if he could a nomination in for the liberal democratic party (and truly how are they going to get into power if they have a leader whose followers are called mingers.....)

no i am talkng about tony blair and his respect agenda.

the main points of it are (from bbc.com):

Consulting on idea of evicting nuisance families from their homes for three months
Police and councils to have to hold "face the people" sessions - with the public able to demand tougher action
More use of parenting orders and a new national parenting academy to train officials on giving advice
Youth opportunity cards giving discounts on activities for youngsters doing voluntary work
New mentoring schemes, including one using top class athletes
Local councils to have to put family support networks in place
New nationwide non-emergency telephone number to make it easier to report nuisance behaviour

the tories see it as knee jerk, the liberal democrats see it as being a mish mash (and of course mash in this case does not refer to booze..) of gimmicks.

some of them seem to be exactly that. some seem to be just excuses for people to phone up and cause bother for neighbours they don't like, mind you my drug taking emo singing acoustic guitar playing neighbour has annoyed me enough that i was tempted to see if i could get an asbo against him.
and i can't wait for the new nationwide telephone number - what is the betting that:
1 ] it is always engaged
2 ] it will have an irritating menu system
3 ] there will be horrid hold music
it will lead to more anti-social behaviour.

i would quite like to see the face to face for demanding tougher action - you can see that ending with a baton charge or two.

the parenting academy i would like to see come into affect. i would like to see prospective parents have to apply to get a license for children. as you walk around you can see there are a number of people who have kids who just shouldn't have had them in the first place, and really don't want them. on the radio today there was a report about parenting and while the idea of the parent academies where shot down because of it being nanny statish - the people who argued this were also saying that the government should be making sure that these parents do not fall below a certain level of finance to keep the kids out of poverty.
so when it interferes in one way it is a nanny state.
if it doesn't interfere in another way it is an uncaring government.

of course no one said - mmm maybe the parents were irresponsible for having kids when they must have known that they were not going to be able to afford the child.
it has to be said because of the attitude of a few parents i have little love for children. to have a child is choice that parents make - but somehow i am expected to pay for it. perhaps i can get time off to look after my teddy bears.
perhaps because i have done my time in the parenting jungle i think that some want it both ways they want to be able to blame others for the fact that their children are oiks but then they complain when others want to get involved to resolve the issue.

the top athletes as mentors. yeah i can see that working, and how much will that cost the tax payer. or do they really mean it'll be a footballer who is a non-league club? (not that there is anything wrong with them - just not top athlete, and maybe if they hadn't contined selling off school playgrounds.......)

all in all i am with tony, in that something has to be done. but as several people have pointed out there is a need for role models and those role models have to also include the people who make the rules.
so whisper it quietly when you say david blunkett, peter mandelson, keith vaz.... (and technically tony blair with his lies that took us into the iraq war).

perhaps blair is onto something but he does need to clean house first before he can ask the rest of us to become "respectful" citizens.

perhaps he can enlist the boys of respect to help him, though they have seemed to have lost control of their mp......

ads

thanks to my pal paul i have been able to watch some of the wwe weekly programming. not only has this meant that i have gotten to see the luscious melina, in all her glorious beauty, it has also meant that i have gotten to see some tv ads.
the one thing that becomes apparent is that sky advertising seems to be of two types - ads for sky programmes or adverts for financial services of some sort or another. (yes there is the occassional ad for other things but they are rare.)
oh look there is alan sugar bleating on about a service - one that he trusted so much he was going to give his fee for the ad to charity. well that is a sign that the services are great - some very rich bloke has told me that he has given his fee to charity (no doubt claiming the tax releif on it... not to mention the free pr he has received for being so nice....)
oh here is carol vorderman saying debt consolidation is the way to go.. just check the sums you'll be better off. just how does it work you have serveral debts, this company takes them on for you and you pay less? really or do you just end up paying more but just for longer. but if carol says it is ok then it must be (and what a wonderful woman she is sudoku, detox, financial services, tv shows, is there anything carol can't do?
but given all the stuff that has appeared in the news about personal debt in the uk i think the most tasteless ad most go to the new virgin credit card. it has the tag line along the line of "things are much better when you say yes..." well that won't encourage debt will it.

ah those ads remind me why i don't really miss regulat tv.

door

these were taken at the same time as the st. puals one.
this is an old building in paternoster square. as i was taking the photos i realised i had no idea what the building was. it was far too cold for me to go and find out, about 10 photos after these i went home as i stopped feeling my nose.

i am sure emma knows what the building is. if not i am off to the tate again next week, i shall check then.

the lights that illuminate st. pauls had been turned off at this point. the square was quite busy as people rushed to catch the last tube from st. pauls underground. as i was taking these i was asked "are you paparazzi?", numerous answer sprang to mind, but i settled on "are you famous?" they said no, so there went that career.

still it made me think about what was behind these doors....

pics

well i have been blathering on recently about late night jaunts out to take photos and how i have shivered me timbers of in the cold to get some of them.
so now here is a chance for you to see some of the results.
they are not all that good, but what the hey.

this lot is of st. pauls and taken between 10pm and 12.30 am.








this one was done just after midnight, amazing what a long expusure will do.

3g

fron the guardian - more about the gorgeous one:

"George Galloway's hopes to use his residency in the Big Brother house to denounce the Iraq war and Tony Blair may be thwarted after Channel 4 vowed he would not be allowed to use the show as a soapbox.
Mr Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in east London, tried to head off criticism that he was letting his constituents down by devoting up to three weeks appearing in the show, by saying he was trying to bring politics and his ideals to an audience who are usually uninterested. His decision to swap the House of Commons for the Big Brother house alongside celebrities whose star has waned was yesterday condemned by Labour and some of his constituents.

In a statement, the MP - who set up the anti-war Respect party after he was expelled from Labour - set out his reasons for joining Michael Barrymore and the others for up to three weeks.

He gave a "Heineken" reason, saying he hoped taking part in the show would help him reach a young audience politicians usually can not reach: "I'm doing it for the audience, the biggest audience I will ever have. We need to use new and innovative methods to put across our arguments. I'm determined that there are no no-go areas for us and I believe Celebrity Big Brother will be hugely successful for our ideals. I hope ... to reach this mass, young, overwhelmingly not yet political audience with our simple case. That war without end, war throughout the world is leading us all to disaster ... Some of it will get through."

Not so fast, said a Channel 4 spokeswoman: "He won't be able to use his time in the house as a political soapbox. There are regulations and Ofcom rulings which mean we would monitor what is said by him and the others.

"He is one of 11 diverse and entertaining individuals in that house, so he's one of many with different opinions." Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, said Channel 4 had a duty to ensure "due impartiality" on issues of political controversy or major public policy, under the 2005 broadcasting code.

Mr Galloway has been accused of spending too much time away from his east London constituency which he won at the May 2005 general election by 823 votes. He missed a Commons vote on an anti-terrorism measure which the government scraped through by just one vote.

He went on a speaking tour to the US and visited Washington to famously denounce a Senate committee which accused him of financially benefiting from the Saddam Hussein regime. They are charges Mr Galloway denies and for which a British newspaper had to pay him libel damages.

Yesterday in his constituency, the voters who had sent Mr Galloway to Westminster had mixed views.

Kamal Khan, 19, voted for Mr Galloway in May and believes he will achieve more on television than in the Commons: "I'll watch it, I want him to get into the Iraq war. If he can mess up the Senate, he can mess up the celebrities. He can do more good by being on TV and by being in parliament."

Dave Baker, 31, agrees: "He's passing on the anti-war message to an audience who are not usually exposed to that message." But Evelyn Davies, 81, was not impressed: "When they get in we're all forgotten."

Jeff Luff, 46, said: "Keep him in there, he doesn't seem to do anything for the area - a typical politician."

Mr Galloway won his seat by appealing to Muslim voters in the area who were angry at Labour for joining in the invasion of Iraq. But what would they think of Big Brother, where flesh is notoriously very much in view?

As he entered the area's main mosque on Whitechapel Road for Friday prayers, Naeem Parvez warned that Mr Galloway's presence in the house, where past inmates have got got very intimate with each other, might offend morally conservative voters: "Many won't like it. It's [sexually] mixed, women are there."

i quite like this last point, for a lot of the young angry muslims in my area the conservative nature of the religion seems to be something that they can ignore while they listen to music, drink, do drugs and play with girls. true this hypocracy makes them no different from so many others in society, but it is ironic that they can get have their very radical opinions only because they are in a western secular democracy.
not that gorgeous george galloway cares - he just wants to be swanning off to places where he can be important.

and some more from the guardian, and this is the where it is all wrong. if you go the the respect website you will find no mention of constituency surgerys. but that is ok as respect probably think of itself as being the vanguard party, one that may have to be "undemocratic" until such time as they can instill and teach the working class true democracy.... (at least this leninist style view means you don't have to worry about some old bloke complaining about his plumbing.

In search of gorgeous George

Vikram Dodd
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian

If any of George Galloway's 85,950 registered constituents needed help from their MP yesterday, they would have needed formidable levels of ingenuity. He was certainly very visible: as one of the new residents of the Big Brother House, he was almost permanently on air. But contacting the man who remains their elected representative proved a little more difficult.
Friday is the traditional day MPs hold their constituency surgery, where the people they represent seek help and advice on matters ranging from the banal to the important. So were Mr Galloway or his aides available?

The Guardian decided to test how easy it would be to gain access to Mr Galloway were one a constituent with, say, a leaking council house roof which the local authority was being slow in repairing. A quick search on the internet throws up a number that turns out to be the main switchboard for Tower Hamlets council, within whose area Mr Galloway's constituency falls.

A helpful switchboard operator refers the caller to a number for Mr Galloway which proves to be his House of Commons office. That leads to an answering machine that promises that any message left will be returned. It was not.

So the Guardian tried a different approach. A Google search throws up the Respect party website, which says their office is closed until January 6, because they are on the move to new premises in Shoreditch, east London. An answering machine takes a message, and again promises a call back. None comes.

The website gives a mobile number, which goes unanswered. Another outgoing message invites the caller to leave a message. Time to try another approach and a call to the House of Commons main switchboard and request to be put through to the MP's office leads to the phone ringing out for a minute, before the operator says: "There's nobody in his office."

She takes a message and suggests the Commons information line, where a helpful woman gives a separate number for the Respect office, which again leads down a blind alley. Staring failure in the face, the Guardian tries numbers which regular constituents would not have.

Calls to personal mobile numbers for Mr Galloway do not work, and so the next call is to the Channel 4 press office, which says it cannot put a call through to Mr Galloway in the Big Brother house.

By now the roof is leaking badly. But they do give a number for Wendy Bailey, who they have listed as the main contact for the MP. A call to that number is answered by a man who explains that Ms Bailey is a public relations agent who organised Alastair Campbell's "audience with" series in theatres across Britain.

The man gives a mobile number for Ms Bailey, and finally a real human being answers.

Ms Bailey says she was surprised Channel 4 had said she could help constituents in need get help from their MP: "I'm George's media agent."

But what if I was a constituent needing help? Ms Bailey said: "I couldn't help you there. Presumably they [Channel 4] would have the numbers to call, which would be the constituency office."

As we had found out, this was not the case, and Ms Bailey added: "I'm George's media agent and that's what I can talk about."

But what does a constituent with a pressing problem do? "I can't give you any advice on that ... I can't help you, not my area."


we salute you george galloway.

review

well i went to see the paul mccarthy exhibition for the final time. saw some more of his movies (there was one i had missed) well i am glad that i saw it, just as dull adn as crap as the other ones.
so once i had finished with the "art" i jumped on the bus and went to my local cinema (i have a monthly £15 see as many films as you like card, so with a bit of work i am looking to lower the price of films to about a £1 a time....)
so tonight i went to see "just i like heaven" with resse witherspoon (she of the angular jaw) and mark ruffalo (who according to the internet movie database has done some erotic thrillers in his time...)
it is a rom com.
reese is a deternined doctor who works very hard and has no time for life. ruffalo is a depressed landscape designer who still misses his dead wife. one night reese is on her way to a blind date only to be caught in a head on collison.
ruffalo is looking for an appartmen, everywhere he looks he hates, then fate intervenes and leads him to the flat that reese used to live in. then one night the two meet in the flat. they both think that the other one is an intruder.
with the help of darryl (john heder) they work out that reese is a spirit and that they need to do something to find out who she is.
the story is intelligent, witty and heartwarming,
reese is gorgeous as ever (though not as angular as she has been) and she is making a determined effort to take meg ryan's rom com crown. ruffalo is convincing as the hangdog depressed man who rediscovers love and life thanks to his involvement with resse.
i have to say i was giggling in places and there were a few moments where there was a lump in my throat.
a film i recommend.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

well it is true the revolution may just be televised.
i am not a fan of the man, i do have a certain amount of respect for him - he is a great orator, and for some he is seen as being a principaled politician.
the gorgeous one went to a lot of trouble to get his new job, he helped form a political party (a grouping of radical left parties that had no chance of getting elected, who oppurtunistically jumped on the anti-war bandwagon), he found an area in the country (not his native scotland) that had a sitting labour mp, who was a bit of blair babe and also a radical muslim population who hated blair.
having done all the he squeaked in.
so far since the 3g has been my local mp he has been to bangladesh, he has been to the states and then back again. to be honest i am not sure he has actually done anything as my mp.
now some would say that being an mp is either:
an incredibly important job - that the mp is the democratically elected reprensentative of the people. they work for us, they represent us, and they do it in parliament. it should be an honour to be an mp.
or
for some it is money for old rope (mainly tories who see it as a way to line their pockets), that it is an easy job and that anyone of us could be doing it.

well it is good to see that gorgeous george galloway takes the second view.
for someone like galloway and respect now is the time for them to be striking blows against tony blair, now is the time that they couuld be pressing against the perceived weaknesses in new labour's government.
so what is galloway doing?
he is appearing on celebrity big brother....so when parliament returns from it's christmas break galloway may not be there, because he is being an ego monster on big brother.

he is a total wanker.

still at least jay will enjoy him on tv.

cold

too bloody cold to write anything sensible in this.
so i am going to some more cleaning (not much mind, just a little) and then i am going to read some of my neal stephenson's "system of the world" - getting close to the end of it, and darned exciting it is.

i will be back tomorrow when i will be a little warmer.

art

i love art. i try to go to as many galleries and exhibitions as i can.
i do fall into the category of not knowing much about art, but knowing what i like.

this year's turner prize was a flop for me. when you consider all the great art that is being made out there that the turner prize panel can manage to find 3 totally useless series of works and 1 viewable series of work, you have to be amazed at their ability to get it wrong.
but then over the last couple of years the turner has been getting worse and worse.

of all the categories of art i have yet to really come to terms with it is performance art. it always seems to be "artists" just jumping around like loons with no rhyme or reason. people such as paul mccarthy, joan jonas, valie export and like. they all seem to have spent more time working out the justification for the work they perform than actually the perfomance itself.
but england need not fear as we have our own performance artist who does pointless art events, that have more "meaning" and "conceptual" thought gone into it than the actual art itself.

this time mark mcgowan is crawling 60 miles, while towing some chocolate, to canterbury. he is doing this while carrying a sign that says "could you love me?" this has something to do with being lonely during christmas (though he does seem to think it is ok to be lonely during the rest of the year.
he is quoted as saying "I am looking for love because I have had enough - I don't want to be alone any more." well his "art" is not going to help him pull so he would be better off filling in the lonely hearts column.

this is the worst type of art, it actually says nothing, it doesn't look good or interesting (it is the proverbial paint drying...)
pretty much here is a talentless tosser who wants to be an artist and has to get media atention in order to prove that he is in fact an artist, which is how the game is played. it is not about creating art, it is about claiming to be an artist because you are an "artist".

so given the shit that the boys at the tate like - expect mcgowan to be up for the turner prize in 2006.
go here for the story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4575440.stm

normalacy

well back at work today.
all things are normal again.
coffee was drunk, work was done and few stories were told of the good times that were had by all.
on balance i am glad it is all over.

hello

well let us all welcome 2006 in.
and here is hoping that if goes on to be a great year for everyone.
here is to 2006.

review

well of the two big christmas movies i think chronicales of narnia beats king kong.
peter jackson's king kong is a fantastically gorgeous looking film, but it is oh so long and in parts it feels everyone of of its 180 minute plus running time. sure the effects are wonderful, sure some of the set pieces are tremondous, sure naomi watts is stunning, sure kong looks the business, but for all of that i found myself wondering why was it so long. the original film is just over 100 minutes long so there has been a serious case of "decompression" (a fancy word for padding out) going on here.
if it had been shorter would i have enjoyed it more? i am not sure. i was never a fan of the original movie. there is little humour in this film (which is odd considering you have jack black as one of the stars). there is a lot of style and technical wonderment going on in it the film.
there are three distinct parts to the movie. depression era new york where actress ann darrow, played by watts is desperate for a job, she is duped by carl denham into appearing in a movie he is making. denham has to rush his film into production as the film studio is going to close it down. the visuals of a period new york are stunning.
the next phase of the film is the island and meeting of kong. there is the long boat trip, the getting to know the crew, hearing some of their backstories. just as a call comes over the radio to call the ship back they enter a fog bank and then crash against skull island. on skull island they encounter a huge wall. on the coast side of the wall there are svage natives who seem to live in perpetual mud and rain. all is grey. the natives eventually capture ann darrow and sacrifice her to kong. kong accepts their sacrifice and thus begins one of the strangest love affairs of all time.
lots of scuffles with prehistoric beasties ensue. all of it looking spectacular.
eventually the crew of the ship capture kong. (i have no idea what happens to the natives and what they felt about the stealing of kong).
the final part of the film is back in new york where kong in going to go on display in a theatre. no idea how they got him in there as he is a big fellah. no idea of how they kept him subdued all this time either.
ann wants no part of it, so she is not around on opening night. bit of a mistake as kong does a little bit mental when he finally realises that the blonde is not darrow. (again no explanation as to why this hasn't happened sooner). kong busts out, creates lots of havoc and mayhem. darrow runs to find kong. she does. together they go for a bit of a moonlight stroll, that is rudely interrupted by the american army, and this all leads to the classic finale.
like i say it is all done very very well. i just didn't find myself totally engaed by it.

while narnia just had me hooked from the get go.
the four kids were a treat to watch, none of that precious kiddie stuff. just solid good acting. they were all likeable and all conveyed their roles excellently. the story ticked along a a fair old lick, and kept a good pace throughout. tilda swinton as the white witch was excellent at once regal and sexy as well as being just a little bit scary. the efects were good and you soon got over the fact you were watching animals talk (and not in a johnny morris voice either....) the action was exciting. the ending left me wanting more.

might even go and read the narnia books i have sitting in a pile by the other pile of books i have.