I've spent all day with my interenet connection down. After hundreds of frustrated attempts to connect it finally came back on at 8 o'clock.
And the only thing I actually can think to do. Is write this.
UPDATE:
Just went out of the house! Got a curry and some Stella and back in time to catch Poirot.
The weekend wasn't wasted after all...
Politics...
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"...is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." Ernest Benn
Shit Misses Fan
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An ominous part of this appalling situation is the fact that the Met says that it's 'severely disrupted' rather than 'stopped' something awful taking place.
One way or the other I'll be honest, it puts me on edge. The fallout is going to be considerable and the implications for cultural relations dire.
Simon Hughes has at least been on Sky beginning to question how the Labour Government's un-erring support of the US is making us a target.
But I've already heard 'the enemy within' used twice this morning...
This cannot become the expected pattern of life for generations - we've got to start to understand the way that extremists on both sides are feeding off each other. And that means, at the very least, moving away from the comic-book 'us and them' that seems to becoming Anglo-American foreign policy.
And if, as it's reported, it's true that Blair and Bush have been discussing this for weeks, why did Tony still go on holiday?
And furthermore, in the name of anything that resembles democracy, Parliament needs to be recalled immediately.
Some Links
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I'm sat, as usual, in dismay as the war in the Middle East escalates on it's 29th day.
Here's some related stuff:
Some history here,
and from George Monbiot here.
And Tony Benn's speech from the demo here.
Here's some related stuff:
Some history here,
and from George Monbiot here.
And Tony Benn's speech from the demo here.
Any Questions?
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There was a serious turnout on the Emergency Demonstration in London yesterday, regardless of the usual media blackout and the complete under-estimate of the numbers by the Met.
Lots of issues are being thrown up by the current situation – and the march started to highlight the difficulties that we may face. But the sooner we ask awkward questions, the sooner we might get some progressive answers.
Three years ago, the biggest demonstration in British history had little impact on Tony Blair or indeed the Labour Party. His pre-arranged attack on Iraq and unquestioning attitude to the Bush Administration carried on apace, leading us merrily to where we are today: Afghanistan in turmoil, a civil war in Iraq and hatred of the US and Britain higher than ever.
It’s clear that the so-called ‘War On Terror’ is now set to dominate the world agenda for decades. It took a few years for a Cold war replacement to be put in place, but now we’re all set; a never-ending war between ‘us’ and ‘them’. That you’re either for or against. History is reset at September 2001. The enemy dehumanised. Anything justified in its name.
And consequently, debate and discussion is only framed within this context. No real understanding of Arab opinion or history. ‘Terrorist’ used as a catch-all for any dissenting voice or resistance movement.
It’s going to take some tough, pragmatic thinking to work out how we can truly reverse what’s going on in our name. And if we don’t want the world that Bush and Blair seem intent on enforcing, we’ve got to find the answers that actually achieve an alternative.
Lots of issues are being thrown up by the current situation – and the march started to highlight the difficulties that we may face. But the sooner we ask awkward questions, the sooner we might get some progressive answers.
Three years ago, the biggest demonstration in British history had little impact on Tony Blair or indeed the Labour Party. His pre-arranged attack on Iraq and unquestioning attitude to the Bush Administration carried on apace, leading us merrily to where we are today: Afghanistan in turmoil, a civil war in Iraq and hatred of the US and Britain higher than ever.
It’s clear that the so-called ‘War On Terror’ is now set to dominate the world agenda for decades. It took a few years for a Cold war replacement to be put in place, but now we’re all set; a never-ending war between ‘us’ and ‘them’. That you’re either for or against. History is reset at September 2001. The enemy dehumanised. Anything justified in its name.
And consequently, debate and discussion is only framed within this context. No real understanding of Arab opinion or history. ‘Terrorist’ used as a catch-all for any dissenting voice or resistance movement.
It’s going to take some tough, pragmatic thinking to work out how we can truly reverse what’s going on in our name. And if we don’t want the world that Bush and Blair seem intent on enforcing, we’ve got to find the answers that actually achieve an alternative.
It Only Pours
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So the house is sinking, due to a cherry blossom tree and shallow Victorian foundations.
Meanwhile I’m sat here being driven mad by neighbours on all sides having building work done on their properties.
It’s almost enough to make me want to go out.
But then I’d miss gems like yesterday when a correspondent in Jerusalem signed off with “…and so they sit waiting for the rockets to come raining down”. Back in the studio, Jeremy Thompson cleverly linked with “Well, talking of raining down, here’s Francis with the weather”.
Priceless. After a while the whole thing becomes a circus…
So, how can I possibly go out? Today for instance, between live feeds of the heavy weather in Lebanon, Sky is reporting how Northerners are far more likely to die young from alcoholism and an in-depth look at credit-card debt.
And that’s just the kind of escapism I’m looking for.
Meanwhile I’m sat here being driven mad by neighbours on all sides having building work done on their properties.
It’s almost enough to make me want to go out.
But then I’d miss gems like yesterday when a correspondent in Jerusalem signed off with “…and so they sit waiting for the rockets to come raining down”. Back in the studio, Jeremy Thompson cleverly linked with “Well, talking of raining down, here’s Francis with the weather”.
Priceless. After a while the whole thing becomes a circus…
So, how can I possibly go out? Today for instance, between live feeds of the heavy weather in Lebanon, Sky is reporting how Northerners are far more likely to die young from alcoholism and an in-depth look at credit-card debt.
And that’s just the kind of escapism I’m looking for.
Sinking
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Spending a fair amount of your summer days indoors, being sterilised with a laptop while Sky News loops for hours in the background isn’t necessarily good for your mental health. My excuse today though, is that I’m waiting for a surveyor to check out a hole in the front garden that the building is falling into.
I noticed the cracks in the plasterwork a couple of weeks ago and guessed the ‘drought’ was to blame. When the front step started sinking and an inch gap between the floor and the wall appeared I rethought my conclusions and alerted the relevant parties.
For a week then, as I’ve awaited the arrival of a professional opinion to set my mind at rest, my mood seems to have sunk too. Although not an uncommon knock-on of a mediocre depressive nature, the shitty soup of current affairs and personal over-thinking has taken a bit of a toll.
Watching the ongoing slaughter in the Middle East, often LIVE, punctuated by ads for over-priced consolidating loans while thinking the front room might collapse isn’t quite the ideal summer.
But it’s the impotence that’s the darkest corner – from not knowing shit about under-pinning to having no way of influencing our nut-job Prime Minister.
And then the humbling thought that as I check the width of the cracks in the wall before I go to bed and struggle to sleep thinking about the implications of an unsafe house and the fact that I’m nailing myself to the spot with a cycle of debt and seem to be unable to lift myself to do anything about it as I hurtle through the years with nothing achieved, which I know isn’t ‘really’ true, but it fucking feels like it…
As all that bubbles away, some poor bastards in Lebanon and Gaza are being blown to bits. And if you’re not dead, maybe you’ve no house, no more town, no more family, no legs, no eyes. And I guess you’d develop a ‘depressive nature’ pretty quick.
But the impotence is a different thing – when the pundits asked where the ‘men-folk’ of Qana were while the women and children sheltered, what did they expect? Because if the same situation was happening here, where’d you reckon most of our ‘men-folk’ would be?
I guess the only related good news is the Mel Gibson saga. Always fun to see closeted bigots exposed, but when it’s a religious-nut anti-semite it’s all the sweeter.
I noticed the cracks in the plasterwork a couple of weeks ago and guessed the ‘drought’ was to blame. When the front step started sinking and an inch gap between the floor and the wall appeared I rethought my conclusions and alerted the relevant parties.
For a week then, as I’ve awaited the arrival of a professional opinion to set my mind at rest, my mood seems to have sunk too. Although not an uncommon knock-on of a mediocre depressive nature, the shitty soup of current affairs and personal over-thinking has taken a bit of a toll.
Watching the ongoing slaughter in the Middle East, often LIVE, punctuated by ads for over-priced consolidating loans while thinking the front room might collapse isn’t quite the ideal summer.
But it’s the impotence that’s the darkest corner – from not knowing shit about under-pinning to having no way of influencing our nut-job Prime Minister.
And then the humbling thought that as I check the width of the cracks in the wall before I go to bed and struggle to sleep thinking about the implications of an unsafe house and the fact that I’m nailing myself to the spot with a cycle of debt and seem to be unable to lift myself to do anything about it as I hurtle through the years with nothing achieved, which I know isn’t ‘really’ true, but it fucking feels like it…
As all that bubbles away, some poor bastards in Lebanon and Gaza are being blown to bits. And if you’re not dead, maybe you’ve no house, no more town, no more family, no legs, no eyes. And I guess you’d develop a ‘depressive nature’ pretty quick.
But the impotence is a different thing – when the pundits asked where the ‘men-folk’ of Qana were while the women and children sheltered, what did they expect? Because if the same situation was happening here, where’d you reckon most of our ‘men-folk’ would be?
I guess the only related good news is the Mel Gibson saga. Always fun to see closeted bigots exposed, but when it’s a religious-nut anti-semite it’s all the sweeter.
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