The Case for Electoral Reform

Oh no it's politics again! Sorry, I really am but JESUS CHRIST! It really is time to get this rag tag bunch of bandits out of our parliament. This clucking brood of chancers, these oh so clubbable back slapping, brown nosing, jeering and cheering, pseudo alpha male, dominator fantasists. This pin striped and shirted bunch of clowns. These greedy talentless bombasts and their cunning little plans and focus groups and new politics initiatives and new communities initiatives and health advice and our children this and that and edu-my-arse-cation and how green are my politics and new new new shiny new Labour.
Phew! Needed to get that off my chest, cheers.

Politics? From POLIS which is the Glaswegian for POLICE or the Greek word meaning State or city. POLITICKUS thus meaning the affairs of state. The Latin POLITICUS and the wonderful French POLITIQUE which must be the politics of the boutique.

But yes how did the 'affairs of state' become such a club for chumps and pole climbers? Where did it all, as it were, go so very wrong?

My take on this is that politics is doomed from the start because the very people drawn to political power are those with the least appropriate character to have it. At my boarding school (Yes damn your eyes!) if the system broke to the extent that we all ended up with an extra half hour in bed there would always be some oily little creep who would alert the powers that be to their inadvertent charity and order would be re-imposed. There you see your future politician.
In 'The Republic' Plato addresses the issue by forcing the 'guardians' to live communal lives of material asceticism to prevent greed and corruption but as he also advocates lying to the population whenever appropriate so we cannot find solace in his fuzzy headed, body-hating, republic of anally fixated toga wearers.

But this first past the post cobblers really does give the lie to democracy. We need some form of Proportional Representation now. Shiny Nude Labour promised a serious look at it years ago but like most promises made by Mr Blur...

No there's just no way to square this circle-the people least suited to leadership are the people most strongly drawn to it. But yet! But yet! I am beginning to suspect albeit slowly and with some minor reservations that when I look at Barack Obama, I may be looking at true greatness.

The Surveillance Society/Bicycles/The Magick of We

The last few years have seen an unprecedented assault on the liberties we all take for granted in a democratic society. The rights to equal justice before the law, Habeas Corpus, the illegality of torture, freedom of speech and thought, the right to peaceful protest. These are all rights that our forbears have fought and in many cases died for, they were not given but have had to be wrenched from the governing structures of history. In the name of the 'War on Terror' these rights are being taken away wholesale and right now is the time to shout Enough!
The Convention on Modern Liberty is the latest attempt to halt this erosion by the political classes. Please give it your support by visiting www.modernliberty.net/
Like climate change this issue is everybody's responsibility and the time to act is now. The erosion of the earth's natural resources and the erosion of our rights are two tributaries of the same corrosive river.

I will soon be posting a video on YouTube featuring a performance of my song 'The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight.' Stay tuned for more info!

Now bicycles...

I love bicycles. Yes, actually love them. I have three bikes and use one of them on a daily basis for shopping, travel to and from work and of course for fun. They all even have names- Miles E Ter, Peat Bog, and Mini Me! I know, I know it's absurd, I clearly suffer from chronic cyclephilia. The philosopher Ivan Illyich wrote a prescient book in the seventies called 'Tools of Conviviality'. In that book he draws conclusions between machines and tools that alienate us from each other and from our environment and those that do the opposite, bring us closer, encourage engagement. The car as a dirty dangerous bullying consumer of space and the bike as a simple, beautiful, clean construction for moving comfortably and efficiently from A to B. What after all, is a 4 wheel drive monstrosity other than an embodiment of fear realised in sheet steel? With the advent of portable music players now we can cycle and read audiobooks or listen to music or get into some brilliant podcasts. I am crazy about Stephen Fry's podcast or Radio 4's 'In our Time'. Podcasts provide a great opportunity for expanding our awareness and all can be had from the saddle.

POEM FOR MARCH (This is dedicated to lovers everywhere. It is so easy for 'the magick of we to become the taken for granted of we. So re-member the magick!)

THE MAGICK OF WE



I have called you.
Keened out an orgastic hymn.
Played the coxcomb and strut
the boards of the known universe.
Turned and whirled in the dust.

I have known a sacred moment
of dissolving Self.
Swimming in your dark eyes,
slate-smoked and soft as new baked bread.
Is this love?
Is this love?

To trust such passion and
abdicate reactions based on fear.

To be called so fiercely
to heart’s account.

To breathe ‘I love’
with every outgoing
and ‘I am loved’
with every inhalation.

To be so enchanted
moment to moment.

Caught in the amber of a dream.

Carver was right:
To find ourselves beloved
upon this earth.
To be so loved.
That is what we seek.

Critics as Diabolical Kling-Ons

I intended to write some occasional reviews of books here but am recently thinking that critics are the unmentionable bits that hang from the anal hairs of the Devil-diabolical kling-ons: Please forgive my distasteful metaphors.
Yet I have been reading 'Secret History' by Donna Tart and feel crushed and beaten into the following bad tempered gripe:
Writers just seem to write so many words. There is no self discipline. I have, as I said, been reading Donna Tart’s 'Secret History’ and have to say up to page 300ish I’ve quite enjoyed it for it's slightly sugary but undeniably mellifluous prose. But now after the ultimate plot development here I am still having my attention demanded for another 100 pages when I have already given these vacuous shallow characters my attention for 300 damned pages. There is a kind of sadism among certain writers and this is why I so admire Borges who holds up an entire philosophy in a nut kernel where others tear down forests with their legions of words. Their damned inexorable legions sucking out our energy like verbose vampires. Yes! Yes! Me as well with my relentless verbosity, damn your eyes!

One of my friends died last week-Brenda. She was a beautiful being and my own history with her seems to reflect the best of me. That is when I was around her I seemed to be more of the good bits-honour,strength of purpose, integrity, patience that I struggle to hold on to as I age. I wonder if in the bottle of wine metaphor I have been corked and am now slowly turning to vinegar awaiting my final assault on the nose of God. Woe! Woe! Woe is me!
Brenda was someone who made my life a little better, who seemed to make the world a little better furnished. Late thirties and a brain aneurism has taken her suddenly. Where? How? Even more ridiculously... Why?
Her daughter shines with an amazing light that must be somehow part of her, left here to grow and shine on. Perhaps this is the nose of God? I feel better about this-what shall we call it? Evolutionary Poetry? I'm thinking ultimately I might be sweeter than vinegar. I may not be corked after all. Thanks for that Bren. Miss you.

Goodbye George Hello Barak! An open letter.

First George,
As your knuckles scrape along the dusty road back to your Texan ranch think on this:
How do you imagine history, that establishment whore, shall judge you? Even you with all the wealth of Croesus provided by daddy will, I fear, be judged harshly.
First off, it was a bad start, pinching the election off poor Al Gore by getting your good bro Jeb to make all those poor Florida black folk's votes just disappear like that. It was a hell of a coup for the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld junta. Of course you were supported by a right wing supreme court as morally corrupt as any in history and by a fundamentalist Christian Right revitalised with Clinton's scalp and outraged by the very idea of a president having his cigar sucked by a pretty young intern.
A lot of people think you're an idiot. Your simian-like features didn't help but hey, they say Socrates was ugly as a horse's ass and it didn't do him any harm. It was more your infamous Bushisms-'My fellow Cameroonians' etc.

Have a lovely break anyway. I expect to see you soon. What? Where George? Oh at the Hague where you'll be appearing with your junta and your butler Tony B to answer for your crimes against humanity. Enjoy your freedom while you can-if there's any justice in this world you're going down you sonafabitch.

Anyway Barak Hi,
Following in the pawprints of the crappiest president in history it's hard to imagine how you could do any worse! On the other hand it means you inherit a system that's broke. Against that you have the people with you. The burden of expectations you carry are immense, beyond being achievable in fact. You seem a compassionate, intelligent and insightful man. I get the feeling you'll do well as long as you remember to look after your family and keep trusted but irreverent advisors near who can prick the inevitable bubble of your self-importance. Good luck! You're going to need it!

Review-' The Act of Love' Howard Jacobson

Howard Jacobson ‘The Act of Love.’ Jonathan Cape 2008

The premise is that we, that is, men, are all of the tribe of Masoch or De Sade and Howard Jacobson has sought to prove his theory by writing a novel. But for the characters in a story this is fatal, for like marionettes they jostle to appeal to every tug on the strings from the master above, and every tug is apparent. Apparent tugs + novel or short story = FATAL. Therein, feisty young scribbler lies your Creative Writing MA. I cast it before you as you snuffle in the steamingshitepile of literary theory.
“No husband is ever happy-truly, genuinely happy, happy at the very heart of himself as a husband-until he has proof positive that another man is fucking her.”
It is not the poverty of the concept but it’s candyfloss lightness, it’s trivial quality.
Oh dear: Felix, Marissa and Marius, the three principal characters of this flirty little novel never really get a chance to stand up and walk around. Consequently you are never really bothered by them or by what happens to them. And the thing is, you have to be bothered for tragedy to happen, for sex to happen, you have to give a damn.
Howard Jacobson has been an excellent writer elsewhere but betrays in this book a certain laziness or authorial arrogance. The opening quote from Bataille’s ‘Eroticism’ sets the pretension bar high-not the fear of loss but the “threshold of a swoon is the price of rapture.” Like many other aphoristic nuggets from the continental crew who Bataille swung with, we unpack the shell to find a hard little ball of shit inside.
And Howard Jacobson does sometimes have a tendency to be sniffy. Like many who perhaps suffer little insecurities he wears his learning heavily and sometimes, unbidden I have raised my eyes from this book’s pages and shouted out ‘PONCE!’ to the blank walls. You probably do not know me but I assure you, that this is not indicative of my normal behaviour.
This is not a novel of eroticism but of neuroticism. The book does however contain a marvellous little chapter on Felix’s visit to an S&M club which is hilarious. I imagine the author did his research wearing a horrified expression.
On page 204 of my copy a sentence reads “ I had hardly behaved like the revolutionary of sex I believed myself to me.” Most appropriate, for the author’s ego is always peering up from the pages of this book-it’s all me me me.
It all ends with a whimper, as if Howard has himself become exhausted with the pretence of these cartoon characters.
Described by the late Harold Pinter on my copy as a ‘tour de force’ I am once again drawn to consideration of these writers reviewing each others books-something smells. This, I assure you, is not a tour de force.
Howard you can do better than this! It’s not good enough! Get your finger out!