Monday 21 July 2014

New website - please say hello!

I hope you like my new website!

http://www.eclecticblue.org.uk


Sunday 20 July 2014

Monty Python - a show too far.

It was in 1973 that I went to the Bristol Hippodrome to see 'Monty Python's first farewell tour.'

It was a good show, one of the most surreal events I have ever attended.

This tour was after the TV series but before the movies.  It was a show of classics, done pretty well word for word, culminating in an encore of the Dead Parrot Sketch.  As everything with Python, very clever, funny in parts but nothing side-splitting, unlike what you get with Billy Connolly.

41 years on (gulp!) and their final show ever is on 'Gold', live from the monstrous 02 arena in London.  And I don't think it is very good or very funny.

It depends, almost wholly, on Eric Idle who was not my favourite Python.  He's the hungriest, the best stage performer, the one who gives it energy.  Palin still plays the cheesy characters to great effect, but Cleese looks and sounds tired, and Jones just doesn't do enough.

The sketches, contrary to popular myth, were not always classics.  Some barely worked, some didn't work at all.  Time loves a hero.

At least they are honest: they are doing it for the money.  Of course they are.  Coldplay don't play cavernous football grounds for musical reasons so why should the Pythons pretend they are regurgitating 40 year old sketches and songs for artistic reasons?

I'd have been disappointed if I had laid out money to see this show. It's tired, it's dated but worst of all, most of it isn't funny which the biggest criticism of all.

I wish there was a hell for the perpetrators of MH17 to go to

You can see the bodies from flight MH17 if you want to.  They're on the internet in all the usual places.  Some of the bodies look recognisable to me, not that I recognise them, but someone might.

I am not one of those people who trawled the internet to see a video of Ken Bigley being beheaded in Iraq, nor am I especially keen on seeing adulterers being stoned to death in primitive, backward countries and I don't want to see the innocent victims of mass murder with their privacy, in death, grossly violated.

Curiosity has got the better of me before, but I have quickly remembered that it was voyeurism of the lowest order.

There were children who died in the Ukraine and the books they were reading and the fluffy toys they were cuddling were there for all to see.  You can't tell me that there wasn't someone, a family member, a friend, who might recognise the identity of the child thanks to to the clues?

I found the charred remains of the Boeing 777 upsetting enough, not to mention the aircraft parts scattered for miles around.  And then stories of innocent Ukrainians having bodies crashing through their ceilings.

Generally, the media has been on the right side of good taste, although predictably The Sun brought back echoes of Hillsborough yesterday with reports that the bodies were being pick-pocketed, that there was looting of the crime scene.  I don't know if this is true - I never know if anything, other than its desperate right wing bias, is true in The Sun - but I wouldn't be surprised.  That ordinary people were able to walk through the wreckage and parts of the plane were guarded by as few as one guard and others guarded by no one at all suggests this most pernicious of newspapers may have been onto something. 

The disaster remains shocking, perhaps even more so in the passage of time when we come to see the victims as real people and not numbers.

I do not believe in capital punishment, even for the perpetrators of this evil, wicked act, but sometimes I wish there was a hell for them to go to.

In the meantime, we must wait for the civilised wheels of justice to start turning.

Saturday 19 July 2014

MH17

The mass murder, for that's what it was, of the innocent passengers of flight MH17 stands right up there, or maybe right down there, with the events of 9/11.

For me, the only difference was right at the beginning when news of the disaster broke.  We have seen passenger jets brought down before but we were not familiar with the concept of terrorists flying hijacked aeroplanes into buildings.  

As ever, it is the human stories that emerge which we all find so upsetting.  

Scientists on their way to a conference, students heading for study abroad, ordinary people peacefully going about their own business.

Nothing on earth can justify this act of wanton destruction, this evil act of terrorism.  It had to be a random attack - it is extremely unlikely the perpetrators aimed for this particular aircraft - but that doesn't change a thing.

Watching stories unfold on TV, I was struck by the fields where the plane landed, bodies marked by little flags throughout the fields.  Locals talking about bodies falling to the grounds from 35,000 feet, probably dead already and certainly not conscious, but people who boarded a plane to go somewhere and never made it.

Politicians are talking tough now, as they always do at times like these, and demand to know answers as to how this happened.

But surely we need more than politicians talking: we need action.

The United Nations seems to be weaker than ever when it needs to be stronger.  All over the world, countries squabble over territory, over religion, and the bloodshed continues.  And the horrors of Ukraine suddenly come home to Keynsham, near Bristol, inflicting untold misery on those who have absolutely nothing to do with it.

If Russian 'separatist groups' are to blame, as seems likely, what is Putin's involvement, his knowledge?  For how much longer can we keep him at the top table, regardless of the potential damage to our economic interests?

Like most of you, the more I found out about flight MH17, the more numb I feel about it, and the less hopeful I feel about the future.  

We have learned in many parts of the world that you cannot bomb your way to peace.

Friday 18 July 2014

Another elderly male virgin takes aim at assisted dying

My life is often full of things that drive me mad.

Motorists who don't indicate, politicians who tell lies (this is a permanent fixture, sadly) and tattoos.  

Yesterday, what drove me to distraction was a man of the cloth.

Not any old man of the cloth, mind you, but the Archbishop of Westminster.

Now I don't want to start the day by bashing the bishop (stop guffawing at the back), but this one, a catholic chap, made my blood boil.

Chris Evans hosts the most popular radio show in Europe, the BBC Radio Two breakfast show. Something like 10 million folk tune in every morning to hear his show and I am often one of them.

He is not perfect, and occasionally steps close to the line of advertising his enormous wealth with references to his expensive selection of cars, his pub and generally his lifestyle.  But generally these are irritations and are probably confined just to me.

But there is one part of the show that offends me: the god slot.

The BBC has form with religious propaganda.  Radio Four broadcasts hours of piety, Radio Two has various god slots, local radio is even worse.  There is even a religious department at the BBC -  a series of non jobs basically.

Anyway, yesterday's spokesman, and it's usually a man because that's how religion works, was a big hitter; an Archbishop.

Vincent Nichols is your standard catholic bishop, an elderly white male virgin, who wears frocks.

Yesterday, he decided to take on what he decided to take on 'the killing clinics of Holland and Switzerland' in what was a full frontal attack on the very idea of assisted dying.

His threadbare arguments were, as you might expect, dressed up in the flowery language of religious superstition, with the usual references to 'the sanctity of life', but oddly little about the quality of it.

And then he made a poor argument even poorer by then going on to  publicise his forthcoming trip to Lourdes.

You do not need me to go into the 'healing waters' of Lourdes except to say that you are probably far more likely to get even more ill splashing it all over, what with all those other sick people doing the same.

Millions go there every year, said our Vince, although he failed to mention how many disabled people had miraculously regrown limbs as a result of their visits.

It was hard not to feel contempt for god's important vicar on earth for attacking people's personal decisions to end their own life whilst praising a bizarre catholic gathering based upon the Virgin Mary being seen on 18 occasions by a simple woman called 'Bernadette' Soubirous.   No one else saw this woman who had a child without procreating but 'faith' demands believing in things that would seem to anyone else to be more than slightly unbelievable.  (See also Joseph Smith and the Church of Latter Day Saints.)

People are, of course, entitled to their 'faith', no matter how absurd it seems to the rest of us who visit churches for weddings and funerals but not much else.  I would be among the first to respect their rights.

But the men of the cloth cannot leave it at that.  They want to interfere with everyone else's lives as well.

If Vince develops some horrible disease in old age - and of course I hope he doesn't - then I would defend his choice to suffer miserably, possibly in pain, incontinence and confusion if that was how he chose to spend his final days.

For for those of us who do not spend our lives worshipping a celestial dictator, then the Godwhackers should mind their own business.  Let us have a choice, not your choice.

Only a religious fanatic would describe the places people choose to die as 'killing clinics' which I regard as hate language from yet another religion of piece.


Wednesday 16 July 2014

A letter to my 11 year old self

Nicky Campbell's 'Your Call' on BBC Radio Five Live is an essential part of my day.

It's a phone in, but it's an intelligent, funny, irritating but sometimes very moving phone in.

Today the subject was this: if you were to write a letter to your 11 year old self, what would it say?

Here goes then.

Dear Rick,

The first thing is to be stronger in what you call yourself.  You always wanted to call yourself Rick, or Ricky, but everyone else wanted to call you Rich or Richard.  You hated Richard, with a passion, but you gave in, especially when one of your teachers said he was going to call you Richard whatever you wanted to call yourself.

You were starting senior school when you were 11 but already you knew something wasn't quite right.  None of the subjects made any sense.  The sciences, maths and all the practical subjects were a blur.  You struggled badly in everything except English and even then you didn't know a verb from an adjective and you still don't.

You would sit in a class not having the faintest idea of what the teacher was on about.  Almost nothing made sense.  Why didn't you go an see your housemaster and tell him?  Admittedly, this was not a time when children who had problems with learning or concentrating (both in my case) were regarded as anything other than thick.  But you didn't.  You struggled on and that's pretty well how things stayed through the rest of your life.

You should have made more of an effort to be closer to your father even though you hardly ever saw him.  The year before your 11th birthday, he had upped sticks and moved to Canada, studying for a degree in commerce.  Before then, he had been in the merchant navy and you rarely saw him apart from when he was on shore leave.  And even then, he was usually out and about seeing relatives and friends when he was in England.  He wrote you letters but you hardly ever replied.  He sent you money orders but sometimes you didn't even acknowledge him.  You cut him out of your life, albeit sub-consciously (how could an 11 year old do otherwise?), and it affected the rest of your life.  Luckily, as the years went by, you became closer but you won't get those years back again.

The head teacher in your senior school saw cricketing ability in you and tried to get you to concentrate on it.  But already you were showing signs of what was to happen later in life: the pressure got to you and you rejected the opportunity.   Later on, you realised when playing cricket that he was right.  The potential he saw probably really did exist but it was all too late.

You should have realised what your mother had gone through.  She came to England from Holland in the 1950s to marry your father.  She knew no one in England and once she moved to Bristol it was basically her against the world.  My dad was at sea so she was effectively a lone parent.  She always worked, never claimed a penny in benefits, and raised her son the best way she could, in a foreign land, in a foreign language.  No doubts that we were poor, with one electric heater we carried round the house when we wanted to go to another room and the cupboards were bare, food being bought as and when we needed it, always the cheapest off cuts of meat (when we could afford meat) and a loaf of bread a week.  But I never felt poor, even when I went to friends' houses and marvelled at the warmth and the glittering array of modern electrical goods like a fridge and a washing machine (or an old boiler).  Mum washed stuff by hand or if she had a good week she  might use the local launderette.  And I don't think I ever said thank you.  Like most kids, I took it all for granted.  Looking back, we had next to nothing, but it never felt like that.

And you should have written more.  You should have known that writing was what you really wanted to do and gone for it.  Although there was no one to guide you, at home or at school, you knew where your gifts, such as they were, lay.  Whilst you might not have been a technically perfect writer - some things never change - you could string words together.

You couldn't help the life into which you were born, the job you stumbled into, the despair and emptiness of mental illness that blighted your life so much, but it wasn't all someone else's fault.  There were times as a young boy you spent a lot of time feeling sorry for yourself. You probably knew you could do better, but you didn't.  That was, at least in part, your fault.

So Rick, work hard, follow your dream and see where it takes you. Learn what it is you are good at and stick with it.  Don't do what I did which was nothing special, actually.

Yours Sincerely

Rick

Esther McVey and the Hate Mail

The Daily Hate Mail has done it again tonight.

Esther McVey, a Tory MP, has been promoted to the Cabinet by Cameron in order to give the impression that his government is representative of the whole nation.  Mostly white, male and privately educated.  Plus Esther McVey, a Tory MP who apparently used to be on telly and has been promoted from minister in the DWP to minister in the DWP.  What?  She keeps the same job but now sits in the Cabinet. Promotion Tory style.

The Mail manages a different slant on the story.  McVey flashed a thigh, presumably on the way to somewhere, probably unintentionally, but that was good enough for the self-abusers at Dacre's rag.

Now pardon me, but when Cameron sacked Gove on the grounds of political expediency - the public have worked out for themselves the terrible destruction he has wrought on the education system and they hate him as much as most teachers do - no one was making references to his thighs.

'Gorgeous pouting Mike axed by Dave' is not a headline I expect to see tomorrow and certainly no references to his thighs or any other part of his anatomy.

And what's worse about this is the Mail is read predominantly by women.  Yes, that's right: this toe rag right wing piece of sexist filth, with its odious on-line voyeurism, appeals to women.  And they buy it in huge numbers.

Now I don't know McVey from her telly programmes.   For all I know, she was a very good presenter.

Whether her thighs are attractive, I don't really care.  I am guessing they are not the reason she is in politics. But knowing Cameron's superficial and patronising attitudes to women, who knows?

What is very unattractive about McVey is her politics.  She has been Iain Duncan Smith's deputy, his lackey even, whilst he has brought in the bedroom tax, which has plunged the poor into debt, the Universal Credit which so far has cost hundreds of millions of pounds but has been an unmitigated disaster and the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) where the terminally ill have died before their payments have even been processed.

She's a politician, not some Page Three model.  If she accidentally flashes a thigh, it shouldn't be national news.  But if she works in a government department that is wrecking people's lives, then it should be.  For some odd reason, the Mail hasn't mentioned that bit yet.