tories

thatcher goes for tea at the browns.
tebbit disowns you.
what are you going to do?
call on arnie, not quite as good as getting clinton to come and give a speech, but for the tories it is not too bad.
arnie is tough. arnie is hard.
cameron wants to be tough. cameron wants to be hard.

so expect to hear about being tough on crime, tougher on immigration. expect to hear about much better public services but lower tax bills. talk of equality of choices, but not equality of chances.

cameron, like arnie, is playing on the old riff of "l'll be back".
sadly for him we will all be telling him "hasta la vista baby".

bad

it was open house day this weekend (which i guess means it was really open house days... but hey who wants to be a pedant).
i went to the first one several years ago. not been since as all the places i wanted to visit and see the insides of were so popular you just never got a look in.
today while i was out and about looking at art i managed to get a look inside one of the churches that was open for the day. it was an impressive building while being plain, but then you are in there to worship (well not if you dawkins or hitchens). as i looked around and drank in the atmosphere i got myself into a little spot of bother.
i am not sure if i have told you this but i have a thing for japanese women. have no idea why but they put lead in my pencil (as they say).
there she was a nice japanese woman strolling around the place. we breifly talked. i had several impure thoughts.
so that has added a few more years in purgatory for me.
st paul has written in the big book "rude thoughts in the house of the lord" against my name.
but she was pretty.

pics

and here are some more....






a mistake in photoshop and i get the above and i quite liked it. so there you go. there is magic in the mayhem.

pics

here are some misc pics. enjoy.

3am

there is magic in the night, which is much better than andrew lloyd webber’s music of the night, but even so i want to know what in the name of all that stan and jack did am i doing still awake at gone 3am in the morning.
the streets are quiet. the kebab shop is busy selling smokes, beers and the occasional kebab. it always seems to be on the go, even with the all night mcdonalds just down the road from it.

but right now i need to sleep. i am getting up soon (well that is the plan), so you can colour me green and call me lime but i am pretty shocked to still be up this time of night.

no wonder i am late for work every day.

warming

commonsense seems to dictate that man’s (in the generic non-sexist way – which means you girls get to cop your share of the blame as well) actions are changing the environment.
i am no climatologist, nor am i the world’s most observant person, but even i have noticed that the good old english weather is no longer what it was a few years ago.

green issues have gone from being the province of the tree hugging weird beards to one of key battlegrounds for competing political parties. in the uk david cameron’s conservative party seem to have stolen a march on gordon brown and new (can we still call them that?) labour.

given that i have admitted that i am a virtual imbecile (hey this is the web – it is almost obligatory) when it comes to the science of climate change how can i make a decision. i know you are asking this question of me, i can see you sitting there a furrowed brow, maybe a tongue sticking out in concentration. well dear reader i will give you my answer.
it seems to me that there is no harm in proceeding as if we are harming the environment and so act accordingly. less energy consumption? shouldn’t be a problem i should never be that lazy that i can’t hit the off switch rather than the standby switch. less package? about time who needs all those layers just to get to what you want?
do i care if governments have to intervene to make sure some of this happens? not really we can see that the market isn’t going to do it – after all most of the packaging comes from the big supermarkets. nor is it likely that manufacturers are going to do anything to improve energy consumption unless they are compelled to.

but i suppose my one abiding reason for believing that the impact of humanity is the major contributing factor to climate change is the people who are against it. today i read a piece by richard littlejohn in which he not only had a go at politicians for liking the sound of their own voices (mmm mr littlejohn pot and fat kettle i think..) he managed to have david cameron and gordon brown teaming-up in a new round of class war against the middle classes. cameron and his toff’s trying to make sure the middle englander stays in his place, while gordon brown was leading the charge of workers enraged by envy at the middle class and their consumption of things.

after reading the wonderful words of littlejohn i was convinced climate change is a bad thing and we are responsible for it.

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

so i have had a few weeks to recharge the old (and i am getting old) batteries.
luckily stuff at work has meant that i am still a cynical thing.
the usual stuff will be dealt with, but luckily i have missed all the bollock about di and amy, consider yourself lucky you haven't had to read me rant about that stuff.

anyway sleep easy i am back.
all is well in the world.

awake

been awake for a few hours. not used to being awake this early on a sunday, not a morning person so i don’t like it.

but have managed to read warren ellis’ “crooked little vein”. it is not a particularly good read. in trying so hard to find the dark soul of america all it describes is a number of outlandish perversions. all this occurs because the protagonist has been hired to find a lost book that will restore normalacy to the american psyche. written in a sub noir style with flat attempts at humour and shock. there are a few good ideas in the book – the key one being that the mainstream more often than not co-opts the underground and makes it acceptable. even this is undercut by a lack of anything like a description of what is normal and what is deviant, as the lead character points out there is no “us and then – there is just us”. it is as deep as the book gets.
for a short book there is a lot of repetition, which just gives the feeling that this has been knocked out in a few bored weekends. even worse this is just a rehash of the story from the “desolation jones” mini series. it will appeal to warren ellis fans, or those stuck in their adolescence.

so with most of the day ahead of me i have to decide what to do with the rest of it. there will be coffee, there will be art and there may even be some cleaning of the flat (oh now i am just entering a bizarre mirror world). one thing that there can’t be is me spending money, as i am broke.

oh well let us see what the day has to offer.

tories

the tories are preparing for a snap election. they are worried that gordon brown is doing so well in the polls he will go to the country and ask for his own mandate.

one of the first things that david cameron’s conservative party (not quite as snappy as new labour, but i guess it does signal a break from the past) will have to do is get their manifesto written.
to be fair they have been working on the foundations of this document since cameron was elected. in a sensible move cameron set in motion a number of fact finding policy groups, their results would inform the content of the manifesto.

rather than wait for the conservatives to unveil the full manifesto i thought i would bring you a sneak peak.

the conservative manifesto for 2007/2008 (or for whenever gordon calls the election) is as follows.

the economy: tax cuts and more tax cuts. if the richer are richer the poor have to work harder. sorted.
society: everything will be much better when everyone is married. by the way it is your life don’t expect us to help.

right that is the big picture dealt with just a couple of other things we need to mention and then we are done.
human rights or anything else that might help you against big business – well frankly it has to go because… well they have been abused once or twice and we don’t like them. remember from now on doff your caps.
immigration, frankly since we lost the empire we don’t really like the, so unless they are rich enough to employ accountants to get them out of paying taxes we don’t want them here.
crime we are going to bang them up (unless they are white collar criminals in which case it might be a nasty talking to they get).

in case you can’t remember all that let me remind you that here at the tory party we stand for tax cuts and marriage. that’s it really. pretty simple.
vote for us.


(this party political broadside has been brought to you by pat, a graduate of the mark steel school of comedy.)

quotes

"an overview of my career is usually glasses, homosexuality, watford football club, tantrums, flowers. but the music was pretty phenomenal." elton john, as quoted in the new edition of "oxford dictionary of modern quotations".

while it does seem to be a perfect summing up of the current view of elton, whereby what made him famous (the music) has taken a backseat to everything else. perhaps he deserves it for “candle in the wind”.

however it is not a quote i am going to try to remember on the off chance i can drop it into conversation to:
1] impress people with my literary learnings.
2] challenge them with a pithy pearl of wisdom.
3] stun them as i drop it like a hundred ton bon mot.

whichever way you look at it elton’s quote remains a clever summing up of his career.

most of the other quotes that have been quoted seem to be so specific to the person quoted that they are not going to be of much use to the rest of us as we trying to convince others we are smarter than we are.

a few of my favourites from the list are:

“since when was greed a criminal offence?” – conrad black, author and very greedy man.

“the email of the species is deadlier than the mail.” – stephen fry, demonstrating that a useful element of the “quote” is that it can be recycled into a new quote.

“diets are like boyfriends - it never really works to go back to them.” – nigella lawson, she cooks things and looks sort of sexy and has now created the concept of diet sluts and with it diet porn.

“football is a simple game; 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and, at the end, the germans win.” – gary lineker, footballer, commentator and seller of crisps.

sadly none of them come close to the, almost, perfection of one of my favourite quotes: “fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke…”

one person who should never make it into the oxford dictionary of modern quotations is richard littlejohn. a man who is neither clever or funny. go here and wince.

results

it is that time of year when the exam results are released.

shall i tell you what i have learnt about those results?
as if i had to ask, i know you are hanging on my every word.

this is what i have learnt.

students of comprehensive schools – only get their gcses and a-levels because the exams are so much easier than they were in my day (my day being whenever the commentator took them). these exams are not worth the paper they are printed on. they are just given to any tom dick and harriet. they are not about rewarding excellence they are all about mediocrity. the pass standard is so easy to get – it is all about getting the results because of league tables.

students from grammar schools get their gcses and a-levels because they have studied hard, they have been taught well, and they are a credit to the nation. the exams they sit are so much harder than the ones i did in my day. it is all about rewarding excellence, the pass standard is high and each one shows the true benefit of a good education.

quite why most of the commentators don’t say what they want to say, “we don’t want billy estate kid to get good results and go to university as it means he might not doff his cap to henry posh bloke any more”, is beyond me.
they just don’t like the fact that kids from ordinary schools can get decent pass marks and set themselves on the road to betterment (yeah yeah i know the tory party and the rest of the right make noises about social mobility, but they only really mean it as long as none of theirs is left behind). rather than sing the praises of the kids who have worked hard to make the grade the commentators will endeavour to make the claim that the current exam system is flawed and easy, yet at the same time chuffing on about how wonderful grammar schools are for getting some of the highest pass marks in the land.

frankly if the grades are easy to come by you might think that rich parents might want to save some cash and just send richard the rich boy to his local school, after all he is guaranteed to get high grades.

and if i am a public or grammar school i am not sure i would want to be crowing about my ability to get pass marks on piss poor exams.
(but what am i talking about in some cases they can have their cake and eat it, and they do).

or could it be that this is just the story the media like to trot out every year around about now?

you decide.

disappointed

like many children of my generation i was fascinated by space. my generation saw man land on the moon (or did we?).
like many children of my generation i did nothing much about this fascination, all it has amounted to is a love of science fiction.

sunday just gone saw me leaving the flat just before the stroke of midnight and wandering to brick lane to the little park that is on buxton street.
armed with my camera and a happy frame of mind i was out to catch pictures of the promised shooting star shower.

i choose a spot, i sat down. i prepared the camera. i took some prep shots. i waited.
the more astute reader will have guessed where this tale is going by the subtle title i have used.
the shots i had taken indicated that i wasn’t going to get any decent ones of the night sky and the stars that were out. blast. oh well i’ll do some moody night ones instead.

the radio had promised that there could be as many as a 100 shooting stars an hour at the peak of it all. not on your nelly. mind you the radio seemed to indicate that it would all start at, variously, 11pm, midnight, 1am, 2am and 3am (but never quite telling you if it was british summer time of greenwich mean time they meant). bugger.

so i sat. i would say i was accompanied by the ticking of the clock but i only had the mobile phone for the time. i was visited by mr urban fox (not quite as dapper as dr. liam fox, but probably a better politician…) who scurried here and there for scraps of food (a bit like dr. fox and votes). i was also joined by a chap who had come out to look at the shooting stars as well (and not to talk about badgers as paul suggested…)

although it was early morning you could still hear the insistent beat of the clubs on brick lane, the sounds of young revellers was accompanied by the heavy thud thud of industrial machinery and the occasional blast of an alarm to warn workers that something big was about to happen. the counterpoint of all this was the lullaby of police sirens.

the sky was lovely. the stars twinkled like little gems. the air was chill. i could get used to this stargazing i told myself.
so did you see any? i can hear you all ask yourself. well yes. not quite the 100 an hour, not quite the spectacular shower i was promised, but i got to see 5, which is more than i have seen before.
i got to see a fox, take some moody pictures, sit and relax. all in all a nice little adventure.

but i have to tell you this: it does get right nippy at 3.30am.

Anniversary

Today marks the third anniversary of iampat. Blimey how time flies when you are having fun.
Still onwards and upwards.
My promise to you faithful reader is that the future will be a lot like the past but with more bad jokes. Sort of like david cameron’s tory party.
I thank you, matinees on Saturdays….

back

had a mini break. but now i am back again. i know i know you were missing me.
in the break i have sort of made a decision about the redundancy - it is a kind of hedge my bets choice that doesn't really solve the problem. though a few more days at work like today and i will make a very firm decision.

i have also watched 24 day 6. terrific tv. only problem with finishing it is now i have to wait for day 7. the next series is already planned and they are talking about making it carbon neutral, i hope they are talkng about the making of the show as opposed to the action in the show. "dammit chloe i told you to get a hybrid car...."

still in the gap between 24s i have managed to download "space above and beyond" - an ecellent show that only ran for one season. and i have almost completed downloading 60 episodes of "sunset beach" - which is perhaps one of the greatest shows to ever appear on tv.

have even done some cleaning - not much, but it is a start. acorns and oak trees.

the important thing for you all is that i am back....

blue

so david cameron’s conservative party are going through a bit of a wobble at the moment.
they must have expected a gordon brown “bounce” in the polls, and they must have thought they could weather the honeymoon period. like the rest of us they didn’t expect the succession of troubles that have afflicted the first weeks of brown’s premiership. nor could they have expected brown’s solid, capable performance. brown’s grace under pressure allied to his slow but sure distancing of himself from the blair years has meant that gordon brown is sitting pretty in the polls.

the tories on the other hand just seem to have the jitters at the moment. donors are complaining, activists are whinging and mythical middle england is moaning. if it isn’t grammar schools, it is the trip to rwanda that is getting them all worked up. what got david cameron positive press months ago is now seen as being just self-puffery and image spin.

so how do they combat it? more reports from their policy groups (solve all problems by making people marry, make druggies go cold turkey, more money to the armed forces and er.. that’s is)? nope that is not the way.

no the tories have gone straight the heart of the matter and they are going to bring their lost voters back into the fold by, sometimes, changing their green tree logo to a blue tree logo.
hey blue trees work for me and you have to wonder what it was dave was (not) smoking at eton.
they can do this because their tree logo is about strength and flexibility. it seems it is also about just making a change to appeal to the tory heartland, it is a symbolic shout out that says “we still believe the same things you do. honest.”
you have to wonder, is that all it is going to take for the tories to rally behind cameron? perhaps deep down they don’t mind it all being about image as long as that image cleaves close to the one that allows them all to claim to be thatcherites at heart.

new tory! old story!

lechery

not often i have to doff my cap in admiration at a fellow lecher, but tonight i bow down and say i am not worthy.
there i was at baker street waiting for the tube to whitechapel, i had just missed one (it was an episode that proves that tube trains are in fact decepticons. i saw the tube on the platform but decided i wasn’t going to make a fool of myself by running for it, anyway i knew if i can for it then it would have been a circle line train and i don’t want that one. but as i strolled closer, the doors stayed open. i put a bit more effort in the stride, somewhere between an amble and powerwalk. just as i can see it is for whitechapel and i could make a lunge for the doors, they close….damn!)
anyway down the platform from me are two quite sexy young women (not young enough that i would have to claim i was doing “research”). like most young women who are out at that time of night they are dressed to impress and they are loud.
two circle line tubes come and go.
to be far i am not really paying that much attention to what is going on around me, i am engrossed in my book. i do see a japanese tourist sweep the platform with her video camera, she lingered on me. wow i am a star.
i look up and the whitechapel train is coming in.
blimey it is crawling along the platform. come on man i want to get home. then i think to myself it might be one of those short trains that occasionally service the line late at night and it will stop half way down the platform. nope that’s not it, it is still coming.
what on earth?
that is why the train is inching up the station the driver is checking out the two foxy hot chicks.
who says men can’t multitask?

tonight matthew that driver is my hero.

larry

there is nothing quite like getting something you have been after for years. today i have tracked down a cd that i have wanted for several years.
yes thanks to the efforts of ebay expert kt i am now listening to larry adler playing a selection of gershwin tunes, with vocals being provided by a number of a-list singers.

i have liked gershwin for years. what can i say i am a bit of a sucker for a musical or two.

to be honest i was attracted to this cd more for the sheer bonkersness of it. many years ago no one would have batted an eyelid at such a record, but now it can be seen as a gimmick record.

not that there is anything wrong with gimmick records i have a few that are wonderful. one of my favourite cds of all time is the pat boone “no more mister nice guy” on which pat unleashes his smooth big band jazz vocals on some metal classics – creating a hard lounge sound.
then there is senor coconut. sublime. or the chamber music attack on the works of metallica by the cello wielding apocalyptica. smooth.

and while i sit here singing along to the songs of gershwin i can’t help but wonder what possessed the people responsible for the record to bring it out.
i can picture them sitting around a smoke filled room, time has stopped for them, and they are brainstorming, trying to find the latest new sound. names and styles are thrown out. shot down. drink is quaffed. more names. more nos. more styles. more nos. but these are record execs they are not like the rest of us, defeat is not in their vocabulary. they are winners. even as the hours turn into days they know, they know they will crack it and they will have an idea that will rock the heavens.
as night follows day.
hold on.
night and day.
cole porter.
great american songbook.
yessssssss. lets do something with the great american songbook.
great idea.
but lets use someone other than porter. i know gershwin. winner. gershwin it is.
okay what are we going to do to make it special? easy. easy you say? how. what we do is get a lot of distinctive and popular singers to do their versions of the songs.
brilliant.
lets put this baby to bed and celebrate.
break open the champagne.
hoooold on jeeves! what is the problem? something is missing. what are you smoking? it is a killer idea.
i know, i know. but look gershwin is famous for rhapsody in blue as much as he is for his songs. what are you going to do have the singers hum it?
mmm not a bad idea…. just joking. you are right, we need to have rhapsody in there. but how?
look the singers are a great idea, but lets hang it on a musician playing the pieces, that way we can do rhapsody and we can hang the singers off of the musician. how does that sound?
now you are cooking with gas baby! this is a winner.
but who? what about that guitarist you know the one eric clapton? no we can’t use a guitarist to obvious. harry connick junior on piano? now that isn’t bad, a little bit samey. that bloke who plays the flute? nah gedoutahere.
humming, you know that wasn’t such a bad idea. i have got it. we’ll get the world’s greatest living harmonica player and we’ll put him with gershwin and famous singers and we have ourselves a record and half.
pure genius.

and it is. with cracking vocal performances from elton john, sting, peter gabriel, kate bush, cher, sinead o’connor and many others all accompanied on the mouth organ by the, then, living legend of larry adler.
a winner from start to finish.

for those who care larry came under scrutiny from the house un-amercian activities committee, which forced him to leave america to come britian.

i urge you all to rush out to get a copy of this mellow miracle.

now if i can get hold of elaine paige sings queen i will be very happy.

gormley

antony gormley has an exhibition on at the hayward gallery. it is quite wonderful. part of the show are the various bodycasts that dot the skyline around the galley. the effect is quite startling.

sky

pretty darned impressive sky.
the camera has brought out more colours than i can remember there being.

graf

says it all really.