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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

pic

some pics to enjoy.




darn

for a few, brief, cold moments i felt sorry for david cameron.
there he is sitting pretty able to take pot shots at gordon brown and new labour. cries of sleaze and incompetence ring out. peter hain providing a tanned easy target.
bish.
bosh.
bam.
right hook, left jab. to the chin. a body blow. gordon taking the shots like rocky, just hanging on.
and blow me down hasn’t the clunking fist of brown been rewarded? his rope a dope has paid off with the revelations of derek “kid cash” conway.
not only has mr conway been paying his two sons to do research while they were both studying at university, but he has managed no to keep any records of the work that they did. a bit of an ooops and double ooops there.
mrconway’s non apology was impressive for its lack of real remorse. in fact you got the distinct impression that what mrconway was sorry for was getting caught.

poor old cameron. he was doing so well; he was easily winning the rounds against brown, not quite landing the knock out blow. now he finds himself on the back foot trying to avoid being clunked by flailing debris of fallout from the conway affair.

in truth none of the parties come out smelling of roses. they all appear to be full of people who want to line their pockets and drop their snouts in the trough.
to be honest i don’t expect members of parliament to be paragons of virtue, but i do expect them to be competent. i don’t want to hear how they didn’t understand the rules, or how they were overworked, how it was just an administrative slip that they forgot to declare an amount of money that most of us have to work several years to earn.
if you can’t understand the rules of your own job you are not capable of passing laws that affect the country. if you cannot manage your work you are probably not the right person to administer the country.
members of parliament get paid more money than most of us, for that alone i expect a degree of competence. a lot of talk has been made about how they should be paid at a much higher rate so that the right people are attracted to the job. people with skill, people with drive and people who deserve the large reward (maybe it would attract the people who ran northern rock?). but let us be honest politics shouldn’t be about money it should be a vocation, parliamentary politics is about changing the country for the best, it is not about earning a wedge and lining your pockets.
but more and more it appears that for a number of politicians it is about the rewards and the perks.
even that doesn’t upset me, as long as they do it well and not in such a cack handed manner.

Monday, January 28, 2008

sky




monday morning sky.
after turner.
(but no bear.)

quote

billy clanton: stephen foster. "oh, susannah", "camptown races". stephen stinking foster.
doc holliday: ah, yes. well, this happens to be a nocturne.
billy clanton: a which?
doc holliday: you know, frederic fucking chopin.

the quote is from the motion picture “tombstone”, starring a heavily moustachioed kurt russell as wyatt earp, an emaciated val kilmer as doc holliday. a western of complex heroes and simple villains, of duty and honour and good versus evil, a film that is as epic as the wild west it tries to convey. packed with great performances and action.
“brokeback mountain” may have been a gay western but “tombstone” has the epitome of man love in the relationship between wyatt and doc, their goodbyes at the end is enough to make a grown man weep (and i did!)
it is a classic. it is a favourite.
and i will be your huckleberry.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

filth

it is funny what you can see when you are out walking in london.
there was a time when this sort of thing would have been declared filth (and sadly judging by some of the other fliers and posters you can find around whitechapel there is a section of the community who would like to see it not only called filth but also severely punished).
but it is such diversity and such freedoms that make the city a great place to be.

still these little stickers made me smile.
i am sure they will make you smile.

(mmm perhaps i should have warned emma not to look......)






(not quite sure why this one is all arty...)

pics

morning, regardless of the pretty sky and the lazy hazed moon, i was still feeling like i should be asleep.



pic

sometimes the mornings are worth it.....



Friday, January 18, 2008

birdsong

there is little i hate more in the morning than the sound of birdsong. all the sound of birds chirping away in the morning does is remind me that i am not in bed, that i am not asleep dreaming dreams that i will forget pretty much the moment i wake up (and straight after the thought “wow that was a freaky dream…” then as if by magic it is gone…), that i am on my way to work and that yet another weekend has gone by when it wasn’t me and some other lucky sod has won the lottery.
i get all of that from some speckle coated gull tit warbling it’s morning cry.
oh stop being such a miserable curmudgeon i hear you cry. embrace nature you shout.
pah it all falls on deaf ears.
do i hate birdsong? yes i do.
can i ignore it? not easily.
can anything be done about it? perhaps if we send in the troops.
why am i sounding like donald rumsfeld? haven’t a clue.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

lights



these may not be the lights that lead david icke and tom cruise to their truths, but i bet they are not too different.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

burrell

well the people's butler may have lost his annual harrods' christmas hamper but he must now be in line for a peerage - or at the very least a "by royal appointment" sign to hang on his florist.

the biggest non-story rumbles on.
dull sensationalism. lots of money being spent. people preening and making names for themselves (and see i am jumping on the bandwagon.. this is all to do with the cult of the amateur - just blame web2.0) and a result that is not in doubt: death by accident quickly followed by al fayed appealing.
and so it will go on and on and on and on....

all so we can find out those interesting pieces of information such as:
"..spoken to diana one weekend when the princess had been alone all the time and microwaving her own meals."
just as we would expect the people's princess to occasionally do.
(perhaps there should be an inquest as to where burrell was at this moment if he was not at her side....)

this is the sort of stuff that david icke likes and that reminds me - i have still to start his new book...

Saturday, January 12, 2008

names

there is a race going on in the southern ocean. it is the japanese whaling fleet versus greenpeace
(there is another anti-whaling vessel out there from the sea shepherd organisation but they are radical and might use violent methods so they only get mentioned in passing. greenpeace are not sharing information with sea shepherd
because they do not agree with their methods, it could also be that they do not want to share the headlines, but then i am a cynical pat at this time of the morning).

now i quite agree with both greenpeace and sea shepherd that something has to be done in order to prevent the population of whales being decimated by japanese whalers (or any whalers for that matter). i can’t help but feel that here is a potential market for quorn to step into: veggie substitute whale meat. come on guys you’ll clean up in japan and save the whale. fantastic!
(also it will make jon anderson a very happy man – and can i recommend you all rush out now and buy the tormato album by yes which has the classic “don’t kill the whales”, not to mention some other great tracks. i kid you not!)

none of which is the point of this.

to be honest the greenpeace mission hadn’t registered with me until this morning when i was woken by the radio and it was a featured part of the news broadcast. the reason it was part of the news was because the greenpeace vessel had made contact with the japanese fleet and was now engaged in a race with the ships to keep in touch and to disturb their hunting of the whales.
radio 5 was also covering it because the bbc has a reporter on the greenpeace ship.

picture the scene. you are the commissioning editor at the bbc. you are going to have to send a reporter to cover this story, that person is going to be on the ship for many weeks. weeks at sea, in the cold and in possible danger.
just how do you choose that person? do you do it on their track record? do you do it on their knowledge of the issue? do you do it on their ability to sail the seven seas? do you choose them because they are personable and so will get on with people in a closed environment?
all of the above must have been a factor.
but i can’t help but think that the commissioning editor was a bit of an imp and choose the reporter for one reason and one reason only.
ladies and gentleman i give you jonah fisher.


fucking genius. worth the license fee just there.

Friday, January 11, 2008

how

so there you are mounting a campaign to be the deputy leader of the labour party. first thing you need is a platform to stand on the thing that is going make you stand out when compared to the other candidates. the next thing you need is money. money, as liza (was a z and not with a s) once sang, makes the world go round. to become the deputy leader of the labour party it seems you need a shed load of money.
there is a part of me that wonders why you would need so much money to fight the deputy leadership campaign is beyond me.
but spend money the various campaigners did.
all they need to do is get the money.
all they need to do is declare the money and whom they got it from.
it is all pretty simple.
yet they didn’t.
peter hain is the latest to fall foul of it all. somehow he failed to declare over £100,000s of donations. a bit of a big ooops there.
his excuse (and i have to say i am impressed with it) is that it was an oversight because of overwork.

frankly i don’t care where peter hain gets his money from, i do care that he acts within the rules set out for the getting of donations. more and more we are beginning to accept that politicians like athletes are just a little bit dirty in their rush to get to the top.
so the only reason i care to know where hain et al get their money from is so that we know why they may be voting the way they vote.

but if you get caught at least have a better excuse than overwork. all that sort of excuse is saying to me is: i am not up to the job i am supposed to be doing.
even more so as some of this money was requested and received after the election campaign was done and dusted. so mr hain and his team found time to get some more money in, but not the time to declare it.

next time you go out looking for funds for a campaign mr hain make sure you employ an accountant to do your books. i am sure some of the large auditing firms that new labour seem so keen on can spare an intern.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

pics

some pics. from the bridge road in runcorn.







oh i moved the tripod before the shutter closed - very ooops, not the sort of thing that irving penn or herb ritts would do i tell you.




and this is what it should have been like.
mmm perhaps the moving was better.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Saturday, January 05, 2008

rough

feeing rough today. so it only seems right that i should send this post from rough trade records. i am about to buy the new cadaver in drag cd. ricl on.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

up

i have been awake since some stupid o'clock.
i should get some sleep. if i do that i will be a nicer person, but i will also waste the day. there is a chill in the air.
the radio is playing. i think i am going to read a bit of my book, eat some chocolate and then go out.
i am so not a morning person...

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

career

one of the many challenges i face in 2008 is the possibility of searching out a new career. it is a pretty daunting prospect, as i have no discernable skills, aside from an ability to swear in any given situation
but i have a possible career in mind.
oh yes i do.
my inspiration has come from the most bizarre of things: the television. no i am not thinking about becoming an actor – though i would love to be an extra that mugs it up in the backgrounds of dramas. oh how i would emote, how i would give background, depth and motivation to my character – i may only be visible at the edge of your screen but you would know me, you would care for me and you would want to see me again and again. or then again maybe not. (though i do have to confess to a simple desire to be an extra in the 24 movie and be one of the bad guys that jack bauer tops…)
nor am i thinking of a career in such programme genres as bid-up tv (which is my current obsession). while i am able to talk for hours about nothing i am not sure i can do it without swearing, nor do i think i can whip up the enthusiasm to sell ingersoll watches, a company that has been making watches for over 100 years but has yet to make a decently designed one.

no i have decided i want to be a broadcaster. i am not strictly sure i know what it means to be a broadcaster. the only time i ever seen people being billed as broadcasters is when they appear on programmes that witter on about the worst/best/lest/most 10/100 programmes/people/songs/films/gazelles (oh ok i made the last one up).
the “broadcasters” (as i am pretty sure this is a made up profession) are never people i have heard of and seem to have an ability to be incredibly smug about their opinion about the chosen subject, the opinion is never one about the subjects worth – but is always about how the “broadcaster” was hip enough to spot the thing before anyone else (if it is a best of show) or clever enough to point out how awful it was it in the face of public opinion (if it is a worst of show).
another aspect of what the “broadcaster” has to do is sneer at someone who has done something and then point out how bad they were at doing it. so they will have a pop at someone like victoria beckham for not being much good while the most they can muster is trip to the west end on a media blag to posh spice’s world tour.
the rewards of being a “broadcaster” are immense not only do you get to give pithy soundbites on the best/worst shows (and laugh at your own jokes) you also get to appear on programmes such as streetcred sudoku (no i am not making that up).

but hold on i can hear you cry. pat, you are saying, how can you be a broadcaster, what have you ever done to justify such a high falutin' title as broadcaster.
my answer is simple: in this digital age dear reader i am broadcasting to the whole world (well actually it is just to you (and that qualifies it as narrowcasting but let us not split hairs here….) via my blog.
so i am qualified to join the ranks of z list people whom have pointless opinions that they are happy to share with people who really are not that interested.

2008 iampat broadcaster coming to you.

i know you can’t wait.