Nick Doody

FOOTBALL?

2006-07-02T19:06:00.000+01:00

I tried to call my daughter last week but reached some alien instead. Amid the noise and yelling in the background, I barely heard someone who sounded like my girl say, “Sorry, Mom, I can’t talk right now, football is on.” I stared dumbly into the phone thinking about the child who would rather have a root canal than watch sports on TV, and said,

“Eva, is that you?” with an edge of panic in my voice. Screams erupted from the phone, but when she could speak again she said,

“Can you call me later?” and then she repeated the words I though were a joke before, “I’m watching football.”

I hung up and realized that it had happened. My daughter has forgotten she was not actually born British. I had been suspicious when I had tried to call her a few days before, right as she was getting ready to enter the tube at King’s Cross. She only had a minute before the phone would be out of range, but she mentioned that it was horribly hot. When I hung up I checked the London weather. It was 30C, or 86F as we like to say in the US, but only because no one has a clue what Celsius really means. It was currently 97 (36 and change in Celsius) in Virginia that afternoon, a fairly normal summer temperature. Eva loves the summer heat, and lived in Florida for two and a half years. In Tallahassee the summer temperatures average around the same as a nice cup of tea after you add the milk, and the humidity is like sticking your head in the cup.

I did not delay, I bought her a plane ticket for a visit home and she will arrive on July 5 for a nice long holiday. I hope she still recognizes us.

Make the punishment fit the crime

2006-03-01T12:30:00.000Z

Ah, poetic justice...

This is why 'elders' are so much cooler than a boring old 'judiciary'.

Gerald Doody - a life in headwear

2006-02-27T23:38:00.000Z

My father's 60th birthday was last Saturday, and along with the predictable sides of the family celebration (heroic quantities of red wine (REALLY heroic - one of the cards was from the Bordeaux region of France. It read, simply, "Thank you."), sister trying to relieve herself on a radiator - you get the idea),
there were photographs around the place of my dad, from childhood, through excited new father, through more jaded, experienced father, to the patriarch we all know and fear today.

One running theme that you couldn't help but notice from the pictures was that every now and again, my father seems to feel the need to experiment with non-traditional headwear. I draw no conclusions, but leave the pictures to tell their own story.

Chessboxing

2005-10-06T16:13:00.000+01:00

The first European Chessboxing Championship held Oct. 1 at the Salon Ost in Berlin resulted in a decisive win for Bulgarian Tihomir "Tigertad" Titschko against Berliner Andreas "D" Schneider. The victory came in the chess portion of the event.

Chessboxing combines top physical and mental sports in a game that demands the most from its opponents. Chessboxer athletes endure four-minute rounds of chess and two-minute boxing rounds with a maximum of 11 rounds. Either a K.O. or checkmate will lead to a victory.

As those who play either sport can attest, the mental and physical challenges of chess and boxing can be extremely taxing, let alone combined in a way that is more than nerve-wracking than one would imagine.

...

Read the complete article

Two examples of racism

2005-09-09T20:56:00.000+01:00

Both in the US mainstream media, and both highlighted on Language Log, a blog where some rather illustrious linguists hang out.

1) The use of 'bushman' as a derogatory term, like 'savage', by Mark Helprin in the Wall Street Journal:

Our politics and policies have somehow been parceled out to opportunists like Michael Moore--purveyor of conspiracy theories and hatreds, whose presentation, unclean in every respect, is honored nonetheless by the controlling rump of Democrats--and to Bushmen like "Kip" Hawley of Homeland Security, father of the proposal to allow carry-on ice-picks, bows and arrows, and knives with blades up to five-inches long.

Quoted and discussed by Mark Libermann, who notes en passant* that 'bushman' in its literal sense has been seen as derogatory, but is prefered by bushmen to the term 'san'. (Because 'san' is a derogatory word used by the neighbouring Khoi people for Bushmen. He doesn't mention the use of 'Khoisan' to refer to both together, but I would imagine that's worse.)

I like his concluding paragraphs:

But Helprin isn't using Bushmen literally. Instead, he seems to be using it to mean something like "uncivilized people who thinks that the way to solve problems is to give everybody more weapons". This is ungenerous, not to say offensive, given that the culture of the Bushmen/San/Khoe/Basarwa seems to be rather on the gentle side.

A traditional solution to this problem is to use the word Neandert(h)al. This has the advantage of referring to no living people (unless you're one of those who believes that modern Europeans are part Neandertal), but it has the disadvantage of being founded on an unjustified prejudice against people with brow ridges and weak chins.

A more rational solution would be use the name of the American political group now most associated with interest in weapons, namely Republicans. To provide anatomical balance with his prior use of the phrase "rump of Democrats", perhaps Helprin should have written "brain-dead Republicans". Indeed, to increase the degree of anatomical and neurological parallelism, he might have contrasted the "numb rump of Democrats" who honor Michael Moore with the "brain-dead Republicans" who want to see hijackers and airline passengers fighting it out with bayonets and crossbows. Of course, I suggest this purely as an matter of abstract rhetorical balance, not to express any political opinion or any derogation of Mr. Hawley.

2) Geoff Nunberg finds statistical evidence that the word 'refugee' is being used disproportionately to describe poor, black people affected by Hurricane Katrina:

In Nexis wire service articles mentioning Katrina over the past week, articles containing evacuee outnumber those containing refugee by 56% to 44% (n=1522). But in contexts in which the words appear within 10 words of poor or black, refugee is favored by 68% to 32% (n=85). And in contexts in which the words appear within ten words of Astrodome, refugee is favored by 63% to 37% (n=461).

Those disparities likely reflect the image of refugees as poor, bedraggled, and abandoned, which would make the word seem apt to describe the people getting off the buses at the Astrodome. That stereotype may be unfair and invidious in its own right, as George Rupp, the CEO of the Interntional Rescue Committee, was saying this morning on WNYC's Bryan Lehrer Show, where I was also a guest. But the way the press is using the word refugee now hardly does much to dispel the stereotype. And while there may be polemical reasons for advocates of the displaced to use the term, the way Woodie Guthrie did in his song "Dust Bowl Refugee," that's hardly what the media are getting at when they use it, or what President Bush was thinking of when he objected to the use of the term the other day.

It's strange for me to find myself agreeing with the-liar-and-war-criminal-in-the-White-House about anything of substance politically. Still, it's impressive how insensitively he managed to put it:

President Bush, who has spent days trying to deflect criticism that he responded sluggishly to the disaster, weighed in on Tuesday. "The people we're talking about are not refugees," he said. "They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens." (from the Washington Post)

One final point. I don't mean to seem as though I only criticise people from the US, despite this post and my previous post here. This just seems to be a suitable forum when I have something to say about North American life. On my own blog I lay into East Asian politicians, and in my personal life I complain about the people around me...

* I was going to write 'in passing', but then I remembered on whose blog I'm writing. I'll try to work 'checkmate', 'stalemate' and, especially, 'zugzwang' into future posts.

Who The Hell Tested The First Parachute?

2005-08-29T15:29:00.000+01:00

According to Wikipedia:

"A few medieval documents record the use of parachute-like devices to allow a person to fall (somewhat) safely from a height. In 852, an Andalusian daredevil named Armen Firman jumped from a tower in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts to arrest his fall, sustaining only minor injuries. In 1178, another Muslim attempted a similar feat in Constantinople, but he broke several bones and later died of his injuries. According to Joseph Needham there were working parachutes in China as early as the twelfth century.

Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute while he was living in Milan around 1485. However, the idea of the parachute may not have originated with him: the historian Lynn White has discovered an anonymous Italian manuscript from about 1470 that depicts two designs for a parachute, one of which is very similar to da Vinci's. The first known test of such a parachute was made in 1617 in Venice by the Croatian inventor Faust Vrančić."

Two things leap out here - the word "injuries" turning up shortly after the first couple of goes, and the fact that, although Leonardo da Vinci may have sketched a parachute, there is no record of him strapping on a makeshift prototype and hurling himself off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This is why he is still remembered as a genius, while history does not record the name of our unfortunate Constantinople wannabe. I like to think of him as Jumpy McDoomed.

Actually, this started as a straight stand-up rhetorical question. I had visions of some mad inventor embarrassing himself and his wife: "Is that your husband on the roof, Mrs Parachute?" "Oh, no, not again - Bob! Come down! And what have you done the curtains?" Wheeeeeeeeeeee! THUMP.

Looking it up, though, was rather fun. Jean-Pierre Blanchard demonstrated it as a way of 'disembarking' (seems a rather downbeat term for defying the laws of God, but there you go) from a hot air balloon. I thought I had my man, until I read on to discover that he used his dog in the demonstrations. No fool he. He didn't actually use one himself until his balloon ruptured one day 8 years later and he needed it to escape. That, to me, is key: needing to escape from something. That's when a parachute should be considered an option, not when you're wondering if there might be some way of getting down from the top of a lighthouse that's faster and more dangerous than the stairs, or when you want to send kids with leukaemia to Disneyland but have become bored of sponsored runs.

Anyway, it seems that, whoever the first human was to test a parachute, the first dog was almost certainly Jean-Pierre Blanchard's hapless hound. Wikipedia doesn't give his or her name, but 1785 is a lot of dog years ago so we can be fairly sure he or she is no longer with us. Still, our thoughts are with you, proud predecessor to Laika - you paved the way for dozens of animals to break barriers in aeronautics. Whether they wanted to or not.

When the Doodys Co-Write

2005-08-29T15:15:00.000+01:00

Looking through some old posts on Ben's blog last night, we rediscovered this, hidden away in the comments. It was credited to Eva, but we both wrote it, giggling as we went. The comment was one of several responding to the imminent plans for Virginia to introduce legislation banning low-slung trousers - the notorious 'Droopy Drawers Bill'.

As a woman – and a right-thinking, God-fearing one (If you doubt my right-thinking or God fearing credentials, I refer you to the crucifixes around my bed. Three tons of pine and a whole lot of Jesus don’t lie.) - I believe that no woman should ever be allowed to dress in a way that is provocative to any man.

Point 1) I saw this girl dancing, all sexy like, and I definitely believe that she was trying to seduce every man in the room. Dancing should be banned. Or if not banned, very very very* frowned upon. And those hokey-pokeying heathen sluts at the skating rink should be ashamed of themselves.

Point 2) Why do these women feel the need to show off every part of their sexy, sumptuous, beautiful, fleshy, drooly-upon...I mean...horrible, sinful bodies!!! What are they thinking, those sexy, slutty, "What, you want me to lick you?!?" ... I mean disgusting, non-Bible-loving whores!!!! What are they trying to do to the minds of our young, wholesome, firm-muscled boys??? Sometimes I just despair – it’ll be their knees next!!! And you people who say I’m like the Taliban? Well, I looked that word up (sounded kind of foreign) and I have to say, I am nothing like those liberal good-for-nothings!! Showing those seductive eyes off like some kind of perfumed ninja? Hey, this is Mechanicsville, not Sexville!!!!

Point 3) I forgot this point, but I swear, it was really angry, judgemental and good!

Point 4) Has anyone ever thought about cats? I mean, they walk around naked all the time!!! Shouldn't they be wearing pants by now? Does anyone feel the shame that I do when looking at a filthy, naked cat just wandering around the block like it owns the place?!?! Well, Mister Kitty-Cat, you DON’T own the place. I do – and I’ll have you know I’m a goshdarned fine land-lady, provided my tenants observe the 47 simple rules posted on every door. And the Ten Commandments, of course. (By the way, Little Boy Johnson, I know it was you who put the devil horns on the picture of Jesus mowed into my lawn. Not that I’m judging. Only God judges. And he judges YOU!!! To Hell, if I’m any judge – which as I have just explained, I am most certainly not!!!!!!!!!!)

Point 5) [Takes off glasses dramatically] Good day to you, Sir!

Point 6) I said, ‘Good Day!’ !!!!!!

If anyone agrees with the outrage that I feel right now, please, let us join a letter writing campaign!! Just send $100 to evaaa @ hotmail.com and I'll spend all of my days writing away to senators, congressmen, cat owners, a certain Mister Johnson, etc., to let them know how we feel!!!

*VERY VERY VERY VERY, VERY

Propaganda In A Free Society

2005-08-26T15:05:00.000+01:00

This is an excellent article describing some of the techniques the media use to form an illusory consensus. It's more important now than ever, with Blair consistently and with breathtaking arrogance (including, sometimes, practically claiming psychic abilities) denying ANY link between Western actions abroad and Islamic terrorism, to bear in mind the subtle and not-so-subtle ways this is made to seem normal, or at least defensible.

Defiance and humour

2005-08-03T17:49:00.000+01:00

With a lot of talk about the defiance, resilience and humour of Londoners under siege, it's difficult not to be a hero - particularly when doing what you would normally do every day anyway is considered heroic. For instance, last week I had a very defiant poo. By which I mean I smeared it on a mosque. Before you get all upset, though, I smeared the words, "We know you're not all to blame." And anyway, I would have smeared it on a Catholic church if I wasn't now banned from going within 100 yards of one.

Humour-wise, it's a shame the failed bus bomber on the 21st caused the shock he did, because with a clear, unpanicked head there would've been an opportunity for a great practical joke. Apparently, fellow passengers asked him if he was all right (polite, even to would-be suicide bombers - my god, I'm proud to be British sometimes). What I like to think (completely self-deludedly) I would have done, is say,

"Welcome to heaven! Yes, I know it looks like the inside of a bus - that's one of the rules. Heaven looks like wherever you were when you died. You're lucky you didn't freeze to death; those people have a miserable eternity.
[Ahem] Anyway, we're all virgins. So... At your service... Take your pick - can I go first?"

States of Welfare

2005-08-03T13:22:00.000+01:00

This is interesting.

Media Response

2005-07-09T17:37:00.000+01:00

The following was forwarded to me by Nick Allott. It's from an organization called Justice Not Vengeance, and I'm reproducing it without permission. The bit at the end is by me, obviously.

HOW THE BRITISH MEDIA ARE RESPONDING TO THE ATROCITIES (A brief version)
1) The Background Assumption

The attacks on London appear to have been claimed by al Qaeda, this claim appears to have been accepted by the authorities, and the discussion of the bombings starts at this point (quite reasonably in our view). The question, then, is what al Qaeda intends, and by what means this terrorist campaign can be brought to an end.

There is a generally-held view of al Qaeda in the Western media and inthe Western political mainstream, which holds that this is a group of deluded religious extremists who simply hate the West and all that it stands for, and who are therefore driven to carry out crazed acts against the institutions and people of the West.
When we turn to considering the behaviour of the media in relation to the latest atrocities, it is important for us to remember this overwhelming background assumption. In the absence of any forceful corrective to this picture of al Qaeda, the 'mad Muslim' explanation of the atrocities will prevail.

In other words, if the media simply report what has occurred, and the attempts of rescuers to mitigate the appalling effects of the atrocities, the public will be left with the belief (probably reinforced) that the perpetrators are religious fanatics who cannot bedissuaded by argument, negotiated with, or placated with concessions.

Even if there are muted reports to the contrary, this impression of the al Qaeda networks, which has been instilled over many years of reporting and portrayal on both large and small screens, will continue to dominate discussion.

2) Useful Devices

As examined in detail in an accompanying discussion, the serious British press has responded to the London atrocities with a variety of'explanations. There are four broad approaches: to deny that there are any political objectives being sought by al Qaeda; to produce a smokescreen to obscure the fact that al Qaeda has political objectives; to point in the general direction of the motivations of the terrorists, but not to spell out the crucial details needed forpolitical action; and, finally, to tell the truth.The standard 'they have no political aims' position is taken, for example, by columnist Mick Hume in The Times, and by Home Affairs Editor Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph ('Beyond the extension of the "struggle" worldwide, they have no obvious political aims that anyone can begin to address'). Then there are those who know better, but who tie themselves in knots trying to avoid shedding light on the subject. Middle East expert AmirTaheri says that al Qaeda 'does not want anything specific', then says that 'this enemy does want something specific: to take full control of your lives, dictate every single move you make round the clock... to convert humanity to Islam,' and then, having safely confused the readers of The Times, confesses that al Qaeda does have 'tactica lgoals', concerning the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and so on.

In the Financial Times, columnist Philip Stevens also gets into knots trying to minimise the impact of his analysis that peace and justice are the way to put al Qaeda out of business: the 'fascist ambitions of the extreme jihadists stretch way beyond reasoned argument or political accommodation', but their recruits may be swayed if there was 'a settlement, say, between Israel and the Palestinians.'
The Guardian's approach is to make the right noises, but to avoid details that lead to political action and uncomfortable consequences. The newspaper speaks of the need to try 'to understand why people aredrawn to commit such infamous and evil deeds, not merely tightening security to prevent them from happening again,' and calls for 'a recognition of the need to drain what can be drained from the reservoir of grievances from which the terrorists draw strength.' But like Robin Cook on the facing page, the editors fail to identify the foreign policy roots of al Qaeda's campaign, the specific grievances that drive men and women to carry out brutal assaults on ordinary civilians in British streets.

3) Telling The Truth

Finally, however, there are those who simply speak the truth.

In the Financial Times, Andrew Dorman puts the matter pithily: 'Al-Qaeda and its like are a reflection of perceived and real injustices around the world.'

Dorman goes on, 'Ultimately these groups will only be defeated if they are separated from the populations from which they draw recruits and support,' and this requires among other things that Britain helps 'to resolve disputes such as the Israel-Palestine conflict and seeking to tackle the inequalities that the Make Poverty History campaign has been seeking to address.'
Accurate, perceptive and valuable insights, and therefore buried in the final paragraph of Dorman's article where they can do the least harm.
More prominently, in the Independent, Robert Fisk makes his point simply and forcefully:
'it's no use Mr Blair telling us yesterday that "they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear". "They" are not trying to destroy "what we hold dear". They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, from his alliance with the United States, and from his adherence to Bush's policies in the Middle East.'
Amidst the acres of coverage which either silently or explicitly reinforce the 'mad Mullah' view of the likely perpetrators, these are two tiny sparks of sanity.
It is up to all of us to be sparks of sanity.
Justice Not Vengeance

I found the following article to be quite sane and balanced, too - although I'm not sure about Bush's 'moral authority' to demand obeisance after 9/11. In general, though, I think it's a pretty rational attempt by someone in the political mainstream to find an approach when, as he perceives, probably correctly, neither military action nor negotiation will be effective:

This terror will continue until we take Arab grievances seriously

I await with interest the consensus as it forms, but we can influence it by asking the right questions and refusing to allow unspoken assumptions that mislead about the world we are living in.

Two sides of the story

2005-07-06T18:16:00.000+01:00

Wow.

Compare this (from xinhua.net):

STOCKHOLM, July 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Thousands of Danish demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy in Copenhagen on Wednesday to protest a visit by President George W. Bush amid one of the biggest security operations Denmark has ever seen.

President Bush, en route to the Group of Eight summit in Scotland, stopped in Denmark on Tuesday and Wednesday to thank the government for its continued participation in the Iraq war and reconstruction effort, Ritzau news bureau reported.

A protester holds a flag with the image of US President George W. Bush during a protest in downtown Copenhagen July 5. (Reuters)
Denmark's center-right government is a staunch supporter of the Bush administration and has committed about 570 troops in Iraq, most involved in training Iraqi security forces based in the southern part of the country.

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, like British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has resisted public pressure to withdraw military forces from Iraq.

Recent surveys have shown a majority of Danes view Bush unfavorably, and authorities and organizers expected as many as 20,000 people to participate in the anti-Bush demonstration Wednesday through downtown Copenhagen.

The rally kicked off as Bush left Denmark after a 17-hour visit and headed to a G-8 summit in Gleaneagles, Scotland.

Nine demonstrators were wearing orange jump suits and ankle chains to protest the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Protests began on Tuesday evening, hours before Bush arrived on his fourth trip to Europe this year.

In the capital, some 200 protesters, mostly black-clad youths, marched to the US Embassy, shouting "Death to Bush, death to imperialism."

Surrounded by an even higher number of police officers, the protesters burned Danish and American flags and an effigy representing Bush as they marched in pouring rain.

Two people were arrested, but there was no violence, police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.

More than 2,000 police officers have been deployed to block off streets and keep an eye on demonstrators in one of the biggest security operations the Scandinavian country has ever seen.

with this(from the Arkansaw Democrat-Gazette):

Bush drops in, thanks Danes for Iraq force
Climate, Africa seen as top G-8 issues
DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE PRESS SERVICES

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — President Bush thanked Denmark in person for sending troops to Iraq, stopping in Copenhagen on Tuesday on his way to Scotland for a summit of world leaders.
The leaders of rich nations will be talking about Africa aid and the world’s climate beginning today in Scotland.
Bush spent a few hours on the flight from Washington looking over material on potential replacements for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who announced her resignation Friday.
The briefing papers included background information on the careers and personal lives of more than a half-dozen prospective justices and key rulings they have made, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
He said Bush would focus "on a handful" of prospective nominees over the next few weeks. He discounted speculation that another seat might open, perhaps with the retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who has undergone treatment for thyroid cancer. McClellan dismissed the idea that Bush might hold up his decision to give liberal groups less time to criticize it before Senate confirmation hearings can begin.
"He’s moving forward now," McClellan said. "He’s committed to moving forward in a timely manner." Bush has said he wants to have a new justice named and confirmed before the court begins its new term in October.
White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card called Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., from Air Force One to discuss the vacancy, a spokesman for the senator said. David DiMartino said Nelson told Card the "No. 1 goal should be getting a good jurist who won’t be an activist judge."
Nelson does not sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on Bush’s eventual nominee. But he played a pivotal role in gathering 14 senators from both parties to craft a compromise over Democratic filibusters of Bush’s conservative judicial nominees.
Bush arrived in Denmark in a light drizzle Tuesday evening and was spending the night in a royal palace. He was greeted by Queen Margrethe and music from a fife and drum corps.
The president and the other leaders will hold three days of talks at the Group of Eight summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, where British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who set the agenda as this year’s host, wants to achieve breakthroughs not only on Africa aid but also on global warming.
First lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna accompanied the president to Europe. The first lady and Jenna Bush are traveling to Africa after the Scotland summit to join the Bushes’ other daughter, Barbara, for about a week. Barbara Bush has been working with an AIDS project.
The summit follows last weekend’s Live 8 concerts that featured musicians at free rock concerts in 10 cities around the world to raise awareness about Africa’s plight and bring pressure on G-8 leaders to act.
The leaders are expected to agree on billions of dollars in new support for Africa.
Beyond Africa, Blair has made global warming a central issue of Britain’s G-8 presidency, describing it as "probably the most serious threat we face." He wants an agreement among G-8 leaders on the scientific threat posed by global warming and the urgent need for action.
The United States is the only G-8 country that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. President Bush declared last week on Danish television that meeting the Kyoto emission reduction targets would have "wrecked" the U.S. economy.
Environmentalists would like to see a strong statement on the issue coming out of the G-8 meeting, even without Bush’s concurrence.
French President Jacques Chirac on Sunday called for a statement to include specific mention of Kyoto, which took effect in February and obliges participating industrialized nations to reduce their combined "greenhouse gas" emissions that are said to cause global warming.
Bush, in an interview with Britain’s ITV television Monday, renewed his insistence that Washington would not sign Kyoto or any similar deals limiting emissions. Still, he described climate change as "a significant, long-term issue that we’ve got to deal with" and acknowledged that human activity is "to some extent" to blame.
"My hope is — and I think the hope of Tony Blair is — to move beyond the Kyoto debate and to collaborate on new technologies that will enable the United States and other countries to diversify away from fossil fuels so that the air will be cleaner and that we have the economic and national security that comes from less dependence on foreign sources of oil," Bush said.
Shortly before Bush’s arrival, his visit was mocked by about 200 activists, many of them covering their heads with black hooded sweatshirts and wearing oversize sunglasses in apparent defiance of a Danish law forbidding protesters to cover their faces.
The demonstrators marched for more than two hours through a steady rain and stopped in front of the U.S. Embassy to burn an American flag and denounce Denmark’s role in Iraq.
"George Bush, we know you. Your daddy was a killer, too," they chanted in English.
Recent surveys have shown a majority of Danes view Bush unfavorably, and authorities expected as many as 20,000 people to participate in a march through downtown Copenhagen today. Information for this article was contributed by Deb Riechmann, Tom Raum and David Espo of The Associated Press and Warren Vieth and Helen Hajjaj of the Los Angeles Times.

They're categorized by Google as the same story. Interesting, no?

Help! Anarchists!

2005-07-05T17:19:00.000+01:00

Scouring the news this morning, I found some fun references to anarchists that reminded me how far the general usage of the word is from my understanding of the meaning. 'Anarchists' - and I quote -

Anarchists dressed as rabbits waved carrots at police horses.

Now, I don't mean to impugn the journalistic rigour of the good staff at The Scotsman, but how on earth could they be sure these were anarcho-rabbits? Maybe they were Marxists or libertarians. Perhaps a Tory who'd forgotten to do the laundry and had nothing clean but a rabbit costume?

Meanwhile, the Mirror runs the headline:

Anarchists ruin Sir Bob's call for peaceful protest at the G8 summit

Yes, there's always a small group determined to cause trouble. Often, they're called the police.

I have to say that I've found the hijacking of the anti-G8 protests quite irritating - and I don't mean the hijacking by 'anarchists'; I mean the hijacking by Geldof, Sting, the reformed Pink Floyd, Pete Doherty (not so reformed) and the rest of the Live-8 crew. If it ends poverty in Africa, well then hunky-dory, but of course it won't, and though it's nice to see issues like Third World debt on the public agenda and given high profiles in the press, there's a lot of naivety and misplaced trust and optimism going along with it. I mean, Madonna asking us if we're ready for a revolution? Are you sure that's a great idea, Madge? It's not like your back wouldn't be one of the first against the wall.

If I had a message for the G8 leaders, it wouldn't be, "Please rescue Africa." They could have done that some time ago if they had any real interest in it. My message would be, "You don't represent me, and the I resent that you imply my consent is given for the obscenities that you perpetuate." OK, maybe I'd put it a little more catchily. Blair, Bush, Chirac, Schroeder et al might wrangle over the exact deals they make, because their interests aren't in perfect harmony. But at the end of the day, they're jackals sitting on an enormous pile of corpses, and even an enormous amount of pressure won't change them into angels. The best the Live 8-ers can hope for is to persuade the jackals to pillage the carnage a little less ravenously. What's depressing me is that I think most of those involved will feel something substantive has been achieved, and the mass media will help.

Hurrah! Religious Unity!

2005-06-24T15:44:00.000+01:00

Could this be an end to sectarian hate? Christians, Jews and Muslims coming together in common purpose - doesn't it just make your heart swell?

Except that...

2005-06-22T17:53:00.000+01:00

Jason and Michelle will be here in about 37 hours. Heh heh. I must prepare the gringing wheel. Yes, my pretties, come, come...

Going to see Batman Begins tonight if all goes to plan.

I have finally realised what happened to Lord Lucan

2005-06-22T17:50:00.000+01:00

No I haven't; I just didn't want that last post to be at the top for weeks on end before I get round to posting something new. I can't think of anything to say.

The Official News

2005-06-14T17:06:00.000+01:00

You may be aware that Michael Jackson's trial result is the biggest story of the day, but does anyone wonder why? It so clearly isn't the most important thing happening; the people whose lives will be significantly affected by this number a couple of dozen at the most. And yet, writing on a TV show with a 'topical' element, it is put officially at the top of the News Pack we're given. The other day, the preparations for the Live8 concerts were at the top, but the G8 summit itself wasn't even on the list of 'small stories' (some of which are UNBELIEVABLY small) - and nor were any of the issues surrounding it.

The Sun - a celebrity-obsessed tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch and disseminating information in a way that suits his political leanings - is actually, I realise now, an agenda-setting newspaper. It dictates what can and can't go into shows like the one I was recently working on, and the one I'm working on now. But The Sun distorts plenty of issues; the fact that it has this ripple effect perverts the understanding of the world throughout a whole chunk of the culture that Murdoch should have no influence on.

One round of the current show involves asking, "What stories are people talking about this week?" The answers are judged against a poll that's been taken. It's not fake, but it's a poll where the question is: "Which of these stories have you been talking about most?" So, for example, even if the G8 Summit or Climate Change were the most talked-about story of the week, this show would perpetuate the idea that it wasn't even in the top five. Hulk smash!

Quick Guide to UK Politics

2005-04-14T15:19:00.000+01:00

And this'll have to be very quick - I have to get to Nottingham for a gig.

As in the US, there are many political parties in the UK, but very few with a real chance of winning power. As wordsonwater said, the main (i.e. biggest) three are the Labour Party, the Conservative Party (or Tories) and the Liberal Democratic Party (often shortened to the LibDems). Until the 19th Century, Britain was ruled by one of the Tories or the Liberals. The Labour Party, as the name suggests, has its roots in the Labour/Trade Union movements of the 19th C, although you might not know it these days (since they won in 1997, several Unions have been torn about whether to continue automatic support of the Labour Party, since it no longer seems so obviously in their interests).

Since 1945, only the Conservatives and Labour have held power. In 1988, the old Liberal Party merged with the new (founded in 1981) Social Democratic Party, changing their name, eventually, to the Liberal Democrats.

Other parties with seats in Parliament include nationalist parties such as Sinn Fein (Ireland), Plaid Cymru (Wales) and the Scottish National Party (guess!). There are also candidates standing for the Green Party (who do quite well in local elections but I don't think have a seat in Parliament) and some far-Right parties such as the British National Party (crypto-fascists, basically), the UK Independence Party (anti-Europe, but nevertheless won seats in the European elections) and the amusing party Veritas, founded by a mad ex-talk show host who left UKIP when they wouldn't let him be leader.

Big issues this time round are:

Iraq - Blair will probably suffer for this; his popularity and trust ratings are extremely low, and this is the overriding reason. The LibDems opposed the war, and expect to make some gains from protest votes moving from Labour.

Public Services - Labour has a mixed record here, but the negative stories tend to make the press and the Tories are capitalising where they can: a recent Tory poster reads, "How hard can it be to keep a hospital clean?"

The Economy and Jobs - The Labour record here is rather good, and many still remember the high unemployment figures under the Conservatives in the 80s and early 90s. The only real angle for the Tories to take here is tax, which they promise to cut, while claiming that Labour will put taxes up.

Europe - There are people who still put Europe at the top of their list of issues. In general, the Tories are quite anti-Europe, although there's a pro-European strain of the Tory party. Labour favours joining the Euro 'when the economic conditions are right' and have promised a referendum on the issue (though not on Day One, as the Tories have). The LibDems are in favour of closer ties with Europe in general.

Fear - The Tories under Michael Howard are unashamedly using tactics reminiscent of a certain candidate in the German elections of the 1930s. Picking on any scapegoat to hand, they are focusing on Gypsies, asylum seekers, illegal immigrants... you name it. The truly frightening thing is that this seems to be working to some extent, and the Rightwing press are happy to keep these 'issues' on the front pages.

Notice that the LibDems haven't been mentioned much in the above list. So far they've played a quiet game, trying to stay out of 'negative campaigning', but the downside is that they get less press with this approach.

Perhaps the biggest difference from the US is the electoral system. Being a constitutional monarchy where the Queen is the Head of State, Britons don't vote directly for a leader. Instead, they vote for their local Member of Parliament. The party that wins the most seats (if not necessariy the most votes) usually becomes the government, and the leader of that party the Prime Minister (who is technically not a leader like a President, but primus inter pares). It is, however, possible for two parties to win almost the same number of seats without either having a majority. In this case, we have what is called a 'hung parliament', where the parties have to form a coalition and work together. In questions where the two parties are opposed, of course, this gives minority parties the casting vote, which means that a hung parliament between Labour and the Conservatives would be an excellent result for the Liberal Democrats, even though they came in third.

I really have to go in a moment, but it's worth mentioning that:

The LibDems would introduce Proportional Representation if they won - a patently more democratic and fairer system. As it is, you can be forced to vote tactically for your second, or third, choice candidate just because where you live there's no hope of your first choice getting in.

The Tories have a decent number of people in the country who support them, but they are concentrated in very small areas. The current system, especially its boundaries, works against them. PR, though, would probably keep them out of power for the forseeable future, too.

OK, I'm late! Hope that was helpful!

It's Coming. Lock The Windows, It's Coming

2005-04-05T15:00:00.000+01:00

The general election will, as widely anticipated, be held on May 5th.

OK, "widely anticipated" might be a little misleading. The outcome is likely to be soul-deadeningly depressing. Do I wait until the morning of May 6th to commit suicide, or should I start running a warm bath and polishing the razor blades now, as I read that the Tories are ahead in the polls?

Protest votes are expected, with Labour losing support because of the Iraq war, or, more generally, because "Labour have become increasingly authoritarian and failed to safeguard civil liberties," according to Stephen Wilkinson, a parliamentary candidate who has switched allegiances from Labour to the Liberal Democrats.

"Who would have thought that a Labour government would become a lapdog to George Bush's rightwing Republican administration?" he is quoted as saying by Channel 4 News.

Well, quite - although exactly how you protest this by moving your vote to the Right, I fail to see. Not to mention that the Tories were fully supportive of the war in Iraq, and spent their time mainly trying to out-flank Blair from the Right ("Although we fully support the Prime Minister's decision to go to war, is he really dropping enough bombs?").

The fact is that this election will chiefly underline the problems with Britain's democratic process, and the healthiest possible outcome would be a hung parliament - probably the only even slightly likely result that would bring about real democratic change. Candidates for all but the two largest parties (sorry, I mean 'wacky radicals') have being suffering for ages from the claim that a vote for them is a 'wasted vote'. For this reason, neither Labour nor the Tories has had much incentive to effect changes that would make your vote count more. If Labour come very close to losing, but scrape in by the skin of their teeth, they might be tempted to bring in PR, since that would effectively close out the Tories for generations (fingers crossed as I type this). Otherwise, they'll just sit on their advantage as long as they perceive they have it.

A few things that might make your vote more representative:

Proportional Representation - should go without saying

A 'None of the Above' option on each ballot, so you can 'spoil' your vote without it being assumed that you're an 80-year-old who accidentally voted for everyone

Simultaneous voting for local candidates and national government, so you're not forced to sacrifice your opinion on how the country should be run for the candidate you think will make Smallsborough a nicer place to live

A truly evil candidate - not just evil like Michael Howard, really evil, so that if you don't vote, Doctor SatanDeath the Bloody might get in, with his promise of universal fear and terror, sinister, visored shocktroops policing your personal morality, spying on citizens, random, groundless imprisonments and the expulsion from the country of anyone Doctor SatanDeath decides he doesn't like.

Oh, wait - I think some of those last ideas actually appear in the Veritas manifesto. And current Labour policy, of course.

News You May Have Missed...

2005-04-05T11:24:00.000+01:00

...because it's been postponed due to unexpected low Pontiff readings...

Tony Blair was supposed to dissolve Parliament and announce the date of the General Election, but delayed it for Pope-related reasons. It's still expected any day now (possibly today) and the election will probably be on May 5th.

The wedding between Old King Cole and Camille Paglia (check names - possibly inaccurate) has been moved from Friday to Saturday so as not to clash with the burial of the man they're already calling Pope John Paul the Deceased.

Sorry if I seem grouchy; I have the news equivalent of snow blindness. George Bush could drop-kick a cloned foetus into a pool full of Playboy Bunnies today and it wouldn't make the front page.

Last Wednesday, Mitch Hedburg died. A week of millions remembering his words would have been more fun. As far as I know, he never condemned anyone to hell or passed on false information to the uneducated about HIV protection. And whether he died of a heroin overdose or not (I've no idea and it's really none of my business), at least heroin is only an opiate for the individual. If I had to guess about his lifestyle from his act, I'd guess that Mitch Hedburg liked eating:

Once I met this wino and he was eating some grapes and I said "dude, you have to wait".

I like swiss cheese. It's the only cheese you can draw with a pencil and identify.

Rice is good if you're hungry and you want to eat 2000 of something.

Rest in peace. Like there's any other way.

A View Into The Future

2005-04-05T11:17:00.000+01:00

Let's take a magical trip into the future. Spooky, I know, but here's what the news will look like in the year Two Thousand And Fifty....

"-...and that's the weather options for your region. Back to Sarah in the studio.

-Thanks for that, Zarkon IV. Now, over to Rome for continuing coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II"

We get it! He's dead! Can we at least nudge it off the top headline spot? You know how long people can go on about religious figures if you let them? I mean, Jesus died around Easter time, too, and he STILL makes press. Who does he think he is, Princess Diana or someone?

"Biological Parameters"

2005-04-02T16:30:00.000+01:00

That's the phrase used by the Vatican, according to an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail today. I kid you not:

As of last night, the Vatican declared in a terse summary that the Pope's "biological parameters" were "notably compromised." Yet officials said John Paul was still clinging to life in the early hours of this morning, denying Italian news-media reports of his death.

His biological parameters are notably compromised? Why, thank you, Cardinal Spock! And let's not even allow ourselves to enjoy the spectacle of a man with the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven "clinging to life".
The papers here are gearing up excitedly to his death, too - some of them talking about him in the past tense while he's still alive. Damn it, I hope he pulls through, just to see the awkward back-pedalling. That, or Jesus arrives to chaperone the old fella home. That would be cool (though not as funny as if it were Ganesh or Krishna).

Pope Old, Vatican Admits

2005-04-01T23:01:00.000+01:00

Now I may be confused on this, but is it the Pope's husband or his parents who want the feeding tube removed?

Really, there aren't many jobs you could hold down in that condition. Is he a member of a union? Surely he could get sick leave. Apparently he has left instructions that he is to be relieved of duty in the case of mental incapacity, although how you judge a Pope's grasp on reality, I'm not sure. I mean, he already believes he's the Pope.

It looks as though His Holiness is near death right now, so I don't want to appear cruel. At the moment Google News is running stories like,

Pope's suffering 'lesson for all'
BBC News - 40 minutes ago
There is a lesson to be learned in the pope's final hours of suffering, the Archbishop of Armagh has said. Vatican officials said Pope John Paul II's heart and kidneys are failing, he is suffering from low blood pressure and his breathing is shallow. ...

Is the lesson that being fatally ill sucks? Or that 84 is old? Weirdly-behatted prelates are coming out of the woodwork worldwide to interpret the 'meaning' of the poor man's situation. How come God never tells anyone they're wrong? Couldn't you read the Pope's suffering as a punishment for not converting to Islam?

The story I find oddest is,

LOCAL CATHOLICS PRAY FOR POPE'S HEALTH

Apart from the sheer inconsideration here - "Please, God, let him live, even as a brain in a vat or a semiconscious, cybernetic affront to nature!" - there are some real gems in the article. After one believer credits him with the fall of Communism (is there anyone who doesn't take the credit for that these days?), another states, hilariously, "It's scary. We wonder who the next Pope will be and what will happen. There has been so many changes. We don't really look forward to more changes."
Ah, change. The watchword of the Catholic Church. This is the organisation that pardoned Galileo and admitted he might have had a heliocentric point way back in... 1992. They also appear to favour slow death in old age over retirement.
That could be their motto:
"The Catholic Church: We don't really look forward to more changes."

Continental Divide

2005-02-21T07:44:00.000Z

That title is the BBC's header, not mine, credit where credit's due and all. This post is actually by way of reply to Bushwhacked, but seems to deserve its own new topic. This recent article in BBC news struck me because it makes me realize how different my viewpoint is from so many Americans. The attitudes of "my fellow Americans" continues to flabergast me and I choose to believe it is ignorance. Unfortunately it is an ignorance that many Americans seem to cultivate, since we have moved beyond the age when the Pony Express brought our news. As the article expresses, Americans are accustomed to having much of their news sugar coated. While optimism is a wonderful quality, there are times when it is inappropriate, like when someone has set himself on fire and you say, "Oh good, we can roast marshmallows".

I'm not sure something like Bushwhacked is ever going to be understood as irony to most Americans. It is just too harsh for an audience accustumed to a steady diet of syrup. This Pollyannaism is so pervasive in our society that it slips under the radar of even the more educated and skeptical. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a foreign film as a university student. It was French and shown with subtitles in the school auditorium. I have no idea now of the title, I just remember my shock that the ending was dark and grim. I kept waiting for them to put the next reel on where everyone would see the reason for the suffering, the hero would not actually be dead and a rainbow would appear in the sky. Then it dawned on me…Hollywood has been telling me lies! Later I found out they learned how to from my government…and so it goes.

Bushwhacked

2005-02-20T23:29:00.000Z

Here's the video version of the 'reworked' Bush speech that caused all the kerfuffle referred to below. Apparently, it was Chris Morris who did this. I liked it, anyway.

Chomsky on the Box

2005-02-20T14:52:00.000Z

Bill Maher's show - at last - had Chomsky on as a guest recently (I think this might've been from November 2004; it's before the assault on Fallujah). As usual with TV slots, it's quite brief, but Chomsky gets a more respectful and open-minded hearing from Maher than he could expect in many mainstream interviews (maybe Maher isn't regarded as mainstream). In fact, he gets applause breaks from the audience a few times - a bit embarrassingly, maybe.
The clip is here and is worth a look, not solely for Chomsky's comments, which are not particularly surprising, but for the savaging he gets from another guest, Andrew Sullivan, after he is finished. Unfortunately, Chomsky doesn't get a right of reply, but Sullivan accuses him of having 'supported the Soviet Union' during the Cold War and is apoplectic about the idea of applying the Nurenberg criteria to the US - amusingly falling headfirst into the category of the 'hypocrite of the Bible' , "who refuses to apply to himself the same standards he applies to others."

Let's all vote on the monarchy!

2005-02-12T20:46:00.000Z

Well, the news isn't all that promising - from a material-writing perspective, at least. I wish I lived in Virginia last week; the bill to make low-slung trousers illegal sounds like it would be worth a good few minutes of stand-up. But here, the main story is that Charles is going to marry Camilla. To be more specific, Prince Charles is going to marry Camilla Parker-Bowles - someone I know nothing about other than that everyone says she looks like a horse and her son was at college with me and seemed like a nice guy.
The papers and radio stations are full of polls to find out what people think, which seems to me to be missing the point of the monarchy. The overriding fact about a hereditary ruling class is that it doesn't matter what the people think. In their heyday, anybody likening a member of the royal family to any kind of unflattering creature would have their head on a pike before you could say, "Hey, did you ever consider democracy?"
What I find weird is the focus on Camilla's looks. Would everyone be OK with it if he were marrying Britney Spears? Would constitutional crisis be averted if he could be set up with Angelina Jolie (at least she's nuts enough)?
Anyone finding happiness is fine by me - I just don't want to know about it unless there's some reason I should give a shit. But, controversy or not, there'll be the usual crowds of flag-waving, genetically deficient morons doing the old Nurenberg shimmy and muttering, "I couldn't do his job," as though there was the slightest chance they might be asked to do so. And they'll be covered in a mass-media news blackout as though they represent the nation. We need a plan.
1) Stop buying any newspaper or magazine that covers royal stories. Even if it's 'big news' (which it never really is, consequence-wise), just forgo your hard-copy and get real news from the internet that day.
2) If anyone ever refers to 'Charles', 'Camilla', 'Diana' or any other ESM aristo by first name only, demand a last name before you recognise who they're talking about - and even then, pretend it's a vague, 'oh-yes-rings-a-bell-wasn't-she-one-of-the-Nolan-Sisters?' kind of recognition.
3) Don't allow the flag-wavers and Pearly Kings to monopolize the TV coverage. This time, the rest of us should turn up - in Nazi costumes.

Wearing Big Brother's hand-me-downs

2004-12-14T17:06:00.000Z

While checking the spelling of Benetton, I came across this site. Obviously, I've encountered clothing boycotts many times, but usually because of worker mistreatment, sweatshops, etc. This is the first time I've come across a call to boycott a clothing manufacturer on grounds of infringement of personal freedom. In a nutshell, a consumer group called for a worldwide boycott of Benetton's products following revelations that the company had placed identification and tracking devices into its clothing products.

"CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering) announced today that it will oppose Benetton's plans to place Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips into clothing labels intended for the consumer market. RFID chips function as tiny radio transmitters, allowing clothing to be identified and tracked at a distance.
According to a joint press release yesterday by Benetton and chip manufacturer Philips Electronics, the devices are "imperceptible to the wearer and remain in individual items of clothing throughout their lifetime." The chips have already begun appearing in Benetton's "Sisley" clothing line.
Benetton's announcement sparked an immediate firestorm of concern and outrage among consumers, some of whom liken the technology to the film "Minority Report," where clothing tags were used to identify individuals and target them for advertising. "

The full report is here.

A more detailed account of the technology called 'Auto-ID', with extensive footnotes, is here. I can't vouch for the information, of course, but many of the sources are from trade and industry journals, which is a good sign of reliability on this sort of thing (as opposed to being from www.wildeyedanarchistsagainstevicorporateconspiracy.com).

I wasn't shocked

2004-12-14T17:01:00.000Z

when I saw the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib, but that's because for the first couple of weeks I thought it was just a Benetton advert.

That's right, some of these posts are just going to be nascent joke ideas. I like the idea of using a blog for developing material. It's like thinking out loud with several little angels and devils on my shoulders.

message for united statesians

2004-12-04T14:51:00.000Z

Like Nick D, I've met some of the people who post on Ben Haley's blog and found them to be good people. So there's nothing personal in these responses to quotations Nick gave in his most recent post here (and in fact I don't know who wrote any of the quotes):

"i don't like hearing us getting insulted like that"

Then get your government to stop behaving like that!

I know a lot of you are trying, but in the meantime the assault on the poor, the South (of the world, not the US!) and the environment goes on. Are we supposed to ignore these things? Or assume that the US is actually a force for good that is constantly being perverted into doing what it does? Can you imagine yourself telling people in the 1940s not to insult Germany because it wasn't always like this, or because it has a lot of potential to do good? Can you imagine what they would have said to you?

"in our hearts we really do believe we have the best country in the world"

Then listen to your heads instead. There's a huge amount to admire about the US, but it is the leading terrorist state, and has been for decades, and is the leading opponent of international treaties on everything from non-proliferation to land-mines to just peace in the Middle East and on the Korean peninsula, to preserving some part of the global environment. Being the home country of wonderful activists, writers and artists from Noam Chomsky to Charles Mingus doesn't outweigh destroying the planet.

"when this is over (this being the current religious revivalism of our electorate) america will be stronger than ever."

I sincerely hope not. For a while Britain was the strongest country in the world. Look at the damage we did in that period. Now the UK has an equally evil foreign policy but much less power, so we do less damage. Of course the UK is one of the world's leading terrorist states still (and quite a lot of us are trying to do what we can about that); the point is that the situation would not be improved by giving more power to the UK government. Similar considerations apply to the US and to other countries.

"America used to stand for greatness, for being that the rest of the world could look up to."

When? Name a decade, and I'll quote unimpeachable US sources listing the war crimes the US was committing then.

There are other claims that could justly be made for the US, of course. The US has generally (not always) had much less restrictive and racist immigration policies than many other rich countries. And it has been for some time a democracy with a good deal of personal freedom and freedom of information - less good than it should be, but better than a lot of countries. All of this has made the US a place to aspire to live in. But don't forget that a lot of people who have moved to the US to escape persecution have come from countries where the US either supports the persecuting regime (Chile in the past, Uzbekistan now, to take two of many examples) or from places where the physical and political environment have been destroyed by US assaults (Indochina still, Iraq now and in the past, for example). And that's without going into economic refugees from countries ruined by US economic policy (Mexicans predominantly at the moment, I suppose).

In peace, and with deep respect for many people who live in the US, but reserving my right to criticise the global hegemon - and even insult it, when I'm very angry, or when it seems like the best way of getting my point across humorously, or when I'm simply feeling vindictive and petty...
Nick

(Nicholas Allott, that is)

Voting irregularities

2004-11-27T14:08:00.000Z

Some people have asked what happened to all those votes for Kerry that were promised. Ever think they may have been transferred to a certain Ukranian?
Actually, there is some evidence of naughty business with the votes in Florida. Oh, and here's some more.

I was in Zagreb the other day doing a TV show where the other guest was the former Croatian Minister for Arts, so I had a quick surf to see if I could find anything amusing that was vaguely connected with Croatian art. I soon discovered the amusing fact that a Croatian artist, wracking his brains on whom to commemorate in statue form in Mostar (which is in Bosnia - you can see there'd be problems trying not to offend people of one ethnicity or the other...), came up with the perfect compromise: Bruce Lee. Of course! Well, it was amusing to me, anyway. Apparently not to many Croatians, though, who just couldn't see why I might find this funny.
Why not a mural depicting Jean-Claude Van Damme, I enquired? No, no, they objected, completely straight-faced, Bruce Lee is a big hero in Croatia. I left it.

This reminded me a little of the reaction to a post I put up on another blog I occasionally contribute to. It's Ben Haley's blog (that's Eva's brother) and as far as I know everyone else on the blog is from the US. I have met many of them and those I know I like and respect. They're intelligent, funny and mostly politically left-leaning, to differing degrees. Certainly not many of them are Bush fans. So I posted this: it's an audio version of Dubya's State of the Union speech, re-cut and edited by Chris Morris and/or Armando Iannucci (There's a video version, which is better, on the DVD of The Day Today).
I assumed that the others on the blog would, like me, find this mightily amusing. I was with Eva when I first saw the video version and she laughed as much as I did, so I was surprised - a little shocked, even - when the comments arrived. It had literally never occurred to me that there might be anything offensive there, unless you're a member of the Bush administration or an ardent supporter. But they seemed to have inferred from the clip an attack on the American people themselves. I was taken aback, and still am. I haven't posted there since, because I think I need to address this but I'm not sure how.

How could I so completely misjudge the reaction my post would have?

Do I still just not understand Americans? If so, it doesn't bode well for my show.

Is it because the clip was put together by Brits, and posted by one? I've certainly come across that before - "Hey, I can make fun of my brother, but if anyone else does, I'll kick their ass," as Eva likes to put it. I remember being in France and feeling a little uncomfortable and picked on when a whole room of French people were 'having a go' at Britain - although I probably agreed with many of the points.
I'm not convinced. If it were a recutting of one of Blair's speeches, done by a German or African satirist, say, I think I'd find it funny if it were well done and pointed enough. I certainly can't imagine identifying with the target or finding it offensive.

Maybe it's in the interpretation of some of the words: "The American flag stands for..." That might be a genuine cultural gap; in the US, the flag is imbued with tremendous significance and pride - to the extent of pledging allegiance to it, even in schools. This sort of thing makes us (all right, me - I can't speak for my nation or my continent) a little queasy - it's a bit too close to those totalitarian regimes where an icon is fetishised and woven into indoctrination from birth.
I certainly wouldn't have any qualms about similar associations being made with the British flag; I grew up with a father (well, he was already grown up... Anyway...) who said things regularly about the red of the Union Jack representing all the blood that had been spilled in its name, and he wasn't joking, but that's the Irish for you.
None of the people who commented ever struck me as 'flag-wavers'; in fact, several of them have published insightful, barbed and very funny posts about the supposedly sacrosanct nature of the Stars'n'Stripes. I can see, though, how it's possible to interpret 'the American flag' or 'the United States of America' as representing the population - just not in this context. After all, it doesn't really represent them when Bush uses those phrases in speeches aired as intended.

Anyway, I'm still a bit unsettled by the whole thing, not least some of the phrases in the comments - remember, these are people I know, like and respect.

"i don't like hearing us getting insulted like that"

This one, I don't find worrying; I just think it misinterprets the target of the clip.

"in our hearts we really do believe we have the best country in the world"

"when this is over (this being the current religious revivalism of our electorate) america will be stronger than ever."

"America used to stand for greatness, for being that the rest of the world could look up to."

Whoah. Don't get me wrong, I've heard things like that said by British people about Britain, but never by friends; only by people like Norman Tebbit or, God help us, Enoch Powell.

I've got some thinking to do.

(Oh, by the way, if you're one of the Circle of Irony posters and you don't like my quoting you here, let me know and I'll remove the quotes. I felt a bit weird doing it myself - like talking about you behind your back.)

Hilary says

2004-11-16T10:54:00.000Z

It's a brilliant idea for a show.I think Edinburgh would love it, first because it will probably be extremely funny but also because it's intelligent and articulate, and advancing an argument. Also really like the title, "Before he Kills Again"

Did you notice Colin Powell's resignation yesterday? The only one in the whole administration who doesn't want to live in some kind of Orwellian never-ending war scenario has looked around and gone "you know, I just don't fit in around here". Yasser Arafat dies in the same fortnight as Bush gets elected.... you'd be forgiven for feeling a little uneasy if your country was on the Axis of Evil list.

I need to write an Edinburgh show too. So far I have the loose theme of campaigns - people who devote themselves to causes with varying degrees of insanity. This could actually be anything from Free Palestine to people who try to convert you to the pleasures of playing Halo 2. I also find hilarious the idea of unthinking flag-waving; at a national level, but also with reference to specific people. What must it be like for Laura Bush, or any politician's wife, to have to stand there and go "Yeah - what he said" 24-7? (And of course in George Bush's case, that's 24 hours a week, 7 months a year).

Let's keep this up. I have to go and get dressed now, but I will return!

Thoughts and plans

2004-11-15T18:50:00.000Z

Trying to come up with an Edinburgh show at the moment. Titles notwithstanding (I always liked the sound of Nick Doody - Before He Kills Again), I think I know what the theme's going to be. I want to write a show about America.
More specifically, I want to do a show about my own views on the USA. In the last two years I've been there three times, for varying amounts of time, and become more interested in the place, its people, its politics and its culture. I was always a follower of US politics - you can't not be if you want to understand the shape of the world since World War II - but with Bush Jr's first election it became a far more normal thing to talk and have strong opinions about it. Around the time of the invasion of Afghanistan, my stand-up started becoming more political and it hasn't really gone back. More comics than ever are talking about US political issues and foreign policy, but you can count the ones who do it well on the fingers of one-and-a-half hands.
The other side to this is that it's now apparently OK to make comments about 'Americans' that are so sweeping and crass that you would unhesitatingly be branded a racist if you were to say similar things about any other nationality. Americans, ginger people and certain celebrities are targets that British comedians seem to have a carte blanche to attack, no matter how stupid or ill-founded the premise - and surely only the celebrities could be said to deserve it.
"Americans are thick as fuck, innit?" I heard recently from a well-known comic headlining at a gig I was doing. Somewhere, the same sort of thing was probably being said about the Irish, or 'Pakis', but not on my circuit, I sincerely hope. Incidentally, the reasoning brought forward for the crowd's approval was that "They don't get Jerry Springer."
Excuse me?
"'Jerry, why has my girlfriend got an Adam's apple?' She's a bloke, you thick cunt."
Oh, OK, then. How could I not have noticed that all Americans are idiots? My wife, sitting next to me, commented that this was like basing your view of Britain entirely on Trisha. Well, exactly. I'm just pleased it was Jerry Springer he'd seen. What if he'd only seen Sesame Street? Would he have drawn conclusions with the same logic?
"Americans, they're weird as fuck, innit? I mean, they smile all the time and never swear, and they live with giant, multicoloured, talking animals."
Yes, the 'Americans are stupid and fat and don't get irony' card was always wrong and lazy and the stamp of a hack comic, and most British people knew it, I hope.
But then they elected George W. Bush.
I'm not going to say 're-elected', because that would imply he was democratically elected the first time round, which he wasn't. But the 2004 elections seemed to say, "Yep, we've seen what he's like and this is the guy for us," and I think that deeply worried a lot of people here and around the world. The idea that the American people would deliberately, with knowledge aforethought, put that man back into the most powerful position in the world, and, by extension, approve the philosophy and policies of the 'neocons' who surround him, is a deeply disturbing one for many who comforted themselves with ideas like, "It's just this small group of extremists; you can't blame the whole population." (The same argument, of course, that Bush and Blair have been using about Iraq from day one).
That's where I want my show to start.

Welcome!

2004-11-09T20:19:00.000Z

Welcome to my new blog! I've decided this might be a good way of organising my thoughts, not to mention meeting interesting and likeminded people (or interesting and differently-minded - that's fine, too). I don't know how often I'll post and I haven't done this before, but I'm expecting mainly to post opinions - whether seriously held or nascent material. Anyway, here goes with my first, tentative steps into the hubristic world of talking to yourself in public.