Nice Work If You Can Get It.

I don't mean to be nitpicky, but is it just me who expects that 11 people who are richer than avarice. Drive cars that we can only dream of owning, have all the trappings of a superstar lifestyle, have personal adulation up there with Jesus and Muhammed. Who probably spend more on personal grooming in a month, than a cleaner earns in a year (or even biannually). Yeah taking all these little job perks (coz by gum they've earned them. Hmmm) into consideration. Is it too much to ask the England football team to perhaps apply themselves a little harder next time, especially in the winning part. We wouldn't want them to be accused of being pampered, and overinvested.

I Can't Join in the "St. John" Line

John Lennon is one of the last century's most well known cultural icons. The Beatles, the bed ins, the granny glasses and the long hair. Pretty much everyone knows who he is, and of course he receives the customary (posthumous) adulation that this level of fame brings, which is a lot. His advocacy of the peace movement that formed in his lifetime due to fall out from; amongst other things the Vietnam war and the harsh backlash to the civil rights movements has cemented him in the eyes of his fans, as one of the key figures of the time. Songs like "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" in particular have become almost secular hymns in their own right. I'm even sure the Jesus like long hair, and the white suits and robes played their part in his almost saintly mythos. I had a first hand experience of the St Lennon phenomenon at a "Bootleg Beatles" concert at the Manchester Apollo a few years ago, on the anniversary of his death. The renditions of "Imagine" and his Christmas tune, accompanied with his portrait had the feel of a quasi religious eulogy. In a way this is understandable on some levels. Lennon's senseless death was a genuine tragedy, and such a waste of a genuine talent. There is a grim irony that such a vocal advocate of peace was violently gunned down in the street. But as I thought when I saw this, and when I watched a BBC4 drama about Lennon, from when Brian Epstein killed himself to Yoko and him moving to the US, Lennon really wasn't an angelic figure. If you see past his genuine talent, and the good (as well as dodgy or naive) causes he espoused, he was a man, and a flawed one at that.

Almost anything written about Lennon's life will openly demonstrate that he was; what we would now say was "emotionally retarded". He was troubled, and had a troubled upbringing. Abandoned by his feckless father, and palmed off by his mother to an aunt who brow beat him mercilessly, and had little appreciation of her charges musical talent. He comes across in even sympathetic biographies as chippy, and unable to empathise with people on a normal emotional level, to the point of callousness. Less sympathetic biographies point to him openly mocking disabled strangers and his insensitivity towards his friend Stuart Sutcliffes girlfriend when Stuart died of a brain hemorrhage.

But the two people who really received the brunt of his callous nature where his ex wife Cynthia and his son Julian. Cynthia was rather conventional and straight laced, compared with her wayward and unconventional husband (seems likely they only married because she fell pregnant) he had little appreciation for this situation, and could never understand that she could not apply herself to his more wayward lifestyle, as many wouldn't be able too. He did manage to even bully her into taking acid. In Ray Coleman's sympathetic biography of him, Coleman all but berates her for being a bad wife for being to square for her husband. He was certainly very cruel to her as a husband, for very little justification. The way he blankly didn't react when she returned home to find him having a post shag smoke with Yoko, was really setting the bar for spousal twattery. He seems to have needed to have it spelled out to him that a woman whose marriage has fallen to bits might be a bit down, when he accuses her of being glum for "winning the fucking pools" in the divorce settlement. His lack of empathy almost seem to border on anti social disorder.

If Lennon was a lousy husband, he didn't get extra marks for being a father. One thing the program about him focused on was the childhood abandonment he faced at the hands of his parents. When they both forced him to chose at 6, which parent he wanted to live with, is the worst sort of mental torture you can think of to subject a kid to. For someone so badly stung by his parents selfishness, it is just terrible that he went on to virtually abandon his eldest Julian, rarely seeing him, and berating him for laughing and crying (pretty standard kid behaviour).

If "Lennon Naked" shows one thing, it is that John Lennon was seriously flawed. Although he gave us some great songs, and great biting witty observations. He was emotionally damaged. He had some lousy family values, and was guilty of the same kind of neglect he condemned his own family for. The advocate of peace, was temperamental, and verbally (as well as physically) aggressive. His heroin abuse, and the more mutually self absorbed indulgences aspect of his marriage to Yoko, didn't make him as profound or touched by musical genius as he might have liked to have thought during that period. Often the opposite. His death was tragic, and he went way before his time. But he wasn't a saint. And I think John himself, would have been uncomfortable with some of the more hagiogic sentiment around him.

I Don't Get Glastonbury

I consider myself a modern progressive sort of guy. Musically I don't want to return to the days of "How much is that doggy in the window". I like music, and I'm eclectic about it too. But I just don't get Glastonbury at all. Not one bit of it, and its continuing popularity. I can just about see the appeal 40 years ago when the whole thing started. A bunch of the more eclectic music bands take up a Somerset farmers offer to use his field as a rock venue in the dying weekend of June. Keep a bit of the 60's alive into the next decade. Perhaps re-create a spirit of Woodstock festival in the green and Gentile interior of rural England, reputedly where Jesus stood in ancient times. (so some historians reckon.) But like many things it seems to have dissipated it's original cause in the face of growing popularity (the numbers attending continue to grow.) and public recognition. I just can't fathom what is about today? Apart from bands plugging themselves, and an opportunity for 47 year old Guardian lifestyle correspondents to look hip by association, when they write about how they rubbed shoulders (and spliffs) with Pete Doherty in a puddle of mud. Or if it has some greater meaning than just a well known concert in a muddy field. It doesn't seem to cater to any particular musical taste. It seems like anyone who's famous in music and who wants to show up with their band is free to do so. I certainly don't think I'll be showing up there any time soon.

I have nothing against the festival and the people who go there. Good for them. But Glasto would only end up depressing me. I nearly got roped into going about 6 years ago, but it all fell apart for one reason or another. (a clash with a holiday I recall.) And the only thing I felt was relief. I just knew in the back of my mind, that if I had gone; it would just be four of the most depressing days of my life. Firstly it involves camping. Camping is horrible and stupid. I've only done it twice, both in the Air Cadets, and I hated everything about the whole fucking experience. From setting up a tent (It'd have been easier setting up a new nation in that Yorkshire field, from what I remember), to feeling cold and depressed. To that constant smell of rain and soil. I remember thinking that I'd missed watching "Wings of the Apache" in the comfort of my own home for this! Camping was utter crud. How anyone can call sitting in a bit of cloth, in a soggy field - fun, I'll never know. It was the antithesis of fun. Everything about it is designed to drive even someone with the emotional robustness of Mr. Spock off Star Trek, into a primeval state of rage and teary angst. It was awful. Don't talk to me about getting back to nature. Why did our ancestors spend thousands of years getting out of it in the first place?? Exactly. And to top it off, if the camps flood at Glasto, and everyone gets caked in mud and dirty water, and other waste (work it out.) That's supposed to be even better. Brilliant! That is called a humanitarian crisis, and a gateway to a medical crisis, in anywhere else in the world. Not called fun. Glastonbury is basically a displaced persons camp, with better music to bolster spirits, and populated by non conformists and trendies. It is a recreation of the sort of refugee camp that would spring up if lots of Daily Mail readers created an army, conquered most of England (except Somerset obviously) and sent all the undesirables into exile in a field.

Secondly it is commercialised these days. I'm not saying that's 100% bad (it was pretty much inevitable). But it means queues and high costs. I'd imagine 70 percent of Glasto involves queuing. 56 hours for a cold overpriced burger and a warm overpriced drink at a food tent. 230 hours to cross the camp to see an act performing. 567 hours to get in the entry and pitch a tent. 7 weeks to get out again. And several years in a tailback on the M5 all the way to Weston Supermare, getting home again. That doesn't sound too great. I know it is an inevitable consequence of popularity, but the commercialism of the event would also gnaw away at me. However much it might want to deny it, Glasto is as commercial these days as a Tesco Express in Macclesfield. I know they have all those spiritual tents these days, but Waterstones has spiritual books, so there. This would jar more at Glasto, than say somewhere like Disneyworld. I don't just hate everything commercial. I liked the latter for a start. But the latter doesn't really disguise it's links in the way Glasto would like to so I suppose that would make it more of a "betrayal" if that is the right word.

I might be sad, but I feel more at home watching a band in a pub, than I would at an open air concert. Better booze, more comfy. They have a wonderful invention called the roof, which keeps out the rain. And there isn't quite the same risk of catching dysentery from gallons of contaminated mud. Perfect.

All This Asylum Seeker Bashing Ends With Stuff Like This.

The Yarls Wood Immigration Removal Centre was mentioned in a Telegraph article this week, highlighting the emphasis on closing it down and providing a more suitable and humane alternative for holding failed asylum seekers and their children until they can be removed from the UK. Yarls Wood -if you take a moment to look at testimonies on it (here, here and a full PDF on the conditions there; here) is quite simply a national disgrace for a Western democracy. I don't even mean the reports of hunger strikes, racial and sexual abuse, and the fact that these people have been detained indefinitely for committing no crime. The conventions say that anyone can claim for asylum in Britain (not to say that you will be accepted) so many of them haven't broken any laws. You can be rejected for many reasons, so we can't even say that they are committing fraud . Some I imagine are genuinely frauds, but many may not have had the resources to have a testimonial portfolio about the dangers they face. That can be tricky in a place in turmoil.

No the real stinger is the fact that children are being imprisoned INDEFINITELY!! We are the only European country that does this (how wonderful). I know immigration is a passionate hot potato. There is a hell of a lot of hostility towards what people perceive to be Britain's indulgence to immigrants. Even if it were true (a lot of it isn't) then it is the governments fault, and they should carry the can, not the immigrants themselves. Hand on my heart I don't blame people from hell holes, and places where the choices boil down to a life of poverty, or a life of having no cash, staking their hopes in Europe for a better life for them and their kids. I'd do the same in their shoes. (I'm also sure Northernbloke would go down well with the party line in Somalia and Taliban controlled Afghanistan too.) I'm not invoking a completely open door policy here either. Britain can't take everyone obviously; for a start. Also Britain has a lot of underprivileged (way too many in my view) native citizens as well. Their needs have to be factored in. It's a balancing act and will require a pan European mechanism to see how our appealing and affluent neck of the woods will deal with people from a lot of other parts of the wood where it isn't so rosy. Some of the abuse towards asylum seekers seems hypocritical, when many who do the abusing would -if the situation was reversed; do exactly the same thing if they were in that situation. For all the Mail and the Sun bang on about "people who seriously question immigration are branded racist", the level of hostility (which is NOT seriously objectifying the immigration question) they show towards people like the inmates of Yarls Wood, seems designed to go out of its way to incite anti immigrant sentiment, and it is working to a terribly successful degree.

I'd like to think that even the most vociferous "close the borders" proponent would baulk at kids being locked up (since when are they to blame for their parents decision to seek asylum?) indefinitely. That Yarls Wood should be seen as a modern day equivalent of the internment camps that Asian Americans were put in on the West coast of the USA after Pearl Harbour. That the asylum seeker father who hung himself in this very centre so that his son wouldn't be deported (as he was now an orphan) exposed a horrifying underbelly to this situation. But still we get charming comments like these on this case.

"Seems to me like a good case for immediate deportation and problem solved. Justice care solutions?* Perhaps something else we could look at saving public expenditure on.Sometimes tis better to remain silent when thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."

*Justice Care solutions is a think tank that the author of the Telegraph article directs.

"It doesn't seem any more of a hardship than my old boarding school, and I'm sure the food is better."

"Your picture of Yarls Wood looks a very modern establishment. It is not exactly Dartmoor now is it? I bet everything possible is laid on for these people's comfort."

"Most immigrants know that in the UK children are the geese that lay the golden eggs of free houses and money, more than the vast majority could even dream about from where they come from. There are even baby farms producing for this purpose, and children are handed around immigrant families for the purposes of benefits and housing. Benefits provided for children are regarded by the parents as personal reward and children are primed to say whatever is expedient to create maximum pathos, tearing at the hearts of those liberal professionals that really should be able to see through the charade."

"People who come here and are detained in such centres often enjoy the best standard of living they have ever had. A roof over their heads, clothing and regular meals are a luxury to many. They would not be making every effort to slip into the UK illegally if their living conditions were better at home - the vast majority are not fleeing injustice and persecution as they would have us believe. Any other country would place them in a detention centre and then repatriate them forthwith. Only in the UK can they stall the proceedings so long that they are allowed leave to stay or are simply able to disappear.If these children are not placed under lock and key, many will be used for thieving, begging and prostitution so this is a way of protecting them.What should ring alarm bells is the number of children sent to the UK unaccompanied, which has been going on for years now. This means that any council landed with them is obliged to fund their keep and education fully until they are 18! How about that as a law to be arasites on the hard-working taxpayers. They come here expecting to be supported and are not disappointed."

"Children must be removed urgently from wherever their safety and welfare is at risk."Absolutely.Get 'em deported ASAP.I'm sure they'll find conditions far, far more congenial in whatever benighted Third World slime pit they originated in."

"Wise words Simon. We are not running hotel standard services for transitory visitors. Too many do-gooders want better conditions than we offer our servicemen.You are spot on, get them out quicker.."

This story reminds me of a Comic Relief appeal I saw in 2005, for a charity that helped child survivors of the massacres in Kosovo come to terms with what happened to their families and neighbours. The commentator had to remind people not to be prejudiced by the coverage about asylum seekers when donating. I remember thinking to myself "That's pretty fucking bad when you grow to be indifferent (at best) to children who have done nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time." But [Yarls Wood] is the logical conclusion of this nasty little campaign towards immigrants. The government wants to look tough to nasty little bastards like the commentators above (there are lots more on other discussions too. Even the wikipedia article on the centre has been vandalised by racists.) and the hostility cascades down to official channels. It's futile (not to mention immoral) to pander to this stuff anyway. People who think a centre condemned by just about every child welfare agency you can list, is fricking Clarreges, can't really be placated. So there we are.

Hopefully the Coalition will press on with closing this centre.

Sometimes a Cigar is a Cigar

There's been a right hoo hah over nothing regarding a story about how the PC Brigade / militant non smokers have defaced the name of Britain's greatest war leader, in their non ending mission to establish a PC sandal wearing utopia of left wing debauchery or whatever. Yes it seems that a copy of a 1948 picture of Churchill opening a military facility, has had the cigar he is smoking removed from the picture. (See Above.)

The sans cigar doctored photo has subsequently been superimposed on to a wartime image wall montage of a WW2 "Britain At War" museum in London. From the admittedly tenuous information we can get from the story, it seems the alteration was not noticed by the owners or staff at the museum (they certainly didn't doctor the photo themselves.). And it is implied that this has been the case for over 20 years. That is until a visitor by the name of David McAdam spotted it, and was only too keen to jump to lofty conclusions.

"I pointed out this crude alteration to a museum steward who said she hadn't noticed the change before, nor had anyone else pointed it out.

Viewing the now disfigured image reveals just how unhinged the vociferous anti-smoking lobby has become. So much for the notion that only communist tyrants airbrushed history."

The museum owners don't know who altered the image and why they did, and even when it was altered. That didn't stop a colleague of the Churchill Archives Centre, jumping to more conclusions either.

"'The cigar is part of what makes Churchill an iconic figure and of course it was very much part of his image as war leader - it went hand in hand with his victory salute and the uniforms he wore.

What's politically correct for 2010 was not politically correct for 1940."

To be fair I suppose he is only reacting to second hand stuff he is being asked to comment on. So it's a fair mistake. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the boneheaded sort of people who get really wound up about spurious stories like this, will openly abuse the owner of the museum for being the PC fanatic he isn't. It would be regrettable if he lost business over it. Indeed - hidden amongst all the self righteous huffing, the article in the Mail does explain that the museums owners didn't know that the picture was altered, and indeed why it was altered. But looking further into the story I discovered this interesting article on the Heresy Corner blog that possibly explains where the cigar went. It would be hugely ironic that (if the doctorer is this man) the Mails getting worked up about PC zealots airbrushing out cigars, when the airbrushing was done by a libertarian blogger pranking about, in response to what he saw as a PC zealot, in regards to a vocal complainer wanting smoking scenes edited out of Tom and Jerry cartoons!

The irony increases up a notch again with this ridiculous story. The Mail has gone and done what the mischievous libertarian blogger did in regards to the earlier "PC gone mad story"! Photoshopping various iconic images of hard men poses to take into account the sensibilities of the PC / H&S brigade. Stuff like those builders sitting on a suspended girder on a Manhattan skyscraper now wearing hard hats, and Arnie the Terminator on his motorbike now wearing a crash helmet. This at least highlights how easy it is for a doctored photo to enter the public domain, and being distributed. A plentiful; futuristic, fertile source of shit, that can be flung at the PC zealots when hard news is a bit thin on the ground.

Superb.

The World Cup. Boooooring

The world cup is always a strange and frankly depressing affair for me, a male non football fan. It's the biggest party in town you're not invited to. Admitting to disliking football as a bloke (a northern bloke of course. Which is worse as most of the biggest teams are north of Watford Gap services) still brings out looks of incredulity in some people. At worse you will be asked the stupidest question in the entire universe that isn't a Daily Express rhetorical headline. "Are you gay or something?" (Happened to my cousin last week.) Yes being a non footie fan is a bit of a soggy fart in a pint glass, over the world cup season. Only this Saturday I felt a pang of sadness as I walked into my local pub and watched solemnly and incomprehensibly at almost the entire clientele in their England shirts, on the edge of their seats, glued to the telly on the wall. They were wrapped up in a world I can never enter, and it dawned on me that I will always be doomed to travel alone, the marginalised outcast.

I have actually tried to get into football. I've actually been to two stadia. The first is Aston Villa's one. I was so bored I ended up spending more time working out how the tidal flow system worked on the Aston Expressway, than I did as to what was going on on the pitch. As well as dodging out the way when an aggrieved fat Brummie kept sounding off, who looked like a third Mitchell brother who had not just eaten all the pies, but the pie stand and the pie man; his pie wife, and their children as well. Let's just say he had a bit of constructive criticism (i.e calling him a blind fucking wanker) in regards to the referees decisions, at various points in the match. I also watched a match at Bolton Wanderers old stadium. I don't remember anything about the match (Oh I do... It was in Bolton.), but I do remember you had to urinate in a drain pipe. So I mustn't have been to bowled over with the game itself. And that leads me to my main source of bafflement about football. How did such a boring game ever catch on in the first place to become what it is today? Why am I the weirdo for not liking it?

Football is set up all wrong. At it's core soccer is about maintaining the status quo, until a set time (whistle blows.). It's an attrition based game. One team of competent men, have to prevent a ball from being launched into their territory by another group of equally competent men. Thus you get 99% standoff tactics to maintain the status quo, and 1% action when the balance of favour tips (which has the added insult of resetting the staus quo, if a goal is scored.). It's long periods of boredom; punctuated by a few seconds of excitement. That doesn't often make for interesting viewing. Would Star Wars have been as good if the rebels had a Death star as well? With the rival battle stations trying to find each others weaknesses to secure some kind of victory? No! It's the underdog against massive odds, it's exciting. Or in "Gladiator" when Russel Crowe kicks the Germanians asses. It was a one way fight, but it was bloody exciting. The action never slowed. Would Gladiator have been such a hit if it had consisted of Richard Harris and some big smelly man with a beard sat in a tent in a muddy forest, hammering out a land border? Of course not. So why not extrapolate this logic to football then? If it's getting bit boring out there, take inspiration from the Gladiator film and unleash a few tigers and lions onto the pitch? "OOH and Rooney has taken a hell of a mauling from a Bengal on the offside!!" I'd watch it! Or take inspiration from those power ups you used to get on the Arkanoid video game, which changed the rules. At random intervals you could have three balls in play at one time. Or a goal post that randomly changed size. Or arm the players with planks to hit the opposition with, over an allotted 5 minute period? Or fit those 9 feet tall spikes in the ground that you used to get on Mortal Kombat, to randomly pop up on the pitch, to skewer unsuspecting players? Or better still, if it comes down to penalties at the finals - use those vuvuzela trumpets that are pissing everyone off for good use. Someone could toss a coin, and if it lands on say heads (for it to work, the players wouldn't know which caused which); then the player taking the shot has to have a toot from someone honking a vuvuzela (preferably dressed as a comedy mascot. It would be ten times funnier.) right in their ear before they hit the ball. It'd be bloody hilarious!! More than the Jackass golf course sketch with the air guns. Imagine the reruns of the hil-arious scenes of the players being put off at the crucial moments. Iconic viewing. It'd give Chiles his own DVD to front. "World Cups funniest penalties"

I'd watch it anyway.

Great Comment on Charles Speech

I just read one of the best online comments ever written in response to that Prince Charles speech about the soulless world of science destroying nature, on the Times coverage of the story. Absolutely sums up the nature of it brilliantly.

Bruce Gorton wrote:

Its very easy to harken back to the age of peasantry when you wouldn't be one of the peasants.

Truer words have never been spoken