If you’re British, you’ve probably spent the last few weeks staring at the TV in something of a bewilderment as President Obama tries to push universal healthcare reforms through Congress. Bewildering because I was under the impression that universal healthcare was pretty much a settled issue – we’re all agreed that it’s a good idea. It is faintly amusing though that the argument American politicians are having we had in 1948. It’s almost as though America are 60 years behind us. Maybe this means in a few years time they’ll be an American fit enough to run a four minute mile?
The almost universal admiration of the NHS (Hannan excepted) that we’ve seen in response shouldn’t be much of a surprise though. It was created after a long, punishing war that hit the working classes the most. That may sound like there are parallels with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but it’d be most uncharitable – after all, World War II only lasted six years.
What amuses me about the whole debate going on in America though is how easily defeated the arguments of Republican and conservative opponents are. They question how the government can run something so big – but seem perfectly happy with the government running their untouchable sacred cow: the army. You’d think they’d get more worked up about the government run army – after all, it’s the army who are more likely to actually have “death panels”.
But alas, the American army is a lot like our NHS: those who criticise it are immediately the villains. Though to be fair, our army is a lot like the American healthcare system too: overworked, not really good enough, but pretty good at killing poor people.
A subtle shift has been going on in the war with Afghanistan, apparently. The politicians in America and Britain are talking less about the need to turn the country into a vibrant multi-party democracy, like they’ve been trying to do with Iraq, and have been talking about “stability” instead. Obviously this is because they’ve realised that turning Afghanistan democratic is going to be really difficult, so have instead redefined the challenge. After all – a draw is a bit like a win, but with less people getting a bit upset.
Kabul needs a tough, tightfisted central ruler who can manage the warlords and promote such basics as trade, clean water, and – we’ve moved on since 1485 – education for girls
He’s arguing that Afghanistan needs a Henry VII. And whilst this is a good idea, is a bit impractical, what with Henry having been dead for about 500 years. Though this did make me think of another leader who could do this job, who has a proven track record, and will provide an authoritarian, yet stable government:
Saddam Hussein.
Unfortunately he too has been dead for a few years now, but just think what wonders he could have done for the original war on terror, if they’d had the foresight to keep him alive and given him a new country to play with. He’d have made the perfect President of Afghanistan.
When Saddam was in charge of Iraq he ruled with an iron fist, but managed to hold together a country made up of a patchwork of tribes, ethnicities and interests that’d been cookie-cuttered out of the map by a pencil drawing artificial borders. Sound familiar?
What’s more is that Saddam would have been the perfect consensus candidate. The west need someone they can work with, and they’ve a long history of working with Saddam throughout the 1980s, and Saddam would’ve never dreamed of working with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, having been mutual enemies whilst he was leader of Iraq. It’s not even as though he’d be a puppet of the west in the eyes of the Afghan people, as he’s got a well-known history of standing up to and opposing the Americans, and it’s fairly unlikely that he’d introduce western concepts like “democracy”.
When Saddam became Iraqi Prime Minister, under President Bakr, before he became President and sort of ballsed up a few diplomatic matters, he did some relative good for thte Iraqi people too, nationalising the oil industry, creating a buoyant middle class. Maybe he could do the same for Afghanistan’s economy and boost trade just like Michael White says it needs – after all, he has some industry contacts: specifically the French arms industry and the Russian nuclear industry.
As Iraqi President, Saddam ruled Iraq as a secular government, perhaps because he was in the Sunni minority – not that this would be a problem in Afghanistan as it’s 85% Sunni. He also ran Iraq as a highly centralised state – another item on Michael White’s list, and another key component of holding the country together.
The best bit of this would have been that there’d be no chance of Saddam going a bit mental and starting wars like he did before – Afghanistan’s armed forces are – as is my understanding – a couple of guys with AK47s and some paper planes. So he’d pose no threat to international security, as was alleged during his first go at running a country.
The King of Pop is dead, with no immediately obvious heir to the throne. I imagine in the next few days we’ll see the different pretenders to the crown emerge, each sounding things out and making their case – this, however, terrifies me. If a candidate can capture the public’s imagination they could take power quickly and we could – god forbid – end up with a situation where Bono is in a position of power, rather than just pushing his nose up to the backside of it. The other possible outcome is that of civil war if no one contender takes the lead – and this would be dreadful for society, as can we really cope with another King Richard vs Prince John, or Oasis vs Blur during a recession?
It is for these reasons that I have decided to submit myself as an independent candidate for the new King of Pop. And I hope that you, zeitgeist, will support me.
Sure, I may not have the superficial qualities associated with the office: musical talent, a back catalogue of hits or even a likeable personality, but I believe I am the candidate to steer popular culture through these serious times, because of my political and managerial skills.
Here are my manifesto pledges that, if elected, I will enact to radically reform the entire pop music landscape:
1) Blanket ban on interviews with music professionals.
There’s nothing worse than hearing a musician be interviewed, be it their uninformed opinions or ability to talk shit. No, your new record isn’t a journey, it isn’t “saying something” and I think things are slightly more complicated than your song implies. No, we can’t just solve all of the world’s problems with “love”.
This ruling will also apply to appearances on Nevermind the Buzzcocks, unless the musician demonstrably has anything resembling charisma (unlikely).
2) Politics banned unless the musician knows what they are talking about, and ideally, have a degree in a relevant subject
Don’t get me wrong, I love political music – but far too often is politics used by mainstream acts to boost flailing careers, or to behave sanctimoniously towards the public despite their private jet ownership. I realise this is a tired observation, but the pop world needs a King who will prevent the Bonos, Geldofs and Madonnas from preaching until they’ve written theses on the economics of debt reduction.
3) Only political music will be allowed
This may sound contradictory to the above – but it is not. This will narrow the range of artists and cut all of the crap and waste out of popular culture. Overnight, superficial acts who only sing about feelings and emotions, and who are inherently selfish and inward-looking, will be wiped out. Pop will be forced to look outwards at things that really matter, and fight for and raise awareness of issues in a genuine way. There will be a dispensation made available for songs that are about social and scientific issues, but these will have to be justified in a political context.
4) No sell-outs
The four-big-labels oligarchy will be dismanted and replaced with DIY independent labels – and acts will be banned from performing in venues bigger than, say, Islington Academy. All albums will have to be bought from the merch stand. In additional, file sharing will be fine – but people will pay back the artists by going to gigs and supporting the scene.
5) James Blunt will be banned from music.
I don’t think I need to explain this one.
So that’s my manifesto – so, zeitgeisty readers, I implore you to elect me, James O’Malley, as the new King of Pop.
I went down to Westminster today to see what was going on, and to check if Gordon Brown was still the Prime Minister or not. I bumped into Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox whilst down there – so seizing the moment I thought I better ask him something. I am now officially a citizen journalist:
If you’re anything like me, chances are you’ve been full of righteous anger over the last week because of the whole MP’s expenses thing. Every day, the Telegraph has been giving us more and more reason to hate politicians, because it turns out that the clichéd complaint, previously only peddled by those not informed enough to follow politics as closely as obsessives, is literally true: They are all on the take and are only looking after themselves after all.
The ridiculous claims reached their pinnacle on Tuesday, when it was revealed that one Tory ponce was claiming for cleaning his moat. Obviously the sceptic might think that the word “moat” is probably describing a tiny pond or something, and is blowing it out of proportion, but no, look at the pictures – he literally does have a moat.
It’s perhaps not surprising that the public’s faith in politics and politicians is at an all time low, and there’s a lot of speculation that the next election will see the biggest kicking out of incumbents in ages (and not just because of the Prime Minister being shit at his job).
So obviously this is a concern for politicians, and they need to do something to turn it around, to try and reassure the public that they’re not all corrupt bastards – and I’ve an idea for what they can do. Previously I’ve advanced the theory that we’re reliving 1979 – the Tories are doing well, we’re in a recession, The Specials are touring again – but I’ve changed my mind, and I think that politicians need to go further back in time to find a solution: Back to the 19th century. If they want to save Parliamentary democracy, they need to repeal the Great Reform Act.
The Great Reform Act was the change in law that enfranchised millions of more people, for the first time gave most men the vote, and gave everyone proper representation for the first time. Politics is no longer seen as a noble profession – so what better way is there to change this perception than to return to a time when politics was constituted entirely of nobles?
Things wouldn’t be terribly different – the Tories would still be there and doing well, and given the polls it’s entirely plausible that the long-dead Whig party stand a better chance of being elected than the Labour party at the next election.
Repealing the Great Reform Act would put the expenses scandal to bed once and for all. MPs owning second homes (to have one in London and one in their constituency) is one of the major points of controversy – if we went back to having rotten boroughs, and changed it so that all of the constituencies were inside the M25, no MP (except for maybe Keith Vaz) would need to have a second home. Sure, this may lead to some of the same issues as used to happen before the Great Reform Act, such as major population centres like Manchester and Birmingham not being represented, but without representation… who are they going to complain to?
What’s more – if we go back to a situation where only land-owners have the vote, then it won’t be possible to complain about millionaire Tories having moats – as moats will not be the exception, but will pretty much become the norm.
Does anyone want to join me in a peasants revolt, in calling for a less transparent and democratic Parliament?
One of the most boring responses to a criticism is probably the phrase “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”. It sounds pretty clever when you’re discussing something trivial, but to follow this logic through to being consistent would lead to me having to give committing genocide a go (perhaps starting with a race with a small population? Just to test the water, like), and using the phrase “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it” in conversation when other people slag off things that I like, just to experience how it feels when you use the phrase. And I’m not sure I could quite bring myself to do that.
My point is that for years I’ve been slagging off poetry – the creative medium that best manages to put up a fight to musical theatre in the battle for “crappiest art”. It’s drummed into us at school, as if to imply that it’s actually in some way vaguely important (much like how being able to dribble a football around some cones becomes important for twenty minutes a week as the PE teacher goes on a power-trip) – and I don’t think it would be unfair to say that it’s perceived as a dying art. After all – before telly was invented, watching a pompous cock read out some words that may or may not vaguely rhyme was the only means of entertainment, assuming you weren’t rich enough to have one of the serfs executed for laughs.
Today, for reasons that made it seem like a good idea (I might explain later if an idea I’ve had comes to fruition), I went to see some poetry, and I’m pleased to report that I was right all along – and if poetry is a dying art form, I say let it die, and put a bullet between its eyes just to make sure.
It was an open-mic poetry reading. And it was bad. Very bad. I’ve written a bit of explanation below in the style of a bad poem, to try and illustrate how torturous it was.
People sat in rows holding notes,
Berets, wine, and middle class satisfaction filling the air,
Posters for ’spaces’ to rent in Hoxton pinned up on the wall,
Faux-intellectualism permeating through the atmosphere,
As Islington ponces read collections of words they call ‘poems’.
They rarely rhymed, as real poems don’t have to,
Their structure was about as consistent as this,
They had no message, no meaning, no stance,
“Here is a poem about about Yorkshire I wrote whilst on holiday in Yorkshire”
Said one man, failing to recognise that he was wasting his life.
He was just reading out his blog with a few dramatic pauses
Punctuated by applause.
A “jazz poet” from Lewisham was up next,
He pronounced his “I”’s like “Ah”, like he was Gambit out of X-Men.
A ginger woman gave an uninformed rant about the role of religion in politics,
Probably because she’d describe herself as “spiritual”,
Given the bollocks she was talking in previous poems.
One man said he was going to read some prose that we might find “poetic”,
So he was basically reading an article he wrote,
About the campaign to release some bloke in America,
I’m sure his poem was going to make all of the difference.
The worst bit was when someone had a poem about the BNP,
“Are there any BNP members here?”, he asked,
“Yep, right here”, said one man in the audience, oddly proudly,
“I hope this isn’t fascist poetry night”, I thought to myself.
The poem wasn’t what you’d expect,
No “smash the fascists”, no “fuck the BNP”, no rallying cry,
Just some bizarre metaphor about full moons,
I didn’t really get it.
I think “Poetry” is just a pretentious name for a collection of words that those not talented enough to write music or those not big headed enough to write a blog use to describe a “collection of words about something”.
At risk of sounding like I’ve either got a vendetta against morris dancers, or am a big fan of them, due to how frequently I seem to write about them, I saw some more Morris Dancing today.
My friend Eve and I were passing through Trafalgar Square today when we stumbled upon literally hundreds of Morris Dancers – it was all because of this. We hung around for a few minutes to take in what can loosely be described as “culture” (ie: old men prancing around), and to enjoy the amusing juxtaposition with some Falun Gong dancers who were also on the square waving their traditional hankies around too (theirs were red) – it was almost like a dance battle were taking place.
One thing that stunned us though were that one troop of Morris Dancers had blacked up. It’s just not something you’d expect to see in this century, let alone in a city as diverse and cosmopolitan as London. Clearly these country bumpkins who’d been bussed in for the day were as familiar with social progress as I imagine they are with modern technological wonders like the wheelbarrow or not marrying their cousins.
As we moved closer, to try to verify that yes, there really were blacked up men dancing on Trafalgar Square, a couple heard Eve saying “Well this isn’t very politically correct, is it?”
“Ah, but how do you know they’ve ‘blacked up’? They could have blackened their faces to be like miners, as they’re from rural England, and Morris Dancing was around before they knew about black people”, they said quite smugly, having shown us young people who’s boss.
It was at this point that we had to make a decision: how to respond? Obviously, the route I’d usually take in such a situation would be to troll them, and try and wind them up – but unlike most people who I’ll try to wind up, they were on the older side of middle-aged, so my genetic programming to be polite to old strangers kicked in and prevented me from jumping on my high-horse.
In the end, I responded with a rather tepid “Well, it doesn’t reflect terribly well on them, does it?” followed by explaining that Eve and I were members of the “PC Brigade”.
Seizing the moment, the wife of this couple delivered a knock-out blow in the tête-à-tête, by wryly wondering aloud if that by presuming that it was racist, when it might not be, that makes Eve and I the racists? The logic was pretty sound – after all, if I were to speculate that Robert Mugabe were a nasty, totalitarian bastard, when it turns out that he’s actually a lovely old man, that makes me the nasty, totalitarian bastard. The couple walked off, smugly, with their metaphorical copies of the Daily Express under their arms.
However, what makes this interesting that having since done some research – it turns out that the blacked-up Morris dancers was almost certainly playing on racial stereotypes. Here and here explain that blacking-up is something to do with North African origins of the practice. And as if this isn’t explicit enough, one Morris Dancing group based in the North West are called the ‘Britannia Coco-nut Dancers’ and you can see from their photos that they look like they enjoy blacking up.
So in a way, we were sort of right – they were blacking-up, and I guess the ethical question of “blacking up isn’t really on, is it?” remains for you to decide.
But take THAT old couple who I’ll never speak to ever again. I win at Morris Dancing factual accuracy.
She starts off by making possibly the most banal observation about Twitter that’s it’s possible to make:
A friend showed me his twitter ‘feed’ this weekend. A cure for insomnia if I ever saw one. Did I really want to know what three hundred followers made of the film ‘In The Loop’. One opinion would do. I have absolutely no interest in knowing that someone had to take a roast dinner around to her grandmother’s house on behalf of her parents whilst visiting on Sunday.
Yeah, and what about people in cinemas who talk and rustle their food? Or kids on buses with loud music playing ringtones? You’re commentary is inspired, Nadine. Or it would be if you didn’t miss the point is such stunning fashion. The “why care?” can only be made if you fail to understand what Twitter is about. Twitter is a a meritocracy, where the most interesting people rise to the top – something you’d think a Tory would support. If you’re boring, no one will listen to you – that’s why people who only post Facebook-esque updates about what they’re eating or that they’re “happy!!!!!” only have four followers and people who try to be interesting and funny have thousands. If you’re bored by the people you see on your Twitter feed, you’re following the wrong people.
Obviously, there is a lot of seemingly trivial one-liner things on there. But to judge Twitter by individual updates is like judging a book by individual pages – the returns or “payback” are largely from the cumulative experience of following someone, and it’s exactly the same in real life. If someone you didn’t know told you what they had for lunch, you might not care – but if a friend did – say, in Nadine’s case, if it were that crazy creationist woman from the Dispatches documentary – you might be interested.
I also find Nadine saying she only wants one opinion rather than three hundred interesting. I realise she represents a Tory safe-seat but surely she must pay at least lipservice to the democratic process. You know the democratic process, right? The one where the opinions of many people are aggregated to make a judgement on something. Would it be childish to suggest that maybe she’s referring to the Bible as her “one opinion”, as she has got quite a history of Bible-bashing? Perhaps, but it isn’t going to stop me. God’s already on Twitter, anyway.
Nadine continues on:
Twittering has to be a symptom of a dysfunctional society. You know the one I’m talking about; when people don’t talk to, care about, help, consider or even interact with each other anymore.
Yeah, Twitter isn’t social media at all – look at all of it’s other functionality that isn’t designed for interacting with other people. Did Nadine’s friend actually show her Twitter, or just a rock on the ground and say that it was called Twitter? She does later refer in her post to a “lap top” with a space in there, so maybe this tech-no-lo-gy thing is all new to her?
What’s brilliant about Mad Nad’s blog post though is the last bit, where she seems to – whilst completely unaware – demolish any point she was trying to make in the first place:
At my daughters birthday party this week 60 good and close friends turned up. People she has known since nappies, playgroup, school and university. She doesn’t twitter to any of them. She may spend hours running up her phone bill, but at least she and her friends still know how to talk to, care for and laugh with each other.
Kids today! Spending so much time on the “telephone” talking to each other and interacting despite a lack of geographic proximity! This is what’s causing society to dysfunction – it’s not the disparity in the distribution of wealth, or lack of social mobility disenfranchising people causing “broken Britain” – it’s all of these new passed-buck-holding technologies.
I don’t talk to, care about, or laugh at anything on my Twitter feed. It’s a completely joyless experience. That’s why it has so many millions of users and has taken off so spectacularly recently.
Nadine ends by explaining that:
Whilst psycho analysing twitter over lunch, we came up with some things you just wouldn’t dare twitter, ever, ever. Especially if you were an MP.
Yeah, you have to be careful. You wouldn’t get many kind replies on Twitter if you were to post that you’d just voted to restrict abortion rights, for example.
I think Alan Johnson was right about the best way to campaign for the next election: David Cameron might seem tolerable but just look at the crackpots sitting behind him.
Last night I wrote a rather exasperated post about what looks like Gordon Brown’s desire to lose the next election in as spectacular fashion as possible. Unfortunately, it looks as though there would need to be an Act of God or something to stop the Tories winning. Which is thoroughly depressing.
This got me thinking though – what act of God could turn things around for the Labour party, short of a hurricane wiping out most of rural England? Then it hit me: Thatcher can’t have long left, can she?
Sure, you could argue that it’s in poor taste to speculate about someone’s death before they’re actually dead, but I think it’s generally agreed amongst people of a lefty persuasion that Thatcher is a special exception. Just imagine if she were to die before the next election…
David Cameron will be forced to go on TV and look really sad, and talk about how excellent she was. All of the old Tories who we assumed were also dead will be wheeled out on TV to give gushing tributes about how she sold out the poor and concentrated wealth and power in the hands of the few, and all of the nasty stuff like that. TV will be filled with documentaries and debates, full of old footage of the Tories fucking things up. The abandonment of Keynesianism and the relaxing of exchange controls that led to the current financial crisis will be explained again and again. The general public will be reminded that behind Cameron’s seemingly affable, posho face lurks the nasty party that were voted out in 1997.
Would this be enough to give Gordon Brown the boost he needs? Possibly, but judging by his track-record he’d probably fuck it up somehow anyway.
I can’t be the first person to have considered this possibility… does anyone know of anyone who has done before?
