A Tribute to Harold Pinter

So. Harold Pinter's ……………

Dead.

He's ………… had his cornflakes .………… at last.

It's all Blair's fucking fault.

(E. J. Thribb, 17.5… second pause).

We are not alone

Yes, someone else has used the phrase "map twats". Admittedly, in a string of code designed to fiddle with speech bubbles, but still…

agent.Speak("Those Chapman brothers? What a pair of \\map=\"twats\"=\"c*nts\"\\")

The only other comprehensible use is on a Spanish language news aggregator which has clearly been spammed:

Teens tasteless shoplife video lapsed rubin black xxx. Big map twats teens hush black with fixed-rate. About black teens books. Gore teens bowmen

Kind of poetic…

Setting about the toffs

A young friend of mine, whom the Daily Telegraph described as a 'teenage guitar wunderkind', attended his first seminar at university recently. Confronted by some arrogant toff who announced that proles debased literature, said chum stood up, pointed and uttered, as his first words in a university setting, 'You… are a fucking c**t'. I've only asterisked the word because it's so revolting, but I can't help admiring his forthrightness and essential accuracy. If only my students got that wound up and passionate. 

Needless to say, he hasn't attended many more seminars. 

Bovril

Cynical Ben  recommended the Bovril website. He was right, it's wonderful. You do need sound though.

Oh, and while we're here, I foresee terrible things happening in Spring 2020. In particular, a pandemic virus called COVID-19, and a skull-featured Tory spinner breaking all the rules, then lying about it at a press conference, then editing his 'blog' (yes, they'll still be the coolest medium of the decade) to make it look like he predicted said pandemic.

Honestly, I scare myself with this level of precision foresight sometimes.

Thanks Laura

For my 'Carry on Jeeves' teatowel - brilliant.

Map Twats redux

Almost all of us managed to go for a walk near Littleborough (above Watergrove) this Sunday - all except Daniel, who had conjugal duties. Nevertheless, we off-roaded and ate effete food and found skulls. I took lots of photos of said skulls, lichen and twats. 

Amongst the many glorious gifts (a fascinating food book from Dan, goggles and a nose clip from Neal) Jo and Ben gave me a spork. I've always wanted one. Say goodbye to two-handed scoffing misery!

Educashun Educashun Educashun

My university canteen was playing 'Another Brick in the Wall' over the tannoy today. Somebody has a well-developed sense of irony… I doubt it's the students.

'Inspired' by the past

A few weeks ago I visited London to see my old chum Adam (who as a financial software creator, essentially caused the credit crunch), but who finally has found that special other to wield his second lightsabre (a few photos here). 

While there, I dragged him round the V+A's Cold War Modern: Design 1945-1970 exhibition. Lots of it was predictable, but it did evoke a sense of awe, that people saw industrial design and city planning as our friends - science as our saviour from lives of agricultural drudgery. Some visions have worn better than others. The vertical cities designed to protect us from the polluted (irradiated?) Earth are stunningly beautiful but nostalgically futuristic, whereas Dieter Rams' designs have clearly inspired modern industrial products (yes, I mean you, Apple).

Educate, Inform and Entertain

The Daily Star featured Gary Glitter on its front page the other day - something like PAEDO HORROR GLITTER TAKES BUS (really - apparently cab drivers won't take him). Over a few beers, we wondered how Chris Morris would update his famous (infamous?) paedophilia episode. Here's what we came up with:

The Paedo-Files - not sure what the show would be, but it's a good pun.

I'm a Celebrity Paedo Get Me Out Of Here - celebrity paedos appealing for your early release vote.

Celebrity Paedo Big Brother: a 7 year old (some kind of Romanian orphan or one in the 'care' of Haringey Social Services, ie somebody nobody will miss) sits in the centre of the CPBB house, surrounded by CCTV cameras, watching Gary Glitter, Chris Langham and a selection of other internationally-famous pop stars and film directors who've been acquitted or never charged solve puzzles which get them further round the maze leading to said orphan's room. C4 are no doubt filming it now.

Coming soon: Paedo! Which closely-modelled-on-a-celebrity character committed unspeakable acts, with what implements, in which room? Family fun for all the family (not for under 18s).

Kids' stuff?

In a break from the L. M. Montgomery marathon, I read Terry Pratchett's Nation yesterday. People can be snobby about Pratchett, but who else is writing consistently good, funny, socially-engaged books which tackle the big issues. Nation propounds the joys of liberal humanism and atheism in a thoughtful and sensitive way, amongst other things. Pullman does the same thing in a more dramatic fashion, but TP quietly explores them in this book. We'll miss him when his Alzheimer's takes over. Curiously, the author photograph is the only hint of Pratchett's condition. Instead of a full-frontal one, his face is turned away from the camera, making him unknowable. Given that he has a white beard and always wears a black hat and clothes, the effect is one of darkness - very poignant. 

On the theme of children's fantasy, I saw Inkheart yesterday. I'm a fan of the books (they're about the power of reading), and grew to like the film. They give away the central conceit in the first line of the voice-over which is ridiculous, and Brendan Fraser is the worst actor I've ever seen. Keanu Reeves would have put more primal energy into the role. 

Nobody's business but the Turks'

I also went to the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art - totally recommended. Despite it's reputation for inbreeding, plotting and internecine warfare, Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul produced some of the world's greatest artwork and preserved an awful lot of the ancient world, because it existed on borders between so many interesting cultures. 

Spin me right round

I've been gone so long that I've missed several rants on Cynical Ben's blog, but I've been having lots of fun. I went to see Tindersticks at the Union Chapel in Islington and it was amazing in so many ways (thanks to Gigantic.com for sorting out the ticket so kindly - 10% of the booking fee goes to Oxfam, and thanks too to my sister Hilary and her fiancé Dominic). The venue is an octagonal neo-Gothic Victorian Congregationalist church which doubles up as a gig venue. I saw the BBC footage of an Arcade Fire gig there last year and was impressed, but being there was amazing. It really lends itself to the intensity of cult bands - of which number Tindersticks are definitely counted. They're a 7-piece not afraid of Jim Reeves-style crooning, cellos and feedback. 

The first records I ever bought were 10" vinyl. One was Tindersticks' Sweet Kathleen and the other was Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's Patio LP, purchased from my most favourite but ruinous shop in the world, Recordiau'r Cob in Bangor, North Wales. All I owned before I rolled up at Bangor Uni was a cassette tape of Automatic for the People (a present) and a love of Slayer. Why I chose GZM and Tindersticks I can't remember, but they were great buys - I'm still a sucker for lo-fi, cellos, side-projects and vinyl. 

Those gits at Cob made a fortune from me. They were all in Welsh-language bands like Ectogram and would stuff my pre-order bags with their own stuff and any old shit that nobody else would buy. I wouldn't have minded, except that they handed over all this stuff while keeping up a continuous running commentary on the all-round awfulness of everything I'd actually chosen to buy. For five years. I miss that kind of dedication - there's no record shop in Wolverhampton. 

The other reason I enjoyed Tindersticks was that it reminded me that there's a delightful, slightly self-satisfied but adorable world of bourgeois enjoyment out there. The crowd looked like extras in a St. Etienne video - cool, liberal, relaxed geography teachers. Most 'cool' people belong in a camp. They spend too much money on hairstyles and designer glasses, while solipsistically ignoring the world's woes (most of which they've caused). Tindersticks fans (and Belle and Sebastian fans, despite Cynical Ben's outpouring of faux-proletarian hate) are kind, warm, sophisticated people and there aren't any of them in Wolverhampton. 

I wandered past a nasty pub today. It annoyed me, as it always does, because it's called 'The Moon Under the Water', which is the name Orwell gave his imagined perfect pub in one of his essays (I'm a lazy man and can't be bothered to find the reference for one reader). It isn't the perfect pub, it's a run-down Wetherspoon's. I wouldn't begrudge this theft if the chain made the effort to follow GO's prescription, but it's horrible, although the beer is very good. 

Anyway, outside this pub was a smoking Goth. Or rather, a Goth, smoking. I like Goths, having lived with some gentle, vegetarian Goths in Bangor. This one annoyed me because smoking was clearly a part of his rebellious image. I know Goths have, like all subcultures as Hebdige pointed out, been appropriated and diluted for marketing purposes, but they think they're rebellious. I wanted to point out that in a corporate world, smoking is the ultimate act of non-rebellion. Sure, governments tell us not to smoke, but they're far less important than corporations as far as our daily lives go. Governments should be far more intrusive but they've been captured by corporate interests. Deliberately shortening your life and reducing your physical strength (and financial power) by smoking just make you a slave. I have more respect for kerb-crawlers: at least both sides are getting something out of that transaction. 

Must control murderous urges

My friends Ben and Dan are twitchers - birdwatchers. I like birds, and generally admire whatever they've spotted when we're out walking as the Map Twats. Yet I had a most satisfying dream the other night. Every time they pointed out something rare, I produced a gun and blasted it out of the sky, each time gaining an enormous sense of well-being. I don't hunt, or even like hunting (though I can see the justification for shooting your dinner), so why was it so enjoyable? Perhaps it's the transgression. I'm a quiet and well-behaved cove most of the time, and rarely do anything outrageous, so mayhap the old subconscious is hinting that there's a pressure-cooker of rage that needs release before I go on some sort of festive killing spree.

Still, seeing Tindersticks tomorrow so that should help.

Kids today, eh?

A while back I read some sour comment in the Guardian by a vicar, of all people, whinging about children all being violent delinquents and it pissed me off at the time. This weekend I was refereeing and chaperoning at the Junior Winton Cup, an inter-regions fencing competition. There were 200+ kids from all sorts of places and backgrounds, and nobody was stabbed (except on piste under controlled conditions) or robbed or anything untoward. Nobody got drunk, lost or pregnant (I think) and all the teams mixed well, whatever the rivalries in the hall. Most people are like this, and those who aren't can become so. But I suppose this isn't the stuff of headlines in the bloody Daily Mail. 

The Kindness of Strangers

A couple of years ago, I joined my first social network, Librarything, which links readers and allows them to browse each others' libraries, comment on them, join discussion groups and share ideas as well as books. It's completely addictive.

Shortly afterwards, I was contacted by a student who needed a particular issue of Poetry Wales, a great magazine now run by a fantastic publisher, Seren Books. I duly scanned in the issue, sent it off, and thought no more about it after 'Brunhilde' thanked me. 

Then today, opening the daily pile of books delivered to my office, I found a card and Clancy's translation of Kate Roberts's short stories, along with the news that she'd taken a first class degree and thought I deserved a present. It was one of those occasions when a total surprise reaffirms my sense that most people are essentially good. I recommend Kate Roberts, by the way - if she'd written in English (here's a Welsh appreciation), she'd be at least as valued as Mansfield, Woolf or Chekhov. 

Newsmap

For the ultimate news junky, go here: it's a stunning site which presumably draws on RSS feeds to track the biggest stories across the globe (hat-tip to Slugger O'Toole)

When armageddon comes…

This is where I want to move to - though Norway and the Faroe Islands appeal too...

Culinary experimentation

My continental housemates and neighbours asked me to cook a traditional British Christmas dinner for them yesterday. Although we started with a Polish Borscht with ravioli-like parcels as a donation from some of them, the rest was standard fare. The results were intriguing - everybody liked turkey, some were amazed by sprouts (!), pleased with parsnips, impressed by my cranberry-and-burgundy sauce, and everybody absolutely hated Christmas Pudding, which shocked me to my marrow. 

Then they all trooped off to the West Midlands' worst nightclub, Oceana, while I went to bed, exhausted and old. 

Day of Remembrance

For lefty types like me, it's a special day. Firstly, Oliver Postgate died today - grandson of George Lansbury the Labour Party Leader, cousin of Angela Lansbury, the creative brain behind Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, The Clangers and many more. I've never seen Bagpuss and don't give a flying one for childhood TV nostalgia, the last redoubt of rugger-shirt wearing students, but I know enough of Postgate's work to understand that like Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman, they're responsible for the generations of enthusiastic, open-minded, imaginative and thoughtful cultural socialists we have: liberation socialists, we could call them. There might not be many of them, but they're out there.

UPDATE: Zoe Williams makes my points much more eloquently - but then she's a professional journalist. Channel 4 News last night also claimed that Ivor the Engine was set in Wales because Postgate was a huge fan of Dylan Thomas - and there is a (gentler) ring of Llareggub about the cartoon. Also, Professor Yaffle was inspired by meeting Bertrand Russell. Everything I learn about the man makes me sadder that he didn't run the country rather than make cartoons in a cowshed.

Which brings me on to Milton - not forgotten at all, as the Today programme's grumpy slot claimed. I teach Milton in an ex-Poly, and some of my colleagues specialise in his work. I'm not an unalloyed fan of JM - the mouthpiece of a genocidal regime as far as Ireland's concerned - and as Ackroyd's Milton in America suggests, he could so easily have become an Ayatollah figure, but he was also a Republican in body and spirit, and a force for rationality and liberation in so many ways. Here's Philip Pullman reading Milton and here's Terry Eagleton's summary of Milton's greatness (the poetry's pretty good too).