ATP, by the sea

I took a few photos at ATP - they're here. Here are a few samples, including Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses) and Teenage Fanclub.

Moonlighting again

You won't be seeing too much of me this week. I've got a mountain of marking to do, and tomorrow I'm off to Cardiff. If you don't know me personally (I know, I only have four readers), you might not know that as well as being a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is, I'm substituting arthritic performances on the fencing piste for helping out with competitions.

So wearing my Welfare and Child Protection hat, I'm off to south Wales for a site inspection, risk assessment and training course for the UK School Games. It's a multi-sport competition which is meant to give the competitors a full Olympic experience - Olympic medal winners were all over the place last year including Lord Baldemort himself, Duncan Goodhew and the swimmer from Mansfield who won loads of medals in Beijing.

I'm clearly a bad referee though. I should have been at the U10s championship this weekend, but instead I ran away to Minehead for a rock gig.

Cower, all you hippies

The Nightingales are playing Glastonbury (at 11 a.m. on the Saturday). They will be brilliant. Especially if the American half of the band are allowed into the country.

Lip it Up And Start Again, Or, A Kick In The Quantocks

… is a pun you'll only get if you know who Orange Juice and Melt Banana are, and have seen Lost in Translation. I'm back, and thought I'd start with a little dubious humour there.

So here, we are, all the lads. What have you been up to in my absence? I had a wonderful time at All Tomorrow's Parties. Good music, company and astonishingly good food - my comrades even brought a slow cooker with them!

Melt Banana were at ATP - I didn't catch much of their set, but that's what happens at these events. Merely being in their presence was enough (I had a fanboy moment with them and with Norman from Teenage Fanclub, much to the disgust of Kate and Anita). All you other fans of Japanese post-punk noise will understand. Shame Shonen Knife weren't there too…

So what were my impressions of ATP and the southwest? Somerset's beautiful, and weird - like the far west. It's so utterly rich, complacent and rightwing. Massive mansions and castles command every view, and the hedges are blooming with hawthorn blossom and Conservative Party election placards. Cynically and amusingly, the Tories have stolen Obama's slogan and are running with the message 'Vote for Change'. Ummm… they may have returned a Whig in the 1820s, but this area won't have elected a non-Tory since the Great Reform Act. Their euro-candidate is Mr Trollope-Bellew, whose family has owned the area since the elizabethan period. With such a glorious name, all I can imagine is a portly, beef-fed, red-faced man in a frock coat, beating his horses, tenants, dogs and children, riding to hounds and thrashing the poor if they vote against him.

He has, naturally, aided and abetted illegal hunting activity, hates Europe but claims EU subsidies on his extensive estate. Like all hypocritical Tory bigots.

The two men were caught hunting illegally in February last year. At least 17 riders, including children, followed the hunt, which had been called in by a landowner, Anthony Trollope-Bellew, to cull deer on his land near Taunton and move the herd on.

So anyway, my point is that all the best areas of this country are occupied by the worst sort of people. But on to ATP. It was held in the Butlin's holiday camp at Minehead, which is right by the sea, looking across to South Wales. The wind blew, the rain fell, and I was content. So were my companions, though they were disturbed by the absence of a chopping board, which did cast a pall over the weekend's festivities. Mineshead Revisited, anyone?

Despite this setback, we managed to survive on a diet of cider (for them), fine Exmoor ales, tagine and ROCK. It was a very American affair, curated as it was by The Breeders. Many of the musicians mingled with the crowds - Tricky seemed particularly lonely, though this is possibly because it was the whitest crowd outside the BNP's AGM. Kelley Deal joined the girls (mostly) for the knitting and crochet circle and a subsequent book reading, a guy from Mariachi El Bronx wandered forlornly for the whole event, looking for groupies presumably, and other musicians could be seen checking out other bands without airs and graces.

So who did I see and rate? Blood Red Shoes were OK - spiky pop-rock. Bon Iver was pretty and soulful, and occasionally rocked out a little. They went down well with the many teachers, social workers and couples in the audience. The Breeders, of course, rocked. The crowd was big, they were sparkling witty and bickered like twin sisters who've been playing together for 30 years would do. I thought that some of the audience weren't particularly interested in their new stuff, but I admired the way they threw away their indie dancefloor classic 'Last Splash' fairly early on and showed us all how consistently interesting they've been. It's great to see how an intelligent band can grow up without losing their fizz.

Mariachi El Bronx were kind of cool - rock mariachi appeals, but they were a little too cocksure for my tastes. Respect for the massive acoustic bass guitar though. I skipped Buffalo Killers because there were plenty of other American bands sporting facial hair around for the weekend - the crowd were far more diverse in terms of indie tribes than the performers. While many of the bands seemed to be into, well, The Band, lots of the festival-goers, particularly the women, were into an interesting Fifties scene. Some were the established lesbian rockabilly bunch, but others were wearing headscarves, floral dresses, tightly sculpted twinsets - really interesting. The men largely opted for skinny jeans, competitively obscure band t-shirts, faux-scruffy facial hair and architectural glasses, other than the younger ones. All the public-school sixth-formers were lost in the 1980s. I skipped CSS because I'm too old and bitter for talentless scenesters, and stopped doing what NME told me to long ago.

Deerhunter and Dianogah were pleasantly dull - more beardy folk-rock with bits of punk and electronica thrown in. The first band that really rocked me was Th'Faith Healers (that's a MySpace link). I remember them being good when I was 18, but totally lost track of them. They're so good live - metronomic, loud Krautrock with Scottish woman's interesting vocals over the top - Stereolab meets My Bloody Valentine. Go see them. I bought their Peel Sessions CD after the set, and lots of other people seemed impressed too.

I didn't bother with Foals, but did go for The Frogs, who apparently founded grunge. For a few minutes, I thought they were a bunch of wankers - talentless, arrogant no-marks, then realised that this was the heart of their performance. They essentially make up songs as they go along, swear a lot, and parody other bands, while underneath the costumes (in the case of the lead singer, hologram-effect wings and a mask which made him 7ft tall and totally obscured his face), lurk some brilliant musicians. They really are a band you should experience. Once.

I was a bit disappointed by the post-punk bands, perhaps because I was so excited about seeing Wire and Gang of Four. Both groups just seemed to feel that they deserved adulation and pretty much went through the motions from what I saw - very disappointing. I still think that Wire's Pink Flag and Chairs Missing albums are amongst the greatest of the last 40 years.

Giant Sand - more Americana for the married Word reader. Heartless Bastards - good fun live, probably a bit derivative to follow. Erika Wennerstrom's voice is absolutely amazing though: a tuneful bellow which could drive ships onto the rocks. Sadly, I missed both Holy Fuck andthe Fuck Buttons' DJ set.

One real revelation was Kimya Dawson. She used to be in Moldy Peaches, and therefore off my radar, as I felt that New York anti-folk was too self-conscious and self-congratulatory. I'm still not that into deliberately nursery-rhymed style tunes and rhythms married with confessional lyrics, but her performance was amazing. She abolished the separation between performer and audience, pulling three kids up to perform with her (I suspect she regretted her choice before long), and launched into an hour of stunning emotional intensity, ranging from tragedy to comedy, allied to some good lefty politics. Definitely one to see live.

For a little light relief, I went to see a reading by Scarlett Thomas, from her book The End of Mr Y. I was vaguely aware of it, but was seriously impressed by her declamation. In the book, a lonely and poor PhD student (are you reading this, Deer Friend?) picks up a rare novel which catapults her into the minds of passing beings - cats, mice, etc. Allied to Thomas's brother playing scary organ music, the hour reminded me of the weirder end of Chris Morris's Blue Jam.

Have you ever seen Shellac? I have, ages ago, and though it was a boring RAWK side-project for uber-producer Steve Albini. I apologise to him publicly now. Yes, it his heavy, guitar rock, but live you get an hour or so of punishing guitars, hilariously witty lyrics (how many rockers use 'unattainable' and still make it scan?) and sheer fun - particularly when the bass player takes audience questions, the drummer (who looks like Animal) has cymbals mounted behind his head, and Steve carried him off, still playing. I am totally converted.

Styrofoam - wet indie/electro which will no doubt soundtrack countless ads and teen angst dramas. Teenage Fanclub: Fantastic more like. Kate and Anita were rather bored by their niceness and went off for Shellac's first set of the weekend, but I've got a massive soft spot for Scottish close-harmony Americana and loved every second. I also thought that Throwing Muses were brilliant - spiky, witty, relaxed and everything that America's most thoughtful indie-rock band should be. College Rock seems to be used with a faint sneer these days, but the Muses encapsulate everything about what it could have become.

So that was most of ATP. What did I learn? That beards and designer glasses can substitute for soul. That slow-cookers are the cherry on the festival cake. That indie bands genuinely are friendly, kind people. That however much I go swimming, I'm too fat and old to fit in. Am I going next year? I certainly am.

Arrrrggggghhhh - bastards.

I'm speechless with anger (which is OK because I've nobody to talk to) but luckily for you, I can still type. So I've diverted from the train station to share the rage.

The Taxpayers' Alliance is a small bunch of selfish, lying, cynical reactionaries, whose tiny membership believe that Thatcher and Pinochet were essentially communists. They'd rather let the poor starve, the old freeze and the sick die rather than pay any tax. So obviously they think that all politicians are thieves. All they want is lower tax - despite it already being lower than every civilised country I can think of.

The Daily Mail is a tumour. Its owner is a tax-evading, hypocritical harlot - a man with power but no responsibility. Again, the paper resents the existence of government. Lord Rothermere, owner of the Mail, lives in France. Except he doesn't. Well, it depends on who you ask. His milk and bread are delivered to a £50 million mansion in southwest England, which is definitely in England. Letters from the taxman, however, are delivered to a convenient address in France because he's officially 'non-domiciled' in Britain for tax purposes. Essentially, he's letting us pay to keep Britain the quite pleasant place it is for him to enjoy, while hiding his money elsewhere. No doubt he tells the French that he doesn't live there either.

Let's not forget that the Daily Mail stole the 1924 election by publishing the Zinoviev letters (which claimed that the Labour Party was a communist front) knowing them to be fake, openly supported Hitler and his British mini-me Oswald Mosley, tried to overthrow several governments, and was rancidly anti-semitic.

So what are these two unpleasant factions up to? They're raising money from the public to prosecute MPs for cheating us, the taxpayer. I know some MPs are corrupt. But most aren't, and we can sack those who are by voting for someone else. Lord Rothermere and this uninviting, loudmouthed pressure group however, can't be sacked, aren't elected, don't come under any proper scrutiny and can't be questioned. Rothermere is cheating you, me and everybody else, while pointing at MPs and shouting 'thief'. They've stolen a few thousand pounds. He's stolen millions. What can we do? Other than burn down his mansion (he won't mind, he says he doesn't live there), we can tell the truth to any Mail readers we know, and remind everybody that if you don't make a contribution to this country, you don't get a say.

Newspaper owners, including the Mail's in the 1930s and 1970s, plotted to overthrow the government through military means. Now they poison the less-informed because they resent democracy. They think riches qualify you to rule. They don't.

I'll stop now. I know you all think I'm a boring wanker for going on about this stuff, but it is really important and it's SO wrong.

No web access for the next few days. I'll miss you all, and Radio 4. I'm taking a Richard Sennett book along as a 'prop', as I don't have a copy of 'Friends of the British Museum'.

We're all going on a summer holiday

Well, that's it, comrades, until Monday afternoon at the earliest. I'll take my iPod to All Tomorrow's Parties in case there's wireless access, but it seems unlikely. I'm particularly looking forward to Teenage Fanclub, Bon Iver and The Breeders, but I'm sure others will be brilliant too. I'll be the one in cherry red Doctor Martens, a Green Lantern t-shirt and bad hair, in case that floats your boat. What book shall I take as a prop? I was wondering about On Deconstruction but I've read it several times now, so perhaps a Moomins volume might be more fitting.

Now I'm off to see In the Loop again to top up my epithet levels.

'When we are safe inside, nothing dangerous can happen to us'

While eating my lunch, we were booted out into the cold for a fire alarm - the second one this week. Shivering, I read a little more of Moominpappa at Sea. I was talking about it to Mark last night, pushing my argument that it's a children's book dealing with the psychological effect of the end of paternalism and traditional masculinity - it's Freudian and Butlerian. It struck me just now that even the title is beautifully double: Moominpappa is literally at sea - occupying a (phallic) lighthouse in the middle of the feminine, attractive but dangerous sea - to recuperate his masculine duty. Moominmamma seeks only fertile soil, halfway between the extremities of suicide (the sea) or dictatorship (the lighthouse). Psychologically, Moominpappa is 'at sea'.

If you aren't persuaded, try these quotes:

One afternoon, Moominpappa was walking about in his garden feeling at a loss. He had no idea what to do with himself, because it seemed everything there was to be done had already been done or was being done by somebody else.

Moominpappa aimlessly pottered about in his garden, his tail dragging along the ground behind him in a melancholy way.

The family stopped what they were doing and said 'Yes. Of course. Yes, yes'. Then they took no more notice of him, and got on with what they were doing.

They were always doing something. Quietly, without interrupting, and with great concentration, they carried on with the hundred-and-one small things that made up their world. It was a world that was very private, and self-contained, and to which nothing could be added. Like a map where everything has been discovered, everywhere inhabited, and where there are no bare patches left any longer.

(later)

The family got on his nerves at times - they could never stick to the matter in hand. He wondered whether all fathers found the same thing… He must try getting in the right mood, like his father-in-law used to do. All her life, his mother-in-law had gone round dropping things everywhere or leaving them behind and forgetting where she had left them. Then his father-in-law would turn on something in his brain.

Mark points out the Freudian link between 'melancholy' and a drooping 'tail' (and the solution is similarly phallic: the key to it all is literally a key, and it all reminds me of the many novels about male unemployment - these are the symptoms of masculine roles being removed. Moominpappa responds in the classic ways: toying with starting a forest fire to stage a rescue, spying on a family unit which seems to function well without him, contemplating home improvements to impress them, then moving them to a seemingly solid and stable old role - the lighthouse keeper, necessary and isolated. How different is this to the single father who kidnaps or kills his ex-wife/children?

Moominpappa looks for older models - the lighthouse keeper, his father-in-law, to regain a sense of male purpose, while Moominmamma quietly realises that this is a stage he needs to go through, without accepting the reactionary nature of some of these ideas. What strikes me is Tove Jansson's empathy (she lived on a little island too): she makes it clear that this aimlessness can be destructive, without ever suggesting that Moominpappa (or men) are monsters. Instead, they can be understood. All this - and it's a children's book, teaching them, very quietly, that their parents have passions, depressions, and problems, while never suggesting that adults are always right (Little My always pricks Moominpappa's pomposity). Moominpappa and Moominmamma seem to be closely based on Jansson's parents. The passages about the terrifying pull of the sea when Moominpappa is depressed is brilliant, really encapsulating the temptation of oblivion.

Thankfully, Moominpappa finds a key, and learns from the absent lighthouse keeper (God?) how to find a role:

Something clicked inside Moominpappa's head. Of course, everything was as clear as day. This was the place where the lighthouse-keeper came when he wanted to be entirely alone. A place for thought and meditation. And it was here that he had left the key so that Moominpappa should find it and take over the lighthouse. With great ceremony and the help of magic forces, Moominpappa had been chosen as the owner of the lighthouse and its keeper.

However - all this sounds like wish fulfilment, and so it transpires: the self-imposed duties of this so-symbolic role being to oppress Moominpappa. I haven't finished yet, so don't know what will happen, but I'm sure a balance will be struck. I'll let you know.

I am enjoying it too, by the way.

My visit to the post room brought great joy: Richard Overy's The Morbid Age: Britain Between The Wars, Byatt's The Children's Book (with a major protagonist from Stoke) and Pryce's From Aberystwyth With Love, which I'll take to All Tomorrow's Parties with me tomorrow. All have stunningly good cover designs too.

A breath of fresh air - to fuel your car

I so want one: an air-powered car. As clean as electric vehicles at the point of use and nothing to blow up, simple technology and cheap. They'd be difficult to commit suicide with though. Stick the exhaust pipe in your mouth and all you'd get is fresh air and cold teeth.

Community payback

Steve Bell really is the new Gillray or Cruikshank. Today he imagines our leaders treating themselves as they treat poor people who nick another £10 from the social security…

Seumas Milne nails these bastards completely.

I buried this suggestion in an earlier post. Here's the version I just sent as a letter to the Guardian:

I have a solution for housing MPs which will reduce the opportunity for sleaze and produce social benefits.

Each MP will be loaned a council flat in London as their second home, preferably in the worst-built, highest-crime, least-maintained estate available. They will be offered the same facility in their constituency, though if they already own a home there, moving will not be required. Once the flat is furnished (and maintained) at reasonable expense, no further money will be provided. Living amongst the poorest citizens will keep the MP honest, remind them of their vocation, dissuade them from acquiring expensive white goods, encourage them to consider the most pressing social issues, and will surely lead rapidly to pressure on local authorities and agencies to improve living conditions for the people we consign to such places.

Oh no, he's droning on again

Here goes with the kind of post that you all ignore. Would it help if I added something sarcastic about Manchester United, or referred to Betty Boo?

You all know that I'm a massive fan of Pharyngula, an American science professor who has a neat sideline in speaking up for scientific endeavour in the face of religion, quackery and media stupidity.

A couple of days ago he gave the graduation speech at Keck School of Medicine. He made some comments that teachers, students and everybody else should take seriously in a climate where being an expert is increasingly being associated with arrogance and contempt:

… the responsibility of the public intellectual is what I want to say a few words about to you. You are about to receive a diploma that gives you the potential to be one of us, too.

A public intellectual is the modern equivalent of the court jester -- the wise fool who could say anything to the king, because no one would ever take him seriously as a rival for the throne. If the concept is too medieval for you, look at 21st century America, where the best news commentary on television is offered by a couple of comedians on a small cable network. It's the same principle: people on the edge of the herd, whether it's the mass media or the general electorate, are unconstrained by the group norms and are given greater freedom to speak out and express themselves. The weirdos, by their very nature, have more latitude, and we also institutionalize the principle in ideas like academic freedom.

Did I just call you all weirdos? I'm sorry, yes I did. You're all receiving advanced degrees from USC, and that automatically makes you all a bunch of nerds. You should be proud.

You are also the lucky few, the ones with talent and discipline and the fortunate opportunity to pursue science and medicine, and you have acquired another kind of debt: you have been granted this privilege, and now you owe society repayment. We need you to make the world a better place. To quote a comic book character, with great power comes great responsibility.

Power? That diploma may not give you political power, or the ability to beat up criminals, and it may not even guarantee you a job, sorry to say, but it does represent something significant: it's intellectual capital. You will have acquired some small measure of authority and credibility with that acknowledgment of your accomplishments, and I'm here to tell you to spend it.

There's lots more, about the graduate's duty to communicate and to criticise error. Don't just become pliable work units. Become troublemakers, agitators - at work, or in the public sphere. I know it's easy for me to say this in my job (which isn't quite as cushy or secure as you may think), but we'd live in a better society if we didn't let the shysters, conmen and bullshitters set the tone in politics, the media and pretty much every other sphere of our lives. You do have the skills and intelligence to object now and then - you just need the courage. One of the few things I'm proudest of is ticking off a copper for bullying some skate kids at the railway station. It was a small thing (though scary) but it reminded me, her, and them, that we're citizens with a role to play in each others' lives.

I do wonder, sometimes, what my job is. There's a debate in my office at the moment about the nature of professionalism. We agree that it's about defending the public good - in terms of educational motives - rather than just taking your money and doing whatever our bosses say - which at the moment means dumbing down and being 'market-oriented'. The intrinsic value of education is under attack - one of our incoming deans openly rejected the idea that small subjects should be taught. Brilliant. What a philistine.

Not many people may need to speak a particular language or understand a particular culture, but they'll come in useful at some point, and surely there's something valuable about just caring about things, however 'obscure'. If more people understood Afghan culture, or about financial planning, or the sociology of MPs, perhaps this country would be in a better state.

OK, rant over. Back to pop culture. I'm listening to Modern Life Is Rubbish. It's so elegiac.

Darlings, you were WONDERFUL

Last night, Mark and I went to see Caryl Churchill's Serious Money at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. It's a great venue - all seats are good seats. The cast captured the look and feel of the 80s brilliantly, and almost all of them had appeared in The Bill at some point, which always pleases me mightily.

It's a full-on attack on the greed of the finance industry - in verse. Government, brokers, bankers and entrepreneurs plot and compete to defraud each other and to wreck the economy and ordinary peoples' lives in pursuit of short-term, personal profit - even sex palls in comparison with the thrill of the chase. If you want a funny, crude, incisive guide to why we're all going to be poor for the next few years - see this play.

Which brings me to my major point. Some of you dear readers are under 26 years old. I've suggested a kind of slow motion culture club. How about starting with free theatre tickets? It's a government scheme which theatres all over England have joined, offering 'free tickets to see any show' every Friday night at the Rep and loads of other places, until March 2011. So you could see Serious Money, or anything else. Here's the site:

A Night Less Ordinary

or

Birmingham Rep and look for 'a night less ordinary'.

Type in the area you want to go to and follow the simple instructions. I shall be polishing my fake ID in preparation.

Policing: nature's way

I knew I'd seen the police tactics ('kettling') employed to kill Ian Tomlinson and beat up numerous other inoffensive protesters somewhere else. Sorry about the appalling hyper-America voiceover - I couldn't find the staid BBC footage.

They Were The Resurrection And The Life

20 years since the Stone Roses' first album, before their second, Oasis and lad-rock killed proper indie. To celebrate, here's their appearance in Wolverhampton: at the Magistrate's Court, for trashing their label's office in revenge for being completely ripped off.

Stick to the first, transcendent album if you don't know their stuff. It transformed the UK music scene after a terrible few years. The 2nd, The Second Coming, is mostly poor, and the bootlegs aren't worth getting because Ian Brown can't sing (and, it turns out, write music on his own). Despite being overplayed at every indie disco ever, that first album still sends a rush of blood to the head.

Atten-SHUN

Already overrun with ex-bizzies expounding the joy of 'kettling' peaceful protesters, my esteemed institution is toying with the idea of a degree for squaddies. As we've just merged with the Law school, how about 'Spotting an Illegal War for Dummies', and 'What Actually Constitutes Torture and Why It's A Bad Thing'?

Gorky's, how could I forsake you?

Somehow, shamefully, I'd forgotten how good Gorky's Zygotic Mynci's Barafundle album is. I've played four Pastels albums now, so it's on to bucolic Welsh psychedelia.

Who was Jack the Ripper?

Let's assume the existence of backwards time travel (we're already going forwards, and relativity says time travel's possible, given enough energy). That way, we can slander anyone we want by immortalising their names in conjunction with the Ripper's.

My money's on David Cameron. I know people who worked with him before he was an official Tory Bastard. They say he has an appalling temper and unpleasant personal manner. He owns a top hat. Case solved!

Your thoughts?

(Yes, I am marking a Ripper-themed 3rd-year dissertation).

Every day is cloudy and grey

I've got a lot of marking to do today, so I've rewarded myself with treats. Having managed 40 lengths in 27 minutes (backstroke), I had a cinnamon swirl. I'm listening exclusively to The Pastels because I have the office to myself and I damn well like Scottish indie lo-fi, I'm reading Moominpappa at Sea and I'm going to see Serious Money tonight.

Actually, Moominpappa at Sea isn't very comforting. My PhD is about failed masculinity in 1930s Welsh political novels, and many of the same themes are emerging in this Moomins book. Poor old Moominpappa finds that his existing model of masculinity and paternalism is all over - they don't need him to protect him, so he gets depressed. He thinks about starting a forest fire, then moves the whole family to a lighthouse (very phallic) on a remote island so that he can refound the family on conservative lines. Moominmama seems to know that it's a phase she'll endure and seek to mitigate - I'm sure he'll learn the error of his ways in the end.

I hope I haven't just ruined the Moomins for you. They're amongst my very favourites.

How much are the police snorting?

I meant to rant about this yesterday, but had so much to do that I forgot.

The police and their shady friends were all over the press yesterday proclaiming their amazing success in restricting the flow of cocaine into the country, increasing the wholesale price. Paul Flynn rips this PR bollocks apart over on his site. Also, the Ministry of Defence claimed that they'd seized £50m of heroin from the Taliban a while back: Bad Science's analysis reveals that actually, this was PR-speak (i.e. lies) for $126,000 of opium, or $250,000 of heroin, and so on.

What interested me was that the boys in blue said that the street price hadn't changed because dealers were mixing the coke with any old shit they found lying around.

Well, that's OK then. What a result. Lots of stupid people are being poisoned because they're snorting rat poison, Persil or whatever, as well as a little bit of coke. It seems to me that the cops have got totally the wrong end of the wedge on this one. We're always going on about the NHS becoming a health service rather than a sickness service. In the 'war on drugs', we should be reducing demand for drugs (mostly through education and treating addiction as an illness) rather than by firebombing Peruvian peasants and encouraging dealers to poison their customers.

!Whatthefuck?

Occasionally, we're all faced with periods of introspection. Our lives seem worthless, our activities pointless, our presence a drag on our families, friends and colleagues.

I have the solution. Whenever you have a self-esteem crisis, open the website of !Whatif? They're an 'innovations' company. I've read their site and still don't know what they actually do (or even how to pronounce it). I have divined that they wear zany facial hair, combats, and revere Nathan Barley as some kind of god. They charge companies big fees for sounding like they know what's hip - that's as close as I can get. Their name makes me scream with impotent fury. It encapsulates a mindless kind of trendiness, covers utter intellectual bankruptcy. This is what we've done to this country. Honest people making things have been sacked. Bullshitters with no regard for the decencies of grammar run the world. How I hope the recession sends them back to the fields (or as in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, perhaps they'll be on the first ship to a new planet. We'll follow you, honestly).

There does seem to be a total loss of confidence in company names now too. British Telecom is now officially BP. Vesper Thorneycroft is now VT. The BBC's privatised engineering wing is Red Bee. British Airways is BA. British Petroleum is now BP. West Brom's failed art-gallery-and-whatever is 'The Public' and on and on - what's wrong with a name which says who you are, or what you do? Especially for the shameful industries - BAe (formerly British Aerospace) should be Shiny Weapons of Mass Destruction No Questions Asked, Bribes Available.

MPs housing crisis solved

I've been ranting a bit recently about the more egregious abuses of MPs - and they deserve it. However, someone on Radio 4 this morning pointed out that this distracts us from the major ripoffs. David Cameron is immensely wealthy. Membership of the Bullingdon Club (pictured below) was £10,000 for each student. Yet he claimed £100,000 to cover his mortgage expenses. It seems to work like this: if you're a Tory, you want a bloody big house. So you buy one and charge us for a mansion.

I have a solution. We should only pay for the London house. But here's the cunning bit. We buy them a council house on a sink estate. Not to punish them, but to remind them how millions of people live. After a couple of months, I bet you'd find pressure on local services to improve absolutely everything!

This is the same reason why I suggested that the Supreme Court be based in Stoke, Birmingham or somewhere equally prosaic, rather than cossetted by gentlemen's clubs, fine dining, the old boys' network and corridors of power.