Note the apostrophe interloper
In Frank Fenton Family Butcher's window
We've got hose in different area codes…
Narnia is not on the other side.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
The Beauty of Stoke on Trent (1 of 3)
I won't rehearse the rude things Orwell, Priestley and others have said about Stoke-on-Trent. Instead, I'll show you the photographs I took there. These are of the town of Stoke itself, after which the wider conurbation of six towns is named. Stoke consists of three main streets - all these shots are from those thoroughfares. I'll post my favourites in three blog posts. Click on them to enlarge, or go here for the full set.
Olympics Irony Special
Spotted at the Wedgwood Visitor Centre, the birthplace of modern pottery, in Stoke on Trent:
(This is the Olympic Games which mailed me today to declare that it's only SEVEN DAYS until 100 DAYS TO THE OLYMPICS! - so that'll be 107 days, then).
(Click on them to enlarge)
(This is the Olympic Games which mailed me today to declare that it's only SEVEN DAYS until 100 DAYS TO THE OLYMPICS! - so that'll be 107 days, then).
Friday, 6 April 2012
Easter Double Conundrum Special
One for me, and one serious one on behalf of a horticultural chum.
1. If you could commit only ONE violent assault on a member of the Conservative Party, who would be the lucky recipient of the Sharpened Spade of Vengeance?
2. Famous gardens in literature. I've got the Shakespeare ones, Eden and the Cherry Orchard. Your suggestions?
Toodle pip.
--
Scanned by iCritical.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
The classiest protest song you'll ever hear
The poor, sick, young and old aren't the only victims of George Osborne's larcenous budget: cathedrals are hurting too, and Wakefield's not taking it lying down:
And if you're as pissed off as I am by the BBC's craven grovelling to the Tory Party recently, you'll enjoy this clip from the vaults:
And if you're as pissed off as I am by the BBC's craven grovelling to the Tory Party recently, you'll enjoy this clip from the vaults:
Wherefore Art Thou, Volio?
Apologies for the break in service. Persecuted by the barbs of students about my online presence, I took some time off to do some relaxing WORK! Namely, writing a book chapter proposal on Borrow's Wild Wales and O. M. Edwards's Cartrefi Cymru. I'll give you a tip: living in the West Midlands for 12 years causes havoc with your Welsh mutations. And everything else, of course.
LAst night was a celebratory night off: two colleagues' birthdays and another's MA graduation. She did her BA with us, then her MA, and has even done some teaching for us, but now she's off to be a school teacher. As a Disney obsessive, she probably took the hump when we drew her attention to Walt Disney's Nazi sympathies.
Today's been even better: Map Twat founding member Neal popped down to Bath University to bag himself a funded PhD spot researching natural insulation in environmental buildings. I like to think that pouring abuse on his presentation helped (10 minutes, 97 graphs - as the kids say, FFS) and I fully intend to collect a commission from his scholarship loot. What with Dan's PhD in urban pigeons (or something), the only Map Twat lacking a doctorate is Cynical Ben, and he's doing a prestigious MA in Creative Writing so that's OK.
Anyway, that's about all from me for a few days. The swine are closing the university which leaves the institutionalised academic zombies like me with absolutely nothing to do. I'll probably stand outside the front door repetitively knocking, like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, until Monday or until I die.
(By the way, I'm famous now: my photographs of bluebells have been used in a newsletter about bluebells. Eat that, Magnum).
Enjoy your Easter.
LAst night was a celebratory night off: two colleagues' birthdays and another's MA graduation. She did her BA with us, then her MA, and has even done some teaching for us, but now she's off to be a school teacher. As a Disney obsessive, she probably took the hump when we drew her attention to Walt Disney's Nazi sympathies.
Today's been even better: Map Twat founding member Neal popped down to Bath University to bag himself a funded PhD spot researching natural insulation in environmental buildings. I like to think that pouring abuse on his presentation helped (10 minutes, 97 graphs - as the kids say, FFS) and I fully intend to collect a commission from his scholarship loot. What with Dan's PhD in urban pigeons (or something), the only Map Twat lacking a doctorate is Cynical Ben, and he's doing a prestigious MA in Creative Writing so that's OK.
Anyway, that's about all from me for a few days. The swine are closing the university which leaves the institutionalised academic zombies like me with absolutely nothing to do. I'll probably stand outside the front door repetitively knocking, like Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, until Monday or until I die.
(By the way, I'm famous now: my photographs of bluebells have been used in a newsletter about bluebells. Eat that, Magnum).
Enjoy your Easter.
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Doing god?
If I were a vole of faith, which I'm not, I'd feel pretty let down by my political leaders: those who profess a strong faith (such as Blair and Bush) seemed to use God as a mute supporter for torture, surveillance, illegal wars and free-market capitalism. Their sins are enough to persuade any reasonable believer that secular states are infinitely preferable to religious ones.
The latest intervention is by David Cameron, who has released an 'Easter Message'. This is weird enough. Christmas is one of many winter festivals across the world and it's closely followed by the new year, so it seems reasonable that prominent citizens might have some kind of message at the year's end, even if none of us pay any attention. But Easter's a very specific event, and not one easily understood other than on a deeply theological level.
What does Call Me Dave say?
I fear that Dave is developing messianic tendencies - always useful when one's administration is in difficulties. Whenever Blair didn't have any evidence, he referred to God and his conscience in place of empirical truth. In Dave's case, it's particularly cynical because he previously said this about his beliefs:
So I think this original statement is rather deceptive, and his latest 'message' seems to by a cynical and dishonest attempt to import the Reaganite playbook into the UK. I could spend several paragraphs pointing out that tolerance and kindness is only one strand of Christianity - but instead, I'd advise you to visit any Northern Irish Presbyterian chapel, consult the actual Bible to familiarise yourself with certain rather unpleasant aspects to be found there, or read about the Crusades, the Reformation etc. etc. etc. (or read the Left Behind books). I could also point out that of all the positive characteristics Cameron lists as specifically Christian (which is pretty insulting: I'm caring, generous and tolerant, and so are many Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Jedi), none are terms which one could currently apply to his government. This is the administration which has cut state support for disabled children, for instance, yet continues to design new nuclear weapons at a cost of £80bn - not a policy sanctioned by the New Testament, as far as I remember.
But what really caught my eye in this statement is this talk of a 'fightback'. Against whom? Atheists are not burning Christians at the stake. Nor are Christians discriminated against by law: far from it. Anglican Bishops have permanent seats in the legislature. England and Scotland have Established churches (Wales, despite being traditionally very religious, disestablished the Church in Wales). Certainly leading scientists and intellectuals are more strident in defence of atheism, but in general, postmodernity seems to be a culture of religion. See for example, the way sub-contintental immigrants are now routinely described in terms of their religion rather than their other cultural or ethnic identities, bringing about confrontation.
No, there's another, more disgusting reason why David Cameron has suddenly declared jihad upon we inoffensive atheists. Just as the Tories have been attempting to import the culture wars into British politics (whipping up 'morality' and 'identity' politics to disguise viciously sectarian economic policies), they've decided to extend this to the religious arena.
Perhaps you're too young to remember the Reagan-Carter election of 1980. I was 5, but distinctly remember poring avidly over the newspapers as the campaign unfolded. The sitting Democratic President Carter was a peanut farmer from Georgia, and a practicing and ordained Baptist minister. He was (and is) a fundamentally decent, humane and thoughtful man who governed for all Americans and allowed his faith to inform his politics without directing it. He is, I think, one of the greatest politicians of the last century, though one whose Presidency was marooned and curtailed by events and the viciousness of his opponents.
Ronald Reagan was a former actor, turncoat union leader, vacuous and vicious governor of California and a long-term machine politician, a cheery (and brilliant) communicatory who fronted for a sinister security and business network desperate to regain power after the Nixon disaster made Republicans damaged goods. Reagan was technically Christian, but wore his religious beliefs - if any - very lightly indeed, appearing in church only on official duties or - and this bit is important - when an election was in the offing.
In 1980, the Cold War was at its height, characterised by the Republicans as the Godly against the Godless Atheists in Moscow. The 1970s had exposed (just like now) the total failure of American capitalism to generate good jobs for Americans - real wages peaked in 1975 and American workers have been getting poorer ever since. Reagan beat Carter with two messages: 'the shining city on the hill', which promised a brighter future without any explanation of how it would be achieved (credit/debt turned out to be the answer), in contrast to Carter's gloomy realism, and by harnessing the latent anger of core Republican voters - those who saw America as a religious crusade.
Reagan's genius was to persuade voters that he - the non-practising man who preferred golf to god on a Sunday morning - was the true candidate of the religious electorate, rather than the Reverend Carter, who still preaches and teaches Sunday School. In doing so, Reagan unleashed the revolting elements active in American protestantism: bigotry, fraud, 'prosperity gospels', homophobia and so, with which he probably had no sympathy at all. As a political strategy, it was absolute genius: millions of men and women denied decent jobs, homes, a stake in society, were persuaded that only the Republicans stood between them and Atheist Communism. The fight against abortion, women's rights and a whole panoply of other causes rallied them round the flag and saved the party from irrelevance. Over the longer term, however, it's proved destructive. Moderates defected from the party and it was taken over by ageing extremists out of touch with the electorate - hence the current race for the Republican nomination and impending defeat.
This is the politics which Cameron's confected Manichaean battle draws on. He knows that even the Daily Mail is hostile to his economic policies. He knows that it, the Telegraph and similar outlets want a more-or-less censorious and dominant Church of England, and that they think the world is in the throes of a religious war to the death. It's fertile territory, and he's making a grab for it - and just like Reagan, he doesn't even believe it. He's just cynically harnessing the fears of religious voters to garner votes. It may work in the short term - though I doubt it because British Christians (having a folk memory of the religious Civil War) are scared of extremes.
I imagine that ordinary decent believers would be horrified by this. Certainly there are plenty of religious bigots in this country, across all faiths, but I get the sense that most religious people are kind and tolerant people. The cynicism with which they're being encouraged to see the Conservative Party as Defenders of Faith against liberal atheism is breathtaking, especially as the party's neoliberalism runs counter to pretty much everything Jesus said about caring for one another and its leaders are as Godless as the rest of us.
The latest intervention is by David Cameron, who has released an 'Easter Message'. This is weird enough. Christmas is one of many winter festivals across the world and it's closely followed by the new year, so it seems reasonable that prominent citizens might have some kind of message at the year's end, even if none of us pay any attention. But Easter's a very specific event, and not one easily understood other than on a deeply theological level.
What does Call Me Dave say?
The prime minister, who held an Easter reception in Downing Street, quoted from the Gospel of Luke as he spoke of "we" Christians.
"This is the time when, as Christians, we remember the life, sacrifice and living legacy of Christ. The New Testament tells us so much about the character of Jesus; a man of incomparable compassion, generosity, grace, humility and love. These are the values that Jesus embraced, and I believe these are values people of any faith, or no faith, can also share in, and admire.
"It is values like these that make our country what it is – a place which is tolerant, generous and caring. A nation which has an established faith, that together is most content when we are defined by what we are for, rather than defined by what we are against. In the book of Luke, we are told that Jesus said, 'Do to others as you would have them do to you' – advice that when followed makes for a happier, and better society for everyone."
He told the assembled guests that he welcomed a Christian "fightback". He said: "I think there's something of a fightback going on, and we should welcome that. The values of the Bible, the values of Christianity, are the values that we need."
I fear that Dave is developing messianic tendencies - always useful when one's administration is in difficulties. Whenever Blair didn't have any evidence, he referred to God and his conscience in place of empirical truth. In Dave's case, it's particularly cynical because he previously said this about his beliefs:
"As Boris Johnson once said, his religious faith is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes. That sums up a lot of people in the Church of England. We are racked with doubts, but sort of fundamentally believe, but don't sort of wear it on our sleeves or make too much of it. I think that is sort of where I am."I think we can assume from this that he's a lazy atheist or agnostic: not someone who's every given religion much thought, but a cultural Anglican who knows very well that his core voters wouldn't be very impressed by indifference. So he's recast uninterest as a classic English tolerance.
So I think this original statement is rather deceptive, and his latest 'message' seems to by a cynical and dishonest attempt to import the Reaganite playbook into the UK. I could spend several paragraphs pointing out that tolerance and kindness is only one strand of Christianity - but instead, I'd advise you to visit any Northern Irish Presbyterian chapel, consult the actual Bible to familiarise yourself with certain rather unpleasant aspects to be found there, or read about the Crusades, the Reformation etc. etc. etc. (or read the Left Behind books). I could also point out that of all the positive characteristics Cameron lists as specifically Christian (which is pretty insulting: I'm caring, generous and tolerant, and so are many Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Jedi), none are terms which one could currently apply to his government. This is the administration which has cut state support for disabled children, for instance, yet continues to design new nuclear weapons at a cost of £80bn - not a policy sanctioned by the New Testament, as far as I remember.
But what really caught my eye in this statement is this talk of a 'fightback'. Against whom? Atheists are not burning Christians at the stake. Nor are Christians discriminated against by law: far from it. Anglican Bishops have permanent seats in the legislature. England and Scotland have Established churches (Wales, despite being traditionally very religious, disestablished the Church in Wales). Certainly leading scientists and intellectuals are more strident in defence of atheism, but in general, postmodernity seems to be a culture of religion. See for example, the way sub-contintental immigrants are now routinely described in terms of their religion rather than their other cultural or ethnic identities, bringing about confrontation.
No, there's another, more disgusting reason why David Cameron has suddenly declared jihad upon we inoffensive atheists. Just as the Tories have been attempting to import the culture wars into British politics (whipping up 'morality' and 'identity' politics to disguise viciously sectarian economic policies), they've decided to extend this to the religious arena.
Perhaps you're too young to remember the Reagan-Carter election of 1980. I was 5, but distinctly remember poring avidly over the newspapers as the campaign unfolded. The sitting Democratic President Carter was a peanut farmer from Georgia, and a practicing and ordained Baptist minister. He was (and is) a fundamentally decent, humane and thoughtful man who governed for all Americans and allowed his faith to inform his politics without directing it. He is, I think, one of the greatest politicians of the last century, though one whose Presidency was marooned and curtailed by events and the viciousness of his opponents.
Ronald Reagan was a former actor, turncoat union leader, vacuous and vicious governor of California and a long-term machine politician, a cheery (and brilliant) communicatory who fronted for a sinister security and business network desperate to regain power after the Nixon disaster made Republicans damaged goods. Reagan was technically Christian, but wore his religious beliefs - if any - very lightly indeed, appearing in church only on official duties or - and this bit is important - when an election was in the offing.
In 1980, the Cold War was at its height, characterised by the Republicans as the Godly against the Godless Atheists in Moscow. The 1970s had exposed (just like now) the total failure of American capitalism to generate good jobs for Americans - real wages peaked in 1975 and American workers have been getting poorer ever since. Reagan beat Carter with two messages: 'the shining city on the hill', which promised a brighter future without any explanation of how it would be achieved (credit/debt turned out to be the answer), in contrast to Carter's gloomy realism, and by harnessing the latent anger of core Republican voters - those who saw America as a religious crusade.
Reagan's genius was to persuade voters that he - the non-practising man who preferred golf to god on a Sunday morning - was the true candidate of the religious electorate, rather than the Reverend Carter, who still preaches and teaches Sunday School. In doing so, Reagan unleashed the revolting elements active in American protestantism: bigotry, fraud, 'prosperity gospels', homophobia and so, with which he probably had no sympathy at all. As a political strategy, it was absolute genius: millions of men and women denied decent jobs, homes, a stake in society, were persuaded that only the Republicans stood between them and Atheist Communism. The fight against abortion, women's rights and a whole panoply of other causes rallied them round the flag and saved the party from irrelevance. Over the longer term, however, it's proved destructive. Moderates defected from the party and it was taken over by ageing extremists out of touch with the electorate - hence the current race for the Republican nomination and impending defeat.
This is the politics which Cameron's confected Manichaean battle draws on. He knows that even the Daily Mail is hostile to his economic policies. He knows that it, the Telegraph and similar outlets want a more-or-less censorious and dominant Church of England, and that they think the world is in the throes of a religious war to the death. It's fertile territory, and he's making a grab for it - and just like Reagan, he doesn't even believe it. He's just cynically harnessing the fears of religious voters to garner votes. It may work in the short term - though I doubt it because British Christians (having a folk memory of the religious Civil War) are scared of extremes.
I imagine that ordinary decent believers would be horrified by this. Certainly there are plenty of religious bigots in this country, across all faiths, but I get the sense that most religious people are kind and tolerant people. The cynicism with which they're being encouraged to see the Conservative Party as Defenders of Faith against liberal atheism is breathtaking, especially as the party's neoliberalism runs counter to pretty much everything Jesus said about caring for one another and its leaders are as Godless as the rest of us.
I'm Jen Rhee, so Jen Rhee, so Jen Rhee inside…
Odd email today:
The idea that she'd appreciate my readers' feedback implies that she hasn't actually read any of your comments. Does she really want Ewar's views on anything? (Except Anna Kournikova, his specialist subject).
Anyway, a quick wander round the internet reveals that Ms. Rhee and her friends have been pretty active, sending similar 'infographic' offers to all and sundry. It seems that infographics are the latest 'link bait', used by unscrupulous search-engine optimisers to drive traffic to their spammy sites. We're all savvy to the random links posted as blog comments, fake Twitter accounts and so on, so the SEO scum have turned to circulating pretty images which are actually links to spam sites.
I have an infographic for you, Ms. Rhee:
Hi [Vole],Strange because 'Jen Rhee' had managed to find my real name and real university email address, yet couldn't write a sentence which doesn't sound like a Bulgarian laboriously translating sentences from a 1930s English-Latvian phrase book.
I came across your site while searching for resources related to ‘Mac Rumors’ and noticed that you had referenced their site. That said, I wanted to reach out and share an interactive graphic that my team and I created which takes a closer look at the lifecycle and true cost of an iPhone. Would you be interested in taking a look?
I'd love to get your readers' feedback as well as yours!
Thanks, Jen R.
The idea that she'd appreciate my readers' feedback implies that she hasn't actually read any of your comments. Does she really want Ewar's views on anything? (Except Anna Kournikova, his specialist subject).
Anyway, a quick wander round the internet reveals that Ms. Rhee and her friends have been pretty active, sending similar 'infographic' offers to all and sundry. It seems that infographics are the latest 'link bait', used by unscrupulous search-engine optimisers to drive traffic to their spammy sites. We're all savvy to the random links posted as blog comments, fake Twitter accounts and so on, so the SEO scum have turned to circulating pretty images which are actually links to spam sites.
I have an infographic for you, Ms. Rhee:
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
3 A* Stars in Being Lovely, Punting and Jack Wills Studies
The latest wheeze designed by Pob Michael Gove, whose post as Secretary of State for Education must be some kind of public school jape, is to hand control over the A-level system to the Russell Group of élite universities. You know the ones: they're the institutions which largely cater for profitable overseas students and those from fee-paying schools. Oxford and Cambridge, for example, give over 50% of places to the rich kids whose parents have bought them high A-level grades through tiny class sizes and endless resources. Then the universities look good because these advantaged kids do well (interestingly, less well at degree-level than state school children).
Now I could make some cheap shots about the kind of A-level questions such places will pose. So I will (go here for a serious analysis by someone else). 'How long must Tarquin punt before landing a role in Peter's Friends?'. 'Why would one pursue Media Studies when an Oxbridge place leads inexorably to a Radio 4 sketch show?'. 'What should be the legal penalty for passing the port to the right'?
But jokes aside, I don't see why the A-level system is so broken that one particular bunch of universities should be handed control. There certainly are problems with the educational system: a lot of my bright and eager students aren't capable of reading analytically, critiquing a text or writing an essay. It's not their fault. The Tory educational system (damaged too by New Labour's reductive obsession with league tables) means that students are spoon-fed by terrified teachers. I've been told that some novels aren't read - instead, they concentrate on 'key chapters', and students are sometimes given 'essay skeletons' telling them what goes in each paragraph. That's not education - it's a coping strategy.
It's also the case that A-levels aren't just a university entrance qualification - they're good for all sorts of jobs. Handing them over to universities will narrow their focus and purpose to the detriment of those excellent students who feel that university isn't for them.
Will Russell Group control change this? Maybe, but I don't see why those universities should be privileged. I suspect you'll find that the really innovative curriculae and theoretical approaches are generated by the less traditional students. Shaping the curriculum to the preferences of a small and unrepresentative universities won't prepare them for the innovative, exciting work we do here and at other modern universities. Furthermore, they are likely to disdain subjects which they don't teach: you might laugh at Media Studies, but post-hacking and swimming in social media, isn't it important to understand and critique our media landscape? I certainly didn't discover Gramsci, Baudrillard and Jameson through my English degree: teaching Cultural Studies and Media has widened my literary perspectives too.
Nor do I think that university academics are particularly equipped to dictate school-level exams. Instead, I suspect that they'll form another private company and outsource the work required, using Russell Group as a brand. Conversely, they might harness the considerable talent of our educationalists only to have Gove - who is a rather pedestrian reactionary - to reject their suggestions. He's got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about Oxbridge being Paradise, but he thinks that all other academics are bearded Trotskyist subversives. Well I haven't got a beard!
Now I could make some cheap shots about the kind of A-level questions such places will pose. So I will (go here for a serious analysis by someone else). 'How long must Tarquin punt before landing a role in Peter's Friends?'. 'Why would one pursue Media Studies when an Oxbridge place leads inexorably to a Radio 4 sketch show?'. 'What should be the legal penalty for passing the port to the right'?
But jokes aside, I don't see why the A-level system is so broken that one particular bunch of universities should be handed control. There certainly are problems with the educational system: a lot of my bright and eager students aren't capable of reading analytically, critiquing a text or writing an essay. It's not their fault. The Tory educational system (damaged too by New Labour's reductive obsession with league tables) means that students are spoon-fed by terrified teachers. I've been told that some novels aren't read - instead, they concentrate on 'key chapters', and students are sometimes given 'essay skeletons' telling them what goes in each paragraph. That's not education - it's a coping strategy.
It's also the case that A-levels aren't just a university entrance qualification - they're good for all sorts of jobs. Handing them over to universities will narrow their focus and purpose to the detriment of those excellent students who feel that university isn't for them.
Will Russell Group control change this? Maybe, but I don't see why those universities should be privileged. I suspect you'll find that the really innovative curriculae and theoretical approaches are generated by the less traditional students. Shaping the curriculum to the preferences of a small and unrepresentative universities won't prepare them for the innovative, exciting work we do here and at other modern universities. Furthermore, they are likely to disdain subjects which they don't teach: you might laugh at Media Studies, but post-hacking and swimming in social media, isn't it important to understand and critique our media landscape? I certainly didn't discover Gramsci, Baudrillard and Jameson through my English degree: teaching Cultural Studies and Media has widened my literary perspectives too.
Nor do I think that university academics are particularly equipped to dictate school-level exams. Instead, I suspect that they'll form another private company and outsource the work required, using Russell Group as a brand. Conversely, they might harness the considerable talent of our educationalists only to have Gove - who is a rather pedestrian reactionary - to reject their suggestions. He's got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about Oxbridge being Paradise, but he thinks that all other academics are bearded Trotskyist subversives. Well I haven't got a beard!
Let it snow, let it snow
I'm a happy Vole now the wind's howling and the rain's falling. A good dump of lovely snow over the benighted Dark Place would be wonderful. What could be more seasonal than eating Easter eggs in front of a roaring fire? If we live that long, of course: the Daily Express thinks that we're all going to die from 'extreme' weather this week, despite devoting most of its pages to Was Princess Diana Murdered Before She Exposed Global Warming As Hoax?' stories.
Anyway, I appear to have found myself in quite a good mood. Despite being tortured in the quiet coach by a chap who put headphones on then proceeded to play Heart FM (imagine Céline Dion's lovemaking mix tape) on the his phone's speaker, I've regained my natural bonhomie. Mostly as the result of writing a 3000 word stinking review of the worst book I've ever read, Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society. I know that I mocked P D James's inept and weird Death Comes To Pemberley last week but she didn't say things like American liberals have 'very similar goals' to 'people whom the left repudiates and anathematizes, such as Fascists in general and Nazis in particular'. He says this shortly after claiming that lefties are rude arrogant and vicious, while those on the right are polite and measured. Apparently liberals and Nazis are the same because they both wanted a minimum wage, state old-age care and regulated markets. So when the Lib Dems start building gas ovens, don't say you weren't warned.
Anyway, enough of this nonsense. I spent lunchtime discussing Baudrillard and spree-killing over vegetable samosas, and now it's time to read draft dissertation chapters by my final-year students. If you're reading, tutees, keep banging the rocks together.
Obviously for this kind of task, I'll need some soothing music to reduce the blood pressure. Here's some Trespassers William doing one of my favourite Ride tracks.
Which obviously leads me to Ride themselves - one of the wonderful bands killed off by Britpop. Most of the bands then only had one syllable. Pulp, Blur, Lush… Anyway, Ride were kings of Shoegaze, now happily revived for a new generation. Play these. They're ace.
Anyway, I appear to have found myself in quite a good mood. Despite being tortured in the quiet coach by a chap who put headphones on then proceeded to play Heart FM (imagine Céline Dion's lovemaking mix tape) on the his phone's speaker, I've regained my natural bonhomie. Mostly as the result of writing a 3000 word stinking review of the worst book I've ever read, Thomas Sowell's Intellectuals and Society. I know that I mocked P D James's inept and weird Death Comes To Pemberley last week but she didn't say things like American liberals have 'very similar goals' to 'people whom the left repudiates and anathematizes, such as Fascists in general and Nazis in particular'. He says this shortly after claiming that lefties are rude arrogant and vicious, while those on the right are polite and measured. Apparently liberals and Nazis are the same because they both wanted a minimum wage, state old-age care and regulated markets. So when the Lib Dems start building gas ovens, don't say you weren't warned.
Anyway, enough of this nonsense. I spent lunchtime discussing Baudrillard and spree-killing over vegetable samosas, and now it's time to read draft dissertation chapters by my final-year students. If you're reading, tutees, keep banging the rocks together.
Obviously for this kind of task, I'll need some soothing music to reduce the blood pressure. Here's some Trespassers William doing one of my favourite Ride tracks.
Which obviously leads me to Ride themselves - one of the wonderful bands killed off by Britpop. Most of the bands then only had one syllable. Pulp, Blur, Lush… Anyway, Ride were kings of Shoegaze, now happily revived for a new generation. Play these. They're ace.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Books to start the week
After the horror of last week's Death Comes To Pemberley, which I have decided I will finish in spite of its all-round awfulness, I've got some good stuff line up. I've just finished Adam Thorpe's Hodd, his revisionist take on Robin Hood. It was - like all his work - informed, pungent and visceral. I've been teaching versions of the Robin myth recently, and I'll probably add this novel to the list. The central themes are absent and sought fathers, and doctrinal certainty. The anonymous narrator is an orphan who moves from father=figure to father-figure (hermit, slack monk, heretical ex-priest Robin), being betrayed by and betraying each one in turn, while seeking some kind of certainty to give his world the purpose and meaning it lacks.
The only thing I didn't think worked was the postmodernist framework. The central narrative was meant to be the account of a repenting monk who was once part of Robin's band, copied by a subsequent scribe, then translated by a shell-shocked WW1 veteran who found the copy in the bombed-out church in which he found himself during the war. The text is covered in footnotes referring to genuine texts, which is kind of fun but is also a way of showing off the author's wit and learning rather than the narrator's. It's a nice idea, linking the social savagery of the medieval period with the more knowing bestiality of the war, but once the point's made, it doesn't need repeated reminders. Anyway, it's highly recommended: not a million miles from Eco's The Name of the Rose in purpose and setting, but in many ways more involving: Eco uses novels as vehicles, whereas Thorpe is a novelist.
Also in the post today: Christopher Meredith's The Book of Idiots. It's not - as you might expect - a copy of the Coalition Agreement (bit of political humour there), but a dark comedy of masculinity and death. I've been waiting for this novel for a very long time: Meredith's poetry is wonderful, and I've returned to his novels (Griffri, Shifts and Sidereal Time) over and over again. The other book in today is Jamie Whyte's Bad Thoughts - a bit like Bad Science for philosophy. Imagine Dawkins with a scalpel rather than a nuclear missile.
The only thing I didn't think worked was the postmodernist framework. The central narrative was meant to be the account of a repenting monk who was once part of Robin's band, copied by a subsequent scribe, then translated by a shell-shocked WW1 veteran who found the copy in the bombed-out church in which he found himself during the war. The text is covered in footnotes referring to genuine texts, which is kind of fun but is also a way of showing off the author's wit and learning rather than the narrator's. It's a nice idea, linking the social savagery of the medieval period with the more knowing bestiality of the war, but once the point's made, it doesn't need repeated reminders. Anyway, it's highly recommended: not a million miles from Eco's The Name of the Rose in purpose and setting, but in many ways more involving: Eco uses novels as vehicles, whereas Thorpe is a novelist.
Also in the post today: Christopher Meredith's The Book of Idiots. It's not - as you might expect - a copy of the Coalition Agreement (bit of political humour there), but a dark comedy of masculinity and death. I've been waiting for this novel for a very long time: Meredith's poetry is wonderful, and I've returned to his novels (Griffri, Shifts and Sidereal Time) over and over again. The other book in today is Jamie Whyte's Bad Thoughts - a bit like Bad Science for philosophy. Imagine Dawkins with a scalpel rather than a nuclear missile.
Academic Blogging Day
This a wheeze designed to explain to people what academics do on a daily basis. Given that my students think that my waking hours are spent Tweeting and being sarcastic, it's an opportunity to set the record straight.
Nobody would claim that an academic's life is physically arduous. I work long hours, but mostly doing things I love. There are stresses: institutional pressures, demands from colleagues and students which aren't always compatible, the competitive demands to produce more (any, in my case) research, and the emotional commitment required to be a good academic. We're like doctors: we become attached to our students and get upset when we lose one. The worst days are when we have to put one down. It's tempting to say we're more like vets than doctors: sometimes the patients don't understand what we're doing to them and try to bite us… 'What's that, Skippy? You reckon Frankenstein might be an early Victorian example of opposition to plastic surgery? Well, this little fella's reached the end of the line and sadly, we're going to have to put him out of his misery… Tune in to next week's episode when we see how some first-year pups cope with Karl Marx'.
But that would be mean. The greatest joy, as well as the greatest worry, comes from the students. Today, for instance, I've read chunks of two students' final-year dissertations. Both are promising, one is near complete. I've coached a friend about his PhD proposal presentation, and talked to a very engaging third-year about her dissertation and time here. She's one of the students I'll miss: shy and retiring in person, yet witty and bright on paper. She had the misfortune to turn up just as Neal was about to start his presentation run-through, and now knows more about hemp-line heat retention than any humanities student ever.
What else have I done? Lots of admin. A little reading, some review-writing, and I've begged a few more days to get a book chapter proposal written. The afternoon holds the promise of much marking, my least favourite part of the job.
It's not mining or bin-emptying. I'm warm, secure and paid for reading, writing about and talking about books - which is what I'd do for free anyway. No job is perfect, but mine's better than most.
Nobody would claim that an academic's life is physically arduous. I work long hours, but mostly doing things I love. There are stresses: institutional pressures, demands from colleagues and students which aren't always compatible, the competitive demands to produce more (any, in my case) research, and the emotional commitment required to be a good academic. We're like doctors: we become attached to our students and get upset when we lose one. The worst days are when we have to put one down. It's tempting to say we're more like vets than doctors: sometimes the patients don't understand what we're doing to them and try to bite us… 'What's that, Skippy? You reckon Frankenstein might be an early Victorian example of opposition to plastic surgery? Well, this little fella's reached the end of the line and sadly, we're going to have to put him out of his misery… Tune in to next week's episode when we see how some first-year pups cope with Karl Marx'.
But that would be mean. The greatest joy, as well as the greatest worry, comes from the students. Today, for instance, I've read chunks of two students' final-year dissertations. Both are promising, one is near complete. I've coached a friend about his PhD proposal presentation, and talked to a very engaging third-year about her dissertation and time here. She's one of the students I'll miss: shy and retiring in person, yet witty and bright on paper. She had the misfortune to turn up just as Neal was about to start his presentation run-through, and now knows more about hemp-line heat retention than any humanities student ever.
What else have I done? Lots of admin. A little reading, some review-writing, and I've begged a few more days to get a book chapter proposal written. The afternoon holds the promise of much marking, my least favourite part of the job.
It's not mining or bin-emptying. I'm warm, secure and paid for reading, writing about and talking about books - which is what I'd do for free anyway. No job is perfect, but mine's better than most.
Poetry superstar! Here!
18th April 2012, 6-8, in MC001:
Here's what to expect:
Fred d'Aguiar!This is a very big deal: internationally renowned poet, novelist, playwright and critic, coming to The Hegemon! Much of his work centres on Guyana, the slave trade and postcolonial conditions.
Here's what to expect:
Friday, 30 March 2012
Gorgeous George
A lot of people are celebrating today, because George Galloway was re-elected to Parliament, trouncing Labour (who previously held the seat) and the Tories. Look, they say, it shows that there's an electorate who'll vote for a proper socialist way to the left of Labour.
They're talking utter shit.
I'm a hardline socialist way to the left of Labour. I'm also - thanks to a lifetime of bad choices - an expert on socialist political and cultural history. I know a charlatan when I see one. George Galloway is not a socialist. He's a man steeped in the history and rhetorical devices of socialism. He can preach with the best of them. But he's not a socialist. He's an opportunist who has been elected yet again through the simple method of playing identity politics. His totally legitimate - and often magnificent - opposition to the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has meshed with his propensity to cuddle up to every dictator who opposed the west - despite most of these dictators previously being western puppets. He's manufactured a victory by telling Muslim voters that their religious identity and ethnic origin is the most important thing about them. This isn't progressive: it's racism. He has nothing to say about them as citizens, as proletarians, as Bradfordians.
In George's world, the Tiananmen Massacre never happened.
Here's his embarrassing speech to Saddam Hussein:
I share many of George's opinions. I understand the socialist world which spawned him. But his political strategy is one of divisiveness and conspiracism. He understands that alienated young people - particular those from ethnic minorities who are disproportionately unemployed and harassed by the police and the media - are ready to grasp simplistic solutions and interpretations of their predicaments. He doesn't encourage them to forge alliances: he fosters sectarianism and encourages a siege-politics in which groups are formed for the purposes of capturing the state for private interests. There's no vision here, simply plunder.
Galloway's Respect party was founded as a vehicle for himself alone, in tandem with the Socialist Workers Party (not socialists, not workers), a groupuscule which never stands for election itself, preferring to influence politics behind the scenes: their argument is that parliamentary democracy is a sham, but their own methods are devious and unaccountable.
Galloway is a demagogue: his love of the tanning salon and unspeakable dictators is reminiscent of Tony Blair. They share a conviction that ideology and boring politics is for the little people - Galloway voted in 7% of the divisions last time he was in parliament. While he's making grandiose speeches about Afghanistan or Palestine, who'll be chasing the CSA or the Benefits Agency for his constituents? Because that's what most MPs spend their time working on.
Demagoguery is not socialism. Stalinism was a cult of personality. So was the Workers' Revolutionary Party, led by Gerry Healy, who turned out to be a rapist who used violence to control his tiny sect. So was New Labour ('trust me, guys' is not a political platform). Galloway's part of a tradition which requires total obedience rather than critical support. When Healy was exposed as a rapist, his followers denied, then excused it. When Respect fell apart the first time, the factions splintered in true Monty Python style. Respect is a vehicle, not a party, and its sole purpose is to allow George Galloway and his clique to harness the most reactionary instincts of the oppressed for the purpose of sustaining Galloway's symbolic presence.
There's a view amongst macho politicians on the left - of whom Galloway is an example - that only big groups matter. With George, it's Islamic communities whom he sees as a natural constituency. Labour took their votes for granted, which led to corruption and injustice, as well as fragmented communities. The war ended that, and shifty Tories and splitters moved in. I use 'Islamic' very deliberately. In the old days, immigrant communities were treated by proper socialists as fellow-workers whose essential interests were the same as other workers: fair treatment at work, equality, good housing, education, health and welfare. Religious identity wasn't a concern: many immigrants, like many natives, had some belief but weren't necessarily observant. Others were, but it was a private activity. Religion wasn't the defining characteristic of immigrant groups, just as it isn't of white native ones. But gradually, that changed, and it brought about a darker vision of the public sphere.
When identity politics and war became enmeshed, some very dubious decisions were made. Well-meaning politicians, concerned by the plight of immigrant and minority communities, handed representational power to religious leaders and business groups which fostered an identity rooted in religious practice. Pretty soon, everyone believed that 'Muslim' = strictly observant, then 'fundamentalist'. The idea that Muslims could be religious slackers who shared our interests in social justice, or the minimum wage or nuclear disarmament, disappeared. We treated Muslims as religious zealots and many young Muslims embraced it as the only stable identity available. Dubious 'community leaders' encouraged this - leading to the burning of The Islamic Verses, to segregation and to people like George Galloway and David Cameron fuelling mutual suspicion and reductive concepts of identity.
It's like assuming that Ian Paisley's fascist apocalyptic cult and a Catholic priest's child-abusing habits define Christianity in Northern Ireland, and then treating them as legitimate representatives of those communities. (Which is what's happened).
What's lost is the continuum of Islam (and other religions) as a practice, from Wahhabi to Sufism, from essential to cultural, from observant to casual. Galloway's identification with Islam has led him to encourage and applaud some disgusting bigots. Misogynists, homophobes, anti-semites (for the record: Israel is a vicious state guilty of multiple war crimes - but not because it's a Jewish state): they all appear next to Galloway as 'true' representatives of an oppressed faith. Eventually, these things become self-fulfilling prophecies, and we're left living in ghettos of mutual hatred. But George will be on Question Time, and that's what matters.
True socialists know that socialism isn't' embodied in one person. My political hero, Lewis Jones, refused to join a standing ovation for Stalin - in Moscow at the height of the Purges - because he didn't believe in the Great Man theory of politics. Harry Pollitt and Dennis Skinner are socialists: they're boring, hard-working people who believe that the force of their arguments will prevail, not the deployment of fake tan and fine phrases.
This country needs a socialist party - yesterday's Question Time, in which a Labour shadow cabinet minister joined the anti-union lynch-mob without even considering whether the tanker-drivers' strike (over health and safety) might be justified. George Galloway is not the future of socialism. He speaks well, he's sometimes right, and it's fun hearing him humiliate Tories and pathetic New Labour stooges, but George isn't The Great Liberator: he's a fame addict.
They're talking utter shit.
I'm a hardline socialist way to the left of Labour. I'm also - thanks to a lifetime of bad choices - an expert on socialist political and cultural history. I know a charlatan when I see one. George Galloway is not a socialist. He's a man steeped in the history and rhetorical devices of socialism. He can preach with the best of them. But he's not a socialist. He's an opportunist who has been elected yet again through the simple method of playing identity politics. His totally legitimate - and often magnificent - opposition to the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has meshed with his propensity to cuddle up to every dictator who opposed the west - despite most of these dictators previously being western puppets. He's manufactured a victory by telling Muslim voters that their religious identity and ethnic origin is the most important thing about them. This isn't progressive: it's racism. He has nothing to say about them as citizens, as proletarians, as Bradfordians.
In George's world, the Tiananmen Massacre never happened.
Here's his embarrassing speech to Saddam Hussein:
I share many of George's opinions. I understand the socialist world which spawned him. But his political strategy is one of divisiveness and conspiracism. He understands that alienated young people - particular those from ethnic minorities who are disproportionately unemployed and harassed by the police and the media - are ready to grasp simplistic solutions and interpretations of their predicaments. He doesn't encourage them to forge alliances: he fosters sectarianism and encourages a siege-politics in which groups are formed for the purposes of capturing the state for private interests. There's no vision here, simply plunder.
Galloway's Respect party was founded as a vehicle for himself alone, in tandem with the Socialist Workers Party (not socialists, not workers), a groupuscule which never stands for election itself, preferring to influence politics behind the scenes: their argument is that parliamentary democracy is a sham, but their own methods are devious and unaccountable.
Galloway is a demagogue: his love of the tanning salon and unspeakable dictators is reminiscent of Tony Blair. They share a conviction that ideology and boring politics is for the little people - Galloway voted in 7% of the divisions last time he was in parliament. While he's making grandiose speeches about Afghanistan or Palestine, who'll be chasing the CSA or the Benefits Agency for his constituents? Because that's what most MPs spend their time working on.
Demagoguery is not socialism. Stalinism was a cult of personality. So was the Workers' Revolutionary Party, led by Gerry Healy, who turned out to be a rapist who used violence to control his tiny sect. So was New Labour ('trust me, guys' is not a political platform). Galloway's part of a tradition which requires total obedience rather than critical support. When Healy was exposed as a rapist, his followers denied, then excused it. When Respect fell apart the first time, the factions splintered in true Monty Python style. Respect is a vehicle, not a party, and its sole purpose is to allow George Galloway and his clique to harness the most reactionary instincts of the oppressed for the purpose of sustaining Galloway's symbolic presence.
There's a view amongst macho politicians on the left - of whom Galloway is an example - that only big groups matter. With George, it's Islamic communities whom he sees as a natural constituency. Labour took their votes for granted, which led to corruption and injustice, as well as fragmented communities. The war ended that, and shifty Tories and splitters moved in. I use 'Islamic' very deliberately. In the old days, immigrant communities were treated by proper socialists as fellow-workers whose essential interests were the same as other workers: fair treatment at work, equality, good housing, education, health and welfare. Religious identity wasn't a concern: many immigrants, like many natives, had some belief but weren't necessarily observant. Others were, but it was a private activity. Religion wasn't the defining characteristic of immigrant groups, just as it isn't of white native ones. But gradually, that changed, and it brought about a darker vision of the public sphere.
When identity politics and war became enmeshed, some very dubious decisions were made. Well-meaning politicians, concerned by the plight of immigrant and minority communities, handed representational power to religious leaders and business groups which fostered an identity rooted in religious practice. Pretty soon, everyone believed that 'Muslim' = strictly observant, then 'fundamentalist'. The idea that Muslims could be religious slackers who shared our interests in social justice, or the minimum wage or nuclear disarmament, disappeared. We treated Muslims as religious zealots and many young Muslims embraced it as the only stable identity available. Dubious 'community leaders' encouraged this - leading to the burning of The Islamic Verses, to segregation and to people like George Galloway and David Cameron fuelling mutual suspicion and reductive concepts of identity.
It's like assuming that Ian Paisley's fascist apocalyptic cult and a Catholic priest's child-abusing habits define Christianity in Northern Ireland, and then treating them as legitimate representatives of those communities. (Which is what's happened).
What's lost is the continuum of Islam (and other religions) as a practice, from Wahhabi to Sufism, from essential to cultural, from observant to casual. Galloway's identification with Islam has led him to encourage and applaud some disgusting bigots. Misogynists, homophobes, anti-semites (for the record: Israel is a vicious state guilty of multiple war crimes - but not because it's a Jewish state): they all appear next to Galloway as 'true' representatives of an oppressed faith. Eventually, these things become self-fulfilling prophecies, and we're left living in ghettos of mutual hatred. But George will be on Question Time, and that's what matters.
True socialists know that socialism isn't' embodied in one person. My political hero, Lewis Jones, refused to join a standing ovation for Stalin - in Moscow at the height of the Purges - because he didn't believe in the Great Man theory of politics. Harry Pollitt and Dennis Skinner are socialists: they're boring, hard-working people who believe that the force of their arguments will prevail, not the deployment of fake tan and fine phrases.
This country needs a socialist party - yesterday's Question Time, in which a Labour shadow cabinet minister joined the anti-union lynch-mob without even considering whether the tanker-drivers' strike (over health and safety) might be justified. George Galloway is not the future of socialism. He speaks well, he's sometimes right, and it's fun hearing him humiliate Tories and pathetic New Labour stooges, but George isn't The Great Liberator: he's a fame addict.
Are Tories genetically corrupt?
Despite hating Europe so much, the Tories seem to have a lot in common with their continental cousins. Particularly a propensity for corruption.
Over here we've had:
Jeffrey Archer
Jonathan Aitken
Neil Hamilton
Cash For Questions
Cash For Access
Lord Ashcroft
The Zinoviev Letter
Winston Churchill's oil bribes
Reginald Maudling
Andrew Mitchell
Al-Yamamah
Shirley Porter's gerrymandering
Derek Conway
Liam Fox and Adam Werritty
And of course there's the whole bankrupting-the-taxpayer-and-cutting-public-services-to-bail-out-the-banksgate.
So it looks like British Tories and right-wingers in general (look at UKIP's record: a conveyor belt from the European Parliament to prison) are pretty keen bribe-hoovers. But let's spread the net wider, and ask this question: Does Toryism Lead Inevitably To Corruption?
Ireland:
The Mahon Tribunal revealed that the entire state had been suborned by bribery and corruption through the method of bribing and buying Fianna Fail politicians. The previous Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern was judged to have taken bribes and lied to the enquiry. The party has been in government for most of the Republic's existence and essentially sold itself to business. They too managed to bankrupt the country.
France:
Former president Chirac funded his party through a network of fake public sector jobs for party activists.
Righwing politicians jailed for arms-smuggling, while they accuse each other of secret bank accounts.
Sarkozy's been taking suitcases of (tax-evading) cash from France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, the L'Oréal heiress.
Germany:
The Christian Democrat (i.e. Tory) German President has just had to resign due to a corruption scandal.
Austria:
The Austrian Tories (ÖVP) are in massive disarray as it turns out they're riddled with corruption, enriching themselves and their friends through bribery related to government contracts.
Slovakia:
Their Tories have been taking massive bribes for contract and privatisation deals. The same goes for Croatia's HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union), while over in the Czech Republic, a businessman nicknamed Voldemort ran his own shadow government by buying up the Czech Tories, the Civic Democrats.
What makes Tories so open to sleaze? It's in their DNA. They believe in individual capitalism and enterprise. Sharp practice is simply individual entrepreneurialism. They also believe that financial success is a mark of spiritual and intellectual strength, so anyone with massive amounts of cash is automatically admirable. They believe that what's good for business is good for everyone, and they see government as a drag on achievement which should be subverted or captured for their own interests (hence Mitchell's tax scam and the al-Yamamah deal). Little wonder then that they're so susceptible to the charms of rich men filling their ears with seductive words and their pockets with cash. They're incapable of discrimination. When the world means little more to them than the circulation of cash, they'd be fools not to dip their hands in the river of corruption: it's ideologically natural.
Over here we've had:
Jeffrey Archer
Jonathan Aitken
Neil Hamilton
Cash For Questions
Cash For Access
Lord Ashcroft
The Zinoviev Letter
Winston Churchill's oil bribes
Reginald Maudling
Andrew Mitchell
Al-Yamamah
Shirley Porter's gerrymandering
Derek Conway
Liam Fox and Adam Werritty
And of course there's the whole bankrupting-the-taxpayer-and-cutting-public-services-to-bail-out-the-banksgate.
So it looks like British Tories and right-wingers in general (look at UKIP's record: a conveyor belt from the European Parliament to prison) are pretty keen bribe-hoovers. But let's spread the net wider, and ask this question: Does Toryism Lead Inevitably To Corruption?
Ireland:
The Mahon Tribunal revealed that the entire state had been suborned by bribery and corruption through the method of bribing and buying Fianna Fail politicians. The previous Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern was judged to have taken bribes and lied to the enquiry. The party has been in government for most of the Republic's existence and essentially sold itself to business. They too managed to bankrupt the country.
France:
Former president Chirac funded his party through a network of fake public sector jobs for party activists.
Righwing politicians jailed for arms-smuggling, while they accuse each other of secret bank accounts.
Sarkozy's been taking suitcases of (tax-evading) cash from France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, the L'Oréal heiress.
Germany:
The Christian Democrat (i.e. Tory) German President has just had to resign due to a corruption scandal.
Austria:
The Austrian Tories (ÖVP) are in massive disarray as it turns out they're riddled with corruption, enriching themselves and their friends through bribery related to government contracts.
Slovakia:
Their Tories have been taking massive bribes for contract and privatisation deals. The same goes for Croatia's HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union), while over in the Czech Republic, a businessman nicknamed Voldemort ran his own shadow government by buying up the Czech Tories, the Civic Democrats.
What makes Tories so open to sleaze? It's in their DNA. They believe in individual capitalism and enterprise. Sharp practice is simply individual entrepreneurialism. They also believe that financial success is a mark of spiritual and intellectual strength, so anyone with massive amounts of cash is automatically admirable. They believe that what's good for business is good for everyone, and they see government as a drag on achievement which should be subverted or captured for their own interests (hence Mitchell's tax scam and the al-Yamamah deal). Little wonder then that they're so susceptible to the charms of rich men filling their ears with seductive words and their pockets with cash. They're incapable of discrimination. When the world means little more to them than the circulation of cash, they'd be fools not to dip their hands in the river of corruption: it's ideologically natural.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author in want of a plot, turns to Austen.
I am, for the first time I can remember (and I've been reading for 32 of my 36 years), considering not completing a book. Normally I'm bloody-minded enough to battle my way through a bad book on the grounds that I've spent good money on it. Also, many bad books are culturally significant in some way (I'm thinking of Hornby and Parsons here).
I must confess, however, that P. D. James's Death Comes To Pemberley is on the verge of defeating me. It is quite the worst book I have read since How Green Was My Valley, about which I wrote my PhD thesis (and a forthcoming best-selling exposé, or 'journal article' as we call them in the trade), as a form of catharsis.
I'm a bit of a Jane Austen obsessive. Her interests are not my interests, her world and beliefs are not my beliefs, but the sheer quality of the writing renders that irrelevant. I'm also interested in what subsequent cultures have done with Austen's work - often made it more dull, sometimes highlighted the troubling or radical impulses which are detected, and at the moment, turned to satirical responses. Clueless is one of my favourite films: a whip-smart adaptation of Emma. I own multiple copies of the novels because I'm interested in the different ways cover design and blurbs are used to reposition Austen, such as for the 'chick-lit' market. I also own Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Pride and Promiscuity: the Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts.
All of these are superior to P. D. James's Death Comes To Pemberley, an attempt at a country-house murder sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Why James thought that an Austen murder-mystery was required is in itself a mystery: Jane wrote one of those herself, called Northanger Abbey, in which she expressed very clearly and hilariously her distaste for cheap thrills and sensationalism.
The most obvious fault is the author's determination to shoehorn in her own very reactionary politics. James is - in addition to being a best-selling crime author (I recommend Children of Men), a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. In this novel, she repeatedly goes out of her way to demonstrate that servants love their employers and depend on them for support and sustenance. They're grateful, obedient, unobtrusive, grovelling and wholly without character. They are - in the dread phrase of the nanny-employing classes - 'part of the family', albeit a part of the family that doesn't get to speak or go above stairs.
There's also a very weird passage in which two magistrates (one's kind, one's strict but they both have the interests of justice at heart - like a bad ITV drama) discuss the legal system. James spends several paragraphs explaining why courts of appeal are a bad idea. Despite the whole depressing history of British justice going wrong (for example: the Birmingham Six), James seems to think nobody has ever been wrongly convicted and therefore appeal courts and judges in general should be abolished in favour of a single jury trial before the prison doors clang shut. Why this should be in the novel at all is beyond me: it's far worse than the socialist propaganda novels so roundly mocked by the literary elite.
James also appears to have a cloth ear for dialogue and language. Characters are 'depressed', which strikes me as a very twentieth-century use: the term existed in Austen's day, but not quite in the same sense. Characters repeatedly refer to familiar people by their full titles, such as Sir Selwyn Hardcastle (he's one of the magistrates, and in case you're so dumb that you don't notice, the narrator steps in to make the point that his name suits his 'firm but fair' crusty administration of justice). I don't know whether PD expects her own friends to address her as Baroness Phyllis Dorothy James of Holland Park at all times, but she should surely know that the knight would be referred to as 'Sir Selwyn' by most people. It all gives one the impression that the novel's been written by an American tourist.
However, the worst element of the novel is the constant fecking exposition. Incapable of a prose style other than breathless yet plodding romantic-realism - as though Austen was typing while wearing boxing gloves rather than delicately painting on 'this little bit (two inches wide) of ivory' - James sticks the most embarrassing passages of expositionary dialogue on every other page, interspersed with tedious, patronising narrative commentary which serves only to prove that a) she's no Jane Austen and b) she thinks her readers are thick as pigshit.
You can't turn a page without a character saying something like 'Remind me again where you met. It was in London at your lawyer's office was it not?' 'Why yes, it was, but I'll tell you all over again because there might be readers out there who don't know, and that would be totally bogus dude. I mean, Sir'. This stuff is all over the place. I recommend How To Write Bad Exposition to the Baroness, because her novel is every bit as bad as this example:
If you're going to write a pastiche of a famous, well-loved novel, you need more than presumption. You've got to have a perfect ear for language - James assumes that 19th-century dialogue is achieved simply by removing contractions and making hilarious comments such as 'this is the nineteenth-century, after all' and you've got to have a bit of respect. You might think that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Clueless and Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts would be cheap, cynical cash-ins and James's novel be a serious homage by someone with a real affinity with Austen's world. You'd be wrong. The parodies work beautifully because their authors understand language and dialogue, they know how to structure a work of art, and they actually love and respect Jane Austen. This gives them the confidence to take dreadful liberties with their heroine's work and succeed. They know what they're doing, so they can relax, be jolly, have a romp. By contrast, Death Comes To Pemberley is a smash-and-grab raid. James steals familiar characters and settings and shoehorns in a bad plot, clunking dialogue and inappropriate political homilies without any of the respect shown by the parodists for the same source material. She thinks this is her world - though the various anachronisms make it very clear that it isn't - and is too snobbish to have any fun. Jane Austen she ain't.
Less Death Comes to Pemberley, more Death Comes To Dialogue.
I must confess, however, that P. D. James's Death Comes To Pemberley is on the verge of defeating me. It is quite the worst book I have read since How Green Was My Valley, about which I wrote my PhD thesis (and a forthcoming best-selling exposé, or 'journal article' as we call them in the trade), as a form of catharsis.
I'm a bit of a Jane Austen obsessive. Her interests are not my interests, her world and beliefs are not my beliefs, but the sheer quality of the writing renders that irrelevant. I'm also interested in what subsequent cultures have done with Austen's work - often made it more dull, sometimes highlighted the troubling or radical impulses which are detected, and at the moment, turned to satirical responses. Clueless is one of my favourite films: a whip-smart adaptation of Emma. I own multiple copies of the novels because I'm interested in the different ways cover design and blurbs are used to reposition Austen, such as for the 'chick-lit' market. I also own Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Pride and Promiscuity: the Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts.
All of these are superior to P. D. James's Death Comes To Pemberley, an attempt at a country-house murder sequel to Pride and Prejudice. Why James thought that an Austen murder-mystery was required is in itself a mystery: Jane wrote one of those herself, called Northanger Abbey, in which she expressed very clearly and hilariously her distaste for cheap thrills and sensationalism.
The most obvious fault is the author's determination to shoehorn in her own very reactionary politics. James is - in addition to being a best-selling crime author (I recommend Children of Men), a Conservative peer in the House of Lords. In this novel, she repeatedly goes out of her way to demonstrate that servants love their employers and depend on them for support and sustenance. They're grateful, obedient, unobtrusive, grovelling and wholly without character. They are - in the dread phrase of the nanny-employing classes - 'part of the family', albeit a part of the family that doesn't get to speak or go above stairs.
There's also a very weird passage in which two magistrates (one's kind, one's strict but they both have the interests of justice at heart - like a bad ITV drama) discuss the legal system. James spends several paragraphs explaining why courts of appeal are a bad idea. Despite the whole depressing history of British justice going wrong (for example: the Birmingham Six), James seems to think nobody has ever been wrongly convicted and therefore appeal courts and judges in general should be abolished in favour of a single jury trial before the prison doors clang shut. Why this should be in the novel at all is beyond me: it's far worse than the socialist propaganda novels so roundly mocked by the literary elite.
James also appears to have a cloth ear for dialogue and language. Characters are 'depressed', which strikes me as a very twentieth-century use: the term existed in Austen's day, but not quite in the same sense. Characters repeatedly refer to familiar people by their full titles, such as Sir Selwyn Hardcastle (he's one of the magistrates, and in case you're so dumb that you don't notice, the narrator steps in to make the point that his name suits his 'firm but fair' crusty administration of justice). I don't know whether PD expects her own friends to address her as Baroness Phyllis Dorothy James of Holland Park at all times, but she should surely know that the knight would be referred to as 'Sir Selwyn' by most people. It all gives one the impression that the novel's been written by an American tourist.
However, the worst element of the novel is the constant fecking exposition. Incapable of a prose style other than breathless yet plodding romantic-realism - as though Austen was typing while wearing boxing gloves rather than delicately painting on 'this little bit (two inches wide) of ivory' - James sticks the most embarrassing passages of expositionary dialogue on every other page, interspersed with tedious, patronising narrative commentary which serves only to prove that a) she's no Jane Austen and b) she thinks her readers are thick as pigshit.
You can't turn a page without a character saying something like 'Remind me again where you met. It was in London at your lawyer's office was it not?' 'Why yes, it was, but I'll tell you all over again because there might be readers out there who don't know, and that would be totally bogus dude. I mean, Sir'. This stuff is all over the place. I recommend How To Write Bad Exposition to the Baroness, because her novel is every bit as bad as this example:
John: I've been so upset since Margaret died.I'm half way through. I'm firmly convinced that P. D. James neither reads nor understands good fiction. There's no structure, no confidence in the subtle power of words, and no sense that she's addressing an intelligent reader capable of inference. Ambiguity and complexity have no place in this novel. A literary and political travesty which displays contempt both for Austen and for us.
Jane: Margaret? Your wife?
If you're going to write a pastiche of a famous, well-loved novel, you need more than presumption. You've got to have a perfect ear for language - James assumes that 19th-century dialogue is achieved simply by removing contractions and making hilarious comments such as 'this is the nineteenth-century, after all' and you've got to have a bit of respect. You might think that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Clueless and Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts would be cheap, cynical cash-ins and James's novel be a serious homage by someone with a real affinity with Austen's world. You'd be wrong. The parodies work beautifully because their authors understand language and dialogue, they know how to structure a work of art, and they actually love and respect Jane Austen. This gives them the confidence to take dreadful liberties with their heroine's work and succeed. They know what they're doing, so they can relax, be jolly, have a romp. By contrast, Death Comes To Pemberley is a smash-and-grab raid. James steals familiar characters and settings and shoehorns in a bad plot, clunking dialogue and inappropriate political homilies without any of the respect shown by the parodists for the same source material. She thinks this is her world - though the various anachronisms make it very clear that it isn't - and is too snobbish to have any fun. Jane Austen she ain't.
Less Death Comes to Pemberley, more Death Comes To Dialogue.
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Total artistic failure?
There's an interesting piece in the Guardian today asking photographers for their worst or failed photographs.
Here's Jillian Edelstein's 'worst shot' (it's of Gregory Peck, which doesn't actually seem to matter):
Is this a failure? I think if I took it I'd die a happy man. Technically it's perfect: the lighting is stunning, the angle interesting. Artistically, it says so much about age and about portraiture. Peck's expression and eyes seem to be challenging the viewer: there's only him to look at and he's staring back at you with a smirk that mocks your interest.
Every single one of my photographs are worse than this 'worst shot'.
Here's Jillian Edelstein's 'worst shot' (it's of Gregory Peck, which doesn't actually seem to matter):
Is this a failure? I think if I took it I'd die a happy man. Technically it's perfect: the lighting is stunning, the angle interesting. Artistically, it says so much about age and about portraiture. Peck's expression and eyes seem to be challenging the viewer: there's only him to look at and he's staring back at you with a smirk that mocks your interest.
Every single one of my photographs are worse than this 'worst shot'.
This is what corruption looks like
Imagine being a multimillionaire and a member of Parliament. How will you carry on making money?
How about investing in a property company? They buy a lease for £65 million. Then they sell it to another company they control, for £65,000 - with no justification for the new value. That way they don't pay any tax at all, rather than 4% stamp duty. Bingo: £2.8m saved, and you carry on collecting the rent from the building's occupants (Company 1 has of course 'lost' £64,935,000 and so won't be paying tax on any profits). And that's not all: the lease was then sold for £225m - a fat profit for our enterprising MP.
To me, that looks like an organised conspiracy to defraud the taxpayer. With nobody external having a say on what the lease is really worth, the owners can name their price and choose their tax burden, robbing us of money to build hospitals, schools and all the other things we need it for.
Who is this thieving bastard?
It's Andrew Mitchell. His job now is Secretary of State for International Development: helping countries whose weak state structures mean they can't, for example, collect the taxes required to fund state services. So while he robs from us, he's happy to collect a fat salary from our taxes for giving them to other countries. The less tax he and his companies pay, the more we have to.
Nice one Andy! What a fine example to set. The Inland Revenue described this as 'aggressive tax avoidance' - and the courts disagreed! To me it looks like a textbook example of the 'socially useless' economy described by the Bank of England's director a couple of years ago. Nobody's been employed, nothing's been made, no value has been added. Instead, financial trickery has impoverished us, and enriched a few greedy men who can afford amoral lawyers.
That's capitalism, folks!
How about investing in a property company? They buy a lease for £65 million. Then they sell it to another company they control, for £65,000 - with no justification for the new value. That way they don't pay any tax at all, rather than 4% stamp duty. Bingo: £2.8m saved, and you carry on collecting the rent from the building's occupants (Company 1 has of course 'lost' £64,935,000 and so won't be paying tax on any profits). And that's not all: the lease was then sold for £225m - a fat profit for our enterprising MP.
To me, that looks like an organised conspiracy to defraud the taxpayer. With nobody external having a say on what the lease is really worth, the owners can name their price and choose their tax burden, robbing us of money to build hospitals, schools and all the other things we need it for.
Who is this thieving bastard?
It's Andrew Mitchell. His job now is Secretary of State for International Development: helping countries whose weak state structures mean they can't, for example, collect the taxes required to fund state services. So while he robs from us, he's happy to collect a fat salary from our taxes for giving them to other countries. The less tax he and his companies pay, the more we have to.
Nice one Andy! What a fine example to set. The Inland Revenue described this as 'aggressive tax avoidance' - and the courts disagreed! To me it looks like a textbook example of the 'socially useless' economy described by the Bank of England's director a couple of years ago. Nobody's been employed, nothing's been made, no value has been added. Instead, financial trickery has impoverished us, and enriched a few greedy men who can afford amoral lawyers.
That's capitalism, folks!
A musical interlude
I've been in meetings all day - which has severely delayed my marking and book reviewing schedule, let alone tweeting and blogging duties. Not all bad though - thanks to the sterling work of my School's executive, I'm now a proper, permanent member of staff. Which is nice, and I've only been working here since 2000. Rumours that Personnel are to take over Forth Bridge-painting duties are unfounded.
The sun's shining, I'm going to go out on my new Moulton later, and I'm feeling more relaxed than I have in a very long time. So here's the soundtrack of the day.
First up, some Frankie Rose. She's been a member of various jangly hipster bands, and now she's made a delightful dream pop album, which I've been alternating this week with the Penderecki/Greenwood horrorfest.
But let's change the mood - to those gloomy japesters Faith No More, with 'Land of Sunshine':
Of course for some people, 'There's Little In The Way Of Sunshine', particularly Half Man Half Biscuit:
And finally, who could resist Leonard Nimoy's classic 'Sunny'? Certainly not Dan, who gave his copy of Nimoy's concrete poetry to a young lady. With astonishing results (i.e. she's still going out with him).
The sun's shining, I'm going to go out on my new Moulton later, and I'm feeling more relaxed than I have in a very long time. So here's the soundtrack of the day.
First up, some Frankie Rose. She's been a member of various jangly hipster bands, and now she's made a delightful dream pop album, which I've been alternating this week with the Penderecki/Greenwood horrorfest.
But let's change the mood - to those gloomy japesters Faith No More, with 'Land of Sunshine':
Of course for some people, 'There's Little In The Way Of Sunshine', particularly Half Man Half Biscuit:
And finally, who could resist Leonard Nimoy's classic 'Sunny'? Certainly not Dan, who gave his copy of Nimoy's concrete poetry to a young lady. With astonishing results (i.e. she's still going out with him).
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Wednesday Conundrum: your top 3 books
This question is going out to lots of humanities colleagues in a few days. I'd value your opinion.
What 3 books should all humanities students be asked to read in the summer before they start at university? The idea is that the chosen texts should orient them in the humanities project - to produce intellectual curiosity, independent learning and critical judgement.
Rules: they can't be anything so specialised that only students of one particular discipline would ever manage to finish them.
My suggestions are going to change hourly, I suspect. It's like asking me for my favourite record.
Current thoughts:
Alan Moore, From Hell - because it covers the psychological, political and cultural obsessions of the late Victorian period in a compelling visual and literary narrative.
Ben Goldacre, Bad Science - because everybody needs to become a critical reader of public culture.
Henry Thoreau, Walden - because it's his account of retreating into the woods (though close enough for his mother to deliver food and clean laundry) simply to think about things. Everybody should have this chance, and university is the closest most of us will ever get. It's a text which entirely changed my philosophy.
Use the comments facility. Go mad!
What 3 books should all humanities students be asked to read in the summer before they start at university? The idea is that the chosen texts should orient them in the humanities project - to produce intellectual curiosity, independent learning and critical judgement.
Rules: they can't be anything so specialised that only students of one particular discipline would ever manage to finish them.
My suggestions are going to change hourly, I suspect. It's like asking me for my favourite record.
Current thoughts:
Alan Moore, From Hell - because it covers the psychological, political and cultural obsessions of the late Victorian period in a compelling visual and literary narrative.
Ben Goldacre, Bad Science - because everybody needs to become a critical reader of public culture.
Henry Thoreau, Walden - because it's his account of retreating into the woods (though close enough for his mother to deliver food and clean laundry) simply to think about things. Everybody should have this chance, and university is the closest most of us will ever get. It's a text which entirely changed my philosophy.
Use the comments facility. Go mad!
Sing along with Richard Nixon
How sad that political campaigns don't have theme tunes now. I imagine that David Cameron's would be the Eton Boating Song, while Nick Clegg's would be 'So Ronery'…
Here's Richard Nixon's 1972 song. He resigned two years later after it emerged that despite the sunny optimism of the song, he was simultaneously authorising his minions to burgle the Democratic Party's headquarters and committing numerous other breaches of the Constitution.
Here's Richard Nixon's 1972 song. He resigned two years later after it emerged that despite the sunny optimism of the song, he was simultaneously authorising his minions to burgle the Democratic Party's headquarters and committing numerous other breaches of the Constitution.
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