Blood, Insomnia, Dreams Part 2

Just to add detail to a day that was already bad... Quick recap: Insomnia due to job worries and then close member of my family had bust her nose, right across the bridge. I'd gone to the rescue, done all I could, clean the wound which looked nasty but not quite stiches-nasty. Then I'd bandaged it and mopping up. Then had to go replace the medical supplies that I'd used up and buy a few that we'd need to help the wound get better.

So I jumped on my bike, cycled across town, and locked up my bike outside the shops. Quick dash around to get what's needed and headed back to my bike.

My bike is a new bike so I lock it with two locks. One goes around the frame and back wheel. Another around the front wheel. The rear lock is one of those U locks. The front one is a chain and padlock.

I take off the back U lock and then reached for the padlock.

I froze.

I stared at the padlock.

That wasn't my padlock.

My mind rushed with confusion. I tried my keys just in case I was mistaken. But no. The lock wasn't my bike padlock.

Then it struck me. To get my bike out, I have to take off the chain that locks the shed. That chain is also fitted with a padlock. And that was this padlock. The padlock whose key I never take out with me.

Shit.

The only part of this that involves luck is that I knew a friend was due to visit the doctor. I rang her. Yes, she wasn't far. So, run across town, jump into her car, drive home, pick up the keys, drive back up town to unlock my bike so I could then cycle home.

By then, it was dark. The traffic was bad and I was bloody knackered not having eaten a thing all day due to the blood, the insomnia, and the rest. To add insult to injury, when I pulled my bike out of the bike rack at Tesco, it dislodged a trolly which then proceeded to demolish all the other bikes. Took me five minutes to untangle them and get the stood up again.

I swear that I've been cursed.

 

Blood, Insomnia, Dreams

My morning was entirely consumed by a medical emergency. So much so that it's now 2pm and I've only just put on my socks. A member of the family tripped on the pavement and the impact of her face smashing into a concrete flag caused her glasses to cut the bridge of her nose. It fell to me to patch her up, mop up the blood, and otherwise run around providing help. Don't think it's a cut large enough to need a stitch but, for a time, wasn't sure.

Anyway, by the time that was done, I came to my office to do some work. I'd already been awake since 5am having one of those rare bouts of insomnia caused by the stress of now being without regular income. I need to find a job or sell just one or two articles a month. Sounds easy but the reality of writing (and to a lesser extent cartooning) is that words lack value when the market it over-saturated with dross. Towards that goal, I have realised that I've been going about it all wrong. It's why I couldn't sleep. My mind was filled with new plans. Today was meant to be the start of a new routine except the accident happened, I now need to go out to get some medical supplies and, well, such is life...

I thought I'd take a ten minute gap to blog but, when I sat down to write, emails began flying into my inbox. Overnight there was a SPAM attack on this blog which my SPAM protection had failed to stop. I had to spend give minute deleting emails from Ravi, Cecep, Arran, Carmen, Ninate, Daniel, Jorgel, Maureen, Auxilia, Jennifer, John, Patrick, Yomaire, Nilotpal, Toprak, VCR, Bahdim, Adm, Wanami, Osigwe, Maria and all the rest...

All of which is my way of saying: I don't think I'm ever destined to do what I want in life. Write and draw. Don't want to be a millionaire. Don't want a car or holidays or even glory (though a little appreciation goes a long way). I just want to be able to write my articles, the occasional book, and to fill both with my cartoons. Was that really too much to dream? Today it really does feel like I was aiming for the moon.

 

 

The Syria vote: a little reminder...

Cameron, Erdogan & Gollum

Over at TW&TW, I've written a quick piece about the whole 'terrorist sympathiser' controversy.

As is usual, that piece of writing took some time. Here on my blog, it's brain to fingers time. Excuse the typos.

It's a horrible fact that people tend to prefer two minutes of effort on Photoshop than two hours of effort with a pen and ink. Photoshop is too easy and although the results can look good, the joke is often less cerebral. A good Photoshop gag leads you into the unreality of the situation you've created. A cartoon requires that moment longer for the joke to establish itself. It belongs in a different realm of the imagination than does the Photoshop which is aiming for realism.

All that said, I had to do a quick Erdogan picture. The guy is a menace. Not only does he shoot down Russian aircraft and then try to hide behind the coattails of NATO, he is locking up cartoonists who dare ridicule him. It's chilling to think of how many years in prison I'd probably get for posting this image.

A David Cameron Cartoon

A new cartoon about which I can say very little other than: well, I liked it.

I drew it late last night after hearing Cameron's 'terrorist sympathizers' comment. I'm currently trying to write up my thoughts about that, so I'm not going to repeat them here.

It's a grey day. I'm watching some of the debate but trying to work. One of those days when I really wonder why I bother.  Posted the cartoon to Twitter: not a single retweet or like. I don't have a great number of followers so perhaps it's expected. Perhaps I just don't know the public mood. I can only respond to how feel and I feel that Cameron too often thinks and acts without thinking. Perhaps it's just crap.

I don't know...

About ISIS, Christmas and Sprouts

Okay, today I've just posted a new article over at TW&TW asking if there's any way that ISIS can emerge from the current conflict with something resembling a victory. My intention to get anything else finished today flew out the window the moment I realised I had to do some shopping.

All the usual shops are in the Christmas spirit already. I've not been in the Christmas spirit for about ten years. There have been times when I used to mildly look forward to Christmas but that's whenever I've been trapped in some deadend job. Christmas was always an excuse to do my own thing for two weeks. In periods of self-employment, Christmas is just a thing to get in the way of my doing the things I really love to do: writing and cartooning. When working, Christmas was time for the Work's Christmas Meal and I've always tried to avoid those whenever I can. Those I've gone to have been horrible drunken affairs filled with people not very funny when sober but even worse when drunk. Since I don't drink, I tend to sit there feeling unwelcome and utterly bored.

People naturally assume that I'm miserable. I'm not. Most of the time I'm a clown who doesn't need alcohol to warp my reality. I find my reality warped enough. I'm also consistent. I think it would be hypocritical of me to criticise the religions of other people if, at the same time, I was wearing reindeer antlers or celebrating the birth of a guy I don't believe was immaculately conceived and rose from the dead.

What annoys me most of all about Christmas is that I'm not so dim that I can't see what's going on. The shops have computer systems that just rotate the stock on certain days. There's a mechanical indifference about these seasons and it's usually people with the least money that spend the most 'for the children'. It's sad as it is predatory. And though people think I hate Christmas because I'm a 'Scrooge', I actually hate Christmas because I see people made unhappy because of the false illusions of happiness forced to us at Christmas. I despise those John Lewis ads, which have become 'a thing' each year. They are nothing but illusions wrapped around illusions. The food looks good when photographed but, in reality, is probably stone cold, the steam is liquid nitrogen, and the colour of the turkey is probably painted on. I really don't want to live my life by other people's lies.

Lastly, I hate people using Christmas to say how much they hate sprouts. Everybody hates sprouts except for me. I love sprouts. If I could chance Christmas, I'd change it to a sprout festival. And, yes, in case you haven't guesses: I'm still typing this rubbish straight into the browser window and not doing a jot of editing. So if there were any typos in any of the above, I'm sorry. I now need to go write something that might (in theory) make me enough money to eat my favourite vegetable this Sproutmicklemas.

 

Monday's Corbyn Cartoon

Such a grim morning. It's 11am and all the lights are already on. Normally November is my favourite month but this past four weeks have been nothing but rain. Not that I dislike rain. Given a choice I'd choose rain over sun. I'm wired strangely in that respect. But an entire month or rain and/or gales... It would be a relief to see a little daylight. Even my solar powered watch has died on me and when I'm not wearing it I leave it sitting on a table where it can be sure to catch the sun.

Today I have to write, only I have no idea what I'll write about. It's not often that is happens that I sit down without some idea I've been thinking about for days. My ambition this week is to tray a new sending a pitch to a magazine I've not yet pestered with my ideas. My job now is to find an idea worth pitching. That's not so easy when it's so dark my body is telling me it's time to go back to bed.

New Jeremy Corbyn cartoon and a bit about my nightmares

I suppose I should know the name of the storm that's currently raging but, as I explained last week, happy not to know. It feels more primal this way. And speaking of primal: my dreams are getting worse. The previous night's were bad but last night they were genuine nightmares, something I so rarely have. I had at least two last night. In the first, a relative rang to ask me about Plato and the colour yellow. I know nothing about Plato or the colour yellow but recollect muttering something about Platonic ideals. I then found myself in some college talking to him on the phone when a woman told me off for discarding a sheet of A4 without covering it. I swore and left the college but discovered I didn't know where I was. I was in a bus terminal and a woman with bright red hair told me I was in London. I was utterly lost. There was a lot more to the dream than this: including a ride in the back of a taxi in which the driver was amassing a ball of Haribo tantastics, one of which turned into a rainbow striped worm and tried to get into my shoe.

At some point, I  woke up and when I fell back to sleep had the second nightmare. I was rushing to catch a flight from the local airport (which was conveniently at the local railway station). We landed in the Far East and racing through streets chased by locals who had been painted white and with sharpened teeth (I'd been reading an article about George Miller and Mad Max before I went to bed, which at least explains this bit). The whole thing then became a nightmare about Ken Loach films which I can't quite understand or fully remember. It was in black and white and at one point involved my parachuting off a viaduct and landing in a barrel of water where I met a bunch of hippies including a young Helen Mirren.

Needless to say, I really don't understand any of the above. Perhaps if I did, I wouldn't have explained it in such great detail... Any psychoanalysts out there who can see through the mud, I'd be very grateful for an explanation. The bit about the worm really freaked me out.

A Goodbye Grant Shapps Cartoon...

An otherwise lazy day which wasn't as lazy as I intended to make it when I got up this morning. Wrote every day last week but was feeling it by the time I settled down last night. Intended to have a complete day off, except last night I had a very strange and vivid dream about being at the local market where Tony Beets (from TV's Gold Rush) had a second-hand book stall. It was probably a nightmare, if I'm honest. I could see books I wanted but couldn't afford. By the time I woke up this morning at 7am, I was eager to work. Wrote a bit and then I drew this but the day never got brighter than a dim murk so the effort is 50%. Yet I felt I had to mark the resignation of Shapps, who has always struck me as one of the least pleasant political operators. There's a type of politician who always get my back up. They tend to be the self-made millionaires whose self-made status is founded upon something quite unpleasant. Perhaps that explains the Beets dream whose success is earned through hard work. I've always wanted a beard like Tony Beets and the hands too to prove that I work and I work hard. Yet I have neither. No evidence. Just cartoons like this or essays that few read.

Did I mention how dark it's been today? I think it's time to break out my lamp and dose myself with some happy rays.

A Quick Jeremy Corbyn / Syria Cartoon

Drawn for The What & The Why.

On John McDonnell, spam & not much more...

Welcome to the place I like to think of as The Arse End of Nowhere. I'm again blogging daily in that I've managed to blog for six successive days and a few more before that My new technique of typing straight into the editor window helps. It stops me falling into my best habit of editing for hours. The down side is that this is not how I usually write. This is me at my worst. Unedited. Unpolished. Unstructured.

Today, I recommend my new article about John McDonnell. You can read it over at The What & The Why. There's also a cartoon and a bit of Photoshopping. I was quite pleased with all three.

Meanwhile, back here at TAEON, I'm under SPAM attack. That's the worst of coming back to a blog. I've lost what few regular readers I had but I've gained a place on the lists of sites that Spammers use. I've had four emails today asking me if I'd like bulk buy traffic cones from China. Three fake comments got through my defences and tried to sell you plastic straws (also from China). I also seem to have found myself on some list of business people in the North West and they keep asking me to attend a networking session at some local hotel starting at 6am in the morning. Even if I was a business man looking to network, I would not get up at 6am in the morning. It's an unGodly hour and even if I am unGodly, I'm not getting up that early.

My piece about Dawkins is coming along slowly. Phrasing things just the right way can be pain. I'm constantly trying to anticipate how my words can be misconstrued by people deliberately looking to misconstrue.

Also trying to find a job or work, which is soul destroying given that I only want to write and draw. People my age usually have careers around them or behind them. I just have years of strange and questionable accomplishments. I joke with people that I'll end up sweeping the streets but, really, I think that's probably aiming too high. All the good street sweeping jobs will have gone. What jobs for somebody hugely overqualified for most things, no track record in other things, and a whole lot of skills that nobody would want this end of the country? I couldn't even work for a local newspaper since my skills aren't exactly suited to detailing the drama of a chimney pot falling down. This time next year, I'll be lucky to be living in a tent.

On Robert Mugabe, Richard Dawkins, & Jeremy Corbyn

Over at TW&TW I'm talking not too seriously about Robert Mugabe and his wheels.  I even drew a cartoon which took a ridiculously long time to cross hatch...

Meanwhile, I'm again writing this blog post quickly. It will be unedited and published straight to the blog in the spirit of my new blogging strategy.

Today I've been trying to get my mind around the question of religious tolerance with specific interest in the Twitter battle that Richard Dawkins has found himself waging. I'm not sure I'll be able to knock my words into a decent essay but, if I do, I think I'll have explained something that I've repeatedly found difficult to explain. Briefly: I worry that we are losing sense of free speech in the name of tolerance. We have been so indoctrinated by certain liberal values that too many people seem incapable of simple logical thought. Dawkin's is also victim of an obvious anti-intellectualism at work in the UK. Our great scientists and thinkers are lauded in America. In the UK, we barely hear a peep from them until they're being hounded by the slobbering mob, spluttering with half-conceived indignation. It's time that we can have serious debates in this country without people sending up distress flares every time somebody challenges something we take for granted.

I was, however, a bit distracted by the House of Commons. I noted with some incredulity that John McDonnell took out his Mao at the Dispatch Box today. It beggars belief.

My politics are neither to the left nor the right. I like politicians of both sides of the House and dislike with equal impartiality. I've always had mixed feelings about Corbyn. He never struck me as a guy to rouse my enthusiasm but, when he won, I could see why people voted for him. He's not political in the way that Cameron is political. He's difficult, odd, unpolished. I like that he debates, even when I disagree with his points. He feels sincere in the things he says and doesn't fall into the tropes of typical career politicians. He makes good points about subjects such as mental health. Yet he also makes huge mistakes, even if he makes them for the right reasons. Not leaping up and fist pumping when asked if he'd bomb Syria was, in truth, an adult response. Yet the media can spin it too easily. He needed to pump the air and shout 'hell yes' because the media know no other response.

McDonnell made, I think, the biggest political miscalculation since Michael Foot's donkey jacket. If the electorate worry about your Marxist credentials, you do not take out Mao's Little Red Book in the House of Commons, even if the point you are making is a sensible one. The point about the Tories selling our power infrastructure to the Chinese was a good one. McDonnell should, however, have realised that the symbolism of the image is worth more than his words.

Yet the problem goes deeper. That he would quote from the book suggests that Mao figures quite largely in his political thought processes. That should be enough to convince anybody that New Old Labour is not working. I understand why people would how that it could but, really, Labour voters need to decide if they want power or their principals. England and particularly Middle England will never vote for a left wing party. Not because people even understand what left wing means but simply because the media will tell them that 'left wing' means trouble.

In a better world, we would all be deeply invested in politics and unaffected by media bias. However, we live in this world. The media will never allow Corbyn to succeed and there is nothing to suggest that in the next four years the media will become less important in the way people make their decisions. After a four weeks media blitz, Labour will be lucky to emerge with a vote in the high teens. McDonnell's performance today should convince Labour's grandees that this is an experiment doomed to fail. For the sake of democratic politics we need a viable opposition. There's no point wasting four years to discover this sad fact. From where I sit today, whoever leads the next Tory government will be walking into Downing Street. Irrespective of your politics, that's not good for democracy and not good for the nation.

Turkey, Hitchens & Maher

Funny how events on the other side of the globe change your plans. Yesterday I wrote a light-hearted piece which I hoped would see the light this afternoon. Then the news changed my plans and over at TW&TW I've written a very quick piece about Turkey shooting down the Russian jet.

In contrast to that piece, I'm again typing this straight to the blog. No editing. No polishing. But given a couple of hours extra thought, I'm still shocked at what Turkey has done. Whatever way you look at the mess of the Middle East, you realise that so much of it runs across national borders and into ancient ethnic feuds. Turkey seems to be facing huge problems. It has to decide on which bank of the Bosporus its loyalties lie. I can't imagine many people in NATO feel reassured about today's rash act. The one fault in having a common defense is the assumption that other nations share your values. I'm not entirely sure what values Turkey has at the moment under President Erdoğan. This is the guy who was jailing cartoonists who dared to criticise him.

'Sharing values' reminds me that last night I watched a couple of very old episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher. Real Time is probably my favourite TV show because the UK has nothing like it. Nothing has the passion but also the insight. It's unafraid of being intelligent but also confused, which is the perfect starting place for debate. It's sometimes outrageously angry and a perfect example was the second episode I watched from the mid 2000s. Christopher Hitchens was one of the guests and there was a wonderful moment he turned to the audience and flipped them the bird, as they say in America. He seemed to love deliberately agitating the audience over their views towards Middle East. Hitchens, you might remember, was firmly in favour of the war.

Sadly, Hitchens is no longer with us. We still have the war. Everything we see today grew out of the decisions we made back then but I try to understand why Hitchens was so wrong. And it does seem to me that he was largely wrong. In many respect, his instincts were correct. Yet, on reflection, it's Bill Maher who seemed to be the prophet, warning us that we had no place in the Middle East. Hitchens was driven, I guess, by a greater sense of moral outrage. He couched his arguments in the terrors of the Saddam regime. He talked about liberating people.

Where he went wrong, I guess, was in having too much hope for humanity and underplaying the malevolent force of religion. I don't suppose it's much of a surprise that it was his atheism that first attracted me to read Hitchens. Few writers have written as powerfully about the faults of religion but Hitchens was far too rational. He trusted that people given freedom would choose democracy. The fact is that rationality is something that can't be imposed and it can't always be taught. As Turkey today proved: sometimes people just make extremely dumb choices.

Talking Anonymous, Cartoons, & Rafa Benitez

Over at TW&TW, I've been talking about hacking and the Anonymous collective.

Meanwhile, here I'm still typing straight into my editor window as part of my new drive to blog more regularly. I've realised that if I do this for five or ten minutes a day, there's no desire to edit, polish, or just labour over the work of blogging. Straight from brain to blog and damn the results. Nobody reads it anyway. Anything that I really labour over will be published elsewhere. Let this be a proper blog.

Today I intend to write about dictatorships. I'm also drawing an illustration which I've about 70% finished. I've decided to stop colouring my cartoons. It was making be pretty depressed. It's other people who tell me that cartoons have to be in colour. It means that I'd changed my habits and didn't bother with cross hatching. Yet I'd forgot that I'm doing this mainly for myself and I love the look of cross hatching. I love the look of a finished cartoon when it's just black and white. A little colour can set it off but I've not been enjoying the long time it takes to draw a full colour cartoon. Cross hatching probably takes longer and is more pschologically challenging but at least I love the result.

So what else has grabbed my attention other than the bloody cold weather?

Oh, yes. Looks like Rafa's going to be sacked by Real Madrid. It's said but expected. Nobody in their right mind would want to manage Madrid. The club has a horrible culture and horrible way of dealing with its managers. Plus I don't buy into Galácticos. What is the point in buying all the best players? There can be no pleasure in winning and every misery attached with losing and even drawing. Surely the point of being a fan of football is that you follow the development of your team. If you're always 'there', at the end point, then where is the pleasure? I also can't stand Ronaldo. I suppose it's one of those great philosophical divisions of our day: Ronaldo or Messi. Myself, I'm a Messi man. Give me the football and sod the mechandising and hype.

Memes, Thoughts, Livingstone & Corbyn

It seems obvious to say it but a meme is not the same as a thought but I'm saying just that over at TW&TW.

Sunday. Not much to say but I'm typing straight to the blog again. No editing. No polishing to make this flow or funny or even remotely entertaining. This is raw data from my brain to yours, should you exist.

Today I'm writing and later I might well be drawing. Not sure what I'll be writing or drawing but currently intrigued by the notion of being a 'bigot'. A bigot is 'a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own.' I saw a video on the LBC website of the Labour party MP John Mann accuse Ken Livingstone of being a bigot. He kept repeating the word throughout the exchange and, by the end, I wasn't quite sure what he meant. I'm not sure that Mann knew what he meant. If being a bigot is somebody who intolerant of other people's opinions, then I'd guess that most people are bigots. It's the basic human condition and I'm thankful that it is. I would hope I'll always be a bigot, intolerant of the opinions of fools.

I'm writing this quickly, with no research, but I assume that bigot has started to be applied more widely. Mann was using is as though accusing Livingstone of holding some outmoded notion of mental health. Ken had said in a recent interview that shadow defence minister Kevan Jones 'might need psychiatric help'.

I have no real thought out position on the 'pschiatric help' comment except to ask if it would have been treated any differently if he's said the guy was 'bonkers' or had 'obviously been hit over the head'? We could quite easily pull language apart and find all manner of affront buried in there. Is a parent telling their kids that it's 'bedlam in here', demeaning the old hospital of the same name? Livingstone's comment was more direct than that, of course, but it's this kind of petty political correctness that is the greatest danger to anybody wanting more civilized debates. If we can't use the vocabulary of 'madness', then we can't really say anything at all except to push it into the shadows and pretend that it's not a very normal aspect of the human condition. Again, I'm writing this quickly and might well be wrong.

The main reason I note this spat is that it's precisely the kind of thing that I assumed would happen as soon as Corbyn got elected. I've said it before and I'll repeat it here again: it's not the big issues that will bring Corbyn down. It will be the squabbles about the correct etiquette around opening a door when both men and women want to get through it. It will be deciding who sits where at the table and ensuring that the lunch isn't offensive to anybody in the room. Corbyn will be defeated by undergraduate politics. And that is a shame because, in some respects, he does bring a welcome maturity to politics. I've enjoyed seeing him make Cameron squirm at PMQs. I also like politicians that don't given glib answers to questions that were deliberately set up to produce a glib answer. I like that Corbyn is breaking the usual rhythms of political reporting. Yet, I also know, he's a disaster for democracy. We have no viable opposotion in the UK and that is dangerous, unhealthy, and plain foolish. In Labour heartlands people will love him but for the voters who float and decide matters, he is not and never will be the answer.

Lastly: hugely impressed by Liverpool's victory last night. Not just the result but the performance gives me hope for the future.

 

Weather, Adele and Bob Dylan's scary moustache

Over at TW&TW I'm talking about the weather and the Met Office's new scheme to name our winter storms.

Beyond that, my day has been slightly absorbed by Adele who I tried my best to ignore until one of her songs lodged itself somewhere behind my cerebral cortex. I've been unable to shake it and it's stopped me getting any work done all day. Every time I sat down to write, I could hear the words 'When the rain is blowing in your face / And the whole world is on your case / I could offer you a warm embrace / To make you feel my love'.

It took me about an hour of not really thinking about the song before it struck me that I'd heard heard those lyrics before. I think that's what had been nagging away at me in the back of my mind. Think nasal and gruff. Think Bob Dylan.

I like Dylan but, like many people, love his early stuff and have moments of indifferent and liking about his later work. Never had a problem with him going electric. Blonde on Blonde is probably my favourite album of his, high in my favourite albums of all time. Never really followed him once he went country. Returned to him whenever he goes more back into the blues but there's something about Dylan that scares me just a little. I think it's the mustache. Those thin top lip moustaches do scare me. Even Ron Mael scares me, though I love Sparks.

Unlike Ron Mael, Dylan never really made it through my defences to become one of those cherished artists a person defines their life by. Never been a musician I really keep tabs on. Tom Waits, Sparks, P.J. Harvey, Neil Young, Nick Cave, Paul Simon (though, really too middle of the road for my tastes, I love the sound of his guitar and his early song writing). There are musicians I keep closest to me. I can never hear enough Natalia Merchant. Her voice just intoxicates me. Leonard Cohen I love but not really when he's performing live. Too many tours. Not enough new albums.

Dylan, though, scares me.

Weather

I'm talking about the weather over at The What & The Why.

On a day on non-existance

I had another of those difficult days today when, for reasons that I just cannot fathom, the world went completely silent on me.

Normally my inbox is alive with emails of one kind of another. Today: nothing. Not a single one, despite my sending quite a few. It feels like I don't exist.

Hello? Do I exist? I'm sure that I do but, then again, is anything certain?

I wish I was Donald Trump. He seems to exist and, what's more, he's always very certain about it.

No doubt my non-existence is partly down to my losing my 'website designing' job. Or, at least, my job lost me. In truth, it wasn't a job as much as regular freelancing work which, month on month, was paying less and less. I finally decided that the people exploiting my good nature should start paying me a half decent wage for my services. Naturally, when I asked them to, the company decided that my services were no longer required. Interesting how that works.

On the positive side, I have more time to write this month. Next month: sweeping the streets.

Being exploited for your services is, sadly, the way of the world. Unless you are 'at the top' of any line of work, then you really are at the bottom. In a world economy there's always some amateur around the corner willing to undercut the professionals.

Word to the young: set you price and don't deviate. Of course, you're just as likely to end up as unsuccessful as me. But at least you'll still have your pride.

***

This is obviously also true in the world of writing. Some places do pay. Some don't. Some say they do and then they don't. Some say they don't and then they do.

But most of the time they don't.

It's why the silence feels particularly uncomfortable today. I've been writing solid for three days and have four articles finished that I think are quality. Trying to place articles is like trying to throw a cat up a chimney. Even when you nail the throw, the bloody thing comes back covered in soot and with its claws extended. I don't know why I carry on except I guess people wouldn't recognise me if my face wasn't scratched to hell.

I have to avoid the temptation of dumping 'failed' articles here. I want to be read but at what cost? I'm no charity but the world expects every writer to write for charity. I still occasionally get emails from strangers asking me to draw a cartoon for some website with a huge readership that they promise will give me exposure. When I ask to be paid they never reply. My life in precis form.

Regarding my writing, I'm pretty certain all of this is my own fault. Were I to start again, I would not try to write well or aspire to think intelligently. I would have learned to write quickly and to think little.

But that sounds presumptuous of me. I'm not even sure that I can write or think particularly well. All I know is that I can do neither quickly. 2000 words a day is about my limit if I'm going to polish those words. Polishing is all of the writing or it is for me. The business is hard and takes it out of me. I wish it didn't but it does.

I was reading Orwell (again) today and wondered to myself how he must have worked when there was no word processor around to hone his prose. How must he have done it? How would any writer have written (or how to they still write, given that some do still use typewriters) when the thing on the page is not something you can then pull into shape? I assume he did it through laborious retyping and then retyping again.

Will Self, I know, still uses typewriters. I should really see if I can find anything he's written about his process. Myself: I doubt if I could work that way. I write quickly but edit slowly. Perhaps I should write more slowly and edit very little.

That, I think, has to be the key. Most things I read at newspapers and magazines are clearly written in a rush. Nobody cares that they are. Facts are rarely checked that well, especially at some of the broadsheet's websites. The Independent tonight had an article about De Niro's new film. It looks terrible (Dirty Grandpa)  and was definitely not directed by Larry Charles, who did direct Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Borat and Bill Maher's Religulous.

The Independent has become a woeful website, suffering from the worst kind of Buzzfeed syndrome.

On a more positive note, for a brief moment this week, my name featured on the same page as Will Self over at The New Statesman.

Is it sad to admit it was a career highlight? Well, excuse my French: fuck it. It was.

I rarely swear but always edit. I've broken one rule. Might as well break the other and publish this unedited. Let it be the mess I'll look back on to remind me never to post when I don't exist.

Atheism, Hitchens, Orwell & Michelle Visage

Over at The What & The Why, I'm talking about the Paris attacks and making broad points about the whole troubled mess. I accept it won't be to everybody's taste but that was deliberately so. My views are atheist, sceptical, but also, I hope, humanist. Despite being cynical about most things, I'm no nihilist. I do believe in goodness, virtues, and human beings. We can do great things only we too often attribute those great things to God or gods when we should attribute them to ourselves. I expected a little flak and there was some criticism but nothing that convinces me that a sceptical approach to life isn't the best.

I suppose I should also have read some Christopher Hitchens before trying my hand at a full-on atheist argument. However, I didn't. Time to get Arguably down off the shelf. Not sure what it's doing up there. It's another of the books which usually sit in the only tidy part of my desk by the side of my monitor. I miss Hitchens terribly, especially at times like these when his clarity and anger meant so much. He was good TV because he was bad TV, in the sense that he was not anodyne or always kind but intellectually fierce and independent. He cut through the bullshit and made me wince at the things he would say. We do too little wincing these days. Or, at least, the wrong kind of wincing.

I have been reading a lot of Orwell recently. I hadn't read his essays in a while, though his collected best are always sitting in that favored spot on my desk. However, my old edition was falling to pieces, with half the pages having come loose. I was recently bought a new copy as a gift, which I'm cherishing and using as a little motivational reading before I start hammering the keyboard every morning. Last week I reread 'The Lion and the Unicorn' and thought it remarkable how little England had changed to the one he described back in 1940. I cannot stop going back to this passage. Something about it has been niggling away at me for days.

It follows that British democracy is less of a fraud than it sometimes appears. A foreign observer sees only the huge inequality of wealth, the unfair electoral system, the governing-class control over the press, the radio and education, and concludes that democracy is simply a polite name for dictatorship. But this ignores the considerable agreement that does unfortunately exist between the leaders and the led.

I've been wanting to write about something that happened when I visited Waterstones in Liverpool the other day; the strange experience of walking in to see a book signing by some American TV starlet called Michelle Visage and then seeing the prices of the newest Penguin books. It keeps reminding me of Orwell, perhaps some secret agreement high up in our culture that ensures that the crass is abundant and cheap and anything quality kept exorbitantly high. I suppose I shouldn't be too critical. Michelle Visage has over 200,000 followers on Twitter. I can't be bothered to break past 200. She is what humanity craves and, I guess, given a choice between following Visage or some supernatural god, I would have reluctantly choose to follow Visage. Damn! Never let it be said that atheists choose the easy route.

Why long American elections are a good thing

Over at The New Statesman, I'm arguing in favour of the long election cycle in American politics and why we in the UK should begin to take our politics more seriously.

Cameron's Podium and Clickbait

More things I've been writing. Over at TW&TW I've been talking about Cameron's podium performance. Earlier in the week, I was talking about good newspapers being influenced by clickbait culture...

Buzzing

Some thoughts on news and the rise of buzzfeed.

Bling and Poppies

I've been talking about bling and poppies over at The What & The Why.

Privacy

Over at The What & The Why, I'm talking about internet privacy and the Government's Investigatory Powers Bill.

New Theresa May Cartoon

Why the Honours System is not working

Over at The What & The Why, I'm talking about the honours system plus I drew a new cartoon.

Anger Mounts at David Cameron's Photoshopped Poppy

James Bond and China

Over at The Spectator Coffee House, I've written about James Bond and China.

On Patriotism

Written a piece over at The What & The Why on refugees, patriotism and the rise of nationalism.

A Netanyahu Cartoon

And watercolours are still a bugger to master...

Tory Conference Cartoon

Watercolours are bloody tricky...

Sorry but I think I would have thrown that egg myself*

The problem with an old-fashioned egging is that it lacks political nuance. Last Sunday's assault on Young Conservatives in Manchester has quite rightly been greeted with universal disapproval by the media and it doesn't really matter that 60,000 people didn't hurl eggs. One chose to vent their anger in yolk form and it was wrong, not least because this act of free-range stupidity gave the Tory party the perfect story against which to define themselves at the start of their annual conference. They can now claim to be the party that doesn't hurl eggs, or, at least, not outside the context of a dining club hazing.

Conflict is hardly new when the Tories come north. Political debate in this part of the country is a snarling business but that emanating from the left often seems more snarl than substance. Jeremy Corbyn can ask for gentler politics and Topman himself from collar to cuff but the crowd at protests will usually attract some braid-wearing pert-nippled class warriors with a good arm, lucky aim and a misguided notion of free speech.

Yet amid the sham outrage and sham counter outrage, I noticed something very familiar about the video titled ‘A Tory just got EGGED!!’ when it popped up on Youtube. I recognised the scene of the 'crime'. I spent years working in an office just around that corner on the edge of Chinatown. I've stood where the Tories stood and know how tempers run hot in a city that often feels like it has more Bez tribute acts than it has Tory voters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZB8_RMwFfI

Because I know the corner so well, I wonder how those Young Conservatives found themselves standing at that junction of Portland Street and Oxford Road. It's the latter road that channels protest marches that routinely run out of the university precinct to the south. That corner is the closest point that protesters get to the security barriers protecting Tory attendees. You'd have to walk a few minutes back towards Central Library in order to reach the Midland Hotel and further still to reach the conference venue.

It makes it hard not to question the motives of those Young Conservatives when they picked that spot to openly wear their conference passes (against the advice of event organizers) and to wave copies of The Telegraph, conference brochures, and pictures of Margaret Thatcher. These are perfectly legal things to do, of course, but perhaps not wise in the middle of an anti-austerity march unless your intention is to provoke the other lot into proving what a despicable bunch they can be. And, as usual, somebody in that other lot was only too happy to oblige.

The result is online sniping between the hard left and hard right. The left justifiably feel they have statistics on their side because it was only one among 60,000 who committed the terrible deed. The right justifiably feel that they have morality on their side because they claim the right to dress how they like and walk the streets unmolested by egg yolk. Yet it's hardly partisan to point out that the Young Conservatives seemed delighted to have provoked that response.

Manchester has many virtues but bow ties are rare and the v-necked sweater with old-school tie is not a look that wins many friends. Seen through my eyes, at least, the Young Conservatives looked just that: very young and very Conservative. I would also argue that you don't need to be on the political left to have a visceral reaction to the smugness of youths flaunting their privilege in a context in which others are protesting genuine poverty and government policies that are leading to the deaths of vulnerable people. Given the anger, the noise, the passion of the moment, I'd have been hard pressed not to lob an egg myself. Except, sitting here coolly and rationally, I also know that I wouldn't. Or perhaps I would. That's the problem with passion. It makes reasonable people do things they would regret and often those things are far worse than throwing an egg. The bigger question is why people attend a political march carrying eggs in their pockets and it's in the premeditation that my sympathy for the protesters ends.

The difference between passion and premeditation is, I suppose, at the heart of my argument. It's the premeditation of protestors looking to hurl eggs and the premeditation of the Young Tories looking to stoke the anger of the crowds. Yet the story also expresses a deeper reality about the Tories annual pilgrimage to Manchester. That they tend to hold their annual conferences in Labour heartlands makes as much sense as Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom hosting the Last Night of the Proms. The whole thing feels like a premeditated provocation on a scale grander than either the Young Conservatives or Dim Eggthrowers could ever hope to organize. It implies a reach into cities and regions that simply doesn't exist or is overstated. In the north, the Tories are largely successful in areas of affluence, the suburbs on the outskirts of major conurbations where gardens are large and every shadow cast by leaf or Range Rover. Elsewhere they are the second, third or even fourth choice party. For a few days, they might fortify themselves inside a heavily protected compound in central Manchester but the security only highlights how removed they are from ordinary Mancunians and how much effort they need to expend to truly understand the city, the people and its culture.

And that's what the story highlights to me. Throwing an egg was unconscionable but what the Young Conservatives were throwing back was cheap, snide, and self defeating. It was a militant distain about the cares of average people who will never know or enjoy their privilege. It was a lack of compassion, consideration, or conscience that only encourages more people to take to the streets and make the divides in our society feel deeper and more wilful than we've ever known them in our lives.

Whilst the Left need to identify the anarchists and trouble makers polluting their message through violence, the Tories need to rethink their own strategy and stop countenancing the fetishism of cruelty sometimes displayed so overtly by their youth.

* The title of this article was obviously intended as 'clickbait' but that doesn't actually stop some people from thinking that I would throw an egg or I'm defending the people that do throw eggs. I wouldn't throw an egg. I've never thrown an egg and I can't conceive of a context in which I would throw an egg. I'm not saying that I'm incapable of throwing an egg. If the conditions were perfect and I lost my temper and happened to have an egg in my hand, I can't be entirely certain about my actions. But, generally, I disapprove of all egg throwing and general misbehaviour with eggs.

 

A Putin Cartoon

Guns, America and Me

Another terrible shooting at an American school. Hard to really understand how America can ignore a problem that affects them every single day. However, I've tried to do that over at The What & The Why, where I've written something about America's gun culture and how it affects all of us.

 

Feeding Fires Elsewhere

Over at The What & The Why, I'm talking about Russia, Syria and the American response and you can still read my piece about American and British satire over at The Spectator. Today, I intend to write about guns, Goldsmith, and/or the Peeple app, two of which I'm not entirely convinced are real. I also have a cartoon to finish, though finite hours in the day might restrict myself to getting only two of these things done.

I also want to write about the plight of Liverpool Football Club but I think it might hurt too much. It would turn into a 2000 word rant about Brendan Rodgers who is slowly destroying the club and also destroying the faith I originally had in John W. Henry and FSG. Thankfully, I've largely stopped watching football to save myself the pain. Last night's match was supposedly terrible to watch and I'm glad I saved myself the trouble by doing something else. I can handle bad results. Losing is as much a part of football life as winning. I just can't handle the stupidity of a manager who repeatedly plays people out of position, then hangs them out to dry when he blames them for a bad result. Not only is it not how you manage a team, it's not how you manage people. Whatever is going wrong at Liverpool feels like it's the manifestation of a very peculiar psychology, the warped ego of a Teflon manager who constantly seems to slip around the blame and watches it stick to others. I'm not even sure about the players they've bought. There doesn't appear to be a coherent structure to the team. Are we looking to play fast football or football involving crosses and a big bugger waiting between the goal posts? All I see is a horrorshow, like the end of Heart of Darkness as Kurtz's madness infects everybody.

I'm unapologetically a fan of Benitez and it's good to see him doing well at Real Madrid. If you haven't got the funds to buy the best players, it's sensible to buy the best brains. Now Madrid have both, they look unstoppable. As Benitez proved at Liverpool, sometimes the best structure can beat the best individuals.  You pretty much knew how his teams would play. Sometimes it was heartlessly rational but it was rational. Liverpool are currently a irrational team but also a team without the heart. I fear for their season.

Hmm... First 200 words of the 2000? I'll stop there. I also need to find a cheap wireless mouse online. I've been bought an Android TV box for my imminent birthday but it has the world's worst remote control. However, with a mouse, it works wonderfully and looks like it might be a adequate replacement from aging WD Live which for some unknown reason stopped working properly last week.

 

A Tale of Two Satires

I wrote this piece about British and American satire which you can read over at The Spectator.  I expect I'll catch all kind of merry grief from people in the comment section, which is why I never ever look at what people say in the comment sections. If you did, you'd never write another thing. I should add that I do like Have I Got News For You as light entertainment. As satire, I just wish it took off the gloves and gave the establishment the occasional bloody nose. The show is never better than when Hislop turns to the audience and gives them a spontaneous lecture about the abuses of power.

A Corbyn/Watson/Labour Conference Cartoon

This one doesn't quite work and I haven't time to fix it. Composition could have been better...

A Fun Little HS2 Cartoon

Sam Smith: Writing's on the Wall

It is an indication of how much I really wanted to like Sam Smith's James Bond theme that I initially thought I liked it. I'd seen a link on the website of The Guardian and clicked it only to find myself being asked for my Spotify login. I don't have a Spotify login. I don't want a Spotify login. Even if I did, I damn well don't want a Facebook account so I can get myself a Spotify account. So I headed over to Youtube, typed in 'Writing's on the Wall', and clicked on the first picture of Sam Smith.

I started to listen. The song was at once somehow familiar. My first thought was that I didn't dislike it but I began to suspect something was wrong when, after about thirty seconds, Mr. Smith still hadn't start to sing. That's when I realised it was a fake. About half an hour later, I finally found a proper link.

I started to listen. The song was at once somehow familiar. My first thought was that I didn't dislike it. I began to suspect something was wrong when, after about thirty seconds, Mr. Smith has started to sing. That's when I realised it was a fake.

This is another of the fake James Bond themes, written by somebody trying to write a James Bond theme and producing something that's deep in the desert of pastiche. It's something I've noticed over the course of the past few Bond films. I think the woeful Madonna effort, for the absolute worst James Bond film (Die Another Day), made the producers wary about letting artists have too much freedom when it comes to the Bond themes. Their response was Chris Cornell's 'You Know My Name' for Casino Royale, full of sweeping strings and penetrating guitar riffs, which felt like a proper stab at writing a Bond theme. Yet it also felt like just that. An attempt at writing a Bond theme.

Bond films have passed off quite a few pastiches for the real thing. I often think the problem stemmed from David Arnold taking over the music direction for the Bond movies. Arnold professed himself a Bond obsessive, deeply influenced by the music of John Barry. I always liked his enthusiasm and love for the Bond movies but, at the same time, to these very cloth ears of mine, it always felt like he was directing his energy into something other than the song. The most obvious example was the Arnold song, sung by K.D. Lang over the closing credits of 'Tomorrow Never Dies'. Some say it was better than Sheryl Crow's 'Tomorrow Never Dies'. As a Bond song, it might well be true. As a song, however, I can't help but think that Crow's is far superior.

And that, I think, is the problem. There's a difference between writing a good song and writing a Bond theme. When the artists set out to write a great song, you usually end up with a great theme. When they set out to write a Bond theme song, you get something that's not quite as good.

'Another Way to Die', the theme to Quantum of Solace, is a fine example. The Bond riff is very evident from the outset but Jack White struggles to adapt it to his style, producing a song that was at once blues and grunge and sometimes all over the place.

'Skyfall', by contast, was just a great song which is a great song outside the content of the film's opening credits.

Sam Smith's effort is far from the worst Bond theme (take that bow, Madonna). Nothing wrong with the orchestration. Nothing much wrong with Sam Smith's voice in that years of listening to Sparks has tuned my ears to the falsetto. Lyrically it is as bland as lyrics get: a schmaltzy list of ballad clichés hastily written down (twenty minutes to write the song, Smith claims) by somebody steeped in schmaltzy ballad clichés.

Second, third, and then fourth listening, I found it growing on me but, really, not so much that I think Smith has justified the filmmakers made in giving him the honour. Smith has the wrong kind of voice for a James Bond theme or he has the right kind of voice for a James Bond who is has become the ultimate metrosexual, as obsessed with his skin cream as the Bond in the novels was obsessed with his cars and women. I don't see this changing any time soon. Might as well try to get used to it. You can't change the world, which might as well be the title of the next James Bond film.

A Donald Trump Cartoon

The Alarm Clock That Woke America

It all began with 14 year old Ahmed Mohamed and the clock he built.

He takes it into his school in Irving, Texas on the 15th of September, 2015. He shows it to his engineering teacher who praises his work but suggests that he not show the clock to other teachers but keep it in his bag. Later that day, the clock's alarm goes off. Ahmed's English teacher asks to see the clock and is so disturbed by its appearance that she alerts authorities. The police arrive and Ahmed is taken into custody, primarily because he cannot explain why he's built the clock. He is detained for bringing a 'hoax bomb' into school. There follows a national outcry against his arrest. Ahmed is embraced by the large 'maker' community, the hugely creative generation redefining invention through 3D printers and rapid prototyping, and he becomes a symbol for the institutionalised Islamophobia in America. Now a cause célèbre across the States, Ahmed is invited to the White House and the President compliments him on his 'cool clock'.

So far, Ahmed's story makes for a self-contained fable we might recognise. It's the American Dream writ bland. Young creative type, the stuff of which America is made, builds something notable through his own ingenuity. His genius goes unrecognised in his hillbilly school, which instead looks at the colour of his skin and his oh-so-familiar surname, and forms an equally oh-so-familiar judgement. Thankfully, not all of America is so prejudiced and that enlightened part of the nation does what it does so well: it rallies support through social media. Mohamed is released from captivity, goes to Washington and meets the President. God bless the spirit of Horatio Alger. God bless the US of A.

Yet if that were the story, it wouldn't be noteworthy. We'd accept it as believable but slightly hackneyed, especially if presented by Hollywood. IMDB 5.5. Not bad for a quiet night in with the kids.

Look deeper, however, and you begin to see the narrative twists. It makes a different story if you know that the clock was constructed inside an aluminium briefcase. Since clocks are meant to be seen, assembling one inside a briefcase does seem odd and perhaps even provocative. After all, we can't escape the cultural connotations of a clock in a briefcase. Wile E. Coyote shakes a ticking briefcase and you expect that he'll soon have a large lump of Monument Valley on his head. So were the police right to arrest young Amhed Mohamed? Is it at least understandable why they might begin to take an interest in his briefcase?

Before you decide, let's now add another twist to the tale. It now appears that Ahmed didn't actually make the clock. It wasn't so much constructed as disassembled. He had taken an old 1986 digital clock, stripped away the casing to expose the internal mechanism which he then attached it to the inside of the briefcase. Ahmed isn't a 'maker' as much as a 'meddler' who was lucky not to treat himself to some good ol' Texas justice courtesy of the exposed 120 volt transformer.

You begin to see, I hope, how at each stage, facts beget ignorance beget more facts beget tales, tropes, myths, assumptions and, soon, a whole lot of ugly politics.

For instance, when Richard Dawkins highlighted this last fact about the disassembled clock, Twitter outrage ensued. The very fact that it was Dawkins's tweeting about the clock located Ahmed's story inside an ongoing saga in which Dawkins's atheism is seen as an aggressive challenge to religious dogma. Dawkins points out the facts I've outlined above but, for many people, the existing narrative was already far too compelling. It was as though Dawkins had just stood up in the final reel of The Empire Strikes Back and explained why Luke couldn't possibly be Vader's son based on the DNA record. The disassembled clock fitted the narrative of Dawkins's as popularist naysayer. It didn't fit the romantic narrative of the young engineer and his home made clock.

Depending on where you choose to direct your focus, Ahmed's story is either about a young protagonist and his misguided actions or it's about a broader reality in American culture. The more you believe it's about Ahmed's surname, his Sudanese background, the procedural details of his detainment, the more polarised the issue and the same old voices begin to frame the debate. Sarah Palin became involved last Friday when she squawked 'That's a clock, and I'm the Queen of England'. To which you are compelled to reply: but it is a clock. It's just not the idealised notion of a clock that Palin prefers alongside her idealised notions of American, Muslim, or, indeed, Queen.

Yet, in truth, nobody but Ahmed knows why he dismantled a clock and put it inside a suitcase. His mind will be a messy nest of cultural influences, teenage angst and spirited imagination. Really, it's of no significance why he did what he did. Despite whispers of political motives and the influence of family members, in all likelihood it's probably just the dumb kind of thing that most kids do at that age. Much more telling is why the story around Ahmed has become more complex than any clock. The story has multiple interpretations, each vying for the status of accepted truth. Mohamed is at once innocent, knowing, naive,  harmless, malicious, exploited and exploiter.

It might be a long time until another story quite like that of Ahmed Mohamed and his clock comes along, meaning so much, so differently, to so many different people. For now, it is fascinating to view the fractures in American society through such a multi-faceted prism.

Talking Archbishopric Over There...

Over at The Spectator Coffee House, something I've written about The Archbishop of Canterbury and the refugee crisis.

Pig, Pig, Glorious Pig

I've written my 'defence' of David Cameron and pork over at The What and the Why.  If you're interested in the politics of pigs, it might be worth you clicking.

This is the droid you're looking for...

I say with pride that I am a nerd. I'm also an older nerd who fell in love with the original Star Wars and spent most of my life hoping to see more from the grimy counter universe to Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry's creation may have been more intellectually sound but Star Wars was more emotional. It was bleaker and filled with as much moral ambiguity as it was filled with space junk.

Star Wars was perhaps the first science fiction movie (or, at least, the first I saw ) to introduce a note of grunge which later became commonplace. Star Wars dropped its heroes into a trash compactor in which the technology of an advanced civilization was being reduced to garbage. Where Star Trek want us to feel slavish to our technological future, Star Wars reminded us of the hubris of technology. Hard to believe given the revolution in marketing it spawned but Star Wars even seemed to have an anti-consumerist message. What other film could make us want to indulge in religious asceticism quite like that involved in becoming a Jedi? What other film before or since made young boys lust after a old hunk of junk quite like we lusted after the Millenium Falcon? What other film taught that mastery of skill was more powerful than the material wealth of an empire?

When George Lucas revived the franchise with his prequel trilogy, fans were excited and then confused as he produced three films which rejected the grime for a CGI process that gave everything a slightly unreal sheen. I always remember feeling a great sense of disappointment when I saw the Naboo royal cruiser land half an hour into Episode One. Slick like the Blackbird spy plane and entirely reflective, it just didn't fit into the Star Wars universe I knew and loved. Worst of all, Lucas produced in Jar Jar Binks a character straight from a corporate toy department. In looks, voice, and manner, Jar Jar was annoying but what irritated most of all was the sense that the films were merely a vehicle for marketing.

When Disney bought the franchise (itself a horrible word), they promised a return to the original aesthetic. So far, they seem to have made wise decisions. The films are being made on real sets, with practical special effects replacing the green screens. Whilst hiring J.J. Abrams for the first sequel appears a safe choice, hiring Garath Edwards shows ambition for the future. The opening shot of the first trailer is also promising. It was a ruined Star Destroyer and this certainly feels like the Star Wars world, where ruin and spectacle sit side by side. It remains to be seen if the shining chromium seen elsewhere in the trailer is a minor part of the aesthetic but, in my eyes, if felt too Battlestar Galactica to be truly Tattooine.

It might sound fanboyish to pick out something so meaningless as the shininess of a character's armour but there's something else going on with the relaunch of Star Wars that makes me wary. We are still a couple of months from the premier of The Force Awakens and already the market is saturated with gleaming merchandise. Lucas (and Spielberg) were never above profiting through merchandising but this is something different. This is merchandising done by the kings of the industry. This is merchandising on the Disney scale.

Slowly it begins to dawn that the beloved films of childhood have become something else. They are claws buried so deep in our collective consciousness that we have no way of resisting their pull. They have now be harnessed to the most powerful marketing machine on the planet and we're about to be dragged over some rough terrain. I wonder how we'll all feel about Star Wars after five or ten years and maybe as many sequels because, apparently, there will be a new Star Wars movie appearing in cinemas every summer (or winter). Disney have seen the success of Marvel and found an even more potent mythology to leverage. I know I'm in a minority but I feel jaded before this has all begun. Marvel's universe never particularly excited me but it has certainly diminished with repeat visits. With a few exceptions, such as the Branagh helmed Thor (2011), I've looked on the Marvel films with increasingly indifference. Stan Lee's work reminds me of the excited imagination of an over-stimulated schoolboy, with the world of Valhalla existing side by side with the genetic freakery of Hulk and the mad science of Spiderman. I remain baffled by the excitement of fanboys who claim that the Toxic Nosewrangler never wore spats or that Ostritchman would never have formed an alliance with Shazzam Fiddlesticks. I'm left wanting to scream: NONE OF THIS MAKES SENSE!

Insofar as I've never much of a Marvel fan (Netflix's excellent Daredevil being another recent exception), the plundering of that mythos hasn't really troubled me. Star Wars is a different matter. I fear that the sheer joy those films gave me as a child will be used to manipulate me as an adult; turning the latent anti-consumerist message of the originals into a total assault on the wallet. The BB-8 droid toy is already this year's most wanted (and pointless) toy. I doubt if it will be the last.

Elton John Over Yonder

Head over yonder to read the thing I've written over at the Spectator Culture House about Elton John, pranks, and Putin.

Anthem for Doomed Truth

The problem with freedom is that other people simply refuse to use it in ways you approve. Take Jeremy Corbyn: elected leader of Britain's Labour Party one day, refusing to sing the national anthem the next. War veterans are right to feel upset. They didn't fight for freedom just so people would have the freedom to choose their gods, politics, and songs to sing. And it’s not as though Jeremy has a problem squeezing a lung or two in public. Earlier in the week, he gave a rousing performance of the Red Flag in a London pub. It staggers belief! The new Labour leader singing the semi-official anthem of The Labour Party. Just what was he thinking?

You see, amid all the media outrage is a rarely spoken truth about freedom: we are free to do whatever it is that the majority tell us to do. Britain is a liberal and wonderfully open-minded nation, so long as you're thinking and saying what the liberal and wonderfully open-minded people think and say. Heaven forbid that you dare offer an alternative point of view on war, terrorism, migration, civil liberties, Europe, policing, crime, gender, housing, cycling, unions, beards, smoking, drugs, druids, drones, Scotland, trains, tattoos, teaching, One Direction, ethnic studies, football, Crufts, television, HS2, or ethic spoon medicine. Dare to defend a rapist and the mob will tear you to pieces, just like they did with TV presenter and journalist, Judy Finnigan, when she recently tried to make a nuanced point about a footballer's rape case. Don't mention hunting lest you provoke the opprobrium of the Countryside lobby who attacked BBC naturalist Chris Packham when he dared to express an opinion on a subject he's considered an expert. A man can't even say that Elton John's latest album rots his ears without that being taken as an attack on the entire LGBT community.

Of course, both the political left and right have their own protected airspace. On the left, it's union rights, minimum wage, and equality. On the right it's the monarchy, law and order, and immigration. There are broader taboos which exist in the public sphere and you can usually tell when you've strayed because you'll receive the 'you can't say that' warning from work colleagues. It's the nature of public opinion that the current safe zone moves like starlings on the wing: a large homogenous mass, keeping the stragglers in order should they move counter to the prevailing direction.

The problem with this is that it rarely allows true freedom of speech and popularity doesn't itself prove an objective truth. Simply because something is acceptable to the masses, it doesn't mean that an attitude is right. In the 1970s, racism, sexism and homophobia were lauded as good old honest British traits. Those who didn't play by the common rules were condemned as either outdated or misguided when decades later they would be seen as visionary or brave.

In truth, most of us know this already. There's nothing here that isn't common sense. It really comes down to how we each act based on our convictions. Most of us are pretty cowardly when it comes to our deeply held convictions. We sometimes profess to likes and dislikes simply in order to fit into the crowd. It's why the ballot box is protected and votes are (supposedly) anonymous. It takes a brave person to stand apart when they know it will draw people's ire.

Personally, I'm not much of a republican but neither am I much of a monarchist. I dislike the media sandstorms that surround the Royal Family but I appreciate the value of having a non-political head of state. I am, however, a confirmed atheist and singing 'God save the Queen' always sticks in my throat. Yet I'd have probably mumbled along to save myself the trouble of explaining myself. Laziness would have led me to mumble something. And perhaps that's what we're missing here. Corbyn could have taken the easy route. He could have moved his lips and no questions would have been asked. He didn't and that says something creditable about his character. It's just a shame that it plays into a convenient narrative for the right wing press.

Because, really, veterans are wrong to feel offended. They should be proud that their sacrifices allowed us to have a nation where individuals still have a right to express their opinion. Sacrifice in the name of your country is one of the noblest acts but let's not confuse it with the cheap tricks of politicians and the press who use talk of sacrifice, honour, memory and patriotism for their own shameful ends.

David Cameron Refugee Cartoon

Corbyn Cartoon

A Jeremy Corbyn Cartoon

The Spine's Beckham Podcast: What exactly art thou Romeo?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Precision-Guided Cynicism

'I'll tell you what,' said the man on the 141, lowering his paper. 'I agree with what that David Cameron's done.'

'What's that?' asked the woman, who was coincidentally also on the 141 but gazing out the window towards Boots.

'He's had them bloody British Isis fighters blown up. Good riddance to 'em!'

'They were going to shoot the Queen,' tutted the woman. 'We can't be having that!'

'Indeed we can't!' I thought to myself from the seat behind.

The man and woman on the 141 were pretty typical of the mood on Britain's buses this Tuesday morning. 'Wham! Bam! ..Thank you Cam' was the exact headline on the day's edition of The Sun. I say 'exact' because I'm less sure about the legitimacy of their punctuation than I am sure about the legitimacy of the drone strikes. If running off to join a theocratic death cult seeking to replace all democracies in the world with a caliphate through forms of barbaric torture, abuse and murder doesn't make you the legitimate target for precision munitions, then I don't know what does. The only mildly questionable part of the action was the targeting of British nationals. Depending on how you spin your logic, this was either an act of national self defence or an example of state sanctioned assassination. A nation meting out justice to its own nationals seems reasonably more acceptable than meting justice out on non-nationals but others might argue the opposite. The difference is a matter for the lawyers to write cheques about. In most people's minds, the Daesh fighters gave the government legitimacy the moment they tried to weaponise their passports.

Yet beyond the general sense of it being a case of 'one of up for the good guys', David Cameron has here set quite the precedent. The UK government now claims the right to kill any person on the planet who threatens our national security. Just so long as they have the approval of a majority of people on the nation's buses, Cameron et al are on firm ground. Indeed, standing at the Despatch Box, Cameron seemed immune to criticism. He repeated a defence that has been used countless times by Prime Ministers before him. 'My first duty as Prime Minister is to keep the British people safe. That is what I'll always do. [...] I'm not prepared to stand here in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on our streets and have to explain to the House why I did not take the chance to prevent it when I could have done'.

Again, there's little to criticise in the specific details. This was a black and white case of the good guys taking out the bad. Yet set this into the broader context and you might begin to feel that the black and whites do occasionally slide into to grey.

What makes me pause to think is the timing of this murky business. These strikes took place on the 21st of August, two weeks before Cameron stood up in the Commons. It felt like such a convenient time to make this announcement. A day before, Cameron had been the subject of widespread condemnation as the British government repeatedly tried to hide behind the curtains as the world looked for somebody to aid the Syrian refugees. A day later, the couple on the 141 bus had forgotten all about the refugees and were full of praise for their Leader. Clever? Convenient? Planned? Is there any coincidence that long-term Cameron friend, Rebekah Brooks, returned to News UK (owners of The Sun) just last week? Is it a case of The Sun what spun it?

Secondly, this announcement comes just days before the Labour leadership election. It's been widely reported that the Conservatives are looking forward to testing the anti-war resolve of Labour's new leader, whichever candidate called Jeremy Corbyn might win. The drone strikes were possibly the first stage in that political war and we can expect to see the distinctions grow finer between waging an air campaign over Syria and fighting a proxy war fought trough drones. Cameron readily talks about 'meticulous planning' and this 'precision airstrike' but, tellingly, he didn't mention 'drone' (the commonplace term) but 'remotely piloted aircraft' which makes it feel so much more conventional. I should also imagine that much of the ordinance dropped from UK aircraft has the word 'precision' stencilled somewhere on their casing. It leaves me to wonder if the remarkable part of this story isn't the precision nature of the weapon but the precision nature of the politics. It wasn't the military operation that was well planned. It was the way the story was deployed at a moment of government crisis. The story left a front page crater a headline wide. The Syrian refugee story never had a chance.