Finally, someone is standing up to the Christian bullies trying to stop the tour of Jerry Springer: The Opera.
Jerry Springer: The Opera opened at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester last night accompanied not only by the usual gaggle of Springer protestors, but also by a counter-demo by the active Leicester Secular Society in support of free speech. As far as we can gather, this is the first time the anti-Springer brigade have encountered organised opposition.
Good for Leicester. The fact that there is such a thing as the Leicester Secular Society alone makes me feel more positive towards the human race.
There’s a quite fabulously grumpy piece by Paul Wilson on the impact of television on football, or rather the way television has been co-opted by footbal in some kind of Mephistophelean bargain:
Television used to cover football too. Now it presents it. Promotes it. Is proud to be in partnership with it. Practically owns it. Fancy an interview with Alan Shearer? Sorry, can’t get one. He’s busy starting a career on television, where, for the money the BBC are paying, he will even turn up in the studio straight from playing a game. Who could blame him? The Beeb are not going to misquote him or steer the conversation to controversial areas, they are going to reward him with a fat contract, useful training and massive exposure.
I was already spluttering with pompous outrage about the attempt to suspend Ken Livingstone for four weeks for being nasty to a right-wing journalist. My outrage was all the sweeter for being directed at Veronica Wadley, the Evening Standard and the Dark Denizens of The Daily Mail, from whose poisoned well I believed this whole sorry affair to have sprung. But this morning I found out, sad ill-informed dweeb that I am, that the Evening Standard didn’t make the official complaint about Livingstone. It was actually made by the British Board of Deputies, which claims to be an “elected body” representing British Jews. Odd, that the Board of Deputies should find itself aligned with a newspaper publisher whose anti-Semitic views poisoned much of the first half of the 20th century.
So, an unelected body has suspended the politician with the largest personal democratic mandate in Europe, thanks to the intervention of a religious organisation? This at a time when Sainsburys isn’t stocking Jerry Springer: The Opera because of evangelical Christian protests (and there’s talk of America’s first Mormon president)?
Ah, these are the dark days of rationalism. Montaigne must be lying in his grave wearing an I Told You So T-shirt (except his body would have decomposed by now, his being a sceptical humanist and everything).
On Sunday afternoon, I was in a field in Oxfordshire, looking for a small plastic container left there by a complete stranger, with only Long and Lat coordinates and a cheap GPS device to go on.
On Friday evening, I was banging golf balls into a wall, and cameras were calculating exactly where I would have banged the ball if I had been at Pebble Beach instead of in a basement in Soho.
On Sunday evening, I spent a good hour reorganising my digital music library because I wasn’t happy with some of the categorisations.
Throughout the whole weekend, I established a close relationship with a computerised woman called Jane (who, confusingly, sits in a device with a repeated male name, Tom Tom), who told me how to get from A to B, C, D and E in a calm, reflective, Received Pronunciation voice - although she did get horribly confused just outside Newbury and force me to go and directions from real people, in Marco Pierre White’s restaurant The Yew Tree, no less.
I mean, when did my life go completely William Gibson? Should I be thinking of taking up work as a cycle courier before discovering the cure for Aids and opening an electronics spares outlet on an abandoned bridge on the West Coast?
In the extraordinary tale of the construction and transportation of wings for the new Airbus 380, there’s this fact:
This is very much a boys’ world. Over nearly three weeks I meet, or see from a distance, hundreds of people involved in this project; only eight - three of whom are in public relations - are women.
I’m amazed, mystified, horrified and oddly elated by that. Elation because, throughout the piece, you get the sense that even in this globalised, free-marketeered, hyper-efficient service economy we all live in now, there is still room for some old-fashioned industry which makes men feel proud of what they do and the community they do it in. You just don’t get that working in a call centre.
I shall now go and hug a tree and shoot a quail, or maybe an American billionaire if he gets in the way.
Yacht Rock is the new black, guys. Check out the history of one Yacht Rock classic over at Channel 101. Spotted originally by the Rocking Vicar, and also discussed by Danny Baker on the wireless.
…is entirely irrelevant, but what Warren Ellis thinks about it isn’t:
My perspective on the mess begins with the fact that these are shitty, stupid, evil-minded cartoons produced by obvious hacks for a conservative rag that would appear to embody everything bad about the word “conservative” simply by publishing the things. In a sane and ordered world, everyone involved in their publication would be taken behind a stables and hit in the face with a shit-shovel. Jyllands-Posten has a lousy reputation when it comes to ethnic tolerance, their intent to offend in the most racist and simple-minded way possible was quite clear in the commissioning of the cartoons, and their apology was mealy-mouthed at best. The test of free speech always lays in that which is hardest to defend. It really would be nice if maggots like these didn’t make the rest of us work so hard.
From McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, A Letter to Elton John From the Office of the NASA Administrator (courtesy of Tim Wright):
We expect a great deal from our astronauts, but perhaps the most important part of the job is an understanding of science. For our top men - Armstrong, Aldrin, and the like - understanding the science is more than a 9-to-5 job; they work at it seven days a week. Frankly, sir, I doubt your scientific acumen. After demanding data from you for days, you were only able to offer this insight: “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it’s cold as hell. And there’s no one there to raise them if you did.” First off, if you did what? That doesn’t even make sense. Secondly, we did not send you up there to evaluate whether Mars is fit for human habitation or child rearing. Thirdly, your mission was not even going to Mars.
Guardian Unlimited have a funny interview with David Icke. Best three moments:
Have you kept in touch with any of your old colleagues from football or the BBC?
No. It was never a world I really enjoyed. The BBC sports department when I was there was seriously to the right of Ghengis Khan and if people think I am strange they should have met some of the production staff I worked with. Margaret Thatcher and the Queen were the pin up girls for many of them. I hope it’s different now, for the sake of those who work there. As they used to say about the BBC - they get so confused they stab each other in the chest.
and
I once had an extraordinary experience with former prime minister Ted Heath. Both of his eyes, including the whites, turned jet black and I seemed to be looking into two black holes. This happened years before I got into the subjects I write about today. But when I began to meet people all over the world who told me of having the experience of seeing people’s eyes turn black I knew exactly what they meant.
and
What’s your favourite TV show?
Heartbeat. I love the scenery, the music, the 60s vehicles and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. I adore steam trains. But I wish Claude Jeremiah Greengrass was still in the show - he’s the greatest character in television history for me and brilliantly played by Bill Maynard.
I am oddly assured by the fact that David Icke didn’t like internal BBC politics, was made uncomfortable by Edward Heath, and liked Bill Maynard. These are among the reasons Britons make such crappy dictators.
I’m off for a week. Skiing in the Alps, since you asked. Which is nice.
