http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3010849
oh for fuck's sake.
Monday 30 June 2003
Sunday 29 June 2003
Yep, we sure showed those Boks pacemen. It’s just a shame their batters showed our pacemen.
absolutely love Anne Billson, me. *so* in love with her (fine review of the TVM ‘A Midnight Clear’ today, with Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinise, for instance). She’s one of about three really tophole film reviewers the Telegraph stable (prop. Mad Zionist, Lord Black of Crossharbour, No Friend of Canuck Paternalism, Oh No) has. That Sandhu bloke (sp?) is bang on as well. He’s really good in fact; lyrical and reflective.
Speaking of, well, crass segue, Zionism, did you hear the one about the Oxford professor who sent an email to a prospective PhD candidate telling him he wouldn’t be letting him in to his course ~solely~ because the candidate was an Israeli Jew?
Yeah, hilarious that one eh.
absolutely love Anne Billson, me. *so* in love with her (fine review of the TVM ‘A Midnight Clear’ today, with Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinise, for instance). She’s one of about three really tophole film reviewers the Telegraph stable (prop. Mad Zionist, Lord Black of Crossharbour, No Friend of Canuck Paternalism, Oh No) has. That Sandhu bloke (sp?) is bang on as well. He’s really good in fact; lyrical and reflective.
Speaking of, well, crass segue, Zionism, did you hear the one about the Oxford professor who sent an email to a prospective PhD candidate telling him he wouldn’t be letting him in to his course ~solely~ because the candidate was an Israeli Jew?
Yeah, hilarious that one eh.
did you see the cricket yesterday?
wonderful! marvellous! such ecstasies.
Vikram's Solanki's maiden was best of course, although the uninterruptedly excellent Trescothick and Flintoff making 10 off two balls at one stage were ineffably joyful too.
the only real worry was issues like the way Kallis twatted Ashley Giles all over the shop.
i like that Henman me, a lot of quite nice stuff from the baseline yesterday.
didn't John McEnroe look nice and lean and stylish and rather, dash it all, devilishly well turned out?
wonderful! marvellous! such ecstasies.
Vikram's Solanki's maiden was best of course, although the uninterruptedly excellent Trescothick and Flintoff making 10 off two balls at one stage were ineffably joyful too.
the only real worry was issues like the way Kallis twatted Ashley Giles all over the shop.
i like that Henman me, a lot of quite nice stuff from the baseline yesterday.
didn't John McEnroe look nice and lean and stylish and rather, dash it all, devilishly well turned out?
Saturday 28 June 2003
Friday 27 June 2003
bloody hell, Foe, DT, and now Strom 'the longest serving senator' of course.
do wonder about that in threes thing, as one's always alert to it anyway,
and here we have another (relatively) famous three.
now's the time to dig up our views on trent "black people of america! i love you" lott's machinations, to paraphrase Heiden...
do wonder about that in threes thing, as one's always alert to it anyway,
and here we have another (relatively) famous three.
now's the time to dig up our views on trent "black people of america! i love you" lott's machinations, to paraphrase Heiden...
Thursday 26 June 2003
FUCK ME, or
R.I.P. Marc-Vivien Foe
and he was only 28.
and i'm saying fuck me.
saw him score some belters for City, and saw some fairly stinking games. always a brusque attitude, a Francophone Shauny Wright.
tribute from Harry Redknapp, etc.
and all the txts have been along the lines of "sorry m8, just seen it, sorry".
and i've been saying fuck me, which is a cliche, but this is what football fans do; some of the cliches and rituals are handier than others.
and pat nevin was looking subdued on c5, which is a rarity.
and i'm proper gutted.
right i'm off out to, frankly, get pissed.
P.S.
no disrespect to Denis, but he was 88, so that's clearly less upsetting round our way. our kid works in the Commons and he was saying as how the Tories were at half-mast, and the speeches all day have been pleasant reminiscing about him, e.g., "i don't know who you are, or what this is about, but i'll have a large gin please". good man.
whereas when Maggie carks it, most of the country (certainly all the north and midlands) will be united in jubilant celebration.
there there.
R.I.P. Marc-Vivien Foe
and he was only 28.
and i'm saying fuck me.
saw him score some belters for City, and saw some fairly stinking games. always a brusque attitude, a Francophone Shauny Wright.
tribute from Harry Redknapp, etc.
and all the txts have been along the lines of "sorry m8, just seen it, sorry".
and i've been saying fuck me, which is a cliche, but this is what football fans do; some of the cliches and rituals are handier than others.
and pat nevin was looking subdued on c5, which is a rarity.
and i'm proper gutted.
right i'm off out to, frankly, get pissed.
P.S.
no disrespect to Denis, but he was 88, so that's clearly less upsetting round our way. our kid works in the Commons and he was saying as how the Tories were at half-mast, and the speeches all day have been pleasant reminiscing about him, e.g., "i don't know who you are, or what this is about, but i'll have a large gin please". good man.
whereas when Maggie carks it, most of the country (certainly all the north and midlands) will be united in jubilant celebration.
there there.
Wednesday 25 June 2003
i do like marcello c. me (tho' i trust Luka over him on Dizzee Ras). i know SR loves his stuff, i believe SR's faves in the wire last year was ballard and the church of me (o!what a fanboy), ballard is good isn't he. i was in the closet at a mate's gaff t'other day reading a load of UNCUT back issues and there's some astonishingly fine short potted reviews he (MC, not JGB) does. i especially liked one of india.arie which reckoned, near the end, one'd be rooting for some oxide&neutrino come the end of listening to it.
'Jimmy,' Andriutti said to Caughey, 'did you know that Jewish guys - Larry, I don't want you to take this personally - did you know that Jewish guys, even if they're real stand-up guys, all have one faggot gene? That's a well-known fact. They can't stand going out in the rain without an umbrella or they have all this modern shit in their apartment or they don't like to go hunting or they're for the fucking nuclear freeze and affirmative action or they wear jogging shoes to work or some goddamn thing. You know?'
'Gee,' said Kramer, 'I don't know why you thought I'd take it personally.'
'Come on, Larry,' said Andriutti, 'tell the truth. Deep down, don't you wish you were Italian or Irish?'
'Yeah,' said Kramer, 'that way I wouldn't know what the fuck was going on in this fucking place.'
Caughey started laughing. 'Well, don't let Ahab see those shoes, Larry. He'll have Jeanette issue a fucking memorandum.'
'No, he'll call a fucking press conference,' said Andriutti.
'That's always a safe fucking bet.'
And so another fucking day in the fucking Homicide Bureau of the Bronx Fucking District Attorney's Office was off to a fucking start.
'The Bonfire of the Vanities', Thomas Wolfe.
'Gee,' said Kramer, 'I don't know why you thought I'd take it personally.'
'Come on, Larry,' said Andriutti, 'tell the truth. Deep down, don't you wish you were Italian or Irish?'
'Yeah,' said Kramer, 'that way I wouldn't know what the fuck was going on in this fucking place.'
Caughey started laughing. 'Well, don't let Ahab see those shoes, Larry. He'll have Jeanette issue a fucking memorandum.'
'No, he'll call a fucking press conference,' said Andriutti.
'That's always a safe fucking bet.'
And so another fucking day in the fucking Homicide Bureau of the Bronx Fucking District Attorney's Office was off to a fucking start.
'The Bonfire of the Vanities', Thomas Wolfe.
First up there must be a mention to JB Steane. He
writes over at Gramophone, and the last time i
was subbed to that had a delightful and
incredibly well informed column about vocal music
(hopefully it's still there). He's alumnus of
Oxbridge (can't remember which), but i do recall
with fondness a particularly lovely column he
once penned about going back to his old college
where they had some Haydn or Handel festival
going on, or such, and it was just well wicked
actually. He writes well about big guns like
Caruso and Callas. It would be interesting to see
him forced to write about Diamanda Galas
stripping in a church etc., and carousing (Terry
Pratchett once wrote carousing kind of implies
bread rolls, but in that instance i don't think
we need to bother). His surname sounds a bit like
feisty Belgian-Canadian-Jewish fella Mark Steyn,
a man associated with the stable of naturalised
British press baron Conrad Black, or Lord Black
of Crossharbour to his butler. Steyn writes
really well about Broadway showtunes etc., and
also wrote a buzzing article in the Sunday
Telegraph a few weeks back taking to task the
sacred cow that is Spector's wall of sound. Very
persuasive actually as i recall (Steyn, i think,
likes old jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and the like). He
also writes politics/world affairs these days,
his celebrated spat with Robert Fisk gave rise to
the term "fisking" (be careful how you type that
into your search engine) that you can now find in
any half decent moderate/liberal politics blog
that likes to slag off lefties. He's a bit too
bullish for my tastes politically, but you can't
argue with his show knowledge. Well, you could of
course, but you'd probably lose is what i mean,
unless you knew about shows (i don't).
Tom Magic Feet is good, i can never remember what
of his i've read, but whenever you do pick up
Jockey Slut, well, you'd like to describe his
stuff as 'trenchant', admittedly i don't know
what that word means, but i'm using it as a
compliment. Oh, actually, his stuff probably is
that, i just went and got the dictionary. How do
you do Tom?! Lulu LaVey at the same magazine, or
was last time (cover from about August 2001;
interview Mad Mike, cover was a couple of blokes
in ski masks, and the tagline something like 'UR
here'), and seems to like reggae, irie, etc. also
Chris Blue at the same place seems alright.
Indeed, Miss LaVey once seemed to slag off Mixmag
readers and told people that couldn't get into
old reggae compilations or something to sod off
back to Mixmag and smoke some "proper weed". An
excellent prescription. My favourite out and out
dance magazine, if not Jockey Slut, is Muzik.
They've had some good issues recently. Not too
sure about 7 (was a good interview with Fergie in
there once) or DJ and obviously Ministry and
Mixmag are/were both no great shakes.
Jacques Peretti used to be the clubbing
correspondent in the Guardian Guide on a
Saturday, and i've seen stuff of his in places
like Sleazenation i think talking about shark
porn. He was/is dead sarky and all that, and i
like a peep who comes across like that sometimes.
Stevie Chick another cross-media type, i'm sure
i've seen him in obviously the NME but also
somewhere like Dazed and Confused. If i recall
correctly, i might even have got a reply from him
about a query about Kerrang! journos on ILM once.
Lester Bangs and Nick Kent were obviously both
good eggs, i enjoyed that reprinted Lou Reed
interview the NME did with Bangs a bit ago. Some
mates have anthologies of his work, and there are
other granddad types in the Anglo-American
rock-crit canon, Tosches for instance right he¡¦s
not a 20 year old from iowa?; i'm sure i've
misspelled him. Did he say that rock died around
1968? A fair enough comment (although kraut and
ppunk etc. all good; think he was referring to
freeform brigades etc. which are totally good
eggs back in the day). Meschler and (totally
unrelated i know) the likes of Dave Haslam (skim
reading his book on Manchester is quite good) i
quite like too, although why Paul Gambaccini is
always described as pop critic i fail to see,
Stuart Maconie too (he is something like a friend
of a friend's stepdad apparently). Well, that's a
lie, gambaccini is a funny bloke, not a huge fan
of maconie though.
i've never been interested in finding out about
Garry Bushell and Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons
even when they were supposed to be good in their
early stages, so that's that. However, posh books
you can get these days in poncey art shops that
are reprinted collections of Sniffing Glue show
that Mark Perry and Danny Baker could write
really nicely (Baker chastising uncaring punks in
the wake of the Elvis death particularly good).
Obviously you cannot criticise Robert Christgau
or Greil Marcus, or rather, this site ain't about
to. Well, just to say find it a bit mystifying
about Christgau's reported thing for
Sleater-Kinney, and the cheeky chap should be
learnt about 2step as american rock journals
understand our shiny exports (as MJ Cole proved
its death with his most recent flogging a...
excursion?). But his African pop thing is
excellent. Oh, and John Savage's 'England's
Dreaming' is genuinely well, one can read it okay
anyway, although more preferable personally for
the dub shout outs, than anything else he does.
Speaking of dub, i do like Lloyd Bradley, even
though there's all the standard criticism that
his big reggae book seems to focus on the
roots/dub narrative, wanting to ignore digital
developments, slackness, and lovers, etc. That is
a fair enough point actually, you can see it when
you read his book. Also on the reggae tip, Peter
Dalton and Steve Barrow seem the best reggae
archivist types; they get the reader enthused,
which is the essence of a decent
critic/archaeologist surely. Simon Napier-Bell is
it, who did the 'Black Vinyl, White Powder' book
about British pop, well, that's a good read, but
don't know anything about him.
Speaking of African pop that allows an inelegant
opportunity to segue into journos covering world
music. Good eggs here include Andy Kershaw, Fiona
Talkington is it on Finnish accordions, Lucy
Duran (she writes an introduction to a Mande
poetry book you can buy in Penguin Classics),
Richard Trillo, Sue Steward, Simon Broughton,
Clive Bell and Richard Henderson. i'm sure half
the staff of either fRoots or Songlines, or
whatever other world mags there are, are all good
eggs too. Remember reading a marvellous review of
an album of trad' arr' Indonesian stuff in
Songlines ages ago, but i can't remember who
wrote it. i think it was Clive Bell that once
wrote an absolutely magnificent phrase about
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, thought it was a brilliant
piece of journalism, try and find it actually
hang on. "Khan sings with the generosity that is
sometimes the province of complete authority, and
is supported by other voices, lighter, but still
remarkable. The high pitched melismata and
endlessly inventive ornamentation tumble forth in
a manner European music hasn¡¦t heard for many a
century." What a superb way of phrasing he has!
Dele Fadele is good, his review of that Blood and
Fire 3 disc Big Youth set was the last review i
really paid attention to in the NME, although
what they had to say about the 50 Cent album
recently was quite interesting. i think he was
caught in the centre between the hip-hop wars
between the soulboys and the indie fans at the
NME in the mid-80s that were brought to a finish
when Stuart Cosgrove got fired. It's odd that,
NME will always be basically an indie/rock paper
in my eyes given the late 90s times i paid
attention to it. Charles Shaar Murray's book on
Jimi Hendrix has some excellent chapters on jazz
and the blues especially, some fine taking to
task of that most overrated of holy (rock) cows
Led Zeppelin (Simon's uberhipster index shows me
up as wrong on this issue, ah well... ;), and
anecdotes on the chitlin circuit. Dele Fadele is
actually officially buzzing, i would say.
David Stubbs and Ian MacDonald are both okay,
although Stubbs is better, because he doesn't go
on about the Beatles as much. Obviously Penman
and Morley all good too, although prefer Penman
quite a lot. There's a bloke at UNCUT called
Yates something or other who i really like.
Ingram seemed to once suggest (well, it was
probably the way one was reading twanboc that
day) the only hip-hop writers he really liked
were David Toop and the wonderful S F-J (i should
mail matt about that actually, had a nice coupla
jars with him in covent garden the other week and
he was wearing a art instiute of chicago tee. i'd
add Hua Hsu, Peter Shapiro, and Nelson George
anyway, i really like all them lot. Hsu in
particular has a lovely way of riffing about
stuff, and then he just goes off on one. i can't
describe it (as you can see...) but it is
brilliant, true stuff. Shapiro's magnificent
death-disco primer in a recent Wire was about as
good as Dizzee (i.e., very). i don't know if
George is supposed to be a bit conservative or
something, but everything i've read of his is
good. That is opposed to Craig Werner stuff,
which is less okay of course.
Being, prithee and true, the princely Marc
Rowlands' five most important clubs in northwest
England, ever : -
- The Hac, Mcr
- The Twisted Wheel, Mcr
- The Cavern, Lpool
- Casino, Wigan
- Mecca, Blackpool
How spot on.
"as I write, highly civilised human beings are
flying overhead trying to kill me; if one of them
succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a
well-timed bomb he will never sleep any the worse
for it. He is serving his country, which has the
power to absolve him from evil."
George Orwell, 'The Lion And The Unicorn'
Speaking of mcr, the latest edition or so of city
life is doing a manc frontmen thing, ten in all
of what they think as the most bestest or
famousest, with writers banging on about it.
Sylvia Patterson flicks her bean to Liam
("brusque, intense, sexually invincible, vain,
glorious, audacious, illegal, with better hair").
PJ Anderson on Hucknall is, of course, more
defensive than needs to be (if you like it, fair
enough), but that's not surprising is it.
Rob Bright on MES is terribly OTT ("No-one in the
history of music has written from such a huge
frame of reference" ?!).
Paul Flynn is okay on Sumner ("a very different
kind of frontman"), and pretty insightfully
centres Sumner as some anti-frontman type.
Everyone's favourite preacher, John Robb, loves
Tim Burgess, but i just can't have a sympathetic
viewpoint about someone whose hometown's chief
football club is Northwich Victoria, frankly.
David Sue might be a nice bloke (he hangs out in
Big Hands - go on a Thursday in particular
somedisco sez for Black Plastic, ragga/ska/reggae
affair - after all, so there's clearly little
wrong with his sense of livery-fun-taste), but
his piece on Richard Ashcroft pales in comparison
to a couple - in particular - of the other
articles.
You'd never have thought Terry Christian (Old
Trafford) might have gone for Moz (Stretford and
Baguley via Ardwick innit?) (well, i wouldn't)
but this "genuine working class hero" illuminated
Christian's formative outsider, rough catholic,
type years (the wire has recently started
labelling the likes of daniel johnson {or no
doubt chuck prophet,etc.} as Outsider S/s''. what
is the problem with the wire capitalising stuff
like Techno? Bizarre), so that's all faberge
eggs, really.
Dave Haslam is pretty good on Brown, sort of how
cool/shaggable (his straaaange views on the
Romans etc. aren't mentioned) he was, also oddly
seems to go against the editorial that says
frontmen can of course be knobheads, by saying
how Brown's personal niceness (as opposed to a
selfish drugtaker like Liam) is a virtue. There
is one good long phrase though, "Ian Brown had
the original Manc swagger, but it was born out of
the mid-1980s, when no-one was giving Northern
bands - or the North of England come to that - a
chance. It was about taking on the world, the
swagger of an away fan through the back streets
on a Saturday afternoon. When you've got to give
it some attitude. But those years slipped into
laddishness, embracing only one kind of
Manchester, and we ended-up with a culture that
glorified thugs, drugs, and thieving. Ian Brown
could see beyond that, to all the different
Manchesters - M21, M9, M41 - and then beyond the
Manchester hype".
incidentally, i went to the same school as ian
brown and john squire.
The best writer herein is, of course, Morley. He
uses a good device about repetition and plenty of
start-me-sentence with a questing proposition
about rock'n'roll all the time, and his last line
is "If rock'n'roll is forever, then Ian Curtis,
etc" Plenty of fine phrasing here that ain't
diminished by even, say, imagining Morley's own
voice narrating it, and he's particularly good
the first half of his sentences, ready to
explode, potential not yet realised etc., here we
are, there's "If rock'n'roll is serious, and it's
all about being serious about the serious things
that happen to you as you grow up..." or "If
rock'n'roll is having your own dance..." or "If
rock'n'roll is pop..." or "If rock’n’roll is
whatever you want to call it, but we might as
well still call it rock'n'roll..." or "If
rock'n'roll is a matter of life and death, and it
has been known to be so..." or "If rock'n'roll is
vast loneliness fired into fierce belonging..."
or, finally, "If rock'n'roll is what I think it
is...".
As you can see, you could only sustain the above
for a small magazine page, but it works well at
the time. must admit, the only good mcr band out
of the big ones mentioned are the Mondays, am not
a fan in the slightest of JD (sorry q or our
kid), obviously buzzcocks and elements of the ACR
approach are good, spose the fall too in stages.
Clearly 10cc as well... "quiet local modesty
mixed with a loud universal madness".
Anyway, onto the personal favourite Mr Shaun
Ryder, hagiography courtesy of Mr John Harris.~
"Everybody on this stagecoach likes robbing and
bashing, big blags abroad and smoking large
amounts of hash,"
__The Happy Mondays, 'Olive Oil' (1987).
"...case places over and pull stings in diamond
shops or travel agents. They'd cop ten or 15
grand, live off that for a few months, and go to
Ibiza."
Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough,
characterising what type of people his charges
were.
i like the "stratospherically cool" and "genuine
article" bits.
Well, we'd certainly be excoriated round here for
talking about the people observing rather than
the actual stuff itself, tsk, do apologise.
To carry on the rockism trope, it's certainly
important for (Ingram's) European dance fans to
perhaps get onto some rock, and Spacemen 3's 1989
bash 'Playing with Fire' is as good an idea as
any, as Dale/Reynolds/others have been testifying
so elegantly of recent times.
Why don't you teef it tomorrow from your nearest
megastore?
Now, then, promise this’ll be the second and last
time to even mention it, but just had to reprint
– in FULL – the following letter from the daily
express of Friday june20th (’03). Does their
migrant issues coverage influence whether you buy
the paper somedays? If you like what a paper is
saying, and its fits your own political
prejudices (whether Guardinista prog, judicious
Times liberal, patriotic Telegraph, nutjob MoS,
etc.), then you might go for it. anyway, here is
a letter written by a gentleman called Alain
Green of Stretford, a couple of miles up the road
from where i live (and where one works;
incidentally my subway route of late has been
superb the last two days have seen massive mural
sized action and some interesting figures like
LOED (??) and everyone being a BUM as synonymous
with GOOD EGG appearing, as well as large scale
pieces of wonder and awe).
“I read with dismay your article about the
asylum seekers who are using the NHS (‘Foreign
freeloaders are killing the NHS’, June 18).
Daily I hear that we don’t take as many asylum
seekers as Germany or France, but the last time I
looked at an atlas they were substantially larger
countries than our tiny island.
These people should be called dole scroungers.
The people who fight for their rights are
generally, so far as I can see, from the same
ethnic groups. They tell us as a country how bad
we are and how we should really be treating these
people.
It is easy to ignore the silent majority. We may
complain about it but what are we going to do?
Generally nothing. I can see no political party
who stands up for the rights of the people who
matter. If I did they would have my vote.”
Alain Green,
Stretford, Trafford.”
Mr Green is being overly pessimistic on this
issue, one feels. If he wants someone to
represent him on this matter in a manner that one
is inferring he’d like, then he could certainly
vote for either the Tories, Labour or the BNP.
It’s nice to have that freedom of choice innit?
“same ethnic groups” hmm.
Page 11 of the same edition has the banner NEW
FLOOD OF IMMIGRANTS TO CASH IN OUR BENEFITS, a
helpful chart table of just what these scroungers
(all coming here from the 11 acceding EU
countries, mostly former ‘eastern bloc’) can get
over here, the even more helpful phone in vote
SHOULD FOREIGNERS GET BRITISH BENEFITS?, and
other titbits.
Poor old Simon Hughes at the bottom of the page
did say “It is an insult to the people of those
countries to suggest they are scroungers”, but
not before approving quotes from “Robert Oulds,
director of the Euro-sceptic Bruges group”, my
old muckah Sir Andrew Green (MigrationWatchUK)
and, of course, Action Man Oliver Letwin. At the
very end of the article, the following sentence :
-
‘Last night the Foreign Office said immigrants
would have to prove they were permanent residents
and there were plans to limit state support to
those who had worked and paid taxes.’
i don’t know about you, but i feel it’s rather
beastly of the FCO to go and spoil the Express’
visually arresting charts and neat juxtaposed
image of some feral, scabrous Albanian bag thief
striding in the centre of the page, menacingly
intent on making his ways towards the good burghs
of Middle England by letting facts into the
debate (speaking of Middle England, if the
Express’ own article on tax shows the poorest
parts of society pay more tax than the middle
classes or “the rich”, why do they still have a
badge stamp saying WAR ON MIDDLE CLASS; why not
WAR ON WORKING CLASS? Grr, sorry for ranting).
Normally think George Monbiot leaves a little to
be desired, but am feeling almost genuinely well
disposed towards him today.
i had to cut and paste this one from the one below about Letwin; it was there a second ago.
i really don't understand this blogger template thingummywhojahmah. ~
writes over at Gramophone, and the last time i
was subbed to that had a delightful and
incredibly well informed column about vocal music
(hopefully it's still there). He's alumnus of
Oxbridge (can't remember which), but i do recall
with fondness a particularly lovely column he
once penned about going back to his old college
where they had some Haydn or Handel festival
going on, or such, and it was just well wicked
actually. He writes well about big guns like
Caruso and Callas. It would be interesting to see
him forced to write about Diamanda Galas
stripping in a church etc., and carousing (Terry
Pratchett once wrote carousing kind of implies
bread rolls, but in that instance i don't think
we need to bother). His surname sounds a bit like
feisty Belgian-Canadian-Jewish fella Mark Steyn,
a man associated with the stable of naturalised
British press baron Conrad Black, or Lord Black
of Crossharbour to his butler. Steyn writes
really well about Broadway showtunes etc., and
also wrote a buzzing article in the Sunday
Telegraph a few weeks back taking to task the
sacred cow that is Spector's wall of sound. Very
persuasive actually as i recall (Steyn, i think,
likes old jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and the like). He
also writes politics/world affairs these days,
his celebrated spat with Robert Fisk gave rise to
the term "fisking" (be careful how you type that
into your search engine) that you can now find in
any half decent moderate/liberal politics blog
that likes to slag off lefties. He's a bit too
bullish for my tastes politically, but you can't
argue with his show knowledge. Well, you could of
course, but you'd probably lose is what i mean,
unless you knew about shows (i don't).
Tom Magic Feet is good, i can never remember what
of his i've read, but whenever you do pick up
Jockey Slut, well, you'd like to describe his
stuff as 'trenchant', admittedly i don't know
what that word means, but i'm using it as a
compliment. Oh, actually, his stuff probably is
that, i just went and got the dictionary. How do
you do Tom?! Lulu LaVey at the same magazine, or
was last time (cover from about August 2001;
interview Mad Mike, cover was a couple of blokes
in ski masks, and the tagline something like 'UR
here'), and seems to like reggae, irie, etc. also
Chris Blue at the same place seems alright.
Indeed, Miss LaVey once seemed to slag off Mixmag
readers and told people that couldn't get into
old reggae compilations or something to sod off
back to Mixmag and smoke some "proper weed". An
excellent prescription. My favourite out and out
dance magazine, if not Jockey Slut, is Muzik.
They've had some good issues recently. Not too
sure about 7 (was a good interview with Fergie in
there once) or DJ and obviously Ministry and
Mixmag are/were both no great shakes.
Jacques Peretti used to be the clubbing
correspondent in the Guardian Guide on a
Saturday, and i've seen stuff of his in places
like Sleazenation i think talking about shark
porn. He was/is dead sarky and all that, and i
like a peep who comes across like that sometimes.
Stevie Chick another cross-media type, i'm sure
i've seen him in obviously the NME but also
somewhere like Dazed and Confused. If i recall
correctly, i might even have got a reply from him
about a query about Kerrang! journos on ILM once.
Lester Bangs and Nick Kent were obviously both
good eggs, i enjoyed that reprinted Lou Reed
interview the NME did with Bangs a bit ago. Some
mates have anthologies of his work, and there are
other granddad types in the Anglo-American
rock-crit canon, Tosches for instance right he¡¦s
not a 20 year old from iowa?; i'm sure i've
misspelled him. Did he say that rock died around
1968? A fair enough comment (although kraut and
ppunk etc. all good; think he was referring to
freeform brigades etc. which are totally good
eggs back in the day). Meschler and (totally
unrelated i know) the likes of Dave Haslam (skim
reading his book on Manchester is quite good) i
quite like too, although why Paul Gambaccini is
always described as pop critic i fail to see,
Stuart Maconie too (he is something like a friend
of a friend's stepdad apparently). Well, that's a
lie, gambaccini is a funny bloke, not a huge fan
of maconie though.
i've never been interested in finding out about
Garry Bushell and Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons
even when they were supposed to be good in their
early stages, so that's that. However, posh books
you can get these days in poncey art shops that
are reprinted collections of Sniffing Glue show
that Mark Perry and Danny Baker could write
really nicely (Baker chastising uncaring punks in
the wake of the Elvis death particularly good).
Obviously you cannot criticise Robert Christgau
or Greil Marcus, or rather, this site ain't about
to. Well, just to say find it a bit mystifying
about Christgau's reported thing for
Sleater-Kinney, and the cheeky chap should be
learnt about 2step as american rock journals
understand our shiny exports (as MJ Cole proved
its death with his most recent flogging a...
excursion?). But his African pop thing is
excellent. Oh, and John Savage's 'England's
Dreaming' is genuinely well, one can read it okay
anyway, although more preferable personally for
the dub shout outs, than anything else he does.
Speaking of dub, i do like Lloyd Bradley, even
though there's all the standard criticism that
his big reggae book seems to focus on the
roots/dub narrative, wanting to ignore digital
developments, slackness, and lovers, etc. That is
a fair enough point actually, you can see it when
you read his book. Also on the reggae tip, Peter
Dalton and Steve Barrow seem the best reggae
archivist types; they get the reader enthused,
which is the essence of a decent
critic/archaeologist surely. Simon Napier-Bell is
it, who did the 'Black Vinyl, White Powder' book
about British pop, well, that's a good read, but
don't know anything about him.
Speaking of African pop that allows an inelegant
opportunity to segue into journos covering world
music. Good eggs here include Andy Kershaw, Fiona
Talkington is it on Finnish accordions, Lucy
Duran (she writes an introduction to a Mande
poetry book you can buy in Penguin Classics),
Richard Trillo, Sue Steward, Simon Broughton,
Clive Bell and Richard Henderson. i'm sure half
the staff of either fRoots or Songlines, or
whatever other world mags there are, are all good
eggs too. Remember reading a marvellous review of
an album of trad' arr' Indonesian stuff in
Songlines ages ago, but i can't remember who
wrote it. i think it was Clive Bell that once
wrote an absolutely magnificent phrase about
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, thought it was a brilliant
piece of journalism, try and find it actually
hang on. "Khan sings with the generosity that is
sometimes the province of complete authority, and
is supported by other voices, lighter, but still
remarkable. The high pitched melismata and
endlessly inventive ornamentation tumble forth in
a manner European music hasn¡¦t heard for many a
century." What a superb way of phrasing he has!
Dele Fadele is good, his review of that Blood and
Fire 3 disc Big Youth set was the last review i
really paid attention to in the NME, although
what they had to say about the 50 Cent album
recently was quite interesting. i think he was
caught in the centre between the hip-hop wars
between the soulboys and the indie fans at the
NME in the mid-80s that were brought to a finish
when Stuart Cosgrove got fired. It's odd that,
NME will always be basically an indie/rock paper
in my eyes given the late 90s times i paid
attention to it. Charles Shaar Murray's book on
Jimi Hendrix has some excellent chapters on jazz
and the blues especially, some fine taking to
task of that most overrated of holy (rock) cows
Led Zeppelin (Simon's uberhipster index shows me
up as wrong on this issue, ah well... ;), and
anecdotes on the chitlin circuit. Dele Fadele is
actually officially buzzing, i would say.
David Stubbs and Ian MacDonald are both okay,
although Stubbs is better, because he doesn't go
on about the Beatles as much. Obviously Penman
and Morley all good too, although prefer Penman
quite a lot. There's a bloke at UNCUT called
Yates something or other who i really like.
Ingram seemed to once suggest (well, it was
probably the way one was reading twanboc that
day) the only hip-hop writers he really liked
were David Toop and the wonderful S F-J (i should
mail matt about that actually, had a nice coupla
jars with him in covent garden the other week and
he was wearing a art instiute of chicago tee. i'd
add Hua Hsu, Peter Shapiro, and Nelson George
anyway, i really like all them lot. Hsu in
particular has a lovely way of riffing about
stuff, and then he just goes off on one. i can't
describe it (as you can see...) but it is
brilliant, true stuff. Shapiro's magnificent
death-disco primer in a recent Wire was about as
good as Dizzee (i.e., very). i don't know if
George is supposed to be a bit conservative or
something, but everything i've read of his is
good. That is opposed to Craig Werner stuff,
which is less okay of course.
Being, prithee and true, the princely Marc
Rowlands' five most important clubs in northwest
England, ever : -
- The Hac, Mcr
- The Twisted Wheel, Mcr
- The Cavern, Lpool
- Casino, Wigan
- Mecca, Blackpool
How spot on.
"as I write, highly civilised human beings are
flying overhead trying to kill me; if one of them
succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a
well-timed bomb he will never sleep any the worse
for it. He is serving his country, which has the
power to absolve him from evil."
George Orwell, 'The Lion And The Unicorn'
Speaking of mcr, the latest edition or so of city
life is doing a manc frontmen thing, ten in all
of what they think as the most bestest or
famousest, with writers banging on about it.
Sylvia Patterson flicks her bean to Liam
("brusque, intense, sexually invincible, vain,
glorious, audacious, illegal, with better hair").
PJ Anderson on Hucknall is, of course, more
defensive than needs to be (if you like it, fair
enough), but that's not surprising is it.
Rob Bright on MES is terribly OTT ("No-one in the
history of music has written from such a huge
frame of reference" ?!).
Paul Flynn is okay on Sumner ("a very different
kind of frontman"), and pretty insightfully
centres Sumner as some anti-frontman type.
Everyone's favourite preacher, John Robb, loves
Tim Burgess, but i just can't have a sympathetic
viewpoint about someone whose hometown's chief
football club is Northwich Victoria, frankly.
David Sue might be a nice bloke (he hangs out in
Big Hands - go on a Thursday in particular
somedisco sez for Black Plastic, ragga/ska/reggae
affair - after all, so there's clearly little
wrong with his sense of livery-fun-taste), but
his piece on Richard Ashcroft pales in comparison
to a couple - in particular - of the other
articles.
You'd never have thought Terry Christian (Old
Trafford) might have gone for Moz (Stretford and
Baguley via Ardwick innit?) (well, i wouldn't)
but this "genuine working class hero" illuminated
Christian's formative outsider, rough catholic,
type years (the wire has recently started
labelling the likes of daniel johnson {or no
doubt chuck prophet,etc.} as Outsider S/s''. what
is the problem with the wire capitalising stuff
like Techno? Bizarre), so that's all faberge
eggs, really.
Dave Haslam is pretty good on Brown, sort of how
cool/shaggable (his straaaange views on the
Romans etc. aren't mentioned) he was, also oddly
seems to go against the editorial that says
frontmen can of course be knobheads, by saying
how Brown's personal niceness (as opposed to a
selfish drugtaker like Liam) is a virtue. There
is one good long phrase though, "Ian Brown had
the original Manc swagger, but it was born out of
the mid-1980s, when no-one was giving Northern
bands - or the North of England come to that - a
chance. It was about taking on the world, the
swagger of an away fan through the back streets
on a Saturday afternoon. When you've got to give
it some attitude. But those years slipped into
laddishness, embracing only one kind of
Manchester, and we ended-up with a culture that
glorified thugs, drugs, and thieving. Ian Brown
could see beyond that, to all the different
Manchesters - M21, M9, M41 - and then beyond the
Manchester hype".
incidentally, i went to the same school as ian
brown and john squire.
The best writer herein is, of course, Morley. He
uses a good device about repetition and plenty of
start-me-sentence with a questing proposition
about rock'n'roll all the time, and his last line
is "If rock'n'roll is forever, then Ian Curtis,
etc" Plenty of fine phrasing here that ain't
diminished by even, say, imagining Morley's own
voice narrating it, and he's particularly good
the first half of his sentences, ready to
explode, potential not yet realised etc., here we
are, there's "If rock'n'roll is serious, and it's
all about being serious about the serious things
that happen to you as you grow up..." or "If
rock'n'roll is having your own dance..." or "If
rock'n'roll is pop..." or "If rock’n’roll is
whatever you want to call it, but we might as
well still call it rock'n'roll..." or "If
rock'n'roll is a matter of life and death, and it
has been known to be so..." or "If rock'n'roll is
vast loneliness fired into fierce belonging..."
or, finally, "If rock'n'roll is what I think it
is...".
As you can see, you could only sustain the above
for a small magazine page, but it works well at
the time. must admit, the only good mcr band out
of the big ones mentioned are the Mondays, am not
a fan in the slightest of JD (sorry q or our
kid), obviously buzzcocks and elements of the ACR
approach are good, spose the fall too in stages.
Clearly 10cc as well... "quiet local modesty
mixed with a loud universal madness".
Anyway, onto the personal favourite Mr Shaun
Ryder, hagiography courtesy of Mr John Harris.~
"Everybody on this stagecoach likes robbing and
bashing, big blags abroad and smoking large
amounts of hash,"
__The Happy Mondays, 'Olive Oil' (1987).
"...case places over and pull stings in diamond
shops or travel agents. They'd cop ten or 15
grand, live off that for a few months, and go to
Ibiza."
Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough,
characterising what type of people his charges
were.
i like the "stratospherically cool" and "genuine
article" bits.
Well, we'd certainly be excoriated round here for
talking about the people observing rather than
the actual stuff itself, tsk, do apologise.
To carry on the rockism trope, it's certainly
important for (Ingram's) European dance fans to
perhaps get onto some rock, and Spacemen 3's 1989
bash 'Playing with Fire' is as good an idea as
any, as Dale/Reynolds/others have been testifying
so elegantly of recent times.
Why don't you teef it tomorrow from your nearest
megastore?
Now, then, promise this’ll be the second and last
time to even mention it, but just had to reprint
– in FULL – the following letter from the daily
express of Friday june20th (’03). Does their
migrant issues coverage influence whether you buy
the paper somedays? If you like what a paper is
saying, and its fits your own political
prejudices (whether Guardinista prog, judicious
Times liberal, patriotic Telegraph, nutjob MoS,
etc.), then you might go for it. anyway, here is
a letter written by a gentleman called Alain
Green of Stretford, a couple of miles up the road
from where i live (and where one works;
incidentally my subway route of late has been
superb the last two days have seen massive mural
sized action and some interesting figures like
LOED (??) and everyone being a BUM as synonymous
with GOOD EGG appearing, as well as large scale
pieces of wonder and awe).
“I read with dismay your article about the
asylum seekers who are using the NHS (‘Foreign
freeloaders are killing the NHS’, June 18).
Daily I hear that we don’t take as many asylum
seekers as Germany or France, but the last time I
looked at an atlas they were substantially larger
countries than our tiny island.
These people should be called dole scroungers.
The people who fight for their rights are
generally, so far as I can see, from the same
ethnic groups. They tell us as a country how bad
we are and how we should really be treating these
people.
It is easy to ignore the silent majority. We may
complain about it but what are we going to do?
Generally nothing. I can see no political party
who stands up for the rights of the people who
matter. If I did they would have my vote.”
Alain Green,
Stretford, Trafford.”
Mr Green is being overly pessimistic on this
issue, one feels. If he wants someone to
represent him on this matter in a manner that one
is inferring he’d like, then he could certainly
vote for either the Tories, Labour or the BNP.
It’s nice to have that freedom of choice innit?
“same ethnic groups” hmm.
Page 11 of the same edition has the banner NEW
FLOOD OF IMMIGRANTS TO CASH IN OUR BENEFITS, a
helpful chart table of just what these scroungers
(all coming here from the 11 acceding EU
countries, mostly former ‘eastern bloc’) can get
over here, the even more helpful phone in vote
SHOULD FOREIGNERS GET BRITISH BENEFITS?, and
other titbits.
Poor old Simon Hughes at the bottom of the page
did say “It is an insult to the people of those
countries to suggest they are scroungers”, but
not before approving quotes from “Robert Oulds,
director of the Euro-sceptic Bruges group”, my
old muckah Sir Andrew Green (MigrationWatchUK)
and, of course, Action Man Oliver Letwin. At the
very end of the article, the following sentence :
-
‘Last night the Foreign Office said immigrants
would have to prove they were permanent residents
and there were plans to limit state support to
those who had worked and paid taxes.’
i don’t know about you, but i feel it’s rather
beastly of the FCO to go and spoil the Express’
visually arresting charts and neat juxtaposed
image of some feral, scabrous Albanian bag thief
striding in the centre of the page, menacingly
intent on making his ways towards the good burghs
of Middle England by letting facts into the
debate (speaking of Middle England, if the
Express’ own article on tax shows the poorest
parts of society pay more tax than the middle
classes or “the rich”, why do they still have a
badge stamp saying WAR ON MIDDLE CLASS; why not
WAR ON WORKING CLASS? Grr, sorry for ranting).
Normally think George Monbiot leaves a little to
be desired, but am feeling almost genuinely well
disposed towards him today.
i had to cut and paste this one from the one below about Letwin; it was there a second ago.
i really don't understand this blogger template thingummywhojahmah. ~
it says in this morning's paper that Mr Letwin told an audience in Brixton yesterday it was time for the Tories to take on the inner cities and stop just being the party of the shires.
yeah mate, i should coco.
on the other hand, if he's planning to play to the entrepreneurial Thatcherite values one might assume many dealers possess, who knows? [ETA: 'ho ho', privileged #hottake humour {sic}]
yeah mate, i should coco.
on the other hand, if he's planning to play to the entrepreneurial Thatcherite values one might assume many dealers possess, who knows? [ETA: 'ho ho', privileged #hottake humour {sic}]
Wednesday 18 June 2003
‘At your place/soft rock eases over the board/simple as this top I’ve always loved/because it slips so beautifully off.’
__Steven Waling.
“Of all the inane, mindless buffoons that inhabit this planet, themers of pub/bar chains are just about the most stupid. Is there one Edwards in the UK which anybody goes to with affection? Meant as weekend drinks factories for medium sized towns they are shocking.”
Jonathan Schofield, City Life Food&Drink section, May 7th, 2003.
Someone should give this man an award for services to journalism (and drinkers, come to think of it).
Edwards are awful, he is right, they are truly bad. i think the only chains i regard with less (trust me, this is saying a >>lot---} affection are o’neills, walkabouts, and possibly pitchers and pianos (the one in didsbury is alright). Places like the living room and zinc (terence conran stable) are v upmarket and ‘trendy’ of course, but they’re still wank as well. The same goes for the likes of rsvp. The only chain i can think of that serves booze that’s okay is probably ‘spoons, and that’s for a combination of factors anyway.
But he’ll never be more right than about edwards, girls in legwarmers and garish plimsolls, juicy ‘trackie’ culture, airkissing, marrying shellsuity material with heels (combats and stillettos?) denim micros, kelly osbourne/beyonce/karen o fashion collisions, bangles, BIG britney hats, hipster pants, less of the thong arse please luv, yeah they are just shocking.
A pox on them.
actually, slug and lettuces are FUCKING shite an’ all. and musn’t forget bar meds, they are bad. bad bad eggs.
More quotes, we IS rock. Oh, i know what Penman said about quotes at apawboy, and he’s right of course, but for now, pray patience, the archcleric of good old Baluchi town will be along soon.
~’Chris Martin shouldn’t be using this cause to bang on about his own views on the war. If him and his gawky bird want to go banging on about the war they can do it at their own gigs.”
_Liam Gallagher. Gwynnie is a gawky bird, oh yes.
[a sexually ambivalent, amoral (but exceedinly oral) portmanteau anti-hero who part saint and part devil, an instant myth of the pop sixties whose tastes in music, clothes, cars, drugs, wombs, technology and apotheosis all seemed to make him an authentic emblem of Swinging London]
“In the name of reclaiming culture as a means to produce ourselves rather than serving as a mere report of past sensations, all art must be defaced.”
_Guy Debord, ‘The Society of the Spectacle’.
Perhaps we should rename Iain Banks’ ‘The Wasp Factory’ ‘The Quote Factory’ and sell it exclusively online here.
“IT WOULD BE APT to draw attention to goya’s disasters of war prints, recently DONNIE DARKO-ised by the CHAPMAN brothers – an act that has likewise attracted venomous condemnation. The chapmans’ defacement of these rare prints {bought by jay jopling, don’t FORGET now people} with demonic puppy heads and clowns SERVE as a reaction to the co-option of our SENSE of horror by today’s culture, THE artistic community’s enfeeblement in the face of war…”
~danny moran.
Hmm.
There’s a stone in Ann Arbor, MI., near lots of frat houses. It’s always painted up, and one saw a sneaker 40 yards above the road there once, suspended very daintily but thrillingly on wires. Then there were other things, think to do with nude girls, can’t remember. It was a rum do.
And no mistake.
Someone said – oh it was actually the man himself – of Billy Collins’ poetry, that “every poem is a failed attempt. That each fails in its own special way might be as much uniqueness as I can claim for them.”
~
HOW poor is the following?
“A Tory council leader sparked fury yesterday when he dismissed the death of a British soldier by sneering: ‘That is what they are paid for.’
Neville Sanders stunned the family of Royal Irish Regiment trooper Paul Cochrane with a foul-mouthed tirade in which he said Northern Ireland should “fuck off”. The 18-year-old committed suicide at a barracks in Northern Ireland, claiming he was abused and bullied under the command of Gulf War hero Tim Collins. But when asked to support an inquiry into his death, Peterborough City Council leader Mr Sanders wrote back: ‘Members of the armed forces get killed, that is what they are paid for.’
The millionaire added: ‘We are happy for Northern Ireland to fuck off and run its own affairs. The Irish should live in peace and get on with it.’
Pt Cochrane’s father Billy said: ‘This is obviously a very ignorant, ill-informed man.’”
One’d like to know more details, but dunno where to find them. For instance, did Mr Sanders write back in an official capacity? Did he write that on PCC headed paper? He sounds rather more ignorant and ill-informed than the average bloke in the snug; distressing.
Stephen pollard was writing in the Sunday telegraph recently about hamas and pointed out that some prominent hamas members weren’t intending for their offspring to become martyrs; that ‘honour’ was supposed to be reserved for kids from the poorest ends of gaza, etc. in fact, he basically said that was the case for the whole leadership, pack the kids off to harvard or the sorbonne and let the lower levels below stairs lot get on with it. which rather chimes – dunno if this appropriate to note, but heck – with a tossed off line in a recent issue of the NYRB when some commentator observed that frontline duty on the American end in Iraq recently wasn’t for kids of the martial neo-con Virginia/New England academy types, but rather for – what were the three names? – “Jose, Tyrone and Bubba”/. An obvious point to drag up on a blog in the latter case sure, but never had i really considered the former. In fact the only point of view of any depth i have ever had about contemporary Palestine is reading joe sacco’s (most excellent) coming books, sort of take ‘maus’ as inspiration and dive on from there.
And i missed the death of klinghoffer on the telly recently.
You tend not to see many sparrows of late, is the received wisdom. But come round here and there’s a fair few.
Bus drivers round our way have Ut on their blasters too as well! If not them, then usually some Freddie Foxxx or early Marva Whitney. ‘strue/.
Kestrels are fantastic.
They are probably better than sparrowhawks, probably. Their name sounds like a good one. It seems redolent of futurisation and Fordism and talons and cutting and how metal has been used as tool for war, not just peace and prosperity and effort. Their mainly grey plumage action means that when they swoop over busy roads on the lookout for an unfortunately placed vole (say) it looks like they are some big element of the gravel or tarmacadam that has broken free of its bearings and managed to escape into the skies, if only temporarily.
And the kestrel is being sucked back into the motherlode by some, as yet, inexplicable force. A tractor beam for the A41, perhaps? Then when the grey flash joins with the whirr, the buzz, and killing instruments on the kestrel’s part are out, it looks like an abnormally sized neutrino racing to ground, all the way from Jupiter (or wherever).
Look at the buzzard. Look at it over the welsh countryside. Our cambrian friends may get to see more of them than others, and that is to their credit. They are bloody big things, they really are. Just hovering. So magnificent to watch.
Vanessa carlton is ‘so’ cute with her bangs, etc. well, she is ~so* cute with her long hair actually.
THE FOLLOWING IS A TRUE (TOTALLY) TRUE STORY/ANECDOTE thing (methinks) : -
The phone rings at the gaff (he might want to call it an abode) of pete cook (when he was alive, obviously, is when this tale is set).
It is a mate of pete’s.
Pete’s mate wants to meet up with him (possibly for a few scoops down the alehouse, who can say). He asks him if he’s doing anything the next night.
Pete announces he’ll just check with his calendar etc.
He shuffles off, for awhile.
Long silence, wait for the other geezer.
Pete returns.
He tells his chum that, no, sorry, he can’t make it tomorrow night, he’s watching the telly.
Marvellous!
“Well, they’re building a gallows outside my cell, and I’ve got 25 minutes to go….I sent for the Governor and the whole darn bunch with 21 minutes to go….and I called up the Mayor, but he’s out to lunch, with 20 more minutes to go… …now here comes a preacher for to save my soul with 13 minutes to go… …and the trap and the rope, aw, they work just fine, ten more minutes to go….”
__Steven Waling.
“Of all the inane, mindless buffoons that inhabit this planet, themers of pub/bar chains are just about the most stupid. Is there one Edwards in the UK which anybody goes to with affection? Meant as weekend drinks factories for medium sized towns they are shocking.”
Jonathan Schofield, City Life Food&Drink section, May 7th, 2003.
Someone should give this man an award for services to journalism (and drinkers, come to think of it).
Edwards are awful, he is right, they are truly bad. i think the only chains i regard with less (trust me, this is saying a >>lot---} affection are o’neills, walkabouts, and possibly pitchers and pianos (the one in didsbury is alright). Places like the living room and zinc (terence conran stable) are v upmarket and ‘trendy’ of course, but they’re still wank as well. The same goes for the likes of rsvp. The only chain i can think of that serves booze that’s okay is probably ‘spoons, and that’s for a combination of factors anyway.
But he’ll never be more right than about edwards, girls in legwarmers and garish plimsolls, juicy ‘trackie’ culture, airkissing, marrying shellsuity material with heels (combats and stillettos?) denim micros, kelly osbourne/beyonce/karen o fashion collisions, bangles, BIG britney hats, hipster pants, less of the thong arse please luv, yeah they are just shocking.
A pox on them.
actually, slug and lettuces are FUCKING shite an’ all. and musn’t forget bar meds, they are bad. bad bad eggs.
More quotes, we IS rock. Oh, i know what Penman said about quotes at apawboy, and he’s right of course, but for now, pray patience, the archcleric of good old Baluchi town will be along soon.
~’Chris Martin shouldn’t be using this cause to bang on about his own views on the war. If him and his gawky bird want to go banging on about the war they can do it at their own gigs.”
_Liam Gallagher. Gwynnie is a gawky bird, oh yes.
[a sexually ambivalent, amoral (but exceedinly oral) portmanteau anti-hero who part saint and part devil, an instant myth of the pop sixties whose tastes in music, clothes, cars, drugs, wombs, technology and apotheosis all seemed to make him an authentic emblem of Swinging London]
“In the name of reclaiming culture as a means to produce ourselves rather than serving as a mere report of past sensations, all art must be defaced.”
_Guy Debord, ‘The Society of the Spectacle’.
Perhaps we should rename Iain Banks’ ‘The Wasp Factory’ ‘The Quote Factory’ and sell it exclusively online here.
“IT WOULD BE APT to draw attention to goya’s disasters of war prints, recently DONNIE DARKO-ised by the CHAPMAN brothers – an act that has likewise attracted venomous condemnation. The chapmans’ defacement of these rare prints {bought by jay jopling, don’t FORGET now people} with demonic puppy heads and clowns SERVE as a reaction to the co-option of our SENSE of horror by today’s culture, THE artistic community’s enfeeblement in the face of war…”
~danny moran.
Hmm.
There’s a stone in Ann Arbor, MI., near lots of frat houses. It’s always painted up, and one saw a sneaker 40 yards above the road there once, suspended very daintily but thrillingly on wires. Then there were other things, think to do with nude girls, can’t remember. It was a rum do.
And no mistake.
Someone said – oh it was actually the man himself – of Billy Collins’ poetry, that “every poem is a failed attempt. That each fails in its own special way might be as much uniqueness as I can claim for them.”
~
HOW poor is the following?
“A Tory council leader sparked fury yesterday when he dismissed the death of a British soldier by sneering: ‘That is what they are paid for.’
Neville Sanders stunned the family of Royal Irish Regiment trooper Paul Cochrane with a foul-mouthed tirade in which he said Northern Ireland should “fuck off”. The 18-year-old committed suicide at a barracks in Northern Ireland, claiming he was abused and bullied under the command of Gulf War hero Tim Collins. But when asked to support an inquiry into his death, Peterborough City Council leader Mr Sanders wrote back: ‘Members of the armed forces get killed, that is what they are paid for.’
The millionaire added: ‘We are happy for Northern Ireland to fuck off and run its own affairs. The Irish should live in peace and get on with it.’
Pt Cochrane’s father Billy said: ‘This is obviously a very ignorant, ill-informed man.’”
One’d like to know more details, but dunno where to find them. For instance, did Mr Sanders write back in an official capacity? Did he write that on PCC headed paper? He sounds rather more ignorant and ill-informed than the average bloke in the snug; distressing.
Stephen pollard was writing in the Sunday telegraph recently about hamas and pointed out that some prominent hamas members weren’t intending for their offspring to become martyrs; that ‘honour’ was supposed to be reserved for kids from the poorest ends of gaza, etc. in fact, he basically said that was the case for the whole leadership, pack the kids off to harvard or the sorbonne and let the lower levels below stairs lot get on with it. which rather chimes – dunno if this appropriate to note, but heck – with a tossed off line in a recent issue of the NYRB when some commentator observed that frontline duty on the American end in Iraq recently wasn’t for kids of the martial neo-con Virginia/New England academy types, but rather for – what were the three names? – “Jose, Tyrone and Bubba”/. An obvious point to drag up on a blog in the latter case sure, but never had i really considered the former. In fact the only point of view of any depth i have ever had about contemporary Palestine is reading joe sacco’s (most excellent) coming books, sort of take ‘maus’ as inspiration and dive on from there.
And i missed the death of klinghoffer on the telly recently.
You tend not to see many sparrows of late, is the received wisdom. But come round here and there’s a fair few.
Bus drivers round our way have Ut on their blasters too as well! If not them, then usually some Freddie Foxxx or early Marva Whitney. ‘strue/.
Kestrels are fantastic.
They are probably better than sparrowhawks, probably. Their name sounds like a good one. It seems redolent of futurisation and Fordism and talons and cutting and how metal has been used as tool for war, not just peace and prosperity and effort. Their mainly grey plumage action means that when they swoop over busy roads on the lookout for an unfortunately placed vole (say) it looks like they are some big element of the gravel or tarmacadam that has broken free of its bearings and managed to escape into the skies, if only temporarily.
And the kestrel is being sucked back into the motherlode by some, as yet, inexplicable force. A tractor beam for the A41, perhaps? Then when the grey flash joins with the whirr, the buzz, and killing instruments on the kestrel’s part are out, it looks like an abnormally sized neutrino racing to ground, all the way from Jupiter (or wherever).
Look at the buzzard. Look at it over the welsh countryside. Our cambrian friends may get to see more of them than others, and that is to their credit. They are bloody big things, they really are. Just hovering. So magnificent to watch.
Vanessa carlton is ‘so’ cute with her bangs, etc. well, she is ~so* cute with her long hair actually.
THE FOLLOWING IS A TRUE (TOTALLY) TRUE STORY/ANECDOTE thing (methinks) : -
The phone rings at the gaff (he might want to call it an abode) of pete cook (when he was alive, obviously, is when this tale is set).
It is a mate of pete’s.
Pete’s mate wants to meet up with him (possibly for a few scoops down the alehouse, who can say). He asks him if he’s doing anything the next night.
Pete announces he’ll just check with his calendar etc.
He shuffles off, for awhile.
Long silence, wait for the other geezer.
Pete returns.
He tells his chum that, no, sorry, he can’t make it tomorrow night, he’s watching the telly.
Marvellous!
“Well, they’re building a gallows outside my cell, and I’ve got 25 minutes to go….I sent for the Governor and the whole darn bunch with 21 minutes to go….and I called up the Mayor, but he’s out to lunch, with 20 more minutes to go… …now here comes a preacher for to save my soul with 13 minutes to go… …and the trap and the rope, aw, they work just fine, ten more minutes to go….”
Tuesday 17 June 2003
Monday 16 June 2003
If you are off to the pictures, you could go and see something like 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS or ANGER MANAGEMENT or BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE or TADPOLE or IGBY GOES DOWN or IDENTITY or DARK WATER or RIPLEY’S GAME or DUMB AND DUMBERER or BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS or A GUY THING or THE HOT CHICK or HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS or THE MATRIX RELOADED or X2 or PHONE BOOTH or THE HUNTED
(~’@actually, ‘springtime in a small town’ is QUITE nice too, so i dunno like.)
=o=r you could just go and see ‘sympathy for mr vengeance’ instead.
~
In a travel article, rachel ogden – visiting st. kitts (as in & nevis) – mentions riding the St Kitts Scenic Railway, and the delights of moving through “charming shanty towns” at a sedentary pace. Hmm.
It all rather reminds one of rincewind’s lessons about guidebook tourism doublespeak in the first discworld book.
Next Week: Barney Rubble visits the “picturesque retreat” of the Karachi slums.
~“After three days of sand, water becomes the Holy Grail.”~
i like rod liddle me, i used to enjoy his columns in the guardian and such, very much. And he wrote something good in another broadsheet a bit ago. But i don’t very much like his style on that Saturday morning show he presents on i think beeb2, the politics show or so. It’s fascinating telly, and i watch it, but he always seem a bit too mean and rude, and, ooh, strident and sarky for me. There again, that’s just me being a ponce, but i was watching it with rob (both in our boxers, lazily burping and scratching, which must have been a sight for alex when she returned with fresh bog roll bless her) a week or two ago and they had some chap on who used to be a civil servant, and he was very clean lipped and judicious and informed and mild and so one liked him almost immediately (like the Pevensies coming across the helpful beaver couple near the area later known as beaversdam in ‘the lion, the witch and the wardrobe’, suppose), and liddle was being an absolute rude ass to him. Terrible business. They also had david shayler on, whose opinions on anything to do with, well, this intelligence malark and that sort of thing, well, frightful business, deaf ears round here chumley. Anyway, sorry for ranting.
You always get good letters in the metro (that free commuter paper they distribute in london and the larger provincial towns) about the israeli-palestinian situation (incidentally, one very much doubts the “they” who distribute the metro are the same “they” who stole the hanging basket from our irene’s front door, but that’s to digress). Below are three from Wednesday 7th may 2003, and two, two days later, from the 9th of may, for your reading interest.
‘DS has a good point. I did not see any report in Tuesday’s Metro that Gideon Lichterman, 27, was shot to death, and his six-year-old daughter was wounded, in an attack on their car on Monday night while driving in the northern Jordan Valley.
Last November, Esther Galia, a mother of seven, was killed in the same area. Her murder was also not given much prominence.
Are Israeli victims of random shootings less worthy of sympathy than Palestinian kids used by their terrorist fathers as human shields?’
Jimmy Robinson, Edinburgh.
‘How can DS complain about bias against Israel? Don’t they know that the Palestinians don’t have an army and so are all, by definition, civilians?
All Israelis, both men and women, are liable to conscription into the army and so are legitimate military targets. Once DS has appreciated this simple point, they will understand why Israel has no right of self-defence in the eyes of liberal-minded people.’
Abdullah Husseini, Manchester {i wonder if Mr Husseini is one of those mad Islamofascist types that stands with their stands and placards down Market Street on a Saturday, haranguing passersby, and shouting to be heard above the hubbub of Countryside Alliance types, God-botherers, Hare Krisha sorts, Socialist picketers, mad Zionists, and the like).
‘In response to DS: of course Israel has a right to defend itself. But there would be more sympathy for Israel’s cause if it were acknowledged that Israel bears some responsibility for the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
It is also perfectly legitimate to complain about unbalanced reporting. But it doesn’t help your case if anti-Israeli bias seems more important to you than the loss of innocent lives.’
James Alexander, Nottingham (now that was good and more balanced than the previous, like a letter on international affairs to The Economist might be, yep).
‘Naomi Talisman appears to be trotting out the tired old line that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic and the critic should shut up or be labelled a Nazi. But this is false. Criticism of Israel does not equate to anti-Semitism any more than criticism of Mugabe equates to racism.
Her assertion Palestinian Jews outnumbered Arabs by 1906 is a blatant falsehood. By 1948, only one third of the Palestinian population was Jewish.
She mentions many acts of violence perpetrated by the Arabs against the Jews but there is another side to this story. It is a fact that Israel was born out of terrorism.
Violent acts by Jewish terrorists such as the bombing of the King David hotel on July 22, 1946, resulted in 90 deaths and 40 injuries.
In December of 1947, Jewish Irgun terrorists threw grenades from a passing taxi into a café near the Damascus gate, Jerusalem, killing 11 Arabs and two British policemen.
Probably the most heinous act of terrorism was the slaughter of more than 100 inhabitants of the Arab village of Deir Yassin. Not even pregnant women were spared.
In violence and terrorism was the Israeli state born and, until justice returns to that troubled land, in violence and terrorism it shall remain.’
JP, London SW17.
‘Abdullah Husseini’s letter disgusts me. His claim that all Israelis are liable to conscription and hence are legitimate military targets is utterly prepostereous. Does that include Moriah Lichterman, aged six, who was shot in the head by Palestinian terrorists on Monday.
Mr Husseini might also find that the Geneva Convention disagrees with his ideas on morality and war.
His comments disregard the indiscriminate nature of terrorism.
Palestinians have also been killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks on buses and restaurants in Israel.
Loss of innocent life on either side is a tragedy, and should be reported without bias.’
Louise Dobson, Manchester.
(~’@actually, ‘springtime in a small town’ is QUITE nice too, so i dunno like.)
=o=r you could just go and see ‘sympathy for mr vengeance’ instead.
~
In a travel article, rachel ogden – visiting st. kitts (as in & nevis) – mentions riding the St Kitts Scenic Railway, and the delights of moving through “charming shanty towns” at a sedentary pace. Hmm.
It all rather reminds one of rincewind’s lessons about guidebook tourism doublespeak in the first discworld book.
Next Week: Barney Rubble visits the “picturesque retreat” of the Karachi slums.
~“After three days of sand, water becomes the Holy Grail.”~
i like rod liddle me, i used to enjoy his columns in the guardian and such, very much. And he wrote something good in another broadsheet a bit ago. But i don’t very much like his style on that Saturday morning show he presents on i think beeb2, the politics show or so. It’s fascinating telly, and i watch it, but he always seem a bit too mean and rude, and, ooh, strident and sarky for me. There again, that’s just me being a ponce, but i was watching it with rob (both in our boxers, lazily burping and scratching, which must have been a sight for alex when she returned with fresh bog roll bless her) a week or two ago and they had some chap on who used to be a civil servant, and he was very clean lipped and judicious and informed and mild and so one liked him almost immediately (like the Pevensies coming across the helpful beaver couple near the area later known as beaversdam in ‘the lion, the witch and the wardrobe’, suppose), and liddle was being an absolute rude ass to him. Terrible business. They also had david shayler on, whose opinions on anything to do with, well, this intelligence malark and that sort of thing, well, frightful business, deaf ears round here chumley. Anyway, sorry for ranting.
You always get good letters in the metro (that free commuter paper they distribute in london and the larger provincial towns) about the israeli-palestinian situation (incidentally, one very much doubts the “they” who distribute the metro are the same “they” who stole the hanging basket from our irene’s front door, but that’s to digress). Below are three from Wednesday 7th may 2003, and two, two days later, from the 9th of may, for your reading interest.
‘DS has a good point. I did not see any report in Tuesday’s Metro that Gideon Lichterman, 27, was shot to death, and his six-year-old daughter was wounded, in an attack on their car on Monday night while driving in the northern Jordan Valley.
Last November, Esther Galia, a mother of seven, was killed in the same area. Her murder was also not given much prominence.
Are Israeli victims of random shootings less worthy of sympathy than Palestinian kids used by their terrorist fathers as human shields?’
Jimmy Robinson, Edinburgh.
‘How can DS complain about bias against Israel? Don’t they know that the Palestinians don’t have an army and so are all, by definition, civilians?
All Israelis, both men and women, are liable to conscription into the army and so are legitimate military targets. Once DS has appreciated this simple point, they will understand why Israel has no right of self-defence in the eyes of liberal-minded people.’
Abdullah Husseini, Manchester {i wonder if Mr Husseini is one of those mad Islamofascist types that stands with their stands and placards down Market Street on a Saturday, haranguing passersby, and shouting to be heard above the hubbub of Countryside Alliance types, God-botherers, Hare Krisha sorts, Socialist picketers, mad Zionists, and the like).
‘In response to DS: of course Israel has a right to defend itself. But there would be more sympathy for Israel’s cause if it were acknowledged that Israel bears some responsibility for the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
It is also perfectly legitimate to complain about unbalanced reporting. But it doesn’t help your case if anti-Israeli bias seems more important to you than the loss of innocent lives.’
James Alexander, Nottingham (now that was good and more balanced than the previous, like a letter on international affairs to The Economist might be, yep).
‘Naomi Talisman appears to be trotting out the tired old line that any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic and the critic should shut up or be labelled a Nazi. But this is false. Criticism of Israel does not equate to anti-Semitism any more than criticism of Mugabe equates to racism.
Her assertion Palestinian Jews outnumbered Arabs by 1906 is a blatant falsehood. By 1948, only one third of the Palestinian population was Jewish.
She mentions many acts of violence perpetrated by the Arabs against the Jews but there is another side to this story. It is a fact that Israel was born out of terrorism.
Violent acts by Jewish terrorists such as the bombing of the King David hotel on July 22, 1946, resulted in 90 deaths and 40 injuries.
In December of 1947, Jewish Irgun terrorists threw grenades from a passing taxi into a café near the Damascus gate, Jerusalem, killing 11 Arabs and two British policemen.
Probably the most heinous act of terrorism was the slaughter of more than 100 inhabitants of the Arab village of Deir Yassin. Not even pregnant women were spared.
In violence and terrorism was the Israeli state born and, until justice returns to that troubled land, in violence and terrorism it shall remain.’
JP, London SW17.
‘Abdullah Husseini’s letter disgusts me. His claim that all Israelis are liable to conscription and hence are legitimate military targets is utterly prepostereous. Does that include Moriah Lichterman, aged six, who was shot in the head by Palestinian terrorists on Monday.
Mr Husseini might also find that the Geneva Convention disagrees with his ideas on morality and war.
His comments disregard the indiscriminate nature of terrorism.
Palestinians have also been killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks on buses and restaurants in Israel.
Loss of innocent life on either side is a tragedy, and should be reported without bias.’
Louise Dobson, Manchester.
i emailed my mate qasim and, practically as an afterthought, added the brief and rather snide wondering-out-loud sentence of "are radioheads fans the new manics fans?" because a couple of friends of mine, and several places you seem to turn on the internet (as well as some sources in print journalism) do seem to be rather going overboard on their new one, known round my way as HAIL TO THE ALF (private 'joke'), and this fanboyism in such venerating, adoring qualities i've personally not seen since, well, manics year zero (alright, maybe most people for endtroducing, but you get my drift).
as far as i can tell (and i've not heard all of it anyway), it's fairly pleasant soundscapes, but (lazy summarising sentence awooga awooga awhooga, awhit awhit twoo) yunno, only as decent (in its own way) as any old piece of reasonably competent pastoral idm.
i liked OKC and kid a and the bends, so whilst i'm not quite as spiky as q's general throw away lines (because he's a genius), i just had to share his views : -
~
Tell me about it! I used to like Radiohead once upon
a time but they seem adamant to make shit music now
that stupid fuckers wank off over. The Bends is an
undeniable classic and one of my fav albums ever but
since then they've just made odd noises and transposed
Buckely-lite melodies on top of these noises.
~
at least as good as walking home from the boozer, pissed out of one's tree, singing all ten verses of One Man Went to Mow...
as far as i can tell (and i've not heard all of it anyway), it's fairly pleasant soundscapes, but (lazy summarising sentence awooga awooga awhooga, awhit awhit twoo) yunno, only as decent (in its own way) as any old piece of reasonably competent pastoral idm.
i liked OKC and kid a and the bends, so whilst i'm not quite as spiky as q's general throw away lines (because he's a genius), i just had to share his views : -
~
Tell me about it! I used to like Radiohead once upon
a time but they seem adamant to make shit music now
that stupid fuckers wank off over. The Bends is an
undeniable classic and one of my fav albums ever but
since then they've just made odd noises and transposed
Buckely-lite melodies on top of these noises.
~
at least as good as walking home from the boozer, pissed out of one's tree, singing all ten verses of One Man Went to Mow...
"Speaking to Tristan {Garel Jones, then Deputy Chief Whip} last night about that excitable little man Heseltine. He assiduously noted that he had to buy all his own furniture, a good point I thought and certainly one we will have to take into account."
~from the diary of Alan Clark, c.mid-November, 1990 (just before they were all about to stab Maggie in the back).
Brilliant, a man who doesn't inherit all his furnishings cannot be trusted to lead the Tory Party, then I thought that's where they've gone wrong; Major, Hague, IDS, no proper toffs at the top anymore.
~marvellous.
~from the diary of Alan Clark, c.mid-November, 1990 (just before they were all about to stab Maggie in the back).
Brilliant, a man who doesn't inherit all his furnishings cannot be trusted to lead the Tory Party, then I thought that's where they've gone wrong; Major, Hague, IDS, no proper toffs at the top anymore.
~marvellous.
Friday 13 June 2003
is the jungfrau named after carl jung's missus?
that fashion label paul's boutique, i don't know anything about them, so i always assume they're beastie boys fans, but there's a miniskirted girl at work wearing one of their skirts today and i'd take it she's a funky house or (u.s.) garage fan (oh, you know), so now i'm all confused on the matter.
fuck me, the kids on the call centre bit of this office are *too* flirty with customers, is this a good thing?
punk/that orbit type outfits : -
~
PASSE
the residents, chavez
ON THE CUSP
mission of burma, homosexuals
...FOR NOW
ACR (still!), this heat (ditto!)
HOTTER THAN MEXICAN ALUMINIUM FACTORY (one supposes)
the adverts for '...gilmour's eyes' oh yes. er.
that'll do.
i tink...
that fashion label paul's boutique, i don't know anything about them, so i always assume they're beastie boys fans, but there's a miniskirted girl at work wearing one of their skirts today and i'd take it she's a funky house or (u.s.) garage fan (oh, you know), so now i'm all confused on the matter.
fuck me, the kids on the call centre bit of this office are *too* flirty with customers, is this a good thing?
punk/that orbit type outfits : -
~
PASSE
the residents, chavez
ON THE CUSP
mission of burma, homosexuals
...FOR NOW
ACR (still!), this heat (ditto!)
HOTTER THAN MEXICAN ALUMINIUM FACTORY (one supposes)
the adverts for '...gilmour's eyes' oh yes. er.
that'll do.
i tink...
Thursday 12 June 2003
of course, to be fair to palmer et al, they would say it it realism (and they have a point), it is the naive one round our way.
yesterday's sun had a front page splash WARNING SEX IS KILLING BRITAIN. of course they had to illustrate this with a nubile scantily clad young woman getting it on with a bloke. the woman was in front so you could see plenty of bare flesh, etc. then it turned out the actual report was about the shock rise in STD's and STI's of late in this country.
one might be forgiven that a cursory glance at the front page, however, was merely advertising a new lovers guide and news international was quids in, due to some fortuitous commercial link up, or the like.
hmm.
yesterday's sun had a front page splash WARNING SEX IS KILLING BRITAIN. of course they had to illustrate this with a nubile scantily clad young woman getting it on with a bloke. the woman was in front so you could see plenty of bare flesh, etc. then it turned out the actual report was about the shock rise in STD's and STI's of late in this country.
one might be forgiven that a cursory glance at the front page, however, was merely advertising a new lovers guide and news international was quids in, due to some fortuitous commercial link up, or the like.
hmm.
of course i'm supposed to be one of these naive, whinging left-liberal types that would 'just let everyone in' and i just don't like alasdair palmer (and the like's) hard-headedness about lifeboat theories and such, so that is those credentials. still, starting from an assumption that people are arriving in droves, unwashed hordes, waves, overtaking us, blah blah blah, is not necessarily good journalism now is it.
dunno why the below post is formatted like that.
here's a good link.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0324/winter.php
dunno why the below post is formatted like that.
here's a good link.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0324/winter.php
Queensland constitutional history lesson.
1965.
Aborigines given the vote.
A BRIEF APPRECIATION OF MIKE TYSON, or, at least
A BRIEF AND SIMPLE APPRECIATION OF MIKE TYSON
CIRCA, SAY, AROUND 1989 (one does mean
super-brief; watch me burn and vex leanly)
when he said he wanted to rape desiree the other
week, well. He’d made a really good ‘black men in
the USA’ comment in an insightful manner about
being stigmatised, but then in literally the next
sentence he undid his good phraseological work.
garn.
anyway.
Well, let’s see, around 1988 to ’90 (when did he
batter Bruno? Around’92, spose’), anyway.
Getting into the ring.
Sike each other out with the stares, etc.
But he just got in, and you knew that it never
even crossed his mind – no, that’s inadequate –
it, well, couldn’t even explain the concept to
him. That he might lose. A bit like, er, maybe,
trying to explain the concept of time being a
universal invariate (or whatever) to an earthworm
in umbria using Cantonese sign language on a
murky evening.
Anyway, he got in, and just, well religious
conviction, you just knew the other chap was
going down.
Just used to love that. Admire, anyway. The other
bloke knew it too. Greatest boxer ever, a few
years or so, around then.
Then King got hold of him, he stopped training,
and it all went a over t.
Alas.
Thrilling and compelling and such.
The journalist carol sarler received a letter
that she quoted in her column on the 5th of
feb.03. it read
Zimbabwe is starving but in the little town where
I live, nearly 300 miles from Harare and over 300
miles from Bulawayo – the two places where the
World Cup cricket matches are due to take place –
the police have stopped the shops selling bread.
Why? Reliable information says it is in case
there are any foreigners in the area who have
come for the cricket, who might see the queues
and conclude there is something amiss.
I talked to a shopworker today at 5.15pm. ‘Do you
see those women?’ he said. ‘They have been
standing here all day, hoping we might bake some
bread but we are not allowed to sell them any.
In the shop were six policemen, making sure that
the instructions were carried out.
Children will be going hungry in Zimbabwe tonight
because of the cricket.
adamneate.co.uk
stolenspace.com
all good, do check. Check one, check one.
“British officers have been – privately –
appalled by the casual manner in which American
troops have shot and killed so many civilians,
both during their advance on Baghdad, when any
vehicle that moved seemed to be fair game, and,
more especially, after the war ended. There were
no such incidents in and around the
British-controlled Basra (apart, that is, from
Tim Collins running amok, causing a smallish
bruise). Yet the American liaison officers felt
so strongly as to complain about British
‘brutality’. More bizarre yet is that, right
under the eyes of the US forces in Baghdad, half
of the Iraqi government offices and the National
Museum were looted or set on fire”
~Kevin Myers~ Sunday Telegraph, May 25th.
What’s that saying? ‘all the gear, no idea’.
Yeah.
Too right.;)
One of the best flicks viewed at the pictures
this year (live! tonite! -so- not sold out!; nah,
one jests. There’s always a healthy turnout) thus
far personally was the uk premiere (thanks to
manchester’s always excellent commonwealth film
festival: beat that london) of ‘nothing to lose’,
a well paced Thai (wickedly) black
comedy/actioner. A bit like richard araki type
flicks (except better) it managed to weld
together sex and violence to produce a light but
robust frame of a narrative, muscular but also
deft. The (exquisitely beautiful) actress Fresh
is a (incidentally, dripping ~enormous~ sex
appeal from her completely #glorious* bod; can
you tell i liked her…) total revelation as
anti-heroine Gogo, who is about to commit suicide
by jumping from a skyscraper roof when she falls
in with the other central character, the stressed
and flustered Somchai (natty tie there mate).
then it’s blackjack for mtv base aficionados,
basically. Why does one see so few Thai films
packed with Singaporean and Thai talent? Gah,
distribution.
Kind of like russian roulette with a load of
pumped up feral bag thieves and a just fellated
e. white. Catch if one can, spose’ (listening to
the bees AGAIN, yes, am afraid).
Pound for pound, do think you’ve – probably –
gotta say that roy jones jr. is just about the
best fighter ever.
Paul callan is one of two agreeable enough
commentators one’s seen of late attacking the
line that anti-zionism is completely in the other
direction from anti-semitism. If one could be
arsed to write about this hugely important topic
one would think about it aloud, but can basically
see where they’re coming from, you do hear that
all the time don’t you, am not anti-semitic, just
anti-zionist. To be fair, i know my friends who
~do~ say that are NOT anti-semitic (you never
know with some of em). Hmm. The zionist project,
such as it is (should really read geoffrey
wheatcroft, that lakme fan), is to – isn’t it? –
originally protect israeli right to life etc. can
you be zionist without endorsing the settlements
and ultra-orthodox sentiment (to be pin-prick at
two grotesque caricatures of extreme israeli
opinion)? Would have thought so, yes. So yes, to
be anti-zionist perhaps, yes that is really
rather linked to being anti-semitic. It does
sometimes seem to be just rather a lazy line
that’s used. Harumph.
‘while speculating on the possible break-up of
the marriage of princess anne and tim laurence,
the daily mail writes “anne has no interest in
titles and pedigrees. Indeed, she was indifferent
to the fact that laurence is the direct
descendent of a jewish merchant called zaccaria
levy.” If princess anne and the queen herself
couldn’t care less about commander laurence’s
antecedents, what possible reason does the mail
have for drawing attention to them? Are they
trying to say the princess ought to have been put
off the union by laurence’s jewish origins? If
not, could somebody please tell me what point
they are meant to be making’.
i normally ignore (quelle horreur!) vanessa
feltz, but that’s good.
So, countries of origins for what i think are the
best flicks i’ve seen down the fleapit this year
are one Thai (above), one Korean, one British,
one Norwegian, one German, one American
(documentary, more of these to come, at least i think so, and on both counts), one Brazilian (obviously), and
then the bigger American ones that have been
good, well, ‘about schimdt’ was quite a bit
better than ‘secretary’. in retrospect, ‘lilja
4-ever’ is fading less than favourably from view
(mischievously, do like this from jonathan carter
: “a pointless non-drama where everyone is vile
and those that aren’t kill themselves and grow
wings. It’s made by earnest misery guts Lukas
Moodysson who thinks he’s telling us something
new”). Of course, the best film this year have
seen is, clearly, “jackass: the movie” – art
hitting you in the plexus like a knockout
refresher last time you got that rush was getting
rid of your Satchmo 5 and 7s virginity.
The flight of all these collared doves, well,
it’s beautiful. Plot the trajectory, or be
spontaneous, swoop down, tawny colours, a rush of
wings. One in a tree before, shaking itself, head
bobs, darts about, a Sibelius tone-poem in
miniature for impact.
The cinematic orchestra, of course they’ve
recently done man with a movie camera OST. Quite
like in the nursery’s version. People seem to be
peaking off ulrich snauss’ latest one for city
centre offices. Hmm.
One of the problems with the daily express’
excellent coverage of the british national party
in the run-up to local elections the other month
or so was that there was sometimes,
unfortunately, a glaring contradiction viewed
within the paper between its admirable editorials
excoriating the bnp and its coverage of immigrant
issues.
Of course, only perhaps the most ardent socialist
worker reader would continue to maintain that the
populist tabloids’ (the sun and the mail are
certainly included in this, but the daily express
has been the one noticed the most round our way,
in this area, as regards stridency of coverage )
coverage of asylum seeker/economic migrant issues
is polluted with racism. That is a nonsense.
Indeed, sometime last year or so, the bbc
programme newsnight laughably tried to smear the
daily express by implying – on more than one
occasion, if memory serves – that its coverage
was motivated by actual, honest to goodness
racism. The newsnight problem was that its own
coverage was just not very good; or, rather, it
was good, but when you have to play the race card
at a competitor that is in fact innocent of that,
then, well, it’s come to something a bit too
much. it was unfortunate that newsnight tried to
pursue this path, as their editorialising about
economic migrants and the like was a lot more
agreeable (being more sympathetic to economic
migrants etc.) than the express’ somewhat –
frankly – almost heartless (on occasion) in
appearance coverage. But to insinuate the paper
that so laudably opposed the daily mail’s slavish
adoration for the blackshirts way back in the
1930s is, at any stage, motivated by any form of
racism, was clearly unreasonable and just not on.
One of the real shames about that, of course, was
that newsnight’s own coverage was devalued, and
the case they were trying to make may have been
somewhat tarnished in the mind of the casual
reader or viewer. which is a downright shame.
To be concise, the daily express’ coverage of
migrant issues frequently leaves me in despair,
and much of it is about as desirable as mr
blunkett’s tenure at the home office
(notwithstanding his witty characterisation about
claire short, that he “wouldn’t waste a radio” on
her); some of it is appalling, and some of it
~appears~ (at least compared to other media
voices, etc.) to be, frankly, misleading and
possibly even deliberately so, for all one knows?
White racists (for, generally speaking,
opposition or disquiet towards asylum
seekers/migrants etc. that ~does~ actually seem
motivated by racism, as opposed to anything else,
is mainly a white briton’s viewpoint) undoubtedly
buy the daily express (would have thought this
comment could be extended to, well, at least some
of the other tabloids, for sure; probably in the
same way that, e.g., some black racists must read
the voice, etc.).
And of course one standard analysis of a vote for
the BNP was that it was merely a protest vote, a
protest about the perceived (or actual, yadda
yadda) complete indifference of the government
towards problems in your ward, etc. bitterness,
not necessarily racism etc., in this narrative,
is what informs a vote for the BNP. If people
perceive things to be slipping and degrading and
degrading and slipping in their area and feel
like councillors are not listening, then to
register a protest vote via the BNP may seem
satisfactory (i only know a few people in
Burnley, but several in Pendle, the borough next
door – Pendle is the third least non-white
borough in the NW [as a percentage per head of
residents] after Blackburn and Manchester, about
84% or something i think white residents
(remember that outside london, some orbital areas
and the midlands are the most diverse pockets of
the country, then bradford and manchester and
bristol and the like}. And the middle aged folk i
know in Pendle are, well, that’s by the by…)
This narrative is a fairly persuasive one, of
course, to be honest.
People of all political hues of course may have
many legitimate, and serious, concerns, about the
state of mr blunkett’s asylum etc. policy, which
is unfair on potential asylum seekers ~and~ the
taxpayer (but especially people living in host
areas and the immigrant themselves, more so than
‘merely’ the general taxpayer).
And of course it is not racist to oppose
immigration and this asylum policy etc., i mean,
shouldn’t even have to be typing that, but i
don’t want to be mistaken for some guardianista
type, so thought best make that clear.
In an editorial on the 29th of April, the Express
announced “We must always give refuge to those in
danger but those who would abuse the system are
not welcome.”
Below are some examples of some – you might call
them contradictions if you’re a cynical centrist
Labour supporter like myself - glimpsed in the
daily express on this issue over the past two
months or so.
Now, on a day the express was doing sterling
(clover) work on its front page on the 29th April
(headline SHAME OF BRITAIN’S WOMEN FASCISTS) one
of its readers from SW12 wrote to them that
The latest population forecasts, which predict
more immigration and a rapidly-rising population,
could barely be more depressing. I believe it’s
got to the stage now where the indigenous British
people have quite literally given up hope for
their country.
They are utterly resigned to a miserable future
for their children.
They will try to move away to places where the
people are like them, but that is the only
protest that they will be able to legally and
physically make.
What a sad fate for the nation that saved the
world from fascism just 60 years ago.
Now, that sounds like it could be a possible BNP
vote to me?
Other readers writing in to say they could
understand why one might vote for the BNP are
either ignoring the Express’ editorials on the
BNP, or perhaps ingesting their editorials on
economic migrants (i.e., those people that
generally come here for a better life) which for
some reason seems to sometimes suggest there’s no
such thing as a migrant, just a scrounger. Hmm.
On april 30th the express devoted pages 8 and 9
to THUGS AND GANGSTERS 21 BNP CANDIDATES HAVE
CRIMINAL OR SINISTER PAST.
Alas, on page 10 there was THE MINI SANGATTE
PARIS PARK THAT IS MEETNIG POINT FOR THE CROWDS
PLANNING ASYLUM DASH TO BRITAIN.
Readers could be forgiven for getting a little
testy at page 10’s news, and deciding to ignore
page 8 and 9 (which they’ve probably already
read, unless perhaps they’re waxing their words
inna Japanese stylee is it…)
Indeed, on the same day a man from Durham writes
into to disregard the three main parties, assert
that “the biggest crime you can commit in this
country today is to be born white” and opines
that “People may not agree with the BNP, but by
voting for it they are sending a warning to the
major parties.” Well, quite.
On may 8th, one scoped four newspapers (the
express, the times, a local rag, and a free rag).
Discussing the commons home affairs committee,
the times, the local rag, and the free paper all
made prominent mention of ‘the committee
condemned as “morally unacceptable” a system
which allowes failed asylum seekers to be left
destitute while awaiting deportation’ (this from
the manchester evening news). There was no
mention of this in the express. Sometimes it
gives a very good impression of not giving a fig
about certain sections of our society (when it so
laudably covers pensioner issues, etc.).
1965.
Aborigines given the vote.
A BRIEF APPRECIATION OF MIKE TYSON, or, at least
A BRIEF AND SIMPLE APPRECIATION OF MIKE TYSON
CIRCA, SAY, AROUND 1989 (one does mean
super-brief; watch me burn and vex leanly)
when he said he wanted to rape desiree the other
week, well. He’d made a really good ‘black men in
the USA’ comment in an insightful manner about
being stigmatised, but then in literally the next
sentence he undid his good phraseological work.
garn.
anyway.
Well, let’s see, around 1988 to ’90 (when did he
batter Bruno? Around’92, spose’), anyway.
Getting into the ring.
Sike each other out with the stares, etc.
But he just got in, and you knew that it never
even crossed his mind – no, that’s inadequate –
it, well, couldn’t even explain the concept to
him. That he might lose. A bit like, er, maybe,
trying to explain the concept of time being a
universal invariate (or whatever) to an earthworm
in umbria using Cantonese sign language on a
murky evening.
Anyway, he got in, and just, well religious
conviction, you just knew the other chap was
going down.
Just used to love that. Admire, anyway. The other
bloke knew it too. Greatest boxer ever, a few
years or so, around then.
Then King got hold of him, he stopped training,
and it all went a over t.
Alas.
Thrilling and compelling and such.
The journalist carol sarler received a letter
that she quoted in her column on the 5th of
feb.03. it read
Zimbabwe is starving but in the little town where
I live, nearly 300 miles from Harare and over 300
miles from Bulawayo – the two places where the
World Cup cricket matches are due to take place –
the police have stopped the shops selling bread.
Why? Reliable information says it is in case
there are any foreigners in the area who have
come for the cricket, who might see the queues
and conclude there is something amiss.
I talked to a shopworker today at 5.15pm. ‘Do you
see those women?’ he said. ‘They have been
standing here all day, hoping we might bake some
bread but we are not allowed to sell them any.
In the shop were six policemen, making sure that
the instructions were carried out.
Children will be going hungry in Zimbabwe tonight
because of the cricket.
adamneate.co.uk
stolenspace.com
all good, do check. Check one, check one.
“British officers have been – privately –
appalled by the casual manner in which American
troops have shot and killed so many civilians,
both during their advance on Baghdad, when any
vehicle that moved seemed to be fair game, and,
more especially, after the war ended. There were
no such incidents in and around the
British-controlled Basra (apart, that is, from
Tim Collins running amok, causing a smallish
bruise). Yet the American liaison officers felt
so strongly as to complain about British
‘brutality’. More bizarre yet is that, right
under the eyes of the US forces in Baghdad, half
of the Iraqi government offices and the National
Museum were looted or set on fire”
~Kevin Myers~ Sunday Telegraph, May 25th.
What’s that saying? ‘all the gear, no idea’.
Yeah.
Too right.;)
One of the best flicks viewed at the pictures
this year (live! tonite! -so- not sold out!; nah,
one jests. There’s always a healthy turnout) thus
far personally was the uk premiere (thanks to
manchester’s always excellent commonwealth film
festival: beat that london) of ‘nothing to lose’,
a well paced Thai (wickedly) black
comedy/actioner. A bit like richard araki type
flicks (except better) it managed to weld
together sex and violence to produce a light but
robust frame of a narrative, muscular but also
deft. The (exquisitely beautiful) actress Fresh
is a (incidentally, dripping ~enormous~ sex
appeal from her completely #glorious* bod; can
you tell i liked her…) total revelation as
anti-heroine Gogo, who is about to commit suicide
by jumping from a skyscraper roof when she falls
in with the other central character, the stressed
and flustered Somchai (natty tie there mate).
then it’s blackjack for mtv base aficionados,
basically. Why does one see so few Thai films
packed with Singaporean and Thai talent? Gah,
distribution.
Kind of like russian roulette with a load of
pumped up feral bag thieves and a just fellated
e. white. Catch if one can, spose’ (listening to
the bees AGAIN, yes, am afraid).
Pound for pound, do think you’ve – probably –
gotta say that roy jones jr. is just about the
best fighter ever.
Paul callan is one of two agreeable enough
commentators one’s seen of late attacking the
line that anti-zionism is completely in the other
direction from anti-semitism. If one could be
arsed to write about this hugely important topic
one would think about it aloud, but can basically
see where they’re coming from, you do hear that
all the time don’t you, am not anti-semitic, just
anti-zionist. To be fair, i know my friends who
~do~ say that are NOT anti-semitic (you never
know with some of em). Hmm. The zionist project,
such as it is (should really read geoffrey
wheatcroft, that lakme fan), is to – isn’t it? –
originally protect israeli right to life etc. can
you be zionist without endorsing the settlements
and ultra-orthodox sentiment (to be pin-prick at
two grotesque caricatures of extreme israeli
opinion)? Would have thought so, yes. So yes, to
be anti-zionist perhaps, yes that is really
rather linked to being anti-semitic. It does
sometimes seem to be just rather a lazy line
that’s used. Harumph.
‘while speculating on the possible break-up of
the marriage of princess anne and tim laurence,
the daily mail writes “anne has no interest in
titles and pedigrees. Indeed, she was indifferent
to the fact that laurence is the direct
descendent of a jewish merchant called zaccaria
levy.” If princess anne and the queen herself
couldn’t care less about commander laurence’s
antecedents, what possible reason does the mail
have for drawing attention to them? Are they
trying to say the princess ought to have been put
off the union by laurence’s jewish origins? If
not, could somebody please tell me what point
they are meant to be making’.
i normally ignore (quelle horreur!) vanessa
feltz, but that’s good.
So, countries of origins for what i think are the
best flicks i’ve seen down the fleapit this year
are one Thai (above), one Korean, one British,
one Norwegian, one German, one American
(documentary, more of these to come, at least i think so, and on both counts), one Brazilian (obviously), and
then the bigger American ones that have been
good, well, ‘about schimdt’ was quite a bit
better than ‘secretary’. in retrospect, ‘lilja
4-ever’ is fading less than favourably from view
(mischievously, do like this from jonathan carter
: “a pointless non-drama where everyone is vile
and those that aren’t kill themselves and grow
wings. It’s made by earnest misery guts Lukas
Moodysson who thinks he’s telling us something
new”). Of course, the best film this year have
seen is, clearly, “jackass: the movie” – art
hitting you in the plexus like a knockout
refresher last time you got that rush was getting
rid of your Satchmo 5 and 7s virginity.
The flight of all these collared doves, well,
it’s beautiful. Plot the trajectory, or be
spontaneous, swoop down, tawny colours, a rush of
wings. One in a tree before, shaking itself, head
bobs, darts about, a Sibelius tone-poem in
miniature for impact.
The cinematic orchestra, of course they’ve
recently done man with a movie camera OST. Quite
like in the nursery’s version. People seem to be
peaking off ulrich snauss’ latest one for city
centre offices. Hmm.
One of the problems with the daily express’
excellent coverage of the british national party
in the run-up to local elections the other month
or so was that there was sometimes,
unfortunately, a glaring contradiction viewed
within the paper between its admirable editorials
excoriating the bnp and its coverage of immigrant
issues.
Of course, only perhaps the most ardent socialist
worker reader would continue to maintain that the
populist tabloids’ (the sun and the mail are
certainly included in this, but the daily express
has been the one noticed the most round our way,
in this area, as regards stridency of coverage )
coverage of asylum seeker/economic migrant issues
is polluted with racism. That is a nonsense.
Indeed, sometime last year or so, the bbc
programme newsnight laughably tried to smear the
daily express by implying – on more than one
occasion, if memory serves – that its coverage
was motivated by actual, honest to goodness
racism. The newsnight problem was that its own
coverage was just not very good; or, rather, it
was good, but when you have to play the race card
at a competitor that is in fact innocent of that,
then, well, it’s come to something a bit too
much. it was unfortunate that newsnight tried to
pursue this path, as their editorialising about
economic migrants and the like was a lot more
agreeable (being more sympathetic to economic
migrants etc.) than the express’ somewhat –
frankly – almost heartless (on occasion) in
appearance coverage. But to insinuate the paper
that so laudably opposed the daily mail’s slavish
adoration for the blackshirts way back in the
1930s is, at any stage, motivated by any form of
racism, was clearly unreasonable and just not on.
One of the real shames about that, of course, was
that newsnight’s own coverage was devalued, and
the case they were trying to make may have been
somewhat tarnished in the mind of the casual
reader or viewer. which is a downright shame.
To be concise, the daily express’ coverage of
migrant issues frequently leaves me in despair,
and much of it is about as desirable as mr
blunkett’s tenure at the home office
(notwithstanding his witty characterisation about
claire short, that he “wouldn’t waste a radio” on
her); some of it is appalling, and some of it
~appears~ (at least compared to other media
voices, etc.) to be, frankly, misleading and
possibly even deliberately so, for all one knows?
White racists (for, generally speaking,
opposition or disquiet towards asylum
seekers/migrants etc. that ~does~ actually seem
motivated by racism, as opposed to anything else,
is mainly a white briton’s viewpoint) undoubtedly
buy the daily express (would have thought this
comment could be extended to, well, at least some
of the other tabloids, for sure; probably in the
same way that, e.g., some black racists must read
the voice, etc.).
And of course one standard analysis of a vote for
the BNP was that it was merely a protest vote, a
protest about the perceived (or actual, yadda
yadda) complete indifference of the government
towards problems in your ward, etc. bitterness,
not necessarily racism etc., in this narrative,
is what informs a vote for the BNP. If people
perceive things to be slipping and degrading and
degrading and slipping in their area and feel
like councillors are not listening, then to
register a protest vote via the BNP may seem
satisfactory (i only know a few people in
Burnley, but several in Pendle, the borough next
door – Pendle is the third least non-white
borough in the NW [as a percentage per head of
residents] after Blackburn and Manchester, about
84% or something i think white residents
(remember that outside london, some orbital areas
and the midlands are the most diverse pockets of
the country, then bradford and manchester and
bristol and the like}. And the middle aged folk i
know in Pendle are, well, that’s by the by…)
This narrative is a fairly persuasive one, of
course, to be honest.
People of all political hues of course may have
many legitimate, and serious, concerns, about the
state of mr blunkett’s asylum etc. policy, which
is unfair on potential asylum seekers ~and~ the
taxpayer (but especially people living in host
areas and the immigrant themselves, more so than
‘merely’ the general taxpayer).
And of course it is not racist to oppose
immigration and this asylum policy etc., i mean,
shouldn’t even have to be typing that, but i
don’t want to be mistaken for some guardianista
type, so thought best make that clear.
In an editorial on the 29th of April, the Express
announced “We must always give refuge to those in
danger but those who would abuse the system are
not welcome.”
Below are some examples of some – you might call
them contradictions if you’re a cynical centrist
Labour supporter like myself - glimpsed in the
daily express on this issue over the past two
months or so.
Now, on a day the express was doing sterling
(clover) work on its front page on the 29th April
(headline SHAME OF BRITAIN’S WOMEN FASCISTS) one
of its readers from SW12 wrote to them that
The latest population forecasts, which predict
more immigration and a rapidly-rising population,
could barely be more depressing. I believe it’s
got to the stage now where the indigenous British
people have quite literally given up hope for
their country.
They are utterly resigned to a miserable future
for their children.
They will try to move away to places where the
people are like them, but that is the only
protest that they will be able to legally and
physically make.
What a sad fate for the nation that saved the
world from fascism just 60 years ago.
Now, that sounds like it could be a possible BNP
vote to me?
Other readers writing in to say they could
understand why one might vote for the BNP are
either ignoring the Express’ editorials on the
BNP, or perhaps ingesting their editorials on
economic migrants (i.e., those people that
generally come here for a better life) which for
some reason seems to sometimes suggest there’s no
such thing as a migrant, just a scrounger. Hmm.
On april 30th the express devoted pages 8 and 9
to THUGS AND GANGSTERS 21 BNP CANDIDATES HAVE
CRIMINAL OR SINISTER PAST.
Alas, on page 10 there was THE MINI SANGATTE
PARIS PARK THAT IS MEETNIG POINT FOR THE CROWDS
PLANNING ASYLUM DASH TO BRITAIN.
Readers could be forgiven for getting a little
testy at page 10’s news, and deciding to ignore
page 8 and 9 (which they’ve probably already
read, unless perhaps they’re waxing their words
inna Japanese stylee is it…)
Indeed, on the same day a man from Durham writes
into to disregard the three main parties, assert
that “the biggest crime you can commit in this
country today is to be born white” and opines
that “People may not agree with the BNP, but by
voting for it they are sending a warning to the
major parties.” Well, quite.
On may 8th, one scoped four newspapers (the
express, the times, a local rag, and a free rag).
Discussing the commons home affairs committee,
the times, the local rag, and the free paper all
made prominent mention of ‘the committee
condemned as “morally unacceptable” a system
which allowes failed asylum seekers to be left
destitute while awaiting deportation’ (this from
the manchester evening news). There was no
mention of this in the express. Sometimes it
gives a very good impression of not giving a fig
about certain sections of our society (when it so
laudably covers pensioner issues, etc.).
Monday 9 June 2003
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