away

i was in town on saturday, the same time that england were playing their opening match of the world cup.
i was wandering around the regent street area, off to see some art. normally it is a street that is packed with desperate shoppers and congested cars. this day it was almost waiting for the tumble weed....









later on, having moved over to carnaby street i see a shop that specialises in african music, it's shop windows not showing any merchandise just the colourful shirts of the various african teams, but the shop door carrying the following legend....

foul

the situation in guantánamo was one that had become untenable many many months ago.
because the detainees have not been charged there is no indication of their guilt or complicity. because they have been in captivity for so long that they can no longer have useful information that can have any bearing on the war against terror. in fact the ongoing imprisonment of the various individuals appear to be no more than vindictive bullying.

so when 3 detainees commit suicide it should be a signal that something is not quite right.

leave it to the americans to be able to spin this.

colleen graffy, who demonstrates that although she maybe involved with “public diplomacy” she manages not to understand the idea of diplomacy, in fact she shows a propensity to open mouth and insert foot. ms graffy says of the suicides: "it does sound like this is part of a strategy - in that they don't value their own lives, and they certainly don't value ours; and they use suicide bombings as a tactic….taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good pr move."

ah if only mz graffy had stopped and thought before she spoke she might not have said such guff. the joy of it all is that her statement plays upon the fear of an overarching conspiracy theory against america that is so sophisticated that they can contact the detainees in order to plan and encourage them to commit joint suicide.
indeed her own comments have probably been the pr coup that al-qaida that has been praying for. she has basically told the world that america really doesn’t care about the detainees in anyway shape or form.

ironically these statements come at a time when many of america’s allies in the war on terror are saying that guantánamo is actually harming america’s position in the world.
but as we all know america is not interested in listening to others, and in ignoring the voices of dissent from supporters they just make the case for their radical opponents even stronger.


(interesting sidebars: just finished listening to melanie phillips on radio 5 (a change from the world cup) she is the uk's equivalent of anne coulter - but not quite so mad - she has a new book out called "londonanistan" it sounds like one of those books that i will find i am agreeing with some of it but cursing most of it. more and more though it seems to be part of the idea that we are indeed stepping on the path that leads to a clash of civilisations.

in the freakonimics book (which is not as good as it is made out) but it does make the point that money and attention can be fed into the idea of terrorism not because terrorism is in fact dangerous per se, but that the perceived fear of it that grips us, as such mz graffy is just feeding in to the whole fear cycle.

football

so it has started: the world cup is underway and the boys have got their first win under their belt.
now i have to admit that i am not a great football fan nor am i a great believer that in the theory that your team winning makes a difference to your life or the life of the community in anything other than the short term. (the years of supporting the london leopards basketball team-taught that no matter what the result i was still going back to work the next day.)
that being said the world cup is a hard sell for me, but this year i already hate it. the reason i don’t like it has nothing to do with the football, it has to do with all the stuff that is talked about the football and fans.

we live in a celebrity driven world and the media has to fill airtime and newsprint with stories about celebrity. for most footballers are easy game (geddit) they are generally attractive young men who are adulated and envied for their skills and their lifestyles. footballers get well rewarded for running around and kicking a ball. what they are paid to do is be footballers, they are not paid to be role models yet their every foible is put under scrutiny (strangely this sort of attention is not paid to the editors of newspapers, people who really do have an influence on people’s lives…) pity the poor footballer on the one hand they are great and on the other hand they are failures, and this is never so true when they are plating for england in a world cup. hero to zero in the space of a paragraph or a news story.
the run up to the world cup has pretty much given the tournament to england, yet after the first game (which they won) they are not fit to lick the boots of the class of ’66. it must be confusing to be an english player.

if it were just the building of the players up just so they are more vulnerable to the (inevitable) knock down that will follow if they do not win the world cup, it wouldn’t be so bad. but it is not just the players that come under attack; the other target is the fans.

it seems that if you are a supporter of england you are racist, nationalistic and a hooligan. the media make a song and dance about the fans behaving, while all the while hoping that there is some trouble so that they can fill pages about the hooligan british abroad. (tonight i listened to a story that said the british can’t drink – even though we have had numerous stories talking about how we are a binge drinking nation…)

of course the fact that english fans want to carry the cross of saint george immediately brands them as racist, for the simple fact that the english flag has been co-opted by the bnp. now i might be missing the point here but the only reason that the bnp have been able to get away with it is that the powers that be, such as local councils, have shied away from the use of the english flag and of englishness.
even the welsh police authority have gotten into the act saying that the display of the english flag by supports of england in wales could be seen as offensive. meanwhile on radio 5 steve bunce (a sports commentator) proclaims that because of growing up in brixton the cross of saint george will always be associated with racist thugs, no one challenges him. a cheap shot is allowed to land.

english fans draping themselves in the cross of st george are seen as nationalistic, turn that into the flag of trinidad and tobago and it becomes a celebration of a nation’s achievement. when the scots, irish or welsh wave their flags they are never accused of nationalism. their patriotism is fine.

the other crime laid at the feet of the english supporter is that they are hooligans and cause trouble wherever they go. the media are at pains to ask the fans not to get into bother, don’t sing songs that may cause offence, don’t mention the war etc. we all know that what the media really wants is a story of how the english fans caused untold damage, for the media well behaved fans is a non-story. it seems that the whole world over the only fans ever to cause a problem have been english. mind you the indie carried a small paragraph the other day of how a korean footballs fan was attack in germany by german fans. if it had been an english fan who had done the attacking it would have been a story over several pages with lots of hand wringing and “we told you so”, others doing it is a non-story and it ruins the impact of potential english thug stories.

it is this aspect of the damned if we do damned if we don’t of the media that has gotten up my nose and has meant that the world cup will be a chore. if england does not win the world cup then it will have been disastrous. by having fans supporting england we have once again proved that we are a nation of racist nationalist thugs and that is before one of the beered up footie fans throws a punch. once there is a bit of argy bargy (no matter who causes it) it will be a national shame and we should all be wearing sackcloth…

at least this year i have had to listen to people tell me that they can’t support england because of some political reason or another and so they had to pick another team

so for a few weeks get behind the boys and cheer.
come on england (in-ger-land in-ger-land in-geeeeeeeeet-land…. come on you know this one join in the chorus – you beauties….)

pics

from a recent wandering around near work.
this is the area that is going to be transformed by the olympics. it also means that my job will either be moved or be cancelled.
so lets hear it for the olympics!


(there will be more from this series of pics at a later date.... you lucky lucky people!)

mornings

gah! bah! gak! urgh!
i am not a morning person and i am not a morning person who wants to be around others.
but i am trying to change my lifestyle so that i am at least getting into work on time, if not early.
this means going to bed earlier than normal for me (but then 2am was always a stupid time to stay up to!)it also means leaving work early (no bad thing), which should mean i get up at a reasonable hour.

it’s a plan, but i am not liking it.
expect to start seeing some interesting morning photos.
(this assumes i can keep this up.)

back

after a bit of a break i am back and the world of blogs can breath a sigh of relief.
have to say may was a bit of a shit month - nothing quite went right (to be honest nothing went drastically wrong) and nothing of worth was achieved. it was in short a bland month.
true in that time i have not had a chance to vent my spleen over the local elections, john "2shags" prescott, the world cup, wembly stadium, the drought and so on.
still be thankful i am back just in time to start on my annual moan about summer.

so june will be business as normal.
i am back.

fame

emma loves london and london loves emma.
here is the proof.

photoshopped

i like gasometers. i like the industrial urban landscapes.
so i take photos of it. some have been featured on here.

i also like photography. a recent show at the rocket gallery of some ground breaking work by the danish photographer keld helmer-petersen was an inspiration.

a recent photograph i took wasn't particularly good (yeah yeah i know some of you think none of them are...) but it provided me with the material to try out something that helmer-peterson had done in his early works.

so via the magic of photoshop i took the bland image and i was going to do something similiar to helmer-petersen's very start black and whites. i didn't i ended up doing something that mixed his work with gilbert and george (who emma hates - but i think rather unfairly).

i like the result. hope you do to.

original image



photoshopped image

result

careful readers of this blog will know that i have a thing about litter louts.
simply put: i hate them.
i am the first to admit i am a messy person. my work area could best be described as a tip, while my flat does not bear thinking about by anyone sane. i truly exemplify CHAOS (can't have anyone over syndrome - well there is also the fact that i am a miserable git so i also don't invite people over, but that is another story).

imagine my delight at the story of the luton borough employee, the enforcement chief no less, has fined a driver for throwing out a cheest wotsit wrapper (ah and think of all the free publicity that brand now has!) out on to the street.

hear! hear! is all i can say.
about time.
more councils should do it.
one of the things i really noticed when i was in new york was that it was a clean city. several of the streets had cleaners that seemed to be partly funded by the local businesses. it seemed to make a difference.

but for me it was the tearful comment at the end of the story: "I'm always clearing up litter and always telling my children. I just feel so hard done by."
ah but mrs. buckland (for it is she) hadn't done it this time and the casual way she has thrown the rubbish from her private space into everyone's public space seems to indicate that she is a bit of a liar liar pants on fire.

sex

the view people have about politics have changed over the last couple of decades. during that period of time i think that people entering politics have become more cynical in their reasons for pursuing such a career.
there is an old saw about not trusting anyone who seeks power, i am sure there is a lot of truth in it. equally i am sure that many many people have become politicians for the correct reasons, because they have seen that there is a need to change society and to make it a better place. this i believe holds true of all the parties. what is different is the vision of what make a better society.
if you were to ask the average person in the street why politicians choose the career path they are on most would probably say they were doing it to line their own pockets. whether it was in terms of just abusing the expense claims, whether it was making sure that they had outside interests that benefited them or just good old fashioned bribery. all with their eyes on making sure they could land themselves a well paying boardroom position or role in an ngo when they quit.
again i think that cycnical view of poloticians holds true across all parties.

ask again and i think you will find the view is changing and the more cycnical would point to one of the recently unheard of perks of being an mp. sex. it seems that are all at. they can't keep their mind on their breifs and can't keep their peckers in their pants (now admit it you thought that was clever didn't yoiu!)
now it does seem that power is an aphrodisiac because it appears some mps can't get enough. what is worse it seems like it is the ugly and plain mps who get the women. david mellor, john major, david blunkett to name a few, now there is john prescott.

you would have thought being deputy prime minister and having two jags would have been enough. evidently no.

so sign me up i want to be an mp. sod wanting to change the world, i think it is the only way i am ever going to get a shag.

religiosity

not that i have been overly influenced by going to see too much pretentious art wank combined with seeing too much religious based paintings recently, but this little smattering of pictures could be seen as having religious overtones.
very obvious i know, but if i was any good at this i would be rich.

message

saw this and thought: "yeah i know where you are coming from..."
walking around the east end i can see some interesting images, sometimes i manage to do them justice other times not.

speechless

you just have to admire david cameron.
no really you do.

today he said: "The BNP is a party that thrives on hatred, that wants to set one race against another."

no arguement there.
but you just wish he would look at his own party and his own supporters when he said such things.

oh perhaps that is why he is having a pop at the bnp, because it is likely that they will get votes from the conservatives as well as new labour in the forthcoming local elections.

though this quote form the bnp "This proves, really, that the BNP is the only opposition party in this country.." shows that they are as in touch with the real world in the same way that respect anf gorgeous george galloway are.

politics - you just have to love it.

madge

happy birthday old girl.

why

there are times when you see a story that just makes your jaw drop. i suspect that as the world cup and the olympics draw closer there will be more and more of sports oriented stories that will make me go: "what the fuck..."

recently it was the hoohah over wayne rooney have a bit of gambling bill to pay. a story that had the unctuous ex-tory mp, user of prostitutes and chelsea fan, david mellor, suggest that because there was no legal contract between rooney and the guy who arranged the bet that rooney should just refuse to pay. so mellor's advice is just to break your word, to welch on the deal mind you as this came in an article that basically accused most of the young, very rich, footballers as being gormless imbeciles it really shouldn't have come as a surprise....

and now it is the joy of seeing manchester united, one of the richest foorball clubs in the world. a football club that pays many of it's players more than £50,000 a week, getting a lottery grant of £30,000.
now why does manchester united, a privately owned football club need £30,000? well it is to help get their staff fitter.
"This is all about getting staff in sedentary jobs active and getting them to take fewer days off sick."
now it may just be me - but surely lottery money (which isn't being paid to me in a huge winning jackpot) should be going to companies, organisations, clubs and associations who need the money and not to people who have more than enough money to deal with their staff?

and what are they going to do with the money? help a number of it's staff get fitter. a worthy goal to be sure. but as manchester united are a sports club they more than lilely already have sports equipment on site that the staff can use, so why do they need money for any scheme? it is more than likely that man u are in a position where they can get cheap gym membership for their staff.
more importantly if an individual wants to be fitter and healthier they can join a gym themselves. given that there is going to be an element of taking a horse to water but you can make it drink type scenario here (and i speak from experience of starting gym membership and then not going) i hope that there is a reporting mechanism to make sure that the lottery is getting value for money.

john leech (a liberal democrat mp) has said the money should have been used to get those people who can't afford a gym membership into gyms. and i have to say i totally agree with him.

all in all an own goal by the lottery.

respec'

there are occassional turning points in your life where everything changes. sometimes you only realise these defining moments after the event.
two such moments for me were as follows. the night i realised that i was never going to be a serious academic. i was writing a paper to give to my theory class during my first attempt at a masters degree. the paper was all about the transition from feudalism to capitalism. given the amount of sense i was writing it might as well have been the joys of ants and ice cream. i read and wrote into the early hours of the morning. making loads of coffee while listening to radio 2. i was workign in a cramped kitchen and all i really wanted to do was go cuddle up next to the lady in my life and go to sleep.
the paper was a disaster and my toes curl to think of it now.
playing on radio 2 that night was andrew lloyd weber's phanton of the opera "i am the music of the night". if the song was played once it was played 50 times in the night. it scarred me.
i failed that masters.

a few years later and i am on a train going to visit my good lady who was now doing her masters in coventry. i had a bad feeling about this trip. i almost didn't go. my journey up there was accompanied by a bloke with his (then new fangled and expensive)personal cd player who was playing ... you guessed it andrew lloyd weber's phantom of the opera. he managed to play it three times on the journey. it was not loud enough to complain about, but loud enough to irritate and lodge itself in my mind.
i was traumatised by it.
that weekend my lovely lady told me to take a hike (thanks annemarie). if i had woody allen's money i would still be in therapy.

failed masters and there is lloyd weber.
failed romance and there is lloyd weber.
like some bad luck stink.

even his working with the great jim steinman has not quite saved him in my eyes, no matter what (now going on admit it you are in admiration of that...) he does lloyd weber is always going to be associated with some serious failures in my life. (my pal paul would just simple say he is a dull and boring composer...)

so what are you trying to tell us here pat?

well in yesteraday's independent (and i wish i could link you to it, but the indie wants you to pay ....) dominic lawson had a column. hold on did you say dominic lawson, brother of the arch tory nigel lawson? yes i did say dominic lawson. i think it is part of the independent so how ...well .. independent they are, what a beacon of free speech they are yadda yadda.
so far the columns of his i have read have just made my blood boil as he comes across as a jumped up shite who seems smug in the fact that he hasn't done too badly out of the mess the tories left this country in and now he can snipe at new labour for not doing the job it should be doing ie looking after the workers and not pandering to middle england.

but to give him his due he sometimes points out that actually all was not rosey under the tories.

he was talking about the current honours for cash scandal, and pointed out that the then tory government did the same, that the leadership (if that is not too bold a word for it) of iain duncan smith did it and to an extent cameron is doing it.
the way the tories go about getting the money is is by getting loans from the rich party faithful, which are loaned at commerical rates, but once they have gotten the ermine and have their seat in the house of lords the loan is forgiven. and so the coffers of the tory part remain filled.

and now i must paraphrase dominic, because i can't copy it from the indie site and i can't be asked to type it all out.
apparently there is one one lender, who once he became a sir ignored the time honoured trradition of "forgiving" the loan and rather than follow the tradition of the has insisted that his loan was in fact just that: a loan. a loan that he expected to be paid back.

step forward that man and take a bow.
yes andrew lloyd weber you may no longer be the toast of the tory fundraiser - but for a few moments on my blog you are toasted.
so join me and raise a glass to andrew lloyd weber as he waits for his loan to be repaid.

but in case you think i am going soft - i still blame him from for my failing the masters degree and annemarie kicking me out. but i can't deny him a little bit of pat blog heaven.

images

some more of those walk about moments.

menzies

i may never vote for the liberal democrats.
but if there was ever a time when i might put my x in the lib dem box it would be now.
why? because of their policies, nope. because of their principled stance on iraq, hell no.

so tell us pat, why would you?
simply because of this: "At its core it is still right-wing and unpleasant." said menzies campbell when talking about the conservative party.

go get 'em menzies.

code

well i have dan browne's the da vinci code and tonight i am going to read a huge chunk of it.
i was planning on typing a long piece about faith (apt at this time of year) but i am in a coffee shop and i have been distracted by at least one rather busty young pale skinned beauty and the music is a jazzed fueled avant garde punk concocction so not really conducive to me thinking and talking about the faith.
if you are lucky i might never get round to typing it up.
but then if you are not you may just get to read my ramblings.

at the moment it is a damp and somewhat slightly overcast evening, i am looking forward to getting back to the flat and ordering a very very large pizza.

sometimes life can be sweet.

pictures

some more pictures taken while i was out and about.

signs

while some in the bible belt of america are seeking signs of the second coming.
while others search for signs to validate the da vinci code.
still more pursue signs of the babylonian brotherhood.
i find the signs that show the world is pretty much as we expect it to be.

rebranding

marketing bollocks gets everywhere.
now the american armed forces have been caught up in it as they rebrand the war on terror (well it was never snappy and just how do you fight a concept that can be defined differently depending on where you stand..). additionally it looks like everyone is a bit sick and tired of the war on terror. so it is time to spruce it up and repackage it.
so with a bit of a drum roll and a rustle of curtains allow me to introduce you to the long war.
much snappier, it pretty much does what it says on the tin.

brigadier general mark kimmitt is the man behind what the usa military is calling the "principles of the Long War". this is all about a different type of war that america has been used to, they are talking about it lasting 20 years or more and will be a campaign that will spam the globe.
it is all about "nothing less than the defeat of al-Qaeda across the world and its associated movements strung together by extremist ideology." (of course once this is achieved then there will be some other terrorist threat that can be mobilised against, in a sense this is the start of a consant state of war and it starts now and will not end until... well actually there probably will be no end...)

apparently this new type of warfare will involve so called "soft power" such as diplomacy (mm we have seen how well that has worked with the french.... and lets be fair we in the uk just decided to stand by george w bush and what have we got for our troubles? mmm yeah fuck all. diplomacy in this instance will mean bi-lateral agreements that will only count for as long as they are useful, no kyoto, no international courts... just diplomacy that benefits the usa) finance (yup we'll finance that dictator this year and maybe next year we will go to war against them, just like we did with saddam and the taliban). other tools of this new war are going to be trade and technology.

colonel mark bibby points to the real problem of this "You've got to start somewhere. You have to plan ahead. You have to be driving in a particular direction. If we don't start driving now or soon we'll be behind the curve."
it's not about fighting terror per se, it is about establishing an american agenda that the rest of us follow.

the rebranding works in that it changes the tone and ideas of the war on terror not in any practical way but in an perceptual way. it is based on the idea that we don't know shit from shinola.

the next thing is that attacking iran will be billed as being a brand extension.
while taking the long war to south america could be seen as new product developement, to keep the marketing parlance.


but to remind people of another great saying and something that marketeers should bear in mind at all times "if it walks like a duck, smells like a duck and quacks like a duck - chances are it is a duck".

call it the war on terror, call it the long war, call it a neocon folly, nothing is going to change the fact that the world is a fundamentally more dangerous place than it used to be, and it is doubtful it will be getting safer any time soon...

iran

bush says that america is not contemplating a nuclear strike on iran.
i feel safer already.
better stock up on bottles of water........

oddly there has been the recent publication of part of the gospel of judas. which posits that judas was not the betrayer as has beeb portrayed but a necessary part in jesus' assumption of the role saviour of mankind. (oddly tim rice also makes this point in the wonderful jesus christ superstar).
i now believe that bush sees himself in a role of bringing about armageddon and through this the second coming of the lord.

the born again christian funamentalists ae scary dudes.

7/7

the observer (april 9th edition) gave some hints as to what the report into the july 7th london bombings was going to be saying. in essence it seems to be saying that the bombings were planned based on information available on the internet, that it was done on a shoestring and that there was no direct support from al-qaeda.
in short it was a simple and inexpensive plot. described as 'The London attacks were a modest, simple affair by four seemingly normal men using the internet.'

according to the observer this will raise fresh concerns over the vulnerability of britain to attack by small, unsophisticated groups.
have to say this somewhat surprised me as i would have thought that these were the types of attacks that we would be most vulnerable to. at least with an organised terrorist organisation (such as the ira) there is the possibility of building up a knowledge base concerning the methods and the people and so be better placed to thwart them.
it is going to be so much hard to stop individuals who take it upon themselves to mount an attack.

in fact there is no way to be totally safe, unless we give up all our freedoms and even then there is no guarantee that if we do that we will be secure. while i do not think that the present government is overy authoritarian its desire to press ahead on something like id cards where there is no proof that it is a scheme that will work, also means that the populace have more reasons to distrust them when it comes to measures that are likely to work.

but given that the 7/7 bombers appeared to have an extreme interpretation of islam, but while also enjoying a westernised lifestyle there is no easy way to discover the potential perpertrators among us.
the fact that these bombers or terrorists are driven not only by secular matters but there is a large element of religous fervour in what inspires them points to the fact that perhaps to only way to protect against them is to win the hearts and minds of the community in which they live in order to stop them from ever being able to gain the support they need.

it is easier said than done.

politics

what is it about the right these days.
cameron is calling ukip members racist (as if all the conservative party are (and excuse the phrase) whiter than white on the subject .
(as a sidebar here yasmin alibhai-brown of the independent and of the standard – yeah i know very likely bedfellow – was going on about how cameron shouldn’t use the word racist in such a way, because in doing so it detracts from the power of the word and the seriousness of the allegations. you know i would agree with her if it wasn’t for the fact that so often the word is used by minority groups to prevent debate, and that it is easier to throw out the allegation than it is to defend against it…)

ironically for most people cameron is just stating the obvious – we all knew they were racist, so it wasn’t exactly news or a shock. in fact i know someone who thought he said they were all closet rapist – well it would have been news then!
but his comment does seem to have been the first foot that cameron has put wrong.

meanwhile on the slightly further far right the bnp have gotten themselves in the news because of the candidacy of sharif abdel gawad, whom the bnp describes as a "totally assimilated greek-armenian". members of the bnp’s rank and file are up in arms about this as they say that it should be an all white party, and they are not placated when they are told that sharif is not a pakistani muslim. others say he is just going to confuse the electorate as to what the bnp stands for.

in echoes of leaders such as blair and cameron, bnp spokesman phil edwards said those members who refused to accept the candidacy had no place in the party.
though quite what this means is not made clear: is this a move on the part of the bnp to be more inclusive, have they decided that there is there a time limit on how long you remain non british?
this follows an attempt by nick griffin to allow non-whites to join the bnp, an attempt that failed in the face of resistance from the party.

to add to it all sharif is so named because his mum had a crush on omar sharif, while he is here because (wait for it… wait for it…) his father was a refugee. you couldn’t make this stuff up.

this all comes at a time when the bnp are trying to field more candidates in the forthcoming local elections than ever before. oddly among one of their target areas is east london, which as we know has recently seen the election of one mp based on the appeal of race as an issue. step forward respect and george galloway.

(one labour candidate is taking the issue very seriously and is organizing school trips to auschwitz, which while is a noble idea limits to idea of racism to one moment in history and to one group. one has to wonder where he is getting the cash from to do this and also how big an impact is it going to have – how many kids will go? 100, 500, a thousand? hopefully they will be of voting age or it will be a waste of money.)

so we have cameron going on about a party being closet racists even though they share similar policies.
we have the bnp trying to be more inclusive.

has british politics gone mad?
nope there is boris getting into trouble again for having another mistress. it seems the more things change the more that they stay the same.

standard

london is a great city; i think it is the best city in the world (but then i am biased). it is such a shame that such a poor newspaper as the evening standard serves such a wonderful city, admittedly there are a large number of local papers for the london area, but you would think that the capital city could have a decent paper.

anyway i don’t get the standard very often, and when i do i always find myself thinking i will never get it again, but i always do.
the evening standard (a bit like the independent) has a terrible website so i can’t direct you to this story, you’ll just have to trust me.
“he dunked my £700 gadget in a pint and i lashed out” screamed the headline.
warwick bergin, a yacht broker, saw red when larry power dunked his personal organiser in a pint of beer, warwick lunged for, punched, knock to the ground and then kicked larry power in the head.
this all took place in the clipper bar after a meeting of the tenants association of dolphin square (which if i read the report correctly was a council owned block of 1000 flats overlooking the thames that has just been sold to a usa consortium for £170 million which meant the tenants were also getting a multi-million pound payout). bergin was partly responsible for the tenants getting a windfall from the selling of the block to the consortium. bergin splits his time between the pimlico estate (now owned by americans) and his house in devon.
bergin is 55, power is 63 and 18 stone.

why am i even bothering to tell you all of this? you ask. lets look at it again. someone has not only punched someone but also kicked them when they are on the floor (and no doubt all while a little bit under the influence of drink). so what do you think that they got? what do you think they deserve for such actions?
or to put it another way what do you think they would have gotten if they had been youths? or if this had been over a mobile phone? or took place in a local pub?

do you think that they would have been let off? so you think they would have gotten a three-month suspended sentence, fined £200 and ordered to pay £55 costs? (the fine and the costs probably much less the cost of what it took to patch up larry power.)

if you are like me then you probably think the answer is no, and that the punishment would have been harsher. or if the sentence had been the same then the standard’s story would have been on of how we are easy on the criminal in this country.
the judge said she was sparing bergin a custodial sentence because of the “extremely irritating circumstances that led to the incident….” well glad to know that then.

looks like it is another one rule for the rich another for the poor situation.

conned

so there i am on myspace - it is fun.
and there are some interesting people on there. and as you know i am a friendly guy happy to chat to anyone about anything. well imagine my surprise when a i get a message from a gorgeous young girl. you could have knocked me down with a feather. actually it didn't take long to realise that this young lady was a front for something. blimey here comes a second girl to chat to me. mmm i must be wearing clic, can be the only explanation... or my photo makes me look so desperate it is not true,
so tonight on yahoo i have a long conversation with someone (it could be a he it could be a she) who seems to want to stay with me forever because they are looking for a soulmate - but actually wants my credit card details....

but for the life of me i can't quite work out how the scam is going to work as it seems i buy something and get it shipped to nigeria (mmm theres a clue) and that is it.
but ah wait a minute now the time they need the stuff is so quick i couldn't get it shipped to them, mmm so looks like it will come back to me giving them the details of my card. yeah right.

anyway enjoy a bit of it. i have been playing to see when they would tip their hand, but they haven't and i want to go to sleep.
thoguh quite why they chose the anme julian to go with the sexy photo is beyond me.,


patart692006: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/
julian_bliss: what can i do there?
patart692006: i thnk you can get t-shirts made up and offer them for sale
julian_bliss: i dont hav credit cards
julian_bliss: do u hav ?
patart692006: nope - they won't allow me to have one!!!
julian_bliss: who wont allow?
julian_bliss: hi
patart692006: the banks - i was a bit stuoud with cash a while back so i have had to get rid of my credit cards
patart692006: ooops
julian_bliss: so u mean trhe bank will not allow u use credit cards
patart692006: thats right
julian_bliss: but u hav it with u ?
julian_bliss: all the infor
patart692006: yes
patart692006: why
julian_bliss: ok
julian_bliss: send it to me then if it works i will tell u and if it does not i will tell u
julian_bliss: k
julian_bliss: i want to use it to buy the customise clothes
......

julian_bliss: well doing this may make me know u ore and promise never to leave u
........
patart692006: where do they have to go to
julian_bliss: afriac
julian_bliss: africa
julian_bliss: did u get all the names i send to u
patart692006: gott the name - where in africa?
julian_bliss: Nigeria
julian_bliss: write them out
julian_bliss: and show me if its correct
patart692006: i will just copy fro m here
julian_bliss: ok ....patrick
julian_bliss: why
patart692006: where in nigeria
julian_bliss: how many did i send to u
julian_bliss: lagos
julian_bliss: u gat that
patart692006: yup
patart692006: any particular place
julian_bliss: yeah
julian_bliss: u send it
julian_bliss: to a place
julian_bliss: are u asking for the address?
patart692006: yes
julian_bliss: patrick
julian_bliss: ok
julian_bliss: wait let me ask u know i dont know much abt here ok
julian_bliss: patrick
patart692006: ok
julian_bliss: hold on patrick
julian_bliss: ok
patart692006: yup holdiing
julian_bliss: getting it
patart692006: ok
julian_bliss: i cant get it seems i will ask them and send it to u later
julian_bliss: k
julian_bliss: patrick
patart692006: ok let me know
julian_bliss: b4 u hav it done i will hav send the address and the name that will collect it here i will send them to u
julian_bliss: ok...patrick
patart692006: yup
julian_bliss: so how long will it take
patart692006: won't know until tomorrow when i can ask them - maybe 2 weeks
julian_bliss: ohh My God
julian_bliss: 2 weeks
julian_bliss: then i will hav to buy it here but i dont hav any cash here else check
julian_bliss: and those checks can not be cash here that why
patart692006: oh i see
julian_bliss: u know what patrick....?
julian_bliss: cos i promise them that i will get it 4 them b4 i leave
julian_bliss: and a cutomise belt
julian_bliss: u knw that too
patart692006: a belt as well......
julian_bliss: yeah
julian_bliss: belt is not 4 all of them
julian_bliss: only 2 of them
julian_bliss: ok
patart692006: oh right - don't know where you would get such belts
julian_bliss: what
julian_bliss: u?
julian_bliss: and mp3
julian_bliss: u know it
patart692006: i know of mp3s - what does that have to do with belts ?
julian_bliss: yeah
julian_bliss: i need 2 mp3
julian_bliss: ok
julian_bliss: dont worry abt the belts


ah what can you say to all of that....
not sure what annoyed me the most that they thought i would fall for it or that it was done so badly.

lights

was out over the weekend. camera in hand.
this is one of the pictures i took. i really like it.
there are a few more like this and a few more from that series of photographs that will be appearing on here soon.

joke

two tv aerials get married.
the wedding wasn't much cop.
but the reception was fantastic.


booom boooom

politics

to be honest i have not really thought about this post (yeah yeah i know the others seem like so much planning has gone into them...)
but just recently there has been something wrong with politics in this country.
ignoring the hoo had over iraq, but to say that with iraq blair was very much a prime minister, in that he didn't rely of focus groups, he was doing what he believed in and he lead us in to the war. and perhaps is he has been a little more open with the electorate and if the americans had listened to him a little more we would be proclaiming him a hero rather than cursing his name, well not that i do, but well you know what i mean.

it seems tony blair made a terrible mistake when he said he would not be fighting the next general election.
in one fell swoop he took away a lot of his own authority within the new labour parliamentary party.
it has also meant that everything he says and does, every result or breaking news story is seen in the light of blair leaving office.

now blair has been in power since 1997 and perhaps it is too long for anyone person to be in charge (howard in austrailia has been in power longer and looks to be running again). no where more is this evidenced by the fact that new labour seem very keen to cause themselves irrepairable damage as they get accused of sleaze and more.
the current situation is very reminiscent of the last days of thatcher and of john major. when sleaze was the key thing.

couple this with the internal bickering that new labour seems very keen on indulging in and you have a situation where the party is tempting fate and may just implode.

here more than anywhere has new labour shown it has lost touch with theman in the street. this could be because they have been blined by power and money (as nick cohen has argued) or it could just be that being in power for so long makes you feel immune to the laws of the land you are supposed to governing.

yet what is the solution to this problem?
the maximum two terms that american presidents are allowed to run seems like the logical idea - but we only have to look at clinton and w. bush to see how their second terms have turned into being no more than lame duck presidencys. the first one is spent just getting yourself prepared to win the second one. the second term is there to create a legacy...

blair didn't need to say he was standing down, he could have fought a fourth term (and i suspect he would have won it) but he has chosen to stand down, but not say when. so increasingly he is looking like a lost cause as other ministers spin against him and he dillies and dallies about the date.
but all the more become less adn less in touch with populace and so allowing the recent disaster to upsstage new labour.
now the electorate can see that they are not there for the electorate - but their for their own power.

perhaps what we need is that each party can stay in power for as long as it can command the popular vote - but the electorate also get a chace to vote the leader out and vote in another representative of the governing party. so the party of the day can remain in power for as long as it can win the number of votes.
however the leader also has to put himself up for election as well.

not sure it would work - but it does seem that letting any party staying power for a length of time just leads to abuses taking place.

i shall have to think on this some more.

april

is it april already....
lordy how time flies, and it sure flies faster when you are older that is for sure.
so far april is off to a slow start - although i have already bought more stuff than i can watch, read or listen to, but then some things are never going to change.

not that there is anything special about april - but i do need to sit down and take stock (and given how much stuff i have i could do a stock take!) and make changes to my life (hey i have not been back to college to fail a degree in a while, maybe i should look into that....)

this month doesn't seem to be offering much up as things to do. it will be a month i do not go to new york, that much is certain. i might make this a month i go to paris and check out their galleries. it is also a month when i go to milton keynes (hey not much of a disparity there!) there is also a karlheinz stockhausen concert to go to. the mad german is an avant garde contemorary composer who has said some silly things about the 9/11 situation but he writes music to make your eyes bleed. so he is not all bad then!
there are trips to tate and tate britain to see their current shows (again again) and that is really it.

time might fly but i am still wasting it.

smiling

i was out taking photos the other day. i was in a church yard, when all of a sudden i can hear the yip yapping of a little dog. the dog is off it's leash and is like a rat crossed with a terrier.
it's yipping and yapping is caused by the fact it has seen a big dog (bow wow wow), a great dane like thing.
little dog goes haring after big dog.
little dog owner looks like he his going to shit himself as there is a chance his small pooch will end being a mouthful of fun for the big dog.
big dog owner is too busy chatting on his mobile to care one way or another.

i have to say the quality of these pics is poor, mainly because i was stunned at what i was watching, i had one of the biggest smiles i have had since well the last time i cracked a smile...

what struck me was there was a certain frisson between the two dogs and i could swear that little dog was trying to hit on big dog and (to misquote dawkins) was trying to mount improbable.....

woof woof.

enjoy the pics.

shapes

well myspace is certainly fun. one of the things cliff didn't mention in his homages to it were the amount of women on it.
actually this isn't all that surprising that there are lots of birds on there as my extended network is something like 66 million people (all of whom i am now on first name basis with!)
but with that many women on the site you need to be able ot filter them down to a number that is manageable and corresponds to your own desires. thankfully myspace does that as well.
so i have been merrily searching the site to see who is there. (so far spotted two people i know from other places!)
now as you may know (and i have admitted this in the past) i am a lech who finds teh female form beutiful in it's myriad forms. currently i have been going through a bit of a chubby chasing phase (as the great frank zappa once said "the bigger the cushion the better the pushin") so using the filter function i have scanned the site to have a look at the lovely ladeeeeez.

the main thing that has struck me is the number of people who seemiingly have a negative vision of their bodies. the number of willlow like women who claim that they are chubby or fat is amazing.
trust me i know what fat is - as i can grab more than an inch or three... and these women who think that are fat or large are not.
i work with a woman who is gorgeous, true she is of a larger size, but she carries it well. instead of seeing the fact that she is very attractive she completely worries about the few extra pounds that she has (and she does carry it all very well).
i was at an exhibition of some very bad photographs in which there was a picture of a naked woman, who was fairly lithe looking. in the text for the exhibition it was mentioned that she felt she was obese but once she saw the photos she changed her mind. now i have to say someone of her size who had the idea that she was obese makes me think that there is something obviously going wrong with her head.

perhaps old naomi was right about the "false" visions of beauty - we are bombarded with a particular type of what beauty should be like (and mostly we all understand that the models that smile at us from billboards, advertising hoardings, magazines, tv and cinema) are not "normal" and they are not what real people should aspire too.
well at least that should be the case, but more and more as we get sucked into celebrity culture and so now we are bombarded with images of people who we are told are living the lives we want to lead and part of that life is having that "look".
yet i can't help it too often the current vision of celebrity beauty just looks too scrawny to be healthy.
but then i suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder - just wish more people were able to see their own beauty.

door

i seem to take lots of pictures of doors.
they fascinate me - they are portals to other places (well that is stating the obvious!) but the doors i like seem to have no purpose, they go nowhere, or where they used to go to is no longer there.
i saw this door, just off of vyner street, while i was out looking at art.
i loved the colour of it and then loved the fact it was totally redundant.
enjoy.

blog

something seems to have gone wrong with my blog.
i think it is because it thinks i have deserted it for myspace.
pishpaw - is my name cliff!

myspace

cliff has talked me into - i have set up on myspace as well.
blimey and he is right about the girls as well - they are so sexy over there......
the internet - who needs a life.

farting

i am english so i think the highest form of wit comes with a good loud fart and the social issues it causes. we have probably laughed at fart gags since before london was i mote in the eyes of the romans. the english love of toilet humour is one of the reasons why britons will never never be slaves (ok i admit that last one is maybe stretching the point...)
through countless tv comedy programmes such as benny hill and the young ones. films such as the carry on series toilet humour is one of the key characteristics of britishness.
so imagine my delight when i was watching the pink panther remake movie when there was an exceptional fart gag in it. you know it is going to happen, you know it is not going to be anything super special but by the holy see i couldn't help but laugh! (and why was it in a movie about a french policeman, perhaps as a mark of respect to joseph pujol - le petoman, the man who farted for the rue morgue audience. perhaps proving that the language of the fart is universal and that pat (that’s me) is once again talking out of the hole he should be parping from when he goes on about it being an english/ british thing…)

regardless of this internal debate i think we can all agree that farting (even in mixed company) can be quiet funny, sometimes it can be hilarious.

so you have to wonder at this particular story (thanks to emma for pointing it out to me). imagine if you will you are a teacher (ok for emma this is not hard, but for the rest of you try to imagine you are a teacher…) and try to imagine that you are teaching the little terrors that you see each day in the streets. i know i know it is cruel and unusual punishment, but someone has to do it. one of the things i always thought that teachers would have to develop fairly quickly would be a thick skin.
not all teachers develop such protection.
sue storer is suing her school for the tune of a million pound because of sex discrimination. what was the form of this discrimination? ms storer had a chair that, well it was a chair that made noises every time she moved.


“"it was very embarrassing to sit on," she said.
storer said she was constantly forced to apologize to children, parents and co-workers about the unladylike sounds emanating from her chair, but the school wouldn't replace the flatulent furniture.
she claims the school's refusal to replace her chair while providing some men with silent seats is indicative of the sexist behavior that undermined her position at work.”

emma and myself laughed at the story, and we both hoped that there was more to the case than the chair. it turns out that there was a little more to it. according to the times online ms storer, who as a deputy head of the school, believed she was being victimized because the head teacher favoured the other two deputy heads (both male) this meant that ms storer received extra work, that the head insisted that she invigilate an art exam rather than attend a final training session in order to become a head teacher, that the head had shown her a list of complaints about her work but did not tell her who had said what. ms storer said this all made her depressed and that she contemplated suicide.
but it all seems to hang on the chair.
back in 2002 new chairs had been delivered but her two male colleagues were given new silent chairs, while she was left with her flatulent chair.
ms storer resigned from her job in 2005.
now one could look at it as being one of those situations where she had decided to grin and bear it in the hope her dedication and stoicism would be rewarded with a new chair.
or if you take this statement at face value “it’s a health and safety issue for an employer to ensure you have a comfortable chair.” which could be translated as “i couldn’t be asked to do anything to resolve this problem for myself and wanted it all done for me….”
now remember there is 3 years of her being in the farting chair, if it was that difficult a situation (and remember she is a deputy head) i am sure there were many ways she could have resolved it – if she wanted to, or if it was that big an issue.

true the other issues she raised could be seen as being very serious.
she shouldn’t be penalized because she is a woman, if she was being held back because of that then the head should be held to task. but remember the incident she quotes is several years in the past.
the unnamed accusers i can see why she might be upset she is being criticized but doesn’t know who is saying what. but if her work is up to scratch then a few miserly words from members of staff shouldn’t matter (though this only holds if the head is not trying to discriminate against her in the first place…..

anyway this is a bit of a long winded way of saying that there are just times when people shouldn’t be allowed to sue for perceived slights, that before such actions can be taken both parties should be made to sit down and try to work things through.
the idea that everything can be solved by handing over a wodge of cash (that will mean there is less in the kitty for the local schools) seems to be the easy way out. really what should happen is that the problem is resolved. if the head has been discriminating then prove it and punish him.

but as the head said, “if it was an issue, i would have expected her to help herself.”

perhaps the answer to this whole shebang lies in one fact:
“dave rossiter, mrs storer’s legal representative, who is also her partner, said: “mrs storer has been mercilessly victimised, harassed and bullied.”
ah a lawyer is at the heart of it all, and no doubt he gets paid regardless of whether ms storer wins or not.

look out for ms storer to be appearing in a daytime tv ad campaign for a “no win no pay” legal company.
easy litigation another of the usa’s worst finding a home over here…….
i am sure the suffragettes are pleased the struggle has now become one of farting chairs….

review

you may have been asking yourself where are pat’s reviews of the films he has seen? could it be that i haven’t been going to the cinema? hell no, my name’s is not paul.
in fact i have been a bit of a cinematic busy buzzy bee. have seen several movies of varying quality.
the best of the bunch has to have been “good night and good luck”, george clooney’s sumptuous look at the mccarthy communist trials of the 50s. although dealing with an important part of american history clooney chooses to deal with it on an intimate level by focusing in on edward murrow and his attack on the methods employed by mccarthy. the acting is all top notch. it is a joy to watch.
unsurprisingly i am going to say that “lucky number slevin” is also a good film, but then how can a film with bruce willis and lucy liu in it fail. it is a slick double triple cross movie, it has some strong performances from josh hartnett (never thought i would say that!), sir ben kingsley and morgan freeman. as ever with these sorts of films it has the stylised story telling and dialogue. hartnett plays slevin who looks like he is being set up to act as a hired killer. my interest in the film never waned as it moved from one complication to another for the hartnett character. the one real problem with the film is that you know fairly soon on how it is going to play out, the joy is seeing how it gets to the obvious conclusion. one of the problems though is that in “selling” the dummy to the audience we have “see” things that don’t really happen and are made up, while not a huge failing it is one of those moments when you go “oh that didn’t work”. all in all though a strong film.
spike lee’s “the inside man” is another of those films where a central part of it doesn’t work. it’s a heist hostage style movie, but not in the same quality bracket as “dog day afternoon” and “taking of pelham 123”. it is a fairly straight forward film in terms of the plot – bank robbery is turned into a hostage situation, there is something in the bank that someone wants to keep secret, the robbers are one step ahead of the police, and someone other than the police is trying to get a resolution. the structure of the film includes some flash forwards to the aftermath of the robbery, which gives away the fact that they get away with it, but that is not exactly a surprise.
again this is a film that is easily watchable because of its lead actor, denzil washington. washington, as ever, is so easy on the eye that you don’t notice him acting. and i have to say jodie foster is looking fine in her advancing years. i have never really been a fan of spike lee (even though he is a big basketball fan) and this isn’t a film that is going to convert me to him. the action is not well handled and some of the shots to make it look like it is an action film look forced and unnecessary. where lee makes the film work is in the moments between the characters. even some of the minor characters are given their moment to shine under his direction. there are several problems with the film, especially at the end (and don’t read until you see @@@@@@@@@@ if you don’t want to know the ending….)

the heist is basically a document proving that the owner of the bank got his money from dealing with the nazis, plus his own personal stash of diamonds taken from jews by the nazis. this fact alone seems to be able to absolve the robbers of any guilt in what they are doing (where in fact it make s them not much better than the original thief). there is never an indication of how they came by the information about the document and the diamonds (as we are told there is no record of the safety deposit box they are in and it seems that they have been there since the bank was built…) for all of the posturing of honesty and how bad it is to use nazi diamonds it seems that denzil’s character isn’t above using one that he has been “given” for a wedding ring (its all right he has done his bit by making sure “the man” gets into trouble the diamonds), the just so happens to be arriving at the bank as the same time the master criminal is making his escape (even though it is several days later), he fact that the swat team seem ready to have the technology to create bugs for the pizza cartons but seem incapable of recognising that they are listening to a recording and not actual conversation.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
add those plot points to a film that is perhaps a little too long you have a bit of a missed opportunity. worth a look, but not great.

goths

i have always liked goth music - it can be moving and silly all at the same time. i have always loved goth girls, i mean what isn't there to like, they wear black, they wear boots, they wear corsets, it doesn't matter if they are fat or thin short or tall there is just something special about a goth girl. jay's favourite place in the whole world (camdem) is filled with them, and they come from all over europe just to be in camden, to wear black and to avoid the sun.
sure there are things to put you off goths - some take the vampire or anne rice thing a tad too far and become as boring as doctor who fans. others are scared to smile in case it cracks the white make-up they plaster on.
but all in all i like goths.
and for a long time it must have been great to be a goth – as you could call on the sex appeal and outrage of people like marilyn manson and cradle of filth, with the matrix films the goth look was made superheroic. even the music was sounding good.

and then like a skinhead’s 18 hole dms to your nuts along comes this report to really take the wind out of the goth sails.
i mean there can be nothing worse for a youth subculture than to be described as “…. middle class to the core.”
perhaps in america where it has been associated with a spate of shootings (well people who wear black coats have been shooting others…) does the goth subculture have that outsider vibe. sadly the “goths for bush” site has turned out to be a bit of a hoax.

the study not only rains on their parade of being rebels but it goes on to tell their parents not to worry about the sudden desire to dress all in black, be pale and swoon around listening to doom laden music because in all likelihood you will grow up to do well in college and end up doing something like being a doctor or lawyer….
yet for all of that there is still room for a little depression for goths
"romance lies very much at the heart of the goth ascetic but it's a romance in which tragedy is only a sigh away."
ah bless……..

barking

so i pop over to bbc.con, check the news.
this is flagged up as being "other top stories"

Man watches as dog attacks woman
A 34-year-old woman suffered serious leg injuries when she was attacked by a dog being walked by its owner.
Merseyside Police said the man, who was also walking another dog, just watched while the attack took place in Toxteth, Liverpool, on Saturday.

A police spokesman said the local woman was walking along Roseberry Street when the incident happened.

The dog was either a Staffordshire or Pitbull terrier and the owner was described as black and around 6ft.

now maybe it is me but in terms of what is going on in the world today - this just isn't a top story. it is probably a minor paragraph in the local press. at best.
true it is a terrible attack (and another page on the bbc site also points out that the bite exposed the bone), and frankly it once again shows how little respect people seem to have for one another in this country. the owner let the dog make the attack and then seemingly wandered off (let us hope he ran away in fear of being caught), judging by the report there was no one else around to intervene, so either the street in question was very quiet or the people there were just as callous as the pooches owner.
further evidence that as a country we are going to the dogs.






i am sorry i couldn't resist it.

review

been to see a whole heap of movies recently and no doubt i will write about them another day. tonight though i am going to briefly mention james patterson's "london bridges". now i don't claim to be a literary authority, i will leave that to emma and cliff, both of whom read much more impressive books than me. yet even i know when i have been sold a pup. patterson is one of the most successful novelists writing today. he writes thrillers, he does romances and his books have been made into films.

the lead character is alex cross, a black (though only once in the book is this mentioned, though it is referred to often by references to things such as food and music. in cross' world there seems to be no such thing as racism or resentment) fbi agent who used to be a washington cop and a published psychologist. not only is he a brianiac he is also an action hero who gets to drive fast and kick in doors with swat teams. the character is crying out for denzil or wesley to play him in a movie, bizarrely the two films that have been made of alex cross adventures have featured morgan freeman in the lead role.

there have been 10 books in the cross series. i have only read one. i will not be reading another.
cross has to go up against two of his most despicable foes: the weasel (a british serial killer) and the wolf (a russian mafiya kingpin super duper bad guy).
the wolf is trying to hold the world to ransom. he wants billions in cash and political criminals released. if he doesn't get his money then bombs will start going off everywhere. in fact several bombs get detonated in the first half of the book. but the wolf doesn’t have any old bomb he had suitcase dirty nukes. all very topical.
everything is written in short chapters, there is no real reason the chapters are short as in most cases they just seem to be paragraph breaks. but as dan brown has shown: make the chapters short and it makes for a page-turner as you will read "just one more chapter" before you put the book down.
true the book rips along at a fair old pace. cross goes to france, he goes to london, and he goes here he goes there. he gains partners, he loses partners, people in the cia are murdered, places are blown up, double crosses take place, and whooosh it all rushes by.
there is an attempt to make cross a real person. he is conflicted by the loss of his first wife (she died in a previous novel) the fact that he is separated from his second wife and their child, that the woman he is currently in love with lives the other side of the country. throw in some moments of self-doubt that almost verge on self pity and you have a complex character. oh sorry i forgot cross is relentless - he always gets his man, never gives in. there you go i have given the character as much depth as patterson has bothered to do. compared with the other characters in the book alex cross is a finely wrought sketch of human strengths and foibles. the others are lucky to be 2 dimensional!
the plot is built upon set piece on set piece and upon coincidence and the timely solving of clues (given that the wolf character appeared in a previous book you have to wonder why they didn't solve them there as well).
description is kept to a minimum. it is mainly dialogue and exposition. alex cross is written in the first person, when other characters take the stage they are written in the third person. makes no odds they are still written badly.
and that is the great crime of this book is that it is so badly written. the fact that it is a simple read is all that got me to the end (that and the fact i don't like not finishing books). i found myself snigger as i read it. as i have said i am not a reader of fine literature - hell i like doc savage books and loved the executioner series, but this is just total tripe.
avoid at all costs.

if you are looking for good crime and thriller writers check out john connolly, robert crais, carl hiaasen and michael connolly all far superior to james patterson and much more deserving of his success.

the verdict from pat is that james patterson's "london bridges" sucks the big one. you have been warned.

demo

there is a big demo taking place in london tomorrow (18th - coincidently the weekend that v for vendetta opens. its a good film. go and see it. tell them pat sent you).
it's a bit of a mixed demo. it's about the troops out of iraq, it's about defending the muslim community and it's about not attacking iran. who knows by tomorrow they may have also added it is about making sure that pop idol is only allowed back on out screens if george galloway gets to win it.

and talking of the gorgeous one his party, respect, will be there.
now i have to say i am tempted to go along. i am still not convinced the attack and invasion of iraq was a bad thing. what was disastrous was the obvious lack of planning as to what to do once the war had been won. hence the reason the place is going to hell in a handbasket.

so as respect are one of the key players in the whole anti-war debate i thought i would get details from their site. and it's true they have details.

"Saturday 18th March 2006
National - National demonstration
Troops home from Iraq - Don't attack Iran
assemble midday, Central London"

now i may not know london as well as emma, but i do know central london covers a lot of ground. so either they are expect an awful lot of people to arrive and fill up central london. or everyone who is associated with the demonstration knows the exact location of the centre of london (and no doubt there are a few pyschogeographers out there who can tell you where it is).

but hold on help is at hand.

"Respect will be having two stalls at the demonstration. We want to ensure that we have a vibrant presence on the demonstration and are asking as many members as possible to come and help with the stalls and the distribution of placards and the new national Respect tabloid:

Parliament Square stall: 10am – 1pm
Trafalgar Square Stall: 1.30pm onwards."

so they can't tell you where it will meet other than a general "central london" covers a lot of ground, but they can tell you where to buy their latest tract: "target iran" which is written by george galloway. 3g has been busy.

so hats off to respect. can't be arsed to tell you where to meet for the march, but can tell you where to buy stuff from.
it's almost like capitalism is right!

gotta love 3g and his boys.

glasses

there are many things i find beautiful, some are obvious and some are not so obvious. there are many things i have phobias about, some are obvious and some are not so obvious. eyes fight into both categories.
in the long list of things that are wrong with me my eyes contribute a couple of items. i have a cast in one, or to put it bluntly i am boss-eyed. so i got called clarence (the older readers will get the reference) or cyclops. often i was asked if i saw double - as i grew older the stock answer became "shall i punch you in the mouth to see if i hit the right one?" no one ever took me up on the offer.
then there is the colour blindness. and of course the short sightedness.
i have been wearing glasses most of my life. i have no problems with wearing glasses.
i have a problem with contact lenses (here is one of my phobias) i get a little bit scared when it comes to things being near my eyeball. i get very very squeamish at horror movies when something nasty happens to people's eyeballs (i had a friend who was a big fan of italian horror movies - should couldn't stand spiders, i can't stand eyeballs - mostly it meant we just hid behind our cushions at different times).
so it is always going to be glasses for me.
while in new york i managed to chip the lens of my last pair of glasses, the pair before that i had shattered into several pieces.
it was a sign that i needed to go and get a new pair of glasses.
the opticians was fun. for some bizarre reason when I have an eye test I think I might be getting the answers wrong, so I am always in panic mode. This added to the fact that there is a small chance that they will jab your eye while they are peering at you with the lighty thing always has me on edge.
Tests done, prescription in hand I make my way to specsavers (I felt a little guilty about not spending my glasses money at d&a because the optician was friendly, good and cute).
Now it shouldn’t be hard to buy glasses. It really shouldn’t. but I am confronted with 100s of styles that are all only slightly different from each other. I sort of knew what I wanted, it didn’t take me long to realise that it wasn’t there. After much dithering I found some that I liked.
Well I might have liked them but mr optician was very concerned that my choices were not suitable. Something about my ears being the wrong size or in the wrong place, oh and then the cast in the eye came into play – did it make a difference of 2mm or 4mm – like I knew. They did this, they did that. They all seemed very concerned and very helpful. A test here, a look there. A pause, a thought and a knowing nod.
Nearly an hour after I went into specsavers I had 2 frames chosen – I no longer know what they are. I will (hopefully) pleasantly shocked when I go to collect them Saturday.

Nothing is simple when I am involved.

google

it does seem that google must soon change it's name to hypocrite.
when asked by the american government to cough up information about web searches they say no.
"Cooperating with the government "is a slippery slope and it's a path we shouldn't go down", Google co-founder Sergey Brin told industry analysts earlier this month. " (from bbc.com)
but isn't this the same google that is happy to cooperate with the chinese government in restricting what the chinese population can search for via google. in that case they don't mind helping the government clamp down on what people search for. but hey we understand google (or gulag as it was being called for while) you need to crack that chinese market. and you wouldn't want to get tough with those guys, because you know they would just tell you to sod off.
but with the american government it is easier to take the tough stance - becuase it means you can once again pretend to be about freedom of information and standing up against government pressure.
have to wonder is that because you really care - or is it more to do with your stock prices? and a near pr stunt to help us all forget how you agreed to the chinese restrictions.

ships

there i am in my local cinema settling down to watch "sympathy for lady vengeance", a korean crime movie of some style (by the director of oldboy). the trailers are being shown. up comes basic instinct 2. whoooooo hoooo sharon stone in a movie, but not only sharron stone in a movie, but sharron stone in a movies being sexy. totally double bubble movie experience. it will be essential viewing.
i am there later in the week this time to see tsui hark's "seven swords" a wonderful historical fantasy about martial art swordmasters. the trailer before the film was basic instinct 2. i am jazzed i can't wait to see it.
but as i am watching this trailer for the second time there is a tinge of sadness.
basic instinct 2 is set in london, in fact some of it takes place in and near the swiss re building.
this modern classic building is only a stone's (geddit) throw away from where i live.
sharron stone was withing walking distance of me and i didn't know it. i could have hung around and gawped like the love sick puppy i am.
sharron stone is one of the last of the true screen goddesses. it doesn't matter what she does on the screen you are just drawn to her, she is beautiful, she has a sensual voice and it helps she can act. sure sharron has not always made the best choices when it comes to making films - but when she is hot she is hot!
(i was smitten with her from the moment she appeared on screen in basic instinct, which i saw at the cinema with my pal paul. many years after that i was watching a documentary abut the director paul verhooven and was shocked that that beeped out a fuck but showed the shot of stone's vagina. i mentioned this to paul and also said we must have seen the edited version, he told me no it was there on the screen. somehow when i saw this movie at the cinema i missed seeing sharron stone's pussy smiling at me several feet high).
anyway i missed her.
she was in my manor and i missed her.

london book fair. i was there. gorgeous george galloway was there. i was there being a booth bunny (dull, unpleasent work only enlivened by the passing by of tight skirted high heeled publishing babes (of which there were many....) the gorgeous one was there to promote his book the "fidel castro handbook". george galloway counts fidel among his friends and was granted access to the cuban archives to make the book the best of it's kind. i am sure that 3g is a great author, but it is a book i will pick up when it has been remaindered (no doubt in time for christmas).
of course questions were raised about galloway being there because the organisers of the event and the event location were both recently linked to an arm's trade fair.
many writers complained about this and the linking of the book's industry to the arms industry, though i am not sure how recent the linkage is - i am guessing that a fair few of the bigger publishing houses are connected in someways to unsavoury goings on.
but 3g has no excuse not to know that there were links between reed (the organisers) and excel (the location) and the arms trade show as many of his party followers would have been involved in protests that took place.
but needless to say (and as we all suspected) 3g is more interested in himself than he is in politics.
nexr year he will no doubt be displaying his book on the "sayings of saddam"!

but all i can say is that me and sharron and that me and gorgeous george galloway passed each other like ships in the night.

arty

so i am back in blighty.
i am happy to be back in london, i love london too much to not want to be here. i have to say that some of london's faults become very obvious when you have been away for a bit. sadly i would lay those faults at the feet of the people who live in london.
but not to dwell on this here are some arty shots of the a dlr station.
(sorry paul i know they are not happy shots - but i have done the happy photo back at christmas, only so much happy from pat in a year....)

nyc: hotel

a couple of external views of the hotel.
it is was not the most extravagant of places (the hotel that i would have been staying in if was was prepared to share was $195 a night, this was $79 and the difference was obvious, but had my own room, own shower and peace and quiet...)

the manager of the place was a fiery latina, who i think could have stormed iraq on her own and won. she was gorgeous. i was in love.

i was on the 4th floor (room 420), though for us it was really the third floor. several nights when i was coming back late the conceirge (an old bloke) would have trouble letting me. still i wasn't in the bother of one bod who had turned up there close to midnight, with no key and they were not letting him near the room he said he had. not sure what the outcome was as i went off to my room to kip. but i didn't like his chances as none of the staff would dare to cross the manger.

i am thinking i will do a splash and dash long weekend in nyc before too long and i would have no qualms about staying in the woogo again. though with a quick check i can see that the prices have gone up, even though there is a 70% discount offer on!

the other alternative that i might try when i do the dash over there is priceline where you can bid a price for a hotel and see if the hotel type and location you have selected go for it. might be fun to see if you can get a decent high starred hotel for small change. the only catch is you can't choose the hotel, if a hotel says yes then you are booked in with them.

be a couple of months before i do it, but i reckon i will be back in nyc before the end of the year.

nyc: fdny

some of new york's finest - not quite in action.

nyc: pic

a few more pics

nyc: pic

some more pics from nyc.