Down in that London

While I was in London, my sister and I had a wander round Eltham Palace. What a magnificent place. First it was a thirteenth-century Bishop's palace then a royal palace for a few hundred years (lots of historical events occurred there), then a farm and ruin, before the Courtaulds turned it into a nouveau-riche place by adding a stunning new mansion onto it in the 1920s-1940s, then moving out. It's an art deco masterpiece with all sorts of touches equivalent to what a footballer would do with a mansion now: fake log electric fires, Old Master paintings concealing loudspeakers and so on, all surrounded by glorious gardens.

Very excitingly, I finally got to see London's urban parakeets: flashy, green and loud. I'd always wanted to see them. I only had my sister's compact camera, so couldn't get any pictures of them, but they are such an exotic and enjoyable addition to the city's fauna.

A few photos here.

What I Heard And What I Missed

What an odd weekend: a funeral followed by a gig.

After my grandmother's send-off (I delivered a reading as though it were a lecture to a particularly dim group of students), I spent a day marking online student discussions until my eyes bled, then headed off to London with my sister: I'd bought Belle and Sebastian tickets for her and her husband as a birthday present.

The journey down was quite pleasant, despite me hating car travel. They're both interesting and funny, and I had their kitten climbing all over me: it had been to Shropshire for a few weeks' holiday.

Belle and Sebastian played at the Roundhouse in Camden: they were great, especially at audience interaction, and the new album is loads better than the previous couple. What a venue: a circular Victorian train shed. Great views, good beer, excellent sound quality and no heavy-handed security.

What I missed was The Nightingales in the Purcell Rooms on the South Bank. Between marking and travelling I just couldn't manage it, which is a desperate shame, as they're personal friends. I missed their local gig due to the funeral too: apparently those two gigs are the best they've ever done.

J-Punk spectacular

There's a new Shonen Knife album coming. It gives me warm fuzzy feelings:


I've always loved their cover of The Carpenters' wonderful 'Top of the World' too:


They're not the only brilliant Japanese punk band: Melt Banana are rather gleefully unhinged too. Seeing them live was a glorious experience. Though I'll never fit into the T-shirt I rather optimistically purchased. It mocks me from the back of the wardrobe.

A film? About me?

Ah yes, a classic work by Truffaut, Kissing Voles:

Sadly, not quite true. It translated as 'Stolen Kisses' - a voleur is a thief. The french for Vole is campagnol, which I rather like.

Gil Scott-Heron, once more

Good obituary of GSH in the Guardian today. I learned, amongst other things, that if you're British and ever watched TV, you'll have heard him: in one of his lowest periods, he provided the voice for the Tango fizzy drink ads: 'You Know When You've Been Tangoed'.

What a sad but also fascinating story story: going from poet to (excellent) novelist to musician to ad-whore, and back to music before dying at 62.

Here's a little more contrasting examples of his work: the seminal 'Johannesburg', and the controversial ad, which led to a moral panic…

The man behind the guns

I see from today's paper that Britain's government isn't just cheerleading and arming the Saudi Arabian government's military action against citizens of the UAE asking for democracy: it's training the snipers. It's not a surprise, of course: Saudia Arabia is the most glaring example of realpolitik, in which your friends can be as barbaric as they like whereas your enemies are publicly humiliated for the slightest misdemeanour. 

Britain has been providing training for the Saudi national guard to improve their "internal security and counter-terrorism" capabilities since 1964 and continues to do so. Members of the guard, which was established by the kingdom's royal family because it feared its regular army would not support it in the event of a popular uprising, are also provided places on flagship UK military courses at Sandhurst and Dartmouth. In Saudi Arabia, Britain continues to train the guard in "urban sharpshooter" programmes, the MoD confirmed.

"Last year we raised concerns that the Saudis had been using UK-supplied and UK-maintained arms in secret attacks in Yemen that left scores of Yemeni civilians dead," said Oliver Sprague, director of Amnesty International's UK Arms Programme.

Defence minister Nick Harvey confirmed to parliament last week that the UK's armed forces provided training to the Saudi national guard. "It is possible that some members of the Saudi Arabian national guard which were deployed in Bahrain may have undertaken some training provided by the British military mission," he said. 

Saudi Arabia, let's remind ourselves, imprisons and thrashes women found in public without a male relative. Freedom of assembly doesn't exist. Women's rights are an alien concept. Torture is widespread. The morality police have dictatorial powers. It is far, far worse than Iran, whom we're encouraged to see as the nastiest country on earth. 


Now that the British role in propping up this regime has come to light once more, I fully expect my MP to kick up a fuss. 


No, only joking. This is his contribution to freedom and democracy:

Saudi Arabia All-Party Parliamentary Group - Treasurer

To encourage and develop diplomatic, cultural and social exchanges between the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UK with the aim of achieving greater understanding and fostering mutual respect.

Well done, Paul Uppal. 

His passing WILL be televised

Gil Scott-Heron died today: the man who invented rap by merging jazz, poetry, socialism and civil rights. I could post some obscure tracks by him or his first outfit, The Last Poets, to show how cool I am, but nothing's cooler, more searching, more angry and more politically spot on than his most famous track.

Unfortunately, nothing could be more wrong either: capitalism has appropriated every subversive impulse in popular culture, most glaringly in the African-American genres which inherited Scott-Heron's music.

Proud!

I love seeing the list of countries where Vole readers are. I'm particularly gratified that today I had my first visitor from the Faroe Islands: one of the places I'd love to live and work. Shame I don't like fish, but still, I'd cope.

Domain Name		atlantic.fo ? (Faroe Islands)
IP Address		212.55.52.# (P/F Farodane)
ISP		FT SAMSKIFTI
Location		Continent  :  Europe Country  :  Faroe Islands  (Facts) City  :  Trshavn Lat/Long  :  62.0167, -6.7667 (Map)
Language		Faroese (Faroe Islands) fo-fo

Stop all the clocks

Well, we buried one of my grandmothers today. The one who passed away.

It was a sombre day. A raw wind chilled us at the graveside, and hymns in minor key accentuated the sadness.

Of the many touching and emotional images I'll retain for years to come, the sight of my brother-in-law on a trampoline particularly stands out.

Dates for your diary

If you're bored this weekend, how about seeing The Nightingales?

They're not just three superannuated Brummies with a couple of popstrels to entice the kiddies in: they're Britain's best postpunk band beloved of John Peel that isn't the Fall.

The Slade Rooms, Wolverhampton, Friday 27th May, supported by Ted Chippington!
Purcell Rooms, London SouthBank Centre, Monday 30th May (supported by Stewart Lee, Subway Sect and many others).

I won't be at either, damn it. Funeral/wake on Friday, and marking back in The Hegemon on Monday.

So long (for now)

I'm off for a few days. It's my grandmother's funeral tomorrow, and as nobody's presented me with a free iPhone, I won't be live-blogging it. After that, it's a couple of days in London with my sister to see Belle and Sebastian, then back to spend the bank holiday doing more marking: it's all got to be done by Tuesday morning.

My mother's asked me to give a reading. Even though I'm an atheist, I'm doing it. It's from Acts, and it's a letter to Cornelius. Being an irreverent pop-culture maven, the only Cornelius who pops into my head is this chap.

Have a good weekend. 

It's no Newport, but it's home (sadly)

Following the success of 'Ymerodraeth: Newport State of Mind' - parodying Jay-Z's 'Empire State of Mind', someone's done 'Wolverhampton Gurls', echoing Katy Perry's 'California Gurls'.



It's not very good (little wit, poor tune and an American accent, which completely defeats the point), but apparently Chris Moyles has played it on Radio 1. So it must be culturally significant.

This is how to do a parody.

Red Meat to the Feminists

I'm allergic to PR stunts, and the Cameron-Obama Barbecue for Cannon-Fodder seemed particularly revolting ('We sent you into an illegal war: have a saveloy'). At least Obama opposed the Iraq war, unlike Cameron.

But there was one aspect which undercuts Obama's progressive claims (Cameron doesn't have any). What's wrong with these pictures? Apart from the obvious: a Tory in Downing Street.

It's clearly deliberate: the men do the barbecuing and the women serve the salad. Real Men Don't Do Salad. Men burn meat. It's choreographed to bolster their masculine credentials in a very crude fashion.

 Ah well, blood on their hands again…

Snowdon. Raindon. Haildon

After you all responded mightily to Emma's charitable endeavours the other week, I'm going to hit you again.

Imaginary Friend and 50 others are climbing Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) this weekend, to raise money for the North Staffordshire Special Adventure Playground, a wonderful place catering for children and young adults with physical and mental disabilities. There aren't many places offering these kids stimulating and exciting play, and the parents need a bit of respite too. I used to volunteer in a desultory sort of way: they're kind like that, and they need your cash, especially when local authority funding is getting harder to secure.

So go here and divert your savings away from your usual nefarious habits.

To put you in the mood, here's an extract from Book 14 of Wordsworth's 'The Prelude', in which climbing Snowdon gives him a glimpse of the sublime, and the opportunity to review his life's work:

IN one of those excursions (may they ne'er 
Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern tracts 
Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend, 
I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time, 
And westward took my way, to see the sun 
Rise, from the top of Snowdon. To the door 
Of a rude cottage at the mountain's base 
We came, and roused the shepherd who attends 
The adventurous stranger's steps, a trusty guide; 
Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth. 

It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night, 
Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog 
Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky; 
But, undiscouraged, we began to climb 
The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round, 
And, after ordinary travellers' talk 
With our conductor, pensively we sank 
Each into commerce with his private thoughts: 
Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself 
Was nothing either seen or heard that checked 
Those musings or diverted, save that once 
The shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags, 
Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased 
His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent. 
This small adventure, for even such it seemed 
In that wild place and at the dead of night, 
Being over and forgotten, on we wound 
In silence as before. With forehead bent 
Earthward, as if in opposition set 
Against an enemy, I panted up 
With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts. 
Thus might we wear a midnight hour away, 
Ascending at loose distance each from each, 
And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band; 
When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten, 
And with a step or two seemed brighter still; 
Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause, 
For instantly a light upon the turf 
Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up, 
The Moon hung naked in a firmament 
Of azure without cloud, and at my feet 
Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. 
A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved 
All over this still ocean; and beyond, 
Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched, 
In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, 
Into the main Atlantic, that appeared 
To dwindle, and give up his majesty, 
Usurped upon far as the sight could reach. 
Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none 
Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars 
Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light 
In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon, 
Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed 
Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay 
All meek and silent, save that through a rift-- 
Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, 
A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place-- 
Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams 
Innumerable, roaring with one voice! 
Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour, 
For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.

Marking Music solved

OK, Seefeel were quite a good suggestion (thanks Dan) and I'll check out everbody else's suggestions soon. But most of all, I've been listening to Kings of Convenience and Cara Dillon: soothing after a day's infuriation…

Public Service Announcement

1. Blogger (e.g. Google) is incompetent.
2. If you can't log in to your blogger account, ignore their rarely updated and useless status page and @blogger Twitter account because they'll ignore you.
3. Don't bother with their claim that wiping your cache and history will sort it. It won't. You'll have to use Firefox, and even that will log you out every time you post.
4. Sit quietly and curse.
5. Think of Douglas Adams:

I think a nerd is a person who uses the telephone to talk to other people about telephones. And a computer nerd therefore is somebody who uses a computer in order to use a computer.

Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."

The teacher usually learns more than the pupils. Isn't that true?

"It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils," came a low growl from somewhere on the table, "without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy."

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.

Having just had to write "Brainyquote is not an academic source" on an essay, I'm starting to feel that way.

Panic Over: Marmite Not Banned In Denmark

It was a publicity stunt. Marmite isn't banned. Instead, its manufacturers have opted not to submit it for approval by the Danish food authorities.

Neither Marmite nor Vegemite and similar products have been banned by the Danish Food And Veterinary Administration. However, fortified foods with added vitamins, minerals or other substances can not be marketed in Denmark unless approved by Danish food authorities.

According to the Danish Order on food additives, addition of vitamins, minerals and other substances need to be approved by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration before the product can be marketed in Denmark.

The Danish Food and Veterinary Administration has not received an application for marketing in Denmark of Marmite or similar products with added vitamins or minerals.

Other fortified food products  have been approved by Danish food authorities and are being marketed in Denmark.

Given that sales there are minimal, I assume all this publicity was a stunt by Unilever, and one I should have spotted immediately. I am a fool.

Tuition Fees: the Oracle Speaks

A member of The Hegemon's Executive is doing a live chat on the local newspaper's website, on the subject of tuition fees. You don't even have to give your name to ask a question… you know you want to!

She's already admitted that the staffing, class sizes and resources won't be any better with £8500 fees. That's not the university's fault, it's the government's. The fees will only just cover the cash they've taken away.

Where South Dakota leads, Britain follows

You may not have noticed, but underneath this government's hard-right economic policies are a hard-right, American-inspired set of social policies.

Amongst this ragtag of tired old tropes is an attack on women's reproductive rights. Now I'm a man, so I'm not going to start haranguing women about what to do with their uteruses (uteri?). That's the point of being pro-choice.

The Tories, on the other hand, are in the business of haranguing women about such things. They've put a raving fundamentalist Christian in charge of sexual health, Anne Milton. Now I'm not sure that having someone whose faith highlights virgin birth is an entirely sensible choice, on scientific or empathetic grounds, but the Tories thinks she's the go-to gal for educating teenage girls. Her key strategy is abstinence. Now that's OK for me: I was a shy teen trapped in a boarding school and abstinence was less of a strategy than an enforced way of life, but I don't think it's for everybody. After all, serious scientific studies show that kids in abstinence programs don't abstain, and are far more likely to get pregnant and contract STDs when they give in to temptation (because they believe the lies told to them about contraception). I bet they have psychological problems associated with making promises they can't keep too.

So the Tories have dumped the British Pregnancy Advisory Service from the advisory board, and drafted in Life, the religious pressure group. The BPAS give empathetic, rounded advice to women about their health and wellbeing. Life tell you not to have an abortion because they think a God says it's bad for your soul. Not if you're dying. Not if the foetus is dying. Not if you've been raped, not if you're underage, or desperately poor, not under any circumstances.

It gets worse. Abstinence groups have been drafted in to advise the weirdo Education Secretary, Michael Gove. And two of the weirdest MPs, self-confessed liar Nadine Dorries (see this magnificent blog covering her malevolent existence) and Frank 'The Childcatcher' Field have drafted this nasty little law:

Meanwhile in parliament, the battle lines on abortion are set to be drawn again after cross-party amendments to the health and social care bill were put forward by anti-abortion MPs in a bid to tighten the rules on terminations.

The first amendment, put forward by Nadine Dorries and Frank Field, would establish a new precondition for any women having an abortion to receive advice and counselling from an organisation that does not itself carry out terminations.

This isn't, as you might think, a cosy little chat about your options. Who offers abortion advice without providing the service? Why, Life and all the other freakish godbotherers - and they don't have your best interests at heart. It's not advice: it's a legally mandated intimidation session designed to make you See The Error Of Your Ways You Child-Murderer. I honestly can't think of a single other situation in which a policeman would make you go - alone - to be subjected to intense pressure from someone who doesn't care about you and won't listen to your point of view.

So where does this come from? South Dakota:

In the first quarter of this year, 49 state legislatures introduced 916 bills that restricted reproductive rights. Here are a few that have passed, like in Texas, where women must have an invasive ultrasound that they either have to look at or have described to them in detail by a doctor before getting their abortion. Or South Dakota, where there’s now a 72-hour waiting period, and women must get counseling at an anti-choice pregnancy crisis center before obtaining an abortion. No centers applied to be on the official list, so that women would have no way to fulfill the requirements to have an abortion.

 I'd suggest a letter to your MP. Even if it is Paul Uppal. This kind of crap might work in a state where politicians have to come up with the most nauseating religious nonsense while waving machine guns around if they want to get elected, but it won't wash here.

Bring on the Penguins

It's the 30th birthday of Steve Bell's If…, his nasty, bitter, brilliant Guardian cartoon strip. I collect the books. Highlights for me are his policemen (corrupt bullies with a neat turn of phrase, all called Gerald 'Badger' Courage), his self-parody Monsieur L'Artiste, and most of all, the penguin family: Prince Philip of Greece (who'd 'do anything for a piece of fish'), Gloria, Cousin King Penguin and various others: Falkland Island refugees who mutate frequently: bigoted Tories one day, welfare-scrounging lowlife another, entrepreneurs the next, and quite often right-on lefty troublemakers.

Hurrah for Steve Bell.

Here's a selection:

On the banking bailout

The Albatrosses are the Argentinians