Layer 406 . . . Comic Genius, The Two Nicks, Cliff, Bill Bailey, Ross Noble, Bruce, Student Activists, Syndicalists, Anarchists, and Revolting LibDems

.
Lawks - a whole programme on Cliff Richard on BBC1. Something to avoid, surely?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wv75d

In fact it was a very well made documentary - well shot, well edited, good interviews, etc. And the man, regardless of what anyone thinks about his music and his Christianity, is interesting. For a start - 70 years old and still sounding young; only more confident, more relaxed, more articulate.

I'd no idea he'd lived in India for so many years before coming to England, and no idea his parents had both been born in India and had lived there for their entire lives before moving to England. None of the family had even visited Britain before moving their home to this country.

He talked about discovering rock n roll, and his love of those first great performers - Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers . . .

I hadn't realised he'd left school at 16 and went to work in the same factory as his dad, or that his family were 'dirt poor' and lived in a council house.

You have to admire his continuing joie de vivre, his openness, his quiet sense of humour, his quiet convictions, his obviously spiritually intelligent approach to life. Just don't listen to his saccharine music. He talks far better than he sings.

The best part of the programme was listening to him describe how, when he was quite young, he'd run into his parents' bedroom one day and found his dad 'on all fours - praying'.

No, Cliff. That wasn't praying.

...............................................

Bruce

The Springsteen documentary that was shown on TV last week was a superb piece of work. The key idea that came out of it, for me, was that Bruce and the E Street Band really grew up together during the three years they were writing and recording the Darkness on the Edge of Town album. They developed a 'ferocity' in their attitude and their performances, and "took no prisoners". They also developed a vision of NOW - a feeling about how to live life in the present moment, to avoid looking forward too much or backward too much, to enjoy every day to the full, and to be authentically themselves - with no compromises for the sake of becoming more popular or selling more records. Truly a Zen band.

................................................................. 

Spellcheck
I came across a newly refurbished pub the other day that had pretentions to being a bit of a gastrobar. It had quite a good menu too. However, it listed these items -

Ploughman's with cheese or brie (!!!)
locally sauced fish  (it was on the coast)
baked potato with tuan
garlic bead

Now, call me a pedant but . . .  Is the proprietor someone who
i) can't spell
ii) doesn't check the spelling and grammar of people who are paid to produce the menus
iii) makes mistakes even his friends dare not point out to him
iv) is such a creep that no-one would bother to help him correct his mistakes
v) is all or several of the above

........................................................

Ross Noble
Ross Noble was on the Merton and Hislop show this week, and managed to be effortlessly the funniest person in a brilliantly talented group of people. Even Merton was giggling at Noble's improvisations. Time to make an effort next year to get out and see at least one of his live shows.
The best of his raps for me was sounding off about politicians appearing on light entertainment programmes such as Strictly Come Prancing. He imagined himself being the MC on the show and leading people like Ann Widdecombe and Vince Cable out of  the studio and into the street, and shoving them into a skip. 

"Politicians - Do your job, or get in a skip!"

.......................................

More Comic Genius
QI had a stellar group of panellists this week - Bill Bailey, Rob Brydon, Rich Hall and Alan Davies. These are all fantastically able and funny individuals, and must-see performers. National treasures, indeed. (Rich is an honorary Brit.)

The Guardian printed a feature article on Bill Bailey yesterday:

Bill Bailey: 'It's genius, evil genius'

Bill Bailey has been described as the world's seventh greatest comedian. But he's a lot better than that. Who else could make inverse femtobarns (look it up) funny?

Bailey's current show is more overtly political than hitherto.

"I thought supporting Labour and being leftwing is an outlook on life. It's wider than politics. That kind of life was, and is, being eroded. Somehow the Tories have deflected the righteous anger at the bankers who we bailed out. The Tories manage to take that outrage and direct it at benefit claimants. It's genius. Evil genius."

He has been a keen supporter of students protesting against the rise in tuition fees, tweeting his backing to student sit-ins. "It's the spirit of the 60s. Fair play to them. That's the time to do it – when you're a student and filled with unshakeable conviction. I'm desperately envious of that. One of the lines in my show is that I'm envious of certainty."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/dec/18/bill-bailey-stuart-jeffries-saturday-interview

..............................................

Susanne Moore certainly nails her colours to her mast.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/18/suzanne-moore-anarchy

Anarchy rules! But it's about a lot more than just lobbing things at police

It's more often used now as a jibe against someone who throws something at a protest, but anarchism has a long, complex history, and it's never really gone away

Just for once, I am quite "on trend" with this anarchy lark. Someone called me an anarchist when I stood as an independent candidate in the last general election. As though that is a bad thing. Now it's all the rage.

So these are heady days for those, such as myself, who are attached to the cause. Not, of course, that we will agree on exactly what that cause is. The word anarchist has become lazy shorthand for anyone who wants to bring about disorder and upheaval. But an anarchist is really somebody who advocates the abolition of government and wants a social system based on voluntary co-operation. To be for mutualism or syndicalism these days is to want the moon on a stick. It is to be hopelessly deluded or romantic. Maybe. But that's still better than being Eric Pickles.

I find myself entranced by anarchists again. I don't mean by the idiot thugs. I mean by hearing again lovely utopian fantasies.

Anarchism has a long and proud history, a complex and symbiotic relationship with Marxism, and has been an important international movement. The splits within it and away from traditional and centralising parties of the left have meant it has had very different incarnations in different parts of the world, from Spain to Bangladesh; from Kropotkin to Proudhon, Bakunin to Emma Goldman, from Noam Chomsky to Jello Biafra, anarchism has never gone away.

To have this complex movement – which, at heart, is about total redistribution of power – reduced to little more than a jibe at someone who throws something at a policeman is a travesty. The more political parties merge into one seamless entity, the more we are told that there is no more money, that there is no alternative, the more we need to be reminded that there is. The paradox for anarchist groups is always how to take power without becoming an anti-democratic and hierarchical operation.

This new generation is using the old anarchist methods of direct action, civil disobedience, graffiti and sabotage, but with thrilling expertise and brilliant uses of technology. Still, the anarchist vision of a leaderless society with no bosses, of real as opposed to virtual freedom, runs counter to the sometimes blind allegiance to the Wikicult.

The measured "good sense" of the main parties cannot capture the mood of those weird "anarchists" who flashmob and bizarrely insist that huge businesses should pay their taxes. These cases are so manifestly unjust, yet it is ordinary people, not governments, now piling on pressure. It is direct action that focuses on injustice. Such movements may crash and burn, but don't forget, anarchists have protested globally for a very long time, and have been at the forefront of the green and feminist movements.

Indeed, my favourite placard of the recent "unrest" read "Does my society look big in this?"

........................................................

A friend sent me this wonderful piece of expert analysis on the Irish political and financial crisis:

An Irishman Abroad  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koY6kXhQDQo

...........................................

Desert Island Discs

His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit. The world they inhabit is one of Jacobs cream crackers and tea-strainers - so it's little surprise that in real life too Nick Park's own creature comforts are modest: "The thing is, I have everything I want really. I've got my little house, I've got a campervan, I love the British countryside, I'm not after yachts or things like that."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wntyl

What a strange guy Nick Park turns out to be. Your heart sinks with his first choice of record - Cockney Rebel.

But then he comes up with Neil Young for his second.

I agree with Nick (!) that Elvis Costello is a poet who writes 'clever words' , but he's NOT a good singer or performer.

And then The Proclaimers. Bloody Hell. Say no more.

John Shuttleworth. Sigh.

Give up at this point.

And then he chooses Bob Dylan! "Another poet - fantastic words . . . "
Not only that, he goes for  "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" from Blonde on Blonde. An incredible track that fills a whole side of vinyl. A very enlightened choice.

And then Van Morrison, from Poetic Champions Compose, "I Forgot That Love Existed". Possibly Van's best-ever album, and best-ever track. Amazing instrumental bits. Great rhythm. Spine-tinglingly good.

Nick chose this one as his favourite.

.........................................................

For the sake of balance, on the subject of burlesque, on which plenty has recently been published, here's an interesting piece from the Guardian:

This jiggle-fest has nothing to do with sex or power

As a former burlesque dancer, a new film about the artform confirms to me how it has now been reduced to glib titillation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/13/burlesque-sex-empowerment-misogyny

..................................

Roy Hattersley, as usual, writes good sense on the big issues:

Radical Lib Dems must revolt – or lose everything

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/16/radical-lib-dems-electoral-reform-av

I can forgive Nick Clegg, but if none of his MPs rebel against the coalition the party will suffer badly

Nick Clegg's position should be understood and forgiven. He is instinctively a conservative, and he should not be blamed for following his heart and head. It is the so-called progressives who have betrayed what they once insisted were their principles. A half-hearted revolt over student fees is not enough to salvage their reputation. Nor is Simon Hughes's occasional grand-standing about coalition policies that he never actually opposes. No Lib Dem who was offered a place in the government declined to serve. No groups have been formed within the party to oppose the coalition in principle. Danny Alexander is the boy who stands on George Osborne's burning deck and Vince Cable is the self-appointed captain of David Cameron's praetorian guard.

If there is a referendum on AV, I shall vote in favour. But if Lib Dems continue to kiss the lash of Tory domination – salivating with gratitude whenever Cameron throws them a bone – they will alienate so many Labour supporters that the chance of starting the programme of electoral reform will be lost. So will the Lib Dems' hope of playing a significant part in the next general election.

All that then remains will be a choice between the alternative routes to oblivion that Clegg has charted – absorption into the Conservative party or independent annihilation when Labour tells the floating voter, "If you want a Tory government, vote Liberal Democrat". I persist in the belief there are still real radicals in the Lib Dem ranks. And I do not want them to be swept away. I want Labour to work with them and I will argue that the door to co-operation must be kept open for when the time comes to form a new government.

But the Labour party has to be convinced that partnership is the right way forward. The creating of an ecumenical majority depends on the emergence of positive evidence that some Lib Dems also want to create a progressive alliance. For the sake of their own future, the Lib Dems are in desperate need of a serious and sustained revolt.

.

Layer 385 . . . Ireland, Tax Piracy, IMF, Shock Doctrine, Terrible Neighbours, the PFI Racket, Nick Clegg, Social Mobility and New Fangled Progressives

.
Royal wedding date set for 29 April

Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding will take place on Friday 29 April at Westminster Abbey

Exciting. Not.

....................................

Things are hotting up again on the economics and financial front. Shit hitting the fan big time in Ireland. Polly Toynbee's column gives an excellent overview:

 Ireland shouldn't get a penny until it gives up its tax piracy

Cameron says he is being 'good neighbours' with the Irish. Why, when they have been such terrible neighbours to us?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/22/no-bailout-for-ireland

Yet again the western world teeters on the edge of calamity caused by the bank-lending extravaganza that fuelled the great property bubble. Europe holds its breath. Will the market predators be halted at Ireland, or might the rating agencies knock down all the dominoes one by one, first the weak countries, then the strong? Meanwhile a Europe-wide fiscal tightening panic may yet bring about the very thing it seeks to prevent, as democracy once again falls under the wheels of finance.

What lesson has George Osborne learned since he penned a paean of praise in the Times in 2006, "Look and Learn Across the Irish Sea"? He wrote: "Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking ... Capital will go wherever investment is most attractive. Ireland's business tax rates are only 12.5%, while Britain's are becoming among the highest in the world." Low taxes are the answer, he said.

He claims he is being "good neighbours" with our cousins across the Irish sea. What he does not say – perhaps embarrassed by all that previous praise – is that the Irish have been exceptionally bad neighbours to everyone else.

Ireland's corporation tax is 12.5%, the UK's is 28%, dropping to 24% in 2013, and the US rate is 35%. Ireland has played the beggar my neighbour, race-to-the-bottom tax game for many years. Quite why the EU tolerated this is a mystery when a fortune was poured from Brussels to Dublin to pay for a spectacular modernising infrastructure over the years. A few other large companies recently decamped to Dublin from London, advertising giant WPP for one: these are mainly virtual moves for tax purposes only, since virtually no staff go over – and certainly not the board.

But, in the view of Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, the corporation tax rate is only a fraction of the true story, a flag to signal to global companies that they will get a phenomenal deal with an Irish relocation. Ireland's real shame is not that, like the UK, it mistook its property boom for a never-ending cash machine. What is unforgivable is its shameless status as Europe's greatest tax haven, helping to cheat tax from the world's treasuries for decades.

Ireland allows Google, Facebook, Microsoft Corp and many others to shunt profits around subsidiaries so that they escape even Ireland's own low tax rate.

Ireland allows them, quite legally, to pass the profits on to other tax havens that levy no corporation tax at all, paying only tiny sums in passing: Google put 92% of its billions of worldwide non-US profits through Dublin, and it paid Ireland just £18m.

This is a pure tax haven, with the laxest tax regime in the EU, with no controlled foreign companies rules (to limit deferral of tax).

So why is Ireland not required to put its tax affairs in order and stop cheating all those neighbours now coming to its rescue? IMF doctrine demands countries squeeze the breath out of their people with punitive cuts – and they like low or, even better, no taxes.

The IMF's purgative is an ideological brew; it learns no lessons. When its patients get worse and near death, as Ireland has done after its first terrible dose of cuts, the fund calls for more leeches, mercury and arsenic. That is, of course, the same pre-Keynesian medicine Cameron and Osborne prescribe for us. There is a week before a final settlement: will the rest of Europe really hand over their money without demanding Ireland abandons tax piracy and joins the civilised world?

...........................................

Yes - classic IMF 'Shock Doctrine' prescriptions and demands. For more on the IMF and the shock doctrine outrage, just type 'shock doctrine', IMF, Naomi Klein, disaster capitalism, etc into the Oxzen search box at the top of this page.

.........................................

The bill for PFI contracts is an outrage. Let us refuse to pay this odious debt

The great racket that was private finance now robs the taxpayer of billions that should be spent on nurses and teachers

by George Monbiot

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/22/pfi-private-finance-refuse-debt

You've been told that nothing is sacred; that no state spending is safe from being cut or eroded through inflation. You've been misled. As the new public spending data released by the government shows, a £267bn bill has been both ringfenced and index-linked. This sum, spread over the next 50 years or so, guarantees the welfare not of state pensioners or children or the unemployed, but of a different class of customer. To make way, everything else must be cut, further and faster than it would otherwise have been.

This is the money the state owes to private corporations: the banks, construction and service companies that built infrastructure under the private finance initiative. In September 1997 the Labour government gave companies a legal guarantee that their payments would never be cut. Whenever there was a conflict between the needs of patients or pupils and private finance initiative (PFI) payments, it would thenceforth be resolved in favour of the consortia. The NHS owes private companies £50bn for infrastructure that cost only £11bn to build, plus £15bn for maintenance charges.

In 1997 the British Medical Association warned: "The NHS could find itself with a facility which is obsolete in 10 or 20 years' time, but for which it will still have to pay for 30 years or more." No one's celebrating being proved right.

If a hospital no longer requires the services it contracted to buy, tough.

The cost and inflexibility of PFI is an outrage, a racket, the legacy of 13 years of New Labour appeasement, triangulation and false accounting. At first sight, it looks as if nothing can be done: contracts are contracts. What I'm about to propose is a wild shot, but I hope it deserves, at least, to be discussed. I contend the money we owe to the PFI consortia should be considered odious debt.

Odious debt is a legal term usually applied to the endowments of dictators in the developing world. It means debt incurred without the consent of the people and against the national interest.

PFI was a Tory invention but became a Labour doctrine.

There was no democratic mandate for this policy, which appears to have arisen from secret talks with companies.

Secrecy surrounded the whole scheme. To this day, PFI contracts remain commercially confidential. You can't read them; MPs can't read them. We don't know what we are being stung for or whether the costs are justified. But there are some powerful clues.

In Coventry, for example, NHS bosses originally sought £30m of public money to refurbish the city's two hospitals. When the government told them it was "PFI or bust", the refurbishment plan was dropped in favour of a scheme to knock down both hospitals and build a new one – with fewer beds and doctors and nurses – at an eventual, corporate-friendly cost of £410m. A report commissioned by the local health authority found that the scheme had been "progressively tailored to fit the needs of private investors".

To get their new buildings or services, public bodies had to show that PFI was cheaper than public procurement. The system was rigged to make this easy.

Desperate public bodies were gulled and outmanoeuvred with the blessing of central government, which sought only to keep the corporations off its back and the liabilities off its balance sheets. Was this a legitimate means of loading our schools and hospitals with debt? I don't think so.

But where else do we go with this? I've been warning about inflexible PFI contracts since 1998. I've wasted months on this mission, trying to understand and explain the most complex issue in public life. For all the good it's done, I might as well have gone fishing.

Now I see corporations squatting like great cuckoos on our public services, while officials pour the money that should have been spent on nurses and teachers into their widening bills. Yes, I'm bitter. Yes, I'm clutching at straws. Have you got a better idea?

.......................................................

If anyone's interested in reading more evidence that Nick Clegg's just a Tony Blair clone, then just read this column he wrote for the Guardian yesterday:

For old-fashioned progressives, achieving income equality was the ultimate goal. For us, it is increasing social mobility

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/22/inequality-injustice-nick-clegg

Nick thinks he's a new-fangled 'progressive', when in reality all this guff about social mobility and equality of opportunity is the same old New Labour bollocks.
.

Layer 367 . . . Nick Clegg, Music, Character, and Desert Island Discs

.
Oh yes. Nick Clegg. Desert Island Discs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vhdmb#synopsis

What a treat. His first track was some sort of bog standard Chopin piano waltz. Please! Dullness in the extreme.

Next up - Johnny Cash . . . chugga chugga chugga Well I woke up Sunday morning drone drone drone. Country crap he remembered listening to in the family car on their outings. Aaaah! Pure nostalgia.

Nick's dad was a banker. Quelle surprise. Nick had "an extraordinarily happy childhood". He's from a long line of itinerant European bourgeoisie. Which is nice.

Nick's first day in London was his start day at Westminster School. Lucky lad.

Next record. Prince - "The Cross". Christian nonsense, and pure gobbledegook. Pretty weird stuff for an atheist like Nick. And about as musically interesting as plain boiled rice. But it's Prince himself that Nick really goes for - "I think Prince is fantastic". Chaque'un a son gout.

 http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-cross-lyrics-prince.html

Personally I think Prince is, at best, a cute little guy who appeals to people who like cute little guys. According to Wiki, "Prince pioneered the "Minneapolis sound", a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R&B and New Wave that has influenced many other musicians." In other words, a load of derivative dross. As soon as you start talking about funk, pop and New Wave - whatever that is - you've lost me.

Nick evidently likes his (non-classical) music to be like his politics - funky, new wave, derivative, middle of the road and poptastic.

Next we have Petit Pays by Cesária Évora. I think we can safely say his wife's influence is showing here. Fair enough. Very pleasant. Not great.

Followed by Radiohead. "A great, great band." No they're fucking not. Music for angsty, earnest, vaguely alternative and so-called arty, public schoolboys and girls. The kind of kids who pronounce themselves Liberals in order to shock the more boring of their Conservative friends and family.

Wiki: "The musicians who form Radiohead met while attending Abingdon School, a boys-only public school in Abingdon, Oxfordshire." This is essentially dreary, dull, dross. The top rated Radiohead track on Spotify is "Creep" - and you can't get any creepier and duller than that. Appalling crap, though probably quite relevant for Nick -

But I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts,
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

I want you to notice
when I'm not around
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

The Radiohead track Nick chose for DID was Street Spirit, whose dopey lyrics you can check out yourself, as if anyone really cares. Let's just say "Cracked eggs, dead birds, Scream as they fight for life, I can feel death, can see its beady eyes" does not a great lyric make. As for any musical merit the thing might have - you must be joking. This is the kind of stuff that public schoolboys who've smoked a few too many spliffs might write and record, and end up wishing they hadn't. As for Nick - he probably went to a gig, bought the CD, smoked a few too many spliffs and thought it was like really, really great. And he still does.

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Street-Spirit-fade-out-lyrics-Radiohead/839FE0EBB8B9339148256866000F5706

Next! What to say about Life On Mars by David Bowie? - another cute guy who's vaguely "alternative", arty and "interesting"? The song only makes any sense within the context of the Ziggy Stardust album, which was at least some good frivolous fun, and musically original and interesting.

And now - Waka Waka, by Shakira. Perfect lyrics for a politician in Nick's current position. Pretty wacky.

http://www.directlyrics.com/shakira-waka-waka-lyrics.html

Nick's final choice is wasted on . . . Franz Schubert - Impromptu No.3 in G Flat Major. Completely and utterly banal. Bore-RING! Available on Spotify if you fancy some music to slit your wrists to. A nice, safe choice for a working politician. Schubert sucks. But Nick used to listen to many Schubert piano things that his father used to listen to regularly, so . . .

On that basis I'd be a big fan of The Laughing Policeman, Vera Lynn, Alma Cogan, Russ Conway, Val Doonican, Matt Munro and Andy Stewart.

.......................................................................


At this point I was going to go off on a rap about people who don't rate Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and all the true greats of music - people who seem to think that third rate but cute little creeps are more worthwhile than Bob and Jimi, and more worth taking to a desert island, but then I thought - wait! I've been missing something.

Here's the thing. Had the first gigs I went to as a teenager been some great stage shows by the likes of Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Billy Fury and Helen Shapiro - maybe I'd have remained to this very day convinced that these people were great artists and brilliant music makers. Whatever grabs you as a teenager - in a live show or even on the radio or TV -  tends to stay with you. There's a time in our adolescence when we're wide open to whatever's currently out there and happening, as you might say.

Or then again, is there really? I'd like to think I'd have run screaming from a Cliff gig no matter what age I was. As I would a Radiohead gig. I might have hung around for a while at a Prince gig when I was a teenager, but only out of curiosity.

On the other hand, it seemed pretty damn obvious to me when I was a sixteen year old that Bob Dylan, whom I never saw playing live till years later, was an absolute genius. So what's stopping the likes of Nick Clegg from also seeing that?

Also - I didn't need to see them play a live gig in order to know that there was greatness in the likes of John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, Louis Jordan, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Janis Joplin, alongside all the greats that I have indeed seen playing live. So what's stopping Nick?

Here's another thing. Nick admitted to Kirsty that he'd done a 2.00am shift of actually listening to some music in order to compile his list. How desperate is that? This is clearly a guy - yet another on DID - who never really listens to music, and probably never has. Music has never been seen as important or a priority for Nick, let alone as essential stuff for the soul and spirit. Nick's spent his whole life chasing after achievement and success in one way or another - for example, gaining TWO masters degrees - so he's never had the time, let alone the inclination, to discover and to savour what actually exists in the world of music.

It's either that, or he's indeed listened to the good stuff - Dylan, Cohen, Hendrix, etc - and rated it below Radiohead and Prince. Which really would mean he's a total fuckwit.

So what did Kirsty Young make of young Nick? Not a lot, by my reckoning. It's pretty obvious when Kirsty's enjoying a guest, and their music. She clearly felt very little rapport or empathy with Nick, which is because Kirsty herself has such a lot of soul, spirit . . . . and a sense of humour. Nick has none.

Nick seems to be a decent and intelligent guy, in the sense of intellectually able and astute. Like bank managers used to be decent and intelligent. Unfortunately that's not enough to make him enlightened, original, radical, creative, amusing, and so on.

Interestingly, though, in the following programme on R4 - The Unbelievable Truth - the brilliant David Mitchell admitted that he's a total ignoramus when it comes to music. David Mitchell is one of our most gifted, original and hilarious artist/performers. A real national treasure. Far too good to be in politics. The quickness of his wit is phenominal. How the hell to explain his lack of interest in music?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007mf4f

..........................................................

Joined Up Thinking

Interesting talk today on The Politics Show. It seems Ken Livingstone has advocated that London should have no more than 5 local authorities. And now 3 of the existing (Tory) LAs - Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, and Hammersmith & Fulham - have decided to join together in running services, and indeed in decimating them. Is this a Good Thing?

Way back in 1990, when the Inner London Education Authority was abolished by Thatch, Oxzen was loudly advocating that the inner London boroughs should voluntarily join together on a north/south basis to run education and schools. It made no sense at all for a major city like London to have a fragmented education system. There should at least be a West London collaboration, an East London collaboration, a North London collaboration and a South London collaboration.

20 years on, and it seems that there may soon be a joint approach to managing education services by Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham. Finally . . .

Similarly it makes no sense at all for Hackney, Islington, Camden and Tower Hamlets to remain separate.

Other couplings could be an Outer Southeast group, an Outer Southwest group, an Outer Northwest group. an Outer Northeast group, and an Outer North group.

Since Thatch hated ILEA it goes without saying that ILEA was a brilliant education authority. Its very size attracted hundreds of very talented and visionary people to its education services. In arguing against the break-up of ILEA some of us used to emphasise the sheer impossibility of attracting the best talent and the most visionary leaders to the likes of miniscule Southwark, Lewisham and Lambeth. And so it has proved. Merge them together, however, and you'd be in with a chance. Well . . . we shall see.

What a pity New Labour never, ever, had the vision to promote effective collaborations between the pathetically tiny London banana boroughs. That's politicians for you.

....................................................

David Attenborough on TV today was shown ripping off a Moroccan fossil collector by paying only 850 dosheroons for an amazing piece of rock containing several perfect trilobites. Whatever is the world coming to?

.............................................................

Essential reading in the Observer today:

Chris Riddell:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/cartoon/2010/oct/24/david-cameron-spending-cuts-demons

Will Hutton:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/24/will-hutton-spending-review-economy

The coalition is taking a huge gamble with the economy

Unemployment and miserable poverty are about to hit Britain hard. Unstable times lie ahead.

Nick Cohen:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/24/rooney-manchester-united-city-bonuses

Wayne Rooney symbolises the greed that laid us low

The Manchester United striker has negotiated a deal for £10.4m a year. That's small beer to our avaricious financiers

No such critical self-awareness troubles the City. Its managers were worse than irrelevancies, they were calamities. They did not understand the risks their banks were running. Now that we are all suffering the consequences, they continue to throw money away on bonuses, despite the evidence that lavish rewards provide traders with an incentive to maximise risk in the search for short-term profits.

.

Layer 310 . . . Bogdanovich, Petty, Dylan, What's Up Doc?, Wake Up Time and Running Down A Dream

.
You spend your life dreaming, running 'round in a trance
You hang out forever and still miss the dance
And if you get lucky, you might find someone
To help you get over the pain that will come
Yeah, you were so cool back in high school, what happened?
You were so sure not to have your spirits dampened . . .

- Tom Petty, Wake Up Time

I was talking with my daughter last week about a feature film called "What's Up Doc?", which we used to watch on our video, time after time, howling with laughter. It's one of the best comedies ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_Up,_Doc%3F_%28film%29

The film was directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Last night BBC4 cleared its schedule for a showing of a monster documentary made by Bogdanovich in 2007 - 4 hours of pure engaging magic, with never a dull moment for lovers of great rock music. It's a real tribute to the art of a great documentary maker that the film engages on so many levels, telling a heartwarming story of a great musician, singer and composer - Tom Petty.

Prior to watching this film I hadn't fully realised what a great band the Heartbreakers have been from the very beginning - a group of terrific musicians, and a kind of family and not just a group of performers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runnin%27_Down_A_Dream_%28film%29

I hadn't realised, either, that Tom and the band had hit the really big time in Britain before they were even known in America. Following that first amazing tour here, to promote their first album, they went home and went back to being struggling musos, trying hard to get radio stations to even play their music.

It's a measure of Tom's genius that later in his career he worked regularly with and made records with some of the true greats of rock music - Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison. The Travelling Wilburys seemed to come together almost by magic, and Tom made a major contribution to the band's songwriting and performing.

Tom's interest in music seemed to really take off when, as a kid, he was introduced to Elvis Presley by a relative who was working on one of the King's films. However, it was after seeing The Beatles performing on television - a startling experience according to him - that his world changed forever and he was convinced he would spend his life writing songs and performing in a band.

In the course of the film TP spoke with great clarity and intelligence, and without a shred of ego or pretention, about his life and times, and of course about his passion for music. He was as determined to make great records with a great sound and great songs as he was to put on great live shows.

Another measure of the greatness of Tom and the Heartbreakers is the fact that Dylan chose them to be his "backing" band for a world tour. Dylan's never going to play with musicians who are anything but the best, but it was interesting to listen to the guys in the band being interviewed about the way in which Dylan always stretches his band to the furthest limits by constantly playing in different keys, with different tempos, and improvising with the arrangements within his songs. With the Heartbreakers he knew he could do whatever he wanted and the band would always be paying attention and be able to respond and improvise and go with him.

At the conclusion of the film Tom says, "Everybody used to care. Now they don't care."

Tom still cares.

.............................................

Check out Ballad of a Thin Man - with Dylan hugely enjoying himself, and some great drumming and guitar soloing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPwyBcRnQow

Knocking on Heaven's Door - Dylan a master of the harmonica: notice the way he signals to the others he's enjoying the blast and he's going to extend the opening harp solo -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNdeKThOljo&NR=1

An extended live version of Refugee, with great Hammond and guitars -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxzviZmdSk&feature=related


Well, if he gets lucky, a boy finds a girl
To help him to shoulder the pain in this world
And if you follow your feelings
And you follow your dreams
You might find the forest there in the trees
Yeah, you'll be alright, it's just gonna take time, but now
Who could have seen you'd be so hard to please somehow . . .

................................................

Dylan
http://www.new-pony.com/timeline.html

................................................

What's Up Doc?

"Utterly hilarious is the best short description for "What's Up Doc?" This seldom-discussed, nearly forgotten hommage to screwball comedy is one of the most consistently funny, inspired, brilliantly realized ever made. There are no weak spots. Even if you are not a Streisand fan, it must be admitted that she has a gift for comedy (and she only stops the action once, to sing for five minutes). Ryan O'Neil is a perfect foil as an uptight college professor completely bamboozled by Streisand. Smaller roles are humourously portrayed by the likes of Austin Pendelton, Kenneth Mars and Mabel Albertson.

But, for those who love this movie, the real star of the show is MADELINE KAHN, as the all-time great comic character of Eunice Burns. Who can forget Eunice forcing her way into the hotel banquet hall, swinging her purse as a weapon? Or poor Eunice cowering on her hotel room bed, asking "what more can they do to me?"

Director Bogdanovich's version of the car chase which closes the film is so tremendously funny and entertaining that the viewer is sorry to see it end.

A richly comic feast."
- by mackjay
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069495/usercomments

"What's Up Doc is one of six movies I use to offset ANY bad mood. I have seen it countless times and still can't keep the suitcases straight.

This film is full of visual humor and one liners; Madeline Kahn screaming and taking on all comers while dragging the doorkeeper across the ballroom floor; the hotel crook using his "charm" to drop Mrs. Van Hoskins in her tracks; Eunice hiding in the bathroom because snakes "live in deathly fear of tile"; the promise of Howard conducting an avalanche in A Flat.

My only regret about this movie is that it began endless failed efforts by television and movie makers to replicate the chase through San Francisco. No one has. That sequence is the best example of humor, timing, backdrop, and action, of the chase genre. It has never been equalled by either serious or comedic directors.

Little mentioned in these reviews are Kenneth Mars and Austin Pendelton, two fantastic character actors who are the emeralds surrounding the diamonds of Streisand and O'Neal in the glorious setting of this jewel.

Thank goodness no one in What's Up Doc knows the meaning of the word "propriety!".

- by annmason1

"A zany, riotous slapstick comedy that lives up to what it purports to be...a zany, riotous slapstick comedy! Silly, simple and superficial . . . `What's Up, Doc?' is pure, unadulterated fun. Bugs Bunny should be proud.

Saluting its classic screwball predecessors, this innocent send-up has all the joy, style and panache one could ask for . . . Director Peter Bogdanovich, (who also wrote the story and co-produced) was at his zenith when he made this in 1972. Thirty years later, I've yet to see anything comparable to it.

Proving before her she had a nose for comedy (she was a hoot in `The Owl and the Pussycat'), Streisand outdoes herself here. She wisely (and generously) defers to the director and, in return, churns out her most engaging performance yet as a wacky, accident-prone, highly determined gal who creates utter chaos out of confusion while striving to win the guy. She proves once and for all she is a funny, FUNNY girl, her quicksilver timing a joy to behold. And, as a bonus, she sings!

`What's Up, Doc' is a refreshing reminder that laughter is still the best medicine. Th...Th...That's all, folks!"

- by Gary Brumbergh

"Not only in my top three favourites of all time, but most definitely the funniest hour and a half ever registered on celluloid. I first saw it in 1974 - I was nine - and instantly fell under the spell.

Streisand delivers like a sniper and actually looks sexy and desirable, O'Neal does his bespectacled Iowa music professor with all the dizziness of sex on legs that he was, and the cast generally glide through two separate crescendos of stupid situations, fuelled by dialogue in break neck speed, each more hilarious than the previous, all inexorably slipping into general uproar and mayhem at every turn.

This is a true comedy classic that hasn't lost any of it's breeziness, funk, sexiness and freshness with years. Dumb, twisted and invigorating all at once it's a true gem. Watch it and feel your I.Q. drop, and get hooked by all means. Or miss at your own peril."

- by Oggz

"I think this film is the funniest movie I have ever seen. No matter how many times I see it, I always find surprisingly fresh and completely hilarious. Barbra Streisand's performance is the centerpiece of the whole film. She simply glows with warmth, sexiness, and humor. There isn't a moment when we don't find her completely believable. Ryan O'Neal adds a great physical presence and is gloriously restrained. The film also contains some great supporting turns from Ken Mars, Liam Dunn, and especially Madeline Kahn, who nearly steals the movie in her film debut."

- by MAX80

......................................................

Nick Clegg has this piece in today's Guardian:

Don't take offence at our coalition. Its aims are liberal

A Lib-Con deal was the only responsible choice. And our shared aim is to build a fairer society by a radical dispersal of power

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/14/nick-clegg-coalition-aims-are-liberal?

It's helpful that Clegg's bothering to give us an update on his thinking, but Oxzen took issue with his concluding words:

    And from our different traditions we can pursue one simple, shared aim: this will be the government that re-empowers the British people.

Such a shallow and glib slogan - they can empower but they can't re-empower since the powerless have never had any real power. Without PR the concept is meaningless anyway. In Britain it's the major parties and the cliques who control them, and over-mighty governments and prime ministers, that have power. Money = power. I'll believe in decentralisation and power to the people if and when I see it.

There are, however, six good reasons for Clegg to have joined in a coalition with the Tories:

1) Too many Labour MPs made it clear they wanted no part of a coalition.
2) Too many Labour MPs made it clear they will never support PR.
3) New Labour needed to be kicked out - as a punishment for being a lousy government, and also for the party to re-think what it's about, under new leadership.
4) Britain needs a progressive and not a regressive Tory party, and with the help and the constraints of the LibDems Cameron has a chance of bringing this about.
5) Several things done by Labour need to be undone, and several things not done now badly need to be done.
6) There needs to be a demonstration that a coalition government can work effectively in Britain as a whole, just as it has in Scotland and elsewhere. Under a fair voting system coalition governments are both inevitable and desirable. Government by 'big tent' parties using whipping systems in the name of party 'discipline' both stifles debate and fudges issues.

One overwhelmingly bad reason for the LibDems to join with the Tories is to assist them in slashing spending on front-line public services, creating further unnecessary unemployment, and putting us into a deeper and more prolonged recession - all in the name of rapid repayment of debt and appeasing 'the markets'. Nick Clegg says nothing about this in this column. Since the rate of debt repayment was such a major issue in this election Clegg can't stay quiet about it in the name of 'collective responsibility'. We need to know what Clegg and Cable are now advocating, even if, or especially if, they continue to disagree with Osborne and his fellow slashers. I'm sure we're grown up enough to accept that they were simply outvoted in cabinet, if this is the case. It's all very well showing TV pictures of happy smiling faces around the cabinet table - we need to know what they're saying and who's arguing for what. Coalition is all very well - but it has to be done in an open and transparent manner, if it's to have credibility, legitimacy and public support.
.

Layer 303 . . . Whitehall Revisited, and Still Deadlocked

.
This should have been posted this morning. Arrived home this evening to find Brown's announced he intends to resign, the Lib Dems say they now want formal talks with Labour, and the Tories have belatedly said they'll offer a referendum on PR if the Lib Dems stick with them. So it's all still going to plan. Excellent.

.......................................................

First item on Start the Week on Radio 4 . . .  Whitehall, and its geography and history. It's been there as a thoroughfare for 1,000 years.

Whitehall has become a byword for government bureaucracy, but beyond the facade of civil service offices are the rooms that shaped our nation’s history. In Whitehall, a “biography of the most important street in Britain”, Colin Brown explores the hidden gems behind closed doors. From Henry VIII’s tennis courts, to Cardinal Wolsey’s wine cellar and the secret passage still in use today, Colin Brown reveals the long history of political drama and despair, spin and scandal in the street of Whitehall.

Whitehall: The Street that Shaped a Nation is published by Simon & Schuster.

..........................................

Still no conclusion to the talks that have been going on all weekend about the right to govern Britain. This is a good thing. Serious thinking is taking place up and down the country as well as up and down Whitehall and Westminster about the meaning of mandates, political allegiances and the future of politics in this country.

Polly Toynbee wrote a good column yesterday, again insisting that The Lib Dems must not make common cause with the Tories, and will only destroy themselves as a party if they refuse to be part of a grand alliance with the other left of centre parties.

A done deal? No, Tory-Lib is a marriage made in hell

Brown's letter captures a despondent mood. But Labour must not give up on a progressive alliance

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/09/election-clegg-cameron-brown-alliance?

Clegg is right to try all he can to get a deal from Cameron, on the economy as on PR. He can only legitimately turn towards Labour if it is self-evident that no way can this radical and progressive party fold in with a sub-Thatcherite programme. Clegg and Cable are against the £6bn cuts this year, and cautious about removing the stimulus too fast. This marriage made in hell is unlikely. And Labour panickers should take a deep breath (get some sleep) and trust in the great bulk of Lib Dem members who are progressives, not Orange Bookers, decent people. There are more thoroughly conservative types in Labour than among the Lib Dem clan. It would be good for both to bring the two together as repairing the rift in the left is the goal. The likes of Shirley Williams, Tom McNally (their leader in the Lords), Matthew Oakeshott, Charles Kennedy and as many other grandees as you care to mention are not about to end their long and honourable careers tricked into a coalition in which all pledges would be jettisoned within weeks. The southwest Lib Dem MPs who fear alliance with Labour are plain wrong: a large chunk of their vote is Labour people lending their votes, voting tactically, who would not support them again if they turned to the Tories.

The prize of an alliance government, far better than Labour on its own, is still there to be seized. But how depressing to hear old tribalists like David Blunkett today rejecting PR. Labour has its own internal fights to resolve, too.

Oxzen commented:

    "But how depressing to hear old tribalists like David Blunkett today rejecting PR."

Depressing, Polly? Why are you even surprised? Right from '97 the man was an appalling education secretary, one that made common cause with the likes of Woodhead, and took his reactionary and ignorant agenda ever further to the right. What on earth has Blunkett ever said or done that would cause anyone to think he's anything but the most right wing politician within the New Labour camp? He may talk the anti-Tory talk but his politics are well to the right of the Lib Dem progressive wing. Sadly he's by no means the only top-down authoritarian bully within New Labour's ranks.

Why would anyone give a damn any more about what David Blunkett thinks or says? Cheer up Polly - whatever happens next the Labour party finally has an opportunity to clear out both the Blairites and the Brownites and begin to rehabilitate itself as a proper social democratic party. Whether or not it takes it is another matter, however.
.

Layer 288 . . . Bravo Cleggo, Leadership Debates, Mos Eisley Spaceport, Spin Alley, Satire, Universities, Geriatric Judo and Aerial

.
Nick Clegg was on Andrew Marr's programme this morning, and was very good indeed. He was confident, convincing and didn't stumble in any way. He's making the case extremely well for a sizeable vote for his party as an instant demonstration that Britain is sick of the old two-party monopoly and needs a proper proportional voting system in order to have a more mature and credible democracy. As it happens his party's priorities are right in line with what Britain also needs. He's managed, with the help of his colleagues, to position the Lib Dems perfectly as the more radical and progressive party. If there's any justice in the world the electorate will do the right thing and ensure that neither the Tories nor New Labour get anything like an outright majority. S'exciting!

It's true that prior to the financial crisis Clegg was on the right wing (the 'Orange Book') side of his party, and supported the Chicago School / Friedmanite vision of neo-liberal economics, but that was then and this is now. It's reasonable to suppose he's learnt lessons, as have millions of others during the financial catastrophe that's gripped the world.

http://www.liberator.org.uk/media/lib-0904.pdf

And in any case, as has been said elsewhere, this is now, chiefly, a one-issue election - proportional representation.

......................................................

The Leadership Debates - Part Two

Last week's debate (on Sky News!) threw up no surprises, and most reactions suggested there's a pretty even split in public perception over who was the 'winner'. Oxzen, however, took issue with the Guardian editorial about the event -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/22/leaders-debates-nickclegg?

"all three leaders agreed on the fundamentals of every question. If voters want to see real difference between the three main parties they will have to look elsewhere."

Really? The one thing that stood out in this debate was Clegg's brave and principled insistence that it's foolish to renew or replace Trident with a similar weapons system, that fresh thinking is needed about the place of nuclear weapons, and that we should take a significant step towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons by not rushing into the purchase of a new generation of such weapons when there's no actual need to.

Brown certainly seized on this difference during the debate. How come the author of this piece didn't even notice it? Whether or not you agree with Clegg you must give him credit for remaining consistent on this fundamental difference, which Brown and Cameron are too afraid or too lacking in vision to grapple with themselves.

............................................

Marina Hyde wrote a brilliant piece about the insane happenings in the interview area - 'Spin Alley' - immediately after the debate:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/22/sky-leaders-debate-spin-room-abortion-democracy

Sky leaders' debate spin room: the live abortion of democracy

"Mos Eisley spaceport," sighs Ben Kenobi in Star Wars. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy ... " Evidently Obi Wan never visited Sky's post-debate spin room, which – pound-of-flesh for pound-of-flesh – must have been one of the most distasteful places to be in this galaxy or any other tonight.

The venue was an interactive science museum in Bristol, magically transformed by Rupert Murdoch's news network into a fully operational 10th circle of hell. Behold, the cream of Britain's arseoisie, as journalists, spin doctors and politicians interact in scenes that just scream "Come, friendly bombs …"

It was like watching the live abortion of democracy. Had the network decided the evening should have been immortalised in oil paint (surely only a matter of time), Hieronymus Bosch would have declined the commission on the basis that it was a hellscape too far even for him.

Still, the premise is simple. Even before the party leaders have finished debating, legions of spinners and spinners' lackeys materialise to explain exactly why everything you thought you saw and heard was wrong.

Having vapourised seconds before the debate, the spindroids were suddenly all back in the room, presumably having just slid through a haunted TV screen to begin immediately the task of dispensing weapons grade wisdom.

In America, they call these media pens Spin Alley, so those searching for a suitably small-time UK equivalent should alight on something like Fibbers' Close, or Bollocks Avenue.

To isolate the biggest whopper told in the room in the wake of the debate would be a task for a more sophisticated listening system than the human ear, but an audit even of those overheard in a mere six foot radius would have to include Douglas Alexander's "Gordon dominated the debate tonight. He left Nick and David Cameron trailing in his wake." In fairness, everyone was giving their best Iraqi information minister. "The infidels are nowhere near the airport! No one could ever want to slap David Cameron round the face with a wet fish!"

The entire affair is, quite simply, a two bath event, which is to say that when one finally escapes it, a single immersion in scalding water doesn't begin to get the psychological dirt off.

...........................................

Satire

Last week's 'In Our Time', as it happens, had satire as its subject.

In ancient times satirical attacks were known as satori!

Mocking the so-called elite in order to correct folly was seen as a noble calling.

Democracies need those who are prepared to attack the pomposity and snobbery of political elites, and need those satirists to be aggressively outspoken and even rude in order to drive home their points. The hypocrisy, pretense, falsehoods, self-indulgence, love of luxury and depravity of the ruling classes ought to be targeted.

The father of the genre, Lucilius, is the writer credited with taking satire decisively towards what we now understand by the word: incisive invective aimed at particular personalities and their wrongs.

All this happened under the Roman Republic, in which there was a large measure of free speech. But then the Republic was overthrown and Augustus established the Empire.

The great satirist Horace had fought to save the Republic, but now reinvented himself as a loyal citizen of the Imperium.

His satirical work explores the strains and hypocrisies of trying to maintain an independent sense of self at the heart of an autocracy.

This struggle was deepened in the work of Persius, whose Stoicism-inflected writing was a quietist attempt to endure under the regime without challenging it.

The work of the last great Roman satirist, Juvenal, was famously savage - yet his targets were either generic or long dead.

So was satire a conservative or a radical genre? Was it cynical or did it aim to 'improve' people? Did it have any real impact? And was it actually funny?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s0gwd#supporting-content

.....................................

Polly Toynbee's column yesterday was very good, and so far has attracted well over 1,000 comments on CiF:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/24/clegg-electoral-reform-tactics-romance?

Your heart might say Clegg. But vote with your head

Until the electoral system is reformed, progressives are stuck. If you do not want a Tory government, it's tactics, not romance

Get real. Keep your head screwed on. What result do you want? I will assume, dear Guardian reader, that like me you have two prime purposes. One is to prevent Cameron walking into Downing Street on 7 May. Equal first is to secure electoral reform so that we are never again presented with such a disgraceful voting choice. If that's not your view, you can save time, stop reading here and push off to some Murdoch organ that will amply satisfy your needs.

Hundreds of posters on Guardian threads yesterday wanted a Liberal Democrat win. No surprise, since there is no doubt that Clegg was the best in both debates. He talks human not slogans, he is sincere, and he stands by unpopular positions without trimming. Those who squirmed at Gordon Brown asserting that Trident will protect us against Iran and North Korea – or his failure to answer on what to do about long-term illegal migrants, their children and, soon, grandchildren: stateless, exploited and paying no taxes – will think Clegg a brave and decent man. So he is on human rights, and how to "punch above our weight" in Europe. He might make a good prime minister. But it won't happen this election because the abominable voting system makes it impossible. Win electoral reform and he might win next time, if there is a rerun after we have got voting reform.

But until that day, never take your eye off the ball, whatever it takes. If many go with heart not head against such ferocious odds, and Cameron gets the crown, electoral reform will be a dead duck, and it's back to square one.

I have never much minded what the best anti-Tory party is called, I just want the left of centre to win. I will always back whichever group combines being furthest left with winnability: that's always a trade-off.

It's not a game. The people who always, without fail, get hit hardest by Conservative governments are the powerless, the weakest, the voiceless – and they may not even vote. It is an absolute certainty that inequality will always worsen under the Tories, always did, always will.

This time it will happen faster . . .

It's low tactics, not high romance. Vote what best keeps the Tory out where you are. Buck that arithmetic at your peril.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Cif comments included:

rednorth

These damn Tories take people for simpletons.

If you are reasonably well off, there are good reasons to vote Tory, so why not just be honest and admit you vote Tory out of self interest, instead of persisting with this ludicrous conscience-salving charade that the Tories have social mobility and the poor's best interests at heart?

It always amazes me that Tories dislike Modern 'broken' Britain so much. It was, after all, built in their image by Thatcher, and sustained by Blair.

What do you people think this is? a fucking game?

We're heading for a Libcon pact. Ideas of a Libdem clean sweep are fanciful rubbish. The task of the clued-in social democrat is to frustrate Toryism when and wherever you encounter it. The Tories are not a political party in the same sense as Labour and the Libdems. They are a Conspiracy, funded by business and corporations, and kept in power by the power elites and media barons, class interests and landowners.

They, in Bevan's words, are lower than vermin, and our job, as left of centre voters, is to don any kind of nose peg, plastic bag or gas mask and put down the seeds of democracy everywhere they feed.

Democracy to Tories is poison.


TiggerNoFan

YouGov 22 Apr - Con 33 Lib Dem 31 Lab 27
Seats: Con 253, Lab 256, Lib Dem 112

OnePoll 24 Apr - Con 32 Lib 32 Lab 23.
Seats: Cons 262, Lab 213, LD 146

Now then Polly, remind us which one of these massive Tory overall majorities it is that you're so worried about?

That's right - there isn't one.

One poll I spotted an hour or two ago gave me pause for thought:

Mums Net voting intentions following 2nd debate - LD - 50.3% Lab 20% Con 18%

Seats: Lib Dem 598, Lab 23, Con 3, others 26

Funny how close the MumsNet 50.3% is to the 49% who would allegedly vote Lib Dem if they thought the Lib Dems had any chance of winning...

Maybe that's what both the Guardian and the Murdoch empires are so worried about that they want to frighten you into not voting Lib Dem.


Natacha

A very good article, one of the few truly intelligent pieces of journalism produced in this election.

For all the excitement Clegg has generated a couple of facts remain;

If we have a Tory government after May 6th Clegg might as well never have existed.

If we have a Tory government after May 6th there will be no electoral reform.

If we have a Tory government after May 6th the LibDems will find it much harder to achieve a breakthrough next time.

If we have a Tory government after May 6th Cameron has said he will actually make the current electoral system worse and even more skewed against the LibDems.

If we have a Tory government after May 6th Clegg will go back to being a nobody.

I am now a member of Hampstead and Kilburn Labour Party and I am risking being thrown out by saying this but everyone, Labour as well as LibDem voters, should vote tactically against the Tories.

In doing so you are voting positively for PR, social justice, a sensible economy and better public services. Cameron and Osborne's malicious, mendacious incompetence is the last thing the UK needs.

..............................................................

Graduates: a problem in four parts

Only when students, academics, employers and politicians can agree what university is for will answers emerge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/18/students-universityteaching?

Oxzen's comment:

How would it be if universities were places where people of all ages could go in order to pursue their own educational agendas, with a right to be as narrow or as broad in their learning pathways as they see fit? Maybe we could have universities that set out to meet the needs of learners, whatever they might be, with a view to creating a nation of well-balanced, highly intelligent, creative, enlightened and productive individuals who could make creative, enlightened and useful contributions to society? This might even make a refreshing change from generations of narrow, over-specialised and uncreative individuals pursuing self-interest and greed to the exclusion of any other goal in life.

..........................................

The end of the affair?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/23/sharon-shoesmith-crisis-child-protection

.........................................

Elderly 'should learn martial arts'

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20100422/thl-elderly-should-learn-martial-arts-d831572.html


Fighting disciplines such as kung fu, karate and judo involve techniques that can help brittle-boned patients fall more safely, research suggests.

.......................

Album of the Week - Aerial, by Kate Bush

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_%28album%29

http://www.katebush.co.uk/katebush_html/lyrics.html
.

Layer 240 . . . Superbowl, The Who, Gil Scott-Heron, Joseph Stiglitz, Bankers, Finance, Fairness, Values, the Flood Tablet, and Nick Clegg

.

Having somehow slept through most of the first half of last night's Superbowl, currently an annual ritual, I woke up right on the stroke of half time, just in time for the entertainment. Last year it was the incredible Bruce and the E Street Band blasting out the best mini-concert ever. Tonight it was the turn of The Who.

Performing on a circular stage, in the centre of the pitch (naturally) they did well. It was quite a spectacle. Radiating out from the stage was what turned out to be a huge circular “screen” - actually a series of radiating spokes of light strips, computer controlled, on which appeared various patterns and shapes synched to the music. It's difficult to describe, but the technology is very impressive (presumably very expensive) and must have been amazing for those within the stadium. Take a look, and have a listen -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PEM4uFcaF0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La5uLfOVKaw&feature=related

I don't currently know who was playing the bass for The Who but if you listen on a good sound system (or headphones) you can tell it was impressive – almost up to John Entwhistle standards. But I still miss The Ox. It's not quite the same seeing just the two old guys, Townshend and  Daltry, taking their bows at the end, arms around one another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oUb5iRZzpU&feature=related   -  acoustic Who

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDL8hhR2vKY  -  Springsteen and the band 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uxJNSks2xo&feature=related


In case anyone's interested, the underdogs won – the New Orleans Saints.

.....................................................

Poetry and Politics

Yesterday's Observer Review had three whole pages on Gil Scott-Heron, including its cover and pages 4-5. A man ahead of his time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/07/gil-scott-heron-comeback-interview

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/24/scott-heron-new-here


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott_Heron

Born in Chicago in 1949 Gil earned a writing scholarship to a New York university.

The “great pioneer of socially conscious soul and rap” has a new album out, called 'I'm New Here'.

Weirdly, and to his great credit, the guy who published Obama's two books in this country, Jamie Byng, has also republished Gil Scott-Heron's two books – 'The Vulture' and 'The Nigger Factory'. (See Layer 238)

“I was just taken aback by the voice, the words, the poetry . . . I had been raised on rock but this was just breathtaking. The seasoned voice, the wryness of the delivery, the level of irony and satire in the lyrics – the whole thing just blew me away. Discovering those songs was an epiphanic moment for me.”

Those songs include Winter In America, Lady Day & John Coltrane, Home Is Where The Hatred Is, Pieces Of A Man, The Bottle, Whitey On The Moon and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

“As a teenager, his writing skills earned him a scholarship to the Fieldston School in New York and, from there, he went on to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, chosen, he later said, because it was where his hero, Langston Hughes, had studied. It was there he met Brian Jackson, his musical collaborator on many of the great songs that would follow.

Together throughout the 1970s, Scott-Heron and Jackson made music that reflected the turbulence, uncertainty and increasing pessimism of the times, merging the soul and jazz traditions and drawing on an oral poetry tradition that reached back to the blues and forward to hip-hop. The music sounded by turns angry, defiant and regretful while Scott-Heron's lyrics possessed a satirical edge that set them apart from the militant soul of contemporaries such as Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield.

"I still can't think of too many performers who have the intellectual range in their songwriting that takes in satire and social commentary apart from the early Bob Dylan and maybe the young Randy Newman," says Jamie Byng. "But there's also a great empathy there. Gil writes about the state of the world, but also about community, family, and the plight of the individual. And, he has never compromised. That's maybe a big part of the reason why his music never really crossed over. What he was saying was too raw, too truthful."

In more ways than one, then, Gil Scott Heron was, and remains, the great outsider, exalted by his devoted faithful, overlooked by the mainstream. His influence, though, is pervasive, though few and far between are the rappers that can make their lyrical gift, or its delivery, seem so effortless. "I work hard at it," he says, "just like I worked hard at getting my masters degree. It's not just something I sit down and do. You have to learn and keep learning."

"He sees himself as a live performer and a story teller," the album's producer Richard Russell told me last week. "Even in the studio, he brings this extraordinary energy with him, this natural, god-given ability to perform, to tell it like it is. The words just seem to flow though him.

He's a genuine artist in a way that most performers aren't anymore. He has no conception of time, no regard for money. He seems utterly free from the normal everyday burdens people carry.”

He's playing the RFH on 20th April.

…....................................................................

More On Emotions

Newsnight tonight had a feature on blubbing politicians (see previous Layer). It was pretty incoherent, and though I quite like the female presenter, her comments and questions left you wishing for Paxo to be on the case. He's a hard act to work alongside.

Also on the programme was writer and psychologist Susie Orbach, whose work I've always liked and respected, but even she had nothing new or interesting to say about the emotional cracking up we saw or heard about this weekend – Campbell and Brown.

There was some rubbish spoken about whether post-Diana we expect our leaders to 'show some emotion', and a slight suggestion that they can blub to order, as part of their repertoire, which is plainly ridiculous. Sure – Blair can put on a 'sincere' and 'emotional' performance when he thinks fit, but there's a world of difference between his bullshit and what we saw in Campbell's case, where the man had clearly just lost it under less than fierce questioning.

Like The Terminator, though, he'll be back.

…..............................................................

Start The Week

Radio 4 this morning gave us a good dose of the great Joseph Stiglitz, who was virtually the only economist to predict our great financial crisis. It's his birthday tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stiglitz

His books include Globalization and Its Discontents, Principles of Macroeconomics, Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development, The Three Trillion Dollar War,   Whither Socialism ?
 and 2010, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.

He said we now need a totally different model of capitalism, and a totally different attitude to regulation of banking and finance. Most recent economic growth was due only to the property bubble. Even he didn't imagine the extent of the bankers' arrogance and stupidity when they were gambling insanely with billions in order to make their huge bonuses.

But it's not just their mismanagement of risk he takes issue with. He points out that they clearly don't give a stuff about the morality of taking advantage of the poor and ignorant, or even the rich and ignorant.

He says we still haven't seen enough 'Keynesian' spending on infrastructure, technology and education. More needs to be spent in order to stay out of recession. (NB Cameron and Osborne.)

Incredible amounts of money are being wasted on the military – on weapons that don't work, to fight enemies that don't exist.

He also spoke about the insane level of salaries and bonuses in the financial 'services' sector – how the lure of big money is so great as to be irresistible, with the result that many bright and capable and creative people who could be of benefit to society are drawn into being hired hands in the scummy banking casinos in places like London and New York. They don't have the strength of character to resist the temptations and just do the right thing.

There was also a brief discussion about the 'John Lewis' model of employee-owned businesses and cooperatives.

…...........................................

On the same programme Peter Brook spoke about the role of the theatre (and by implication the creative arts) in enabling us to see through the lies and bullshit into the true nature of our society, and see through to truth and reality.

Interestingly he also mentioned that Blair actually believes every word he says, so can he be called a liar? Obama is very different, so we can still have genuine hope, and not just pursue false hopes.

In terms of developing a culture of non-violence and tolerance – these have to be passionate affirmations of strong belief, and not just 'passive' attitudes.

A passionate criticism of bankers is needed as an affirmation of higher values.

…......................................

The Flood Tablet

Today's object in the History Through 100 Objects series was the so-called Flood Tablet – a clay writing tablet found in Northern Iraq, dating from 700BC approx.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth#Tablet_eleven_.28XI.29.2C_the_flood_tablet

The message of this ancient story is that we should abandon wealth, spurn property, seek our own survival, help others, and then we will in turn be rewarded. [Very similar to the Buddhist story of Siddharta?]

God brings 'the flood' because the world is full of violence. [Maybe this is what climate change is all about!]

This story marks the changeover from polytheism to monotheism. Belief in a single, rational, creative, spiritual entity.

…..............................................

Radio Clegg

Nick Clegg was also on the radio, talking about many things, including his disgust at the MPs who were 'flippers' and deliberately made stacks of cash out of lying about their 'main residence' and getting wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. He pointed out that there were NO Lib Dem MPs caught up in this, and that Brown and Cameron have taken NO action against their flippers, even though it's quite clear that their capital gains have been property development at OUR expense.

It seems Clegg is keen to reduce the size of classes to 15 at KS1. Seems like a good idea to me – especially in areas where there are high levels of E2L and SEN. Interesting that very few others have paid any attention to this. I've even heard of headteachers who have increased the size of KS1 classes back to 30 on taking over a school – presumably in order to invest more resources in chasing SATs scores at KS2.

Clegg spoke convincingly about what he called shocking levels of inequality in this country, especially in inner cities in places like Sheffield. We should all care about having a fairer society, and working for a fairer country. [See other blogs on The Spirit Level].

He spoke passionately about the need for fairer taxes, and for the rich to pay more in taxes. Also – no-one should pay any tax on the first £10,000 they earn. For Clegg, fairer taxes are the most important policy issue.

Not much to disagree with there. Well to the left of NuLabour, I'd say.
.