42

for douglas adams 42 is the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
for gordon brown 42 was a political virility test.
for david davis 42 is a matter of principle.

the labour government recently won the vote on the extension of the period a person can be held without charge from 28 days to 42 days. they wanted this extension not because they needed it right now, but because they might need it in the future. the reason being that terrorists were becoming more and more sophisticated and more skilled at using their computers to hide what they were doing, unlike gary glitter and pete townsend.
as yet the current allowance of 28 days has only been used on a handful of occasions, in some cases those detained were innocent.

by the skin of it’s teeth the government got what it wanted: there was a yes vote on the extension to 42 days. this doesn’t mean it has won. the house of lords is likely to vote against it, this bringing it back to the house of commons. still early days.

there is a lot of harrumphing about how the 42 days proposal is undemocratic, yet polls show that the majority of people are in agreement with the proposal. how odd for gordon brown to be on the side of the public opinion.

david davis has been an outspoken critic of 42 days. he is an outspoken critic of the much-heralded decline in civil liberties that have been taking place in recent years. he lost the debate in the house of commons. his solution? resign and force a by-election.
over the last couple of days much praise has been heaped on davis for his principled stand, so unusual for an mp cry one and all.
if only it was such.
davis talks about the attacks on civil liberties, but seems quite happy to flaunt the rules of a democratic parliament by throwing his toys out of the pram: “i didn’t get the result i wanted so i am going to scream and scream until i do…”

the by-election davis tells us will be fought on the single issue of civil liberties. he challenges the government to defend their position in his local constituency. his argument goes that if they are so certain that they are right then they will win the vote. the liberal democrats are not going to stand a candidate as they agree with david davis.
ah if everything in the world was so simple.
at the general election the labour party came a weak third. it is very doubtful that the campaign can be kept to the single issue, and even if it could be it is unlikely that the electors are going to be able to think of it as anything but an anti-government vote or a pro davis vote because they have admired his work as their local member of parliament.
in short he is going to win. when you are onto a certainty it is easy to stick by your principles.

this isn’t to say that gordon brown’s attachment to the 42 days is a good thing. the argument has not really been won. so far there has been no hue and cry from the police or intelligence service for 42 days to happen (although a good case could be made that they don’t have to say anything as the government is making all the running on this). so far the experience is that 28 days is more than adequate.
in order to get the bill through various amendments have been made which almost render it pointless (such as having to come before parliament to ask for permission to extend the incarceration period), additionally those that are held beyond 28 who are found to be innocent will be compensated at the rate of £3000 a day, perhaps that money could be better spent in getting more computer literate intelligent service personnel so that you didn’t have to keep someone banged up for 48 days.

while it is true that a majority of people are in favour of the 42 days extension we don’t always elect our members of parliament to do what we want, we often want them to make the hard decisions for us – which is why we don’t have the death penalty here.

the worst part of all of this is not the encroachment on civil liberties but the utter waste of political energy and capital that gordon brown is making on this issue.
assuming that he is not turfed out by the labour party, it is probable that brown only has until 2010 as prime minister, and probably much less time when he has the power to make a difference, as there will come a point when he no longer has control over labour members of parliament.
instead of doing what he really wants to do: make a difference to poor and working class of the country he has gotten himself caught up in a bizarre piece of macho posturing. instead of trying to build his own legacy he is busy trying to finish off a mess started by tony blair.

in the end neither brown or davis is right over the issue of 42 days, douglas adams comes closest: what matters is making sure you ask the right questions, at least then you have the chance of getting an answer that makes sense.

stuff

who knew i had so much junk? well i admit i did know, but i sort of thought (well more hoped) that it would be easier to clear up.
i seem to have piles of stuff, boxes of things, bundles of bits, heaps of bobs. i have started to rack and pack it all. i have started to sort it out. i have started to move it from here to there. i am throwing out, i am recycling, and i am clearing.
i feel a little like a fat hairy hercules.
i am expecting to find rosebud perched on the ark of the covenant.
the one thing i doubt i will find is the unified theory of the universe, but early days yet.

peeves

i am a man of many peeves. some peeves make it to full blown hates. i suspect that as we get older the number of peeves we have grows. some peeves are based on rational reasons and if pressed on the issue you could defend your reasons, other peeves have no rational basis and they just are.
there is no reason why i should get so irked by blokes in low-slung jeans, yet i do. it is not like i have an interest (or knowledge) of fashion, but the sight of the low slung jeans makes me snort with derision. it is irrational.

this is the time of year when another of my pet peeves pops out. this is the one where i get annoyed at commentators who just have a pop at something for the sake of having a pop (a little like i am doing now). recently there was amanda platell having a go at geri halliwell for selling pictures of her daughters first birthday. the piece slagged geri for showing her daughter off and using her to earn cash. yet there accompanying the article was a picture of geri and baby. it made sense to me.

last night it was radio 5 live going on about “big brother”. one of the advantages of not having a telly is that i don’t have to watch “big brother” and in all the years that is has been on i have not watched it.
now i know that the bbc contribute to the upkeep of channel 4, it is still not a good enough reason for them to constantly plug “big brother”. last night it was whether or not “big brother” had run its course. the best part of an hour was taken up with the discussion, which seemed to decide that indeed the show has not been worth watching for years.
this morning there was a similar conversation on one of the other radio 5 live shows.

call me stupid (and many have) but surely if the whole thrust of what you are saying is someone or something doesn’t deserve the publicity they are striving for then perhaps the best way to deal with it is to ignore them.
after all it is not like there isn’t enough going on in the world to find something interesting to talk about.

cripes i am turning into my dad….

orgy

you would never have thought that a simple private orgy, albeit it one that had multiple prostitutes went on for 5 hours and took place in a dungeon, would have merited much media attention. but you would be wrong.
for all of the uproar you would have thought that max mosley was indulging in caligula like excesses rather than giving his little soldier a bit of exercise.
part of the allegations brought against max is that part of the fun was a bit a nazi style s&m role-play. there in lies the (body) rub as max mosley is the son of sir oswald mosley, the wartime leader of the british union of fascists, and hero to jay. (it is nice to note that even though he was a fascist we still refer to him as “sir”, good to see politeness still holds sway.)

quite way anyone cares about what max mosley does in his spare time is beyond me, though i am impressed with his stamina, can only hope i still have that get up and go in me when i get to his age (actually wouldn’t mind it now).
the news of the world thought differently and paid a lot of money to one of the prostitutes for the story and the pictures.

mosley is an international figure because of his involvement with formula 1 racing. he is one of the men that make sure that a very repetitive sport (the cars they go round and round and round) and very wasteful sport (the cars they burn up lots and lots of fuel to go round and round) earns lots and lots of money.
he seems to have been very successful at it.

formula 1 is not a moral sport. the stars of formula 1 are not role models they are mostly icons of conspicuous consumption.

the problem, it appears, isn’t what max mosley was up to but that he got caught

we live in a celebrity obsessed culture so that anything that happens to a celebrity (no matter how minor) is seen as being newsworthy, and if it has the whiff of scandal then so much the better.

given the nature of formula 1, cars going nowhere fast, what max does in the (dis)comfort of his dungeon should be a matter for him and him alone. just as it is the right of people who may have to deal with mosley not to want to shake hands with him (after all you never know where that fist might have been). shunned he seems to have been by the great and the good of the formula 1 world, apparently he is not welcome in places such as china or saudi arabia – both places which have sterling human rights and are fine examples of moral probity.

mosley decided not to go quietly (apparently this is what people do when they have been caught doing something private) he said lets put it to the vote.
they did.
he won.
now people are complaining that the process was not fair.
democracy it seems only works when you are winning.

the key argument seems to be that max mosley is the public face of formula 1 and is now compromised in this position. when in reality he is the public face to the sponsors and teams. he is the same person he was before the revelation of his orgiastic behaviour was broadcast to everyone. he is still as capable of doing his job now as he was then.

the role model argument is a convenient one to throw out. just whom is he supposed to be a role model to? i am sure he finding out that mosley spends five hours in a dungeon is not going to create a rush on the local s&m hangouts as all the “kids” want to try out a bit of leather and pvc action. true he may inspire a few conservative mps to follow suit but i am sure they already have a few numbers of their own to call.
it wouldn’t be so bad if the news of world, which broke the story, was not a newspaper (and i use the term lightly) that was littered with adverts for premium rate call lines many of which have a s&m flavour to them. expect a “ride max to the finish line” call service soon.

as mosley’s job has nothing to do with public health or public morality the only “public interest” aspect of the story was to titillate. in this our free press plays its very own role in the nanny state that it so often derides.
perhaps mosley’s problem was that he has made lots of money, gained lots of influence without being a creation of the media. unlike the amy winehouses and peter dohertys of the world there has been no chance of building them up and stripping them down, pretending that they should be role models for children and teenagers around the world. the constant cycle of building up and breaking down sells the papers. so in the cases of the media stars you know that they are always going to be coming back to help sell papers.

in mosley’s case he is a one hit wonder so they may as well go all out and destroy him. no matter that their expectations of how he should live his life are probably out of step with most of us and out of step of most of the adverts they run in their paper.

totty

it is time to add a new name to the top tory totty list: amanda platell.
she has gone from being an australian back-packer who decided to stay in the uk, to a fleet street editor, to tory spin-doctor and back to journalist.
i find most of her views to be dull, though i am intrigued at her constant attacks at women celebrities. i don’t know enough about her but you can’t help but think it is all about jealousy.
but putting all that aside i wouldn’t kick her out of bed.
ms platell is a foxy right-winger and she gets me a little hot…

quit

i like hillary clinton, but then i have a thing for powerful strident women.
i had a dream that hillary clinton and condoleezza rice would contest the presidential race and perhaps just get down to a baby oil covered catfight. but that is just me.
instead poor hillary is about to see her run at the democratic nomination come to an end. she started out as the clear favourite but barack obama’s vision filled speeches of hope has seen him leap into pole position.
at this point there are not enough delegates left for either of the candidates win outright, but the sensible money is on obama to get the required numbers of super-delegates to get the nod.

but even at this point hillary is fighting on. she has issued a clarion cry to the super-delegates to vote for her.
there is a slim chance that the confrontation will continue past the last two elections through until the democratic conference.

should she go for the dragged out endgame?
no.
the american political process just takes forever. finding the right democratic candidate seems to have taken years. yet after all this the winner still has to contest the presidential vote with john mccain.
hillary needs to find a way to quit and support obama or else there is big chance that mccain will win and the world will remain a less safe place.

so hillary do it for the rest of us. given in now. tell obama you love him and then help him to win the presidency.
go hillary you can give it up and then you have saved us from the prospect of more republicans in the white house.

quit for americans, quit for the rest of the world. stand down, support barack and make the world a safe place.

(and if you can sort out that baby oil match with condi then i would be pleased…)

metal

i have been known to throw guitar poses; i have been known to shake my locks manically (sometimes even in time to the music). i like metal – it can be speed, death, thrash, black, industrial, prog, and big hair – as long as it is metal that is all that matters. from the basic 3-piece outfit through the twin guitar attack bands, they can have double bass drum set-ups, keyboards, flutes and violins. they just have to be metal. the vocalist can scream, they can growl, they can screech there can even be two vocalists. just so long as they are metal.
so i am a metal fan. so sue me.
on the train back thursday night (the feeling of relief of being on the last train from the north still flowing through my system like a summer’s rain cleaning the humidity from the air…. oooh get me) i was slightly shocked to watch a metal band jump on the train.
they were in traditional look – all black clothes with various bands decorating the various t-shirts. all of them with tattoos, several of them with piercings. the girls had the big platform boots on.
it was quite obvious they had come from a gig.
they were all happy, all talking about the highlights of the night.

now the first thing wrong with this was that they were travelling by train: whatever happened to touring in the transit van?

but that wasn’t the thing that got to me.
to judge from their t-shirts and piercings this was a band from the goth, industrial part of the metal family. probably with a big “type o negative” influence.
nothing wrong there.

yet there was a moment when all i could think was “oh no”. it started with a simple comment when the drummer mentioned that he had pulled out a chunk of his hair when he caught it in his drumstick. this lead into a bit about how good the guitarist looked when he shook his head in the solo. quickly followed by a comparison about hair lengths (remember this is the blokes talking) and how long it took to grow. this led into a discussion between some of them about whether one should straighten his hair or leave it wavy.

spinal tap eat your heart out.
wooooooooaorgh

next

so the last day came and went. in grand pat style it didn’t go to plan. i had this sneaky scheme to get in early, pass my keys on to someone and slink out of the place without any fanfare. with a quick exit from work i would have been back in london by late afternoon.
i was still thinking of this plan at 9am, 10am, and 11am. around midday i had revised the time i would get back to london.
in the back of my mind i knew there would be no escaping early.
who would have thought clearing out an office would have taken so long?
after much pack, stacking, boxing and throwing out i got it all done.
and would you adam and eve it even on my last day there were only 2 of us left in the building. so i got to do some of the locking process.
the only problem was that by the time i got out there was no chance i would catch the 20.05 train.
noooooooooooooooooooooo not another night in the north!

luckily saint chuff (patron saint of trains) was looking down and there is one at 20.58. phew. back in london at the wee small hours of the morning.

friday starts in a bit of sleepy daze. i have a plan for the for first month – i am going to clean my flat. long time coming i can tell you.
have even worked out the method i am going to use. split rooms into areas and then move stuff from one area to another area, cleaning the empty area. simple really.

except i ended up in brick lane drinking coffee.
much better outcome for the day.

besides i can do the packing, racking and stacking in my flat tomorrow.

well that is a good start to my new life.

endings

last day in the office.
lots to do.
mixed feelings. kinda sad, kinda excited, kinda scared.

best get back to work, while i still have a job to do.

rain

my last few days in the north and all it is doing is raining a bit, raining a lot and raining some more.
it would be perfect other than fact i have left my waterproofs at home.
call me soggy.

boris

for some odd reason when i am writing about london's new mayor boris johnson i have an urge to call him either "boorish" or "borish" johnson.
i know it is not particularly funny but it does make me smile.
i wonder if jeremy paxman ever thinks like that?

oil

we live in volatile times. the price of everything is soaring, except house prices, which are plummeting (oooh get me i have come over all daily mail on you). the credit crunch has many of us by the short and curlies.
we cry out for a leader to carry us through this economic minefield. a man (or woman, as i can do pc as well as the next man (or woman) – see i told you i could) with strong convictions, a firm grasp of the situation and bravery to chart the course needed.
step forward our broad shoudered touselled headed blonde leader boris.
yes in a time when oil prices keep going up boris, the mayor of london, has decided not to renew the deal with venezuela which allowed london’s buses to get cheap fuel, which in turn allowed them to be offering travel concessions to those on social security.
back when it was signed ken livingstone, the then mayor, claimed it would benefit up to a quarter of a million londoners, the current take up is far short of that at close to 60,000 people. still that is a lot of people who are much better off. payment for this oil was to be in the form of consultancy work carried out by london experts in the fields of: recycling, waste management, traffic and on reducing carbon emissions.
at the time the deal was struck it was attacked by the green party, who complained that livingstone should be finding ways to reduce london’s reliance on fossil fuels. which is fair enough as that is what the green’s mostly stand for. while the conservatives complained that livingstone and hugo chavez, the venezuelan president, should be ashamed of this deal as it exploited the poor of venezuela. which is fair enough as the conservative party have always stood for compassion for the poor (sorry for a moment there i was cameron’s press secretary).

step forward boris johnson. he sees the inequity of the deal. we get cheap oil, buses can pass on the savings to be poorest, and venezuela gets advice it needs. to boris and the tories there is a terrible smell about this. so they have to stop it.
boris says: "many londoners felt uncomfortable about the bus operation of one of the world's financial powerhouses being funded by the people of a country where many people live in extreme poverty" most of those people who were disgruntled would be tory members of the greater london assembly, the rest of us not so bothered.
"there are better ways of benefiting londoners and better ways of benefiting venezuelans". but “ways” were outlined and i suspect none will be forthcoming any time soon. (to be fair to boris he is maintaining the subsidies for those on benefit until the original deal runs out – august of this year.)
back when the deal was signed richard barnes, the then leader of london assembly conservatives slammed the deal because "london should not be doing business with third-rate south american dictators with an appalling human rights and democratic record."
too right richard we just want our deals to be with first-rate dictators with appalling human rights and democratic records.
with all this talk from david cameron, boris johnson and, now, richard barnes i am expecting the conservative party to unveil several ethical programmes that will ban the sale of weapons to dictatorships, ensure that countries we invest in and do business with are transparent with their human rights records, while back home i expect both david and boris to address the thorny issue of workers rights to ensure that they are protected against the unscrupulous employers. in addition to that the conservatives will lead the charge to ensure that big business pays fairer taxes because they should not exploit the worker.
then again i think that in this instance both boris and richard were just talking for effect and frankly they don’t care about the poverty in venezuela, nor do they care about the state of venezuelan workers they were just miffed that ken livingstone got a sweet deal worked out that benefited the poor in london.

still we can all rest easy as the mayor’s press release states that with the closing of the office in caracas £67,000 a year will be saved on the lonodn budget (even though that £67,000 was actually buying cheap oil).
so although london buses will now have to pay the market rate for oil boris can at least claim to make good on a campaign claim as he has stopped a scheme that he referred to as “crackers”. good for you boris.

one of the reasons that the deal had to go was that the new first deputy mayor (the unelected) tim parker saw the deal as not being part of the “core strategy” for the greater london assembly. mr. parker is interested that londoners get value for money for any deals struck. getting cheap oil seems not to be value for money.
but look boris has struck a deal with mayor bloomberg of new york. the two mayors have agreed to swap personnel and ideas so that both cities could learn from each other’s best practices.
well that is value for money. hold on my 25 bus runs so much better on “best practice” than it does on petrol.
could it be that new york is a better place to go than caracas?
could it be that boris and mr. parker just don’t like left-wingers?

but here is irony for you. do you want to know which other city has a deal with venezuela for cheap fuel?
can you guess?
score one for the home team if you said new york.

mayor bloomberg share some of that best practice with boris and mr. parker now.

zit

i have a zit on my bum.
it is not nice. i can't get a good enough grip on it to give it a good squeeze.
now it is just annoying....

countdown

the last few days of work are stretched out in front of me. the day after i leave is going to be odder than i thought.
but before i get maudlin i have to confess that of the many things i am going to miss it is going to be my air con unit i am going to miss the most. the last few hot days have reminded me why i hate summer and looking at the 2008 year planner (nothing much going on from june 1st…) the days of summer seem to go on and on and on.

geez i am a bundle of fun.

prescott

"annoying, bewildering and prickly" is john prescott’s description of gordon brown.
how do we know this? well prescott is selling his memoirs, so he needs to have something that makes us all go out there and put down our hard earned cash.
it is also the reason why we had to listen to his bulimia stories.

prescott mentions his hundreds of reconciliation meetings between blair and brown.

prescott isn’t actually attacking brown, as he professes admiration of both blair and brown. it is just that his timing really sucks.

whatever good prescott has done in the past for the labour party he has undone it all with his memoirs. for a grubby few pounds he has added to the current of criticism of gordon brown.

don’t worry john i am sure that david cameron and co will reward you well; just don’t choke on the cakes when you scoff them.

still prezza isn’t alone cherie blair is also entering the memoir business. it is well known she has little time for gordon brown, so her attacks are not unexpected.
even so she manages to shock with her revelation that tony blair is “secretly” is helping gordon brown plan the next general election campaign.
well it is nice to know that such a high-powered lawyer is such a tattletale.

gordon brown has become a shit magnet.

i am waiting for him to get the blame of the burmese cyclone.

where

a few weeks ago it was the tail end of winter.
now we seem to be in summer, what happened to spring? what happened to the lead in period of warm weather that prepares us for hot weather?
where has it gone?

as if i didn’t have enough to be miserable about, i now have the hate of summer to deal with.

boris

boris is in charge of london. cripes.
i like boris, but i am not sure that i like him being in charge of london. we shall see how he copes and what it means to those of us living here. does it mean the end of the bendy bus? i hope not i like the 25. will it mean the end of the growing building of big glass boxes? i hope so.
i doubt very much if it will end the proliferation of american descriptions such as midtown (holborn to most of us) south central (southwark) and recently the arrival of noho (marylebone), but if boris can do that then he might get my vote next time around.

the scary thing is that this result probably heralds the end of the current labour administration and the rise of david cameron and his tory party.

disaster

no matter how you look at it last night at the polls was a disaster for gordon brown and the labour government.
cameron is right to talk about it being a "big night" for the conservative party.
the electorate have given the clunking fist of brown a bloody nose and it is likely that the london mayoral election is about to land him with a black eye.

yet brown is also right to say that the results are due to the fact that there are some unusual circumstances out there at the moment.
labour is paying the price for not just these events but also for the fact that they have been in powere for a long time and that they have forgotten that they have to pay attention to the electorate.

cameron took the chance to once again point out that this was a vote against labour's top down approach to government. in this he echoes the mantra of thatcher. so under cameron we can expect less government and more local action.
but the point is what people really want is a government who will protect them from the wider world's mistakes. we want them to make the big hard decisions that will stave off the problems brought on by stupidity of greedy banks.
that is what we want we just don't want to admit it.

brown has been punished for the credit crunch, he has been punished for the rise in petrol prices (but not to worry the two companies involved with petrol just released record profits), he has been punished becuase of the rise of food, yet we know tescos will release figures of record profits and the farmers will complain that they are not paid enough for what they grow.
bad transport? it is the government - even if the rail and airlines are privately owned.
it is a long list of what is going wrong and blamed on the government. (even eard a banker blame the recent problems in the banking industry on the bank of england for not spotting the banks own recklessnes...)

but brown has problems of his own. he heeds to drop policies that are pointless and just there to make headlines - forget about id cards, forget about the 42 day limit. concentrate on what it is that labour should stand for. the people, the working people. work towards protecting them and rewarding them.

do that sort of thing and watch the votes come flooding back.

meanwhile i am going to go off and sulk as boris becomes the mayor of london.

election

c'mon ken.

yeah i know it is pretty incisive, but what else can i say?
for all his faults ken livingstone is not a tory - that should be enough to get everyone voting for him.
fingers crossed that boris doesn't get in.

punch

david cameron has “fessed” up to the fact that he has not been able to pursue the quiet politics he had promised he would do.
he believes that prime minister question time is adversarial and that commons is designed for such antics.
cameron sees himself as being robust and that if you do not take that approach “…you lose out."

of course it helps the robust performances of cameron that gordon brown is not the most gifted speaker in the world and in fact would probably appreciate a more detailed discussion of questions in prime minister questions, but that wouldn’t suit cameron.

a little like a bully cameron keeps up his one or two lines of attack “ditherer” “never answers questions”, regardless of the fact that brown and labour may have made a decision and did answer the question.

cameron is aware that the whole point of prime minister questions is not to debate the issues it is to get some soundbites.

they still remain the nasty party.

jobsworth

there i am on the train. i’ll get a first class supplement, why not i say to myself – it is not like i need to save the companies cash! so i plonk myself down in the quiet zone carriage. i get my book, my paper, my m&s sarnies and my coffee arranged and i get comfortable.

boy do i feel good that i managed to buy some supplies at the station as the train manager make the announcement that due to staff shortages there is no shop opening on the journey.

i sip my coffee and smile thinking “i don’t care i am sorted!”

the train rocks on. i read my book (it is a patricia cornwell book, a bit of a disappointment and i won’t be reading any more of her books). i am happy.

train manager comes round.

“can i get a first class upgrade please?”
“no that service isn’t available”
“what?”
“can’t give you the upgrade…”

he walks off. i finish my coffee. pack my bags.
then wander along the train to find somewhere to sit.
through two almost empty first class carriages.

the first standard class i come to is packed, not a spare seat. same with the second one. at the end of the third one i find a space i can sit in and spread out a little bit. i go back to get some of my stuff. i make the treacherous walk along the train trying not to bump into people or fall on to them and all the time trying to maintain some cool. get to where i was sitting. pick up a couple of bags.
trudge back to the standard class.
plonk the bags down.
walk back.
other passengers thinking “what is he doing?”

back in first class i see the train manager. i have a bit of a fume on. we don’t complain enough. darn it i am going to complain.
i decide to ask him his name. he gives it and then asks why.
i tell him i am going to write a letter of complaint that he wouldn’t sort me out an upgrade.
“we don’t have the staff for the service” he says.
“how does that matter? you have the machine there you can bill me?”
“no staff for the service” he repeats his mantra.
“that’s madness, besides the rest of the train is packed”
“i never said you had to move, i just told you i can’t bill you…..”

oooooops bright red, major embarrassment, jaw dropping, blood throbbing in my ears not quite hearing the rest of what he was saying
“…shouldn’t assume….”

well my apologies were craven and profuse.

to make matters worse later on in the journey the train manager has arranged to get some free drinks out for the passengers based on the fact that the shop was closed and the train packed and warm.

what a bastard, making me feel even worse for my earlier faux pas.

to that train manager i doff my cap at you for just being good and sensible at your job and to publicly apologise for making such a tit of myself.

now i know why we don’t complain as often as we should – because sometimes we look very very silly when we do.

but i did learn a valuable lesson – no jobs for me where there is contact with the general public as i might end up having to deal with an idiot like me.

enemies

with friends like these who needs enemies – so goes the old saying. gordon brown must really understand what it means.
for a few months gordon was the saviour. the serious politician, the change maker, the man with the vision thing. all it took was a stupid decision to tease the electorate that he was going to go to the polls and now brown and his party look to be ditherers and incapable of giving a straight forward answer.
more and more there is a real chance that cameron will actually when the next general election (london’s mayoral election will give an indication as to what will happen when the whole country goes to the polls.).

recently lord desai commented that the whole point of brown was to remind us how good blair was when he was in power.
now lord levy is on the attack. he claims that brown is a weak leader and this has lead to the squabbles that take place within the ranks of the labour party. levy says that brown was aware of the cash for honours (of course while implicating brown, levy makes it clear that he himself was against accepting loans). furthermore levy says that blair as commented that brown could not win against cameron in an election. this assertion has been denied by a blair spokesman. this alone is quite interesting. you can well believe that blair thinks that brown is a dead duck and has probably said it in passing to a few of his closest confidants and it is likely that levy was one of them, how it must please blair to see it out in the open like this.

it is all right though levy is very keen to point out that:
"firstly i'm a labour man, always will be a labour man, always have been a labour man.”
"my parents were, my family are, and i will never change my political viewpoint.
"i absolutely had total belief in tony blair, and i felt it was a privilege to help in any way i could both he and the labour party.

indeed levy wants to help so much that he is having his memoirs serialised in the mail on sunday newspaper (a paper that is notorious for the support it gives labour, that would be irony on my part), that he is publishing his memoirs at a time that is likely to cause the most embarrassment to the government

yes lord levy i can see you are labour through and through.

we can all take heart that lord levy is “saddened” by the bickering that is going on in the labour party. not that anything he says or writes while his memoirs are being discussed are likely to create any problems for the labour party.


lord levy is obviously a man of integrity and very trustworthy so his recent outburst can’t be about publicising his book – after all he is very wealthy and so doesn’t need the money.
it could be because he is still irked because brown replaced him as a middle east envoy
it is possible that lord levy wants to alert gordon brown to weaknesses in the labour party ahead of the local elections and to give labour time to restructure in order to fight the good fight in the forthcoming general election. because such a devoted labour man as himself would not want to give succour to the opposition, would they? in fact any of the pain that labour might feel in the polls because of what levy had written is worth it because it will make them stronger (and sell more of his book).
that is what it is. there it was in front of me all the time. lord levy is a caring parent of the labour movement and he is indulging in some tough love.

it is either that or he is just a spoilt tosser who doesn’t want others to play with his toys.

you decide.

quotes

there i was skipping through the channels when i hear the authoritative tones of jeremy paxman declare: “has lap dancing become socially acceptable?”

i was dumbstruck.

i must have missed the memo that told us that lap dancing was socially unacceptable.

live and learn.

george

and on this fine proud st george's day all that needs to be done is for me to just post this:

and did those feet in ancient time
walk upon england's mountains green?
and was the holy lamb of god
on england's pleasant pastures seen?

and did the countenance divine
shine forth upon our clouded hills?
and was jerusalem builded here
among these dark satanic mills?

bring me my bow of burning gold:
bring me my arrows of desire:
bring me my spear: o clouds unfold!
bring me my chariot of fire.

i will not cease from mental fight,
nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
till we have built jerusalem
in england's green and pleasant land.

blake's fantastic poem, set to music by hubert parry, is one of those songs that makes the hairs stand up and puffs the chest out with pride. as i type this i am listening to billy bragg version and thinking that it is a near perfect song.
it has helped get me through both my parent’s funerals.
strangely it is a hymn that has been “banned” from several of the nation’s churches because it is not devotional enough or it is nationalistic (how easy it is to confuse nationalism with patriotism), this is most notable in southwark cathedral.

where is my cross of st. george when i need it?

later on i will be doing the st. crispin’s day speech.

cruel

the latest stage in the, seemingly, never-ending political struggle between hillary clinton and barack obama to see which of them will run as the democratic presidential candidate is being played out in pennsylvania. the fight between them has been getting rather dirty.

today hillary attempted to show she was macho enough to lead the american people. when asked what she would do if iran launched a nuclear attack on israel her reply was "if i'm the president, we will attack iran... we would be able to totally obliterate them."
whooosh rock hard there hillary.

but a sneaky attack is being planned on iran. it is an attack that is worse than a nuclear strike, worse than a biological strike, far worse than boots on sand. this attack is going to hit the iranians hard and will probably change their way of life forever.

it is looking likely that tehran is going to host a chris de burgh concert. the simpering and anodyne pop singer famous for “the lady in red” is going to sing to iranians. he will be the first western musician to play in iran since the 1979 revolution.
chris may have to tone down his act for the iranians.

what i don’t understand is that in iran you have to have a permit to perform and yet chris is getting permission to play. why? how?
obviously someone is trying to undermine the regime from the inside.
once the local population begins to hum chris de burgh songs then cultural decline is not far behind.

hillary show the iranians some mercy and nuke them now before they have to listen to “the lady in red”.

quote

i can’t deny it i have enjoyed all 6 of the star wars movies. i still have fond memories of seeing stars wars on its opening day at the odeon leicester square with monty (and hearing for the first time the immortal utterance “brainblast”) or seeing it several times with adam at the granada cinema in harrow.
i never became a total star wars geek, but it was a close run thing. i could quote very large chunks of the film at the drop of a hat. i could (and would) discuss the metaphysical nature of the force. i was excited about the idea there were to be 9 films in the series, i devoured the film tie-in novels and worked out hidden histories from the hints in those books that never made it to the screen (ah the innocent days before video and dvd).
yet i never became a star wars geek.
why?
comics. comics were my first love and not even a lightsaber battle was going to change that.

it was a lucky escape.

in 2001 the jedi religion was recognised on the census. some 400,000 people said they were jedi.
presumably barney jones was one of them. barney, or to give him his jedi name of jedi master jonba hehol, was making a documentary about being a jedi in his back garden. in a break of filming a man dressed in a bin bag with a darth vader helmet on jumped into the garden and attacked jedi master jonba hehol and defeated him (the dark side winning again!).
darth appeared to be under the influence of drink.
barney, jedi master jonba hehol, was not amused declaring that "this wasn't a joke. this was serious."

to be fair to barney he knows a thing or two about serious not only is he a jedi master, not only is he a hairdresser he is also the founder (along with his brother) of britain’s first jedi church.

in a radio interview today barney said of his attacker: “he is clearly demented.”

pot and kettle.

1701

now i am on record as being a fan of the monarchy. i think they provide value for money – after all where else are you going to get a key public figure in nazi uniform (well maybe formula 1), where else are you going to have the heart warming story of a boy so besotted with his girlfriend he just drops into her parents field in his military issue helicopter?
gawd bless the royal family is what i say.

but in a case of pc gone mad the royal family are under attack from equality legislation.
back in 1701 eldest daughters were prevented from becoming the monarch if they had younger brothers.
but if vera baird, the solicitor general, has her way all this will change and women in the royal family will the same rights as their brothers – so it will be first out of the womb first on the throne (unless you marry a catholic – but that is another matter…)
as “unfair" and "a load of rubbish".
she went on to say "i have always thought that what we have to do with the royal family is integrate them as far as possible into the human race."
we all know that there is a glass ceiling for women in the economy and perhaps changing such a venerable institution as the royal family may encourage businesses around the country to give women equal pay and equal opportunities in the work place. but i doubt it.
why?
let’s be fair we have had a queen on the throne since 1952 and still the situation for women lags behind that of men. we have even had a woman prime minister (though most of us are still trying to forget those harrowing years) but look at parliament and look at the make up of the parties. look closely and you can see some women.
even with major examples there is much resistance to giving women equality so playing around with the royal family just seems to be no more than gesture politics.
but what really makes the whole thing, to quote ms baird, “a load of rubbish” is that the royal family by its very nature is unequal, it is a hereditary institution there is no equality in it – you have to be born into. it is not about ability, it is just about being there.
the exercise would make sense if people showed respect to the royal family, but as it stands very few people care about the status of the royal family, they are just interested in their antics.
perhaps ms baird would be better off looking at parliamentary institutions first.

notice

it has been coming for anew months now. although there were a few twists and turns at the end i am now looking forward to some serious changes in my life in the next few months.
my notice has been accepted and sometime soon i will take my redundancy package and move on.
have to say it is a very scary thing i am doing, been doing this for 20 years and perhaps i am too old to be changing careers. i can feel some twinges of regret and fear.
the short term future is going to be interesting, i suspect it might be my brown trouser period (and if i can sell those skidders for the sort of money picasso’s demand then i will have nothing to fear).
ah well i only ever wanted to work for them for 6 months….

moobs

this weekend sees the running of the london marathon, one of the great modern sporting events.
each year it is run i promise myself that the next year i am going to run a marathon, each year that promise gets less and less likely to ever come to pass (especially as i recently ran for a bus and then had to spend the whole of the journey panting to get my breath back….)

even though i have not been in training for the marathon i do seem to have one thing in common with many of the runners. i have chaffed nipples.
yes even though i have not run any sort of distance it seems my nipples have been rubbed raw.
how can that be?
well the sad (but true) answer seems to be that i have piled on a few pounds recently and that instead of going to my hips that have gone to the nips. yes i have developed man-boobs. i have moobs.
it seems that the reason i have chaffed nipples is to do with the jiggle jaggle of my man-boobs as i walk to and from work. this has been made worse by the recent cold weather making my nipples stick out like buttons.

sore nips.
ooooowww is all i can say.

brown

he shoots. he scores.

gordon brown struck gold today as it was announced that he would not be going to the opening ceremony of the olympics.
good for gordon brown.

except it appears he was never going to go to the opening ceremony, his intention all along was to go to the closing ceremony. when he had told people this back in march he had also mentioned that he was planning on meeting the dalai lama, guess which part of that press briefing made the news?
yup.

even though it is not a change of plans for brown he is now embroiled in a row as to whether or not he is boycotting the olympics. so the guardian writes: “despite the complication of other european leaders not going brown has continued to commit himself to being seen at the olympics.” which would be good other than the fact all they have said is that they will not attend the opening ceremony none of them seem to have said “there will be no official representation from us in beijing”.

you have to say who would want to be the leader of the country when there is such a rush to criticise anything that they do.
my sympathy is with gordon brown on this as no matter what he did he would have been criticised. while we have a chance to win a few gold medals gordon brown really has to work hard for his few victories.

diana

just thought i would jump on the bandwagon and see if chucking diana’s name in the title gets me a lot of people dropping by.
so the inquest comes out and says what we all knew: car crash caused by reckless stupid people. fantastic. worth every penny.
hopefully that will be it.
oh no al fayed is still going on about it being murder. as al fayed has shown himself to be less than balanced (oh ok teetering on the edge...)
but the biscuit has to go to kelvin mackenzie (ex sun editor) while he agreed that the paparazzi were to blame (he was at pains to make sure everyone was aware that it was french and italian paparazzi who were responsible and not the good old jolly sensible british paparazzi) but he followed that with the veiled accusation that this was all because of the readership of the papers they demand to know everything about the various numerous celebs. it is our appetite for lurid details that caused this. rather than the fact that the tabloids spend a lot of time building people up only to spend a lot of time breaking them down.

will that be the end of it?
you don’t need me to answer that.

torch

today was the day the olympic torch came to town.
not a good day. we had snow and the london streets were wet and cold. the weather meant that the turn out along the route would be sparse, and as i went past whitechapel that seemed to be the case, only a few straggling policemen on the high street.
when i returned a little later there was a fair sized crowd. a nice buzz of anticipation.
there didn’t seem to be too much of a protest.
on come the joggers with the torch (have to say i couldn’t see the torch).
as they approached there was a mix of cheers and boos.
then a certain amount of surprise and disbelief as we all registered that the torch runners in their blue and white tracksuits were flanked by a troop of police. some dressed in yellow tops, some decked out in action man boiler suits, all of them looking pretty much shagged from having run along with the torch.
just as the procession exited the whitechapel high street to go into the mile end road it came to a stop. double backed and hopped onto a bus to continue on.
fantastic the protest for a free tibet forced the torch to continue the journey on a bus.

there is a part of me that believes that sport and politics should not mix.
i find myself in agreement with steve redgrave who argues that sport is an easy target because you don’t see the protesters outside the offices of companies or government departments who deal with china. nor do we see the protesters outside of stores who sell chinese goods.
the olympic torch is an easy target, which allows people to make their point and get maximum publicity.

where i disagree with redgrave and the like is that in the main the competitors we send to the beijing olympics will have been funded by state money so there is validity in the protest. it is our money and perhaps we should have a say in where we send our national squads.
the problem is the demonstrations against the torch are no more than feel good actions. tomorrow nothing much will have changed, other than the organisers will be accused of not planning and preparing the route much better and tightening the security.
the business of dealing with china will continue, at some point during the week some of us will buy something that is “made in china”. come the summer we will try to avoid it but somehow or another we will watch some of the games.
but right now we can feel good for making a bit of a show to embarrass china.

return

i was asked the other day if i had lost my blogging mojo. sad to say i had, but i think i have come through one of my periodic lets pass on the blog phases and i am back to join the fray.
it is not that i haven’t had things to say but more to do with the work situation just grinding me down and making me a duller person than normal, more on that at a later date.

so here is a little snapshot of what i haven’t written about (don’t worry the nature of things is that these subjects are likely to pop up again allowing me to vent my spleen…)

the brothers peter and christopher hitchens have provided me with hoots a plenty recently. peter’s column in the mail on sunday always provides a laugh or two. his desire for a freer country is admirable but that has to be tempered by the fact that he really only means freedoms for some people (and they would be the white middle classes) and not everyone. it is a little like his claims for the keeping on national identity (part of the mail on sunday’s campaign to keep britannia on the 50 pence piece), it is a very specific identity that should be protected.
meanwhile christopher has obviously decided that peter’s problems stem from him being full of faith so chris has attacked faith in is most recent book “god is not great”. now i declare an interest here: i was raised a catholic and while like many catholics i am fallen i still have faith. like eve and the apple i was tempted to buy the book but a quick flick through it made me stop and consider.
did i really see that? double check. blimey, i did!
in order to score a point or two against christianity christopher has cited dan brown’s “da vinci code”. fantastic. you would have thought he would have at least quoted the book that brown stole from (sorry referenced) “holy blood, holy grail” (or perhaps christopher thought that was just cod history…..)
as for mr. hitchens book i will wait for it to be remaindered or given to me.

technology: been having trouble with my ipod, for the moment it just wants to play the almighty, acid mothers temple and bauhaus. getting a little boring.
then there were the problems i had with flickr, partly of my own making, partly thanks to their (un)help desk. but all sorted now. off you go and check out some of my pics (and, paul, i am sure that there are a few happy ones there for you…)

sport: the media went into hyperdrive about the beckham circus completely ignoring the fact that they could avoid the “circus” by talking to someone else instead, but that doesn’t sell newspapers.
dwain chambers a successful british sprinter, got caught with drugs, was banned, did his time, has come back. the powers that be have tried their best to keep dwain out of the sport, but their own rules are against them. in the end it looks like dwain will be driven out of the sport because he won’t be able to earn lots of cash on the athletic circuit. so he can be prevented from running in commercial events because he just doesn’t get invited, but a national association can be taken to court so that he can run in the national colours. makes sense to me.
dwain has now moved on to rugby league, at least for this week.
for the time being i’ll pass on the olympics, 2008 is going to be a year of sport and politics claiming that never the twain shall meet, but we know different.
so britain won a lot of gold medals in the bicycle world championships. as ever it will be a flash in the pan of the nation’s consciousness. which is a little bit surprising as several of the women riders are quite hot, they should be celebrated, raised up as superstars and then be given a custard rub down…. sorry that was me having a bit of a fantasy there.
we really don’t like celebrating winners.

politics: looks like there will be changes coming. i really wanted hillary to win (but then i was also hoping for a cat fight between her and condi, but again that is another of those personal fantasys that i shouldn’t share). now that hillary has misspoken or, more accurately, lied she looks somewhat less presidential.
the battle between her and obama has shown just how bizarre the american political process is. if i hear another american tell me how anyone can become president i will slap them silly. unless of course they add the caveat “as long as they are very very rich or know very very rich people”, and then i will believe them.
back home poor old gordon can’t buy a break. he should never have contemplated the early election, but once he started he should have followed through. he would have won. instead he gave cameron a weapon to hit him with, now gordon is a ditherer. it has stuck. now everything is his fault.
in london it looks like it boris has learnt from cameron and is running a campaign that means he stands a very very good chance of winning. ken livingstone is being attacked from all sides even the observer recently carried a piece by max hastings that basically said ken’s time is up. it also had the lovely moment where hastings pointed out that ken’s administration was corrupt even though ken himself had not benefited from it (so ken is useless on two counts – can’t keep his administration in check and he can’t make any cash out of it).
if boris wins then cameron will be a happy man as it means he will probably be the next prime minister.

there was talk about making kids take a pledge of allegiance when they graduate. it was about building a sense of community. my only real problem with this is: why just when they graduate? just once is not enough to build a sense of anything (well except in some cases like where you break a bone – then you know not to do it again). my long rumination on community will wait for another day.
can’t help but notice it has dropped off the radar.

the cbi still annoys me. their one strength is that they do have the answer to all the world’s ills: business should pay less tax and have much fewer rules and regulations. we can see how successful that is with northern rock. oh sorry that was gordon brown’s fault.

amazon still disappoints, but i still seem to spend far too much on books, cds and dvds when it so obvious i will never get around to watching or reading them all…. oh well at least i am not buying shoes.

oh and in this very brief round up of things i might have written about i just have to mention that my bowel movements have not be very regular i have gone from being constipated to pebble dashing the toilet.
ah the mojo is back.
you lucky people.

bracing

the “perfect storm” is supposed to be hitting the uk today. when i woke up i could see it had rained. when i got out into the early morning air i could feel a nip in the wind.
a brisk longish walk in the bracing breeze and a light drizzle, nature’s own wake up call.
a great way to start the day.

jaffa

just eaten a box of jaffa cakes.
tasted nice at the time.
feel sick now.
my own fault.
but feel pity for me.

depressing

i have the utmost respect for people who deal with the general public. doesn’t matter if they work in shops, work in call centres; work in public services i admire them they do something i couldn’t do.
why?
because when it comes right down to it the general public are not very nice at all.

there i was on the bus the other day when i notice a sign that proclaims, “our staff will not be spat at”.
which seems fair enough. even if some of the bus drivers i have been subjected to deserve to be burnt at the stake, oh ok that is a bit harsh, perhaps put in the stocks…

the sign goes on to say that all of their staff carry a dna kit around with them in order to make sure that the perpetrators can be caught and prosecuted.

i shook my head and wondered what the world was coming to.

quotes

i have a confession to make: i watch “two pints of lager and a packet of crisps”. if i have to justify my viewing of this bbc3 series it is because i think kathryn drysdale is scrummy and you can see the room i stay in when i am runcorn (where i watch the programme – it is sort of metatextual post-modern reasoning here).
the other reason is that it is crude and it makes me laugh.

as i was watching the latest episode (to be repeated several times this week on bbc3) gaz and janet were about to have a naughty fumble – both feeling guilty because she is the widow of gaz’s best friend and she is the best friend of gaz’s wife – when janet decides they can’t because her dead husband can probably see them.
gaz says that is not the case, to which she says:
“no he is everywhere like god, or polish people.”

i snorted my mouthful of pepsi.

coffee

i am in brick lane.
i am drinking coffee.
i will be going to the tate modern.
all is well in the world.

i am happy.

pics

more of them. i know you love them.

pics

amazingly with all the techology at my hands i managed to get this one slightly out of focused.
top class.

pics

release

you can all rest easy. the floodgates have opened. the blockage has passed. i am no longer constipated.
relief.

quote

i was in pain last night (i still am) i think i have eaten something that has given me mild food poisioning. my guts rumbled, i thought i was going to hurl and my head throbbed.
my guts didn't give forth in a biblical fashion.
the hurl stayed put.
the head didn't explode.
i drifted into and out of sleep.
the tv was showing a sidney lumet movie "q&a" - a police thriller as a district attorney tries to nail a dishonest cop. it stars nick nolte, it is grim none of the characters are nice. to be honest i wasn't paying that much attention as i moaned and groaned with the pain in my tum.
it also features the rather striking jenny lumet. at one point the da (timothy hutton)is questioning various people but can't help but throw a few love lorn glances at ms lumet (can't blame him).
one of the da's assisstants turns to him and encourages him to hook up with her. he uses the rather catchy line of:

"why should all the bad guys get all the good pussy."
it was a line and half and made better as it was delivered by luis guzman.

i am currently i am constipated. so i am not a happy man, last night it was like i was going to flood the place out and tonight i am bunged up.
i tell you my life is hard.

divorce

he is a national treasure worth a lot of dosh.
she is a bit of a grasping nagging shrew.
my advice pay her a lot of money and get rid of her.
trust me it would be worth it.

(can you guess who i am talking about?)

pics

me in the works car park. to be honest these looked better the night i did them (isn't it always the way!!) but i give the to you in their photoshopped glory.
enjoy.
(i am not so much banksy more wanksy... see what i did....)

pics

pics

some nature pictures, they are not very good. but i am sure you will enjoy them.

who

will it be hillary?
will it be barack?
(and nice to see that i am on first name basis with both of them.)

in a sense it doesn't matter whether they are black or female - what counts is that they are not george w. bush. what counts is that they have a liberal vision and not a dangerous neo-con blinkered view. either one would have the wishes of the world that they get a chance to lead.

personally i want hillary to win, but then i have always liked a stern woman in charge.

quote

there i was reading a harlan coben book, “promise me” the other day. it is a modern hard boiled detective novel that treads the same path that robert crais does (and does better) in his elvis cole series of novels. coben assembles an interesting cast of characters, supplies a number of twists, an ample quantity of wisecracks and all at pace.
all in all a satisfying read and you are left wondering when will it be made into a series of movies?

in the middle of it all was the line: “man plans, god laughs”.
how very true.

(and for those of you who care it is a yiddish saying: man trakht un gott lacht.)

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.

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.

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.....

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

pics

some pics to enjoy, as i know you do.

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.

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...

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.