As Atheists and therefore sane individuals, there's nothing me and M love more than laughing at and getting wound up by, the menkul frothings of Born-Agains. But sometimes you come across a Christian site so extraordinary that it makes you properly terrified and ashamed that the human race ever evolved. It's taken me 3 days to get to the end of this 'Obama is LITERALLY Hitler' article because after every second sentence, I found myself rocking and weeping incoherently in the corner or whimpering in the foetal position on the sofa whilst crying for my mummy.
http://christwire.org/2009/08/obama-is-literally-hitler/
It's truly special not only for the bonkers-ness of the opinion and reasoning (the Holocaust is the same as being pro-choice!) and the bullshit twisting of fact and history to support their disgusting illogic (Hitler was a crippled Atheist son of a Jew!) but for the casual racism and general bigotry (Obama's father left his mother because that's what all black men do!). I dunno why people worry so much about fundamentalist Muslims when there's Christians like this in the modern world...
Tuesday 24 August 2010
Friday 20 August 2010
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
Stop! Collaborate and Listen! I have a new blog. No, I'm not going to stop doing this one (like anyone cares), I've just got two going now. This second one is a lot more personal. No beaver shots, though much chat about that sorta area. PLEASE TO READ NOW: http://talesofmumra.blogspot.com/
What are you waiting for? Gerroverthere! E.
What are you waiting for? Gerroverthere! E.
Wednesday 9 June 2010
Renard The Ripper
OMG! Have you heard the news? Foxes, are, like, getting their own back and hunting us! Yes, if you read the tabloids, you will now 'know' that urban foxes have deliberately left the countryside with the sole purpose of murdering our children. No-one can sleep safe in their beds with all these scarlet-furred slashers on the loose!
I am, of course, referring to the ridiculously hyped-up furore over the horrible and tragic injuries a fox caused female twin babies in London at the weekend. Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I am not for one second suggesting that that is funny or anything other than appalling. My heart goes out to the poor girls and their families. What I am going to rip the shit out of is the tabloid attitude to the event, which is to whip itself into a nonsensical frenzy over 'evil' foxes.
Nonsensical, because everyone knows that foxes are evil - Foxy Bingo sponsors the Jeremy Kyle show, for fuck's sake! Every time that annoying Northern Chancer fox character does one of his little catchphrases before and after ad breaks, a hell mouth opens incrementally wider beneath Doncaster. And after he has sponsored the breakdown of civilisation as we know it and possibly helped quicken the coming of the Apocalypse, the jive-walking bastard relaxes with a spot of murder. He has a weighty duffle bag fashioned from the same lurid velour as his pimp suit, filled with grotesque and terrifying instruments, both medical and home-made, that he uses on his victims in ways more grotesque and sickening than anything Saw, Hostel or any other torture porn flicks could ever come up with.
Not.
What most people don't know is that foxes are wimps. They are pathetic. I used to be a hunt sab and the very reason cunters, sorry, hunters chose foxes and deer is that both species have great stamina but will panic and brick it when chased. A fox could easily take on a few dogs, or at least try to, but they just cower and freeze. Several years ago, when living with The Ex, he had an annoying habit of going outside for a fag just before bed and forgetting to lock the back door (despite my nagging). One winter morning I had to wake up earlier than him and as soon as my alarm went off and I realised I was mindbogglingly cold, I also realised that the back door must be open. As I made my way, shivering, downstairs and opened the door to the kitchen, I noticed two things - one, that everything in the kitchen was covered in frost and two, that the back door was wide open and there was a fox staring straight at me, its front paws just over the doorstep. Whilst my mind was forming the thought 'Aaaargh,I'mgoingtobemauledbyafox', the fox made a strangulated sound that was clearly the vulpine version of 'FUUUUUUUUCK!'. Never taking its eyes from mine, it slowly backed away, removing each paw from my kitchen with slow and deliberate movements - the same movements we all make when trying to appear casual when backing away from a loony at the late night bus shelter - and then turned and absolutely pegged it, crashing into the fence and then crazily jumping onto the shed to make its escape, all the while making sounds that I did not need to be Johnny Morris to know meant 'oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit'. Frozen human shortarse in novelty Xmas pyjamas 1: supposedly killer vermin 0.
They say foxes go into a frenzy in a chicken coop, but this is just emotive language - a hungry animal getting food for its family is going to do more than give a single prey a nasty bite and also, foxes are so easily freaked-out that all the squawking and flapping and flying about probably panics them into attacking everything in sight out of a sense of misplaced self-defence. They're like the terrified first time teenage burglar of the animal world in this respect. I hate the dark side of anthropomorphism; that when animals kill or attack, they are doing it due to 'evil' intent; that they are cold-hearted, cold-blooded killers, that they are specifically targeting us for some twisted reason. Leaving aside the obvious point about the destructiveness of humanity, this is not only embarrassingly kiddy-level illogic, it just serves to threaten a further sense of isolation and disconnect between humans and the natural world. Carnivorous and omnivorous animals kill to survive; there is no intentional cruelty involved. Well, apart from cats, but let's leave them out of things for now (I don't want to make them mad). We forget that humans too are omnivorous creatures that eat other creatures to live; we've just found sophisticated ways of both killing and alienating ourselves from the reality of doing so. Ways, that if other animals had our level of understanding and morality, would truly appal them. Well, again, apart from cats (more on the madness of cats later).
We also forget that humans too are animals made of tasty meat. In the main, considering we're so much smaller and/or feebler than so many other meat-eating animals, as a race we get off pretty bloody lightly in the being-eaten-or-attacked stakes. The subtext of the Killer Foxes hysteria is that the fox was trying to eat those poor babies. I don't believe this for a second, but the sad fact is that it does not make it 'evil' if it was. No-one has stated that the injuries were even caused by the fox biting them, although it's entirely reasonable to presume that if might bite if freaked out - after all, foxes belong to the dog family and we all know how unpredictably nervous dogs can act, especially around babies and children; this does not make it 'evil'.
There is one very important thing that all these wildly speculating hacks have overlooked in their clamour to exploit a family's suffering: that a fox's call sounds eerily like a crying baby. Okay, to be precise, it sounds like a nightmarish synth version of a possessed crying baby in a mid-80s shlock horror, but it still sounds like a baby crying - the first time I heard one, in my teens, I woke my parents up in a panic because I thought one of the neighbours must be doing something terrible to one of their infants. It is entirely reasonable to imagine that the fox found the house open and heard what it thought was the cry of another fox - maybe even the cries of some cubs - and went to investiagate. It's entirely reasonable to imagine that the fox couldn't see what it thought it would and, alerted by noise, jumped in the cot to investigate. Just that, or the fox scrabbling to get out could cause horrendous claw injuries on human flash. I am not trying to lessen the devastation the family must feel or gloss over the reality of the horrible injuries suffered. One of the twins most likely faces a childhood, if not lifetime, of corrective plastic surgery procedures. I just find the callous way the tabloids have jumped on this unheard-of occurrence to create The Next Big Scare that preys on the minds of parents the only 'evil' thing about it all.
Above all, the silliest thing about the whole Evil Murdering Foxes horseshit is that the tabloids are getting everyone so worked up over a freak event so freakish that until a few days ago, none of us had ever heard of a fox attacking a human, much less thought of them as any sort of threat to us and ours. Animal experts have been rushing to explain that they just don't know of instances where foxes attack people and when foxes do gain accidental entry to houses, they tend to act like dogs; curling up to sleep on beds, chewing rugs and shoes, opening cupboards and eating accessible food, etc. Certain animals are called vermin and depicted as 'bad' or 'evil' purely because they aren't any use to humans ie for food, as beasts of burden, as pets, etc. This seems to especially be the lot of foxes and I worry that far too many people forget or do no want to expect that animals are actually, um, allowed to be animals regardless of the needs and interests and lives of human animals. This doesn't stop me being heartbroken when an animal maims or kills humans, but it does stop me feeling the need to look like an idiot by screaming about culling whatever species has offended us most recently. Pet cats are responsible for the deaths of a few babies a year, as they are prone to sitting across their faces and suffocating them (anyone who owns, or has ever owned, a cat will know they love to lie over your throat at night as your breath is so warm), but no-one suggests that mankind is under threat from cats (AKA Moggy Murderers, Feline Fiends). Even though all you have to do is be stroking them and they can go from purring in ecstasy to trying to screechingly rip your face off in 0.00001 seconds for absolutely no discernible reason. Which we find adorable!
I guess the point of this blog, apart from defending foxes, which get a pretty bum deal, publicity-wise, and hoping that this doesn't somehow create a resurgence of support for fox hunting from ignorant fucktards, is to release a strangulated cry of exasperation over the ridiculous lengths that the gutter press will go to to scaremonger and create sensation from absolutely anything. Portraying utterly bizarre events that they blow out of all proportion in their 'reporting' just adds another tiny layer of worry, panic and dissatisfaction with the modern world in the minds of those too gullible and kneejerk to see through the nonsense they're being spoonfed and benefits no-one apart from Moloch, sorry, Murdoch. The tabloids have managed to create yet another reason why the people they make unnecessarily scared of their own lives feel the need to cling to the every spurious, hateful word of the very people that make them so unhappy, like a whipped dog lovingly licking the hand of its master. Or a fox thanking a hunt master for the exercise.
I'll let the last words on this go to my wise friend Hannah W: "We like cuddly foxes in the country but we don't want them in towns, thank you. We don't want to ban fox hunting but we're perfectly happy to lay traps and put down poison to get those urban foxes who try to murder our children. Or we'd like to maybe bring back fox hunting, because look what's happened - we ban it and this is how they repay our kindness! We want to continue dropping litter in the streets and scattering fast food at midnight but we don't want any nasty predators taking advantage of it. We want our wildlife to look pretty for Springwatch but don't want it near us".
Amen.
By E.
PS Nuffink for 5 weeks then two in one day! Blogs, I mean, hur hur. Stayed tuned for more schizo blog posting, folks!
I am, of course, referring to the ridiculously hyped-up furore over the horrible and tragic injuries a fox caused female twin babies in London at the weekend. Before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I am not for one second suggesting that that is funny or anything other than appalling. My heart goes out to the poor girls and their families. What I am going to rip the shit out of is the tabloid attitude to the event, which is to whip itself into a nonsensical frenzy over 'evil' foxes.
Nonsensical, because everyone knows that foxes are evil - Foxy Bingo sponsors the Jeremy Kyle show, for fuck's sake! Every time that annoying Northern Chancer fox character does one of his little catchphrases before and after ad breaks, a hell mouth opens incrementally wider beneath Doncaster. And after he has sponsored the breakdown of civilisation as we know it and possibly helped quicken the coming of the Apocalypse, the jive-walking bastard relaxes with a spot of murder. He has a weighty duffle bag fashioned from the same lurid velour as his pimp suit, filled with grotesque and terrifying instruments, both medical and home-made, that he uses on his victims in ways more grotesque and sickening than anything Saw, Hostel or any other torture porn flicks could ever come up with.
Not.
What most people don't know is that foxes are wimps. They are pathetic. I used to be a hunt sab and the very reason cunters, sorry, hunters chose foxes and deer is that both species have great stamina but will panic and brick it when chased. A fox could easily take on a few dogs, or at least try to, but they just cower and freeze. Several years ago, when living with The Ex, he had an annoying habit of going outside for a fag just before bed and forgetting to lock the back door (despite my nagging). One winter morning I had to wake up earlier than him and as soon as my alarm went off and I realised I was mindbogglingly cold, I also realised that the back door must be open. As I made my way, shivering, downstairs and opened the door to the kitchen, I noticed two things - one, that everything in the kitchen was covered in frost and two, that the back door was wide open and there was a fox staring straight at me, its front paws just over the doorstep. Whilst my mind was forming the thought 'Aaaargh,I'mgoingtobemauledbyafox', the fox made a strangulated sound that was clearly the vulpine version of 'FUUUUUUUUCK!'. Never taking its eyes from mine, it slowly backed away, removing each paw from my kitchen with slow and deliberate movements - the same movements we all make when trying to appear casual when backing away from a loony at the late night bus shelter - and then turned and absolutely pegged it, crashing into the fence and then crazily jumping onto the shed to make its escape, all the while making sounds that I did not need to be Johnny Morris to know meant 'oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit'. Frozen human shortarse in novelty Xmas pyjamas 1: supposedly killer vermin 0.
They say foxes go into a frenzy in a chicken coop, but this is just emotive language - a hungry animal getting food for its family is going to do more than give a single prey a nasty bite and also, foxes are so easily freaked-out that all the squawking and flapping and flying about probably panics them into attacking everything in sight out of a sense of misplaced self-defence. They're like the terrified first time teenage burglar of the animal world in this respect. I hate the dark side of anthropomorphism; that when animals kill or attack, they are doing it due to 'evil' intent; that they are cold-hearted, cold-blooded killers, that they are specifically targeting us for some twisted reason. Leaving aside the obvious point about the destructiveness of humanity, this is not only embarrassingly kiddy-level illogic, it just serves to threaten a further sense of isolation and disconnect between humans and the natural world. Carnivorous and omnivorous animals kill to survive; there is no intentional cruelty involved. Well, apart from cats, but let's leave them out of things for now (I don't want to make them mad). We forget that humans too are omnivorous creatures that eat other creatures to live; we've just found sophisticated ways of both killing and alienating ourselves from the reality of doing so. Ways, that if other animals had our level of understanding and morality, would truly appal them. Well, again, apart from cats (more on the madness of cats later).
We also forget that humans too are animals made of tasty meat. In the main, considering we're so much smaller and/or feebler than so many other meat-eating animals, as a race we get off pretty bloody lightly in the being-eaten-or-attacked stakes. The subtext of the Killer Foxes hysteria is that the fox was trying to eat those poor babies. I don't believe this for a second, but the sad fact is that it does not make it 'evil' if it was. No-one has stated that the injuries were even caused by the fox biting them, although it's entirely reasonable to presume that if might bite if freaked out - after all, foxes belong to the dog family and we all know how unpredictably nervous dogs can act, especially around babies and children; this does not make it 'evil'.
There is one very important thing that all these wildly speculating hacks have overlooked in their clamour to exploit a family's suffering: that a fox's call sounds eerily like a crying baby. Okay, to be precise, it sounds like a nightmarish synth version of a possessed crying baby in a mid-80s shlock horror, but it still sounds like a baby crying - the first time I heard one, in my teens, I woke my parents up in a panic because I thought one of the neighbours must be doing something terrible to one of their infants. It is entirely reasonable to imagine that the fox found the house open and heard what it thought was the cry of another fox - maybe even the cries of some cubs - and went to investiagate. It's entirely reasonable to imagine that the fox couldn't see what it thought it would and, alerted by noise, jumped in the cot to investigate. Just that, or the fox scrabbling to get out could cause horrendous claw injuries on human flash. I am not trying to lessen the devastation the family must feel or gloss over the reality of the horrible injuries suffered. One of the twins most likely faces a childhood, if not lifetime, of corrective plastic surgery procedures. I just find the callous way the tabloids have jumped on this unheard-of occurrence to create The Next Big Scare that preys on the minds of parents the only 'evil' thing about it all.
Above all, the silliest thing about the whole Evil Murdering Foxes horseshit is that the tabloids are getting everyone so worked up over a freak event so freakish that until a few days ago, none of us had ever heard of a fox attacking a human, much less thought of them as any sort of threat to us and ours. Animal experts have been rushing to explain that they just don't know of instances where foxes attack people and when foxes do gain accidental entry to houses, they tend to act like dogs; curling up to sleep on beds, chewing rugs and shoes, opening cupboards and eating accessible food, etc. Certain animals are called vermin and depicted as 'bad' or 'evil' purely because they aren't any use to humans ie for food, as beasts of burden, as pets, etc. This seems to especially be the lot of foxes and I worry that far too many people forget or do no want to expect that animals are actually, um, allowed to be animals regardless of the needs and interests and lives of human animals. This doesn't stop me being heartbroken when an animal maims or kills humans, but it does stop me feeling the need to look like an idiot by screaming about culling whatever species has offended us most recently. Pet cats are responsible for the deaths of a few babies a year, as they are prone to sitting across their faces and suffocating them (anyone who owns, or has ever owned, a cat will know they love to lie over your throat at night as your breath is so warm), but no-one suggests that mankind is under threat from cats (AKA Moggy Murderers, Feline Fiends). Even though all you have to do is be stroking them and they can go from purring in ecstasy to trying to screechingly rip your face off in 0.00001 seconds for absolutely no discernible reason. Which we find adorable!
I guess the point of this blog, apart from defending foxes, which get a pretty bum deal, publicity-wise, and hoping that this doesn't somehow create a resurgence of support for fox hunting from ignorant fucktards, is to release a strangulated cry of exasperation over the ridiculous lengths that the gutter press will go to to scaremonger and create sensation from absolutely anything. Portraying utterly bizarre events that they blow out of all proportion in their 'reporting' just adds another tiny layer of worry, panic and dissatisfaction with the modern world in the minds of those too gullible and kneejerk to see through the nonsense they're being spoonfed and benefits no-one apart from Moloch, sorry, Murdoch. The tabloids have managed to create yet another reason why the people they make unnecessarily scared of their own lives feel the need to cling to the every spurious, hateful word of the very people that make them so unhappy, like a whipped dog lovingly licking the hand of its master. Or a fox thanking a hunt master for the exercise.
I'll let the last words on this go to my wise friend Hannah W: "We like cuddly foxes in the country but we don't want them in towns, thank you. We don't want to ban fox hunting but we're perfectly happy to lay traps and put down poison to get those urban foxes who try to murder our children. Or we'd like to maybe bring back fox hunting, because look what's happened - we ban it and this is how they repay our kindness! We want to continue dropping litter in the streets and scattering fast food at midnight but we don't want any nasty predators taking advantage of it. We want our wildlife to look pretty for Springwatch but don't want it near us".
Amen.
By E.
PS Nuffink for 5 weeks then two in one day! Blogs, I mean, hur hur. Stayed tuned for more schizo blog posting, folks!
Nervous Nelly
It is slowly becoming clear to me that the rest of the world may not be quite as anxious and neurotic as me. I should've realised this a long time ago, but I was too busy worrying about crap to notice (ho ho). I was 25 before I could watch a horror film and not imagine it was somehow going to happen to me, 30 before I stopped sweeping my dearly-departed Granddad's walking stick around my wardrobe before retiring to bed, in case a lunatic was hiding in there (when clearly the only mental in the room was me). I am already depressed and nervous about how scared I'll be about dying when I'm an old lady. I have to be soppy to M before bed not only because I love him *pauses for mass vomiting to subside* but also in case he dies in the night - quite how and why this would happen to a fit, healthy young man in his late twenties I do not know, but that's irrelevant because I once read a book where this occurred so it must be considered as part of My Long List of Freaky Shit That Could Theoretically Happen (in fact, just writing 'fit, healthy, young...' has brought me out in a cold sweat, in case there's some black-humoured, piss-taking deity out there wanting to punish Atheists like me in sick ways. I know that's what I'd do if I was some some sort of Supreme Overlord).
When I am ill or just experiencing some weird, unusual, vague physical pains or twinges, I mentally write a tacky article for Take A Break mag or one of its ilk, going into lurid, gruesome and sensationalised detail about my horrific and freakish demise from some weird, unheard-of condition or bizarre accident. I have just discovered that no-one else does this and am confused - how do you cope with the panic you feel over every little thing? Wait, you mean you don't feel panic over every little thing? How does THAT work? I must be one of the few people who doesn't laugh at Woody Allen's supreme nervous nebbishness (nebbicity?) in his earlier, good films, because I think he's being entirely reasonable and, in fact, not worrying about things enough.
How I hate people who can be spontaneous, who can think 'that'll be a laugh' and just do things. I have been a massive loser work-wise because I second-guess and fret myself out of making even the mildest of professional risks. Or even just 'giving things a go'. Or even bothering to apply for things I could easily do. Or even doing anything other than moaning 'what's the point?' to myself or those (un)lucky enough to be enamoured of me. And how I hate the phrases 'just relax and it'll happen' or 'stop worrying about it' - HOW, exactly, do you stop worrying about stuff when it's your default setting? Casual phrases like that not only make me worry even more about needing to not worry but make me seethe with rage over their blasé attitude to life and my inability to relax.
Recently, I was given Temazepam to calm me down before a minor op (a procedure I prepared for by obsessively and tearfully discussing hysterical 'what-ifs' with M and my Mum and sobbing in the middle of the night imagining my freak death under sedation or them finding something terminal. I also wrote M a goodbye love letter although managed to tell myself I was being a twat enough not to also write a rudimentary will and jot down all my online passwords lest he needed to close accounts down or tell online pals the sad news). It was less than 2 minutes before I was then given the general anaesthetic but mein gott, it was fan-fucking-tastic. I didn't feel spaced-out or drugged or anything 'altered' - I just felt... calm. Relaxed. Totally unanxious. It was wonderful. It was freaky. It was WRONG.
But I can't stop thinking about those 90 seconds of peace. Not that I want to get hooked on jellies, because I just don't have an addictive personality and besides, it would such a naff, 90s thing to do, but because it was, well, nice. 'Wrong' for me, but in a right way. Perhaps those absolute bastards who don't squander their adrenal reserves away via dry-eyed insomniac panic about absolute triva might be onto something. I really want to be less anxious about everything. I'm going to try to not be so neurotic and worrisome about everything, which is now making me worry about how much change this will involve and how, exactly, I will achieve this. How will I manage to do things without the excuse of anxiety to hold me back? How will I fill a mental void free of incessant fretting? Will being more laid-back ruin my perceptive and analytical skills if my mind is floating around on a chilled-out cloud of kittens and cupcakes? And how will I internally reassure myself over genuine worries? Being anxious and neurotic, in a weird way, is very soothing and acts as a buffer against life's blows - if you're imaging you've got necrotising fasciitis every time you gets pins and needles (disclaimer: I'm not actually this bad) then whatever shit life throws at you really isn't so bad in comparison.
Also, everyone hates happy cunts. They're almost as bad as born-again Christians... if they're not one already. I associate a lack of anxiety as a lack of intelligence, because both are a result of not thinking deeply. I guess I just need to find the line between ignorance and getting things in perspective. Watch this space.
By E - even writing the initial of my name makes me start worrying that unhinged strangers will work out who I am and come hunt me down and turn my life into a hellish Serial Killer Nightmare. Then I remember that there's probably less than 10 people will read this anyway, 99% of whom know me already and I can 'relax' with the lesser worry that this blog is crap and a failure and I'm a massive, talentless loser. I have a long, long way to go, don't I?
When I am ill or just experiencing some weird, unusual, vague physical pains or twinges, I mentally write a tacky article for Take A Break mag or one of its ilk, going into lurid, gruesome and sensationalised detail about my horrific and freakish demise from some weird, unheard-of condition or bizarre accident. I have just discovered that no-one else does this and am confused - how do you cope with the panic you feel over every little thing? Wait, you mean you don't feel panic over every little thing? How does THAT work? I must be one of the few people who doesn't laugh at Woody Allen's supreme nervous nebbishness (nebbicity?) in his earlier, good films, because I think he's being entirely reasonable and, in fact, not worrying about things enough.
How I hate people who can be spontaneous, who can think 'that'll be a laugh' and just do things. I have been a massive loser work-wise because I second-guess and fret myself out of making even the mildest of professional risks. Or even just 'giving things a go'. Or even bothering to apply for things I could easily do. Or even doing anything other than moaning 'what's the point?' to myself or those (un)lucky enough to be enamoured of me. And how I hate the phrases 'just relax and it'll happen' or 'stop worrying about it' - HOW, exactly, do you stop worrying about stuff when it's your default setting? Casual phrases like that not only make me worry even more about needing to not worry but make me seethe with rage over their blasé attitude to life and my inability to relax.
Recently, I was given Temazepam to calm me down before a minor op (a procedure I prepared for by obsessively and tearfully discussing hysterical 'what-ifs' with M and my Mum and sobbing in the middle of the night imagining my freak death under sedation or them finding something terminal. I also wrote M a goodbye love letter although managed to tell myself I was being a twat enough not to also write a rudimentary will and jot down all my online passwords lest he needed to close accounts down or tell online pals the sad news). It was less than 2 minutes before I was then given the general anaesthetic but mein gott, it was fan-fucking-tastic. I didn't feel spaced-out or drugged or anything 'altered' - I just felt... calm. Relaxed. Totally unanxious. It was wonderful. It was freaky. It was WRONG.
But I can't stop thinking about those 90 seconds of peace. Not that I want to get hooked on jellies, because I just don't have an addictive personality and besides, it would such a naff, 90s thing to do, but because it was, well, nice. 'Wrong' for me, but in a right way. Perhaps those absolute bastards who don't squander their adrenal reserves away via dry-eyed insomniac panic about absolute triva might be onto something. I really want to be less anxious about everything. I'm going to try to not be so neurotic and worrisome about everything, which is now making me worry about how much change this will involve and how, exactly, I will achieve this. How will I manage to do things without the excuse of anxiety to hold me back? How will I fill a mental void free of incessant fretting? Will being more laid-back ruin my perceptive and analytical skills if my mind is floating around on a chilled-out cloud of kittens and cupcakes? And how will I internally reassure myself over genuine worries? Being anxious and neurotic, in a weird way, is very soothing and acts as a buffer against life's blows - if you're imaging you've got necrotising fasciitis every time you gets pins and needles (disclaimer: I'm not actually this bad) then whatever shit life throws at you really isn't so bad in comparison.
Also, everyone hates happy cunts. They're almost as bad as born-again Christians... if they're not one already. I associate a lack of anxiety as a lack of intelligence, because both are a result of not thinking deeply. I guess I just need to find the line between ignorance and getting things in perspective. Watch this space.
By E - even writing the initial of my name makes me start worrying that unhinged strangers will work out who I am and come hunt me down and turn my life into a hellish Serial Killer Nightmare. Then I remember that there's probably less than 10 people will read this anyway, 99% of whom know me already and I can 'relax' with the lesser worry that this blog is crap and a failure and I'm a massive, talentless loser. I have a long, long way to go, don't I?
Monday 3 May 2010
Ain't No Twat In The Union Jack
Hello peepoes. Have you been *loving* the jaw-dropping headlines and stories about Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems that the Daily Murdochs have been collectively spewing out over the few weeks or so? I have. I *loved* them so much that I thought I'd give you a few of my own as an amuse-bouche before the long slog of a ridiculously long and serious blog:
Clegg's favourite comedian is Jim Davidson!
Clegg's ring tone is Crazy Frog!
Clegg took a shit on the Queen Mum's grave then wanked over it!
Clegg abducted Madeleine McCann!
Secret Lib Dem scientists to release Zombie plague just before World Cup*!
*It will also make the undead gay and Muslim. Which does pose the question of how much sympathy the tabloids would have for the victims.
The whole recent nonsense about Gillian Duffy, The Bigoted WomanTM, has just further revealed how insidious an intellectual cancer the tabloid way of thinking really is. Calling a bigoted woman a bigoted woman is perfectly reasonable to me, even restrained! And the fact that even though it was a private comment that was blown out of all proportion just points to the nasty-minded, shallow, trivial, kneejerk thicko thinking that's becoming so much more prevalent in society and which the Daily Murdochs are encouraging, shaping and propagating. The Daily Heil went mad after the last leadership debate because they didn't focus on Bigotgate! All this does is further make it clear - as if it couldn't be any clearer! - that the Daily Murdochs feed into the basest and pettiest of human behaviour that we tell ourselves isn't harmful: bitching, obsessing over trivial slurs and problems and working oneself into a tizzy over the smallest thing, focusing on that stupid little issue and never letting go, like a dog with a bone, as though some petty little nonsense matters more than any other issue and generally blowing the whole thing out all of proportion. This sort of thing is just about acceptable over a cup of tea with our neighbours, moaning about late buses with strangers at the bus stop or in the girls' bathroom at school but not in this sort of universal way. It is not just pathetic and annoying, it is humiliating to witness and entirely tedious. How can anyone respect (or read) a newspaper that approaches every issue like a bitter, moany old Nan with a touch of sundowner's and a colossal dripping-cooked chip on her shoulder? If media is something that we look to for authoritative representation of truth and fact, why is it acceptable for far too many of them to be about as authoritative, clued-up, calm and objective as two chavvy teen girls slagging off 'that bitch' at the back of the bus?!
I actually think these rags have done society a huge favour with all this extraspecial bullshit; because they themselves are stuck in a backward, future-fearful, Ruritanian mindset, they underestimate people's access to info nowadays. They forget that it's all Murdochian agenda, not fact or truth, and that we can all find out easily that they're run and owned and controlled by Murdoch, and that we have so much more info at our fingertips via the net and that being on the net, certainly for younger people, means that we have wider circles of friends that we could ever have had before the rise of social networking, so that we are exposed to a much broader view of the world, introduced to and challenged by, lots of different opinions and new facts. We can effortlessly click on posted links that take us to sites and facts we'd never otherwise see and with the televised leader's debates, we can see for ourselves what the leaders are like and how they cope under pressure and being truthful (as far as possible), etc. Certainly, far too many people are still too gullible and easily-swayed, but on the other hand, more people are now clued-up, perceptive and more widely-read, at least media-wise, and can see the rabid, disgusting scaremongering, shameless agenda-pushing and outright lying of the tabloids for what they truly are. One can only hope that the two balance each other out, if nothing else.
Far from being the first herald of the apocalypse that the rags fall over themselves to portray, social networking sites like Facebook give us access to experiences, opinions and facts that most people would never have otherwise encountered. And the fact that this happens practically by osmosis due to the very nature of social networking is its beauty; open-mindedness and awareness being increased just by being yourself, by being social and revealing just how easy and normal it is to be tolerant and broad-minded. Obviously, a small number of people don't have this experience or even use social networking to connect with other idiots and sickos like themselves and cement in their minds the rightness of their idiocy and/or sickness, but that's sadly unavoidable. Post-Facebook Britain is not going to be duped by the Cult of Murdoch in the same way that it has been in the past. The more you socialise and expose yourself to difference, you cannot keep your mind so closed to facts and figures and you can't help but get wiser, more tolerant and empathetic, more understanding and more, well, socialist. I'm not saying for a minute that signing up to FaceCrack will have you singing The Red Flag and getting a tattoo of Aneurin Bevan within a week, but the more you widen your experience of people, the more you broaden your mind.
I'm actually surprised that one of the few things that Facebook isn't accused of by the tabloids is the spread of what online commentors like to call ZaNuLiarBore (ie New Labour) propaganda - after all, they blame it for everything else. On the other hand, the lies they spread have never had to be based on fact or truth before, so why am I expecting them to get anything even slightly right?!
One question that has been rattling round my head during Election Season is wondering why the right wing parties and papers love to bang on about 'broken Britain'? Frothing on like a mad old Uncle on Boxing Day about how our country is terrible and ruined and going to the dogs and THEN they claim to be the true patriots! So let me get this straight - it's because you love this nation and being part of it so much that you spread lies, deceit and hatred to convince everyone it's a nightmarish shit hole, is it? This attitude reminds me of the Australian ranger character from Monty Python who proudly declared that "I love animals - that's why I kill 'em". The tabloids seem to have all decided to whip a sadly large proportion of the country into an frenzy of entirely fictitious and pointless fears, beliefs and apparent truisms. The number of people inculcated in the Cult of Murdoch seems to be growing exponentially with the growth of people getting smart, getting more knowledgeable, getting deprogrammed from the cult's clutches and rescuing others. Like any good sect, The Cult of Murdoch has a goodly array of mantras for its acolytes to parrot; mantras that are empty and trite but cleverly designed to strike a chord in the minds of people unable or unwilling to think about things in any way that isn't self-obsessed and parochial. People bandy about phrases like 'it's political correctness gone mad' and 'you're not allowed to be proud to be British anymore', as though these were actual facts. As though they have bothered to even think for themselves for a split second; or been allowed to by the Cult. The Cult takes the thing you hold most precious, breaks it apart and when you're empty and despairing, promises to give you a new, better vision of that precious thing... and all you have to do is obey.
Let's look at those two particular examples of popular empty rhetoric in more detail. Obviously, if you're reading this, I think it's safe to presume you don't need to be told that they are meaningless, untrue horseshit. But just dismissing them without investigation is hazardous, for ignoring them as the rambling of fucktards (even though they are) helps them become part of a certain type of pervasive cultural lexicon. 'It's political correctness gone mad' is the adult version of shouting 'S'not FAIR!' and storming off to one's room when Mummy expects you to do something reasonable or tells you off for something you deserve to be confronted about. It is the battle cry of inadequates who begrudge being expected to be a full, normal adult and think about others for a few seconds, instead of being able to do and say whatever they like. And the worst thing is that encouraging this behaviour and thinking actually punishes those doing it, not frees them, because it makes them see everything and everyone as the enemy - except for the bastards forcing this crap on them. Of course, this has always been the attitude and behaviour of Tories but the beauty of it is that it takes a very upper-class concept and makes Uncle Toms of ordinary men and women brainwashed into the mindset of Massah. Once you get the people you want to control to enslave themselves, they'll self-chastise of their own volition and possibly be crueller than you ever would. They will then never be able to see the inherent and unnecessary induced-masochism that has become their norm. Basically, this is a phrase that encourages low-level sociopathy; the outrage at having to have any responsibility, accountability and more importantly, empathy, whilst fully expecting and demanding that society bends backward to anticipate, accommodate, appreciate and facilitate your every need. The idiotic and plain wrong notion that 'you're not allowed to be proud to be British anymore' is part of the same anti-logic. It furthers the lie that being expected to be a considerate, functioning member of society is a an aggressive attempt to strip you of your rights and very identity; that thinking outside yourself for a second is the annihilation of self. These phrases want to encourage all that fascistic libertarianism has to offer: selfishness, fear, confusion, resentment, non-participation, dissent, and pathetic, sulky megalomania. These are the default emotions of people who feel something lacking in their lives and deep within themselves and need to fill it with something; anything. These usually being anything that apportions blame anywhere other than where it belongs - with the very individual feeling it in the first place. The irony is, of course, that the very thing that is lacking is the ability to look properly, intelligently and objectively at what is within and without.
But so many people tragically want and need a stern-but-indulgent, all-authoritative Daddy to override the caring, thoughtful and reasonable expectations and chastisements of Mother Society. Do things Daddy's way and he'll lavish you with treats (but don't tell Mummy; poor old Mummy who has to get on with the thankless, repetitive drudge of making everything run smoothly). Since time immemorial, this inadequacy has been met by religion. But with Christianity on the decline in this country, to the happy point where it is rapidly becoming an anachronism and an irrelevance (so much so that one of the most popular Cult of Murdoch memes is that Christians believe themselves to be persecuted because everyone's laughing about their imaginary friend, boohoo), the gullible and ineffectual need someone or something to explain every for them, to issues rules and commands and to tell them what to do, think and who and what to hate (although not necessarily why, as it's always based on irrational and unfair nonsense). What the Cult of Murdoch is doing, very cleverly, very insidiously, very scarily, is creating a pseudo anonymous Cult of Personality, one narrow-minded catchphrase at a time. The typeface of one's favourite right-wing rag replaces the iconic image of a Great Leader in the heart of the weak and stupid and becomes their precious source of 'truth' and succour (and Murdoch is too much of a Jabba The Hutt-alike to ever grace a student's t-shirt, let's face it) and the journalistic style within, his multifarious mouthpiece. Why, it's almost enough to make one invoke the spectre of the cult member's favourite book to crudely mis-reference in online comments - 'Nineteen Eighty Four'! Or, as they always spell it, '1984'. It is easy to sneer at the people who read these papers and become inculcated into the Cult of Murdoch - mainly because they are idiots and deserve it - but do not be fooled; on a much grander scale, a Cult of Personality is capable of equal, if not superior evil to religion. Just look at C20 Russia and China. Obviously, things are no way near that bad here and I'd be as mental as a Daily Heil Express reader myself to suggest they were, but such cultish thinking becoming normative cannot be dismissed as harmless nonsense and allowed to grow unchecked.
The attitude and memes that the Cult of Murdoch and its church leaders, the Conservatives, BNP and UKIP, are trying to spread can only ever be negative and deleterious for society; the puffed-up self-importance of the weak-ego, the need to always feel better than others of the insecure, the blaming of everyone else for all problems, however spuriously, of the petulant primary-school bully. It's quite easy to understand why right-wingers always hark back to the days of the second world war, calling it a simpler, better time, because for them, the mores of that time represent a form of acceptance for all the nasty, pathetic, pompous little bad characteristics all right-wingers share: the need to blame, to have an enemy, for homogeneity, aggression and jingoism to be lionised, for crude stereotypes to reign, for everyone to be in their place so that the blinkered do not have to make any effort towards anyone else or particularly control their own behaviour, for there to be a definite 'them and us', for everything to be focused on one monolithic, androcentric goal that required no subtlety, finesse of mind or action, no creativity, no diversity, no change, no intelligence, perception or thinking. To be able to reject, eject, hate and even destroy with impunity. To ride roughshod over anyone who isn't exactly the same. To have something instant and unchallenging to fill the dark spaces left by lifelong feelings of inadequacy, instead of looking at oneself. To feel powerful, to be in control, to be on top; to be SUPERIOR. To BLAME, BLAME, BLAME.
Of course, it's very clever to always hark back to the mores of WWII as many of them represent the very best of who we are: the unity, the camaraderie, the inclusiveness, the pulling-together, the fearlessness, the selflessness, the charity, the perseverance. The right want to trick us into thinking that these wonderful characteristics, which are certainly things to be very proud of, can only go hand-in-hand with the vile negative flipside. They are so brainwashed by the negative set of mores that they cannot see or believe that the positive ones are entirely possible - and, indeed, much more possible - with a more laid-back, caring, inclusive, open, multi-cultural, tolerant, egalitarian mindset. My Grandfather was a tank commander in WWII and when me and my brother asked him, as children, what was his proudest moment about the War, he answered without having to think: it was that he had got the job done without ever killing a single person (the second was that he had tricked a German platoon out of its entire cigarette supply). THAT'S why we should be proud to be British - we will get down and dirty when it's called for but we will always remain civilised and caring about humanity. And be unassuming, nonchalant and joky about it too.
There is one sad and ironic twist on the phrase 'you aren't allowed to be proud to be British anymore', of course - that it is the very people who spout this bollocks that make it impossible to truly be proud to be British. To me, it is these people who are ruining this nation. Perhaps we all have a few acres of Ruritania we retreat to in our minds when thinking about national identity. In mine, the occupants of my Britain are quirky, complex, funny, delightful people with steady hearts and quixotic tastes and moods. We channel negativity and disappointment into sarcasm and black humour. Our culture is so vibrant, fresh and exciting, with something for everyone because we embrace the multiplicity and variety of experience and background that arguably make us the, well, grooviest nation on Earth. All the things that right-wingers hate are what make us great; that give us things that make the rest of the world love us - our fluidity, our eccentricity, our understated, underplaying of achievement and skill that only the truly confident in oneself can have. Our ability to adapt and thrive, to welcome the new and strange and make it work with what we've already got. To ask for little but to give so much. We're not attention-seekers or fuss-makers because what's the point and besides - we have to cycle to the library whilst the rain holds off. It might be as unrealistic as the picture the Daily Murdochs are intent on painting, but I know which one I'd rather believe in - and be part of.
By E.
Clegg's favourite comedian is Jim Davidson!
Clegg's ring tone is Crazy Frog!
Clegg took a shit on the Queen Mum's grave then wanked over it!
Clegg abducted Madeleine McCann!
Secret Lib Dem scientists to release Zombie plague just before World Cup*!
*It will also make the undead gay and Muslim. Which does pose the question of how much sympathy the tabloids would have for the victims.
The whole recent nonsense about Gillian Duffy, The Bigoted WomanTM, has just further revealed how insidious an intellectual cancer the tabloid way of thinking really is. Calling a bigoted woman a bigoted woman is perfectly reasonable to me, even restrained! And the fact that even though it was a private comment that was blown out of all proportion just points to the nasty-minded, shallow, trivial, kneejerk thicko thinking that's becoming so much more prevalent in society and which the Daily Murdochs are encouraging, shaping and propagating. The Daily Heil went mad after the last leadership debate because they didn't focus on Bigotgate! All this does is further make it clear - as if it couldn't be any clearer! - that the Daily Murdochs feed into the basest and pettiest of human behaviour that we tell ourselves isn't harmful: bitching, obsessing over trivial slurs and problems and working oneself into a tizzy over the smallest thing, focusing on that stupid little issue and never letting go, like a dog with a bone, as though some petty little nonsense matters more than any other issue and generally blowing the whole thing out all of proportion. This sort of thing is just about acceptable over a cup of tea with our neighbours, moaning about late buses with strangers at the bus stop or in the girls' bathroom at school but not in this sort of universal way. It is not just pathetic and annoying, it is humiliating to witness and entirely tedious. How can anyone respect (or read) a newspaper that approaches every issue like a bitter, moany old Nan with a touch of sundowner's and a colossal dripping-cooked chip on her shoulder? If media is something that we look to for authoritative representation of truth and fact, why is it acceptable for far too many of them to be about as authoritative, clued-up, calm and objective as two chavvy teen girls slagging off 'that bitch' at the back of the bus?!
I actually think these rags have done society a huge favour with all this extraspecial bullshit; because they themselves are stuck in a backward, future-fearful, Ruritanian mindset, they underestimate people's access to info nowadays. They forget that it's all Murdochian agenda, not fact or truth, and that we can all find out easily that they're run and owned and controlled by Murdoch, and that we have so much more info at our fingertips via the net and that being on the net, certainly for younger people, means that we have wider circles of friends that we could ever have had before the rise of social networking, so that we are exposed to a much broader view of the world, introduced to and challenged by, lots of different opinions and new facts. We can effortlessly click on posted links that take us to sites and facts we'd never otherwise see and with the televised leader's debates, we can see for ourselves what the leaders are like and how they cope under pressure and being truthful (as far as possible), etc. Certainly, far too many people are still too gullible and easily-swayed, but on the other hand, more people are now clued-up, perceptive and more widely-read, at least media-wise, and can see the rabid, disgusting scaremongering, shameless agenda-pushing and outright lying of the tabloids for what they truly are. One can only hope that the two balance each other out, if nothing else.
Far from being the first herald of the apocalypse that the rags fall over themselves to portray, social networking sites like Facebook give us access to experiences, opinions and facts that most people would never have otherwise encountered. And the fact that this happens practically by osmosis due to the very nature of social networking is its beauty; open-mindedness and awareness being increased just by being yourself, by being social and revealing just how easy and normal it is to be tolerant and broad-minded. Obviously, a small number of people don't have this experience or even use social networking to connect with other idiots and sickos like themselves and cement in their minds the rightness of their idiocy and/or sickness, but that's sadly unavoidable. Post-Facebook Britain is not going to be duped by the Cult of Murdoch in the same way that it has been in the past. The more you socialise and expose yourself to difference, you cannot keep your mind so closed to facts and figures and you can't help but get wiser, more tolerant and empathetic, more understanding and more, well, socialist. I'm not saying for a minute that signing up to FaceCrack will have you singing The Red Flag and getting a tattoo of Aneurin Bevan within a week, but the more you widen your experience of people, the more you broaden your mind.
I'm actually surprised that one of the few things that Facebook isn't accused of by the tabloids is the spread of what online commentors like to call ZaNuLiarBore (ie New Labour) propaganda - after all, they blame it for everything else. On the other hand, the lies they spread have never had to be based on fact or truth before, so why am I expecting them to get anything even slightly right?!
One question that has been rattling round my head during Election Season is wondering why the right wing parties and papers love to bang on about 'broken Britain'? Frothing on like a mad old Uncle on Boxing Day about how our country is terrible and ruined and going to the dogs and THEN they claim to be the true patriots! So let me get this straight - it's because you love this nation and being part of it so much that you spread lies, deceit and hatred to convince everyone it's a nightmarish shit hole, is it? This attitude reminds me of the Australian ranger character from Monty Python who proudly declared that "I love animals - that's why I kill 'em". The tabloids seem to have all decided to whip a sadly large proportion of the country into an frenzy of entirely fictitious and pointless fears, beliefs and apparent truisms. The number of people inculcated in the Cult of Murdoch seems to be growing exponentially with the growth of people getting smart, getting more knowledgeable, getting deprogrammed from the cult's clutches and rescuing others. Like any good sect, The Cult of Murdoch has a goodly array of mantras for its acolytes to parrot; mantras that are empty and trite but cleverly designed to strike a chord in the minds of people unable or unwilling to think about things in any way that isn't self-obsessed and parochial. People bandy about phrases like 'it's political correctness gone mad' and 'you're not allowed to be proud to be British anymore', as though these were actual facts. As though they have bothered to even think for themselves for a split second; or been allowed to by the Cult. The Cult takes the thing you hold most precious, breaks it apart and when you're empty and despairing, promises to give you a new, better vision of that precious thing... and all you have to do is obey.
Let's look at those two particular examples of popular empty rhetoric in more detail. Obviously, if you're reading this, I think it's safe to presume you don't need to be told that they are meaningless, untrue horseshit. But just dismissing them without investigation is hazardous, for ignoring them as the rambling of fucktards (even though they are) helps them become part of a certain type of pervasive cultural lexicon. 'It's political correctness gone mad' is the adult version of shouting 'S'not FAIR!' and storming off to one's room when Mummy expects you to do something reasonable or tells you off for something you deserve to be confronted about. It is the battle cry of inadequates who begrudge being expected to be a full, normal adult and think about others for a few seconds, instead of being able to do and say whatever they like. And the worst thing is that encouraging this behaviour and thinking actually punishes those doing it, not frees them, because it makes them see everything and everyone as the enemy - except for the bastards forcing this crap on them. Of course, this has always been the attitude and behaviour of Tories but the beauty of it is that it takes a very upper-class concept and makes Uncle Toms of ordinary men and women brainwashed into the mindset of Massah. Once you get the people you want to control to enslave themselves, they'll self-chastise of their own volition and possibly be crueller than you ever would. They will then never be able to see the inherent and unnecessary induced-masochism that has become their norm. Basically, this is a phrase that encourages low-level sociopathy; the outrage at having to have any responsibility, accountability and more importantly, empathy, whilst fully expecting and demanding that society bends backward to anticipate, accommodate, appreciate and facilitate your every need. The idiotic and plain wrong notion that 'you're not allowed to be proud to be British anymore' is part of the same anti-logic. It furthers the lie that being expected to be a considerate, functioning member of society is a an aggressive attempt to strip you of your rights and very identity; that thinking outside yourself for a second is the annihilation of self. These phrases want to encourage all that fascistic libertarianism has to offer: selfishness, fear, confusion, resentment, non-participation, dissent, and pathetic, sulky megalomania. These are the default emotions of people who feel something lacking in their lives and deep within themselves and need to fill it with something; anything. These usually being anything that apportions blame anywhere other than where it belongs - with the very individual feeling it in the first place. The irony is, of course, that the very thing that is lacking is the ability to look properly, intelligently and objectively at what is within and without.
But so many people tragically want and need a stern-but-indulgent, all-authoritative Daddy to override the caring, thoughtful and reasonable expectations and chastisements of Mother Society. Do things Daddy's way and he'll lavish you with treats (but don't tell Mummy; poor old Mummy who has to get on with the thankless, repetitive drudge of making everything run smoothly). Since time immemorial, this inadequacy has been met by religion. But with Christianity on the decline in this country, to the happy point where it is rapidly becoming an anachronism and an irrelevance (so much so that one of the most popular Cult of Murdoch memes is that Christians believe themselves to be persecuted because everyone's laughing about their imaginary friend, boohoo), the gullible and ineffectual need someone or something to explain every for them, to issues rules and commands and to tell them what to do, think and who and what to hate (although not necessarily why, as it's always based on irrational and unfair nonsense). What the Cult of Murdoch is doing, very cleverly, very insidiously, very scarily, is creating a pseudo anonymous Cult of Personality, one narrow-minded catchphrase at a time. The typeface of one's favourite right-wing rag replaces the iconic image of a Great Leader in the heart of the weak and stupid and becomes their precious source of 'truth' and succour (and Murdoch is too much of a Jabba The Hutt-alike to ever grace a student's t-shirt, let's face it) and the journalistic style within, his multifarious mouthpiece. Why, it's almost enough to make one invoke the spectre of the cult member's favourite book to crudely mis-reference in online comments - 'Nineteen Eighty Four'! Or, as they always spell it, '1984'. It is easy to sneer at the people who read these papers and become inculcated into the Cult of Murdoch - mainly because they are idiots and deserve it - but do not be fooled; on a much grander scale, a Cult of Personality is capable of equal, if not superior evil to religion. Just look at C20 Russia and China. Obviously, things are no way near that bad here and I'd be as mental as a Daily Heil Express reader myself to suggest they were, but such cultish thinking becoming normative cannot be dismissed as harmless nonsense and allowed to grow unchecked.
The attitude and memes that the Cult of Murdoch and its church leaders, the Conservatives, BNP and UKIP, are trying to spread can only ever be negative and deleterious for society; the puffed-up self-importance of the weak-ego, the need to always feel better than others of the insecure, the blaming of everyone else for all problems, however spuriously, of the petulant primary-school bully. It's quite easy to understand why right-wingers always hark back to the days of the second world war, calling it a simpler, better time, because for them, the mores of that time represent a form of acceptance for all the nasty, pathetic, pompous little bad characteristics all right-wingers share: the need to blame, to have an enemy, for homogeneity, aggression and jingoism to be lionised, for crude stereotypes to reign, for everyone to be in their place so that the blinkered do not have to make any effort towards anyone else or particularly control their own behaviour, for there to be a definite 'them and us', for everything to be focused on one monolithic, androcentric goal that required no subtlety, finesse of mind or action, no creativity, no diversity, no change, no intelligence, perception or thinking. To be able to reject, eject, hate and even destroy with impunity. To ride roughshod over anyone who isn't exactly the same. To have something instant and unchallenging to fill the dark spaces left by lifelong feelings of inadequacy, instead of looking at oneself. To feel powerful, to be in control, to be on top; to be SUPERIOR. To BLAME, BLAME, BLAME.
Of course, it's very clever to always hark back to the mores of WWII as many of them represent the very best of who we are: the unity, the camaraderie, the inclusiveness, the pulling-together, the fearlessness, the selflessness, the charity, the perseverance. The right want to trick us into thinking that these wonderful characteristics, which are certainly things to be very proud of, can only go hand-in-hand with the vile negative flipside. They are so brainwashed by the negative set of mores that they cannot see or believe that the positive ones are entirely possible - and, indeed, much more possible - with a more laid-back, caring, inclusive, open, multi-cultural, tolerant, egalitarian mindset. My Grandfather was a tank commander in WWII and when me and my brother asked him, as children, what was his proudest moment about the War, he answered without having to think: it was that he had got the job done without ever killing a single person (the second was that he had tricked a German platoon out of its entire cigarette supply). THAT'S why we should be proud to be British - we will get down and dirty when it's called for but we will always remain civilised and caring about humanity. And be unassuming, nonchalant and joky about it too.
There is one sad and ironic twist on the phrase 'you aren't allowed to be proud to be British anymore', of course - that it is the very people who spout this bollocks that make it impossible to truly be proud to be British. To me, it is these people who are ruining this nation. Perhaps we all have a few acres of Ruritania we retreat to in our minds when thinking about national identity. In mine, the occupants of my Britain are quirky, complex, funny, delightful people with steady hearts and quixotic tastes and moods. We channel negativity and disappointment into sarcasm and black humour. Our culture is so vibrant, fresh and exciting, with something for everyone because we embrace the multiplicity and variety of experience and background that arguably make us the, well, grooviest nation on Earth. All the things that right-wingers hate are what make us great; that give us things that make the rest of the world love us - our fluidity, our eccentricity, our understated, underplaying of achievement and skill that only the truly confident in oneself can have. Our ability to adapt and thrive, to welcome the new and strange and make it work with what we've already got. To ask for little but to give so much. We're not attention-seekers or fuss-makers because what's the point and besides - we have to cycle to the library whilst the rain holds off. It might be as unrealistic as the picture the Daily Murdochs are intent on painting, but I know which one I'd rather believe in - and be part of.
By E.
Wednesday 21 April 2010
PR Genius
I, E, have come up with surely the greatest political slogan ever, for the upcoming election: imagine a billboard painted a sunny orange and emblazoned across it, in thick white lettering, these simple words:
'Lib Dems: Fuck It, Why Not?'
Lib Dems: Fuck It, Why Not? Catchy, to the point and it captures the zeitgeist perfectly. Pass it on to all your friends!
'Lib Dems: Fuck It, Why Not?'
Lib Dems: Fuck It, Why Not? Catchy, to the point and it captures the zeitgeist perfectly. Pass it on to all your friends!
Saturday 30 January 2010
Wisdom of The Ages (first in a possible series)
Advice for a female friend aged 35+, who is having a hard time falling pregnant, on what to say to her in-laws who are coming to stay and will, as ever, bombard her with questions about giving them a Grandchild:
"I'm sorry, but can we change the subject? My consultant says that tactlessness is the leading cause of infertility".
"I'm sorry, but can we change the subject? My consultant says that tactlessness is the leading cause of infertility".
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