Layer 538 . . . The Closing Ceremony

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First of all we need to know who was responsible for doing precisely what to a Closing Ceremony which was meant to be a proper tribute to an amazing two weeks of sporting endeavor. Or did someone decide beforehand that Team GB was bound to end up with 'null points' a la Eurovision, or something similar, so we might just as well produce a Eurovision-style crass "spectacular" which would be tantamount to a tongue in cheek statement of how 'awful' we really are, a la Kenneth Williams or Dick Emery? Come to think of it, this song was surely worthy of inclusion in the horrible mash-up we were presented with in the Olympic Stadium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUn0n9Yu7Vw

Was it Stephen Daldry, "head of the Olympics ceremonies" who bears ultimate responsibility for hiring the people who came up with the "vision" and the "concept" for this ceremony? Did he lay down the guidelines and the parameters himself? Was his personal taste in any way imposed on the whole thing?

“It’s a proper show. It’s got all the bizarre, surreal, funny, camp and moving elements you could want from a really good piece of Sunday night entertainment,” Daldry is quoted as saying.

According to Wikipedia, the ceremony's Music Director David Arnold said: “It’s going to be beautiful, cheeky, cheesy, camp, silly and thrilling".

Beautiful, funny, moving and thrilling we like. Who the hell asked for bizarre, camp, cheesy or silly? Cos that's exactly what we got. Which hardly does justice to either the games themselves or to Great Britain. [Alright - you can argue that the majority of Britain's contemporary culture is indeed bizarre, camp, cheesy and silly - but that's not something we should feel proud of or wish to advertise throughout the world.This is pretty much what we have, it's true, thanks to the likes of David Arnold, Simon Cowell and Kim Gavin.] Can you guess which one of the characters in the satirical TV spoof "2012" would have come up with this particular recipe for a camp, bizarre and cheesy closing ceremony? That's right - all of them. Especially Shiobhain and her folks at Perfect Curve.

According to my online dictionary "cheesy" means "cheap, unpleasant, or blantantly inauthentic". Sounds about right, except in the financial sense: rubbish as lavish and overblown as this doesn't come cheap. It's what they aimed for, and it's what they gave us.

Something like this was bound to happen when you hand the overall production of a Closing Ceremony to a marketing 'creative' like Kim Gavin ("who usually produces shows for the likes of Take That")  -  a slick, trashy, overblown attempt to advertise and 'sell' the 'best of British' to the rest of the world, and possibly to ourselves. It was inevitable, and it's what we've dreaded since the incomparible opening and closing ceremonies of Beijing 2008. Oh well - maybe it actually said something as truthful about Britain in its way as Danny Boyle's opening ceremony said in his own way.

Here's the crux of the matter. Kim Gavin has the business sensibility of someone who's content to spend his days marketing the likes of "Take That" - a fucking awful and forgettable musical confection with no artistic merit whatsoever - to a gullible public who prefer pretty boys and girls singing simple-minded pop ditties to anything that's real or interesting or important.

Danny Boyle, although not one of the world's best artists or directors, uses artistic insight to tell us things we didn't know or had maybe forgotten about ourselves. That's what proper art and decent entertainment is supposed to do. That's what you spend £80million on - not some useless flashy garbage that has absolutely no artistic merit.

None at all? No. None. But weren't the dazzling lighting & sound effects and the fireworks wonderful? Well - put it this way. We have some brilliant people who can do amazing things with light and sound and pyrotechnics. But what's the point if they're in the service of something that's so leaden yet so vacuous, overblown yet trivial, flashy yet dull, sentimental, cheesy and silly - just as the man proudly described it?

Weren't there any good bits AT ALL? Well of course there were. In any scatter-gun approach to entertaining the masses for three hours (as opposed to creating a worthy closing ceremony) there are bound to be some valid elements.

Eric Idle is a true Brit. "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life" is a work of genius. Anyone who can stand up in front of millions wearing a silly costume and sing "Life's a piece of shit - when you think of it" - is worthy of inclusion in a celebration of genius and Britishness. We Brits are known for our earthy sense of humour. [Though we could have done without "a skit featuring nuns on roller-skates, Morris dancers, Roman soldiers and a comedic entrance of Punjabi bhangra players and dancers before a human cannonball crossed the stage". - Wikipedia]

What else?

A film of John Lennon singing "Imagine" - no countries, and no religion too. Excellent. [And let's just be thankful there was no appearance at any time in these proceedings by McCartney, which many of us were dreading.]

A version of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" performed by Nick Mason, Ed Sheeran, and pals. Definitely a Desert Island Disc. Pity there was nothing from Dark Side of the Moon, though there was a track from it in the opening ceremony.

A track by Kate Bush played on the PA system – "Running Up That Hill". Superb.

Russell Brand singing "I Am The Walrus" from the top of a bus. Not great, but quite funny. I think Lennon would have approved - in the way Lennon would approve of most of our Russell's challenges to bourgeois sensibilities.

Anything else? Not really. No? Surely The Who?

Mmmm - no. Two of the three songs they performed were from Tommy - a thoroughly bad album with rubbish songs. Even Pete Townshend must know that by now. Had they just come on and cranked out a dynamic version of My Generation they'd have been OK. As things stood, it felt like they'd just sold out to the likes of Stephen Daldry, David Arnold and Kim Gavin - who presumably think The Who's "Pinball Wizard" is a great song, since they got the Kaiser Chiefs (more sell-outs) to perform it here. They probably think the concept of a deaf, dumb and blind boy being a world champion pinball player is like really cool. Maybe they'll reprise it for the paralympics.

And speaking of reprises - did we really need to hear crappy songs like Parklife, West End Girls and What Makes You Beautiful not just once but TWICE? What was that all about? Prior to Sunday evening I'd never even heard of the boy band called 'One Direction', and I don't ever want to hear them again. It seems they were manufactured for a programme called The X Factor, and they didn't even come first in that ridiculous talent contest. Third place was all they could manage, for very good reasons, obviously, yet there they go into the closing ceremony! On the back of a bloody lorry! What's THAT all about?! It's not the boys' fault of course - what the hell do they know? As for their name, they should change it to One Dimension, to indicate their complete lack of breadth and depth.

Ray Davies was another disappointment, which quite frankly he has been since the Kinks rocked us with You Really Got Me and All Day and All of the Night. I don't really go for whimsy and sentimentality. Back in the beginning the Kinks were one of the most powerful blues-based bands around, and it was annoying that they couldn't maintain that basic simplicity and build on it, like the Stones did. And let's face it - Ray can no longer even hold a tune.

George Michael? Perleeeease! Mr Sleaze certainly dressed for the occasion.

Freddie bloody Mercury? Let him go! ["We will not let him go!"] Brian May - half man, half sheep, totally crap guitar licks. Wake up people! Queen were only ever camp, cocky, pomp-rock, cheesy, sleazy, silly pop nonsense. And if you want to argue, then try explaining what the hell Bohemian Rhapsody was all about.

A David Bowie collage of photographs with snatches of his tunes. Why? Even Bowie admits that he's not done anything original or anything of value since Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust - before he got into the drugs and the whole fame thing took him away from the real world. Still - that's all he ever really wanted - to be famous. Someone else who started out brilliant and ended up stuck up his own arse. Such a pity. He had something good happening there for a while. No point in him dressing up in platforms and makeup and trying to make a 'comeback'. [Though he did make one decent guest appearance a few years ago to sing 'Arnold Lane' with David Gilmour and the Floyd. "Oh Arnold Lane, it's not the same . . ." The voice wasn't great but it was a nice novelty turn. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwyEqSZz1uM]

Beady Eye? Liam Gallagher??!! Wonderwall? Another piece of complete pop piffle. Noel's better off without him, that's for sure.

Take That? FFS. More manufactured pop nonsense.

Annie Lennox? Good voice. Not very interesting. Silly presentation.

And so we come to the Spice Girls. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. How delightfully symbolic to see them all standing atop individual black cabs covered with flashing lights, the mundane together with the showbiz flashy trash - so very together and yet so very separate. And long may they remain so. RIP.

Emeli Sande? No real opinion as yet. Deeply unmemorable, even though her song was also reprised.

Jessie J? Great legs. Sorry - but they are. She can sing OK too. I notice her website proudly displays lots of photos of her as featured in the Sun, the People, the Star, OK magazine, etc.

Muse? Completely horrible. Who the fuck are these people?

Madness? Great when they were young and whacky. Going off them rapidly. Our House was fine at Buck House for the Jubilee, but I've had enough of it already. Never a great song.

And last and VERY least (cos I can't be bothered to go through the whole lot of them) . . . . ELBOW!!!!!!!!!!!  Somebody is having a laugh! What a fucking awful band!!!!  According to Wikipedia, which I needed to consult in order to learn something about these tossers, "Elbow have cited a number of influences on their music, including Genesis (in particular the progressive rock years featuring Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett), Talk Talk and Radiohead." Which just about tells us all we need to know about these "progressive rock" exponents. Such dire bilge I have never heard in my life, and never wish to do so again. Not ever.

So there we have it. What a complete bloody failure. What a very sad ending to what had been a very memorable and enjoyable two weeks. Damn!

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Layer 477 . . . Riots, Anarchy, Societal Breakdown, Justice and Beyond

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"Good evening! We're expecting disturbances in many parts of the UK this week."

So said Richard the Met Office weatherman, at 1.00am this morning. Tongue in cheek? Surely not.

Thank you Richard. You're not wrong either.

But as Bob Dylan said, back in the Sixties - you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

All evening and all night long there's been chaos and violence on the streets of London. Yesterday it was Enfield. The night before Tottenham. Last night there was anarchy in Hackney, Camden, Southwark, Lewisham, Clapham, Brixton, Woolwich, Ealing . . . and Croydon. Yes, Croydon. Several shops and other premises ablaze.

Buildings set alight, barricades erected, mobs roaming the streets - looting shops and attacking inadequate deployments of riot police.

Many of us expected this to happen last summer, and when it didn't we began to wonder just what it would take to provoke public anger and riots in this country. MPs stealing public money? Bankers' salaries and bonuses? Unemployment? Falling incomes? Rising prices? Student fees? Deep cuts to public services? Hacking scandals? Police corruption?

Well now we know. A squad of armed police surrounded a suspect and blew his brains out with handguns. The police claimed the guy had shot at them. A police officer apparently claimed that the radio clipped to his chest had saved his life by deflecting a bullet. A day later it turned out that the bullet in question was of a type that's used by the police . . .

On Saturday the family and friends of the dead man organised a peaceful protest and a demonstration outside Tottenham police station. It took four hours for the police to see them. (Were they invisible?) Somehow the demo turned into a riot . . .

On Sunday morning Nick Cohen's column in the Observer had this headline -

No Riots in Britian. Just quiet, ever-deeper anxiety.
Hmmmmmmm

What we are witnessing in this recession is not abrupt catastrophe but the slow erosion of the hopes and aspirations of so many

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/07/nick-cohen-recession-misery

'When will there be riots?" eager journalists ask thinktanks, sociologists and anyone else who monitors Britain's unravelling social fabric. "When are the British going to imitate the Greeks and the Spanish and snap?"

On the face of it, their questions are reasonable. Contrary to the predictions of nearly every expert, inflation roared ahead of wage increases after the crash of 2008, squeezing the living standards of all but the most fortunate harder than at any time since the 1920s. The asinine George Osborne tightened the vice further by raising VAT in the middle of an outbreak of stagflation. Meanwhile his coalition's austerity programme is ensuring that public services will begin a long slow decline into shabby inefficiency, as public-sector workers start to lose their jobs en masse. Working- and middle-class families have already lost tax credits. The poor have already lost benefits.

To cap it all, the distribution of the pain is so monumentally unjust it cries to high heaven for a reaction. The banking crisis and the flooding of the market with easy credit were the City's follies.

But it is not London and the south-east which are suffering but the Britain north and west of the line from Severn to the Wash. [????] While the state bailed out the City so the bars could carry on heaving and the banks could carry on delivering fantastic rewards to their "stars", it has allowed the provinces to sink.

So complete has been the capture of the coalition by the moneyed interest that Osborne says in all seriousness that the one fiscal measure he simply must have at any price is not the relief of poverty or an easing of the burden on middle England, but a tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of earners.

These arrant insults ought to push the most mild-mannered people into revolt. Yet in Britain they provoke only students to riot. The wider public remains resigned rather than enraged; indifferent rather than incandescent.

[Not any more. Oh no, not any more.]

If insecurity continues to grow, our old assumptions will have to change. Imagine that Margaret Thatcher had died before the crash. Even her toughest critics would have had to accept that many of her reforms had succeeded and she had allowed the private sector to flourish. Now the world she left us has fallen apart, and her deregulation of finance in particular seems like a ruinous blunder. . . Now that the financial system Labour relied on to provide the tax revenues for social reform has crashed, the centre-left's old maps are useless as well.

Thatcher's Enterprise Society and Blair's Cool Britannia are lost worlds The promises both parties offered to those who "worked hard and played by the rules" of rising living standards, a secure retirement and a better life for their children sound empty. Millions are living thwarted lives of quiet desperation, and cannot see a way to escape them.

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This morning John McDonnell MP said this -

Reaping what has been sown over 3 decades of creating grotesquely unequal society,with alienated young copying ethos of looting bankers.

Many people will question his rhetoric - since it was all quite legal for the bankers to do what they did. But the point is that morally and ethically the bankers behaved, and are still being allowed to behave, like fucking gangsters. Their so-called financial 'products' were always designed to be toxic - to the poor sods who became victims of mis-selling, and the rest of us who still suffer from the consequences of the derivatives, the mis-selling, the sub-prime mortgages, etc.

Imagine if the law was changed to make it legal to go out and carry out smash and grab raids, loot shops, break into homes and torch businesses. Well that's what happened when banking and finance was "deregulated" by Thatcher. We used to have laws that prevented banks and financiers from doing what they've done to individuals, communities and the economy in general. Those laws were abolished. We live with the consequences - and what's happening on the streets is one of the consequences. Either you believe that or you don't. Make up your minds time. There's no grey area in this argument. No walls to sit on. Not any more.

We await Cameron's next statement, now that he's back from his holiday, now that he's back in charge, with great interest.

It was interesting to see Clegg on TV yesterday - our Acting Prime Minister! Now there's a young man who had completely lost his bottle, as well as the plot. Not that he ever had a plot, or any bottle.

It's worth having a look at John McConnell's Twitter this morning: http://twitter.com/#!/johnmcdonnellMP . He's a proper politician who's been consistent in his approach to political and financial issues. Compare him with the publicity-crazed Dianne Abbot, whose wisdom extends to popping up on Sky and BBC 24 to demand curfews. What next Dianne - call in the army?

What we actually need is people on the streets showing the way with peaceful protests - following the example of people in Cairo - reclaiming their city from the political thugs and their followers, reclaiming it from the rioters, determined to have non-violent change and a better, fairer, more democratic society.

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What's intriguing me is what will happen next - since I'm old enough to remember the Watts riots in Los Angeles, and the fact that everything just went back to 'normal' after the fires had burned out and the politicians simply condemned the whole thing as mere criminality.

The difference this time around is the Internet - citizen journalism, chat rooms, blogging, twittering, discussion forums and so on - none of them under the direct control of the mainstream media, business, politicians, etc. This time there's the opportunity to take things a step further and higher - to reflect online, to analyse, to reason, to exchange opinions with non-establshment thinkers and reporters. This is not a time for bullshit, complacency, or going backwards.

And it's not a time for simply increasing the power of the police state. This is what was established in Cairo. There ARE limits to state power. There ARE limits to people's tolerance, inertia, fear, indifference and unwillingness to protest and demand justice.

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Layer 435 . . . The Power of the State, Britain, Egypt, Beyond Mubarak, Democracy, Policing and CS Gas

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My son made the point some days ago that the British State is far too powerful to allow a people's movement or uprising to topple the government. Leaving aside questions of the legitimacy of a government that's attempting a rapid, radical and irreversible (shock doctrine) change in the health service and the education service without ANY warning in a manifesto that they intended to do such things - it's easy to see what he means when you consider the situation in Egypt.

It's one thing to try to topple a prime minister, or a particular government, or even a head of state, but the dominant groups whose will and whose power prevail in any society can normally expect to retain power, whatever people on the street demand by way of change in the leadership.

The Guardian's editorial on Egypt yesterday makes this point with reference to the particular situation in Cairo.

Egypt: Beyond Mubarak

The country's most important issue is not when the leader goes, but whether the regime will go with him

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/02/egypt-beyond-mubarak-editorial

President Mubarak's announcement, under American pressure, that he will not seek re-election in September marks an end to one phase of the Egyptian crisis. But it does not resolve it.

First, it is far from clear that Egyptians will accept him remaining in even nominal control.

Secondly, the real struggle in Egypt is not between Mr Mubarak and the bulk of the Egyptian people. It is between the entrenched political, military and economic elites who have come to dominate Egyptian society in the years since independence and the classes they have increasingly excluded, coerced and manipulated.

These elites have worked for Mr Mubarak, fought for his favour, and been controlled by him while at the same time using him to defend their collective interests. A dictator never stands alone. "Irhal!" ("Go!") the protesters cry, but the most important issue is not when Mr Mubarak goes but what goes with him.

Mr Mubarak's main personal concern may well be to withdraw from the scene in what he deems to be an honourable way.

But those who have constituted the pillars of his regime are interested in survival, not withdrawal.

The officer corps wants to preserve its power and privileges. Yet the Egyptian army is oversized and over-armed, and ought, in any sensible reordering of Egypt's political system, to be reduced and depoliticised.

The older leaders of the ruling National Democratic party, where some remnants of the original Free Officers' idealism may still just be discerned, also want a place in any new order, and may have a sort of constituency in Egypt's enormous bureaucracy. Yet that, too, should be reduced.

The Egyptian business class, particularly that section of it which gravitated toward Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, will plead that its capital, competence and contacts are vital if Egypt's economy is to be restored, and threaten dire consequences if the deals and depredations of the past are unearthed. Yet that class is properly seen as part of the problem and not part of the solution.

The police, lowest of the low on the regime totem pole, will be calculating that sooner or later their brutal skills will once again be needed. Yet they must be curbed if Egypt is to make a genuine new start.

The demonstrators in the square say they have only one demand, that Mr Mubarak step down. In the euphoria of the moment some of them see his departure as the answer to everything that is wrong in the land of Egypt. But whether that departure comes sooner or later, it will not be that.

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Jaywise
An amusing side-effect of this delightful sight of people standing up for themselves - images that will hopefully rub off on people everywhere in the troubled times to come - is that it really forces the bigoted, racist and anti-democratic right out into the open and forces them to show their true colours.

cecile
I hear on the radio that Mubarak's fortune is estimated at $56bn. What's the salary of an Egyptian president, I wonder?

This looks like robbery on an industrial scale. Time to freeze his assets worldwide.

Sidebar
Evidently Mr. Cameron has advised President Mubarak to ,"..... listen to the aspirations of the people".

It is indeed a prudent ruler who listens to the aspirations of the people. Thus enabling him to evaluate the potential for conflict arising from aspirational dissonance. He can then anticipate any contingencies which may arise.

But the prudent and wise ruler not only listens to the aspirations of the people but distills their essence and subtly blends it with his own. Such a ruler finds favour with the people so that they willingly bear the burdens placed upon them by the ruler, believing them to represent their own best interests.

Innit, David!?

cecile

The Telegraph yesterday described the movement for democracy in Egypt as a "contagion" which might spread across the Arab world,

No surprise there, then. I visit their website from time to time and it's a bit of a freakshow, to be frank - frightful and entertaining in equal measure.

delphinia

If he goes, what then? A popular uprising in Romania got rid of Ceaucescu, but when the dust settled, the same bunch were in power with a different figurehead, and then the persecution of the protesters started.

There is no such thing as democracy. Power is held by the big landowners, industrialists and money men. Elections everywhere are a sham.

SUMWON

Clearly, not just Mubarak but also his repressive cronies in his stooge cabinet such as the Top Secret Policeman and Torturer Omar Suleiman and his army of spies, agents provocateurs, finger-nail pullers, eye-gougers and penis slicers. But it's not these US stooges which must go, but also the repressive constitution and the whole rotten, corrupt system.

From this morning's news, it appears that Mubarak is trying to wear down and mollify the protesters so that he can then set his usual thugs and torturers loose to weed out the prominent protesters. Committed Muslims will then be tortured in the rendition chambers. He's even started his own anti-protest movement. He can then use his American tanks and planes to further initimidate the Egyptians, because he certainly will not use them against his pal Netanyahu.

If Mubarak is able to tough this out, then it will be more of the same. He's no intention of listening to Egyptians - it's what the Zio-Cons of Washington instruct him which is important.

Jaywise

Elections afford the Iranians a path to interference in Egypt's internal affairs through the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas connection

Oh, we better not have any then, those filthy foreigners aren't to be trusted.

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Egypt and the credibility of the Middle East peace process

America's credibility problem has become acute. It claims to support democracy in the Middle East, but at any time in the last 30 years it could have used pressure to guide Mubarak's regime towards at least minimal reforms. On the other hand, it slapped crippling sanctions on the Palestinians when they voted, in free and fair elections, for a party the US and Israel disliked.

Hilary Wise

London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/egypt-middle-east-peace-process

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Call for an inquiry into use of CS spray

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/02/inquiry-into-use-of-cs

At a time when public service cuts are starting to bite, campaigners from UK Uncut were on Sunday once again taking direct action on our high streets (Police use CS spray on tax protesters, 31 January).

They were targeting Boots, which has moved to Switzerland, allowing the company to avoid paying millions in tax. Outside the Oxford Street branch of Boots, a police officer, without warning, used CS spray against demonstrators, three of whom were taken to hospital. When tax injustice enjoyed by the rich is combined so starkly with cuts in vital public services for the poor, and the government refuses to listen or act, people have the moral and legal right to protest.

The state is the collective democratic vehicle to serve the interests of all people of this country. And when acting through the police force, it has to be incredibly careful about not being perceived to be acting politically – to serve the interests of the rich against the poor.

We deplore the use of such aggressive policing techniques and call for a public inquiry to investigate and report on the use of CS spray against protesters on Sunday. They should also provide guidance on how they plan to police the many, widespread and popular protests that are bound to feature across society in the months and years to come.

Neal Lawson Compass

Mark Serwotka PCS

John Christensen Tax Justice Network

Deborah Doane World Development Movement

Ruth Tanner War on Want

Lisa Nandy MP Labour, Wigan

Caroline Lucas MP Green, Brighton Pavilion

Peter Tatchell campaigner

 

The current formulation [of CS gas] was the subject of an investigation in 2004 by the medical toxicology unit at Guy's hospital in London and it reported that "it [CS] is more harmful that [sic] has been previously assumed".

Anyone who believes they were affected by this chemical (and these complaints may relate to the skin, eyes, upper respiratory tract or heart) should contact us as we are setting up a monitoring group.

Hugh Orde, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, has commented: "Police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests."

Let's take note and act.

Elizabeth Sigmund

Callington, Cornwall

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Layer 386 . . . Europe, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Schools, Ofsted, Teaching, Learning, Education, Gove and Miliband

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Traffic News

More evidence of the insanity on Britain's roads. Yesterday, heading up the M1, I had to sit for nearly an hour almost completely stationary, as a result of 5 cars smashing into one another. The police, as usual managing the 'incident' with excessive ploddery, wouldn't let the traffic start to flow past until all 5 cars had been loaded on to transporters. Not even ONE lane open. 'Ealf ansafety.

Today there was a two mile queue of vehicles trying to leave the M6 to get on to the A14, which of course completely jammed up the M6. This is down to the roadworks at this junction taking forever to complete, and NO proper traffic management measures being taken to prevent this sort of congestion. Temporary relief road? You must be joking.

Meantime the radio was full of reports about the M1 northbound traffic again being at a standstill with a massive tailback - this time as a result of a lorry overturning at the Hemel Hempstead junction. How do you overturn a bloody lorry on a motorway?

I was intending to go round the M25, but then heard reports saying there was a jam from junction 24 to junction 28 as a result of a lorry smashing into the central reservation.

To cap it all there was a complete standstill as soon as we got to the 20 mile long 50mph limit average speed check area on the M1 opposite Bedford. What to do? Leave the motorway, use satnav to cross over to the A1(M) and then trudge through the ghastliness of outer North London to get home in about twice the time the journey WOULD take if there were no roadworks, no congestion, no fuckwit lorry drivers and no hundreds of traffic lights all on red.

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Das Musik

Talked with a friend today about the crucial importance of music in people's lives, and singing, and dancing. But how many people seem never to need or enjoy music? ANY music.

We also talked about the uselessness (for me) of 5 years learning German, given that I've been to Germany and will never go there again. Probably. And if I do it'll be with someone who speaks German. Possibly to take a look at Berlin.

Also, I've no wish ever to go back to either Austria or Switzerland. Those massive mountains are not for me. Give me the Lake District or the Massif Central any day.

Coincidentally Mark Lawson on R4's Front Row today interviewed James Last. I've no idea why. Dear Hansi - he's as dull, boring, witless and humourless as his entire musical oevre. And yet he's made an unbelievable fortune from arranging and orchestrating the very worst pop music he could find. The very nastiest, pappiest, most awful songs ever written. Take a terrible tune, play it with an orchestra, and somehow make the original even worse. And his albums sell by the zillion. Over 100 million, apparently. Never overestimate the taste of the masses. Apparently he has 'fans' who travel to his concerts all over the world. Bonkers.

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Weak teachers the biggest problem in schools – Ofsted

'Dull and uninspiring' lessons hold back pupils, report finds

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/nov/23/weak-teachers-schools-ofsted

The headline in the paper version of this article is, "Dull teaching is letting pupils down, says Ofsted chief inspector".

Either way, it's true that so much of what goes on in schools is dull, uninspiring and boring. And whose fault is that? we may well ask.

Of course Ms Gilbert blames the poor bloody teachers. We have a generation of teachers who have been trained to make learning dull - to unthinkingly and uncritically follow 'national strategies' and to teach by numbers.

Even the few older teachers that remain have been bludgeoned into subject-based teaching and teaching to the tests.

And it's Ms Gilbert's Ofsted 'contractors' (not HMIs) who have been sent out as enforcers of government policies.

Children are being subjected to "dull and uninspiring" lessons, the schools inspectorate warned yesterday. On the eve of an education white paper proposing a shift in teacher training from colleges to classrooms, Ofsted's chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, said low expectation of pupils and teachers' poor grasp of their subject have led to confused lessons.

And this is how Ms Gilbert's mind works. She thinks in Gradgrind's terms. You can see her as an Mchoakumchild figure. She needs to understand that children shouldn't be stuffed with 'imperial gallons of facts' in didactic 'lessons'. Lessons indeed.

Teaching unions pointed out that inadequate teaching remained "the exception rather than the rule". Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "Our classroom teachers do an amazing job day in day out in often challenging circumstances.

"If there is anything that is 'dull and uninspiring' in our schools it is a curriculum that is narrowed by the series of hoops that schools have to jump through in order to satisfy arbitrary targets which can change with alarming regularity. This often results in a narrowing of the curriculum and teaching to the test, simply because schools are fearful of slipping down in the school league tables."

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said: "Criticising hardworking teachers and failing to understand the challenges that teachers and pupils in schools in deprived areas face will do nothing to drive up standards."

More on schools, education and Gove's White Paper tomorrow.

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Ed Miliband keeps his head while all around him lose theirs. But it's not enough.

No matter how admirable serenity may be, Miliband must get on with the job of opposition – starting with a critique of the cuts

by Jonathan Freedland

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/23/ed-miliband-keeps-head-but-its-not-enough

As a matter of temperament, I can't but admire Miliband's apparent serenity – able to incant a gentle "om" while those around him panic over the ticker on Sky News – but as a matter of politics, I lean towards those who reckon the new leader needs to define himself sooner rather than later. But how?

A thick sheaf of policy papers is not the answer . . . What is needed are a few signature moves that reveal the direction of travel, symbolic stands that tell the voters what kind of government you would lead.

I reckon Freedland hasn't been paying proper attention. Ed has already said what needed to be said about direction of travel. (See previous blogs)

Still Freedland's  not wrong when he goes on to say,

Above all, he needs to shift the emphasis of Labour's economic argument. Right now, the party begins with the concession that, yes, there have to be cuts – and then offers quibbles about the timing and degree. That doesn't work. The only way Labour can punch through is by saying that the coalition is taking a reckless gamble with the British economy – with Ireland as a warning from hell – and that any cuts in spending should wait until the return of growth. Otherwise it simply won't get heard.

So it's a necessary strength of Miliband's that he can keep his head. But it is not sufficient. He needs to lead a regular, devastating critique of the government.

And he's not wrong about Ireland being a warning from hell.

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Regarding the previous blog's comments about Europe and Europeans - take a look at this piece by Jonathan Jones:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/23/european-union-written-in-stone-christendom

Europe has been building a secret community of culture

Political union is entering its darkest days, to the Eurosceptics' delight. But our shared history will keep us together

Some time soon Europeans who believe in a common identity need to stand up and proclaim the unique richness and openness of our culture.

It is not idealism to believe in Europe; still less is it a bureaucratic abstraction. If you see history in its living colours, you see how deeply European we are and how profound are the roots of that common identity.

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