THE REAL HEART OF DARKNESS - 2


(Where are the Praetorian Guard when we need them?)

You should never blame people for their country's foreign policy, but I remember at University in the 1980s asking a American student indignantly why the hell the US had bombed Libya. His reply: "because we can", before launching into a lot of anti-Arab humour. He was one of those smart people who don't take anything seriously.

It's a truism that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm becoming persuaded by the idea that this is a kind of Law of (Human) Nature. It operates in every sphere: personal, financial, professional, political. Not that there aren't exceptions - we all know them. But, in general, the amount that people act on principle is in inverse proportion to the range of opportunities open to them. The morality we were raised on, itself a veiled system of social (in this case parental) control, loses its hold as we flex our muscles a bit. Of course this is Nietzsche's Will To Power.

Who are the passionate believers in social justice, out campaigning, going to political meetings in the rain, and handing out leaflets? Committed idealists are usually young, dispossessed, property-less. It's no accident that middle age is full of compromises - they go hand in hand with the accumulation of wealth. What was it hippies used to say - "Don't trust anyone over 30"? And whatever their replies, when powerful people are pressed by journalists about their motives, the real reason is almost always "because I can".

SPRING, EPISODE 1: IN THE SKY

Today, I emerged from the stuffy interior of my thoughts into a bright morning. The pavements were no longer gleaming and their heaps of hardened snow had lost their rockiness, full of holes and the crystals merging and turning into big drops. The breeze was unmistakably mild. Rounding the corner to the riverside tram stop, I was surprised by warm sun on my face. An incomparable moment: nothing prepares us for the first touch of Spring, and none of the things we normally hanker after is half as good. On the tram, I looked out at the unfamiliar light reflected by the rooftops and steeples.


I’ve always thought of roofs, and specifically chimneypots, against a sunny sky, as one of the best images of freedom. You never look at them if you’ve got to be somewhere in a hurry. Like in a Magritte painting, the effect lies in the contrast between the perfectly mundane architecture and the blue infinity beyond.

FOOL, n.

A person who pervades the domain of intellectual speculation and diffuses himself through loading up on heaps of junk from a series of adjacent retail outlets, and compulsive downloading. He is omnific, omniform, omniject, omnicidal and oblivious. He it was who invented clubs, hierarchies, contracts, the steam iron, pop-up advertising, the annual appraisal, the mullet, snakebite, and mobile phone jewellery. He created patriotism and taught the nations marching – then devised,“flagged up” and “actioned” political economy, management theory, fatwas, postmodernism, corporate training, consultancy (medical specialists excepted) and Las Vegas. He established totalitarianism and democracy, left-wing versus right-wing, the “third way”, and centre-partings. He is from everlasting to everlasting – such as creation’s dawn beheld he fooleth now. In the morning of time he sang upon primitive hills, and in the noonday of existence headed the sitcom of being. His myopic gaze falters as the rolling credits of civilisation blur and fade to grey, and he steals a furtive peep at a random cleavage. And after the rest of us shall have retired for the night of eternal oblivion he will sit up to compile a Top 100 goals of all time. (adapted)

POLITICS, n.

A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

From The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

DOING THAT SCRAPYARD THING


Got the following email from a good friend of mine, who works for a big car magazine. Shows just how messed-up autophiles can be. (This description, with its overtones of, well, self-love, fits nicely.)

"...in return for my soul?

Usually I enjoy editing our letters page. This month, we have one guy who loves himself and his Porsche so much he thinks he can see the'hope, warmth and happiness' in people's eyes when they just look at his car.

We have another guy who tells his wife she should be thankful he spends so much time with his cars, because he could be in a hotel room with his niece instead.

And another guy who blames environmentalists for the decreasing number of lovely, wonderful scrapyards.

I'm doing my bit for the world... by changing 'niece' to mistress."

HOW TO BECOME HIP WITHOUT REALLY TRYING



“Went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head … “

I first heard these lines about a year ago, sung in a high-pitched shaky voice to a spooky, almost monotone tune, and with a chorus of dust and scratches in the background. It was such an otherworldly sound, it stopped me in my tracks. My painstaking researches (click, click, click) revealed that they were from a WB Yeats poem set to music by Dave Van Ronk (early Dylan era New York folkie).

“And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out …”

I stumbled across the MP3 by accident, hunting down the Donovan version from Jon Savage’s Donovan recommendations in MOJO magazine. The details are important – it seemed to me that, musically speaking, this could be the least hip thing you could possibly be up to in early 2005. But I’ve always loved Donovan despite his “hippy-dippy” reputation, and this kind of pursuit is painless in the privacy of your own home, as opposed to over the counter at HMV, where it’s potentially hazardous.

“But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair…”

Around the same time last year, I discovered internet radio and Brindle sat me down to listen to Radio 1’s dance/ambient/acoustic/dub show, The Blue Room. It was the first time I’d heard Radio 1 since 1991 (when I decided it was just no good to wake up to someone, anyone shouting inanities at you, even if the music had been good, which it generally wasn’t). It goes out at 5.30am at the weekend and is aimed at people stumbling home from clubs, coming down from various psychedelics. The choice of music is inspired and unpredictable – I can deal with the odd bit of machine-grinding techno because I know there will be something great in a few minutes. I’ve been introduced to El Perro Del Mar, Hot Chip, TV On The Radio, The Ralfe Band, The New Young Pony Club, The American Analogue Set, and loads besides. (A couple of years ago I’d have been hard-pressed to name any but the best known bands.) Besides which, Rob da Bank is a really affable and non-shouty DJ. It’s just what music radio should be.

In yesterday’s show, he also included The Beatles, a reworking of a song from The Wicker Man, and… Wandering Aengus by Donovan.

“And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.”

SPOILING FOR A FIGHT


When I lived in Ghana and was the chairman of the campus debating society, I organized a debate on the motion, “religion is the opium of the people” and spoke in favour, with some relish. For various reasons, mostly frustration that the European Enlightenment had failed to make any inroads into their society, I wanted to give my students a nudge in the direction of atheism, or at least skepticism. My intensely devout Christian and Muslim students viewed me as an eccentric “free-thinker” and, thankfully, did not take offence. One of them even volunteered to second me! The debate passed off without incident. I was judged the winner (by a panel, not a show of hands); this was actually a foregone conclusion, as I was one of the masters.

It’s the same impulse to shove believers into modernity that causes Matthew Parris to write (in yesterday’s Times) in defence of publishing the cartoons of Mohammed:

‘But let us not duck what that “I do not believe” really means. It means I do not believe that there is one God, Allah, or that Muhammad is His Prophet. It means I do not believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, or that no man cometh to the Father except by Him. I do not believe that the Jews are God’s Chosen People, or subject to any duties different from the rest of us. It means I do not believe any living creature will be reincarnated in another life.

In my opinion these views are profoundly mistaken, and those who subscribe to them are under a serious misapprehension on a most important matter. Not only are their views not true for me: they are not true for them. They are not true for anyone. They are wrong.’

Let us assume for the sake of argument that matters of religion do in fact fall into the falsifiable-by-science category (see ‘Who Lives in a Postmodern World?’ below), and therefore can be demonstrably wrong. What grounds are there for showing a deluded believer the error of his ways? Might there be any factors that would hold us back from so doing?

As far as I can see, in the case of the cartoons, there were no good grounds to publish. They are NOT going to help shift the balance of power in oppressive societies. Besides which, they may well incite religious hatred; the one with Mohammed sporting a bomb doesn’t look too dissimilar to me from the anti-Jewish cartoons in 1930s Germany. While upholding the freedom of the press to publish, we should recognize that to do so was a pretty poor decision all-round.
It looks rather like a piece of playground provocation – picking a fight. And the result has been perfectly intelligent journalists and crowds of Muslims on the street just spoiling for one – in their own different ways. It’s so exciting, isn’t it, this impending “clash of civilizations”? It’s something to talk about and it’ll sell a lot of papers, to be sure. But where are the peacemakers now? In the face of the disintegrating order, where’s Piggy to wail impotently about people “acting like a crowd of kids?”

While recognizing that satire is a powerful weapon in deflating pomposity and chipping away at the armour of authoritarian regimes, we should use our freedom to criticise people judiciously. After all, I am free to tell my overweight friend that he’s eaten all the pies. Just as I am free to discuss how diverting pornography is with my feminist colleague. I am free to tell an advertising consultant I meet at some party that he’s in an evil trade, or a committed Robbie Williams fan that his idol is a media-manufactured talentless chimp. Many of my closest friends believe passionately in astrology and I am of course free to trash their beliefs mercilessly. You get the picture. The thing is, I choose when to say these things, and often hold my tongue. It’s not hard; it’s the usual process of seeking not to give offence. It’s valued only a little and so easily scorned, but behaving respectfully is not merely a social nicety; in Ghana, and in our modern multicultural European societies, it can prevent bloodshed.

I now regret having held that debate in Ghana, and sincerely hope that I was not the catalyst in bringing anyone to give up their opium habit. I now see clearly that it was a society in a different stage of development. Belief in Providence and in the afterlife gave people a practical reason to hope, to get up in the morning and plough their fields, to strive to better their lives, to smile. And generally people in Ghana, barring personal tragedies, were happy and fulfilled, with some belief that things were going to get better for them. How could skepticism possibly improve this? It was a clear case where happiness, albeit opiated, was better than “the truth”.

Simon Jenkins: These cartoons don't defend free speech; they threaten it

Life hangs by a thread, but while it's still dangling there, and at the risk of sounding pious:

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Principally, friends. With the powers available to us through language, we can express our reactions to the world in a way that others can understand and respond to. Over a period of years. To me, nothing compares with this hum of sympathetic communication between two spirits.

A (temporarily, but long-term) fully operational multi-sense mechanism, worth more than any amount of money. If we had to rent or buy this apparatus, it'd be priced at least as much as a house, and probably more.

Light, the sky, clouds, season change.

Piping hot water that gushes out of a showerhead, even though it’s the depth of winter. (What was life like before? What's it like now for street-sleepers? As well as sparing some change, you have to imaginatively enter into that bitterly cold world to appreciate just how great it is to wake up and have a hot shower.)

The availability of a huge variety of food from all round the world only a few minutes’ walk away from where you live. Including fresh fruit juice all year round: another reason to get out of bed.

Free downloads, blogs, and the whole circus of the internet at your fingertips.

Books, books, books to lose yourself in.

All the years left to experience these things.

This might just sound smug. Of course I realise the impossibly large numbers of people who do not have access to some, or all, of these things. If thinking about that prevents you from enjoying your own life, you have the privilege to go out and do something about it.

Life's beautiful. If Nietzsche's little eternal recurrence devil came to me, I'd say "Yes - every moment again!"

MANNERS

The other day, I was standing waiting for my bus to depart in a morning daze. Two teenage boys were standing next to me, on their way to school. They must have been about 14 or 15. Their friend saw them from the street and also stepped on, said “servusz” (hi) while pulling off his mitten and offering his hand. The others did the same, and it was handshakes all round. I was taken aback at this show of calm, mature camaraderie. Was it some kind of ritual they’d evolved in their group? Surely, even in Hungary, teenage boys must jostle each other and say things like “How’s it going, dickhead?” In Scotland, we used to call each other names as a bonding device. The whole basis of my experience of friendship in adolescence was learning that a good slagging meant the other person really cared. Anyway, in terms of manners, this is evidence that Hungary hasn’t really caught up with the 21st Century world.

RESPECT



Laughably, Tony Blair seems to think he can legislate to bring back “respect” among the young. While transferring the burden of proof on to people suspected of committing petty crimes may well be a good idea, no amount of sticks, carrots or political speeches will make the slightest difference in promoting a real culture of respect for others while every micro-message pouring out of the entertainment media exhorts contempt for authority, pure individualism, success at any price – all the modern virtues.

There are two kinds of respect: the philosophical theory and the everyday practical kind demanded by your elders and betters, or some guy pointing a gun at you in a gang fight. “Respect”. Born of fear.

The first, respect for human beings merely by virtue of their being human was always more an aspiration than a reality, a supremely admirable enlightenment project that was dead in the water by the time Nietzsche had finished with it, though echoes of it are still heard from time to time in well-intentioned international proclamations from the Charter of Human Rights to the G8 summit. Meanwhile, corporations and the militaristic junta in command of US foreign policy continue to wreak havoc regardless, aided and abetted by guess who?

A government with any guts would commit to this philosophy of mutual respect. For example, by facing up collectively to the impending ecological disaster and helping to inculcate a new value system based on environmental responsibility. That would demonstrate, and probably command, respect. It’s not going to happen. Standing up for human rights against international capitalism and its enslavement of millions in the developing world. That might promote a culture of respect. It’s not going to happen. Standing up for the dispossessed against greedy landlords extorting people’s wages from them would show a commitment to a “respect agenda”! But, surprise surprise, that’s not on this agenda either.

It’s the other watered-down kind of “respect” that Blair & co are now promoting, something that shouldn't involve too many difficult decisions! It was shown by most schoolchildren to their parents, teachers and to policemen in the post-war years, and went into irreversible decline after the advent of the Rolling Stones. So the story goes. Now, I know nothing of the mysteries of parenting, but I do know something about teaching. If you want to get respect from a class of kids in September, you have to first make sure they’re a bit afraid of you, then you have to build up a relationship with them by showing an interest in them, and showing that you’re even-handed in the way that you distribute attention, rewards and punishments. Since the fear factor is no longer present in our schools, teachers are going to have to work all the harder to earn respect. And they do. (This will not have been helped by the inexplicable decision by some irresponsible official at OFSTED to write to schoolchildren at a failing school, over the heads of their teachers, telling them that the teachers “could do better”!)

Outside the school gates, it is futile to try and reinstate some version of old-fashioned values without the fear factor, and Blair knows it. Society has changed irrevocably and, it’s true, we don’t “know our place”. (Wouldn’t it be great for politicians if we did?) So it’s fitting that he has chosen as the principal weapon in this campaign the one thing that can really motivate people, the only thing that still counts: a fine! In doing so, he reveals the bankruptcy of ideas at the heart of government, and of a socio-economic system that’s on its last shaky legs. If financial incentives are the only social glue left, the minute there is less money sloshing round the economy (in the next oil crisis, say) there is going to be some very bad behaviour indeed.

Pictured: scene from the Paris riots, 2005

ICE MENAGERIE

It's minus 15 now in Budapest, or thereabouts. I've been dogged by a cold which found it hard to develop fully in the stew of Vitamin pills and echinacea that's my January blood, and then exploded for a day. Every morning I get into my thermals to go to work. (And quick change out of them as soon as I arrive in the overheated interiors.) The sky is clear and there's always some trick of the morning light that makes the Parliament building pink or peach-coloured. No matter how much of a hurry I'm in, I try to walk the slightly longer but far more scenic river way and watch the cloudpour of vapour from all the heating systems. From the tram today, I caught a glimpse of the ice sculptures for a second time. They're giant versions of the kind of glass animals that might grace some old lady's mantelpiece. They remind me of the plastic ones I collected in a tub when I was a child. They're kitsch, I know - I can tell from a distance. The mammoth, the hummingbird, the gryphon are all a bit cute. But they're ice. And the coloured lights shining through them from behind, playing on the edges, make them look as if they've got Christmas tree lights inside. I make a mental note - which becomes a physical note - to return later.

When I do, after a good day when I could feel the cold retreat, the animals are surrounded by people and digital cameras. They're illuminated. The lights look as if they're coming from the inside. They pick out patches of haze and some thick veins in the crystalline structure of the ice. Small children wander round, dying to touch, but too well behaved. Would their hands stick to them, perhaps? Nightlit, the creatures are redeemed from their kitschiness - a parade of ambassadors from the ice kingdom - fantastic, rough-hewn, gleaming, perfect.

Ice Art: the artist's site

WHO LIVES IN A POSTMODERN WORLD?



I'm writing this following the recent debate on Puskas's blog (see sidebar) on truth v happiness, and the nature of truth.

I've always been curious about postmodernism, and never quite grasped what it is, probably because there's nothing concrete to grasp. It mostly to do with fragmentation, perspectivism and flux: the intellectual result of millions of trans-cultural interactions on a global scale. The most lucid explanation of postmodernism I've read is towards the end of Richard Tarnas's The Passion of the Western Mind. His style involves endless reformulation of the same idea, which, in the case of such an elusive phenomenon as this one, proves incredibly useful.

Here are some extracts:

"The mind is not the passive reflector of an external world and its intrinsic order, but is active and creative in the process of perception and cognition." "There is no empirical 'fact' that is not already theory-laden." These ideas seem to me to be uncontroversial.

What follows, however, is a real bombshell: "Reality is in some sense constructed by the mind, not simply perceived by it, and many such constructions are possible, none necessarily sovereign." "All human understanding is interpretation, and no interpretation is final." "Every object of knowledge is already part of a preinterpreted context, and beyond that are only other preinterpreted contexts. All human knowledge is mediated by signs and symbols of uncertain provenance, constituted by historically and culturally variable predispositions... Hence the nature of truth and reality, in science no less than in philosophy, religion, or art, is radically ambiguous." (italics mine) You get the idea. And through this chink in the city wall of Scientopolis marches the whole magical, mystical New Age carnival parade - beliefs become a kind of lifestyle choice, and no longer have to submit to the rigour of scientific testing. Why should they? They are all equally valid. There are no meta-narratives.

Is the (clearly stunning) success of science in predicting everyday occurrences the only philosophical reply to this radical perspectivism? This is a genuine question. Could the success of science be merely a huge coincidence, and end tomorrow?

MOMENTS IN AMBER - 2005

Grayson Perry suggested in the Times that rather then getting pissed on Hogmanay, we should go over personal lists of the highlights of the previous year. So here's mine - early - so I can drink to my heart's content too.

This was the year where I, first and foremost, learned to be an EFL teacher trainer. I've certainly expended more energy on this than anything else, so I'd have to - reluctantly - say that it's been my greatest achievement. Reluctantly because it doesn't sound very exciting or exceptional. The main thing I do is watch the trainees' lessons, which range from the inspired to the completely inept, but mostly at the lower end of that continuum, and lead discussion on their performances in such a way that trainees (a)learn "experientially" from my prompts and (b) will not break down in tears. Watching bad lessons can be grindingly tedious, but I enjoy managing the interactions of the feedback process, which is a fast-moving problem-solving game when it's good. Emotionally, on the other hand, it is often less the roller-coaster ride of the cliche and more like being in the hands of a first-time driver who stalls and lurches forward at every turn because of his unfamiliarity with the controls. The thing is, I'm largely responsible for that, and if I get things wrong I have to try not to dwell on them in the early hours.

I'll also remember 2005 for free music downloads, thanks to Limewire and the guy behind Bit Torrent. For someone whose main activity in early adolescence (apart from vigorous masturbation, obviously) was taping stuff from the radio, it's a great thrill to have this repeated in mid-life; free music, that is. Having spent years amassing musicalised plastic in various forms and at great cost, I can now act immediately on every recommendation I get - at no cost. Yes, it's a time-waster but I don't care; it's hard to describe the quiet thrill of being able to give an informed opinion on more current bands than at any time since the '95-96 Britpop era. My tastes are still somewhat rooted in the - distant - past, though! It was great that Paul McCartney finally made a good album this year. Contenders for album of the year are Supergrass Road to Rouen, The Engineers self-titled debut, the Boards of Canada and Sigur Ros Takk. But the one that really got me, because of its energy and pretty innovative take on heavy blues was Robert Plant's Mighty Rearranger. My track of the year was the superbly constructed, beautifully sung King of the Mountain by Kate Bush. Loved the ska mid-section.

It's hard to say that having broadband radically decreased the time spent reading this year. I hope this is only temporary! Anyway, the book I enjoyed most was Richard Tarnas's Passion of the Western Mind, which I decided to re-read after a colleague reminded me how good it is. It's a one-volume history of (Western) ideas which is always engaging, even though you already know the plot.

Man of the year was Russell T Davies for braving what could have been a critical panning, and managing to resuscitate Doctor Who, my childhood hero, after 15 years in cryogenic suspension in a time-capsule somewhere. Now with added depth, the new series was a triumph: frightening when it needed to be with clever scripts, it reminded me how good TV drama can be. The best film I saw in the cinema this year was Hotel Rwanda. I'll never forget the eerie "cockroaches" broadcasts from the Hutu radio station, and the moment when the UN had to pull out. It made real what had been a very remote, poorly understood news item while it was happening. (I hadn't lived in Africa then.) I also loved The Quiet American, with Michael Caine.

My most memorable journey of the year was to Krakow during an early, and still near-freezing, Easter holiday. Seeing the beauty of the Medieval market square and eating like kings at the traditional "peasant fare" restaurant were highlights. Auschwitz was what will remain in my memory most - though this isn't the post to elaborate on my reaction to being there.

The best new person I met is Brindle Cat. There's something in the warmth of her smile and the brightness of her enthusiasm for life that is always new every time it comes out, like a sunny day. She's full of crazy ideas and off-beat writing. She's not weighed down by things. Her intense shyness has started to blossom into a quiet confidence, though she's only starting to know it. I want to talk to her more.

One morning in September, I went with her to the hairdresser and she explained in Hungarian that I wanted that kind of up-to-date 70s mullet everyone has. It didn't work. When it was finished, I felt as if I had a strange mammal crouching on my scalp and that, naturally, eveyone was looking at me trying to suppress giggles. Judit had disappeared into the back shop; I thought she'd left - with my coat, and money in it. So, after frantically apologising that I wasn't actually able to pay for the awful haircut, I ran home, praying I wouldn't meet anyone I knew on the way. Of course I did - a work colleague who involved me in conversation. Well, I guess I have a kind of sheltered existence: that was perhaps my worst moment of the year. The other was being set upon and mauled by a vicious neo-Nazi called Moody Lawless on a Nietzsche forum. I (naively?) expected to find philosophers there, but got mostly thugs, albeit articulate ones. A virtual attack leaves the same dull, sick feeling as real-life violence.

Finally, the three best moments of 2005. Ex-colleague and friend Martin heard our Floydian "epic" Kusum (finally completed in 2005), and not knowing who it was, went home and Googled our band Slow Design as he liked it so much. You never get that reaction from jaded record company people or from friends who know it's "just you" rather than some mystique-bound other who's made it. So thanks, Martin! You helped make my year.

Watching Roy Harper play three gigs in Clonalkilty, Cork was a highlight of the summer. There's a unique character to Roy's songwriting and performance. Despite his being, in his own words, "a greybeard", his singing somehow reconnects me to my inspiration for music and for life. I can't explain why, it just is.

Most of all, I'll remember cycling down the broad sweep of the Danube on a hot cloudless day in July from Zebegeny towards Budapest. The cycle path is nearly all downhill, and speeds you past views of round tree-covered hills and bright little towns with dovecotes on the roofs and onion-domed churches. Surrounded by pale blue flowers and the not-quite flooded river lapping the banks so close to the path that at times it felt like being in a mangrove swamp, tree trunks steeped in water. (On my Walkman, I was listening to Nick Cave from the 2004 double album singing something about a Nature Boy, and loud.) Life doesn't get any better.

Favourite purchase, then: my metallic-grey/blue bike!

Happy Christmas to my very few readers. Expect more intermittent bursts of text in 2006.

BEATLE CRITICISM

From today's BBC website, a really perceptive comment. I had to reprint it here:

"Paul connected John with a long tradition of pop music - jazz, standards, showtunes, and more - which became a kind of shoreline; as long as John could see the shore, his experiments had a context and focus. You see this most perfectly expressed in the double-A side Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields. Paul's side is an elegant, stately, classic full of heart; John's is a cryptic, beguiling journey into an estranged world. But it's a measure of their influence on one another that you swap those labels around. Paul's lyrics have a niggling strangeness while John's tune has a persistent melodic charm that places the song in our heads. John absorbed immediate traditions and produced work in the direct shadow of that influence.This was often extraordinary - the Dylan influence that he allowed to show more and more in his voice and lyrics, the LSD imagery throughout his work in 1966 and 1967, the more direct engagement with politics and the counter-culture between 1968 and 1973. He became someone who reported on what he heard, with a deliberate avoidance of reflection, just a trust to his immense talents.

Paul always mediates, works contemporary influences into his innate sense of the whole tradition. Sometimes this can make Paul seem rather studied, pastiche-y (Honey Pie, Rocky Racoon) but sometimes John's experiments misfire by seeming to show contempt for his artform in the rush to commentary (Power To The People, most of Sometime In New York City). While the causes he often espoused were righteous ones and he supported several groups and figures at considerable risk to himself, he had a dilettante political commitment.

Once John severed the connection with Paul his work was initially exhilarating, ultimately wayward and unfocused. He drifted from the shore. Ironically but inevitably, Paul and John's solo work is at its best when each resembles to other most closely.
Paul's work is finest when it's most connected to a rock 'n' roll tradition, or when he allows surrealism into his songs, or a roughness creeps into the production. John's work is often at its most compelling when warm and melodic, and when he takes a step back from his sometimes vacuous political stances.

His legacy is in his person as much as his songs - in that his songs are so plainly personal." by Simon Fisher (c) BBC 2005

JOHN ONO LENNON (1940-1980)


A lot has been said and written this week about John Lennon and his music. Some of it is overblown, of course; he has been marketed as a twentieth century icon, something he'd have found really irritating. Currently it's trendy to say that he was hugely over-rated and a mediocre talent. This is rubbish!

His music has staying power. It's not to do with talent on an instrument or as a vocalist, but with being truly seminal. Nearly forty years after his best work, his singing is still imitated in so much guitar-driven indie music - Liam Gallagher's nasal snarl is the most obvious example. Songs like Tomorrow Never Knows, I Am The Walrus, Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life, Cold Turkey and even Revolution were all, when they first appeared, utterly non-derivative and memorable experiments in sound which redefined the boundaries of pop music. Whatever Lennon's flaws as a human being - he had the narcissism characteristic of a lot of artists - these still startling songs deserve their impact on the culture. The less well-known Revolution no. 9 remains probably, as pointed out by Ian Macdonald in the definitive Beatles book Revolution in the Head, the most widely distributed piece of avant garde art on the planet.

In other songs, he pioneered the genuinely, sometimes painfully, introspective lyric, subject matter hitherto reserved for poetry - and jazz, of course. While Dylan laid claim to the first surreal pop lyrics, you never got such a show of soul from him. Personal experience became one of the standard subjects a pop song, but it's easily forgotten that, before Lennon, pop music was nothing more than a distraction. Kurt Cobain in the 1990s acknowledged Lennon as his biggest influence.

Lennon's bold originality was rare at the time, and is even more so today.

"PUBLIC SERVANTS"

From today's Times: "The leaders of the Labour and Conservative parliamentary parties have buried their political differences to join forces for the first time to demand a 22 per cent pay rise for MPs next year.

The chairmen of the Tory and Labour backbench committes held an unprecedented joint meeting to push for a £13,000 annual salary increase... The MPs, whose salary is £59,095, are also demanding, in addition to the inflation-busting pay increase, an improved petrol allowance."

Conservative MP Anthony Steen has said: "One of the reasons the Commons lacks quality MPs is because the pay is not enough to attract the best people." (italics mine)

No comment necessary! Except that I'd like to apologise to the pig pictured in case I have in any way besmirched his reputation.

ALL SAINTS' DAY IN SOPRON


At noon, five bells ring out from different locations all over Sopron, (Ödenburg, formerly Scarbantia), a town on the Austrian border. After a particularly good night’s sleep, we had spent the morning beating the cobbled streets looking for breakfast, mulled wine & an internet café (not that we’re living out lives online, of course!)

The lozenge-shaped heart of the town is a disorientating labyrinth because you can only see a short distance in front of you; it’s the best preserved Medieval centre I’ve seen this year (Kosice, Eger, Krakow being the others). Rounding one corner, we chanced upon the postcard image of the Fire Tower, its pillared loggia and onion dome bathed in misty sunlight reminiscent of high summer, even though it was hat-and-scarf weather.

On the streets we passed elaborate lamp-posts whose blackened wrought iron was fashioned into flowers and leaves. The houses are never regular, perhaps because the gothic and baroque facades have been built over wattle and daub or stone walls. In one alleyway, brick arches propped up two converging buildings, which might otherwise have collapsed. We saw top floors jutting out over the street and a blind window with an intact stone cruciform frame and signs of much older buildings in the marzipan-toned walls. One boasted a somnolent-looking weather-beaten lion’s face and others had arrow-slit windows.

The best bit about roaming is that there are a lot of side alleys to dart down. This is because every second or third house has a large arch to admit coaches, and some have the lower barrel-vaulting of cloisters. The doors were often open; you could stray into courtyards where flowers cascaded over tiny balconies. Inside one of them, it looked like a witch’s cottage overlooking a walled garden. We also ventured into one with nothing but a solitary tree at its centre. My friend said she felt that it was the kind of place where someone’s life might have been irrevocably changed by a piece of music. When we left, a plaque told us that Liszt Ferenc had in fact given a recital there once.

In one of the baroque churches, almost completely deserted, a solitary organist was playing Barber's Adagio for Strings. The contrast couldn't have been greater between the unbearably delicate melody and the unwieldy baroque decoration dripping from the walls.

Behind the buildings, you could discover a whole geometry of little pathways, wooden bridges and ramps running parallel to the city walls built on Roman foundations. The chilly mist and the autumnal light merged magically. This was when the first bell of midday clanged its way into our thoughts, soon to be joined by a chorus of others.

HALLOWE'EN PAST

Today is Hallowe’en, the ancient European festival of Samhain, “summer’s end”, which was the most magically potent time of year, and even, it has been suggested, New Year. This was the night when the autumn fires would burn to provide, according to the Celtic Spirit website, “an island of light within the oncoming tide of winter darkness, keeping away cold, discomfort, and evil spirits long before electricity illumined our nights”. People would take a part of the fire to re-light their own hearths; in some parts of Scotland this custom apparently continued up till the First World War, the time when so many folk traditions were extinguished.

These popular so-called “Celtic” sources (though this is something of a misnomer) often tell us that at Samhain the “veil between the worlds” was at its thinnest; I have always liked this image as it makes me think of a cacophonous crowd of mischievous sprites and daemons pushing this nebulous membrane so that the tiniest rent could quickly become a rift that would send them tumbling through into our suburban streets. Of course, in the old tradition, the veil was one between the living and the dead. It was above all a festival of the ancestors, and hence its modern incarnation as a night teeming with ghostly nasties. Finally, Samhain also marked the end of the harvest; all the remaining crops in the fields were thenceforth subject to the malign influence of faeries and, being thus accursed, must not be gathered.

In my own little Scottish village, we had traditions of our own. I used to go “guising” as a child, which was a real thrill, given that I did not normally go out at night for any reason. Dressed up fairly carelessly, usually as Tom Baker-era Doctor Who, although I may have had one or two other guises, I ventured forth clutching my nightlight-in-a-jar lantern, which inevitably went out with the first serious gust of wind. (I never actually had a turnip lantern until a friend of mine made one when I was in my thirties.) I remember other costumes being really inventive – in particular, my best friend Alan’s parents would go to great efforts, and one year he was “Mr Music”, clad head to toe in a paper suit and hat patterned with real musical scores. We all had a little routine to do to earn nuts, sweets and coins from the neighbours: this would consist of a song, a poem, jokes, etc. We went to some lengths to learn these by heart. One of my neighbours, an elderly woman with no children, was exceptionally generous. She always stockpiled a mound of goodies, including homemade toffee, and as her reputation spread, children came from far and wide to knock on her door. Eventually, she’d run out of stuff and have no option but to put the lights out and sit in silence to end the siege.

This all sounds so quaint now, like something from between the wars, even though it was in the 1970s! There was no “trick-or-treat”-ing then; this was a later American import. Above all, we all felt safe to roam the streets unaccompanied, which was the real treat. It’s not just ancient customs that have been consigned to the grave.

LAST NIGHT AT TUZRAKTAR

It was cold, much colder than we had expected it to be when we arrived at Tuzraktar to see if the rumours were true that it was going to be burned down by the mafia. An abandoned commercial building inhabited by various artists and performers, it’d been our regular Sunday night hang-out ever since we heard about the leftfield films (Derek Jarman, David Cronenberg) they were showing. You didn't just get the films (watched from old armchairs and sofas), but peanuts and Coke too. All for free.

The metal mesh gates are flanked by two giant boilers, each bearing a paraffin torch. These are typical of the post-industrial medieval atmosphere which pervades the central open space. Eerie, hastily executed images in white decorate the concrete walls: grinning monkeys, clowns, a woman on her hands and knees, a series of stencilled goats. Random household objects dangle from the unglazed windows. At the far left, there’s a small tree growing out from the outside of the third floor.

Tonight parts of the walls are red-lit, and there are paper and cloth festival lanterns hanging in a row between the buildings. They are lurid: faces, flowers, storybook animals and abstract shapes. Behind the bar are some fluorescent cartoon aliens and mushrooms on an overhead canvas. And in the centre, three barrels of fire with people clustered round feeding them broken bits of furniture. Every so often, the embers take on a life of their own, splutter and tumble out, making us all jump back in alarm and delight. There's the acrid, always autumnal, smell of woodsmoke. A girl is roasting lard and onions on skewers over the fire to make bread and dripping. All of this is bathed by cut-out snowflake and flower images cast in magenta and orange by a revolving disco light.

Down in the cellar, a local band is rehearsing some kind of French cabaret songs: the four singers, swinging their arms in sync, carry it off well even though they outnumber the audience. Upstairs, if you can brave the night air through the gaping window-spaces, you can see a collection of unusual paintings. The images are modern: vibrantly experimental, yet not abstract in any sense. The artists’ sincerity is clear in every work.

I hope this place reopens in the Spring. This kind of unmediated freedom of expression can only exist in the gap between post-industrial abandonment and near-inevitable enguzzlement by property developers. Let’s hope we beat them to it again.

SCRAMBLED - song lyrics

I'm losing the thread of thoughts in my head
Caught sight of oblivion - my old languages are dead
And I won't wait my turn while this city is burning
Caught sight of oblivion in the crap I'm supposed to learn.
The future is here but we're not in control
Better hold on to your soul.

I'm coming unstuck, I can't reconstruct
A thousand scrambled channels - my old languages are fucked
And that's just the start. What's happened to my heart?
A thousand scrambled channels and the feeling just won't start.
The future is here but we're not in control
Better hold on to your soul.

My brain is so tired, the neurons still firing
A thousand scrambled channels - my old language is retired
The network's still up but the files are corrupt
A thousand scrambled channels then the audience erupts
The future is here but we're not in control
Better hold tight on to your soul.

TOO MUCH PROPERTY IS THEFT

Private landlords are getting fat from the misery of others who can't afford to buy a home, while draining away the little money their tenants have worked for. I suggest the law in the EU be changed to restrict each household to one mortgage. It is quite enough. (The definition of "household" would have to be carefully worked out to prevent fat cats buying property in other people's names.) Households with excessive properties would be required to put these on the market by the end of the financial year, and eventually this would be extended to include any household with more than one. I think this would bring about a generaly beneficial readjustment in the property market.

WHILE ROME BURNS

OK, it's another testosterone-fuelled rant into the depths of virtual space.

It's the hottest October 27th on record in the UK, and, conveniently for the Six o'clock News, it's the same day Prince Charles is telling us to move global warming up the political agenda. At least someone in public life is aware enough of the issues, and able, because of not being beholden to any electorate, to speak out. It might even be a reason to hold on to the royals?

But what really matters as our civilisation teeters on the brink of collapse?

And now here's Gary with the sport. Who'll be the new (insert football team) manager/ centre-forward?
Now you can hear the new release from (insert talentless babe or heart-on-sleeve whining falsetto)
10 hot tips on how to improve your sex life
The Top Ten (insert - usually - inane junk) Ever Made
Vote for the top Dad - Ozzy Osbourne or Homer Simpson
Why x has split up with y
The Nikkei. The Hang Seng. The Dow Jones. The Footsie.
Is it better to have a big tum or a big bum?
Which overprivileged unthinking careerist nincompoop will lead the Tory Party??? Ha ha ha ha.
Neo-medieval feuds over different conceptions of a FICTIONAL Middle-Eastern God
and, can you believe it, the other day someone invested $150,000 in a virtual space station that's part of some online game!

(At least the naked power interests fighting the "war on terror" are doing something relevant in their attempt to do down the other part of humanity and gain strategic control of the reserves of the power source we seem to be addicted to.)

It could almost be funny and if I'd drunk a couple of pints, it probably would be. This is one of the reasons to drink, after all.


We tuck into junk food and are spammed by people's junk thoughts. All day long. Anything of any worth at all, like Prince Charles's comments, will be derided or, at best, ignored. Welcome to the end of the world. And heralded neither by a bang nor a whimper, but a fizz. It's the cacophony of a million distractions and digital cables carrying nasty, corporate-funded trivia to infect us all. The sound of the approaching hurricane is nearly drowned by it. (See below)