Dogged by deadlines and commitments, I’ve
tried my hardest to come up with something finished and suitable for this
week’s column – the Easter weekend column. Instead you can have another mixed
bag of musings, prattlings and opinionated bollocks…
ONE:
A news story that has been dogged by
excessive media coverage has been the mystery of Madeleine McCann; the little
girl who disappeared in Portugal last May. I had mixed feelings about the £500K
worth of damages awarded to the couple, because of the negative and accusatory
coverage given by the Express newspaper group. It is totally wrong that any
newspaper should be allowed to 
condemn people before the law has taken its
course. But the thing that really pissed me off about this entire business is
the fact that despite this professional couple leaving their three children
unattended in a foreign country while they cavorted in a restaurant, there
hasn’t been a whiff of social services sniffing around them, investigating
child abandonment issues.
I feel for the McCanns, I really do. But if
this had happened in Basildon or Pittsburgh, then you can bet your life the
police and social workers would be saying, "Why did you leave your children
unattended while you went out for a meal?"
***************
TWO:
I love American politics. I was and am a
fan of The West Wing and I’ve
followed most elections since Jimmy Carter was elected. I was a fan of Bill
Clinton (I think he injected, ahem, a certain something to the President’s job
that others have constantly failed to do) and I’ve struggled for years to
understand why the Americans aren’t more Democratic, having favoured Republican
governments for the majority of the last 40 years; but I’ve also seen what
middle Americans are like – first hand – and I wonder, sometimes, how I failed
to understand it.
The current Barack Obama/Hillary Clinton
battle is intriguing for a number of reasons. First off, the internal
squabbling inside the Democratic party is like a mirror image of the battle
between Santos and Russell in Season 6 of TWW,
except real world political commentators are claiming that the battle between
these two would be titans is allowing John McCain to consolidate and push on to
become GWB’s successor – whereas in TWW
it was believed to have the opposite effect. It also doesn’t seem as dirty as
previous nomination battles, despite disagreements between the two main rivals
and the press trying to make more out of a rift in the party than there
actually is. But the key factor in this race is one of the candidates is black
and the other is a woman.
If I was American, I’d welcome either of
them into the White House with open arms. However, despite both of them
appealing to a huge proportion of the world, let’s face facts: one of them is
black and the other is a woman. It is both the defining reason to vote for them
and the main reason not to. How many mid-western States people are going to
vote for anything other than a God-fearing, gun-loving, sister-fucking WHITE
MAN? The USA is still a country with racial problems, so deep-rooted that a
black president will not solve the problems and a black candidate could easily
lose the popular vote. It is also a country where misogyny is rife and women
are under-valued and are outnumbered by men in most of the key jobs. Billy-Bob
Redneck and his cousins are not going to vote for someone they perceive as
nothing more than a cooking and cleaning fuck hole.
So, USA politics has a problem. The
Democrats have the two most eligible candidates, but the Republicans have the
default vote. If the USA doesn’t wake up fast and put away its hidden bigotries,
we’re going to return to geriatric politics and the threat of another world war
will never be too far away.
****************
THREE:
My old employer, Dez Skinn, had two
particularly favourite catchphrases for really negative occurrences, they were:
Throwing the baby out with the bath water
and It’s all going to hell in a hand
basket, I particularly like the latter; it conjures up this image of the
human race inside this enormous wicker basket floating down the Styx. Why a
hand basket? I never bothered to ask him mainly because he wasn’t the first
person I heard utter those words and not the last.
The thing is It’s all going to hell in a hand basket is a bit of an over
dramatisation, isn’t it? Things can’t be that bad. Can they?
In 1990, during a period of my life when
things were just about manageable, but the mortgage interest rates were in the
mid-teens, Thatcher had been unceremoniously kicked out, but the optimism was
short lived – John Major and Normal Lamont couldn’t organise a buffet at a WI’s
fete – the country was, to all intents and purposes, going to hell in a hand basket. I was sitting round some friends’
house, it was a Friday night, and we were probably drinking beer, smoking drugs
and generally bemoaning the fact that life hadn’t really got that much better
for a lot of us over the previous 10 years. Me, being Mr Optimism personified,
uttered these words – the words of a prophet: "In ten years, we’ll all be
sitting here or somewhere else and it will not have got any better." I was
greeted with a hail of general insults about me being a miserable cunt and we
moved on… for ten years.
On the evening of the January 1st,
2000, we had those same people over for an informal evening at our then new
house; I cracked open a bottle of 25 year old Rioja, which I’d saved for a
special occasion and we sat and chatted about stuff. Eventually I said, "Do you
remember me saying ten years ago that in ten years it won’t have got any better
– the world that is – well it hasn’t has it?" No one could disagree and this
time when Mr Optimism reared up, with a shit-eating grin and uttered the words,
"And in 10 years time it will be even worse," no one called him a miserable
cunt. There were no hails of insults; people just sat around quietly, staring
into their wine and quietly agreeing with me.
For a massive amount of people, we are the
first generation for over 100 years that will be worse off than our parents.
The growing under-class of society has undermined confidence. Kids are being
shot on the streets of Britain. There is now an abnormally high amount of fat
people and, if you’ll pardon the pun, the numbers are growing. The world is
potentially in more danger in 2008 than it was in 1962 – the year I was born.
In 1962, Kennedy and Kruschev were posturing over Cuba and for a few minutes,
it looked like the world might have ended up being a completely different
place; but survival sense won through and while we suffered a Cold War for many
years, there was only the faintest whiff of annihilation in the air. Yes, some
of us belonged to CND and we went on peace marches (but mainly because it got
up Maggie’s nose); but looking back to those days; we weren’t really at the
threat of extinction – all sides were too scared. It was good to think that
though, it kept us on our toes. But the world leaders were all essentially
cowards and by Christ aren’t we all just a little bit glad?
But in 2008, we’ve had 7 years of the world
in turmoil. It might not have actually begun with a couple of planes parking
themselves in the World Trade Towers, but that was what really brought the
threat of global terrorism into our living rooms (and I can understand the
resonance those images had with superhero comic fans – Freedom Plaza looked
like scenes from Miracleman’s titanic battle with his former sidekick, Kid
Miracleman).
If you lived in Britain in the 70s, you
lived there in the understanding that you might get blown to bits by an IRA
bomb; but because we’re British, we went about our business with stoic normality
and if one of those pesky bombs happened to go off, we’d just get up, dust
ourselves down and get on with it. So it was proved on July 7th a
couple of years ago, when four suicide bombers fucked up central London right
and proper, yet a few days later you wouldn’t have thought London had been the
target of a massive terrorist threat (apart from armed police everywhere).
Then there are the wars – Iraq and
Afghanistan. Welcome to Viet Nam parts 2 and 3. I’m not about to suggest that
something shouldn’t have been done about these countries; Afghanistan produces
a goodly proportion of the world’s heroin; Iraq is oil rich and was run by a
nasty man who did horrible things to his people (a bit like Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe, or Kim Chong Il in Choson-minjujuui-inmin-konghwaguk – or North Korea
to you and me – but without the oil); so there were valid reasons for
overthrowing the governments and placing democracy at the head of their most
important things to do list. But look at the consequences of our actions? The
USA and the UK have become the world’s prefects and therefore they are
propagating both fierce anti- feelings towards both countries and have made
their innocent citizens the targets of religious fanatics, of which there
appears to be more and more springing up every day.
The world has never particularly been a
safe place, but now it is dangerous as well.
George W Bush and Tony Blair made the world
like this by trying to save it and arguably both had rather immersed themselves
in the threat of global terrorism because neither of them had any idea
whatsoever to do with their own domestic policies. Obama, McCain, possibly
Clinton, Brown or maybe Cameron will all have the same problems and will see
foreign issues as a way of disguising the fact they can’t stop their own
countries from slowly dismantling themselves.
I have had a very single minded opinion for
the last 20 years; an opinion, which until recently, was never challenged. I
could make this broad sweeping statement and all I would ever get would be nods
of agreement, or maybe even something extra to condemn the subject of this
sweeping statement. It was quite simply, Margaret
Thatcher is responsible for the way Britain is today. And I very much
believe this, despite the fact that just recently, as I said, I’m beginning to
meet people who instead of speaking of her in the customary hateful manner,
have actually started to claim that she was the best thing since sliced bread
and the country has been worse off without her. Statements which have stung my
ears as if acid had been poured in them.
Most of the Americans I’ve befriended have
a similar expression, Ronald Reagan is
responsible for the way the USA is today, this is based on the fact RR and
MT had similar politics, both viewed humanity as if it was a regrettable
nuisance and both encouraged greed. Oh and both did so many questionable things
while in power that it made the Oval Office blow job look like a little bit of
wish fulfilment by the most powerful man on the planet – which was probably
what it was and if he’s the first President to get his pipes cleaned in that
office I’ll be very surprised.
You see, by the time these two crazy old
bastards came to power the world had been 35 years without a big war, sure
there was stuff like Korea and Viet Nam, but they were far away wars conducted
in a time when communications were still easily controlled; these two leaders
of the free world made war fashionable again; there was money to be made from
munitions and what can you do with weapons and bullets? You can kill people
with them. So for the majority of their reigns they sold as many weapons as
they could to as many bunches of Islamic fundamentalists they could find, and
who were too disorganised to pose anything more than just a localised threat to
national security – at the time. Reagan’s little excursions coupled with
Maggie’s decidedly convenient Falkland Islands war brought the world closer
together by violence, but further apart by distrust.
In the UK, a country that had recently
celebrated the Queen’s Silver Jubilee by having street parties and remembering
a time when your kids could play on the streets without fear of violence or
paedophiles; or you could leave your doors unlocked at night, or trust your neighbour
to feed the cat while you were in Margate; was rapidly becoming a country of
divisions and suspicion. The Conservatives were making their feelings clear
about the people who had less than average; they were ghettoising them even
further, cutting benefits, making it more difficult for people to live, in a
time when there were not that many jobs and 3 million people without work could
not possibly find 3 million jobs that didn’t exist.
I’m not suggesting there hasn’t been
violence throughout the ages, but outside of your criminal underworlds, most
people did actually live aggression free lives. It might have been boring
without the Internet, games consoles, satellite TV, mobile phones, digital this
and that, but it was also an awful lot safer. There were just as many nonces,
but they didn’t dare do anything because in the years before the Neighbourhood
Watch schemes started, the neighbourhood used to watch out for each other. Your
neighbours became useful even if you didn’t like them much, because you could
trust them – they were honourable. In the world of not having anything, you
shared what you mustered; then Maggie made all suspicious of everyone and
everything. Within a short space of time, the comical concept of honour amongst thieves disappeared and
while that might not seem a bad thing, it could quite possibly have given rise
to a number of present day British phenomena.
My wife, her parents and their parents all
grew up in the shadow of the East London docklands. It was a violent place to
live and had been for centuries, but wives, mothers, children and clergy were
all protected. That was because these people were not involved in ‘men’s work’,
but they were important, they were sacrosanct; they would only be victims if
their men folk were lost; either to death or prison. Thanks to Maggie, when the
honour disappeared and the thieves were forced into political corners, those
who would never be victims became fair game. Thieves stole from thieves, they
shopped each other, they used each other as bargaining chips and their children
started to grow up without any of the respect their parents had for traditional
values. Without these values, a new breed of social underclass was born; one
that grew up seeing the unemployed and the working class brow beaten, bullied
and eventually their desire for life disappeared and with it went respect for
anything other than those like them. Some people call them Chavs, but the
reality is that during the 1970s when both Labour and Conservative were trying
to sort out a country that had really woken up from its post war slumbers and
was trying to move faster than the fuddy-duddies in power, there were pockets
of mainly urban areas already beginning to be left behind socially. Because
Thatcher had no interest in helping the poor and needy, these areas grew in
size, welfare became a real issue and because the victims had no one to turn to
they felt even more isolated and that was how it began. By the time she had
gone, there was an entire generation that was just ripe to start pumping out
the next breed of degenerates with even less respect for authority and the need
for laws than their parents.
I recently had lunch with a dear old friend
of mine and a mate of his. Both of them are considerably better off than me,
both are similar ages and both once voted Labour. But not again. They believe
that we are all far worse off under Labour, the economy is in a mess, the
streets are running alive with immigrants, either legal or not, our council
infrastructures are being decimated by an influx of EU nationals, they’re not
looking after the middle class families enough, the National Health Service is
a joke, our police are crap, our councils are full of bureaucracy, the youth of
today have no respect, it’s not safe to walk the streets, ad nausea. The world
is a worse place because… for any
government to fix the heinous crime that woman perpetrated against the British
people would take more money than there are ants on the planet and even then,
you can’t change peoples’ indoctrinated attitudes with money (even though it
was money that changed those attitudes in the first place).
Of course, Thatch didn’t do it
single-handedly; she had the press, the police, the doctrine of the people and
an entire country’s infrastructure to sell off. By the time she finished we had
no identity, we were a cash rich puppet of the USA and the only thing we could
boast were good armed forces – because, as I said, there was profit to made
from war. Now in 2008, we have a situation that really will only continue to
get worse – there are no Wonder-Politicians out there; there’s no magic wand to
wave to make it all better. The subdivisions between all the disparate groups
of society will continue to separate – it really is all going to hell in a hand basket and there’s nothing anyone can
do about it. Civilisation as we know it will have changed completely by the
time many of us die. And it is the death of community spirit that has done this
and there’s only one person you can blame for that.
Why oh why didn’t some left wing nutter try
and assassinate her in 1980?
******************
FOUR:
… On a lighter note,
What will happen when Margaret Thatcher
dies?
I wouldn’t rule out a State funeral. The
last commoner to receive one was Churchill I believe and there will be many who
will call for such an honour to be bestowed on her. Especially now that her
star has risen again, in the wake of more and more people admitting to admiring
her.
What I want to know is how the press will
deal with the possibility of celebrations taking place, especially in places
like West Yorkshire and Liverpool? For years, I’ve heard of people planning
street parties and massive celebrations to start on the announcement of
Thatcher’s death. I know many who still wish to commemorate the impending
occasion by being as distasteful as possible; but what if they do it? People
don’t celebrate the death of someone; not in a ‘we’re all glad she’s dead’ kind
of way. It’s not morally right, but… I’d be there raising a glass, hoping her
death was as painful and lingering as possible.
It will be interesting to see how it’s
covered and what moral indignation is raised throughout the right wing press.
****************
FIVE:
Comics: I’ve noticed that the Buffy series by Dark Horse got some
mainstream press coverage, due to the fact that Buffy gets intimate with
another slayer who has a massive crush on her. Some of the noticeboards are
full of righteous indignation, claiming this is nothing more than a sell out;
or, more harshly, it is either Joss Whedon pandering to the gay community or
that it’s an insult to the intelligence of serious Buffy fans.
Back in the late 1980s, I occasionally
picked up Bill Willingham’s Elementals
comic. I remember being shocked by a response he gave in the letters column which
basically told all the fans to quit telling him what they want to see or how
the story should go. His comic was not a democracy, it was his idea and his
vision and he would stop looking at letters that make suggestions to the plot
or characters. I thought he was an extremely pompous man, who didn’t seem to
appreciate that the people who took time to write him letters and think about
his stories outside of the box, were also the people who were paying his
mortgage. But over the years, I learned that it’s a little bit of both – the
fans might put food on his table, but if he didn’t produce it, they couldn’t
buy it and therefore write to him, etc. It’s a sort of chicken and egg
situation.
I sometimes think discussion on the
internet is utterly worthless and a pointless waste of time; it doesn’t stop me
reading them or even throwing the odd opinion in, but comics fans do tend to
act like they have a vested interest in the comics they read and feel as though
their demands should be met, occasionally. What I find fascinating is that Joss
Whedon produced Season 8 of Buffy
because he knew there was a fan demand for more vampire slayerage and he knew
that a comic was the best way of providing it, as the chances of reassembling
the cast for another series or movie is unlikely at the moment. You wanted it,
but he wanted to do it as well. Whedon had a season 8 story arc already in his
head and all he’s doing is putting that down on paper instead of film. Comics
fans would never have written the production company demanding things, so what
gives them the right to do it when a TV series crosses into comics territory?
It’s his idea and if you (or specifically
those on the noticeboards) don’t like it – tough titty.
… This
week I have mainly been listening to music; a mixture of new: Both the new REM and
Charla
tans albums are very much a return to previous glories; MGMT are the new
Arcade Fire and Elbow’s Seldom Seen Kid
is the album of the year so far. And the not so new: Surface of Eceon’s The King Beneath the Mountain is a perfect
mix of ambience, prog, shoe-gazing and experimental weirdness; Germany’s
Maxxess channels the spirits of Robert Miles and Steve Vai, while Nikka Costa’s
Can’tneverdidnothin’, a great blast
of funky soulful sex. And to round it all off, I finished this listening to Crime of the Century – from a time when
if you were dying for a smoke, you could buy some cigarettes for 15p…
Phil Hall