Nobby is All...

cynical and sour. He believes that this is one great big fat propaganda exercise. Is he alone? Apparently not.

But then, it could be argued that they would say that, wouldn't they?

Meanwhile, over in the Observer Rachel Cooke asks how she can avoid 'seeming very stupid' when interviewing Stephen Hawking. I can answer that. It might have helped if she had not devoted the first few paragraphs of the resulting article to herself. Note to self-obsessed Laydee journalists: it's not about you, sweetheart, it's about the interviewee. That's the whole point of an interview.

Ooh, all this cynicism is contagious. Off to Sourpuss's Anonymous.

And finally this confirms what I've always suspected. I will elaborate later.

There He Goes Again

There he goes again
That mad megalomaniacal monarch
Severing heads and hanging heathens
With one look we could condemn ourselves
One word out of place is treason
And often he executes without reason

He sits on his throne
A sumptuous feast spread out before him
He watches as the executioner does his work
He slurps amd slavers as he anticiptes
Future killings and bestial bloodlettings
While all around him subjects shudder

'Your Majesty, it was not I,'
They cry but it is rather like addressing
The indifferent sky. With a gloved hand
He waves them away. He has never had
So much fun. Power makes him high
Power makes him fly....

....And his reign has only just begun

How Beastly the Bourgeois Is

by D.H. Lawrence

How beastly the bourgeois is

especially the male of the species--



Presentable, eminently presentable--

shall I make you a present of him?



Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?

Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?

Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day

after partridges, or a little rubber ball?

wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the

thing



Oh, but wait!

Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another

man's need,

let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life

face him with a new demand on his understanding

and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.

Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.

Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new

demand on his intelligence,

a new life-demand.



How beastly the bourgeois is

especially the male of the species--



Nicely groomed, like a mushroom

standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable--

and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life

sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life

than his own.



And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.

Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside

just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow

under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.



Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings

rather nasty--

How beastly the bourgeois is!



Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp

England

what a pity they can't all be kicked over

like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly

into the soil of England.

Have You Ever Noticed...

...how middle class 'liberals' cease to be quite so 'liberal' when their own interests are threatened?

The Queen and the Great Revolution

Little empires crumbled
Miniature kingdoms toppled
As the princess became a queen
And men knelt, grovelling
At the feet of this new matriarch
She loved no one but herself
The peasants that lined the roads
Were but money-making machines
Fairy tale figures - Snow White,
Rose Red and Little Red Riding Hood
So pure, so soft, so good
To be trodden underfoot

They threw flowers at the motorcade
A rainstorm of roses aimed at that princess
Her feelings were suppressed
By vodka, vodka, vodka
'She is an angel,' they said
But that was long before
The Great Revolution
When this new Queen dreamed
Of cutting out the tongues
Of rabid republicans
Now she is still the centre of attention
She is still the star of the show.

But she is not adored anymore
And up in that dock she can smell
Her own blood, her own death
And those who once revelled in her grace
Will dance jubilantly,
Madly, on her grave.

It's not the band we hate...

It's their fans.

In response to this:

Don't get too complacent. I've seen exactly the same behaviour by your compatriots on Usenet. But yes - these people are slightly deranged. Some of them actually believe that denigrating someone over the internet is more reprehensible than battering an old lady to death with an axe. Strange days indeed.

I recall one particular case in which the 'culprit' was a guy from Madison County, Wisconsin. However, I do not remember anyone criticising his physical appearance or suggesting that part of his rehabilitation should consist of performing sexual favours for the opposite sex.

I can't imagine why that could be.

Can you?

Oh Dear

Page 171:

'I always know I'm in a council property because:

a) They have a kind of fuggy, overpowering warmth that you only get if you're not paying the heating bill; and
b) there's always a massive plasma TV in the corner of the room with SKY+ always on'

Of course, it's a well known fact that all council tenants are clones of one another and so are their houses, unlike the sophisticated middle Englanders PC Copperfield seems to identify with and respect. A full review of PC Copperfield's (PC? Haven't you made it to sergeant yet?) little effort will grace these pages soon.

Verdict so far: Theodore Dalrymple without the extensive vocabulary.

Software of the Week: Artrage.

Online To Do list of the Week: Remember the Milk

Also check out 37 Signals Tada

Breaking News: BellaCat is unwell. The vet will make a home visiit tomorrow. I dread losing her - she is 17. Old for a cat but too young for me. And still no news about my father only that he is in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes having lost a quarter of his body weight. He is 62. Still young in the eyes of many. Something or someone has unleashed the fury of a tropical storm.

I feel compelled to add that this cast is not listed in order of importance but rather in order of appearance.

Publish and Be Damned

Just another point. Ms North, you asserted: 'As to whether she is mentally ill, I just don't know. The court didn't seem to think so.' The Courts? You mean the District Judge. Well, this may astound you but district judges are neither omniscient nor infallible, nor are they mental health professionals. Neither, for that matter, are the prison officers whose job it was to observe Lowde. Many mentally ill women are left to languish in gaol because the system simply is not equipped to deal with them. The 'special hospitals' are designed to deal primarily with male offenders. The fact that the District Judge chose not to take psychiatric reports into account says more about the lack of care available for mentally ill women than it does about the state of Ms Lowde's mental health. See, the personal really *is* political, even more often than *you'd* think.

BTW, if Ms Lowde doesn't suffer from any kind of mental illness does that mean she has been libelled by the many bloggers who asserted that she was? And do you condone or condemn the prejudice they exhibited towards the mentally ill during the course of their 'battle' to bring Ms Lowde to 'justice'. You may detach yourself from such comments but the fact that you failed to condemn them speaks volumes.

On a Blog Near You

Just a few salient points:

1) Jade Goody is badly educated in comparison to Ms. Shetty but have you stopped to wonder why? She spent most of her childhood looking after her mentally-ill, drug-addicted mother. How did the Upper-Caste Ms. Shetty cope with that - oh, that's right - she didn't have to.
2) Ms. Goody is of West Indian descent - she has West Indian features - much of the media's mockery is a result of this. Ironically, Ms. Shetty conforms to Western ideals of beauty more than Ms. Goody.
3) Could someone please tell me how people arrive at the conclusion that Ms. Shetty is intellectual. She failed to watch a single episode of Big Brother before agreeing to appear on the show and seems ignorant of the origins of its title. Germaine Greer observed that there was bullying on Big Brother when she walked out of the programme two years ago. My response was 'Well, duh'. The programme's title is derived from a novel that depicts a totalitarian state governed by a capricious, malevolent dictator known as 'Big Brother'. Bullying? In that kind of environment? Who'd have thought it?

4) Finally, how, for the love of cake, does this sully the reputation of Britain? There are 60 million people in this country and less than 8 million watch Big Brother. As the Americans would say: 'Do the math'.

More of the Same!

In response to this:

I guess the columnist believes there should be one rule for the well-educated, middle class Ms. Parr and an entirely different rule for the 'plebs' she labels as 'Goody et al'. It defies all logic and carries the stench of the profound class-based prejudice that permeates this society. Oh, and one more thing, doesn't the Guardian purport to be a 'socialist' paper?

Oh Brother!

In response to this:

Like many others I cannot help contrasting the reaction of this columnist to Ms. Parr's ill judged use of the 'N' word with the reaction to the behaviour of Jade Goody et al in Celebrity Big Brother. Ms. Parr is of a higher social standing and is better educated than the three women who were vilified for their actions in CBB and yet the former is judged less harshly than the latter. Is it just me or does anyone else find this ever so slightly illogical? Class-based discrimination is alive and well and living within the pages of that bastion of socialism (Oh, the irony) known as The Guardian.

Spit In My Food and Tell Me That You Love Me!

In response to this.

Some believe that one of the reasons Ms. Middleton was deemed an unsuitable partner for 'Wills' is that she 'lacked breeding' (What is she? A horse?.) Apparently, other members of his social circle mocked her because her mother was (gasp!) an air hostess and was filmed (Now, wait for it - you'll be shocked) chewing gum. Now, what I would like to know is this: if they feel such contempt for an obviously bright*, middle class young woman with a good 2i degree from St. Andrews, what must they think of the rest of us? And why oh why do we permit people who so obviously despise us to rule over us? What are we? A nation of doormats? Time for a revolution methinks.

*It was thanks to her that 'Wills' didn't drop out of university.

A message to all Air Hostesses - now you know what our ruling classes really think about you ensure you reward them accordingly!

This Too Shall Pass

'There's your hopes and your dreams you embrace
Then there's what's staring you in the face
Sorrowful times are here but they won't last
This too shall pass'

Bruce Hornsby

In response to this

Dear Ms. Alibhai-Brown,

I read your column with interest. I also listened to what you had to say on the BBC's News Twenty Four and frankly I found it rather amusing. I really don't think a country that treats a sixth of its population as subhuman (the lowest caste - the 'untouchables') has the right to lecture any other country on bigotry. This kind of discrimination occupies no column inches in our newspapers. No one takes to the streets and burns effigies of upper caste Indians on their behalf. But then they're not spoilt Bollywood actresses.

I am from a working class background so I'm probably not as intelligent and sophisticated as you are but there are a couple of things I just don't 'get':

1. Why do you consider racism wrong while endorsing other forms of bigotry such as class-based prejudice and misogyny? (You accused Jade Goody of being motivated by envy in her treatment of Ms. Shetty because the former is 'ugly' and the latter is 'beautiful' - because that is all woman is, right? Her packaging? The irony is that Ms. Shetty probably comes closer to Western ideals of beauty than Jade Goody who has West Indian features.) It seems like an illogical position to hold.

2. How is a programme watched by a minority of the population any more representative of the UK than the way in which some Indians treat their lower caste citizens? (They are exploited, mistreated, raped, tortured, immolated but that's clearly something that doesn't interest you. The next time you're at the BBC take a trip over to Radio Four's studios and listen to the episode of 'From Our Own Correspondent' that was broadcast on the Saturday before Christmas - it includes a particularly harrowing account of caste-based violence in rural India. That didn't make it into our newspapers - probably because it didn't involve any celebrities.)

Make no mistake, bigotry is wrong. All kinds of bigotry. Exhibiting a different kind of bigotry to Ms. Goody does not make you superior to her, it makes you the same as her. If you disapprove of someone's behaviour it's best to avoid emulating them.


And finally, could you please justify this:
http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/archives/109/23825.pdf

yours sincerely,