It's not all doom and gloom, dear readers, for there is to be a Royal Wedding. Huzzah, and so forth. I thought now was a good time to have a warble about it since it's happened more than a week ago and in keeping with this blog, is therefore ripe for comment.
The good news is large and varied, so there's plenty to be enthused about. First and formost obviously, is that William won't need to steal another helicopter, meaning it can probably do something useful, like stop people from dying or something. The second one being that she isn't a member of royalty to begin with, proving that social mobility and meritocracy are alive and well, of course, and reducing the chance of any offspring suffering from webbed feet or haemophilia, which in turn reduces the chance of Russian mystics being given free reign over a nation which, quite frankly, has already suffered enough fools.
Also, the Royal family has taken note that we live in difficult times of austerity, so they are even going to pay for some of the wedding, which is generous of them, echoing a trend set by 233,000 other people every year. Although they are not going to pay for security, which really says a lot about how they feel about Kate, I suppose. Anyway, further good news for the common folk of our fair land - it's going to be a national holiday. Fantastic news for everyone lucky enough to still have a job by next April, if only to remind them about how dull it is to spend all your time at home, again, echoing a trend set by 2.45 million people. I was struggling to think of why I would want the 29th of April off in particularly, since it's a pretty unremarkable day as days go. Even so, I am sure something must have happened around that date.
Famous weddings throughout history
Nah, it's gone. Anyway, rejoice good people of Great Britain. Lift your eyes, be ye not dead, from the gutter that is your life and rejoice in the brilliant radience of Royal matrimony. However, since we will have to share some of the burden - the burden of joy - with our most highly esteemed unemployed people, I've got a few sound tips for how we can reduce the amount of security budget that will be footed by the taxpayer.
1) Hold the Royal Wedding in a Nuclear Bunker
Sure, it's a bit small and pokey, but there are only two of them getting married down there. It is secure as can be, protecting against intercontinental ballistic missiles with a high atomic yeild. And finally, if properlly stocked and in the result of a thermo-nuclear war, the happy couple could probably live down there for decades, which is longer than the seven years offered by the church.
2) Abolish the monarchy.
This might seem like a silly choice, but when you actually think about it you know it makes sense, and would save us all a lot of money and really over the top wet headlines and disturbing media scrums. It's cheaper to build a gallows that host a wedding.
3) Marry someone who no one cares about.*
Strange as it may seem, marry someone who no one knows or even cares about. Yes, this is a little harsh on Kate, I suppose, but since no one is really interested in William, it stands to reason that security threats decrease exponentially as the reknown of the person in question also diminishes.
4) Have the wedding in Afghanistan.
This might sound totally stupid, but again, think about it. There are at least 61,000 troops in Afghanistan, probably more, and getting up towards 10K of them are British. William can fly a helicopter, so no problems with the terrain or travel arrangements. The media has already warmed to the idea of Royalty in Afghanistan, so there's no complaints from that quarter either. It's isolated, and has a kind of romantic desolation to it, I suppose. Perhaps for the honeymoon instead?
Anyway, cheer up folks. It's going to make everything better, hopefully. From reading the above post, some readers may also think that I'm actually against the royal wedding. I'm not against it. I'm dead set against it, and for all you misty eyed princess lovers out there, you pay for it. I'm not and you can't make me. But then again, I'm on the dole, so I guess in a round about way I win in the long run.
*Do a google search for "No one important", that's what comes up. Angsty teenagers. I love it.
Thursday 25 November 2010
Tuesday 23 November 2010
The Pie-Maker King
As promised, here follows my account of Fable III. Like Black Ops in the previous post, I only had Fable III for a short while and mainly did the campaign. I was unable to enjoy the online experience it offered, but unlike Black Ops, I thought it was actually a good game.
Now, I've always been a fan of RPG's since I played Runescape, Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights when I was younger, followed up by Oblivion and Fallout 3 later. Morrowind especially stands out as one of the greatest games I've ever played. But all that is largely irrelevant, because like I said, today is Fable day. As a final disclaimer, I've not played the previous two Fable games or any contemporary or more gritty RPG's like Dragonage. Anyway, I liked Fable, and this is a few reasons why.
Fable III: def. A story so good it has been told several times.
Gameplay:
As Gameplay goes, Fable is simple and straightforward. The control buttons indicate different attacks between range, magic and melee, with the obligatory "do things" button that you have to hold to do most things, which is a nice touch given the amount of times I've agreed to do things in the past by randomly mashing buttons to get through the dialogue. It's a little bit of Too Human, using the left analogue stick to move your character in a whirlwind of stabby death towards things that have upset you, while the right stick angles the camera. The menu system is a little bit confusing, but once you get to grips with it the Path to Glory and Sanctuary are not too confusing. Generally, it handles well.
There's plenty to do, from mundane (but fun) quests involving rounding up chickens to being a shameless mysoginistic pig with four wives (one I later divorced). You must do a certain amount of story progression to unlock new area's to travel to, but everywhere is inhabited by the same likeable peasants and unlikeable mustache twirling villains you'd expect in this kind of game. The great thing about Fable is that it doesn't take itself, or the genre, too seriously, which means you're more forgiving of some of its lack of virtures. The voice acting is incredibly funny, and some of the quests can be really cinematic and enjoyable, allowing you to imagine you're in a cheesey film like Pirates of the Caribbean - Redcoat soldiers fighting Zombies, for example, led by a guy who is more than a little bit like Sharpe and voiced by Simon Pegg.
The cast list are fantastic, the openess of the world is fairly good, although there doesn't seem to be a lot of neutrality in there. You play either as a goodie or a baddie, or mix it up so you never really settle on one, but the options for doing so are, as I said, rather black and white. As far as playability goes, that's rather good, as you've got a lot reasons to give it another playthrough to see how differently things would have fared had you made different choices.
"The bottom line is that Fable III is fun, well-executed and utterly ridiculous." Says Wired.
Graphics:
The graphics are not particularly outstanding. Remember, this is a game made in 2010, so it isn't exactly Space Invaders but it can look a bit cartoony and lack a certain level of realism. But that is just the kind of game that Fable III is. It's a Renassaince era version of Runescape, full of wacky characters, zaney quests and bring, colourful and simple locations that give you the feeling of being young again. Then again, when it wants to be cool or violent or more realistic, it does it quite well. Some of the finishers for enemies are quite brutal and well put together, and the glowing eyes of Hollow Men or jumping and ferocity of the Werewolves.
Occassionaly, there are glitches, however. Personal ones I encountered were, upon making pies, the character would eventually being to levitate during the minigame, along with all of his equipment.
Plot
I don't want to give too much of the plot away to Fable, but it is - as it should be for any RPG - the best and most defining characteristic of the game. You play as King Logan's brother (or sister), and it becomes immediately apparent that he is an oppressive tyrant. Fleeing his wrath, you must band together an interesting collection of wonderful characters to overthrow him in a revolution. The main quest is supplimented heavily by well thoughtout sidequests that tend to be a bit cooler than Bethesda's usual - go here, take this thing to someone else - subquests.
As the game draws to a close, the reason for your brother's apparent callousness and madness become terrifyingly apparent, and the player is forced to make a series of increasingly Machiavellian decisions. The underlying theme of the game by this point is that while you can be a benevolent ruler, your kindness and inaction will cause all those you care about to suffer horrifically in the future. However, by adopting draconian policies and relenting on promises, you can avert the disaster that is looming over you, but only by becoming a monster and earning the scorn of all those who once called you a friend.
Although the decisions are very controlled and, as stated, so black and white that it isn't funny, Fable III is a game that has something a bit deeper to being a hero or a villain. In the closing stages, it unwraps the whole of Machiavellian philosophy and notions of cruelty as kindness. It is "dirty hands" politics explained at its best, and the decisions that you make will have very serious repercussions when all the dust has settled. Trying to be a good person and trying to save others are no longer hand in hand, and I must have spent hours making pies - as the ruler of Albion - in a desperate attempt to raise money and save people from impending doom without turning myself into a monster.
Fable III is an engrossing and compelling game. Generally well put together and with great voice-acting and cinematic fights against aristocratic werewolves or leading Redcoats against zombies in a swamp. For anything else, check out the Fable III wiki. Seriously, this is a game I would recommend.
Now, I've always been a fan of RPG's since I played Runescape, Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights when I was younger, followed up by Oblivion and Fallout 3 later. Morrowind especially stands out as one of the greatest games I've ever played. But all that is largely irrelevant, because like I said, today is Fable day. As a final disclaimer, I've not played the previous two Fable games or any contemporary or more gritty RPG's like Dragonage. Anyway, I liked Fable, and this is a few reasons why.
Fable III: def. A story so good it has been told several times.
Gameplay:
As Gameplay goes, Fable is simple and straightforward. The control buttons indicate different attacks between range, magic and melee, with the obligatory "do things" button that you have to hold to do most things, which is a nice touch given the amount of times I've agreed to do things in the past by randomly mashing buttons to get through the dialogue. It's a little bit of Too Human, using the left analogue stick to move your character in a whirlwind of stabby death towards things that have upset you, while the right stick angles the camera. The menu system is a little bit confusing, but once you get to grips with it the Path to Glory and Sanctuary are not too confusing. Generally, it handles well.
There's plenty to do, from mundane (but fun) quests involving rounding up chickens to being a shameless mysoginistic pig with four wives (one I later divorced). You must do a certain amount of story progression to unlock new area's to travel to, but everywhere is inhabited by the same likeable peasants and unlikeable mustache twirling villains you'd expect in this kind of game. The great thing about Fable is that it doesn't take itself, or the genre, too seriously, which means you're more forgiving of some of its lack of virtures. The voice acting is incredibly funny, and some of the quests can be really cinematic and enjoyable, allowing you to imagine you're in a cheesey film like Pirates of the Caribbean - Redcoat soldiers fighting Zombies, for example, led by a guy who is more than a little bit like Sharpe and voiced by Simon Pegg.
The cast list are fantastic, the openess of the world is fairly good, although there doesn't seem to be a lot of neutrality in there. You play either as a goodie or a baddie, or mix it up so you never really settle on one, but the options for doing so are, as I said, rather black and white. As far as playability goes, that's rather good, as you've got a lot reasons to give it another playthrough to see how differently things would have fared had you made different choices.
"The bottom line is that Fable III is fun, well-executed and utterly ridiculous." Says Wired.
Graphics:
The graphics are not particularly outstanding. Remember, this is a game made in 2010, so it isn't exactly Space Invaders but it can look a bit cartoony and lack a certain level of realism. But that is just the kind of game that Fable III is. It's a Renassaince era version of Runescape, full of wacky characters, zaney quests and bring, colourful and simple locations that give you the feeling of being young again. Then again, when it wants to be cool or violent or more realistic, it does it quite well. Some of the finishers for enemies are quite brutal and well put together, and the glowing eyes of Hollow Men or jumping and ferocity of the Werewolves.
Occassionaly, there are glitches, however. Personal ones I encountered were, upon making pies, the character would eventually being to levitate during the minigame, along with all of his equipment.
Plot
I don't want to give too much of the plot away to Fable, but it is - as it should be for any RPG - the best and most defining characteristic of the game. You play as King Logan's brother (or sister), and it becomes immediately apparent that he is an oppressive tyrant. Fleeing his wrath, you must band together an interesting collection of wonderful characters to overthrow him in a revolution. The main quest is supplimented heavily by well thoughtout sidequests that tend to be a bit cooler than Bethesda's usual - go here, take this thing to someone else - subquests.
As the game draws to a close, the reason for your brother's apparent callousness and madness become terrifyingly apparent, and the player is forced to make a series of increasingly Machiavellian decisions. The underlying theme of the game by this point is that while you can be a benevolent ruler, your kindness and inaction will cause all those you care about to suffer horrifically in the future. However, by adopting draconian policies and relenting on promises, you can avert the disaster that is looming over you, but only by becoming a monster and earning the scorn of all those who once called you a friend.
Although the decisions are very controlled and, as stated, so black and white that it isn't funny, Fable III is a game that has something a bit deeper to being a hero or a villain. In the closing stages, it unwraps the whole of Machiavellian philosophy and notions of cruelty as kindness. It is "dirty hands" politics explained at its best, and the decisions that you make will have very serious repercussions when all the dust has settled. Trying to be a good person and trying to save others are no longer hand in hand, and I must have spent hours making pies - as the ruler of Albion - in a desperate attempt to raise money and save people from impending doom without turning myself into a monster.
Fable III is an engrossing and compelling game. Generally well put together and with great voice-acting and cinematic fights against aristocratic werewolves or leading Redcoats against zombies in a swamp. For anything else, check out the Fable III wiki. Seriously, this is a game I would recommend.
Monday 22 November 2010
Deja-Vu Deja-Vu.
Today, for anyone who cares about computer games at all, I'm doing a two part review of two games I've recently... ...played. I would say enjoyed, but I'm not entirely sold on that. These games are Call of Duty: Black Ops and Fable III.
Black Operations: def. A medical procedure carried out in near-darkness.
The CoD francise really took off after Modern Warfare, an almost too realistic FPS involving a bunch of semi-likable characters killing Arabs and Russians in places much like Iraq and Chechnya but most definately not them specifically. While Modern Warfare II managed to get a bit silly, it hasn't diminished teenage enthusasim for shooting foreign people since the release of Black Ops has been intensely successful. So here's the deal.
Gameplay:
The game plays like any other CoD game with which we are all painfully familiar. You point the crosshair over an enemies face and unleash a stream of violent lead into his skull before he can do the same to you. You travel to exotic locations and kill enemies in a variety of unimaginative ways usually involving but-not-limited-to a bewildering array of firearms. You can run, jump, crouch, play dead and salmon flop. Unfortunately you cannot roll over.
There's really not much to say for the gameplay of Black Ops. The people at CoD know how to make a simple and addictive shooter and stick to the reciepe like cats stick to ceilings - provided you've used enough glue and duct tape they can stay up indefinately. You kill people. That's the entire point of the game. Wandering around massacring your way through legions of baddies, usually the popular hate figures: commies, terrorists, nazi's and anyone who looks at you funny.
Depending on just how many people with guns you are facing, the difficulty varies and in the name of realism, you've got to put some effort into not getting shot. This is somewhat diminished by the healing mechanic that involves waiting for all red stuff to leak out of your eyes so you can see again, which by any medical definition "waiting for all the red stuff to leak out" is probably not fantastic. But it had to have one, otherwise it would be a little *too* realistic. The player would be butchered in seconds by a hail of machinegun fire that turns you into a lead statue faster than you can say "duck and cover". So over all, its not too bad.
Graphics:
The graphics are, by the large, really really good. Lighting and water are done very well, as is the occassional smoke/gas that's flying around. You can blow off people's limbs and stare into lifeless dead eyes in a very Gears of Waresque way, but without it ever being comedic. The overall effect is perhaps a little chilling, but credit to them, well animated.
Plot:
Now, CoD Black Ops tries very hard to have a plot. Some other games do without such frivolities - Gears of War for example. Some other games are so entirely dependant on an interesting plot, that without one the game would just be about power-armoured grasshoppers shooting each other at point blank range from twenty feet in the air like every Halo Game. But the plot in CoD is somewhat confusing. It tries hard to tie the Cold War and Vietnam into an engrossing game, which I suppose is a step forward for games previously reliant on Nazi's as villains*. But really, CoD struggles for anything to make sense. There is an attempt at a clever convoluted plot twisting through a variety of different mind-crushing conclusions to a final big "Oh my!" reveal, but it isn't done well. It's comes across as clunky, silly, and over-dramatic. For all the hype, Black Ops hasn't managed to escape the notion that a plot in most FPS games consists of a series of half-baked excuses to travel the world leaving a trail of twitching corpses in your wake.
Multiplayer:
I haven't managed to play CoD online, although judging by the frequent profanity from upstairs - occasionally puncuated by explosions - someone in the flat has. Either that, or they're juggling hand-grenades. I can talk about the offline multiplayer - the Zombie mode. And so I will.
It's bad.
The zombies are hard, and get progressively harder. It cannot be played recreationally alone, because you never get anywhere. After awhile, some guns become completely pointless. A full clip of pistol ammo to the face usually deters anyone from trying things, but not zombies. It does get easier with two people, but only because you have two guns firing. Nothing really changes apart from that. I'd like to say it'd be enjoyable online with four of you, but really that's not the point if you want a two player split screen gorefest, CoD isn't really going to cut it ffor you. There isn't even an end-point. The zombie game continues ad nasuem until you're so fed up you'd rather get eaten than play anymore. There is no end in sight. And above all, it isn't done well. It's kind of silly.
The first map sees you fighting Nazi-zombies in a mansion, and every 6 waves you are attacked by dogs that are also on fire.
Are you still reading this? Then you've reached the end, thank god.
Black Ops is not a *bad* game. I just don't think it is a good game. It has nothing that particularly separates it from Modern Warfare I and II, unless the pointless zombie fest and the reduced quality plot are qualifiers. It is a successful game of a pedigree francise, and playing matches online I expect can be quite entertaining. Online experience is now an important part of any decent game but really, it should be able to stand alone without it. And it can't. Unfortunately, Black Ops is so over-hyped now that it just isn't special anymore.
Black Ops is to Modern Warfare what ODST was to Halo 3. Essentially the same game only more confusing and repetative. Realistically, the best way to enjoy Black Ops is to hope your brain has an ejector seat, which if it were Gears of War, it would probably get away with because it becomes a ridiculous gore-soaked parody of any violent computer game. As it stands, Black Ops is just a subpar action movie with a fancy remote. In theory, it works, but it isn't really fulfilling.
Stay tuned for my totally uneducated opinion on Fable III to follow either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
*And yes, Nazi's feature in Black Ops.
Black Operations: def. A medical procedure carried out in near-darkness.
The CoD francise really took off after Modern Warfare, an almost too realistic FPS involving a bunch of semi-likable characters killing Arabs and Russians in places much like Iraq and Chechnya but most definately not them specifically. While Modern Warfare II managed to get a bit silly, it hasn't diminished teenage enthusasim for shooting foreign people since the release of Black Ops has been intensely successful. So here's the deal.
Gameplay:
The game plays like any other CoD game with which we are all painfully familiar. You point the crosshair over an enemies face and unleash a stream of violent lead into his skull before he can do the same to you. You travel to exotic locations and kill enemies in a variety of unimaginative ways usually involving but-not-limited-to a bewildering array of firearms. You can run, jump, crouch, play dead and salmon flop. Unfortunately you cannot roll over.
There's really not much to say for the gameplay of Black Ops. The people at CoD know how to make a simple and addictive shooter and stick to the reciepe like cats stick to ceilings - provided you've used enough glue and duct tape they can stay up indefinately. You kill people. That's the entire point of the game. Wandering around massacring your way through legions of baddies, usually the popular hate figures: commies, terrorists, nazi's and anyone who looks at you funny.
Depending on just how many people with guns you are facing, the difficulty varies and in the name of realism, you've got to put some effort into not getting shot. This is somewhat diminished by the healing mechanic that involves waiting for all red stuff to leak out of your eyes so you can see again, which by any medical definition "waiting for all the red stuff to leak out" is probably not fantastic. But it had to have one, otherwise it would be a little *too* realistic. The player would be butchered in seconds by a hail of machinegun fire that turns you into a lead statue faster than you can say "duck and cover". So over all, its not too bad.
Graphics:
The graphics are, by the large, really really good. Lighting and water are done very well, as is the occassional smoke/gas that's flying around. You can blow off people's limbs and stare into lifeless dead eyes in a very Gears of Waresque way, but without it ever being comedic. The overall effect is perhaps a little chilling, but credit to them, well animated.
Plot:
Now, CoD Black Ops tries very hard to have a plot. Some other games do without such frivolities - Gears of War for example. Some other games are so entirely dependant on an interesting plot, that without one the game would just be about power-armoured grasshoppers shooting each other at point blank range from twenty feet in the air like every Halo Game. But the plot in CoD is somewhat confusing. It tries hard to tie the Cold War and Vietnam into an engrossing game, which I suppose is a step forward for games previously reliant on Nazi's as villains*. But really, CoD struggles for anything to make sense. There is an attempt at a clever convoluted plot twisting through a variety of different mind-crushing conclusions to a final big "Oh my!" reveal, but it isn't done well. It's comes across as clunky, silly, and over-dramatic. For all the hype, Black Ops hasn't managed to escape the notion that a plot in most FPS games consists of a series of half-baked excuses to travel the world leaving a trail of twitching corpses in your wake.
Multiplayer:
I haven't managed to play CoD online, although judging by the frequent profanity from upstairs - occasionally puncuated by explosions - someone in the flat has. Either that, or they're juggling hand-grenades. I can talk about the offline multiplayer - the Zombie mode. And so I will.
It's bad.
The zombies are hard, and get progressively harder. It cannot be played recreationally alone, because you never get anywhere. After awhile, some guns become completely pointless. A full clip of pistol ammo to the face usually deters anyone from trying things, but not zombies. It does get easier with two people, but only because you have two guns firing. Nothing really changes apart from that. I'd like to say it'd be enjoyable online with four of you, but really that's not the point if you want a two player split screen gorefest, CoD isn't really going to cut it ffor you. There isn't even an end-point. The zombie game continues ad nasuem until you're so fed up you'd rather get eaten than play anymore. There is no end in sight. And above all, it isn't done well. It's kind of silly.
The first map sees you fighting Nazi-zombies in a mansion, and every 6 waves you are attacked by dogs that are also on fire.
Are you still reading this? Then you've reached the end, thank god.
Black Ops is not a *bad* game. I just don't think it is a good game. It has nothing that particularly separates it from Modern Warfare I and II, unless the pointless zombie fest and the reduced quality plot are qualifiers. It is a successful game of a pedigree francise, and playing matches online I expect can be quite entertaining. Online experience is now an important part of any decent game but really, it should be able to stand alone without it. And it can't. Unfortunately, Black Ops is so over-hyped now that it just isn't special anymore.
Black Ops is to Modern Warfare what ODST was to Halo 3. Essentially the same game only more confusing and repetative. Realistically, the best way to enjoy Black Ops is to hope your brain has an ejector seat, which if it were Gears of War, it would probably get away with because it becomes a ridiculous gore-soaked parody of any violent computer game. As it stands, Black Ops is just a subpar action movie with a fancy remote. In theory, it works, but it isn't really fulfilling.
Stay tuned for my totally uneducated opinion on Fable III to follow either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
*And yes, Nazi's feature in Black Ops.
Thursday 18 November 2010
When Fighting Monsters...
This one is coming out a day early, because as I've said, there's plenty of news these days to get through, and also because the library computer is so appalling it seems to be on the verge of a breakdown. I daren't even do a spell check for fear of making everything explode into goo.
Alright, so here is the long awaited Harriet Harman/Phil Woolas post. I did write it once, but then I lost it again. I'll give you a bit of background to it, for those who aren't particularly political, I'm pretty sure you'll still find some sick humour in it. I know I did.
Here's the dirt
So Phil lost his seat for being attempting to stir up racial tension, told a few lies and validated some bigots. That's not a bad effort, Phil. How is Satan and all his minions?
Anyway, in response, the Liberal Democrats - who have most-definitely never ever, ever, lied in forever - mounted a legal challenge. A one hundred year old law was invoked. Phil lost his job, there's a new election and yadda yadda. But realistically, Phil Woolas is strangely not the person that I feel particular malice towards. He is a politician, he did what politicians do. He lied, stirred up nationalistic sentiment and cheated his way into office. Is it bad? Yeah, course it is. Is it unusual - I'll leave that one up to you. The person I want to take a closer look at is Deputy Opposition Leader turned full blown one-person natural disaster is none other than Harriet Harman. I didn't realise she was the opposition leader until I ironically thought "God, I hope Harriet never gets anywhere" before BBC news came on and told me she was taking the helm of the Labour Party while Miliband was off looking after his bald and dribbling spawn, keeping it in dark places and feeding it fell meats*
Harman waded into the debate like anyone actually cared about what she had to say. And this is it:
""It is not part of Labour's politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected," the party's deputy leader said...
Srsly?
I have to admit, when I first heard that, I had to do a double take. Hypocrisy and empty rhetoric are commonplace in politics, and we've become so accustomed to it that we kind of just zone out a little bit, and pretend like it isn't there. But you can't dispute that the notion that the Labour Party doesn't elect liars is such a shamefaced lie in itself that it seems more like a cruel joke.
Mind you, the more you look at Harman, you realize that she does - like all politicians - suffer from some sort of acute political schitzophernia. On the one hand, she is prone to lying (see 25th June, 2007), in which she said that Labour should apologise for Iraq, but then denied saying it. She also said she would have been against the war had she been in possession of all the facts, an absence of WMD's not withstanding, apparently, meaning that what she wanted was factual evidence of non-existence. My head hurts.
But she does have bouts of unusual honesty, at least as regards her constituents and colleagues. Some would even say that she suffers from some chronic impulsion to speak her mind, although given she's the Deputy Leader of the opposition, this hasn't really harmed her in any way. Not even when she wore an optional stab vest while walking around Peckham, which would have offered protection from knives and bullets, but not from political commentators and really bad internet bloggers. But actual speaking-her-mind part has to be the best. In her defense she claimed that you'd probably want to wear a hard-hat at a building site, wouldn't you? Says a lot about what she thinks of Peckham, really.
More recently, this tactless streak has continued into some sort of outright vitirol against individuals, political persuasions and hair colours. She was forced to apologise for calling Danny Alexander a "ginger rodent", although not for calling Liberal Democrats "political mutants" in the same speech. The ginger rodent was a play on red squirrels, which would have sure made previously-mentioned squirrel genocide-ist Norris Atthey quite happy. Or quite angry, I suppose, depending on whether or not he agreed with Harman that Alexander was kind of like an uncute red squirrel.
There's a lot more that could be said for old Harriet. Motoring convictions that would have resulted in a lost license for anyone else, investigations for electoral fraud (oh delicious irony), and attempts to block MP's expense's becoming public all feature on her Wiki. It's worth a read, if you like getting angry. There's also a whole quagmire of gender related stuff of a pseudo feminist persuasion that she's churned out over the years, including the claim that the recession could have been avoided if the Lehman Brothers had actually been sisters, but to be honest, I don't think I'm totally qualified to talk about why I find her particularly disturbing in that regard.
Although, curiously, Harman wasn't always an twisted, evil old goat who lubricates her somewhat mercenary political career with lies, hypocrisy and opportunism.* She was once a legal representative for the organisation-formally-known-as the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which we can now just call "Liberty" although I wouldn't have been able to slip in the pop-culture "Prince" reference in an attempt to look cooler. She even was found guilty of being in contempt of court, and I suppose if you want to be anywhere it's there, at least for me. Especially if I was up for impersonating a Police Officer. Anyway...
Just goes to show there is some truth to that quote: "Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one". Although with truth being a rather expendable commodity these days, I only really put it in for the Nietzsche reference.
*I make no apologies for the LotR reference.
* Bam! How many points to I get for so many insults, Harriet?
Alright, so here is the long awaited Harriet Harman/Phil Woolas post. I did write it once, but then I lost it again. I'll give you a bit of background to it, for those who aren't particularly political, I'm pretty sure you'll still find some sick humour in it. I know I did.
Here's the dirt
So Phil lost his seat for being attempting to stir up racial tension, told a few lies and validated some bigots. That's not a bad effort, Phil. How is Satan and all his minions?
Anyway, in response, the Liberal Democrats - who have most-definitely never ever, ever, lied in forever - mounted a legal challenge. A one hundred year old law was invoked. Phil lost his job, there's a new election and yadda yadda. But realistically, Phil Woolas is strangely not the person that I feel particular malice towards. He is a politician, he did what politicians do. He lied, stirred up nationalistic sentiment and cheated his way into office. Is it bad? Yeah, course it is. Is it unusual - I'll leave that one up to you. The person I want to take a closer look at is Deputy Opposition Leader turned full blown one-person natural disaster is none other than Harriet Harman. I didn't realise she was the opposition leader until I ironically thought "God, I hope Harriet never gets anywhere" before BBC news came on and told me she was taking the helm of the Labour Party while Miliband was off looking after his bald and dribbling spawn, keeping it in dark places and feeding it fell meats*
Harman waded into the debate like anyone actually cared about what she had to say. And this is it:
""It is not part of Labour's politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected," the party's deputy leader said...
Srsly?
I have to admit, when I first heard that, I had to do a double take. Hypocrisy and empty rhetoric are commonplace in politics, and we've become so accustomed to it that we kind of just zone out a little bit, and pretend like it isn't there. But you can't dispute that the notion that the Labour Party doesn't elect liars is such a shamefaced lie in itself that it seems more like a cruel joke.
Mind you, the more you look at Harman, you realize that she does - like all politicians - suffer from some sort of acute political schitzophernia. On the one hand, she is prone to lying (see 25th June, 2007), in which she said that Labour should apologise for Iraq, but then denied saying it. She also said she would have been against the war had she been in possession of all the facts, an absence of WMD's not withstanding, apparently, meaning that what she wanted was factual evidence of non-existence. My head hurts.
But she does have bouts of unusual honesty, at least as regards her constituents and colleagues. Some would even say that she suffers from some chronic impulsion to speak her mind, although given she's the Deputy Leader of the opposition, this hasn't really harmed her in any way. Not even when she wore an optional stab vest while walking around Peckham, which would have offered protection from knives and bullets, but not from political commentators and really bad internet bloggers. But actual speaking-her-mind part has to be the best. In her defense she claimed that you'd probably want to wear a hard-hat at a building site, wouldn't you? Says a lot about what she thinks of Peckham, really.
More recently, this tactless streak has continued into some sort of outright vitirol against individuals, political persuasions and hair colours. She was forced to apologise for calling Danny Alexander a "ginger rodent", although not for calling Liberal Democrats "political mutants" in the same speech. The ginger rodent was a play on red squirrels, which would have sure made previously-mentioned squirrel genocide-ist Norris Atthey quite happy. Or quite angry, I suppose, depending on whether or not he agreed with Harman that Alexander was kind of like an uncute red squirrel.
There's a lot more that could be said for old Harriet. Motoring convictions that would have resulted in a lost license for anyone else, investigations for electoral fraud (oh delicious irony), and attempts to block MP's expense's becoming public all feature on her Wiki. It's worth a read, if you like getting angry. There's also a whole quagmire of gender related stuff of a pseudo feminist persuasion that she's churned out over the years, including the claim that the recession could have been avoided if the Lehman Brothers had actually been sisters, but to be honest, I don't think I'm totally qualified to talk about why I find her particularly disturbing in that regard.
Although, curiously, Harman wasn't always an twisted, evil old goat who lubricates her somewhat mercenary political career with lies, hypocrisy and opportunism.* She was once a legal representative for the organisation-formally-known-as the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which we can now just call "Liberty" although I wouldn't have been able to slip in the pop-culture "Prince" reference in an attempt to look cooler. She even was found guilty of being in contempt of court, and I suppose if you want to be anywhere it's there, at least for me. Especially if I was up for impersonating a Police Officer. Anyway...
Just goes to show there is some truth to that quote: "Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one". Although with truth being a rather expendable commodity these days, I only really put it in for the Nietzsche reference.
*I make no apologies for the LotR reference.
* Bam! How many points to I get for so many insults, Harriet?
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Deus Ex Machina
Technology, good or bad, is generally out to get us. Don't believe me? Then let me tell you a few war stories from my own private collection of human-machine interaction. Firstly, its important to note that pretty much every appliance I've ever had a problem with has been rather... ...vocal. The toaster chirps when it is finished toasting, the microwave beeps when it has finished cooking, the kettle clicks, the washing machine wails after a load, the compter growls, the fax machine talks and the printer speaks softly to itself in dead languages.
Woes with technology go all the way back to the start of history. Somehow, somewhere, something will go wrong. For me, it was about 2005 when various gadgets started rebelling against me - dramatically and occassionally, violently. The first instance was with a fax machine at work. One day, just like any other, I tried to send a fax through to a company that was waiting on some paperwork. A curious thing happened. The machine turned beserker.
It growled noisily, and then began to drag itself down the desk towards me. Internal things were making strange grunting and grinding sounds, and it began to vomit half digested paper in my general direction. If this wasn't perturbing enough, it began to scream "PRINT LOAD ERROR!" at as loud as possible, which was fairly loud. I was transfied with horror as a part plastic, part metal behemoth rolled down the desk towards me, cutting me off from the door. Dozens of lights blinked off and on across its glistening plastic carapace, and the paper it was firing had begun to bounce off my jacket. It was at that moment I realised that I was probably going to die, the victim of some terrifying industrial accident. Swallowed by a mechanical monster.
Then the power-cable reached its full length, jerked once, and then came loose. The nightmare ended. I left quickly and without offering an explaination as to why the office was so messy.
Since then, such things have become almost tedious. A fan heater exploded on me once, showering my frozen feet with white-hot sparks. My microwave is of a category so high that it does not appear on cooking instructions. It does not cook food - it destroys it. The computer in my room, a veteran of five years service, growls menacingly for long periods of time, but never quite manages to overheat itself. It just scares me. I'm pretty sure it murdered the printer, which died after just two months, but not before mashing an entire 3,000 word double-spaced essay into an incomprehensible mass of ink and screwed up paper. Things finally came to a head a few weeks ago when we installed the new washing machine, and it proceeded to charge across the kitchen shaking uncontrollably and making noises not entirely of this world. I'd be convinced it was after me if it hadn't have veered off at the last moment to have a go at the fridge, which is probably the most placid electrical item I own.
Don't get me wrong, technology on the whole is great. But as things are getting more and more advanced, it seems that sometimes we need reminding of boundaries. Boundaries like this. This is a battlefield robot, what people might take to be a bomb-disposal robot were it not for the fact that it has a machine gun on top of it capable of firing 300 rounds a minute. Sure, it does bomb disposal. Lets not argue about putting people's lives in jeapordy diffusing IED's, but it does really need a gun now, does it? The same is even more true of Predator-drones, which can be used for survellience and reconnaisance, but are also quite handy at blowing things up. Weddings for example.
BBC news puts the figure (as of July) at a deathtoll of more than 700 since 2009. For those people who still really like Obama, it is worth noting who is authorizing such strikes. It has been noted by political analyists that this is quite clever for Obama, since it avoids some messy legal blackholes and associated troubles like water-boarding, indefiniate detention and rendition by *just* killing someone, instead of bothering to arrest them.
Alright, so battlefield technology is a big thing. It generally gives you a decent advantage. And a remote controlled robot is a little bit different from proper artifical intelligence, but it still has a role to play on what could be quite a slippery slope. By removing the soldier from immediate danger, and transferring everything down a video link, it can de-humanise enemies and enviroments more effectively than any amount of military training. Think about the Shock and Awe campaign in Iraq, where to the public - if not the combatant - Baghdad was reduced from a city of millions of people to an errie alien landscape, everything tinged with green nightvision. Completely deserted. It wasn't a city, a society or a concentration of people. It became a thing.
Jonathan Hari wrote a fantastic article on the problems of replacing flesh and blood with lead and steel "warbots". I've selected some of his best bits to summarise the mood.
"...evidence punctures this techno-optimism. We know the programming of robots will regularly go wrong – because all technological programming regularly goes wrong. Look at the place where robots are used most frequently today: factories. Some 4 per cent of US factories have "major robotics accidents" every year – a man having molten aluminium poured over him, or a woman picked up and placed on a conveyor belt to be smashed into the shape of a car. The former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was nearly killed a few years ago after a robot attacked him on a tour of a factory. And remember: these are robots that aren't designed to kill.
Hari makes some pretty consice and unpleasant conclusions. Of course we're not going to be more anti-war as a result of warbots. As soon as we are safe, 7500 miles away, what do we care about the people dying on the frontlines. War has already become a spectator sport, where even an Iraq deathtoll leaves a gap of around 800,000 people who may or may not be dead. It is nothing more than a blip on our radar. We've zoned out, and we don't seem to care anymore.
There is a lot more that could be written about this, but I think I've wrote enough, and time is running out. I encourage everyone to read Hari's article, and have a good long think about what sort of a future we want to build. Is it one where you can give the power of life and death to a pre-programmed machine?
As for me, I'm going to head home. I think the toaster is conspiring.
As a couple of asides:
First, this might seem a bit sensationalist, I suppose. So here's a bone. If it is sensationalism you want, look no further than The Daily Mail Song. A fantastic work by a guy called Dan. Whoever he is.
Second, if anyone seems to think that by not advocating soulless killing machines, I'm pretty much in favour of conventional warfare as a generally acceptable idea, then no. Just to clear that up.
Woes with technology go all the way back to the start of history. Somehow, somewhere, something will go wrong. For me, it was about 2005 when various gadgets started rebelling against me - dramatically and occassionally, violently. The first instance was with a fax machine at work. One day, just like any other, I tried to send a fax through to a company that was waiting on some paperwork. A curious thing happened. The machine turned beserker.
It growled noisily, and then began to drag itself down the desk towards me. Internal things were making strange grunting and grinding sounds, and it began to vomit half digested paper in my general direction. If this wasn't perturbing enough, it began to scream "PRINT LOAD ERROR!" at as loud as possible, which was fairly loud. I was transfied with horror as a part plastic, part metal behemoth rolled down the desk towards me, cutting me off from the door. Dozens of lights blinked off and on across its glistening plastic carapace, and the paper it was firing had begun to bounce off my jacket. It was at that moment I realised that I was probably going to die, the victim of some terrifying industrial accident. Swallowed by a mechanical monster.
Then the power-cable reached its full length, jerked once, and then came loose. The nightmare ended. I left quickly and without offering an explaination as to why the office was so messy.
Since then, such things have become almost tedious. A fan heater exploded on me once, showering my frozen feet with white-hot sparks. My microwave is of a category so high that it does not appear on cooking instructions. It does not cook food - it destroys it. The computer in my room, a veteran of five years service, growls menacingly for long periods of time, but never quite manages to overheat itself. It just scares me. I'm pretty sure it murdered the printer, which died after just two months, but not before mashing an entire 3,000 word double-spaced essay into an incomprehensible mass of ink and screwed up paper. Things finally came to a head a few weeks ago when we installed the new washing machine, and it proceeded to charge across the kitchen shaking uncontrollably and making noises not entirely of this world. I'd be convinced it was after me if it hadn't have veered off at the last moment to have a go at the fridge, which is probably the most placid electrical item I own.
Don't get me wrong, technology on the whole is great. But as things are getting more and more advanced, it seems that sometimes we need reminding of boundaries. Boundaries like this. This is a battlefield robot, what people might take to be a bomb-disposal robot were it not for the fact that it has a machine gun on top of it capable of firing 300 rounds a minute. Sure, it does bomb disposal. Lets not argue about putting people's lives in jeapordy diffusing IED's, but it does really need a gun now, does it? The same is even more true of Predator-drones, which can be used for survellience and reconnaisance, but are also quite handy at blowing things up. Weddings for example.
BBC news puts the figure (as of July) at a deathtoll of more than 700 since 2009. For those people who still really like Obama, it is worth noting who is authorizing such strikes. It has been noted by political analyists that this is quite clever for Obama, since it avoids some messy legal blackholes and associated troubles like water-boarding, indefiniate detention and rendition by *just* killing someone, instead of bothering to arrest them.
Alright, so battlefield technology is a big thing. It generally gives you a decent advantage. And a remote controlled robot is a little bit different from proper artifical intelligence, but it still has a role to play on what could be quite a slippery slope. By removing the soldier from immediate danger, and transferring everything down a video link, it can de-humanise enemies and enviroments more effectively than any amount of military training. Think about the Shock and Awe campaign in Iraq, where to the public - if not the combatant - Baghdad was reduced from a city of millions of people to an errie alien landscape, everything tinged with green nightvision. Completely deserted. It wasn't a city, a society or a concentration of people. It became a thing.
Jonathan Hari wrote a fantastic article on the problems of replacing flesh and blood with lead and steel "warbots". I've selected some of his best bits to summarise the mood.
"...evidence punctures this techno-optimism. We know the programming of robots will regularly go wrong – because all technological programming regularly goes wrong. Look at the place where robots are used most frequently today: factories. Some 4 per cent of US factories have "major robotics accidents" every year – a man having molten aluminium poured over him, or a woman picked up and placed on a conveyor belt to be smashed into the shape of a car. The former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was nearly killed a few years ago after a robot attacked him on a tour of a factory. And remember: these are robots that aren't designed to kill.
Think about how maddening it is to deal with a robot on the telephone when you want to pay your phone bill. Now imagine that robot had a machine-gun pointed at your chest."
"You can't appeal to a robot for mercy; you can't activate its empathy. And afterwards, who do you punish? Marc Garlasco, of Human Rights Watch, says: "War crimes need a violation and an intent. A machine has no capacity to want to kill civilians.... If they are incapable of intent, are they incapable of war crimes"
"If virtually no American forces had died in Vietnam, would the war have stopped when it did – or would the systematic slaughter of the Vietnamese people have continued for many more years? If "we" weren't losing anyone in Afghanistan or Iraq, would the call for an end to the killing be as loud? I'd like to think we are motivated primarily by compassion for civilians on the other side, but I doubt it. Take "us" safely out of the picture and we will be more willing to kill "them". "
There is a lot more that could be written about this, but I think I've wrote enough, and time is running out. I encourage everyone to read Hari's article, and have a good long think about what sort of a future we want to build. Is it one where you can give the power of life and death to a pre-programmed machine?
As for me, I'm going to head home. I think the toaster is conspiring.
As a couple of asides:
First, this might seem a bit sensationalist, I suppose. So here's a bone. If it is sensationalism you want, look no further than The Daily Mail Song. A fantastic work by a guy called Dan. Whoever he is.
Second, if anyone seems to think that by not advocating soulless killing machines, I'm pretty much in favour of conventional warfare as a generally acceptable idea, then no. Just to clear that up.
Monday 15 November 2010
Diagonsis: Porpoise
There's been a lot to talk about recently, but I'll bite. I left my notebook at home so all the pseudo witticisms I'd scribbled down over the past week are somewhere else. But still, I figured it was time for another more entertaining update than me droning on about politics stuff, so here's a bone.
Dick van Dyke was saved by porpoises.
Yeah, Dick van Dyke was saved from certain death in the middle of the ocean by a pod of friendly porpoises. Really, that's it. That's all I've got. The other link was from the Daily Mail, but as soon as I clicked on it the screaming voices in my head started again and I was vomiting blood onto the keyboard. I decided not to use it. I think I passed out. Luckily for Dick, these porpoises were friendly, unlike their flesh-eating cousins, the Porporaptors, who can devour an entire cow in seconds.
Anyway, if the best I can muster today is porpoise salvation, I guess this makes it a relatively short blog post. I'm sure you're all breathing a collective sigh of relief. It's a shame there were no porpoises off the coast of Somalia about a year ago, but that worked out alright too in the end, more or less, and porpoises can't be everywhere at once. Much like BBC News, who managed to report on the immaculate conception of baby snakes only ten days after I first read it in the Metro. Such an important story should have been covered by our first rate news service, but for some reason they've been preoccupied with other cold blooded reptiles - Phil Woolas and Ian Duncan Smith, mainly.
But for people who don't like snakes, you're still in for a treat. My amazing link-following abilities also discovered this gem. Two grown men wrestling with an angry python in McDonalds carpark. I'm lovin' it.
Finally, if anyone ever wondered why it was impossible to get fresh crabs from vending machines, wonder no longer because it is now possible. If they did that in the UK, I would probably spend all day buying crabs to leave in taxis, on buses and inside the tea and coffee cupboard at work.
Alright, it was a fairly lame attempt today, tune in again soon for some Harriet Harman bashing, an explaination as to why technology is possessed by daemons, and why Fable III will give people nightmares.
Dick van Dyke was saved by porpoises.
Yeah, Dick van Dyke was saved from certain death in the middle of the ocean by a pod of friendly porpoises. Really, that's it. That's all I've got. The other link was from the Daily Mail, but as soon as I clicked on it the screaming voices in my head started again and I was vomiting blood onto the keyboard. I decided not to use it. I think I passed out. Luckily for Dick, these porpoises were friendly, unlike their flesh-eating cousins, the Porporaptors, who can devour an entire cow in seconds.
Anyway, if the best I can muster today is porpoise salvation, I guess this makes it a relatively short blog post. I'm sure you're all breathing a collective sigh of relief. It's a shame there were no porpoises off the coast of Somalia about a year ago, but that worked out alright too in the end, more or less, and porpoises can't be everywhere at once. Much like BBC News, who managed to report on the immaculate conception of baby snakes only ten days after I first read it in the Metro. Such an important story should have been covered by our first rate news service, but for some reason they've been preoccupied with other cold blooded reptiles - Phil Woolas and Ian Duncan Smith, mainly.
But for people who don't like snakes, you're still in for a treat. My amazing link-following abilities also discovered this gem. Two grown men wrestling with an angry python in McDonalds carpark. I'm lovin' it.
Finally, if anyone ever wondered why it was impossible to get fresh crabs from vending machines, wonder no longer because it is now possible. If they did that in the UK, I would probably spend all day buying crabs to leave in taxis, on buses and inside the tea and coffee cupboard at work.
Alright, it was a fairly lame attempt today, tune in again soon for some Harriet Harman bashing, an explaination as to why technology is possessed by daemons, and why Fable III will give people nightmares.
Friday 12 November 2010
Children of the Revolution
The content of this post is gonna be a bit more of my political musings, so people who read this blog purely to watch my bloodpressure climb to intolerable peaks, you can skip this. Or you can read it, but it probably won't be that funny, unless you've got a really strange sense of humour, I suppose. Politically, I don't think I've done this article the justice it deserves, but realistically, typing this line right now, I've got forty-six seconds to submit before I get kicked off.
So the students are revolting.
Or rather, since I can never do anything on time, the students *have* revolted, and lots of people are very upset about violence and smashed windows and thin blue lines and, oh shock, their credibility. The problem with the Monday, Wednesday, Friday format is that realistically, it isn't working so well in response to changing news stories, which have been quite interesting over the last few days. I am planning on slapping down my thoughts on Phil Woolas, or more to the point, having a go at Harriet Harman and Ian Duncan Smith's proposed 18th Century Cure. Slavery hasn't been this in-vogue for about two-hundred years. Topping that, something vaguely intelligent about the role of political violence will have to follow, obviously, since everyone seems a bit preturbed that something got set on fire and some windows are going to have to be replaced. Then again, as was pointed out to me by a good friend of mine, how much Poll Tax do you pay?
But all that's gone out of the window a bit since the events in London on Wednesday. Here's the deal.
About 52,000 students wandered down to London, and while it was no means a majority, a good lot of them decided that Millbank Tower was fair game for a demonstration. Can't say I blame them, what with it being the Tory Party's not-so-secret evil volcano lair. Anyway, if you've watched the news you probably know the rest. Or rather, know the version of events that everyone likes to talk about. Deplorable violence and undermining the cause. But is this really the case?
First, lets have a crack at Aaron Porter, president of the NUS. This Guardian article does a fairly reasonable job of summing up Aaron. He's from a great line of NUS presidents turn mainstream politicians, particularly labour ones, which means his attitude towards social change is about as determined as my attitude toward cleaning the kitchen, which is nothing more than a mild indifference.
So the students are revolting.
Or rather, since I can never do anything on time, the students *have* revolted, and lots of people are very upset about violence and smashed windows and thin blue lines and, oh shock, their credibility. The problem with the Monday, Wednesday, Friday format is that realistically, it isn't working so well in response to changing news stories, which have been quite interesting over the last few days. I am planning on slapping down my thoughts on Phil Woolas, or more to the point, having a go at Harriet Harman and Ian Duncan Smith's proposed 18th Century Cure. Slavery hasn't been this in-vogue for about two-hundred years. Topping that, something vaguely intelligent about the role of political violence will have to follow, obviously, since everyone seems a bit preturbed that something got set on fire and some windows are going to have to be replaced. Then again, as was pointed out to me by a good friend of mine, how much Poll Tax do you pay?
But all that's gone out of the window a bit since the events in London on Wednesday. Here's the deal.
About 52,000 students wandered down to London, and while it was no means a majority, a good lot of them decided that Millbank Tower was fair game for a demonstration. Can't say I blame them, what with it being the Tory Party's not-so-secret evil volcano lair. Anyway, if you've watched the news you probably know the rest. Or rather, know the version of events that everyone likes to talk about. Deplorable violence and undermining the cause. But is this really the case?
First, lets have a crack at Aaron Porter, president of the NUS. This Guardian article does a fairly reasonable job of summing up Aaron. He's from a great line of NUS presidents turn mainstream politicians, particularly labour ones, which means his attitude towards social change is about as determined as my attitude toward cleaning the kitchen, which is nothing more than a mild indifference.
"Meanwhile, the president of the National Union of Students did the media rounds. Aaron Porter is 25; he stood for the office as an independent, but is a member of the Labour party, whose dress code – the Nick Robinson-esque glasses are a good example – rather suggests that he's destined for a career in mainstream politics. Certainly, if you fancy being a high-ranking Labour MP, clambering to the top of the NUS isn't a bad move at all. His predecessors have included Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, the current shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy, and Phil Woolas, the MP last week suspended from office for making misleading claims in the course of the last election campaign – all of which highlights the fact that NUS presidents are not exactly renowned for being what the French call enragés.
And so it proved. "Let me be clear," he told yet another camera. "I absolutely condemn the actions of a small minority who have used violent means to hijack the protest . . . if some people think it's appropriate to use violence, it's a total disgrace, and they have completely hijacked this opportunity to make a serious point." In his own way, he was endorsing the view that was subsequently splashed over the front page of yesterday's Daily Mail: "Anarchists spark violence as 50,000 take to streets over student fees – HIJACKING OF A VERY MIDDLE CLASS PROTEST".
So to be honest, I don't really think whatever Porter says has any weight. Rather, I prefer the version of events offered by a member of Whitechapel Anarchists, which stated on BBC news that had there been no violence but more a happy, clappy, socially acceptable sing along, who would have really cared?
What happened was not a well planned, provoked act of random violence. Instead, what we saw was a lot of really angry people milling around a bit miffed with the general idea that Millbank Tower was a good place to make a point. The idea of hijacking and masked Anarchists hell bent on provoking widespread civil disorder are typical of mainstream media sensationalism. If the crowd had realistically been in an uncontrollable rage with a general killing mood, I'm pretty sure there would have been more than broken windows. Outnumbering the fifteen coppers by about 200 to one, they could have - in no uncertain terms - torn them to pieces and David Cameron would have been paying tribute to some flag draped coffins.
And when you think about it, they have every reason to be angry. The Question Time panel was humourously asked "How many tuition fees did the commentators pay", to which the collection of nodding-heads-in-suits with frankly delusional opinions looked genuinely upset, until Dimbleby came to the rescue by selecting a more acceptable question, freeing them from any admission of guilt when the answer was unequivically "none". So with the axing of some maintenance payments, driving more economically challenged students out of the running, and treblling the tuition fee cap, you would be angry. Who'd like to scrimp and save to buy a new car, and as soon as you make you're first repayment it suddenly becomes apparent that the goalposts have changed, and the car is no longer £10,000, it's £30,000. Try that on for size, only the person buying the car has now also lost their job - like us lucky graduates who can't find work - because someone else messed up, and on top of that, any aspirations the car buyer had regarding their future were suddenly made uncertain at best.
How do you like them apples?
So there is genuine anger, and trying to tell people that it's ok because we've moved the repayment cap up from £15K to £21K isn't really a solution anyway. It is of no consequence. Mathematically, you should tripple the repayment cap to £45K anyway, if the Tory ideal of 'fairness' holds any weight, which it doesn't, but still, upping the repayment cap isn't a good idea anyway, it is the opposite of a good idea. Hypothetically, a student is now in three times as much debt as the ones who graduated before, but now they have to find an even better job before they can clear their debts, all the while a staggering amount of interest is building up, pretty much ensuring economic servitute for the rest of their natural lives.
Even more strange than the idea that upping the repayment cap somehow makes things better, is the fact that the Daily Mirror actually have a decent article for a change. So I'll treat ya. Here it is.
Of course, the protest/riot was not without its idiots, like the bloke who lobbed a fire-extinguisher off the top of a building, but hey, there were a lot of them. Someone is going to make a bad judgement call, but it doesn't really mean that everyone there was intent on actual grevious murder. Infact, realistically, the protest wasn't violent at all. Violence is always seen as an inherently bad thing, which I don't believe is right, but still. It wasn't violent. Some windows got broken. If you want staggering amounts of violence, play Gears of War for thirty-seconds. Broken glass has nothing on what real violence is, and if and when real violence is doled out by an angry mob who are hacked off with the way things are, believe me, burning placards will be tame.
As for undermining credibility, we've already seen exactly what 'credibility' Aaron Porter and Teresa May and all the other objectioners have. People are waking up to a ruined country run by a complete set of soulless bastards. I've sometimes thought that out of all the dystopian futures portayed in film and television, its the real one that's probably the worst, because a book can't take your job, your hope or your future. Real life isn't so kind. So if its credibility that people want, I suggest smashing more windows. After all, would we even be talking about this if 52,000 people hadn't have gotten hacked off?
Wednesday 10 November 2010
And the Winner is...
So the X-Factor, that's a cultural phenomenon, contemporary and cool. Exactly the kind of thing an aspiring blogger should be talking about, right?
Well, basically, you can't escape the X-Factor, so if you think you can do it here, you're wrong. It is simply everywhere, even if you don't watch it. Even Chicago Town Pizza is offering free X-Factor tickets, which is a bit of an advertising fail if you ask me. Something similar to B&Q offering free herpes to people lucky enough to buy their toilet-seats. I've not watched it for a whole blissful year and some, but I'm well acquainted with some of the drama, protests, shocks, spills and emotional breakdowns by virtue of having to walk past a newsagent every day. Something about Cher Lloyd gives me the impression she's tipped to win. Or commit suicide, but I suppose the two are not completely dissimilar.
There's even an X-Factor Computer game, which hyperlinked blog does an adequate job of summarising my hopes for:
"However, nothing would make me happier than if it turned out to be like some sort of Mortal Kombat clone, letting Danni Minogue turn into some sadistically toothy beast that can bite Simon Cowell in half, leaving only his high-waisted trousers wondering confusedly around the garish ITV set."
Yeah. That'd be good. Obviously, an X-Factor game is going to be precious little like the X-Factor, but will be like all those other singalong games such as Singstar*, only occassionaly Cowell will project into your living room and tell you to kill yourself. Which is just the ideal Christmas present, if you ask me.
Anyway, I'd like to point out that no one particularly cares about the X-Factor anymore, but I don't like being wrong. For some reason that completely escapes me, people actually like to watch other people sing and dance their way to the finals and gradually have their humanity stripped from them. Not to mention the way they selectively pick awful people so that the whole nation can join together in mocking them, but as is often pointed out to me by 'pro-factors', I'm just bitter and its all a bit of fun and not sick in any way. Of course, suggesting that watching hopelessly optimistic people get relentlessly smashed to pieces is kind of fun, and I'd by a hypocrite to say I didn't secretly enjoy each delicious individual failure, so I guess if the X-Factor did highlights of people's hopes and dreams being crushed, I'd tune in to that with a beer.
Now, we've had our glorious internet based revolution, during which the nation came together to buy expletive riddled angry metal to crush the ambitions of Joe McElderry, which was satisfying, or more to the point send a message to Simon Cowell, but realistically we didn't need to. After all, Sony were the big winners out of that, and I suppose homeless people cared for by Shelter, but to be honest I'd rather cut out the middleman and just help the homeless rather than get one up on Satan himself. It was largely irrelevant anyway, since no one really cares what happens to a reality TV winner after they've won, apart from maybe Leona Lewis, who I grudgingly admit is a pretty good singer. So really, obscurity beckons for whoever wins this years nauseating popularity contest, apart form they get to be resurrected along with other dead people and Z-list celebrities for more reality TV shows.
My thinking? There isn't a winner, apart from everyone who gets really rich out of it. You take an aspirational, beautifully naive and optimistic human being and give them the invaluable gift of hope. Then you subject them to weeks of degradation and judgment and crushing emotional stress. Then you give them a ribbon, a pat on the back and cast them into the outer-darkness until they are required to drag their sorry, bedraggled and fragmented egos back into the galditorial arena that is reality television so we can howl and point and laugh like soulless monsters while they gobble down kangaroo testicles.
There are only losers. Some slight losers, who are mocked and then released, and some bigger ones who go mental under the pressure and then get condemned to a lifetime of servitude to really, really, bad television. And the biggest loser of all?
That's probably us.
*Already mentioned in the blog I linked, I know, but I was already aware of it. Infact, I have harrowing first-hand experience of it. Sometimes I have a reoccuring nightmare in which I am chased down a corridor by tuneless Disney characters singing power ballads while drunk.
Ok, I don't. But it was pretty bad.
Well, basically, you can't escape the X-Factor, so if you think you can do it here, you're wrong. It is simply everywhere, even if you don't watch it. Even Chicago Town Pizza is offering free X-Factor tickets, which is a bit of an advertising fail if you ask me. Something similar to B&Q offering free herpes to people lucky enough to buy their toilet-seats. I've not watched it for a whole blissful year and some, but I'm well acquainted with some of the drama, protests, shocks, spills and emotional breakdowns by virtue of having to walk past a newsagent every day. Something about Cher Lloyd gives me the impression she's tipped to win. Or commit suicide, but I suppose the two are not completely dissimilar.
There's even an X-Factor Computer game, which hyperlinked blog does an adequate job of summarising my hopes for:
"However, nothing would make me happier than if it turned out to be like some sort of Mortal Kombat clone, letting Danni Minogue turn into some sadistically toothy beast that can bite Simon Cowell in half, leaving only his high-waisted trousers wondering confusedly around the garish ITV set."
Yeah. That'd be good. Obviously, an X-Factor game is going to be precious little like the X-Factor, but will be like all those other singalong games such as Singstar*, only occassionaly Cowell will project into your living room and tell you to kill yourself. Which is just the ideal Christmas present, if you ask me.
Anyway, I'd like to point out that no one particularly cares about the X-Factor anymore, but I don't like being wrong. For some reason that completely escapes me, people actually like to watch other people sing and dance their way to the finals and gradually have their humanity stripped from them. Not to mention the way they selectively pick awful people so that the whole nation can join together in mocking them, but as is often pointed out to me by 'pro-factors', I'm just bitter and its all a bit of fun and not sick in any way. Of course, suggesting that watching hopelessly optimistic people get relentlessly smashed to pieces is kind of fun, and I'd by a hypocrite to say I didn't secretly enjoy each delicious individual failure, so I guess if the X-Factor did highlights of people's hopes and dreams being crushed, I'd tune in to that with a beer.
Now, we've had our glorious internet based revolution, during which the nation came together to buy expletive riddled angry metal to crush the ambitions of Joe McElderry, which was satisfying, or more to the point send a message to Simon Cowell, but realistically we didn't need to. After all, Sony were the big winners out of that, and I suppose homeless people cared for by Shelter, but to be honest I'd rather cut out the middleman and just help the homeless rather than get one up on Satan himself. It was largely irrelevant anyway, since no one really cares what happens to a reality TV winner after they've won, apart from maybe Leona Lewis, who I grudgingly admit is a pretty good singer. So really, obscurity beckons for whoever wins this years nauseating popularity contest, apart form they get to be resurrected along with other dead people and Z-list celebrities for more reality TV shows.
There are only losers. Some slight losers, who are mocked and then released, and some bigger ones who go mental under the pressure and then get condemned to a lifetime of servitude to really, really, bad television. And the biggest loser of all?
That's probably us.
*Already mentioned in the blog I linked, I know, but I was already aware of it. Infact, I have harrowing first-hand experience of it. Sometimes I have a reoccuring nightmare in which I am chased down a corridor by tuneless Disney characters singing power ballads while drunk.
Ok, I don't. But it was pretty bad.
Monday 8 November 2010
Murder on the Dancefloor
Since the advent of the Wii, mankind has been plagued by the horrors of motion controllers. You know the type that people crack out at parties and everyone has a go at bowling or something. Well, being money-leeches that they are, Microsoft and Sony have followed suit with their own version of the Wii-mote which allows you to do a lot of fake sporting activities and possibly throw your back, but its all good fun, as this fella found out.
Now, I'm all for technology and the enhanced gaming experience, but there's something a little disturbing about motion controllers that I can't put my finger on. Maybe its the fact that you look like a total goon flailing around madly, espoused by the JLS advert for the Wii that featured them all jerking their arms up and down as fast as possible. Perhaps its the farnkly disturbing idea that if it hasn't been done already, soon I'll be able to simulate stabbing someone to death from the comfort of my own livingroom. I mean, honestly, would you want to live next to the guy who plays Manhunt II with a motion controller and has an unhealthy collection of baseball bats?
I thought not.
Sure, you can say that we've had the motion gun things for ages, with classic pub games involving the Time Crisis series, where you simulate blowing your way through legions of goons with a high-powered pistol. But whatever. I'm not even advocating a casual link between computer-games and violence, being a firm believer that the only reason I haven't gone postal yet is that I can still ram a chainsaw into someone over Gears online, and know the protests in my headset come from a real teenager out in the world somewhere as his character is messily dismembered. And on that note, here's Cliff:
Simulated violence is awesome.
So no, its not the violence, its the fact you look like a fool. Definately that one. And sure, you can always play party games with your Wii-mote alone, but then you look like a lonely fool who has no friends. But you can't shake the idea that stoving someone's head in with a motion controller is just a little bit creepy. Sometimes there's a genuine reason that games don't need to be *that* realistic.
Now, I'm all for technology and the enhanced gaming experience, but there's something a little disturbing about motion controllers that I can't put my finger on. Maybe its the fact that you look like a total goon flailing around madly, espoused by the JLS advert for the Wii that featured them all jerking their arms up and down as fast as possible. Perhaps its the farnkly disturbing idea that if it hasn't been done already, soon I'll be able to simulate stabbing someone to death from the comfort of my own livingroom. I mean, honestly, would you want to live next to the guy who plays Manhunt II with a motion controller and has an unhealthy collection of baseball bats?
I thought not.
Sure, you can say that we've had the motion gun things for ages, with classic pub games involving the Time Crisis series, where you simulate blowing your way through legions of goons with a high-powered pistol. But whatever. I'm not even advocating a casual link between computer-games and violence, being a firm believer that the only reason I haven't gone postal yet is that I can still ram a chainsaw into someone over Gears online, and know the protests in my headset come from a real teenager out in the world somewhere as his character is messily dismembered. And on that note, here's Cliff:
Simulated violence is awesome.
So no, its not the violence, its the fact you look like a fool. Definately that one. And sure, you can always play party games with your Wii-mote alone, but then you look like a lonely fool who has no friends. But you can't shake the idea that stoving someone's head in with a motion controller is just a little bit creepy. Sometimes there's a genuine reason that games don't need to be *that* realistic.
Friday 5 November 2010
Gunpower, Treason, and Plot - Oh my!
Well, I guess first I have to start off by wishing everyone a happy fifth of Novemeber. For anyone who has a passing familiarity with sentience, you'll know that the fifth of November is bonfire night in Britain, during which we come together as a nation to burn effigies of foreigners who were fighting religious descrimination. Got that Friday feeling yet?
Like most things, bonfire night can be romaticised to a certain extent. What we have is a cautionary tale about overbearing government, the spirit of resistance, a stark warning about international terrorism, government accountability and superheroes all thrown in to one big fire. To more frequent readers of this blog, you'll notice that apart from a lasting fascination with the word 'psychopath', another semi-constant theme of this blog is the idea of burning down Parliament. So you'll understand me when I say I get a bit starry-eyed over imagining the House of Commons on fire. Perhaps I'm celebrating tonight for all the wrong reasons. Which are obviously the right ones, except you don't agree with me. Because you're wrong.
Anyway, I was going to write something really dramatic and thought provoking, pseudo-intellectual and undoubtedly rather boring about the importance of The Gunpowder Plot and how it ties in with previously hyperlinked dystopian comic 'V for Vendetta', and rather unfortunately, the world as a whole. But in light of yesterday's lengthy and somewhat harrowing scribblings of despair, I've decided to leave it for tonight, because I couldn't possibly do it well, and to be honest, I'm in a carnival mood despite a concerning lack of bonfires in the Calderdale region.
So good people, I bid thee a very happy "Kill all the Politicians" day. As you drink down a few bottles of wine and reflect the light of exploding fireworks in your large, happy, saucer-shaped eyes, spare a thought for old Fawkes and his ilk. There are lots of ways to interprete bonfire night, and in its most literal I guess it means domestic terrorism for the sake changing a spoilt monarch's religion to benefit the aristocracy and people who were most in a position to care. So maybe his motivations weren't fantastic, but personally I prefer the more idealistic version put forward by Alan Moore anyway.
Remember! Remember!
The fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot!
I see no reason,
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
For the ethically concerned bonfire night celebrators, I suggest that to avoid innocent small animals being trapped in a firey hell-hole, you build your bonfire minutes before lighting it. Those who are unable to procure enough flamable material or not wishing to engage in the spirit of Capitalism should try ram raiding bookstores for Tony Blair's memoirs which I am told - rather reliably - burn well. The effigy should be of your choosing, but generally I think anything wrapped in a suit does a fair imitation of our manevolent overseers and other generally well-off parasites.
Like most things, bonfire night can be romaticised to a certain extent. What we have is a cautionary tale about overbearing government, the spirit of resistance, a stark warning about international terrorism, government accountability and superheroes all thrown in to one big fire. To more frequent readers of this blog, you'll notice that apart from a lasting fascination with the word 'psychopath', another semi-constant theme of this blog is the idea of burning down Parliament. So you'll understand me when I say I get a bit starry-eyed over imagining the House of Commons on fire. Perhaps I'm celebrating tonight for all the wrong reasons. Which are obviously the right ones, except you don't agree with me. Because you're wrong.
Anyway, I was going to write something really dramatic and thought provoking, pseudo-intellectual and undoubtedly rather boring about the importance of The Gunpowder Plot and how it ties in with previously hyperlinked dystopian comic 'V for Vendetta', and rather unfortunately, the world as a whole. But in light of yesterday's lengthy and somewhat harrowing scribblings of despair, I've decided to leave it for tonight, because I couldn't possibly do it well, and to be honest, I'm in a carnival mood despite a concerning lack of bonfires in the Calderdale region.
So good people, I bid thee a very happy "Kill all the Politicians" day. As you drink down a few bottles of wine and reflect the light of exploding fireworks in your large, happy, saucer-shaped eyes, spare a thought for old Fawkes and his ilk. There are lots of ways to interprete bonfire night, and in its most literal I guess it means domestic terrorism for the sake changing a spoilt monarch's religion to benefit the aristocracy and people who were most in a position to care. So maybe his motivations weren't fantastic, but personally I prefer the more idealistic version put forward by Alan Moore anyway.
Remember! Remember!
The fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot!
I see no reason,
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
For the ethically concerned bonfire night celebrators, I suggest that to avoid innocent small animals being trapped in a firey hell-hole, you build your bonfire minutes before lighting it. Those who are unable to procure enough flamable material or not wishing to engage in the spirit of Capitalism should try ram raiding bookstores for Tony Blair's memoirs which I am told - rather reliably - burn well. The effigy should be of your choosing, but generally I think anything wrapped in a suit does a fair imitation of our manevolent overseers and other generally well-off parasites.
Thursday 4 November 2010
How to Eat Cheese
Anyone who has ever been made to do something they don't really want to do will know that, on occasion, it can actually be a good thing. For example, when an ex-girlfriend suggested we go visit the theatre for some reason or another, I tried every single excuse under the sun to avoid going, being a rather uncultured fleshwaste who prefers a pint of bitter to a bunch of overdramatic teenagers (which, in my opinion, is just about all of them) leaping about the stage and coming off with such a buzz they wouldn't be surprised if they tested positive for coke. I don't hate drama students, or people who do or enjoy drama, per se. The awful ones. You know what I mean. Anyway, I have to confess, the experience wasn't-that-bad.
I mean, it wasn't-that-good, but at no point did I feel a complusion to take a Black and Decker to my googlies while singing the Portugusee national anthem in an attempt to look so freaking insane that I was removed from the building. Something I once considered in a nightclub in Leicester, or Lincoln, or some other god forsaken cultural desert where the genepool has become so stagnant that if you were to fall into it you just wouldn't drown. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We went, and I saw a rather bland rendition of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, by Brecht.
If you are familiar with Brecht, then good for you. I'm not. The basic premise is that peasants in Russia are revolting, or something, and hanging quite a few people. There is a romantic subplot and something about Judgment of Solomon involving a baby and some stupid parents. Anyway, it's irrelevant. But what is relevant, in a round about way, is that in Act Five, some idiot farmer called Azdak hides the Governor, or Grand Duke, or something, from a bunch of angry people who are rather determined to put a rather fetching tie around his neck and throw him off a platform. The Grand Duke is starving, tired, cold and frightened and Azdak, being a generally good person despite his later episodes of spinelessness and brazen stupidity, decides to give him some cheese.
I've never given royalty any cheese before, but I expect they don't eat it like normal people. This is certainly the case for Dukey, who begins cutting it up with a small knife and nibbling away. Azdak quickly realises something is wrong with this stranger he's taken into his home, and admonishes him. The way you eat cheese, if you're a poor peasant in Russia, is to cup it in your hands, glance left and right suspiciously, and then ram as much down your throat in one go as possible before someone jumps you and steals it. It was a sobering lesson, not least because I was unable to pick up another few pints at the intermission.
So, in a long and roundabout way, the post is less about Brecht and more about crushing poverty, which I'm going to do everyone the service of not pretending to know much about it. One thing I've found personally is that you can always afford to smoke. This is not as hilarious a joke as it sounds, since people with an addiction, myself included, will pretty much give up everything including eating and leaving the house so long as we can get a fix. I expect some astonished conservatives to complain about where their hard earned taxes are going, and I'm just gonna point out that I'm constantly reminded every morning that this problem is gradually solving itself. Anyway, I didn't bankroll a personal photographer to take pictures of me at work, so don't come round my house asking for your taxes back.
What I will say is this, a mere two observations I have made.
1) The benefits system, including staff, buildings, forms, phonecalls and recipients - is horrendously overcomplicated and depressing. Anyone who has sat for long enough in a jobcenter knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that eventually everyone starts to hate you, and for your part, you start to hate yourself a little more. Sat on the sofas awaiting my name to be called so I can sign on, I look across at my fellow hollow eyed, sunken cheeked claimants who seem to be linked by a common physical trait of having dead, dead, eyes. From these blank pits, they seem to stare with unbridled malice, as if there was a set amount of benefit money and it was all going to come through the ceiling in the next few minutes and everyone was going to have to fight for it with every ounce of savagery they possess. Perhaps Channel 4 could film it, pretend it's a doctumentary and call it "Bread from Heaven" or something. Then the Daily Mail could run it, and use footage from the bloodbath to explain that we're all horrible people and don't deserve money anyway.
The forms are ludicrously confusing, asking me everything from my name, date of birth and address right down to the approximate weight of the last stool I took. It took me an hour of waiting in a queue with a load of twitchy people whom I was convinced were about to slip a knife in my spine to be told I had to post a letter instead of standing in their office like a goon. The security guard in the jobcenter told me I wasn't allowed to even look at my phone. Presumably in case I rang an employer and found a job. But that wouldn't be bad if you were allowed to have a nice refreshing drink of juice. Which you are not. Infact, generally everything seems to be forbidden, except queuing. Its probably part of a cultural adjustment programme which teaches us to be quiet, uncomplaining Britons.
That aside, its not too complex. I have only signed my name about twenty-six times, received two phone calls, made four, had eight letters and filled out fourteen forms, as well as turned up to three meetings in addition to my normal one every two weeks, which is now happily spiralling into months. Someone might tell me to stop updating the blog and get a job, but quite frankly, if I had to apply for anymore jobs I'd probably turn into a serial killer. Anyone who takes this as one of those funny-turn-sarcastic things I usually say is probably near the top of the list. Seriously, get out while you can.
2) There just isn't enough money.
Now, I expect people to blanch at this, wobble their upper lips in indignation and tell me to get off my scrounging ass and find someone richer than me who will pay to watch me swallow glass for his amusement, because at least then I'd be trying. I'd tell you to catch buses at £1.80 each way, smoke, eat, and make up the substantial difference between your housing benefit and rent with just £51 a week. I'm sure it can be done hypothetically.
Ok, I'm not even sure it can be done hypothetically. It's insane.
I guess the reason for this rant is that I've just come from the jobcenter, and I really didn't have anything else that is particularly interesting to say. I've been thinking about The Caucasian Chalk Circle a lot recently. A friend of mine was over the other day and asked me if I had any toast. I was going to the shop to buy some bread, until I realized the rattle of all the money I had in the entire world wasn't enough to get a loaf. There's something perversely amusing - although it might just be the onset of severe mental impairment - when the 21st century, affluent and sleepy-village western world starts to resemble the sawdust, turnip and goulash soup of 19th century peasant Russia. I'd say we at least have our freedom, but the more you think about it, the more we all know its a lie.
Someone once said the poor are poor because the rich are rich. I can't think of a better reason than that. The man who 'invented', if that is the right word, the Big Issue said that social mobility would save us. The trouble with that is that in this crazy tiered class based system we have, the only chance of bettering yourself will always have to come at a cost to someone else.
So how do you eat cheese? Do you use a knife and a fork, nibble away or put it in a sandwich? Or do you ram it all into your mouth a once before someone else has the chance to steal it out of your hands? In my experience, with cheese costing £2 for 200 grams, there is only one answer to 'how do you eat cheese?'
You don't.
I mean, it wasn't-that-good, but at no point did I feel a complusion to take a Black and Decker to my googlies while singing the Portugusee national anthem in an attempt to look so freaking insane that I was removed from the building. Something I once considered in a nightclub in Leicester, or Lincoln, or some other god forsaken cultural desert where the genepool has become so stagnant that if you were to fall into it you just wouldn't drown. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We went, and I saw a rather bland rendition of The Caucasian Chalk Circle, by Brecht.
If you are familiar with Brecht, then good for you. I'm not. The basic premise is that peasants in Russia are revolting, or something, and hanging quite a few people. There is a romantic subplot and something about Judgment of Solomon involving a baby and some stupid parents. Anyway, it's irrelevant. But what is relevant, in a round about way, is that in Act Five, some idiot farmer called Azdak hides the Governor, or Grand Duke, or something, from a bunch of angry people who are rather determined to put a rather fetching tie around his neck and throw him off a platform. The Grand Duke is starving, tired, cold and frightened and Azdak, being a generally good person despite his later episodes of spinelessness and brazen stupidity, decides to give him some cheese.
I've never given royalty any cheese before, but I expect they don't eat it like normal people. This is certainly the case for Dukey, who begins cutting it up with a small knife and nibbling away. Azdak quickly realises something is wrong with this stranger he's taken into his home, and admonishes him. The way you eat cheese, if you're a poor peasant in Russia, is to cup it in your hands, glance left and right suspiciously, and then ram as much down your throat in one go as possible before someone jumps you and steals it. It was a sobering lesson, not least because I was unable to pick up another few pints at the intermission.
So, in a long and roundabout way, the post is less about Brecht and more about crushing poverty, which I'm going to do everyone the service of not pretending to know much about it. One thing I've found personally is that you can always afford to smoke. This is not as hilarious a joke as it sounds, since people with an addiction, myself included, will pretty much give up everything including eating and leaving the house so long as we can get a fix. I expect some astonished conservatives to complain about where their hard earned taxes are going, and I'm just gonna point out that I'm constantly reminded every morning that this problem is gradually solving itself. Anyway, I didn't bankroll a personal photographer to take pictures of me at work, so don't come round my house asking for your taxes back.
What I will say is this, a mere two observations I have made.
1) The benefits system, including staff, buildings, forms, phonecalls and recipients - is horrendously overcomplicated and depressing. Anyone who has sat for long enough in a jobcenter knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that eventually everyone starts to hate you, and for your part, you start to hate yourself a little more. Sat on the sofas awaiting my name to be called so I can sign on, I look across at my fellow hollow eyed, sunken cheeked claimants who seem to be linked by a common physical trait of having dead, dead, eyes. From these blank pits, they seem to stare with unbridled malice, as if there was a set amount of benefit money and it was all going to come through the ceiling in the next few minutes and everyone was going to have to fight for it with every ounce of savagery they possess. Perhaps Channel 4 could film it, pretend it's a doctumentary and call it "Bread from Heaven" or something. Then the Daily Mail could run it, and use footage from the bloodbath to explain that we're all horrible people and don't deserve money anyway.
The forms are ludicrously confusing, asking me everything from my name, date of birth and address right down to the approximate weight of the last stool I took. It took me an hour of waiting in a queue with a load of twitchy people whom I was convinced were about to slip a knife in my spine to be told I had to post a letter instead of standing in their office like a goon. The security guard in the jobcenter told me I wasn't allowed to even look at my phone. Presumably in case I rang an employer and found a job. But that wouldn't be bad if you were allowed to have a nice refreshing drink of juice. Which you are not. Infact, generally everything seems to be forbidden, except queuing. Its probably part of a cultural adjustment programme which teaches us to be quiet, uncomplaining Britons.
That aside, its not too complex. I have only signed my name about twenty-six times, received two phone calls, made four, had eight letters and filled out fourteen forms, as well as turned up to three meetings in addition to my normal one every two weeks, which is now happily spiralling into months. Someone might tell me to stop updating the blog and get a job, but quite frankly, if I had to apply for anymore jobs I'd probably turn into a serial killer. Anyone who takes this as one of those funny-turn-sarcastic things I usually say is probably near the top of the list. Seriously, get out while you can.
2) There just isn't enough money.
Now, I expect people to blanch at this, wobble their upper lips in indignation and tell me to get off my scrounging ass and find someone richer than me who will pay to watch me swallow glass for his amusement, because at least then I'd be trying. I'd tell you to catch buses at £1.80 each way, smoke, eat, and make up the substantial difference between your housing benefit and rent with just £51 a week. I'm sure it can be done hypothetically.
Ok, I'm not even sure it can be done hypothetically. It's insane.
I guess the reason for this rant is that I've just come from the jobcenter, and I really didn't have anything else that is particularly interesting to say. I've been thinking about The Caucasian Chalk Circle a lot recently. A friend of mine was over the other day and asked me if I had any toast. I was going to the shop to buy some bread, until I realized the rattle of all the money I had in the entire world wasn't enough to get a loaf. There's something perversely amusing - although it might just be the onset of severe mental impairment - when the 21st century, affluent and sleepy-village western world starts to resemble the sawdust, turnip and goulash soup of 19th century peasant Russia. I'd say we at least have our freedom, but the more you think about it, the more we all know its a lie.
Someone once said the poor are poor because the rich are rich. I can't think of a better reason than that. The man who 'invented', if that is the right word, the Big Issue said that social mobility would save us. The trouble with that is that in this crazy tiered class based system we have, the only chance of bettering yourself will always have to come at a cost to someone else.
So how do you eat cheese? Do you use a knife and a fork, nibble away or put it in a sandwich? Or do you ram it all into your mouth a once before someone else has the chance to steal it out of your hands? In my experience, with cheese costing £2 for 200 grams, there is only one answer to 'how do you eat cheese?'
You don't.
Monday 1 November 2010
Two Wrongs Make A Right
It is not entirely without precedent that two unspeakably great evils collide for the betterment of humanity. Darth Vader threw the Emperor down a big hole in Star Wars, for example. And its always those moments that really make me smile. So you'll understand that having been paroozing the internet for awhile now, I always get a grin whenever I come across the Marmite vs BNP fight.
It's fairly ludicrious, to be honest. Unilever, one of those faceless and evil corporations expected to rule the known universe by 2050, have been poking fun at our homegrown comedy baddies*, the BNP. The advertising campaign involving the "Hate Party" more more-than-a-little-bit resembles Griffin and his ilk. For those familiar with Marmite's particular brand of advertising, you either love Marmite, or hate it.
Now, Griffin, despite being Cambridge educated, seems to be a bit slow on the uptake. Thinking the he can ride on the back of the more successful "Hate Party" for the elections, Griffon tacks a giant pot of Marmite into the top left corner of his party political broadcast. Somewhere, the heavens darkened and there was a shift in the very fabric of reality. What had begun as some light-hearted baiting by Unilever had ended up with them being associated with actual hatred and real-life facists. Not exactly the publicity they wanted. So what would you do if you were and evil, world spanning corporation with almost limited resources and endless reach and influence?
Unilever Strikes Back
If anything, my opinion on Marmite doesn't really matter. It's not about Marmite anymore, so Marmite lovers need not worry. Quickly the situation turned into Unilever doing their best impression of Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction, striking down with "great vengeance and furious anger" those who attempt to poison and destroy their advertising. Dramatic, yes, but undoubtedly funny. Because as soon as you read the article, it becomes apparent that the BNP is in real trouble over sandwich spread, which is ridiculous enough, but that it has also resulted in a rumoured £170,000 lawsuit which will in no uncertain terms, leave them destitute.
I could really go on forever explaining just how hilarious it is that after years of militant anti-facism, the BNP's real enemy is nothing more innocuous than a contraversial sandwich filler. But really, I don't have time. And I don't think I need to.
*I wondered if a bunch of dangerous bigoted racists constituted to comedy baddies, but given the nature of the article, I decided that they'd managed to make a sterling effort at being dignified and serious. That alone was hilarious, and any subsequent pounding by an MNC just leaves me with a huge grin and a quirky, cheerful song on loop in my head. So yeah, comedy villains, at least for this post.
It's fairly ludicrious, to be honest. Unilever, one of those faceless and evil corporations expected to rule the known universe by 2050, have been poking fun at our homegrown comedy baddies*, the BNP. The advertising campaign involving the "Hate Party" more more-than-a-little-bit resembles Griffin and his ilk. For those familiar with Marmite's particular brand of advertising, you either love Marmite, or hate it.
Now, Griffin, despite being Cambridge educated, seems to be a bit slow on the uptake. Thinking the he can ride on the back of the more successful "Hate Party" for the elections, Griffon tacks a giant pot of Marmite into the top left corner of his party political broadcast. Somewhere, the heavens darkened and there was a shift in the very fabric of reality. What had begun as some light-hearted baiting by Unilever had ended up with them being associated with actual hatred and real-life facists. Not exactly the publicity they wanted. So what would you do if you were and evil, world spanning corporation with almost limited resources and endless reach and influence?
Unilever Strikes Back
If anything, my opinion on Marmite doesn't really matter. It's not about Marmite anymore, so Marmite lovers need not worry. Quickly the situation turned into Unilever doing their best impression of Samuel Jackson in Pulp Fiction, striking down with "great vengeance and furious anger" those who attempt to poison and destroy their advertising. Dramatic, yes, but undoubtedly funny. Because as soon as you read the article, it becomes apparent that the BNP is in real trouble over sandwich spread, which is ridiculous enough, but that it has also resulted in a rumoured £170,000 lawsuit which will in no uncertain terms, leave them destitute.
I could really go on forever explaining just how hilarious it is that after years of militant anti-facism, the BNP's real enemy is nothing more innocuous than a contraversial sandwich filler. But really, I don't have time. And I don't think I need to.
*I wondered if a bunch of dangerous bigoted racists constituted to comedy baddies, but given the nature of the article, I decided that they'd managed to make a sterling effort at being dignified and serious. That alone was hilarious, and any subsequent pounding by an MNC just leaves me with a huge grin and a quirky, cheerful song on loop in my head. So yeah, comedy villains, at least for this post.
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