Blocked in Beijing!

I may have been interviewed for a Chinese news programme, but the authorities in Beijing take an even dimmer view of my blogging activities than do my employers: Plashing Vole is blocked by the Great Firewall of China (test your own site here)

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Obviously it's hurtful to be scorned by my fellow socialists - or it would be if there was even the tiniest hint of socialism left alive in China - but I suspect the comrades are more offended by my love of early-90s lo-fi.

So even though they can't see it, here's a lo-fi tribute to my long-suffering Chinese fans - some indie tracks using 'Chinese' in a tediously stereotypical fashion.

The Auteurs, 'Chinese Bakery':



Then there's Blur's 'Chinese Bombs' (try not to work out what Albarn's on about, he's not very bright).



As for Brett Anderson's 'Chinese Whispers'… oh dear. But at least I'm not giving you George Formby's 'Chinese Laundry Blues'. I love George, but his racial attitudes are a little dated, to be kind. Although he did insist on playing integrated venues in South Africa and when Jan Smuts phoned him to complain, his wife picked up the phone, listened to the general and slammed the phone down after telling him to 'Piss off, you horrible little man'. Which was good.



Here's a band I loved and haven't played for years: Luna, with 'Chinatown' (Shack's 'Chinatown' isn't online, which is a massive fail for the Internet as far as I'm concerned.



And then there's wonderful Melys, the electro-pop Welsh/English bilingual band - another 'Chinese Whispers':



Although I like Natalie Merchant, I get the sense that 'The King of China's Daughter' tries rather too hard to be a bit Chinese and might not be entirely authentic.

Couldn't leave out R.E.M's '7 Chinese Bros':

I couldn't finish without a nod to politics, so here are a excerpts from John Adams' opera Nixon in China (also on the Civilization IV soundtrack):

'The Chairman Dances'



'The People Are The Heroes Now':

And finally…

Afternoon all, how are you on this beautiful sunny day? I woke this morning (at 5.15, thanks to the adrenalin gland) ready for a day 'on set'. In my head, it was Sunset Boulevard. I was ready for my close-up, Mr de Mille. As I climbed into my fencing gear, the phrase 'I didn't get fat - the equipment got small' ran through my head. Sadly I didn't leave anyone floating face down in the pool.

Then it was off to Weston Park, a rather beautiful stately home set amongst rolling green acres. The purpose was to introduce a bus-load of international journalists to fencing: VisitEngland.com were taking them on a month-long road trip across the country as part of the Olympics build-up. We were there to show them what goes on at the Olympics and more locally, the Much Wenlock Olympian Games, a more honourable event which is on this weekend: do go.

None of these people are me. I was too busy fencing to take any when we got going. 

So there we were: me, a couple of more senior fencers and a couple of taller, thinner, younger models who seemed quite pleased to be awake at 8.00 a.m. Eventually the journalists - mostly Chinese TV with some European press - appeared. We gave them a high speed demonstration (me on sabre and foil) while trying to avoid smashing the chandelier. Then we got them into kit, gave them the briefest of lessons and set them up in a mini-competition. Competitive isn't the word: they must have been cooped up in that bus for a long time, given the pent-up aggression that manifested itself.

We did some interviews and it turns out that far from starring in some romantic epic, Vole is to be the 'and finally…' story on tonight's news in China ('And finally… crazy things fat Western gaijin do'). Plashing Vole on Chinese TV: well, a billion people can't be wrong. Double chins will be trending in China this year, I tell you.

False Consciousness Begone!

China's anti-government protesters have hit on a genius way of winding up the government, though it has certain ethical drawbacks, as you'll see.

They're online, encouraging people to 'protest' by simply going for an aimless afternoon stroll at popular locations: shopping centres, campuses and so on. No placards, banners, slogans or marching, just an innocuous promenade.

So how do you spot the 'protesters' from the ordinary people doing their shopping or enjoying the breeze? You can't. So the Chinese police can either leave everyone alone and risk subversion spreading, or crack the heads of those they don't like the look of (this is what they decided on). Innocent people get a beating. Then they start to wonder how legitimate the state is, if it indiscriminately beats up ordinary people and subversion spreads anyway.

Genius: it's a hard lesson for the victims but it certainly punctures the belief that the state is essentially benign. In Marxist terms, their 'false consciousness' (traditionally applied to the belief that capitalism benefits the workers as well as the bourgeois) is stripped away.

Do the ends justify the means? In this case, perhaps. It's a clever idea in so many ways. The government loses whether it reacts or not. It's protest as non-protest. It's making my head hurt.

This is what humans will do to get by

Wow.

I pass the Groucho Marx test

I'm quite pleased by this.

My ranting on various subjects has led to plashingvole being banned from China by their firewall! I wonder what it was - the 'I love Unions' banner, the lefty attitudes, the jangly guitar pop? It's not as if I've mentioned Tiananmen or Falun Gong recently. Maybe they just dislike voles.

Either way, I'm with Groucho, who said that he'd rather not join any club prepared to take him on as a member.

Cynical Ben, on the other hand, isn't blocked. He must have friends in the Politburo.

Try out your favourite sites here.

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URL Tested:	http://plashingvole.blogspot.com
Resolved As:	64.233.183.191
Status:	Failure in receiving network data

Wolverines!

The big news (to me at least) apart from David Laws's defenestration (guilty, but the Daily Telegraph is clearly on a homophobic, anti-Lib Dem crusade to destabilise the coalition from the right), is the remake of infamous, awful, horrendously racist and rightwing 1980s film, Red Dawn.



This kind of rubbish always appears when a nation is culturally stressed: the 80s was packed with neo-fascist militarism in response to getting a huge and well-deserved hammering in Vietnam.

The interesting thing about Red Dawn the remake is that the evil, invading Other is no longer the Soviet Union with support from Cuba and the Mexicans, but China - clearly Hollywood's bothered by that country's financial, military and soft power.

Why is it that Americans are so keen to produce films in which they're the plucky underdogs resisting the cruel oppressors. A quick review of history: it happened ONCE, when you (very impressively) chucked the British out (though they burned the White House in 1812). Since then, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Phillipines, Cuba (repeatedly), Diego Garcia, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada and Iraq have reason to differ - and that's not including all the countries tossed around by your mates. The US hasn't been the resistance since 1789.

Star Trek, the Rebel Alliance, the A-Team (now a film too), Red Dawn, Terminator, Jaws and a host of other texts suggest that you're in deep denial about being the Empire. At least in the 1950s, your Westerns featured a sheriff who was sure that he was Doing The Right Thing, enforcing justice and the American Way even if that did mostly consist of killing as many Native Americans as possible. Now you seem insecure, always looking for ways to appear the plucky underdog. Give it up. The first stage is to admit that you are a global superpower. Then you can think about the responsibilities that brings, rather than pretending that you're the victims here.

Meanwhile, here's a thought. It looks like the European hegemony is well and truly over, thanks to the activities of the bond markets. America may well be next, given that China's buying up Africa and quietly collecting as much US Treasury debt as possible. The question is, why fight it? You obviously approve of superpowers dominating the globe - give someone else a go.

One fascinating fact about the Red Dawn remake that supports my suggestion that it's time to ask somebody else for help is this: the scenes of urban devastation were all filmed in Detroit, because that's what it looks like - one of the former richest cities in the US has lost a massive chunk of its population to drugs, drink, murder and escape. Huge swathes of residential and industrial areas are abandoned and the economy is dead. Well done, capitalism. (New Orleans has also been used for post-apocalypse scenes too).

If you're not convinced, read Gwyneth Jones's Rainbow Bridge, in which the assorted rock stars and hippies who've been forced to take over England after representative government collapses, eventually realise that a Chinese takeover is by far the best option, and devote their efforts to persuading the remains of the armed forces and other bands to choose life over principle (there's a lot of sex and Arthuriana in it too).

OK, I'm mostly joking - the Chinese regime is almost as awful as some of our allies, such as Saudi Arabia. But as the product of Britain's colonial rapaciousness, I've learned a thing or two. Subaltern cultures adapt, survive and maybe even prosper. States aren't innocent, or they don't remain so - they all want to invade someone. If you do it enough, and use the right weaponry, you get a permanent seat on the Security Council.

Me? I'd like the Norwegians to invade, or one of their neighbours. Seriously. Greener, good food, high taxes, great healthcare, high degree of equality, low crime, less conspicuous consumption, better welfare provision, better education - and yet they're still much, much richer than the Anglo countries. Ask the CIA!

This place is full of selfish dumbasses

There's a piece on Chinese power generation in today's Guardian: it says that China has very inefficient stations at the moment, but that they're massively altering their economy and industry to make it green.

Cue some idiot called Birdyboy in the comments section, who encapsulates the selfishness of (I suspect) quite a large proportion of the country. This is why we're going to hell.

Yes, and you guys want to stop us flying and eating meat, so we have miserable little lives while the rest of the world keeps on turning. people are not going to stop existing, so stop trying to ruin our fun with pointless new taxes and bans. if we are screwed, then we mat as well enjoy the time we have left. Any anyway, if any a country could do with being 2 degrees hotter it is surely us?