...I recommend that for a laugh, you tune into the Mo Dutta show on Radio 2. This guy basically is the real Alan Partridge. He's bringing the cack-handedness of local radio to the UK's most listened to radio station. It's amusingly crap, unlike, say, the Sarah Kennedy slot early mornings on weekdays, which is just a senile moron telling stories about her cats and slagging off various members of the community for no good reason. And she had the nerve to call mid-morning DJ Ken Bruce an "old fool"...
Terry Wogan is, by now, Radio 2's answer to Leonid Brezhnev (he's kept alive for public appearances but there's nobody home) and surely will be pensioned off soon. When that breakfast show slot becomes vacant I hope they give it to Mo Dutta. (A few years ago I'd have said "please give it to Noel Edmonds" but that was before Deal or No Deal took off.) Radi0 2 is worth very little unless it is utterly ludicrous. Jonathan Ross understands this very well (and walks off with a large slice of my licence fee money in the process. I should decide the allocation of resources... more programmes for Tony Benn and Leo Sayer, please.)
love-on ya.
S.B.R.
24 November 2007
21 November 2007
"You're dead you're f***ing dead"...
...as the guy with the balaclava on said in Nathan Barley.
In this case, it's directed at Steve McClaren.
Hal Berstram here, back on the sports desk for 1 night only. I've just watched probably the lamest England performance since the failure to qualify for 3 consecutive international tournaments in the mid-1970s.
These guys are paid huge amounts and they can't perform for shit. In that sense they are very, very similar to the directors of firms like Northern Rock and Paragon.
Welcome to 21st century UK market capitalism... a system where you get paid huge amounts for being rubbish.
The good thing about this is that McClaren will be history. Probably ex-Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McClaren could put out a better side. Maybe it's time to make the job into a big reality TV experiment. Just get a randomly picked punter to have a go... could they be any more duff?
It's lame, for sure. I'm going to Layer Road to watch Colchester on Saturday and I'm sure I'll find a better standard there. Onward and downward...
In this case, it's directed at Steve McClaren.
Hal Berstram here, back on the sports desk for 1 night only. I've just watched probably the lamest England performance since the failure to qualify for 3 consecutive international tournaments in the mid-1970s.
These guys are paid huge amounts and they can't perform for shit. In that sense they are very, very similar to the directors of firms like Northern Rock and Paragon.
Welcome to 21st century UK market capitalism... a system where you get paid huge amounts for being rubbish.
The good thing about this is that McClaren will be history. Probably ex-Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McClaren could put out a better side. Maybe it's time to make the job into a big reality TV experiment. Just get a randomly picked punter to have a go... could they be any more duff?
It's lame, for sure. I'm going to Layer Road to watch Colchester on Saturday and I'm sure I'll find a better standard there. Onward and downward...
I've got a good idea - let's burn the Child Benefit database onto a CD and send it through the post.
Not a lot of time to post over the last few weeks but the extraordinary story of the missing Child Benefit data has jolted me into action.
For once, headlines from duff papers such as the Daily Mail make perfect sense - "mind-blowing incompetence".
The data include bank account details and various other sensitive info. They ere apparently put on CD by a junior HMRC operative in Newcastle, posted to London using a courier - not unrecorded Royal Mail delivery as some sources initially reported - and failed to arrive about 3 weeks ago.
AFAIK the data were not encrypted or even password protected in any way.
What the f***? Haven't these people even heard of secure FTP? Why the hell were the data being put in the post in the first place?
If it was just one person whose details had been compromised in this way it would be scandalous. But it's 25 million people - half the bloody country.
Brace yourselves for the paralysis of the banking system as justifiably concerned customers ring up to request changes of account details and query any anomalies - or perceived anomalies which appear on their statements. Which is just what we need in the current financial climate. Meanwhile the whole thing rather undermines the Government's campaign for greater vigilance to prevent ID fraud. Are people gonna bother to take precautions if government departments are this sloppy?
If this kind of story appeared in a political drama it would be criticised for being too unrealistic. Good luck getting out of this one, guys - the Tories will be having a field day.
For once, headlines from duff papers such as the Daily Mail make perfect sense - "mind-blowing incompetence".
The data include bank account details and various other sensitive info. They ere apparently put on CD by a junior HMRC operative in Newcastle, posted to London using a courier - not unrecorded Royal Mail delivery as some sources initially reported - and failed to arrive about 3 weeks ago.
AFAIK the data were not encrypted or even password protected in any way.
What the f***? Haven't these people even heard of secure FTP? Why the hell were the data being put in the post in the first place?
If it was just one person whose details had been compromised in this way it would be scandalous. But it's 25 million people - half the bloody country.
Brace yourselves for the paralysis of the banking system as justifiably concerned customers ring up to request changes of account details and query any anomalies - or perceived anomalies which appear on their statements. Which is just what we need in the current financial climate. Meanwhile the whole thing rather undermines the Government's campaign for greater vigilance to prevent ID fraud. Are people gonna bother to take precautions if government departments are this sloppy?
If this kind of story appeared in a political drama it would be criticised for being too unrealistic. Good luck getting out of this one, guys - the Tories will be having a field day.
08 November 2007
OK... Plan B
On second thoughts, I've decided the music scene is not interesting enough - in itself - to carry giroscope forward. I'd like to be able to say that it's this decision that explains why no post since 24 Oct, but actually it's because I'm damn lazy. That's right, I'm bone idle. Sorry about that.
But a compromise has been reached. giroscope - that which you all know and love - will continue as that unique blend of politics, comedy and Herb Alpert's mariachi trumpet sound that has captivated audiences since 1962 or thereabouts. I'm pleased to announce the imminent return of Seth B Ramal as political correspondent. Barney Ruddle is still out there on the farm cider, but on the off chance that he is sober enough to type, expect further occasional contributions. Hal Berstram has been downgraded to the status of 'typesetting automaton' after failing to come up with anything vaguely coherent during his sole tenure. As they said in both Aliens and Billericay, 'you had your chance, Gorman'.
Extra writers always welcome. I've been trying to entice 'Van Patten' to have a go in a PJ O'Rourke / Pat Buchanan 'alternative viewpoint' style but Van is having problems getting an internet connection that'll actually let him log on. The free market, eh?
Meanwhile a brand new 'brother blog' will detail the musical adventures, opinions and idiocies of a good musician friend of ours known to the masses as 'Brother Typewriter', currently residing in the where-is-the-next-song coming from file at the Burning Lodge. That will be set up late November/early December (even sooner if I pull my finger out). Watch these spaces.
best,
S. B. R.
But a compromise has been reached. giroscope - that which you all know and love - will continue as that unique blend of politics, comedy and Herb Alpert's mariachi trumpet sound that has captivated audiences since 1962 or thereabouts. I'm pleased to announce the imminent return of Seth B Ramal as political correspondent. Barney Ruddle is still out there on the farm cider, but on the off chance that he is sober enough to type, expect further occasional contributions. Hal Berstram has been downgraded to the status of 'typesetting automaton' after failing to come up with anything vaguely coherent during his sole tenure. As they said in both Aliens and Billericay, 'you had your chance, Gorman'.
Extra writers always welcome. I've been trying to entice 'Van Patten' to have a go in a PJ O'Rourke / Pat Buchanan 'alternative viewpoint' style but Van is having problems getting an internet connection that'll actually let him log on. The free market, eh?
Meanwhile a brand new 'brother blog' will detail the musical adventures, opinions and idiocies of a good musician friend of ours known to the masses as 'Brother Typewriter', currently residing in the where-is-the-next-song coming from file at the Burning Lodge. That will be set up late November/early December (even sooner if I pull my finger out). Watch these spaces.
best,
S. B. R.
24 October 2007
F*** politics, This Is Music
Hello people,
Just to let you know that I have decided - for the moment - to abandon political commentary and focus on music. Because politics at the moment sucks. Big time. A plague on all their houses. Who cares who the new leader of the Lib Dems is or what Gordon Brown's latest sell-out will be? Do the politicians even care themselves?
Before signing off from politics entirely though I must recommend that you go out and buy Raj Patel's new book Stuffed and Starved and anything you can get your hands on by Carbon Trade Watch. These are the guys taking it forward - for all of us. And as soon as I can get my head together I'll be with them. But not yet... too busy in the studio.
More to follow soon.
love,
H.B.
Just to let you know that I have decided - for the moment - to abandon political commentary and focus on music. Because politics at the moment sucks. Big time. A plague on all their houses. Who cares who the new leader of the Lib Dems is or what Gordon Brown's latest sell-out will be? Do the politicians even care themselves?
Before signing off from politics entirely though I must recommend that you go out and buy Raj Patel's new book Stuffed and Starved and anything you can get your hands on by Carbon Trade Watch. These are the guys taking it forward - for all of us. And as soon as I can get my head together I'll be with them. But not yet... too busy in the studio.
More to follow soon.
love,
H.B.
15 October 2007
Fare Well Camp Bell
A sad day, in many ways, that Ming Campbell has resigned as leader of the Liberal Democrats.
I will miss his straight talking no-bullshit style (promised, but so far not delivered, by Gordon Brown) and wish him all the best. He never looked like Prime Minister material, but then neither did John Major, and he did the job for almost seven years... in any case, since when was there a realistic prospect of any Lib Dem leader becoming PM?
In the end, Campbell was done in by the media requirement for photogenic, identikit political leaders - politicians like reality TV stars. I have no doubt that Gordon Brown would have suffered exactly the same fate if he'd ascended to the Labour leadership after a long period of opposition, rather than being in the government for ten years beforehand. He's only been indulged so far as he's got previous form. And on the evidence of the last week's shenanigans, that might all be rapidly unravelling. But that is excitement for another post...
Now I'm not saying that Campbell was perfect - in many ways he was a one-man revivalist for the Michael Foot school of politics - the amiable old buffer zone... but then Foot was great too. Certainly infinitely preferable to Thatcher in '83.
Anyway, this raises the interesting question of who the Lib Dems will go for next... I think Nick Clegg would be their best bet. Certainly not Chris Huhne, who is an egotist to rival Robert Kilroy-Silk. And Vince Cable, while a great guy and an excellent Shadow Chancellor, works a lot better in that role than he would as leader. Most of the other alternatives are either too eccentric to be successful or too right-wing to be tolerable.
Anyway, the leadership contest offers a little consolation now that the election has been called off for at least 18 months.
I will miss his straight talking no-bullshit style (promised, but so far not delivered, by Gordon Brown) and wish him all the best. He never looked like Prime Minister material, but then neither did John Major, and he did the job for almost seven years... in any case, since when was there a realistic prospect of any Lib Dem leader becoming PM?
In the end, Campbell was done in by the media requirement for photogenic, identikit political leaders - politicians like reality TV stars. I have no doubt that Gordon Brown would have suffered exactly the same fate if he'd ascended to the Labour leadership after a long period of opposition, rather than being in the government for ten years beforehand. He's only been indulged so far as he's got previous form. And on the evidence of the last week's shenanigans, that might all be rapidly unravelling. But that is excitement for another post...
Now I'm not saying that Campbell was perfect - in many ways he was a one-man revivalist for the Michael Foot school of politics - the amiable old buffer zone... but then Foot was great too. Certainly infinitely preferable to Thatcher in '83.
Anyway, this raises the interesting question of who the Lib Dems will go for next... I think Nick Clegg would be their best bet. Certainly not Chris Huhne, who is an egotist to rival Robert Kilroy-Silk. And Vince Cable, while a great guy and an excellent Shadow Chancellor, works a lot better in that role than he would as leader. Most of the other alternatives are either too eccentric to be successful or too right-wing to be tolerable.
Anyway, the leadership contest offers a little consolation now that the election has been called off for at least 18 months.
06 October 2007
BOTTLER
GB has bottled it...
Why do I feel the sudden urge to say "James Callaghan?" Gordon might very well rue this day when he's up against it in spring 2010 with time running out to go to the country.
Oh well.
Why do I feel the sudden urge to say "James Callaghan?" Gordon might very well rue this day when he's up against it in spring 2010 with time running out to go to the country.
Oh well.
04 October 2007
Post-Tory Conference polls out... now it's getting interesting...
Well, the Labour lead has definitely narrowed in the wake of the Tory conference... latest polls show:
YouGov (Channel 4 News) Lab 40, Con 36, LD 13
Populus (The Times) Lab 39, Con 36, LD 15
ICM (Guardian) Lab 38, Con 38, LD 16
Of course, 24 hours after they were saying an election was inevitable, all the papers, news sites, etc will now be saying that Brown will decide to call the whole thing off. If I were him I would still go for it, because it's more of a risk to hang on into next year. What about if the Brown 'bounce' disappears and he's facing a poll deficit during the whole of 2008 and 2009? He'll look like a right banana.
The way I see it, these polls are showing the absolute maximum popularity of the Conservatives, before any Labour counter-attack - just like the polls last weekend were showing the maximum popularity of Labour. In an election campaign the parties would no doubt settle down at a Labour lead of around 6 or 7 per cent. I can't actually remember an election campaign making a major difference to the relative popularity of the parties in my lifetime - people often cite 1992, but the actual problem there was that all the polls were way out of line because people didn't want to admit they'd vote Tory. A correction factor has been put into polling to control for this ever since and subsequent campaigns have been much more accurate.
I think Brown would be mental to call off now - he'll go into public folklore as a "bottler" and this could do him real damage in the long run. More later this week on why the Labour lead has narrowed - I don't think Dave's speech was good enough to do it by itself. Guardian Unlimited suggests that it was the announcement that the Inheritance Tax threshold would rise to £1 million under the Tories that produced the swing. If that's the case then IHT has taken on a political importance out of all proportion to the money it raises for the Exchequer. Maybe the Daily Express is gonna set the agenda for this election - which is very bad news. My view is that taxing inheritances is actually a lot more justifiable than taxing earned income, but more on that once we get into the campaign. If we get into the campaign...
YouGov (Channel 4 News) Lab 40, Con 36, LD 13
Populus (The Times) Lab 39, Con 36, LD 15
ICM (Guardian) Lab 38, Con 38, LD 16
Of course, 24 hours after they were saying an election was inevitable, all the papers, news sites, etc will now be saying that Brown will decide to call the whole thing off. If I were him I would still go for it, because it's more of a risk to hang on into next year. What about if the Brown 'bounce' disappears and he's facing a poll deficit during the whole of 2008 and 2009? He'll look like a right banana.
The way I see it, these polls are showing the absolute maximum popularity of the Conservatives, before any Labour counter-attack - just like the polls last weekend were showing the maximum popularity of Labour. In an election campaign the parties would no doubt settle down at a Labour lead of around 6 or 7 per cent. I can't actually remember an election campaign making a major difference to the relative popularity of the parties in my lifetime - people often cite 1992, but the actual problem there was that all the polls were way out of line because people didn't want to admit they'd vote Tory. A correction factor has been put into polling to control for this ever since and subsequent campaigns have been much more accurate.
I think Brown would be mental to call off now - he'll go into public folklore as a "bottler" and this could do him real damage in the long run. More later this week on why the Labour lead has narrowed - I don't think Dave's speech was good enough to do it by itself. Guardian Unlimited suggests that it was the announcement that the Inheritance Tax threshold would rise to £1 million under the Tories that produced the swing. If that's the case then IHT has taken on a political importance out of all proportion to the money it raises for the Exchequer. Maybe the Daily Express is gonna set the agenda for this election - which is very bad news. My view is that taxing inheritances is actually a lot more justifiable than taxing earned income, but more on that once we get into the campaign. If we get into the campaign...
01 October 2007
Dave and his party of dildos
Just came back from Blackpool where the Conservatives are currently holding their conference. Blackpool is one hell of a lame-ass town, but more on that soon - I'm still recovering from it.
Like the Labour conference last week, it was hard to get that worked up about this; the Tories are putting a brave face on it but the delegates I saw had the look of condemned men/women. Brown is walking away with the big prize and suddenly all Dave Cameron's careful work over the past two years looks very much in vain. A come-from-behind win for Dave in the forthcoming election is certainly possible - Ted Heath managed it in 1970 after being similarly written off by the pundits - but the electoral arithmetic still works against the Tories even after boundary changes. Dave would probably have to be 6 points in front to get an overall majority - he will likely start the campaign around 6 points behind. Even in 1992 (the election when the polls got it most wrong in recent times) they weren't out to that extent.
The new policy platform unveiled so far has offered thin pickings - George Osborne's pledge to raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1m will be popular but isn't going to swing many votes on its own, it's just not important enough an issue for the vast majority of people, despite the Daily Express's best efforts. Likewise cuts in stamp duty. The Conservatives still face a huge problem in trying to knit together the outputs from their six policy review groups into a coherent manifesto - it's not so much that the policies themselves will be incoherent, because Labour's 2005 manifesto (a model of vacuity if ever there was any) proved that you can win an election without having any policies. It's more that the whole rhetorical thrust of the two major policy reviews, Goldsmith/Gummer on 'quality of life' and John Redwood on 'competitiveness', are 180 degrees opposed to each other and that's a very large crack to paper over. Goldsmith and Gummer say - quite rightly - put the environment first, whereas Redwood says fly as many planes as possible and f*** the environment. How is Dave gonna square this off? Most likely he will fudge it somehow, but it's very hard to see a coherent policy platform emerging from these reviews at short notice.
And all the time there are senile senior figures sniping in the sidelines. This week's Spectator has a piece by Norman Tebbit lamenting the lack of 'popular' (i.e. quasi-fascist, in Tebbit-speak) policies among the Cameronite modernisers. Tebbit is now - or maybe always has been - so crazy that he thinks that all the Tories' current problems stem from Mrs Thatcher being 'conned' into joining the ERM by the 'Europhile Tories' who were apparently 'pulling strings behind the scenes.' Real reds-under-the-bed conspiracy theory stuff, and sad to see from a guy who once seemed pretty sharp, even if he was a complete wanker. Next we find Malcolm Rifkind saying 'a snap election would be an outrage' because governments with a working majority in the House of Commons should serve a full term. Presumably then Malc was saying the same thing in 1983 and 1987 when Maggie went to the country? She still had a full year left to run, after all. Also, isn't Malcolm's outburst rather at odds with Dave's insistence that Gordon call an election immediately when he became leader in June?
It's this kind of inconsistency that's going to make it surprisingly easy for Labour to fight the campaign. They just need to point to the endless selection of hypocrites, duffers and madmen in the ranks (and also some of them on the Tory front bench) and Dave's credibility will most likely evaporate. Of course, if the Tories wanted to do themselves and the country a favour there are several worthwhile and progressive points they could campaign on, for example:
Like the Labour conference last week, it was hard to get that worked up about this; the Tories are putting a brave face on it but the delegates I saw had the look of condemned men/women. Brown is walking away with the big prize and suddenly all Dave Cameron's careful work over the past two years looks very much in vain. A come-from-behind win for Dave in the forthcoming election is certainly possible - Ted Heath managed it in 1970 after being similarly written off by the pundits - but the electoral arithmetic still works against the Tories even after boundary changes. Dave would probably have to be 6 points in front to get an overall majority - he will likely start the campaign around 6 points behind. Even in 1992 (the election when the polls got it most wrong in recent times) they weren't out to that extent.
The new policy platform unveiled so far has offered thin pickings - George Osborne's pledge to raise the Inheritance Tax threshold to £1m will be popular but isn't going to swing many votes on its own, it's just not important enough an issue for the vast majority of people, despite the Daily Express's best efforts. Likewise cuts in stamp duty. The Conservatives still face a huge problem in trying to knit together the outputs from their six policy review groups into a coherent manifesto - it's not so much that the policies themselves will be incoherent, because Labour's 2005 manifesto (a model of vacuity if ever there was any) proved that you can win an election without having any policies. It's more that the whole rhetorical thrust of the two major policy reviews, Goldsmith/Gummer on 'quality of life' and John Redwood on 'competitiveness', are 180 degrees opposed to each other and that's a very large crack to paper over. Goldsmith and Gummer say - quite rightly - put the environment first, whereas Redwood says fly as many planes as possible and f*** the environment. How is Dave gonna square this off? Most likely he will fudge it somehow, but it's very hard to see a coherent policy platform emerging from these reviews at short notice.
And all the time there are senile senior figures sniping in the sidelines. This week's Spectator has a piece by Norman Tebbit lamenting the lack of 'popular' (i.e. quasi-fascist, in Tebbit-speak) policies among the Cameronite modernisers. Tebbit is now - or maybe always has been - so crazy that he thinks that all the Tories' current problems stem from Mrs Thatcher being 'conned' into joining the ERM by the 'Europhile Tories' who were apparently 'pulling strings behind the scenes.' Real reds-under-the-bed conspiracy theory stuff, and sad to see from a guy who once seemed pretty sharp, even if he was a complete wanker. Next we find Malcolm Rifkind saying 'a snap election would be an outrage' because governments with a working majority in the House of Commons should serve a full term. Presumably then Malc was saying the same thing in 1983 and 1987 when Maggie went to the country? She still had a full year left to run, after all. Also, isn't Malcolm's outburst rather at odds with Dave's insistence that Gordon call an election immediately when he became leader in June?
It's this kind of inconsistency that's going to make it surprisingly easy for Labour to fight the campaign. They just need to point to the endless selection of hypocrites, duffers and madmen in the ranks (and also some of them on the Tory front bench) and Dave's credibility will most likely evaporate. Of course, if the Tories wanted to do themselves and the country a favour there are several worthwhile and progressive points they could campaign on, for example:
- the transformation of Britain into a low carbon economy, in line with the Goldsmith/Gummer blueprint, and constrasting strongly with Labour's rather faltering steps in this direction.
- enshrining civil liberties and halting the steady drift towards a police state (which, of course, Mrs T started).
- getting rid of the Stalinist 'target culture' in public services, substituting instead a reliance on competent and well-motivated professionals monitored by democratically elected oversight boards (or something like that anyway).
29 September 2007
Stop this I think it's silly - let's call an election instead.
Labour Party Conference report: Bournemouth was pretty dull, although the hotel was absolutely extraordinary. It was about 20 minutes' walk from the town centre and the dining room gave the impression that it had been designed (complete with corner bar area), decorated and fitted out in about 1971 and then left for 40 years. I mean this place made the decor in Fawlty Towers look modernistic. It should be listed immediately!
I found Gordon Brown's speech a bit lacklustre to be frank, but he got through on the astonishing advantage that derives from not being Tony Blair. The 'not Blair effect' will, in my view, carry Gordon and the Labour Party through the November election which now looks VERY likely, probably with a majority of around 100. After talking to a number of people, none of them very important or influential, at 'Conference' (where does the definite article disappear to at this time of year) I am convinced that an election will be called in the next fortnight. The only person who thought it was unlikely was The Guardian's Michael White, who told me to "remember Harold Wilson in 1970". A very valid point, but if I'd been quick-witted I'd have retorted with "remember Jim Callaghan in 1978." But I'm not quick-witted so I went "uh-huh."
The Jim Callaghan parallel deserves closer examination. Uncle Jim was widely expected to announce an election at the TUC Conference in September 1978 after a series of opinion polls showed Labour several points in front of the Tories for the first time in about 3 years. Instead he did a weird kind of music hall song about a guy who "can't get away to marry you today because my wife won't let me." I wish this was on Youtube: it's one of the truly bizarre moments of 20th century politics and makes Ming Campbell or Iain Duncan Smith look like Bill Clinton in terms of their communicative abilities. I think it is on the BBC site somewhere but I couldn't find the footage. If Callaghan hadn't suddenly decided to do an audition for Monty Python, who knows? He might have won an election and maybe we'd never have had the Thatcher government or any of the rest of the 80s b.s. that we all went through.
But that is A Long Time Ago, and Gordon unsurprisingly kept quiet about any electoral moves last week. He's probably waiting to see how "Dave Cameron's Conservatives" do this week in Blackpool. The general betting now is that the outcome of this conference will be somewhere between a meltdown and a controlled continuum implosion for Dave. The Tories will probably manage to stage-manage the conference set-pieces well enough - not hard when your delegates' average age is about 78 - but the fringe will be broiling. Dave has been under attack on so many fronts recently, e.g.:
I'm looking forward to rolling giroscope into "election mode" any day now.
I found Gordon Brown's speech a bit lacklustre to be frank, but he got through on the astonishing advantage that derives from not being Tony Blair. The 'not Blair effect' will, in my view, carry Gordon and the Labour Party through the November election which now looks VERY likely, probably with a majority of around 100. After talking to a number of people, none of them very important or influential, at 'Conference' (where does the definite article disappear to at this time of year) I am convinced that an election will be called in the next fortnight. The only person who thought it was unlikely was The Guardian's Michael White, who told me to "remember Harold Wilson in 1970". A very valid point, but if I'd been quick-witted I'd have retorted with "remember Jim Callaghan in 1978." But I'm not quick-witted so I went "uh-huh."
The Jim Callaghan parallel deserves closer examination. Uncle Jim was widely expected to announce an election at the TUC Conference in September 1978 after a series of opinion polls showed Labour several points in front of the Tories for the first time in about 3 years. Instead he did a weird kind of music hall song about a guy who "can't get away to marry you today because my wife won't let me." I wish this was on Youtube: it's one of the truly bizarre moments of 20th century politics and makes Ming Campbell or Iain Duncan Smith look like Bill Clinton in terms of their communicative abilities. I think it is on the BBC site somewhere but I couldn't find the footage. If Callaghan hadn't suddenly decided to do an audition for Monty Python, who knows? He might have won an election and maybe we'd never have had the Thatcher government or any of the rest of the 80s b.s. that we all went through.
But that is A Long Time Ago, and Gordon unsurprisingly kept quiet about any electoral moves last week. He's probably waiting to see how "Dave Cameron's Conservatives" do this week in Blackpool. The general betting now is that the outcome of this conference will be somewhere between a meltdown and a controlled continuum implosion for Dave. The Tories will probably manage to stage-manage the conference set-pieces well enough - not hard when your delegates' average age is about 78 - but the fringe will be broiling. Dave has been under attack on so many fronts recently, e.g.:
- extraordinary attack by George Osborne on the "ultra-modernisers" in central office (isn't George supposed to be one of those? Ah I see - he's actually a hard right winger just on the bandwagon to get into power. Sorry for being stupid.)
- Norman Tebbit effectively saying "vote for Gordon". Tebbit is - and always has been - a wanker, but carries surprising traction amongst the (still surprisingly large) quasi-fascist electoral constituency in "middle England".
- increasingly disastrous poll ratings (despite a weird dip at the end of August where it appeared the Tories were actually reeling Labour in).
I'm looking forward to rolling giroscope into "election mode" any day now.
23 September 2007
Conference again... what a major league drag
Time for the Labour Conference once again, this time in Bournemouth, a town where everybody probably still goes home from the pub early to watch the Old Grey Whistle Test. It's "Wheelchairville, UK". Makes Eastbourne look dynamic.
Seth B. Ramal used to get excited about this kind of thing last year but times and priorities have changed. There is no longer the fun of being able to shout what a bastard swine Tony Blair is. Americans must have experienced the same vibe in 1974-76 when Richard Nixon was replaced by Gerald Ford... just not the same class of target to aim at. There is a lingering suspicion that Gordon Brown might just be a Nice Guy. And you don't walk down the street shouting about a nice guy (unless you're the guy my mate Tom once met in South Africa at a party who said, "I know what we'll do, we'll go and see Mark Thatcher. He lives down the road. Nice guy.
Dunno about you, but I always found it cool the way 'Nice Guy Eddie' in Reservoir Dogs was a complete and utter bastard. But we digress even more than usual...
It's a bummer I missed the Lib Dem conference in Brighton. I love Ming Campbell so much. There was a good article by Dominic Lawson in one of the broadsheets (the Telegraph maybe? Can't be bothered to Google it) saying that Campbell was one of the most underrated party leaders ever. Probably right, but is it possible to do anything else with Ming Campbell apart from underrate him? He could at least endorse tins of his namesake, Campbell's soup, for a higher profile. And I think Labour should launch "Gordon's Brown sauce". [Cue a lame, 30 years out of date joke about "HP Sauce" and consumer debt. If anyone gets that, I'll be amazed.]
Loved doin' the continuous updates from the Manchester conference last year but this year I'm staying in what is essentially a guest house and I think wi-fi is, frankly, UNlikely, so I'll promise nothing. Who will the special guest speaker this year be? I think it should be Dave Lee Travis. It is, after all, a seaside roadshow.
I just wish I could give a shit about party politics at the moment. But like Mr Spock in the Paramount car park that was pretending to be the planet Vulcan at the start of Star Trek - The Motion Picture, my destiny lies elsewhere. Still... a chance to drink glass after glass of unbelievably bad red wine at no expense should rarely be turned down. If you're down at the seaside too, maybe I'll see ya there. At least this time I have a secure zone pass (not like the Tory conference last year... which was an unmitigated disaster for all sorts of reasons. Anyway, "enough already". Keep it real!
Seth B. Ramal used to get excited about this kind of thing last year but times and priorities have changed. There is no longer the fun of being able to shout what a bastard swine Tony Blair is. Americans must have experienced the same vibe in 1974-76 when Richard Nixon was replaced by Gerald Ford... just not the same class of target to aim at. There is a lingering suspicion that Gordon Brown might just be a Nice Guy. And you don't walk down the street shouting about a nice guy (unless you're the guy my mate Tom once met in South Africa at a party who said, "I know what we'll do, we'll go and see Mark Thatcher. He lives down the road. Nice guy.
Dunno about you, but I always found it cool the way 'Nice Guy Eddie' in Reservoir Dogs was a complete and utter bastard. But we digress even more than usual...
It's a bummer I missed the Lib Dem conference in Brighton. I love Ming Campbell so much. There was a good article by Dominic Lawson in one of the broadsheets (the Telegraph maybe? Can't be bothered to Google it) saying that Campbell was one of the most underrated party leaders ever. Probably right, but is it possible to do anything else with Ming Campbell apart from underrate him? He could at least endorse tins of his namesake, Campbell's soup, for a higher profile. And I think Labour should launch "Gordon's Brown sauce". [Cue a lame, 30 years out of date joke about "HP Sauce" and consumer debt. If anyone gets that, I'll be amazed.]
Loved doin' the continuous updates from the Manchester conference last year but this year I'm staying in what is essentially a guest house and I think wi-fi is, frankly, UNlikely, so I'll promise nothing. Who will the special guest speaker this year be? I think it should be Dave Lee Travis. It is, after all, a seaside roadshow.
I just wish I could give a shit about party politics at the moment. But like Mr Spock in the Paramount car park that was pretending to be the planet Vulcan at the start of Star Trek - The Motion Picture, my destiny lies elsewhere. Still... a chance to drink glass after glass of unbelievably bad red wine at no expense should rarely be turned down. If you're down at the seaside too, maybe I'll see ya there. At least this time I have a secure zone pass (not like the Tory conference last year... which was an unmitigated disaster for all sorts of reasons. Anyway, "enough already". Keep it real!
14 September 2007
Northern Rock on a roll... downwards
Big financial story of the day is that Northern Rock has asked the Bank of England for an emergency loan - which is a pretty unusual event. When this happens it's normally a sign that a bank is close to going bust.
If I had had my eye on the ball over the summer I would have been covering the current financial crisis a lot more closely than I have done. The 'sub-prime' mortgage defaults and consequent rise in the price of credit have left a lot of financial institutions - across the world - with big holes in their balance sheets. On its own I don't think this crisis is big enough to collapse the system completely - the bad debts are large but they're not THAT large - but it will give rise to a very different feel in the financial markets. The days when economic "growth" could be generated merely by massively expanding the indebtedness of a company, through the expansion of private equity (or indeed the consumer sector, through a housing bubble) seem to be coming to an end, at least for now. Of course, capitalism as we know it relies on credit markets to drive growth; but what we've seen over the past five years or so is an unsustainable expansion of credit, driven by a combination of lax regulation and that combination of greed and desperation which is at the heart of the capitalist mindset. Chickens are now coming home to roost.
My hunch (and that's all it is as the real data are buried somewhere in company balance sheets - after all I had no idea Northern Rock was in trouble until today) is that the US and Europe are going to go into recession on the back of this - probably next year. Maybe now's a good time for Gordon to have a general election (although it's certainly possible to win an election in a recession - just ask John Major) as I don't think the economic data will look anywhere near as good six months from now.
Advice for savers with Northern Rock: don't worry. The govt won't let a major financial institution collapse and will just surreptitiously bail out the companies involved unless they're particularly small and reckless (Barings springs to mind). These guys have all read about what happened in the 1930s. Mervyn King's assurances that the Bank will not bail out dodgy investors are bullshit - almost like a UK version of Greenspan, how does this guy get such kudos whilst delivering about as much economic insight as Tommy Cooper? King knows that propensity to do dodgy deals is the only thing which drives the UK economy forward these days, reliant as it is on the financial sector. The more recklessness there is out there, the better UK plc does - until there's a crisis like this. Then the backhander comes into play, bailing out the big financial institutions - the ones you'd notice if they went bust. Who pays for this? Smaller borrowers (through higher interest rates.) i.e. anyone with a variable rate mortgage. Or small businesses with bank loans. Or people with bank loans... the little guy just got screwed once again. Welcome to what our American friends would call "Real World Economics 101". I like the sound of that.
I'm thinking very seriously about desigining and delivering a course in radical economics for the Workers Educational Association - a useful project for next year. I'll let you know.
If I had had my eye on the ball over the summer I would have been covering the current financial crisis a lot more closely than I have done. The 'sub-prime' mortgage defaults and consequent rise in the price of credit have left a lot of financial institutions - across the world - with big holes in their balance sheets. On its own I don't think this crisis is big enough to collapse the system completely - the bad debts are large but they're not THAT large - but it will give rise to a very different feel in the financial markets. The days when economic "growth" could be generated merely by massively expanding the indebtedness of a company, through the expansion of private equity (or indeed the consumer sector, through a housing bubble) seem to be coming to an end, at least for now. Of course, capitalism as we know it relies on credit markets to drive growth; but what we've seen over the past five years or so is an unsustainable expansion of credit, driven by a combination of lax regulation and that combination of greed and desperation which is at the heart of the capitalist mindset. Chickens are now coming home to roost.
My hunch (and that's all it is as the real data are buried somewhere in company balance sheets - after all I had no idea Northern Rock was in trouble until today) is that the US and Europe are going to go into recession on the back of this - probably next year. Maybe now's a good time for Gordon to have a general election (although it's certainly possible to win an election in a recession - just ask John Major) as I don't think the economic data will look anywhere near as good six months from now.
Advice for savers with Northern Rock: don't worry. The govt won't let a major financial institution collapse and will just surreptitiously bail out the companies involved unless they're particularly small and reckless (Barings springs to mind). These guys have all read about what happened in the 1930s. Mervyn King's assurances that the Bank will not bail out dodgy investors are bullshit - almost like a UK version of Greenspan, how does this guy get such kudos whilst delivering about as much economic insight as Tommy Cooper? King knows that propensity to do dodgy deals is the only thing which drives the UK economy forward these days, reliant as it is on the financial sector. The more recklessness there is out there, the better UK plc does - until there's a crisis like this. Then the backhander comes into play, bailing out the big financial institutions - the ones you'd notice if they went bust. Who pays for this? Smaller borrowers (through higher interest rates.) i.e. anyone with a variable rate mortgage. Or small businesses with bank loans. Or people with bank loans... the little guy just got screwed once again. Welcome to what our American friends would call "Real World Economics 101". I like the sound of that.
I'm thinking very seriously about desigining and delivering a course in radical economics for the Workers Educational Association - a useful project for next year. I'll let you know.
07 September 2007
1 year old today...
And so giroscope stumbles into its second 12 months as of now. Sadly I missed the Chappel beer festival this time round but we are planning to go to Ipswich in a couple of weeks' time.
Not much to time to post for the tiem being as I'm mainly into making some music through an Immersion Composition Lodge at the moment. Anyone who enjoys writing and making music but doesn't get so much time to do it anymore should really check out this immersion composition malarkey. Initially I thought that it would involve playing guitar in a flotation tank, but no. In fact you have to write and record as many songs as possible in 24 hours. The aim is 20 songs but I don't know anyone who's managed that (actually probably Napalm Death would have managed it in about 20 minutes in the old days.) I'm coping with the restrictions by paring down my arrangements to basic heavy metal, and taking lyrical inspiration from Budgie and Grand Funk Railroad. More on this as it unfolds, but for now, Rock On.
In the meantime, here is another great blog for you, this time inspired by a friend's surname: saunders.blogspot.com
Not much to time to post for the tiem being as I'm mainly into making some music through an Immersion Composition Lodge at the moment. Anyone who enjoys writing and making music but doesn't get so much time to do it anymore should really check out this immersion composition malarkey. Initially I thought that it would involve playing guitar in a flotation tank, but no. In fact you have to write and record as many songs as possible in 24 hours. The aim is 20 songs but I don't know anyone who's managed that (actually probably Napalm Death would have managed it in about 20 minutes in the old days.) I'm coping with the restrictions by paring down my arrangements to basic heavy metal, and taking lyrical inspiration from Budgie and Grand Funk Railroad. More on this as it unfolds, but for now, Rock On.
In the meantime, here is another great blog for you, this time inspired by a friend's surname: saunders.blogspot.com
30 August 2007
Q: "Hal - where the f*** have you been?" A: "Failing to Kill Slugs".
Hello again after another (more than) 2 week layoff... so what have I been doing that's so important that I couldn't post for all that time?
failing with a beer trap.
I made the trap for the slugs that are really laying into the cabbages we are trying to grow over the winter. Filled a plastic container with some Quilmes Argentinian lager (it was all I had left over from the BBQ we had last week), and sunk it into the soil next to the cabbage patch. Result after 48 hours: a beer trap with two wasps, three beetles, one worm, and no slugs. The bastards are too clever for me. Luckily I have some other alternatives without resorting to chemicals - a border of crushed eggshells (easily available from most garden centres or you could indeed make your own if you eat enough eggs) works well. Note to self: use bitter, instead of lager, in the beer trap in future. Maybe these slugs are CAMRA members.
Never mind... courgettes and squashes are now doing very well and the slugs don't seem to go for them. More excitement from the garden to come in the autumn...
I'd like to say that was all I'd done for the last two weeks. But it would be a lie. I somehow like the idea of someone spending 2 weeks laying a beer trap and then failing miserably. The Lottery will probably give me money to make a film about it with some ex footballers.
Topical blog of the day: quilmes.blogspot.com
(Expect at least one of these with each post from now on. I am trying to find the most genuinely lame and useless blogs out there - and it seems to be surprisingly easy.)
failing with a beer trap.
I made the trap for the slugs that are really laying into the cabbages we are trying to grow over the winter. Filled a plastic container with some Quilmes Argentinian lager (it was all I had left over from the BBQ we had last week), and sunk it into the soil next to the cabbage patch. Result after 48 hours: a beer trap with two wasps, three beetles, one worm, and no slugs. The bastards are too clever for me. Luckily I have some other alternatives without resorting to chemicals - a border of crushed eggshells (easily available from most garden centres or you could indeed make your own if you eat enough eggs) works well. Note to self: use bitter, instead of lager, in the beer trap in future. Maybe these slugs are CAMRA members.
Never mind... courgettes and squashes are now doing very well and the slugs don't seem to go for them. More excitement from the garden to come in the autumn...
I'd like to say that was all I'd done for the last two weeks. But it would be a lie. I somehow like the idea of someone spending 2 weeks laying a beer trap and then failing miserably. The Lottery will probably give me money to make a film about it with some ex footballers.
Topical blog of the day: quilmes.blogspot.com
(Expect at least one of these with each post from now on. I am trying to find the most genuinely lame and useless blogs out there - and it seems to be surprisingly easy.)
15 August 2007
Apologies for this extended interruption to the service
Been no post here for almost 2 weeks which I'm well aware of.
This is mainly because I am going on holiday next week and I have so much crap to sort out before that. But I will make regular posts next week and beyond... you can count on that.
Also... it's a one man show from now on. I killed off Seth and Barney. I put an axe through their heads. I've got... tapes of some of it. Harold... I killed a lot of people. Perhaps, like "Horselover Fat" in Philip K Dick's Valis, they never really existed at all. Perhaps they were honest Tory MPs.
Never mind. Giroscope is now just Hal Berstram... in time for its 1st birthday.
For rock'n'roll, dope and frowning in the streets.
Piece and frakkin'. BEE LEAVE - don't sting me now.
Cheers all. Until the next shot of coherence, give yourself a laugh and try my new technique; rather than pushing 'next blog' to go to a random blog on Blogger, try inputting a well-know (or little known?) word into the browser, followed by 'blogspot.com'.
Some ones I tried today (with varying degrees of success):
Eno
Heavy Metal
Heavy Rock
Namlook
New Labour
blogspot.blogspot
I Like It (possibly the weirdest one)
Space 1999 (weak)
Blakes Seven (possibly even weaker)
Cress (enthusiastic)
Try it... please report back if you find anything interesting.
This is mainly because I am going on holiday next week and I have so much crap to sort out before that. But I will make regular posts next week and beyond... you can count on that.
Also... it's a one man show from now on. I killed off Seth and Barney. I put an axe through their heads. I've got... tapes of some of it. Harold... I killed a lot of people. Perhaps, like "Horselover Fat" in Philip K Dick's Valis, they never really existed at all. Perhaps they were honest Tory MPs.
Never mind. Giroscope is now just Hal Berstram... in time for its 1st birthday.
For rock'n'roll, dope and frowning in the streets.
Piece and frakkin'. BEE LEAVE - don't sting me now.
Cheers all. Until the next shot of coherence, give yourself a laugh and try my new technique; rather than pushing 'next blog' to go to a random blog on Blogger, try inputting a well-know (or little known?) word into the browser, followed by 'blogspot.com'.
Some ones I tried today (with varying degrees of success):
Eno
Heavy Metal
Heavy Rock
Namlook
New Labour
blogspot.blogspot
I Like It (possibly the weirdest one)
Space 1999 (weak)
Blakes Seven (possibly even weaker)
Cress (enthusiastic)
Try it... please report back if you find anything interesting.
31 July 2007
The Proms are great... shame about some of the audience
Went along to The Proms last week - although it's mainly rock'n'roll that is in the spotlight whenever music is discussed on giroscope, I'm partial to a bit of the old classical (most of it, anyway). Prom 18 was the one we went to - Delius's Song of Summer, Tippett's Triple Concerto and Vaughan Williams's Symphony No 5. All the pieces were great and well performed. The Delius and Vaughan Williams pieces were pastoral and quite approachable (an avant garde composer and contemporary of VW once dismissed him as 'cowpat music' but I do think that's very unfair). The Tippett was a much more '20th century' sounding piece - dissonant, challenging, not taking it lying down. As the reviews on the BBC site for this Prom show, some people in the audience found the juxtaposition of two different styles of composer too challenging to take. For example, here's a review by James Dixon:
What's "patronizing in the extreme" is the suggestion that the Proms audience is too bone-headed to appreciate more than one style of classical composition on the same night. Why don't people like Mr Dixon and 'fellow critic Steve' go home and listen to Classic FM or their Haydn box sets if they don't want to hear something innovative? Who says Birtwhistle is the thing you have to sit through in order to listen to Beethoven? For me, it would probably be the other way round. Birtwhistle is certainly not an easy listen, but I'd rather stick my head in the washing machine than listen to an early Beethoven symphony. I would also advance the thesis that the washing machine has somewhat more musical merit than early Beethoven. And where the hell were these 'bemused faces in the bars during the interval'? I think it was only people who'd looked at the prices - £3.90 for a can of draughtflow Guiness ferchrissakes! Now that is the real outrage.
Four days earlier, the European premiere of Brett Dean's Vexation and Devotions, paired with Beethoven's 7th Symphony, attracted similar criticism on the BBC site. This is a fantastic piece which uses recorded messages from call centre phone lines - "your call is very important to us... please hold" juxtaposed with some harmonically challenging orchestral and choral lines to make a statement about the sheer insanity of modern living. The most amusing review I found wasn't even about the music - it was about the way the orchestra and conductor dressed:
I give up, I really do. The Proms - Great concerts pretty much every time, but can someone do something about some of the audience?
First, Delius. A magical piece, which should by rights be a Proms staple. Then Tippett, and the problems began. I don't know if new Proms controller Roger Wright reads this page, or if anyone in contact with him does, but if so can I tactfully suggest such sharply juxtaposed programming has long outstayed its welcome. I have tolerated some pretty bizarre clashes in the past - Maderna and Tchaikovsky, Nancarrow and Bernstein - but this really was the worst yet. I am nearing 40. I have had time to work out roughly what I do and do not like. Having struggled with Tippett in the past, I decided to give him one last go, but like fellow critic 'Steve', I found the only pleasure came from the realisation I need never suffer this arid chaos again. I believe the majority of the audience felt likewise. The applause spoke of admiration for the soloists' technical accomplishment, but little else. Faces of bemused disappointment predominated in the bars during the interval. Genuinely catholic (schizophrenic?) musical personalities in the Rattle-Kenyon mode are very rare, and this policy of 'you can have your Beethoven when you've eaten up your nice Birtwistle' is patronizing in the extreme.
What's "patronizing in the extreme" is the suggestion that the Proms audience is too bone-headed to appreciate more than one style of classical composition on the same night. Why don't people like Mr Dixon and 'fellow critic Steve' go home and listen to Classic FM or their Haydn box sets if they don't want to hear something innovative? Who says Birtwhistle is the thing you have to sit through in order to listen to Beethoven? For me, it would probably be the other way round. Birtwhistle is certainly not an easy listen, but I'd rather stick my head in the washing machine than listen to an early Beethoven symphony. I would also advance the thesis that the washing machine has somewhat more musical merit than early Beethoven. And where the hell were these 'bemused faces in the bars during the interval'? I think it was only people who'd looked at the prices - £3.90 for a can of draughtflow Guiness ferchrissakes! Now that is the real outrage.
Four days earlier, the European premiere of Brett Dean's Vexation and Devotions, paired with Beethoven's 7th Symphony, attracted similar criticism on the BBC site. This is a fantastic piece which uses recorded messages from call centre phone lines - "your call is very important to us... please hold" juxtaposed with some harmonically challenging orchestral and choral lines to make a statement about the sheer insanity of modern living. The most amusing review I found wasn't even about the music - it was about the way the orchestra and conductor dressed:
Proms 13 and 14.Musicians' dress is not unimportant in the presentation of music at public performances. Sadly, the dreary black shirt and black tie of the BBC Symphony Orchestra detracted from their superb perfomance of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, - a situation made worse by the conductor, (David Robertson) with his lack of even a black tie to his casual black shirt. If his orchestra is made to dress properly in white shirt and tie, why can't he?
The Haydn concert the very next day saw the choir, orchestra and soloists superbly dressed in white tie for men, and black dresses for ladies, with the lady soloist in a beautiful concert gown, with a sparkling necklace. Oh dear, what did the conductor,(Sir Roger Norrington) wear? A crumpled black jacket buttoned up to the neck - (no tie of course) - which he immediately tore open three minutes into the concert. Most concert-goers expect a dress code befitting the grandeur of Classical music. Why do conductors arrogantly scorn the dress code of their musicians? What are they trying to tell us, and why should they be allowed to do so? While I'm at it, please put the BBC's magnificent Symphony Orchestra back again into formal evening dress with white tie and tails?
I give up, I really do. The Proms - Great concerts pretty much every time, but can someone do something about some of the audience?
22 July 2007
In praise of Paul Giamatti
Feeling a bit guilty about not posting anything for 10 days so let's go for two in one night. Irregular but prolific...
I always dig 'in praise of...' in The Guardian. This is a paragraph they have at the bottom of the comment column where the leader writer offers a good word in support of something - or someone - they think is worthy of such positive analysis. Partly I dig it because one of my friends writes some of them, and he did perhaps the greatest ever 'in praise of' - on the live Guilty Pleasures concert that BBC London DJ Sean Rowley put together at the Hackney Empire back in April.
Anyway, if I was in the lucky (unlucky?) position of having to write an 'in praise of', it would have to be the actor Paul Giamatti. I've watched one and a half films with him in the lead role this weekend - American Splendor, which a mate of mine was kind enough to lend me on DVD, and Sideways, which is currently on Film4, and he is absolutely brilliant in both of them, in completely different roles. This is the kind of versatility that all actors probably should be in command of, but sadly very few are. It's kind of weird that I've never noticed Giamatti in any movie before this - even though he's been in loads - but then I'm extremely unobservant, so that's probably it.
American Splendor deserves a blog post all of its own - and indeed there is a strong argument for setting up a 'reviews' site to allow me to write at greater length (and in a more structured manner) about some of the key films, records etc of the current and previous eras. The site would be very old skool - the sort of thing that was springing up on the web in 1995/96. If I get round to it it'll be a great project. But you should give Splendor a shot if you're looking for a genuinely off-beat and original film which is nonetheless very accessible. Fantastic stuff.
Sideways, based on the 60% or so of it that I've seen, is interesting because it's the first film I've seen which offers a detailed treatment of what it's like to be a wine buff. It's not a film about wine but the mechanics of wine tasting play a key role. It's obviously a key influence on that BBC documentary that featured Oz Clarke (the Paul Daniels of the wine world) and the guy from Top Gear - May? [can't remember his first name. Sorry but whenever I think about Top Gear I feel a strong urge to go out and purchase a rifle just to kill or maim Jeremy Clarkson. Then I remember that sadly, this isn't the USA.] The Clarke/May documentary was surprisingly good, mainly because Clarke was an unbelievable prat and May just wanted to drink some bloody wine. He couldn't stand Clarke's bullshit and he was right. If May was in charge of Top Gear rather than Clarkson and they made it a programme about what the best wine for drink-driving was, it might be worth watching. Just.
Anyway, Sideways has given me the idea for a nice little British movie which I'm sure I could get Lottery funding for. The plot would be quite similar to Sideways except that instead of California, we're in East Anglia, and instead of visiting vineyards, we're going to breweries and beer festivals. Best of all I already know about half a dozen people who would be perfectly cast for a film like this as they would essentially be playing themselves. How do I apply for Lottery money for such a project?
I always dig 'in praise of...' in The Guardian. This is a paragraph they have at the bottom of the comment column where the leader writer offers a good word in support of something - or someone - they think is worthy of such positive analysis. Partly I dig it because one of my friends writes some of them, and he did perhaps the greatest ever 'in praise of' - on the live Guilty Pleasures concert that BBC London DJ Sean Rowley put together at the Hackney Empire back in April.
Anyway, if I was in the lucky (unlucky?) position of having to write an 'in praise of', it would have to be the actor Paul Giamatti. I've watched one and a half films with him in the lead role this weekend - American Splendor, which a mate of mine was kind enough to lend me on DVD, and Sideways, which is currently on Film4, and he is absolutely brilliant in both of them, in completely different roles. This is the kind of versatility that all actors probably should be in command of, but sadly very few are. It's kind of weird that I've never noticed Giamatti in any movie before this - even though he's been in loads - but then I'm extremely unobservant, so that's probably it.
American Splendor deserves a blog post all of its own - and indeed there is a strong argument for setting up a 'reviews' site to allow me to write at greater length (and in a more structured manner) about some of the key films, records etc of the current and previous eras. The site would be very old skool - the sort of thing that was springing up on the web in 1995/96. If I get round to it it'll be a great project. But you should give Splendor a shot if you're looking for a genuinely off-beat and original film which is nonetheless very accessible. Fantastic stuff.
Sideways, based on the 60% or so of it that I've seen, is interesting because it's the first film I've seen which offers a detailed treatment of what it's like to be a wine buff. It's not a film about wine but the mechanics of wine tasting play a key role. It's obviously a key influence on that BBC documentary that featured Oz Clarke (the Paul Daniels of the wine world) and the guy from Top Gear - May? [can't remember his first name. Sorry but whenever I think about Top Gear I feel a strong urge to go out and purchase a rifle just to kill or maim Jeremy Clarkson. Then I remember that sadly, this isn't the USA.] The Clarke/May documentary was surprisingly good, mainly because Clarke was an unbelievable prat and May just wanted to drink some bloody wine. He couldn't stand Clarke's bullshit and he was right. If May was in charge of Top Gear rather than Clarkson and they made it a programme about what the best wine for drink-driving was, it might be worth watching. Just.
Anyway, Sideways has given me the idea for a nice little British movie which I'm sure I could get Lottery funding for. The plot would be quite similar to Sideways except that instead of California, we're in East Anglia, and instead of visiting vineyards, we're going to breweries and beer festivals. Best of all I already know about half a dozen people who would be perfectly cast for a film like this as they would essentially be playing themselves. How do I apply for Lottery money for such a project?
19 July 2007
Blowing back on politicians and dope
Another stage in the ongoing saga over politicians admitting they smoked dope at university a couple of days back... Jacqui Smith, Alistair Darling, even the notorious Opus Dei plant Ruth Kelly had been at it once upon a time.
Contrary to popular belief it was possible to go to uni in the 80s/90s and not smoke gear... based on my experience it just depended who you hung out with really. If you were with a reasonably relaxed crowd who weren't either people who never left the bar (the darts team?), postgrad South Africans who were never off the rugby pitch, or the square science students who used to pack their own lunch box to take to the lab every morning, there was normally a plentiful supply of drugs, both soft and indeed hard, available.
Even if you hung out with the smokers you could 'just...say...no' in the Patrick Bateman sense. One of my mates at uni - let's call him Thomas Jerome Newton on account of his David Bowie fixation - simply refused 'a toke' for 3 years straight. He just didn't want to know, and in retrospect, I salute his courage and indefagitibility. For TJN, it simply wasn't a part of The Good Life in the way that hard drinking, or sugar free Tab Clear (a well known soft drink of the time) was.
So it wasn't inevitable to end up with a spliff in your hand, but I must say it was extremely enjoyable. Which is why all these politicians saying "I smoked it... it was wrong... I regret it... I am a terminally boring asshole who would probably lose an election to ITV Digital's 'Monkey' [sadly missed!] under a fair electoral system" are taking out of their bottom.
Why can't we have a sensible conversation about cannabis use in this country (or most countries?) Why is the government looking into reclassifying dope from class C to class B?
We're told it's because super-skunk, or whatever hydroponic concoction is avaiable on the street, is 40 times stronger than the stuff these ministers were smoking in the 70s and 80s. Personally I can well believe that prolonged exposure to the really heavy stuff could be hazardous to mental health. But if alcohol was a banned substance (and I'm sure some ministers would love to ban it), we'd be having exactly the same conversation. There would be super-strength spirits, illegally distilled in labs, doing the rounds. They'd be several times stronger than the homebrew cider that ministers were drinking in the 70s and 80s, and we'd be looking to reclassify alcohol to class B...
The long and the short of it is that these bozos are too thick to realise that it is the illegality of marijuana which causes super-strength derivatives to be doing the rounds. If the stuff was licensed and produced on a commercial, quality-controlled basis, reasonably priced, no-one would bother with skunk (except maybe as a home growing project.) We'd be better off because we wouldn't have to live in fear of being charged by the police for smoking a plant which can be grown wild in any British garden. The government would secure a wodge of tax revenue. And the consumer would be guaranteed a quality product.
I just wish some politicians would have the guts to campaign for full legalisation. There may be some doing that in the Lib Dems or maybe on the libertarian right of the Tory party - I don't follow the debate closely enough to know - but we never seem to hear from them when the matter is discussed in the news.
With the debate over drugs as dumb and ludicrous as it is now, is it any wonder 40% of the population don't bother to vote?
Contrary to popular belief it was possible to go to uni in the 80s/90s and not smoke gear... based on my experience it just depended who you hung out with really. If you were with a reasonably relaxed crowd who weren't either people who never left the bar (the darts team?), postgrad South Africans who were never off the rugby pitch, or the square science students who used to pack their own lunch box to take to the lab every morning, there was normally a plentiful supply of drugs, both soft and indeed hard, available.
Even if you hung out with the smokers you could 'just...say...no' in the Patrick Bateman sense. One of my mates at uni - let's call him Thomas Jerome Newton on account of his David Bowie fixation - simply refused 'a toke' for 3 years straight. He just didn't want to know, and in retrospect, I salute his courage and indefagitibility. For TJN, it simply wasn't a part of The Good Life in the way that hard drinking, or sugar free Tab Clear (a well known soft drink of the time) was.
So it wasn't inevitable to end up with a spliff in your hand, but I must say it was extremely enjoyable. Which is why all these politicians saying "I smoked it... it was wrong... I regret it... I am a terminally boring asshole who would probably lose an election to ITV Digital's 'Monkey' [sadly missed!] under a fair electoral system" are taking out of their bottom.
Why can't we have a sensible conversation about cannabis use in this country (or most countries?) Why is the government looking into reclassifying dope from class C to class B?
We're told it's because super-skunk, or whatever hydroponic concoction is avaiable on the street, is 40 times stronger than the stuff these ministers were smoking in the 70s and 80s. Personally I can well believe that prolonged exposure to the really heavy stuff could be hazardous to mental health. But if alcohol was a banned substance (and I'm sure some ministers would love to ban it), we'd be having exactly the same conversation. There would be super-strength spirits, illegally distilled in labs, doing the rounds. They'd be several times stronger than the homebrew cider that ministers were drinking in the 70s and 80s, and we'd be looking to reclassify alcohol to class B...
The long and the short of it is that these bozos are too thick to realise that it is the illegality of marijuana which causes super-strength derivatives to be doing the rounds. If the stuff was licensed and produced on a commercial, quality-controlled basis, reasonably priced, no-one would bother with skunk (except maybe as a home growing project.) We'd be better off because we wouldn't have to live in fear of being charged by the police for smoking a plant which can be grown wild in any British garden. The government would secure a wodge of tax revenue. And the consumer would be guaranteed a quality product.
I just wish some politicians would have the guts to campaign for full legalisation. There may be some doing that in the Lib Dems or maybe on the libertarian right of the Tory party - I don't follow the debate closely enough to know - but we never seem to hear from them when the matter is discussed in the news.
With the debate over drugs as dumb and ludicrous as it is now, is it any wonder 40% of the population don't bother to vote?
13 July 2007
F*** the Queen
So the BBC edited some footage of a documentary in the wrong order to make it look like the Queen walked out of a photo session after she was asked to remove her tiara.
Who gives a damn? Documentaries are always edited in post-production. In any case whichever way the footage was edited, her majesty comes across as a complete cow - totally out of touch with reality. But what do we expect from someone who never had to do anything to get where they are, but is just there by accident of birth? The idea that the controller of BBC One should resign over this is totally ridiculous. If the BBC had any real balls it would tell the Queen to f*** off. But of course since being neutered in the wake of the Hutton Report, with the resignation of Greg Dyke, the only Director General in decades to fight openly on behalf of BBC workers and BBC viewers, it's been a shadow of its former self.
If the Queen had a shred of honesty and integrity she would resign immediately - as would anyone in a position authority who hasn't been democratically elected to it. Imagine it - a "Cut the Crap" day. All these unelected SOBs - monarchs, CEOs, religious leaders, Gordon Brown? All forced to ratify their positions via the popular vote.
Many people criticise the monarchy on the grounds that it's an overhang from a medieval, undemocratic age - which is true - but then we only live in a democratic age in a very limited sense. We get the opportunity to vote for bland corporate-friendly leaders every four or five years, local politicians who are indistinguishable from each other, and MEPs we never hear anything from. Meanwhile many of the most important decisions are taken by unelected international bodies like the WTO and the European Commission, and multinational corporations that no-one ever voted for. Sounds rather feudal to me. Maybe an absolute monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship is the most conducive form of government for capitalism. The Chinese government certainly thinks so.
I do not recognise the Queen as the legitimate head of state here, and if I was asked to attend a function at the Palace (very unlikely) I would write back saying so. I don't want to meet these people and I don't want to associate with them. They can piss off as far as I'm concerned. If only the BBC had the courage to use this incident to start a real debate on the future of the monarchy...
Who gives a damn? Documentaries are always edited in post-production. In any case whichever way the footage was edited, her majesty comes across as a complete cow - totally out of touch with reality. But what do we expect from someone who never had to do anything to get where they are, but is just there by accident of birth? The idea that the controller of BBC One should resign over this is totally ridiculous. If the BBC had any real balls it would tell the Queen to f*** off. But of course since being neutered in the wake of the Hutton Report, with the resignation of Greg Dyke, the only Director General in decades to fight openly on behalf of BBC workers and BBC viewers, it's been a shadow of its former self.
If the Queen had a shred of honesty and integrity she would resign immediately - as would anyone in a position authority who hasn't been democratically elected to it. Imagine it - a "Cut the Crap" day. All these unelected SOBs - monarchs, CEOs, religious leaders, Gordon Brown? All forced to ratify their positions via the popular vote.
Many people criticise the monarchy on the grounds that it's an overhang from a medieval, undemocratic age - which is true - but then we only live in a democratic age in a very limited sense. We get the opportunity to vote for bland corporate-friendly leaders every four or five years, local politicians who are indistinguishable from each other, and MEPs we never hear anything from. Meanwhile many of the most important decisions are taken by unelected international bodies like the WTO and the European Commission, and multinational corporations that no-one ever voted for. Sounds rather feudal to me. Maybe an absolute monarchy, or some other form of dictatorship is the most conducive form of government for capitalism. The Chinese government certainly thinks so.
I do not recognise the Queen as the legitimate head of state here, and if I was asked to attend a function at the Palace (very unlikely) I would write back saying so. I don't want to meet these people and I don't want to associate with them. They can piss off as far as I'm concerned. If only the BBC had the courage to use this incident to start a real debate on the future of the monarchy...
04 July 2007
Spin That Wheel - Blairites Get Real
Partly this is a post title I've been wanting to use for ages...
...but the thought has been increasingly occurring to me - isn't it great that we don't have Tony Blair on the box every day now?
It will obviously take several months before we can know whether Brown is really going to be able to win the next election - initial evidence suggests he can, but then initial evidence suggests that estate agents are trustworthy people who will Do The Right Thing by you. The poll bounce is interesting as it's something that was predicted to happen if Brown had managed to replace Blair at the height of party discontent over the post-Iraq fallout, in late 2003, but Brown didn't want to split the Labour party (the charitable interpretation), or he bottled it (my interpretation).
Since 2005, though, most of the opinion polling has suggested that there would be no 'Brown bounce' - in fact, if anything, Brown would go further behind.
This has proved completely wrong. Many of you will be sensible and wise enough not to take any notice of opinion polls - you will remember 1992, a few old stagers may even remember 1970. But for the weak-willed, obsessive and candy-starved among us they are bread and butter, the political equivalent of London Lite free newspaper. And it is highly amusing that Labour has gone 3-4 points in front on some polls.
BBC Political Research Editor David Cowling says in the aforelinked article:
Er... Tony Blair getting the hell out of No 10 maybe?
It would show real balls, or indeed semi-recklessness, were Brown to exploit this poll bounce by going for an autumn 2007 election, with the Tories still having no real policy platform to speak of besides a commitment not to abolish grammar schools but they might build a new one in areas which already have them if people really really really want it. Or something...
Strangely enough, I think that going to the country early - by Spring 2008 - would be a good option for Brown. Because if the poll lead were to continue into, say, autumn 2008, it's quite possible Cameron might face a backroom coup of the type that did for Iain Duncan Smith back in '03. And if he did it's probable a hard-right challenger like David Davis could take over - and he might be harder to beat than Dave. Yes, I know the Tories failed twice on a hard-right agenda with Hague and then Howard, but it could be third time lucky. There may just be enough nutters worried about immigration/high taxation/overweaning government to vote in a Tory on a hard right extremist ticket'. Call it 'the Sarkozy Effect'. Or, perhaps we remember Britain, 1979? With enough nutters worried about immigration/high taxation/overweaning govt? As a friend's dad once said about Star Trek, "it could 'appen".
Just to get back to the title of this post as I've gone on long enough... there's been a refreshing lack of Blairite voices saying how bad a job Brown is doing, "we told you you'd miss Tony when he's gone", etc. Maybe "we're all Brownites now", as they say. But this is just some advice for the Blairites I know are hiding out there someplace (in the form of a 'free verse' poem:)
'spin that wheel - blaiRIGHTS get real'
by Seth B Ramal (with royalties donated to Technotronic).
**New for 6 July: battlestarred, URLed remix version** after worries about the impact of senseless profanities on pensioners, and remembering the Nixon tapes.
the wheel hath spun,
and yer man hath frakked the frak off
(as Malcolm Tucker would say.)
(as Nathan Barley would say:)
"YER DEAD YER F***ING DEAD..."
so keep your orifice backed up
or
jump-shift to blair MK2 - dave ca"MORON".
(which is where you sensible, friendly people should have been in the first place).
[Ah, that feels better now.]
...but the thought has been increasingly occurring to me - isn't it great that we don't have Tony Blair on the box every day now?
It will obviously take several months before we can know whether Brown is really going to be able to win the next election - initial evidence suggests he can, but then initial evidence suggests that estate agents are trustworthy people who will Do The Right Thing by you. The poll bounce is interesting as it's something that was predicted to happen if Brown had managed to replace Blair at the height of party discontent over the post-Iraq fallout, in late 2003, but Brown didn't want to split the Labour party (the charitable interpretation), or he bottled it (my interpretation).
Since 2005, though, most of the opinion polling has suggested that there would be no 'Brown bounce' - in fact, if anything, Brown would go further behind.
This has proved completely wrong. Many of you will be sensible and wise enough not to take any notice of opinion polls - you will remember 1992, a few old stagers may even remember 1970. But for the weak-willed, obsessive and candy-starved among us they are bread and butter, the political equivalent of London Lite free newspaper. And it is highly amusing that Labour has gone 3-4 points in front on some polls.
BBC Political Research Editor David Cowling says in the aforelinked article:
I have yet to find anything Labour did between January and June this year that satisfactorily explains, to me at least, the eight point improvement in their standing on the NHS.
Er... Tony Blair getting the hell out of No 10 maybe?
It would show real balls, or indeed semi-recklessness, were Brown to exploit this poll bounce by going for an autumn 2007 election, with the Tories still having no real policy platform to speak of besides a commitment not to abolish grammar schools but they might build a new one in areas which already have them if people really really really want it. Or something...
Strangely enough, I think that going to the country early - by Spring 2008 - would be a good option for Brown. Because if the poll lead were to continue into, say, autumn 2008, it's quite possible Cameron might face a backroom coup of the type that did for Iain Duncan Smith back in '03. And if he did it's probable a hard-right challenger like David Davis could take over - and he might be harder to beat than Dave. Yes, I know the Tories failed twice on a hard-right agenda with Hague and then Howard, but it could be third time lucky. There may just be enough nutters worried about immigration/high taxation/overweaning government to vote in a Tory on a hard right extremist ticket'. Call it 'the Sarkozy Effect'. Or, perhaps we remember Britain, 1979? With enough nutters worried about immigration/high taxation/overweaning govt? As a friend's dad once said about Star Trek, "it could 'appen".
Just to get back to the title of this post as I've gone on long enough... there's been a refreshing lack of Blairite voices saying how bad a job Brown is doing, "we told you you'd miss Tony when he's gone", etc. Maybe "we're all Brownites now", as they say. But this is just some advice for the Blairites I know are hiding out there someplace (in the form of a 'free verse' poem:)
'spin that wheel - blaiRIGHTS get real'
by Seth B Ramal (with royalties donated to Technotronic).
**New for 6 July: battlestarred, URLed remix version** after worries about the impact of senseless profanities on pensioners, and remembering the Nixon tapes.
the wheel hath spun,
and yer man hath frakked the frak off
(as Malcolm Tucker would say.)
(as Nathan Barley would say:)
"YER DEAD YER F***ING DEAD..."
so keep your orifice backed up
or
jump-shift to blair MK2 - dave ca"MORON".
(which is where you sensible, friendly people should have been in the first place).
[Ah, that feels better now.]
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