extreme!!!

New Labour Race Industry, New Racism

2006-10-30T16:23:00.000Z

Old Trevor Phillips, is behaving like a complete tit all over again. Not content with wading in with ill-advised attacks on the veil and segregation (remember, it's their fault, not ours), he has now decided to complain about these racists, coming over here, taking our jobs. A really really mad line of argument.

Now, let's suppose, for a moment, that Phillips is right, and, based on hearsay, Eastern European immigrants have unenlightened views regarding blacks, that resemble ours in the fifties. Well, this may be the case. The fact is, that people, from other cultures, however strange those may seem, desire to come here, regardless of the black people or the gays that we leave mingle around here, so, they can't be that bad. I certainly haven't heared yet of racist Polish dentists stockpiling weapons. Also, this debate, regarding the import of dodgy views, this forgets the times that this traffic goes the other way, so, for instance, Indian immigration brought a culture that was traditionally more favourable to gay rights.

Another, more insidious, problem with this debate, is that it views immigrants as being unable of rational analysis, change, or response to argument. They are racist, unlike us, pliant, wise indiginous ones. Variants of this are used by those nutters who believe that brown, Islamic people, can't understand our democratic ways, or, as New Labour are fond of implying that the socially excluded can't help but vote BNP if brown people turn up.

The base truth underpinning this farcial debate, regarding the unsavoury behaviour and of immigrants is that, well, the history of humanity is a history of immigration, and to stand on the beaches, looking in disapproval at your newest compatriots is just what people do. Of course, this is irritating enough, when it comes from the likes of Tony Parsons or Avid Merrion, but when it comes from the man who is the Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, a campaigner for equal civil rights, for a colour-blind, other-embracing culture, it's baffling, depressing and embarrassing.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

2006-10-24T19:47:00.000+01:00

Dr. John Reid is a prick. A big, terrifying prick of a man.

The recent onslaught against Muslims has been astonishing. Jack Straw's comments were both ridiculous and staggeringly insensitive. A man who has represented a constituency with a large Muslim population (rather well, if we forget the wars) for a large portion of his life, kicking a community when they are down.

Now, this is, here, phrased with a certain degree of exaggeration, and the defenders of Straw have said, correctly, that he only suggests (and doesn't demand) that his veiled constituents undress, and that he has the right to do so, as an individual doing a job the way he sees fit. But still, the issues of timing, lack of respect for choice (surely a cardinal sin in New Labour theology) and, well, a far less important issue, an incredibly blase attitude to pissing off a large section of his electorate, who, as a community, vote for him more than any other.

Now, I'm all for Jack Straw being hoofed out of office, for his participation in the morally bankrupt New Labour project, various illegal wars, and generally, for being a smarmy twat. But, really, his voters, that are having their veils ripped off, that are being considered oppressed by various commentators who before he mentioned his absurd request probably mistook niqab wearers as letter boxes and that are being considered by those who see them as doormats or terrorists, may be getting the distinct feeling that they've been cheated.

Ok, and back to the key issue of Dr. John Reid being a prick. He is a prick. His latest prickish behaviour was his decision that immigrants from Eastern Europe are no longer good enough, despite our reliance on them for growth over the years, and their general lack of problems regarding integration (unlike the darn, pesky, unBritish muslims). New Labour now needs the votes of a paranoid, scared public, in order to retain credibility with its last refuge of support, the floating voter. Having alientated Scottish, Welsh and Northern voters with, war, war and privitisation, it's now seen a gap in the market, now the Tories are more Guardian friendly than Dr. Reid and his ilk. However, going after the insane is never a policy, and hopefully, alongside all of his fellow pricks, he'll be hoofed out, rightfully, by the pressure of the mass

Evening All
Steff

Squish

2006-07-01T15:04:00.000+01:00

Again, another large gap. My brain has turned off after exams, before that there were exams. But I just cracked open the new Scott Walker CD, and, as my moods are very easily influenced by music (in this case, to a state of angry terror), I decided to blog away.

The main fun issue of late has been the issue of civil liberty for terror suspects. It's been one of those times where everything we've suspected was true has come to light. Firstly, the Council of Europe said that Britain had colluded in the extraordinary rendition of suspects to secret prisons (Blair responded in PMQs by saying it said nothing new - oh, that's ok then). Then, the US described the suicides, admittedly planned, of 3 Guantanamo inmates, first as 'assymetric warfare' and then, in a fit of kindness, downgraded their contempt to 'PR stunt'.

Though in this last week, the Supreme Court declared military tribunals illegal (I must add the Brentish cavaet 'in a way', when saying that), and the High Court has said that some of the indefinate house arrests set up in the stead of internment are illegal. Comes to something when judges seem more progressive than the establishment

Scott's epic 'Clara' just ended. It's about the execution of Mussolini. From where I'm standing, it sounds distinctly cheery.

Bad Blair Days (Shit Pun Days)

2006-05-22T20:11:00.000+01:00

Well, the storm that surrounded Blair after the local election results has almost completely subsided now. Which means that Blair has now become Major - at war with his party, a party too weak and divided to fight him for control, and staggering from one crisis to the next like a beaten housewife with a bottle of gin. To be honest, the tiny amount of pleasure I get from seeing Blair almost fall is nothing compared to the pain I feel when he doesn't, so I'm going to tone (ha!) down my Blair watching for my own sake. What's even more depressing about these Labour party internal grumbles is that you get the feeling that people consider Gorden Brown to be a radical dissenter from New Labour, who's just been silent on the War on Iraq, privitisation, civil liberties etc. because he secretly believes otherwise. Well, this just isn't true on Iraq, on privitisation or civil liberties. As I may have said before, Labourism rests on the belief that the bus'll be along in a minute. This big dour twat-bus isn't going any right-thinking person's way soon

The other interesting points to come out of this most recent election are the growth of Respect (which I had some part in) and BNP (which I, suprising though this may be, did not have a part in). The BNP's election campaign was characterised, as always, by fraud and lies, earning themselves a front-page in the indy for their troubles. Despite this, they achieved a fair amount, partially due to hyped-up terror fears, but mainly due to the disconnection between the state, politicians and the people. Regardless of how openly false the BNP's election leaflets are, as long as that disconnect exists, any rebuttal that comes from the state or politicians is naturally going to be dismissed as another lie from the top. This is why it was so great to hear about Jerry Hicks' campaign in Bristol from someone who helped out there. Apparently, Jerry, who was victimised out of a job by management, and was thus unemployed, began holding unofficial surgeries in and around the community, and acting as a go-between, between council tenants and the council. This sounds like an excellent campaign, and his share of the vote was dramatic in such an entrenched Labour heartland, and helps to scotch the myth that Respect is simply playing off the muslim vote and ignoring the white working class

Have-at-ye!

New Labour's special friends

2006-04-17T20:02:00.000+01:00

This blog, occuring as it does everytime I feel the need to spurt my anger out, is naturally a very random thing. So, today, I'm going to tackle a subject that has my veins throbbing out everytime it occurs - the use of malicious and/or insanely partisan sources for headline news stories.

This came to my attention a few weeks back, when the news headlines one day on Radio4 featured two stories, one based on a report by 'Doctors for Reform', who are exposed as a bunch of payola infested right-wing tits in this fortnight's Private Eye, and one based on a poll conducted by Migration Watch. Migration Watch, found that a large majority of British people, want people to Watch Migration. Who'd have thunk it?

But this trend reached a height this weekend. On Saturday, I chanced upon the Spectator in WHSmith's. Obviously, I didn't buy it, because the only time I did that, I had to check into an institution for a few months to cool down, but on the front cover they signposted an article by Peter Oborne which claimed that a certain class of people, well, poor white-people, were flocking to the BNP in their droves. Now, I question this - I would argue that the BNP has become more normalized in recent years, and that in fact, the mass of people aren't flocking to them, but the BNP are making a massive effort to flock to them, and to play off the discontent felt by people failed by the three party system. And, the report itself doesn't seem very well researched. Of course, the Spectator, inkeeping with its adherence to free-market economics, won't leave me read it online, but it begins like this - "Phil is wearing an England football shirt...He’s shaven-headed...". Alarm bells must have rung, surely, what with him being a skinhead (i am a kind of one at the moment, but that's not the point). In the article, Phil says that he voted for Thatcher and New Labour, but obviously, we have no way of checking this.

Now, one might, at this point, question why I'd get so fucked off by an article written in a right-of-Benito shitrag. Well, imagine my suprise, on Sunday, to have a minister shrilly announcing that, shock horror, white working class people are being seduced by the BNP. This seems mightily co-incidental to me. It is possible that this was an independent assessment taken, or the result of the minister dipping her toes into her constituency, and hearing and feeling the discontent of the mass. But it just isn't. This means that Labour, aren't even talking to their base anymore, and that the only contact they have with the great unwashed is through the horribly distorted lens of such a rag. The Spectator employs racist commentator Taki, and the only left-wing thing any of their number ever did was to get Blunkett sacked. Labour are willing to listen to those who believe that "Britain is being mugged by black hoodlums" and want the state education system abolished (I once read that. That's what put me in the madhouse. And the bloke called himself a socialist for wanting to do that). They would rather take advice on urban alienation from a magazine that, in the poll on its website today, has majority of its readership decrying society as being 'surrounded by filth' (filth = poverty) than say, Tony Benn. A sad day for us all.

Pray for Us!

CPE and 'Televisual Bonapartism'

2006-04-10T23:38:00.000+01:00

Hello!
Obviously, I haven't updated this for months, and for that I am deeply sorry. I have let you down, I have let Blogspot down, but most of all, I have let myself down. Anyway, I thought I'd get on, so to speak, cause I've been well thrilled today by the French government's dropping of the CPE. How fucking superb is that!

The entire CPE campaign has been illuminating as it's mad, for someone who's grown up post-Thatcher, to see people get so radicalised by an issue that isn't even on the agenda here - job security. The French model blows out of the water the idea that people need to live in the full knowledge that if they slack off they'll have to get their red wine in cartons to achieve productivity, as the French are the most productive nation in Europe. Who'd have thought that the 35-hour week and job security lead to productivity, not just utopia? And anything that stops a neo-liberal reform cheers me up intensely. The French seem very good at this, and you have to love them for it. They take strike-happy to new heights. Now, only if they could sort out the fascism, I'd be over there before you could say 'Vichy'.

I thought today was going to be a bumper day for anti-neo-liberalism, with Berlusconi being ousted as well. But, alas, that doesn't look like it's going to happen now. A massive fucking shame. In any just world, he wouldn't be Prime Minister of a G8 country, but a human punchbag in a high security prison, an executive toy for murderers. Also, If he'd been ousted, the Blair-Berlusconi-Aznar would have been 2 down, 1 to go. As it stands, it looks like Blair and Berlusconi are hanging on for dear life. Burlesconi's tenure has been described as one of 'Televisual Bonapartism', and I was really hoping, today, to come on here, and announce that theory's death, and to celebrate the fact that Prodi, the dull Europhile that he is, could win over this gleaming, varnished, hyper-rich toilet, but alas! it is not to be. Berlusconi actually sent a DVD of his life, a kind of mini 'Greatest Story Ever Told', to every single fucking house in Italy. I need to see that film. He is a howling tower of ineptitude, and should be thrown from jetty in to a sea of tar.

Rant over, and out!

Prodi appears to have won. But Berlusconi appears to be fucking about. The twat

Cameron and Kennedy

2006-01-08T16:34:00.000Z

So.........it's been a while, and quite a lot seems to have happened on the political front. Firstly, the election of David Cameron as Conservative leader. Despite the creaming of the general media, I find this all quite dull, and he certainly is. David Cameron is so dull that even his face, nevermind his policies, have no features. Of course, it's easy to be flippant, but the election of Cameron as leader means that the Tories wil get into government, either in 2009/10 or 2014/5. Which is both so depressing and so very far away that to really get concerned about it is like sobbing because the weatherman said there's going to be a period of storms next September. All we can really do is soberly pray that he gets photographed doing unimaginable things to George Osbourne with powertools and gravy, whilst Maggie rubs her hands greedily (as Tories are always itching to do - most of them do it in their sleep) in the corner.

In other more recent news, Charles Kennedy has been ousted from his post as leader by an ad-hoc alliance of media whisperers and the vicious free-market right of his party. This, for some reason, has annoyed me. Charles Kennedy has admittedly been fucking useless since the election, but for his MPs to forget that it was largely his public appeal, and his centre-left drive that got them elected in the greatest set of election results they've had in the latter half of this century seems both rude, ungrateful and self-destructive.

Also, it marks the end of the Lib Dems being a left-of-labour (and I defy anyone to read the two 2005 manifestos and not find that they were - however marginally) alternative for people who were disenfranchised by the behaviour of New Labour with regards to Iraq, the NHS etc. Now, I know that many would say that say, RESPECT, Plaid or the Greens are just as viable choices, but most politically inactive people don't see them as options. This is particularly true of RESPECT and the Greens who are marginalised by the electoral system and thus the media, and therefore have no way of presenting their geniune platforms. In Wales, Plaid, even with media access and representation in arms of government, have their profile horribly misintepreted - frequently you hear people say that they want to ban English medium education, which is just fucking insane. But the Lib Dems under Charlie, regardless of how us to the left of them may sneer, were a proud, progressive voice in parliament, and offered a Third Way from the horrendous Murdoch seduction politics that Labour and the Tories engaged in. With Charlie gone, who can doubt that they'll go for their own personal Blair, abandon progressive taxation, and hire their own teams of shit-sucking PR gurus to make them out-Cameron Cameron?

Happy New Year!

Terreblanche's Crazy Legs

2005-11-07T22:59:00.000Z

Hello,
I've recently got a dvd rental via post thingy from amazon, and I just watched The Leader, His Driver and the Driver's Wife by Nick Broomfield, who must win some kind of prize for one of the oddest surnames ever. It's about the AWB, the far-right South African terrorist group, in the early nineties, during the fall of aparhied. There's another (better) documentary about them and their terrifying leader Eugune Terreblanche by Louis Theroux, which is some pure genius.

A few things were brought up by the film. Firstly, the obvious banality of evil. The Driver was a classic example of this - a man who openly said that the AWB (who, during the course of the film, had attacked black children with whips and other such things) hadn't gone far enough, and, quite a nice bloke, for all intents and purposes. Also, I forgot how wrong racists could be. I tend to take the line, coming from post-war britain and all, that racists are just good kids gone bad, people who've misdirected their anger at the state/inequality etc. Obviously, in the case of apartheid, this rationale cannot be applied, as those who believe that these people are semi- or sub-human lorded/lord over them, but, obviously, they don't believe in purity to the extent that they won't employ them as servants. Terreblanche is one of the biggest cunts in history, and the two films are best seen in tandem, as you get to see how his murderously wrong movement shrivelled to the size of a peanut. The crunch of the film for me was when the Driver, an arms trafficker for the far-right, was asked what he was going to do next, and said "I'll probably go to Britain". A fine example of why provably right twats from old SA shouldn't be let into our jewelled isle.

In other news, I've been checking out Rob Newman He's a cool man, his writings are very good, and he's turned me on to the anti-capitalist movement - something I regarded with annoyance and confusion before. Also, I'm now tuned into hilariously inaccurate and scaremongering Indymedia (it's got some good coverage of protests though). Galloway cancelled his free-meeting in Cardiff Uni today, ah well.

Love it
Steff

Choice! Always more choice will save the Republic!

2005-10-24T15:55:00.000+01:00

Hello,
Had a fairly relaxed day, today, although I'm fairly tired on account of me having got up at 7 to get back to Cardiff. Also, I've just been for a huge shop, which we tried to take back in a trolley, but were thwarted by sexy bars. Nasty News. Still, bought some Ready Brek, honey, linguini and a shit load of great stuff - even powdered milk! In a washing powder style box. Fucking genius. It took us like 15 minutes to find it - Leri was deeply deeply pissed off. Came back, and the Malaysian girl (Su) described my welsh voice as sexy. good stuff

In the politics, it seems that Blair's rampant 'modernising' zeal knows no bounds. This school stuff is insane. Like so many of New Labour's policies, it exists in an insane middle class bubble, entirely beyond interest to so many people. The policy is based around the idea that everyone just moves house, to get into a good school, so why not allow them to choose which school without adherence to catchments. Now, there are many obvious idiocies to this - the first being that schools aren't like balloons, they don't simply swell to fit the amount of children you put into them. They can hire more lecturers, but there is a finite amount of land, and building work is long termist, which can't be undertaken on the fickle basis of clientelism. The second is that marketisation will leave the shit ones with even less funding and the good ones overburdened. If the market goes to its logical conclusion, there'll just be one school with 30 million odd kids flying in from the Lands' End to the other one, which has a shit name. Or, more likely, you'll have two classes. The good schools, which'll be full of children with pushy (predominately middle-class) parents and the shit schools, with everyone else, the poor, the shy parented, the slightly stupid - in short, plato's republic, feudalism. Fucking New Labour. I love the fact that with their election results at an all time low, and the tories in stasis, they think "I know what'll make people like us more. Let's be more like the Tories". I just realised how huge this paragraph is, but social policy is my obsession, and should be respect's focus, as far as I'm concerned. Ending the Iraqi occupation will/would be grand, but we musn't lose site of the nearer fight.

Christian Voice

2005-09-21T19:40:00.000+01:00

here's an email i just wrote to the cockheaded extremist Christian group Christian Voice when I realised that they'd made an incorrect legal claim on their site. so proud:

Dear Mr. Green,
Your site claims that "[Jerry Springer the Opera] also (neat point for human rights aficionados) insults us Christians in our religious beliefs, contrary to Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights." Well, as a student of human rights law, this simply isn't the case. Article 9 creates a Freedom to practice a religion, but includes nothing on freedom from ridicule or blasphemy. In fact, it is an extremely narrowly interpreted right, allowing for massive national disparities - for example, the continued existance of blasphemous libel in England and Wales and the headscarf and cross ban in public buildings in france. Article 9 really ensures that Christians such as yourself are free to protest at Gay Pride, and atheists such as Stewart Lee are allowed to broadcast Jerry Springer the Opera. Your application of it is incorrect and would not succeed in court, so it's basically a libel against the writers, producers and performers of Jerry Springer, and this statement leaves you open to prosecution. Just a heads up.
Yours Sincerely
Steffan Thomas

let's see how they cope with the threat of libel.

Terrorist Babies

2005-08-23T07:46:00.000+01:00

Well, there has been a dramatic upturn in my fortunes lately. I passed my a levels, gaining an A in English, and Bs in politics and law. This was way better than was expected - freakishly so, and was mainly due to my mother's recruitment of an English tutor, a man called Mark Lily. He was enthusiastic, engaging and all other words beginning with e which describe that thing. He reminded me that I am, after all, a clever fucker, and from that point, my confidence and ability grew exponentially. Another part of my success without doubt came from my gettisoning of tee-total Buddhism, which left me in a nasty state of thinking nothing meant anything. So, I'm off to do European Politics and International Relations in Cardiff University, which, if i get that degree, should enable me to go on to great things (or just 'things') in the world of politics and/or journalism. I'm really exstatic to have got in, as I was expecting to only get the grades required to do the lesser (in my opinion) course of Politics/Social Policy and Applied Ethics. God I'm so happy to have got here. I got utterly hammered with everyone I know last Thursday to celebrate this, and lost my wallet, which was a shit thing, as it had my driving license (which I needed as my driving test is on friday). Luckily, the Driving Test people accept passports, so even that apparently shit-filled cloud had a golden lining. Even the hangover I had on Friday was just a reminder of how well I'd done

In other, equally freakish news, I 'joined' the Socialist Workers' party. This was mainly inspired by my reading of Mark Steel's freakishly brilliant autobiography 'Reasons to be Cheerful'. My left tendencies had been dormant since i was about 14, and since then I had focused almost entirely on liberal/nationalist causes - Welsh self-governance and human rights (both still genius and owning my full support), but Steel's book reminded me how left I could be. Before I knew what I was really doing, I'd filled out an online contact form on their website, and had had a phonecall from scary cockney, Alan Thompson, telling me when the next meetings are. The meetings are, for me, the best part of the party, as you get to hear the views of engaged, well-read and moral people being tossed back and forth, and you can even bring your own thoughts to the sexy table of thoughts. Thoughts. Anyway, any interest to www.socialistworker.co.uk then to www.swp.org.uk. They are genius.

Despite the months and months that have past, I still find myself with very little to say. Oh, um, I love South Park. Etc. Oh, and the terrorist attack of July 7th. Um, that was bad. Although, my two baby twin cousins were born on that actual day, which has to be some sort of conspiricy. I think we should lock them up. Just in case.

The beans of hate

2005-04-11T00:53:00.000+01:00

here's something I wrote for a tiny magazine I was supposed to be editing. It's probably not going to come out so, here it is :

I love being outraged. To read the writing of those consumed by hatred gives me a real kick, like coffee. Made from the beans of hate. The internet is a wonderful tool for indulging this hobby. My two favourite sites run by twats at the moment are Christian Voice (www.christianvoice.org.uk) and Redwatch (http://www.redwatch.org.uk/)
Christian Voice bounded into the public consciousness recently, like an overexcited, scabby stray dog who’s intent on shagging your leg, regardless of your consent. They were one of the most vocal opponents of the BBC’s screening of Jerry Springer the Opera, even mounting a prosecution for blasphemous libel against the shows producers and writers. Founded by a man described as devout and peaceful by supporters, but as a “paranoid schizophrenic” by his family and doctors, Christian Voice offers us insanity with a smile. Their most recent public action was to threaten a cancer charity with a campaign to discredit them if they accepted donations from a charity performance of Jerry Springer. One of the best features of their site is a commandment by commandment breakdown of laws that break the laws of Mr. Moses, called ‘Britain In Sin’. Until I read this, I thought that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a good thing – now I know it is evil, because it states that "Human beings ... should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood," without any mention of Mr. God at all! Also, I didn’t know that “Thou Shall Not Kill” was violated by the Firearms Acts of 1988 and 1997, which banned the ownership of handguns by British citizens, reminding us that Jesus only ever turned the other cheek to open another can o’ whup’ass. These people are idiots. Worst than that, they’re persuasive idiots, with a nice writing style, that could really appeals to Daily Mail readers. They demonstrate behaviours I’d expect from medieval villagers, or Americans, not from the British.

Redwatch is a far less well known than Christian Voice, but was mentioned once in a documentary on the BNP. It takes a far less calm and reasoned tone than Christian Voice, preferring to shock first, and reason later. Redwatch, and its self-explanatory sister site Noncewatch, specialise in putting the names and addresses of ‘Marxists’ and ‘Paedophiles’ on to the internet, so that interested parties may use them as they see fit. Redwatch peddles a magnificent semi-literate take on racial and social politics, with a rabidly anti-Communist slant. The opening page of Redwatch sets out their case against communism. One of the reasons given to hate Commies is “They claim to represent the working class yet their literature is seldom understood by anyone who is not of a middle class background.” If we’re allowed to criticise things simply because I can’t understand them, I’m going to set up a website denouncing Beekeeping. Filthy Beekeepers. Honey-making scum stealing our jobs.
The best thing about Redwatch is that it offers you a link to an international nazi forum. Endless hours of fun. Most people who write there can barely spell, let alone make any kind of sense. One man here (it could only be a man) denounces the BNP as being involved with “JEWS TURKS AND ALLSORTS” and describes them as “PUTTING MONEY IN THE JEWS POCKETS PLAYING THERE SILLY ELECTION GAME.” To say that I love it would not to justice to how much I love it. I love it. The Redwatch forum assures us that extreme racists could never really do much damage, because most of them couldn’t even read the road signs to get to a revolution.

I like that.

Election and shiny diamonds

2005-04-05T22:35:00.000+01:00

So, today, the long expected general election was announced. This 'freaks my shit', as the late Lord Denning said. We, as a nation, have entered a very dark period in our history. This week an electoral court in Birmingham declared that Labour had used tactics in their voting which were reminicent of a "banana republic". They stole thousands of electoral ballot papers, took them to a safehouse, and had operatives filling them out in their favour.

The Labour government has reached the stage, much like Thatcher did, of needing power so much they are willing to do anything to keep it. Their campaign so far has centred on discrediting the other parties by implying that a vote for the Lib Dems, or any other non-Lab/Con party is a wasted vote, and will speed the Tories into power. In fact, it's entirely centred on Tory bashing - their slogan is 'Forward Not Back [to Tory government]". This is bollocks, and more than bollocks, it is bollocks that could lead to us developing a US-style of two-party governance, due to the stupidity of our electoral system.

The Tories have become massive populist whores. They have centred their campaign on 'Daily Mail' issues such as immigration and gypsys. This is making a mountain out of a molehill. I live in a not very nice area of Wales, with lots of fields and secluded car parks (which are the places that gypsys are meant to congregate) etc. and I have never in all my living days, seen one gypsy. It is to stretch a metaphor, a tiny birthmark of the shin of the body politik. As immigration is concerned, stories abound in decent journals such as private eye and humanist reportage of geniune dissidents and persecuted peoples being deported, despite their right to asylum under the UN, and the UK is perfectly willing to allow unrestricted access to Australian dropouts/stoners and South Africans fleeing democracy. The Tories disgust me, as they should anyone with a liberal, humanist outlook and morals.

The true way to combat this situation is to vote Lib-Dem, or SNP if in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales. Enough seats lost by Labour would, in the best case scenario leave Blair with a hung Parliament, leaving the humanist, socialist element with 'kingmaker' status, weilding a disproportionate amount of power over the policies of the government. We have a chance to make a serious difference to our state. Love it.

I feel disturbed when I write about politics, as the earnest side to me whips its self out and starts pleasuring itself. Despite this, it's all stuff that needs to be said, and that's never really that bad.

On another note, Ezra Pound is cool. I bought a Dover Thrift Edition of his Early Poems, and it kicks ass. I got interested in him after reading his name in something on mcsweeneys.net, and I loved it - it sounds like the punchline to a 'knock-knock' joke which hasn't yet been written. I put it into a search engine one day and read a brief biography and some of his poems. Despite him being or becoming a massive facist, he still is an extremely good poet. He writes like a bitch, in a fluid, often multi-lingual style which just gets me. He is the kind of genius that the arts don't often seem to get these days, apart from the odd rock star, and even then there's always a debate as to whether they are actually a genius. But Pound was, quite clearly, a proper genius, and like the proper geniuses beloved of all teenage pretenders, he went utterly mental. Not just a bit mental, totally fucking mental. Being tried for treason, calling for a pogrom against the Jews, being hospitalised in Pisa mental. Well mental. If I'd have known him, I would have said the 1920s equivilant of "Shine on you crazy diamond" or just "You massive, crazy facist!", which, come to think of it, probably was the between-the-wars equivilant of "Shine on you crazy diamond".

Why you shouldn't join Labour

2005-03-19T00:39:00.000Z

Here's some stuff I wrote about the Labour party, that I think is fairly impressive, and a good summation of why i hate the Labour party/government. These comments were directed at an aquaintance of mine who's just joined the Labour party. The fucking idiot.
:

My major gripe is that Labour have moved the goalposts of British politics, from the European style of ideologically based parties to an american system, where it's just teams of managers arguing over who can manage better. Also, i'm not satifisied by people saying the "Oh but economy, employment" etc. because a) economies have not that much to do with governments and b) the issues I have with this government are moral ones such as the admissiblity of evidence obtained through torture in court, the detention without trial of individuals. Public services haven't improved that much, the NHS is in a shit state, foundation hospitals will fuck it all, top-up fees and the 50% target for uni is bollocks.

Also, there are things that seriously need to be reformed in this country, like the electoral system, the House of Lords, the creation of a bill of rights, but Labour, traditionally radical, have done almost fuck all with the lords, nothing about the electoral system, despite having a massive, loyal majority.

They have made politics boring and vicious, fundamentally altered our political culture for the worse, and if they get a tiny majority this election, they have no one to blame but themselves.

So, there you go. He just said "hmm" or the equivalent to this. Oh well.

New Years Eve

2005-01-03T08:38:00.000Z

Hello,
My New Year's Eve was very very good. We went to a backwoods pub which had kareoke (I will never know how to spell that). I got more drunk than, but didn't get ill, and my heart didn't play up. I did New York, New York very early in the evening, and as the drinks wore me down, returned to do Breathe by Pink Floyd (I always choose the ones which really shouldn't be on offer) and Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Divison (see above). The man operating the karaoke (that looks about right) was a twat, as they always are. They are always failed singers, who use operating a futuristic song machine as a chance to belt out club classics. This one also brought his 8/9 year old son with him, who was also basking in the fame of being in the karaoke operating set, although little does he know that this fame is short lived. My friends (notice the use) had a fair go as well, doing student favourites, and several tracks by fantastic welsh rappers the GLC [Goldie Lookin' Chain] (go download, non-british people). In all honesty, I think we seriously got on the tits of many people in that pub, and it's lucky that I am tiny (I am nearly the same height as the karaoke operating boy) and that I was in a large group of people, as in any normal situation I would have run the risk of having the shit kicked out of me. I got to bed around 4.

New Year's Day I felt the effects of the alcohol in a way I had not experienced before. It wasn't a hangover in any traditional sense - my mind was clear, my stomach was fine, I was cheery enough. My liver stress exterted itself most forcefully in other areas. I had some painful varicose veins in an unfortunate place and my arm was dead. Therefore, I looked this up in You Are What You Eat and spent the rest of my day eating seeds, and drinking water. My only New Year's resolution is to stop drinking again. I was stupid to take it up again, and I realise that I like it way too much to drink moderately, and that it rips my insides out. Regardless of what born again christians and AA junkies may claim, being sober is not fun. The best way to compare the two experiences is to use Frank Skinner's analogy - Drinking gives you big peaks and throughs, and sobriety allows you to walk the line between the two. I have yet to properly decide which is best, for my sins. I have been obsessing about Bhutan - it is genius. Check it out at www.lonelyplanet.com - it blows my fucking mind. I have to get there before it fucks up

New Years Bitch

2004-12-31T11:19:00.000Z

The world remains an extremely fucked up place at the end of 2004 - again everyone has a duty in 2005 to work to make it better. For the first time in decades , it looks like, to quote the Lenny Bruce "everybody's ass is up for grabs". Europe, and to a lesser extent, America, are at risk of attack. Russia looks massively fucked up. There's been one of the largest natural disasters in generations. Everyone has to help, if we are to keep our civilisation going for any decent length of time - see http://www.amnesty.org, http://www.oxfam.org, and others. Of course, the single biggest threat to the world (apart from action movie sized tidal waves) is lovely America, and with the re-election of the Mr.George W. Bush, god knows how that will resolve itself. It stuns me to look at America, as I don't understand how it got so fucked up. I hazard to guess that part of it is the deep division between truth and fact at the heart of the nation. When reading their constitution, this is painfully apparent. It seems built on platitudes - everyone is equal, everyone is free etc. These are repeated so often by the media that it's no longer the deluded statecraft of a handful of slaveholders and puritans, fucked on hubris, but a sacred document (in the eyes of many Americans). Frankly, you get a nation of Europe's outcasts who think they have god on their side and no amount of argument and common sense will save you, particularly if your argument comes shot-through with the kind of European anti-Americanism that I have so liberally used here.

Carys 4 Sand

2004-08-30T04:51:00.000+01:00

I had a good day today - i went up to mid-wales to visit my cousin's who are staying in a caravan there with my grandparents (please note, these people aren't trailer-trash - they also own a house, so there). The drive up was hellish. I had been drinking (i don't usually - buddhist), only 2 cans, but i have good liver function and this was enough to make me tipsy, and got to bed at 3. I didn't feel hungover, but the combination of tiredness and twisty roads made me feel baaadd. I shouted, often, at my father, and when i felt i was going to be sick, i made an effort to 'angle' it towards him, as it was his fault - he should suffer. Fortunately i wasn't sick.

We got there, and met up with my cousins, my two aunties and my grandparents, and generally had a good day. The kids, as always, were awesome. They are 4 and 2, girls, and absolutley adorable. We had a normalish sunday morning - despite the fact that we'd driven 60 miles of country roads to get there. Then we went to the beach. It was a very very cool beach, but i had no swimming/lounging around clothing with me, so it was a bit of a dead end. I spent most of my time making sand castles - FUN!. I love a good sandcastle

Then my littlest cousin, was also making sandcastles though hers were shit! I have mad skills in castle making compared to a two year old. Who's the man? She took off, heading for the sea. Naturally, i followed. I followed her all the way to the sea, but then she appeared confused, so she then headed for her sister who was further along the beach again. I was getting out of breath. She then decided, that the most reasonable course of action was to roll around in and eat the sand. I don't know if any parents who read this have experienced similar behaviour, but i took immediate, instinctive evasive action, picking her up from the sand, and carrying her from then on. This pissed her off massively, and she whinged and whinged for me to put her on the floor, which, for my sins, i did. Of course, this lead to another orgy of sandeating. I took her back to my grandmother and mother, who i thought were better disposed to deal with this, and lay on my back, having added another strain to my already impressive back pain.

Despite the fact that i had saved this little person from ingesting a possibly damaging substance, at great detriment to myself, she saw this intervention as nothing more than a personal insult, and spent a great deal of the next hour rejecting all of my attempts to be nice to her. Eventually, she came round, but i was left feeling exhausted. Such is the love between a two year old girl and a 17 year old boy

Superted!

2004-08-27T22:37:00.000+01:00

I didn't sleep very well last night, because i didn't move much yesterday. I got to sleep around five. I thought about Superted, which, for the uninitiated, is an old (yet still repeated), very popular welsh language kid's cartoon. It concerns the adventures of a camp magical teddy Superted and his even camper spotty alien friend/live-in lover Smotyn (Spot). They repeatedly fight a bizarre evil american cowboy-type called Tex, a big fat, slightly camp bloke who's name escapes me, and an extremely camp skeleton. This skeleton is the most absurdly gay thing about this show, and i clearly remember him once saying "Dwi'n shiglo fel blancmange!". Obviously, welsh speakers will get the full comedic hit of this, but english speakers, to understand how massively 'outrageous' this is, just say "I'm quivering like jelly" in the gayest accent possible. I blame this, and this alone, for the high levels of gayiety in the welsh speaking community of wales - that's my story and i'm sticking to it!