Bangers & Hash

Bought a battered sausage on the way home today. The fella gave me a scoop of chips and put the lot in a little paper cone for no extra cost. Lovely.

Channel Four News has just revealed the Attorney Generals unpublished advice on the Iraq war, rather putting my sausage story in some sort of perspective. Er, go here:
http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=91

The Mother Of All Democracies

We've all had those arguments with friends or other halves about a nonsensical point of principle. Something to do with toilet seats, who paid for the shopping last, whether you should watch property programmes, blah blah. Usually they're hiding the fact that you're pissed off at work or you feel that you're owed a winning argument due to a slight long ago. Or just for the hell of it.

Watching this happen between two people is boring at best but can also make you despair at the mundane depths that we can reach so easily.

Well, welcome to this fucking election. Not one, not one interesting argument has so far been had between the Three Stooges at all. And it's unlikely to.

Do we go bombing the buggery out of other countries for this?

You now have the freedom to have three men and their band of idiots argue the same points in different ways for 4 weeks every four years. And nothing fundamentally will change. At all.

Then the usual bullshit last week that the campaign in Bethnal Green and Bow between George Galloway and Oona King had got very nasty and 'wasn't what elections should be about'.

Er, yes they should. I want people to fucking believe what they're saying when they go out to get our vote. I want elections to be about differing ideologies and principles. I want to discuss more than tax and immigration. No one should be hurt or threatened - you should win by good arguments but be prepared get your egos and beliefs battered like a bastard for a month.

So far the only results worth watching next week will be wherever those fucking hollow mouth-pieces for war and capitalism, those Blairite careerists and liberal centerists might get a bloodied nose. They'll feel it pretty bad if another Liberal or Tory stooge gets in, but it'll hurt like hell if someone offering what there party used to stand for, someone offering a different perspective gets in.

It's not going to happen in many places. The fight is by necessity a small one. But if one Respect candidate, or Green or anti-war independent makes a dent it might lose some prick their fat MPs cheque, make election night worth watching, and maybe be the start of something that means we don't have to live our lives moaning that 'nothing ever changes'.

Clarity Begins At Home

It's odd how things can very suddenly become very clear after what can seem like an eternity of fuggyness.

Questions are great, as I enjoy talking and talking about myself even more. So everything was as normal when an innocent, run of the mill 'How's everything going?' was posed to me on Friday morning. By the end of what became an extended answer, I'd reached a point of clarity which has recently alluded me.

Now, it's not like suddenly discovering Jesus, or winning the Lottery or getting hit by a bus but more like the focus being snapped sharp on a shot that's been ever so slightly soft for a while.

And I slept last night - not for too long, but without Alice.

Too Long Thinking About A Title

Let it hereby be noted that the ill-fitting fittings on London buses squeak quite loudly and Creedence Clearwater Revival are the sound of a road trip I've never had. A pint or two on an empty stomach should be followed by food and don't forget to spend a few minutes each day thinking about a socio-political issue. A blog is no substitute for looking someone in the eye and watching people meeting at airports would be a great job. Coca-Cola is no substitute for water.

Eggs Benedict

I dreamt about Alice Cooper again last night. Three times in a fortnight. This time he turned into some sort of fly while performing, flew into the audience and disappeared. The friends I was with thought it was great, but weren't convinced by the music.

It's all going terribly wrong.

It's nice to see that the new Pope is an A-Team fan, and that he thinks rock music is:
"the expression of elemental passions which, in the big musical festivals, have taken on a cultural character, that is to say, [the character] of a counter-cult, opposed to Christian worship."

Yeah, we know Jo, that's why it's better than spending our lives believing in some fucking fantasy that stops us sorting out our own world as we wait around for the next. And what about all the morality in rock music? Let's take an Aerosmith lyric for instance:

"The buzz you get from crack doesn't last,
I'd rather OD on the crack of your ass."

Anti-drugs and no need for contraception. Brilliant.

Now, whats Papa's position on sodomy?

Here's Hunter

Today, over to the Doctor.
Pretty obvious for an 'angry young man' blog to quote a bit of Hunter S Thompson, but why not:

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world--a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us...No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush?

They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not.
Fuck them. "

Easy Like Monday Morning

In the Midlands 5300 people will have no job to go to on Monday morning. The MG/Rover car plant has finally collapsed. They can attend workshops set up by the administrators where they’ll be shown how to fill out dole forms.

The knock on will affect a further 15,000 jobs in the region.

The bosses at Rover (Phoenix Venture Holdings) made £40m in 5 years while the workforce is looking at a state redundancy payment of £5000. And over 4000 of them that took a company offer are left owing £8000 on cars that they bought.

No job, no car and not a lot of hope; but a nice big debt to keep them in their place.

And it’s not about Labour or Tory, it’s about a system that allows some people to have millions and others to be always one letter away from having fuck all.

PAWN

Is there a way to express a huge big massive fuck off terrifying scream in text?

My head is currently a passive aggressive white noise playground and I can’t type anywhere near quick enough to allow the words to mop up the splurge that’s sopping around me.

Sleep is peppered with odd dreams and days wasted, my mind at 100 mph in 1^st gear round and round the M25.

Books. Computer. Quincy. Papers. Film. Car. Sky News.

[insert a primal scream here]

Sat by a great view. Little fire. Walking about the countryside with a few friends.

Simple.

Back to the News…

Here's Johnny

Today it's over to Johnny Carson:

"To me, democracy means placing trust in the little guy, giving the fruits of nationhood to those who built the nation...

Democracy is people of all races, colors, and creeds united by a single dream: to get rich and move to the suburbs away from people of all races, colors, and creeds...

Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties.

Democracy means freedom of sexual choice between any two consenting adults; Utopia means freedom of choice between three or more consenting adults. But I digress. Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto — usually a mop or a leaf blower. It means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money...

Democracy means our elected officials bow to the will of the people, but more often they bow to the big butts of campaign contributors.

Yes, democracy means fighting every day for what you deserve, and fighting even harder to keep other weaker people from getting what they deserve. Democracy means never having the Secret Police show up at your door. Of course, it also means never having the cable guy show up at your door. It's a tradeoff. Democracy means free television. Not good television, but free...

And finally, democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head. This signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle.

I thank you".

Smell The Glove

As I write the Labour Party is launching it’s election manifesto.

They’re liars and its lies.

The whole fucking election is a rubbish game. It changes next to nothing, at best pays lip service to a democratic process and yet draws me in like a cheap reality TV show.

Is this what we become?

Most of the red ties that are rabbiting on about ‘freedom’, ‘choice’ and of course ‘immigration’ were once people that vaguely held interesting progressive ideas.

Not Tony. But some of the others fought through a good few left wing battles. Did they change, grow up, get real, progress, come to their senses, sell out, smell the coffee, smell the money, smell the glove or were they always fucking liars? Fucking liars who took a political position because it offered a spring for career progression or fame or conscience rinsing or a quick shufty after a rally or in the Student Union Campaign office or down the Town Hall?

Jeez, I bore myself to death. Is this what I’ve become?

Not even thirty and while the aforementioned fuckers get paid handsomely and sit on the world stage I do next to absolutely nothing about anything. Always talking, never really walking. Liking to think I’ve been hobbled by the cruel world but probably just a lazy fucker. Maybe a relatively intelligent, possibly sometimes amusing if slightly self-obsessed lazy fucker. But a lazy fucker nonetheless.

Better than a lying fucker? I’m not at all sure.

We Are Not Numbers

6,519,645,083 people populate the Earth.

888,681,131 have access to the internet.

1 person read my last post.

It made be stupidly excited.

Thanks.

Papal Power

I’ve been watching the televised funeral of Pope John Paul II for over three hours now. It’s pretty amazing – all the people at the Vatican and around the world, all those world leaders and all the ritual and organisation.

As I sit watching along with millions of others, it must be crossing minds. If all the leaders that are sat but yards from each other just got together afterwards for a drink someone might just say:

“Hey, we’re all here. We’re not killing each other. Why can’t it always be like this?”

Oh, how they’d laugh. Too much at stake for them I guess.

But what if the million people in Rome decided to join in? Just move on down through the cordons and surround the dignitaries. No violence. No chanting. Let one person move toward a Cardinal and say:

“Hey, we’re all here. We’re not killing each other. Why can’t it always be like this?”

Oh, how they’d laugh. Nervously.

And maybe they’d realise that they mean very little. Because even in a tiny place like the Vatican, the World’s most important men and women are hopelessly outnumbered.

Now, we don’t have to get all Bolshevik about it, but all those leaders together without their armies are just like us. They tend to be a little greedier, insecure, more manipulative and self obsessed but they are just human beings. So as the bells rang out across the world and millions watched the live feed from Vatican TV they’d witness a little international revolution. And maybe it’d scare the hell out of the nicely suited and robed leaders who are as likely to go to war over wealth and power, as they are to attend a funeral of a media Pope.

Never going to be that easy though, I know. Even I, dreamily imagining an equal and peaceful world felt the weight of the difficulties achieving it. As the news cut to masses around the world I noticed that in Kirkuk an Iraqi worshipper was wearing an eighties Rod Stewart tour t-shirt.

A Battle For Evermore

Absolutely pissing it down as I mindlessly poke about on the computer.

I though this blog might kick me into gear fast, but it hasn't really - much like my efforts to jog every morning. Stalled after four days (and a bit of park-soccer).

There is something interesting about plopping this short mundane mumble on to the web, however. The whole computerized world has access to to it, yet it's absolutely pointless even if found. So far anyway.

It's thundering and lightening now, with Zeppelin's 'Battle Of Evermore' on iTunes providing another layer of atmosphere.

More soon I think.

Soon Your Sailing Will Be Over

Welcome.

It’s probably quite important that I start to write something. I’m trying to remember a Woody Allen quote: something about “there’s nothing more depressing than someone who has a lot to say but no means of saying it”.

From the outset, I’ll be clear. I have no confidence that anything that I say will be interesting. It normally comes in three waves – first that I’m brilliant and whatever it is will be enlightening and interesting. Second that I’m at best absolutely average or quite possibly a delusional, self-obsessed shyster and it’ll actually be worthless. And then, deep, deep down I can’t help but think that I’m actually quite interesting and if it’s rubbish then it’s because it’s the wrong subject or medium or time or whatever. It confuses me and makes me a little depressed. I’m sure you’ve had similar thoughts one-way or the other.

Still, maybe this’ll be the start of something.

Hopefully this isn’t indicative of the rest of this blog, as although it’s true, it’s all a terrible cliché so far.

So, I’m here mere minutes after the British Prime Minister called the next UK General Election; I’m going to try to be broader than just the UK but the next month will be pretty dominated by politics here, so it might get bogged down a bit.

Not really apologising as I haven’t got a clue where this will go but it’s nice to think someone might read it, and if British politics bores you in particular, bear with me.