Old Scrotum

A bit of a balls-up, but they’ve been stringing them along... A World Service interview that amused me, revealing that the medical condition of “cello scrotum” was a hoax all along, invented to counter another condition reported in the BMJ that the hoaxers felt sure was surely also a joke.
The bit that most amused me, however, was the incidental fact that the Musicians’ Union has been lobbying to have “cello scrotum” recognised as an “industrial injury” and that even cellists in the then-USSR claimed to suffer from it. Now that we can rest assured it is (a) fictitious and (b) impossible anyway, Jerome K Jerome’s belief that anyone reading a medical text-book will convince themselves they suffer from every ailment in it (save Housemaid’s Knee) survives the passage of time.

Top of the Morning

A sign of the times? A bus-stop advertisement had broken down, such that only the top of one poster appeared at the bottom of the frame. “Top ur self” it read. That’s text-speak, of course. I knew that. But the message was a grim one. Has the credit crunch become that serious? “It’s hopeless, so why not do yourself in right now and get it over with?” What were they advertising? Futurama-style suicide booths? Or was it a public service, to push enough people over the edge so as to reduce the surplus population, as Ebeneezer Scrooge (and doubtless Gordon Brown) would have phrased it?
Then a man who had been standing in front of the display moved to the right and the whole slogan was revealed. “Top ur self up for £1.99”. It was for fried chicken. Great. But for a mad moment I had genuinely entertained the idea that a billboard advertising campaign might have started to encourage mass euthanasia. “Visit Switzerland! £65 (one way).” Of course, the cynical might have felt the fried chicken would do the same job in the end. Oh, sorry, that’s me that is - the cynical. I thought that too. Either way, as the drunken crazyman sitting next to me (where else?) on the bus put it later on, “We’re all going to the same place. We're all going to the same place.” Too right, Joe. Top up?

Captain Peng Watch

There is a great deal I could say about the current round of fighting in the ‘Holy Land’, but I really find it too depressing to add to all the words already wasted over it. It reminds me of a thought I have long and often held... that in this world there is - and has only ever been - one single conflict. On the one side are the Men of Violence. On the other side is everybody else.

However, two stories have stood out in terms of what they say about the nature of wars, terrorism and the human use of human beings. One flows from a conflict which bears astonishing parallels to the Middle Eastern troubles, yet is largely overlooked by the world's media. A prominent Sri Lankan journalist foretold his own assassination and wrote about it. His words from beyond the grave were read out on BBC World Service by actor Bill Nye. It is astounding, and worth listening to in full. It maps onto so many conflicts and addresses us all in what we think of as our havens of safety.

The other was another World Service story, but one that offers more hope. To me, the actions of Captain Peng battling pirates on his ship exemplifies the spirit of Shaolin.
As my old martial arts teacher used to say to me, when an enemy approaches the Kung Fu man he (or she) should first tell the enemy that they do not want to fight and warn the aggressor to go away. The enemy continues his advance. The warrior runs. The enemy runs after. The warrior again warns the enemy that they do not want to fight. The warrior should then hide or run further. The enemy attacks. The warrior is trapped in a corner. Now the warrior has no choice. The warrior must fight, and fight like fury. The warrior will use the enemy's own strength against him, exhausting him with the futility of his aggression. In the end, the enemy has to retreat. But, the enemy must not be humiliated or dishonoured in defeat, for then the warrior is disgraced.
All of these elements are present in this story, but it is that last bit about the shoes that made my spirit soar. I would never suggest that Captain Peng was consciously invoking the practices of the Shaolin Temple, but he did not need to. It has soaked through into Chinese culture. This story gives me hope. Should that nation come to the greater prominence in the world that so many expect, that tradition of conflict and its resolution may radiate outward. There is a proverb in China that goes something like this: I used to weep because I had no shoes, until I met a man with no feet.

La Lutte Continue...

¡Che! He’s a sexy boy, eh? A beardy beatnik in a beret who beat up Batista’s bastards. Who could fail to love him? Er, well, lots of people, actually. How about the thousands slung into jail for daring to criticise the vile, repressive regimes he helped put in power? The ones who were murdered outright, either by the Communists or by Che himself would not, of course, have been able to comment. But, hey, he’s got a sexy beard... eh? And great cheekbones. So, you forgive him, yeah?
No, I bloody don’t. All this Che adoration that’s coming out of the film world... arencha sick of it? I am. First The Motorcycle Diaries and now we’ve got another one - the first of a two parter, no less. How would we react to a major Hollywood film depicting the early life of Frederico Franco, I wonder. Well, he was very sexy too, when he was young, and - what a hero! - he liberated Spain from democracy and brought in a fine, enduring Fascist tyranny. Hurrah!
And how about Tristan, the life of thrusting, sexy German revolutionary Reinhardt ‘Hangman’ Heydrich, who stormed across Europe, spreading Nazism wherever he went. Just like Che, he cheerfully killed and tortured everyone who dared criticise his inspiring leader (in his case Adolf Hitler) or stood in the way of his glorious vision - a Nazi in every home! Cheer as he helps mastermind the Final Solution! Weep as his sexy, thrusting life is cut short by terrorists in the pay of those evil, dastardly Allies - Boo!
Can we not also look forward to Hendrik - the life of sexy, thrusting racist Dr Hendrik Verwoerd and his heroic struggle to establish Apartheid in South Africa, before he was cruelly gunned down by beastly supporters of (ugh!) democracy - ‘Boo’ and ‘Boo’ again!
I don’t see any difference between Nazism and Communism. Both were evil ideologies, both ordered the wholesale slaughter, torture, and oppression of millions, while raking in cash and corruption for their kleptomaniac tyrants. Che was a cold-blooded killer who wanted only to impose a foul, repressive dictatorship on the world. The dead cannot accuse him. We should not celebrate him.
Oh, and all you beardy beatniks out there who still love the blood-soaked Che Guevara, let me tell you a home-truth you won’t like. You only support revolution because you think that, if it came, you’d be at the captain’s table afterwards, yes? Because you were good Commies all along, right? Think again! The first thing a fresh tyrant always does - and must always do - is massacre the revolutionaries who put him in power. After all, if they could pull off one revolution successfully, they might be able to do it again and get rid of him! So you Che-ite nitwits out there would be first for the chop.
Mind you, speaking of biopics for prominent torturers, I’m still looking forward to seeing Forces Sweetheart: the Lynndie England Story. Come on, come on! Surely that’s got to get the green light soon?
(It also made me smile to see what you get if you go to www.che.com)

Oooh, I'm cross...

On a good day, the so-called “Conservative” Party acts more like an organised crime syndicate than a legitimate political body, but even by its own appalling standards their latest behaviour is a shocker that should be very troubling everyone. Except that it isn’t. The papers are still all gooey about goggly-eyed David Camoron and his bandit gang. I said I was worked up about the Damian Green business and I could rant for hours, but boiling it all down, here’s why:

1. Politicians are not above the law, even if they think they should be. They don’t believe it’s any problem that civil servants be arrested for leaking, but get all hoity-toity if anyone imagines they ought to face the same treatment.

2. To hear them you’d think the worst thing about it was the fact that the police arrested Damian Green without a warrant. They had warrants for his private homes and offices, but his office in Parliament was raided without a warrant. That’s true, but Damian Green’s Parliamentary office is not his private personal property. The House of Commons is not MPs’ personal property either. It’s ours! They work there for us! The police no more need a warrant to enter a public building like the House of Commons than they would to search a bus.

3. Okay, but that’s not all. I quote from Blackstone’s Statutes on Criminal Law, page 5:

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984:
Section 24. Arrest without warrant for arrestable offences...
(2) The offences to which subsection (2) below applies are -
...(b) offences under the Official Secrets Act 1911 and 1920 that are not arrestable offences by virtue of the term of imprisonment for which a person may be sentenced in respect of them...
...(e) offences under section 1 of the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889 (corruption in office) or section 1 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 (corrupt transactions with agents)...

4. I got very heartily sick of hearing our self-appointed lords and masters telling us all that their job is ‘to hold the government to account’. No it’s not. Their job is to represent the interests of their constituents! That’s what they get elected for, even if precious few of those trough-guzzling pigs ever think of the suckers who vote for them once they’re on the gravy train.

5. The Tories have been raving about us being on the slippery slope to a police state and that the Home Secretary should tell the police to back off and leave them alone. In a democracy, the executive and the criminal justice system are kept apart. Politicians make the laws, judges interpret and enact them. In a police state the politicians actually do have the power to command the police and judiciary to do as they want. Be very afraid, voters. That’s precisely what the Tories are calling for. Any bets on what they’d get up to in office?

6. In fact, the police have always been very sympathetic to the Tory Party. In my opinion, the new Tory mayor of London got rid of Met Chief Sir Iain Blair because he wasn’t being a sufficiently obedient poodle. He did not have the power to sack him, but used every loophole in the book to make his job impossible. But now the Tories have got no-one in their pocket in charge of the Met, and, blow me down, the police are actually free to go after their corrupt, lying, cheating, conniving, thieving and treachery. Know what? That’s their job!

7. Now it seems the Tories have employed their press poodles to attack London’s anti-terror chief and interfere in the investigation, publishing his home address so that terrorists and the Tories’ fellow criminals could threaten his family. Words fail me. They really do. This is not just against a whole slew of laws, it’s treason, pure and simple. Not that that surprises me, coming from that evil house of Lords Haw-Haw. Vote them in and it’s curtains for the lot of us. I ain’t kidding.

Terrence and Philip

Martin Rowson in today’s Guardian sums up my own thinking on the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand affair, really. No prizes for guessing whose physog is going to be on top of the bonfire this Guy Fawkes night, eh? But, as the cartoonist Banx commented in The Financial Times this morning, the scariest Hallowe’en trick-or-treat costume of all is the ‘hedge fund manager’ horror mask. Let’s get a sense of proportion, shall we kiddies?
Of course, I have been fascinated at this latest media frenzy. BBC Radio 5 devoted its hour-long morning phone-in to it three days running! I downloaded them all onto my new iPod! You betcha, as Sarah Palin would say.
Naturally enough, this outrage on the part of the fuddy-duddy tabloid press over an interview with ‘foul mouthed comedians’ did give me a strong sense of déjà-vu, that history from thirty years ago was repeating itself like a big burping belly that’s too full of Country Life English butter.
Well, today I found not one but two copies of Thursday’s Daily Mail on the bus. I was able to read, for the first time, a full transcript of Ross and Brand’s notorious prank telephone call, available only in snippets elsewhere. Here it is, least you forget how terrible it is, the Mail shrieked. I read it and I now have a shameful confession to make. You see, previously, when all I had to go on was a bald description of what was said, filtered through Terence Blacker in The Independent and others, I was sickened. It sounded vile and disgusting. The worst kind of bullying and taunting. But, when I was able to read it in context, and saw what those two fonejackers had actually said... I’m sorry, but I laughed. I thought it was funny.
Now, Jonathan Ross is a man I have no time for, but I do have a soft spot for Russell Brand. I know plenty of people hate him, but he is a friend of a friend* and that predisposes me to like him, I suppose, though I genuinely do think he is gifted at what he does. He pretends to be an idiot, when he is really very, very smart, while Ross is much the other way around.
Anyway, I shall leave aside the details of the prank call itself to draw attention to an interesting little detail in the Daily Mail warts-and-all transcript**. ‘Here is the bit that was not broadcast,’ they said, printing a section that even the few who had originally tuned in would not have heard. Now, I wondered, where did they get that from? Did their podcast have a special hidden bonus track at the end? Or did it come to them from the production team? Well, what do you think?
You see, I think this is not about whatever jokes Ross and Brand may or may not have thrown out in their ill-advised chat-show. That didn’t bother anyone for weeks, anyway. No, I think the joke that this was really all about was Ross’s off-the-cuff remark a little while ago that he was paid so much that he was ’worth as much as one thousand journalists...’ Now, to journalists that’s a challenge. That’s like a white glove across the face... it gives them the right to choice of weapons. And they have a mighty armory.
If they were going to write an honest op-ed piece about it, I reckon it would go a bit like this:

‘You think you’re worth a thousand of us, do you Ross? Well, watch what we can do to you, boy. How d’you fancy being the new Jade Goody, then? We can force the worst financial crisis in sixty years right off the front page to make room for your ugly mug every day... We can make the two minute hate last a whole week. We can cost you a million quid and make you smile as you let it go. That’s what we can do. And what can you do? Where’s this power of a thousand journalists that you’ve got then? Nowhere, chum. We can bend you over and make you take every inch, and there’s not a damned thing you can do to stop us. You may think you’re the biz, but you’re just another fucking civilian. We made you and we can break you. Just so’s you don’t forget who’s boss.’

By the way, that’s a warning to us as well, of course. Just so’s we don’t forget who really runs this country.

Footnotes:
*Although, weirdly, so is Jonathan Ross, now I come to think about it....
**Of course, the uncut version has found its way onto YouTube for those who would like to catch it It has already had 242,837 views... a bigger audience than the original radio programme had in the first place... while a shorter, but higher resolution copy has had three times the original audience...

Taxi rank

Following on from PJ O'Rourke's estimate of the quantity of money the 1989 Savings and Loan bailout represented (see below) I did a quick, back of the envelope calculation on the subject of the five hundred billion pound payout to the banks. It is roughly enough for Gordon Brown to take a London black cab from Westminster all the way to the Kuiper Belt Object (formerly planet) Pluto... and back again... ten times and fill in Peter Mandelson's name on the spare receipt so he can claim expenses for him too, and still leave enough for a substantial tip. Oh, and that includes the cabbie going over London Bridge twice - once in London and once in Arizona - and charging extra because he doesn't go south of Jupiter after midnight...