22 July 2016
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. State, categorically, that something bad is unacceptable, clamp down on it when evidence of rule breaking is found - and STILL get castigated for being perceived as ineffective? Politics is a funny old game, especially the current Labour Party’s version - of finger pointing and flinging poo.
Until last year when Jeremy Corbyn was elected, things seemed safe, predictable, boring even. Now the parliamentary Labour Party’s raison d’etre is a piecemeal, unfocused, but point-by-point dissection of a man’s political evolution. We live in an age of easy access to things that the ignorant would consider to be facts, things which do not require explanation or interpretation but which, without context, are completely meaningless. Eager people lap it up; misery loves company.
Many people are thinking that one event in particular shaped this year and all successive years: the untimely death of one man. A singer, composer, actor, style and lifestyle icon…
Bowie, David Bowie.
Apocalyptic! Some say he’s the Fourth Horseman, though that’s twisting things a tiny bit.
Now, there’s such a thing as responsibility, endeavouring to understand a situation and all its players. Unfortunately the Labour party’s voluntary fracturing exhibits no evidence of this.
Deserting one’s posts then blaming the leader of one’s party for a failure to vote against, or at least to defend, one’s party’s principles? I’ve only one word for it.
Despicable. Ok, thinking about it, two words: despicable and classless.
Under normal circumstances a shadow minister tasked with overseeing opposition to the government would do their very best to mobilise against the full range of harebrained schemes the Tories, er… incumbents cobbled together from whatever pot of idiocy these things are stirred in. Opposition depends on team players.
Much like Monty Python’s ‘fearless’ knights though they ran away. Not in a comedic style but in a tragic ‘let us run away then blame it on our leader’ manner. Responsibility requires sacrifices, demands that respect is earned. The Labour party’s response: restricting supporters from voting, demanding a frankly ridiculous sum of money (lots of £25 sign ups totalling >£4.5 million), and suspending all branch meeting until the election - it’s classless.
Blaming Flappy Bird’s WallyWorld* constituency office attack on their leader, then suspending the entire branch (at a time when all meetings are outlawed anyway): classless.
Expecting that their leader should shoulder the blame for the alleged, or real, subsequent intimidation and death threats: it’s utterly classless.
Revisiting a utopian ideal, anyone who considers themselves ‘normal’ would say it’s a noble thing to aim for a classless society. Well, we got one.
*Some names have been changed to protect the challenged.
21 July 2016
Thursday, today, is the first day since Tuesday during which I’ve been able to sit down on the gents toilet at work* without first carefully examining the contents of the bowl.
I must explain…
Tuesday, I lifted the lid to be greeted by a mass of toilet paper. Not excessive, not potentially a blocker or an overflower, no.
So I flushed. Big mistake. BIG mistake. The water rose, it rose, it continued to rise, then thankfully subsided. Then continued to subside, almost as the precursor to something awful seen only in the movies or the darkest corners of a fertile imagination.
And then, then a gurgle as the paper passing through the pipe relinquished its grip on the partial vacuum behind.
Now, physics.
Drawn, my gaze was, to the spectacle of a rushing back, then a parting of the waters as a great thing, a positive (albeit brown) Leviathan, rose from the depths and lurched out of the water at me. And then splashed back to an equilibrium of sorts.
Well of COURSE I let out an involuntary, nervous giggle! Things popping out; not the kind of thing I’m comfortable with in the gents at work.
I… yeah, there was someone in the cubicle one-removed from from my very real predicament. They remained quiet throughout.
Lo! The turd sat, becalmed, looking almost accusingly at me. ‘Turd’ has become a pejorative in recent years. This one though, this one commanded respect.
Lets face it, if I couldn’t be flushed after at least two attempts I too would be a bit miffed. A dismissive ‘Only human, it is.’ was all I heard.
I folded a few sheets of toilet paper and had another go.
Er… stubborn, this one was!
Sod it, I know when I’m beaten! I didn’t sit, instead backed out of the cubicle, washed my hands and left.
*We have more than one toilet of course, but I’m not identifying which for reasons of retaining confidentiality in the workplace.
18 July 2016
I went online and ordered a kebab and a few other things earlier. ‘Twas delicious, but bloody hell that sauce was a bit spicy!
A riddle:
My first is in ‘Internet’,
My second is in ‘lounge’,
My third is in ‘eating’,
My fourth is in ‘full’,
My fifth is in ‘gurgle’,
My last is in, er… I’ll be right back!
Phew!
So what am I… ?
Yeah, ok, I’m sat on the toilet for a bit.
Will use again. Why? Life: a series of paradoxes linked together by uncertainty. Its good to be grounded every once in a while.
17 July 2016
We’re all searching for some kind of meaning in life, right?
Here’s a dialogue extract taken from my all-time-favourite movie ‘Armageddon’. It’s during a scene the night before the team blast off to attempt to save mankind from an approaching killer asteroid. It’s a love scene of sorts:
Grace Stamper: “Baby, do you think its possible that there’s someone doing this very same thing at this very same time?”
A.J.: “I hope so, otherwise, what the hell are we trying to save?”
If you haven’t seen the film yet, or dismissed it out-of-hand based on its frankly unrepresentative Rotten Tomatoes score, please, have a go; it will change your life. Really.
Heh! Perhaps not, but it’s great entertainment. And if you find it resonates with your take on what’s happening with this world of ours right now, so much the better.
16 July 2016
As-intended I just watched the second act of the 2001 film adaptation of the Samuel Beckett classic absurdist play ‘Waiting For Godot’.
Now the first act, watched on my phone via YouTube on Friday evening, impressed me immensely. Nothing really happens in the play it’s true, but it’s the WAY it happens that makes the play so compelling to watch.
Unfortunately, much as it has been for most of 2016 thus far, world events took over my evening as the news of Turkey’s ill-fated coup attempt filtered through.
No-one seemed to have predicted the military actions, just-as no-one predicted the Nice terrorist’s appalling act. Nice inspires us to say that ‘something must be done’; Turkey though, Turkey is a puzzler.
First it’s a good idea to examine Turkey’s recent but gradual swing of power away from democracy to executive order. The country is in a unique position, strategic in terms of regional defence and in terms of being crucial to European expansion.
Over time Turkey’s importance has only grown; there’s too much at stake for too many partners for the inevitable crackdowns, reprisals, there to elicit more than an odd ‘tut’ from other governments.
Right away, before the implications had time to settle in the minds of foreign governments (all of whom had condemned the coup) the Turkish President dismissed just shy of 2,750 judges and placed the blame for the coup squarely on the shoulders of an exiled religious leader.
To be fair this exile has been deeply critical of the current government. However he’s stated his lack of involvement in the coup and condemned its use of violence. The Turkish President still wants his return though.
US interest in the region requires the use of an air base and Turkish airspace. The Turks, to put pressure on the US to extradite the exiled critic have restricted access to this base. The USA has responded ‘of course you can have him, but show us some evidence of his involvement.’
Not a pleasant time for anyone concerned.
A surprising thing occurred on Friday. Not the numbers of citizen journalists broadcasting via Twitter, not the clumsy takeover of national broadcast networks by the military, nor was it the swift shutting down of most Internet services for ordinary people, nor even the President’s and local leader calls for the citizens to go out into the streets and stare down the army, no. The most surprising turn of events was the President turning to the Internet to appeal for assistance from the people.
Taking into account his distaste of it and his recent desire to restrict it at home, does it perhaps seem a bit two-faced to use it to achieve his own ends?
Everyone has a right to change their position over time. For a government to shift ideologies when it suits them simply seems unjust.
To be honest pretty much everything surprises me these days. Not the coup attempt, that at least followed a pattern established during the twentieth century.
Unsurprisingly, Turkey’s inherent volatility, placed as it is at the meshing point of physical, ideological and religious boundaries, makes it an interesting choice for inclusion in Europe.
Repression of the Kurdish minority, of freedom of expression at home, of the secular in favour of the religious, making laws banning foreign subjects from criticism of the President (laws apparently enforceable by dint of treaty obligation outside of Turkey!), his own security detail assaulting protesters in a recent US visit - all these things are antithetical to the ideals of EU membership, the ideal of democracy.
Nevertheless Turkey remains a necessary bridge between The West and the Middle East and The East.
Oh how I wish it was a bridge a Troll didn’t live beneath. The price to cross is almost too great. But at least there’s some good news: Russia sided with the incumbent government. Yeah, good news…
For much of the year thus far, the news has not been ‘good’, not been kind to us ordinary people.
Every celebrity, musician, playwright, actor, novelist, politician, every one will eventually pass away. It seems that the first half of this year brought us an almost-unbearable number of ‘em actually doing just that.
Viewing this and the changes on the US and UK political maps one could assume that someone discovered the secret of life, the universe and everything, and that consequently our universe has been replaced by something for even more improbable.
Everyone should read Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy - a trilogy in five parts, just as everyone should watch Waiting For Godot.
Now I have a theory. These things can only make sense at either a specific time in one’s life or after a required number of life experiences have passed. Has to be said: I’m really looking forward to getting the remaining 97% of experience points, or however these things are measured!
Two men, waiting by the side of a road, waiting for a man to come, the purpose of his visit unclear. Two men with opinions on and an understanding of everything and, at the same time, nothing. No, right now I can’t think of a direct link from the play to what’s going on in the world right now. In general terms though; their attempts to make sense of even the limited stimuli present in the almost barren, desolate landscape around them parallel my clumsy attempts to understand politics, the strife we see all around. And life. Mixing a couple of metaphors here, maybe the drip feed prior to the advent of the late twentieth century news firehose would have suited me better; the genie’s out of the bottle though, and our wishes are almost spent.
Stage plays, where were we? My last 3, with the most recent first: Waiting For Godot (YouTube), ‘The Scottish Play’, and a farce during which a man got his knob out on stage. Well yeah, at least my exposure to CULTURE is going the right way!