A spot of idle blog-hopping this afternoon took me to Merrick’s drum, where I found a quote from the ace Julian Cope which I’m taken with:

Sure, your robot self can get you through the day, but be careful - or the person in you who does the dishes or drives on automatic pilot may easily become the same one who brings up the children. And then where would we be? Touched by absolutely nothing at all. So when you watch the News at 10 and the dead bodies are just a drag… be afraid, be very afraid.

Anyway. As you were.

It’s seems to be one of blogging’s unwritten rules (now, of course, written) that to declare that blogging will be light on one’s blog due to lack of inspiration, writer’s block or some other malaise or ennui means that one is then immediately deluged with inspiration and masses of material to write about. Here’s hoping.

I can’t even be bothered to moan about Tony Blair’s latest speech in which he outlined his new, disturbing Mystic Meg doctrine for international affairs:

[W]e have to act not react; we have to do so on the basis of prediction not certainty…

How the predictions will be made, Blair didn’t say. He could try the I-Ching as espoused in Philip K Dick’s “oh-shit-I’m-trapped-in-the-wrong-reality” tale, The Man in the High Castle. He certainly sounds increasingly divorced from reality, talking about chucking his weight about on the basis of guesswork, however well informed.

Anyway. This post is the blogging equivalent of going for one of my lucky wees when watching a football match: something always happens when I’m away from the action.

Back soon.

I suppose I’ve ignored it long enough.

Last night, I went to see Christopher Hitchens give a lecture in Brighton as part of the currently ongoing Festival. He gave a inspiring, if rather rambling, talk about Thomas Paine and then a Q&A session where, with wearingly, stultifying inevitably, he accused those who criticised the war on Iraq of anti-Americanism (”I notice you’re not clapping that“, he growled). He steadfastly refused to address questions of America’s conduct, his answers veering erratically, though whether this was down to pigheadedness or a congenital inability to stay on the point, I’m not sure.

Anyway. Whenever I attend one of these things, I like to buy the speaker’s book in the foyer and have them autograph it at the signing afterwards. As I stood in the queue with my companion, she asked me if I was going to ask the great man a question. Casting around, “I might ask him if he’s going to sign the Euston Manifesto,” I said.

Now, my friend is a local journalist, fingers in all manner of pies. Oxford educated, did an MA in Foreign Policy at the London School of Economics, went to the Sudan to research her dissertation, did a stint as a researcher at the International Crisis Group, has a contact book like the bible, is switched on, sharp and informed. An enviable young woman, in other words, with enviable talents. You’ll have heard of her in a year or two.

“What’s the Euston Manifesto?” she asked.

(more…)

I am alive and playing catch up. I’ve crawled to the keyboard if only to escape the hellish whirligig that is British daytime television: a sickening calliope designed by Hieronymus Bosch. It invades even my fitful dreams as I grip the sweat-drenched sheets.

24 hour news is so repetitive and endlessly recycled that I’d awake thinking I’d been asleep for only seconds to find I’d dozed for an hour. I’m definitely getting old as music television is less like entertainment to me now than what I imagine those disorientation techniques they use to train the SAS to be. Is it mandatory that every Euroclub anthem video feature uncountable women all with their sweaty arses hanging out? Must every R’n'B number feature “J-Lo”, “LL Cool J”, Mariah Carey or some unholy combination of the three? There’s a song on continuous rotation on one of the channels called “I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)” which is a cultural and historical (not to mention musical) car-crash of such proportions that it needs to be reviewed not with harsh words but with anti-tank weapons.

Then there’s the adverts. I realise that sofa-bound Britain needs cheap finance fast but is the market really that big to sustain so many cheap finance companies? Would you be tempted to take a loan from a company whose ad campaigns are fronted by an ex-cricketer with an opening gambit of “I know nothing about loans”? And I’m completely fascinated by the advert for athlete’s foot treatment, Lamisil Once. If this once-only, fire-and-forget footrot torpedo is so spectacularly effective as the ad claims, then why are Boots selling it in a buy-three-for-the-price-of-two deal, as my partner reports?

And that’s just the daytime shift. Did anybody see Deadringers last night? Bloody hell. My daughter’s Year One class can write a better scripts and do better impressions. An “Ooh, Betty. The cat’s done a whoopsie…” Frank Spencer impression slotted in there would have actually improved the show. I’m going to start two lists, one of reasons why the television licence fee is theft and one listing why it isn’t. I expect the first to be John Holmes to the second’s John Prescott.

Anyway, what did I miss?

Update: For some reason the links aren’t showing properly at the bottom of this post in IE6 (the browser’s fault? WordPress? The Earth’s magnetic pull? Who knows). If you want to read the comments for this post, click the “permalink” link.

The doctor says I have tonsilitis. Roaring tonsilitis, mind you. It’s a double bummer seeing as how I had my tonsils removed almost twenty years ago. I mean, what was the point? Doesn’t stop you getting tonsilitis apparently, in fact it can be (and in this case, is) worse in the event. Ulcers. In my throat.

My eyes water every time I swallow. Phagophobia has taken a merciless hold of me: the anticipation of swallowing is almost worse than the act itself.

I’m off back to the couch where a blanket, all three Lord of The Rings extended cuts, a big glass of iced water and fitful dozing await me. I owe a bajillion people emails which I’ll get around to when the antibiotics kick in.

Pass the wire brush and Dettol.

So I’m in the big Sainsbury’s in Portslade this morning picking up a few bits. As you walk through the bread and cakes section, there is a gorgeous warm waft of the sweet-spicy smell of hot cross buns. The bakery is pumping the aroma from the ovens into the air conditioning system. As you walk under each vent in the ceiling another blast hits you.

It’s much the same psychology, I suppose, as the one that dictates you should put a pot of coffee on just before a prospective buyer comes to view your house. A comforting aroma helps create an atmosphere more conducive to purchasing.

The cynical inventiveness of the application of this psychology to the marketing of food is amazing, however. Some misanthropic master of manipulation had the original idea. His ravening colleagues laughed and high-fived at the idea’s fiendish simplicity. The designer of the store and its systems had to arrange the air conditioning just so. All to sell baked goods, in this case, hot cross buns. The time, planning and money behind this swaying of the weak-minded borders on the sinister.

I bought two packets. They were lovely.

So we’re in the big Tesco in Hove this morning picking up a few bits. In the store, they have those cashier-free cashier desks that allow you to scan your own shopping, feed your money into the machine and leave without so much as clapping eyes on a member of staff. All very convenient. All very “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

Except. Except. The computer system is of such glacial ponderousness, the bar code scanner is so temperamental, the touch screen that allows you to key in how many packets of lard and cans of budget lager you’re buying is so unsensitive, the “jolly” splosh! noise the machine makes when you scan an item is so ulcer inducing, that by the time I was feeding my twenty pound note into the machine - like trying to stuff a marshmallow into a test tube - I was on the verge of going Krakatoa. From soup to nuts the whole transaction took at least three times longer than if we’d gone to a human cashier and the stress it induced has probably shortened my life by considerably more.

And then realisation. Which didn’t help my temper. The machines aren’t there to make the customer’s shopping experience any more quicker, more easier, more pleasant or any less dispiriting or less soulless or less “In the low-ceilinged canteen, deep underground, the lunch queue jerked slowly forward“. They’re there so Tesco doesn’t have to employ so many drones with all the overheads that that entails. It’s about buying yet more fur-trimmed solid jade commodes for the corpulent amoral shysters at the top of the tree.

I’d be tempted to try and comfort the rest of us by saying they can’t take it all with them when they’re finally dragged screaming to the new and exciting circle of Hell that’s currently being built for them*. But in my darker moments I think that they’ve probably worked out a way to do it. I bet when the likes of the chairman of Tesco or Digby Jones or Tony Blair or Polly Toynbee are inducted into The Greater Good, right after they’ve had their HIV/AIDS and bird flu vaccinations and been measured up for their jetpacks, they’re shown the teleport technology - powered, literally, by the sweat of the lower classes - that will allow them to send their wealth into the afterlife.

I think the reason nothing works in this country - trains always late, government computer systems always vastly overdue lemons, our troops dangerously and criminally undersupplied in battle, and the rest of the fourth-largest-economy-in-the-world-my-arse incompetence - is that the cream of the scientific community have been commandeered for the likes of building said teleporter or making Blair’s hair just the right shade of Statesman Grey or making Digby Jones look just that little bit less smug (you should have seen him before the £600m was spent).

Welcome to the 21st Century.

*The bastards have probably got a nice, fat, dripping slice of the PFI pillage being used to build it.

I’ve been tagged by Young Mr Ayling to do this bloody 7×7 meme. He’ll pay, oh yes, he’ll pay. Maybe not now…

Anyway, without further ado…

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
1. See a Labour government
2. Meet Elvis Costello
3. Go to New York
4. Eliminate the need for sleep
5. Hear the lamentations of my enemies’ women
6. Wembley Stadium
7. Attain immortality

Seven Things I Cannot Do
1. Long division
2. Listen to Leonard Cohen
3. Eat broccoli
4. Or cauliflower
5. Not have the telly or the radio on
6. See the point
7. Take it any more

Seven Things That Attract Me to… the Mrs
1. Sleepy
2. Sneezy
3. Bashful
4. Grumpy
5. Dopey
6. Happy
7. Doc Martens

Seven Things I Say
1. In a minute
2. For fuck’s sake
3. Mañana
4. I’m never drinking again
5. You’ll never go bust appealing to the lowest common denominator
6. I’m not a scouser
7. Say that again, you’re breaking up

Seven Books That I Love
1. Crime and Punishment
2. London Fields
3. Catch-22
4. The Man Who Was Thursday
5. Foucault’s Pendulum
6. Our Man in Havana
7. The Selfish Gene

Seven Movies That I’ve Loved (at different times and in no particular order)
1. Brazil
2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God
3. Hobson’s Choice
4. The Empire Strikes Back
5. Hudson Hawk
6. The Conversation
7. Seven

Seven People To Tag (in no particular order)
1. Jarndyce
2. Nosemonkey
3. Jim Bliss
4. Rochenko
5. Larry
6. Bag of Bears
7. Snooo

That’ll teach them to mess with me.

Rochenko (or should I say Captain Swing?) over at Smokewriting has passed on the poisoned chalice of another meme. I’ve been invited to elucidate on my personal power fantasies.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why? (Assume you also get baseline superhero enhancements like moderately increased strength, endurance and agility.)
The ability to produce really good pork pies. Because I like pork pies and I’m hungry. Alright, purple pork pies. That can fly and stuff.

Which, if any, “existing” superhero(es) do you fancy, and why?
Jakita Wagner from Planetary seems a very personable young woman. She can dropkick a rhino. Apparently. Not that I look for that in a woman.

Which, if any, “existing” superhero(es) do you hate?
Probably Night Owl II from Watchmen. He was a whining get who could only get his winkie to stand up when dressed as a giant owl. And at the end of the book he thought a blonde mullet and moustache was a good disguise.

OK, here’s the tough one. What would your superhero name be? (No prefab porn-name formulas here, you have to make up the name you think you’d be proud to mask under.)
The Procrastinator, Thief of Time.

For extra credit: Is there an “existing” superhero with whom you identify/whom you would like to be?
The Brown Bottle. HADAWAY FRIGGAAAS!!!

Pass it on. Three people please, and why they’re the wind beneath your wings.
Jim Bliss, who I’m still in awe of for his understanding of Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. Nick Barlow, founder of CRACCA. And Nosemonkey at Europhobia, just to shut him up about CAP and EU rebates for five minutes.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -19
Conservative -61
	Liberal Democrat 94
UK Independence Party -17
	Green 35

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Is that good news?

(Link via just about everywhere.)

In the next day or so, I want to write about something I feel to be very important.

With that in mind, as of today, I will be writing under my real name to show that I stand by what I say.

I’m Justin McKeating and I used to have a blog a few years ago called Bar Room Philosophy which some people might remember. BRP is no longer around but you can find proof of its existence if you google for it.

Nosemonkey over at Europhobia has nominated me to pass on the book meme that’s doing the rounds. He seems to be worried about my blood pressure. Here goes:

You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?
I’ve never read the book, I’m afraid to say and didn’t understand this question at first. A quick google tells me that the dissidents preserve the books under threat by memorising them - excellent plot device.

Anyway, I’d want to be 1984 by George Orwell. I only read it for the first time last year and it’s no understatement to say it was a life-changing read. It’s probably a cliche to say this but I really feel the book is more apposite as time goes on. And to think that it’s not considered by many to be Orwell’s best work and he wrote it while seriously ill, makes it doubly wondrous for me.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Well, I did have a thing for Bathsheba Everdene in Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd when I did it for my English Lit o-level. Why? Because we were shown the film before starting the book so ever after I saw Bathsheba as Julie Christie. Blimey.

I remember reading The Spear by James Herbert when I was about 12 and there being a naughty minx in it whose name I can’t now remember. Disturbingly for my then fragile psyche, about two thirds through the story she’s revealed as an hermaphrodite who’s hung like a horse.

The last book you bought is:
Two together: Jon Snow’s Shooting History and Andrew Marr’s My Trade.

I’m a big admirer of Snow and probably would have bought the book anyway but I was lucky enough to interview him briefly over the phone last year. I was shitting a brick but he couldn’t have been nicer or more patient.

Marr I admire less, particular after his facile statement about Blair after the fall of Baghdad:

…it would be entirely ungracious, even for his critics, not to acknowledge that tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger prime minister as a result.

…but I’m a fan of insider accounts of jounalism and this one got good reviews.

The last book you read:
So Now Who Do We Vote For? by John Harris. A cracking read and one I recommend everybody try and squeeze in before May 5. As anybody who’s visited Chicken Yoghurt more than once will know, I pretty much share Harris’ sense of disappointed betrayal at the New Labour project but not his conclusions at how to deal with it.

What are you currently reading?
I’ve read non-fiction almost exclusively for the past five years. Firstly because I was writing some fiction and didn’t want to absorb other people’s ideas by accident, and then because I was blogging for the first time and wanted to do proper research. So, I thought I’d have a break and read some quick and easy cheap thrill: Stephen King’s It which I picked up second hand. I read it when I was much much younger and it left an impression. The plot’s not up to much but I think he does characters you can connect with very well.

Five books you would take to a desert island.
Shite. I hate list questions. Here goes then.

1. I’m a massive comics fan so it’d have to be Garth Ennis’ Preacher series (i’m cheating slightly as the whole run is reprinted in nine volumes). Watchmen is the holy grail of comics but I just think Preacher has characters it’s easier to empathise with and the anti-God plot appeals, naturally. It works on so many levels that I never get tired of dipping in.

2. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Read it twice: first for the comedy, second for the horror. And then read it again to appreciate it’s still vital, terrible beauty.

3. London Fields by Martin Amis. Of course, it’s a black comedy populated by monsters but its emotional pay off has stayed with me. It’s a book that I have fond memories of reading.

4. The Pope’s Rhinoceros by Lawrence Norfolk. It’s a thick, dense tome that I raced through in a fortnight. To try and sum it up would do it an injustice, but roughly: it’s set in Renaissance Italy where a troupe of monks - along the two other central characters - set out for decadent Rome to plead for funds for their crumbling monastery, and get caught up in the Pope’s quest to fill his menagerie. Told you I couldn’t do it justice.

It’s hard going at first - the descriptions are dense, poetic word-paintings - but once you’re engaged with the characters you’ll be hooked. And by the end, heartbroken.

PS. I’m the only person I know who liked this book. Somebody else please read it so I can rave about it with you.

5. Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald. I very much regard my love of the Beatles as a fantastic gift from my father. This book served to deepen that love, to give me a fuller understanding of every single magical tune - another gift. Of course, without the music to hand it’s less of an experience but I’ll just have to hum the songs to myself as I thumb the book on my island.

Ian MacDonald killed himself a couple of years ago. I can’t remember ever being so saddened by the death of a stranger.

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons) and why?
Bloody hell, I don’t half go on, don’t I? If you’ve been indulgent enough to get this far I hope you’re one of these three guys to who I’d like to pass the torch:

Rochenko at Smokewriting. I think he’s one of the smartest and wittiest - when he’s not being the laziest - bloggers out there. He has a vocabulary the size of a planet and yet his site gets about six visitors a decade - get over there and kneel before him.

Jim Bliss at Where There Were No Doors. Not only is he a thoughtful and passionate blogger, he also has impeccable taste in just about everything. He read and understood Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles. I’d like to take him for a pint.

Alex, The Yorkshire Ranter. I remember trying to champion TYR under my previous incarnation as a blogger when he first started out. And then like an obscure, but much loved, indie band he got popular and now everybody likes him. I was into him ages ago.

Chicken Yoghurt has been the topic of a brief discussion in a forum over on the US’s ABC News site. I’m not sure whether to be flattered or not.

“It actually is used quite frequently as a thermometer for the opinions of the Brits by major news oulets (sic) that is how I knew about it.”

Sorry kittycago, if only that were true. Who knows, maybe my visitor counter is knackered and even as I write the site is being bombarded by the great and good, hanging on my every word. But wait…

It just looks like a “fringe” site, with a title like “Chicken Yoghurt”

Yep. That’s more like it.