The startling revelation by Mike Beversluis that he has always mispronounced his own surname raises an almost, but not quite, entirely uninteresting philosophical question.
Is the pronunciation of your name a matter of complete personal freedom, or does the ancestral baggage attached to the surname give you a certain obligation to be objective? After all, the surname is an heirloom held only briefly in your hands.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
On Pinter
I watched Harold Pinter’s Celebration last night, performed on More4 by a very starry cast, including Michael Gambon playing his usual foul-mouthed beefy bully.*
I tried to watch it with an open mind. Honestly I did. After all, I like some of Pinter’s stuff. (Well, I liked the film of The Go-Between and I can tolerate The Birthday Party in the same numb sort of way that I can tolerate watching endless pile-ups in a show called something like America’s Most Shocking Car Crashes 7).
I tried to wipe from my mind the knowledge that this was a man with political views so ridiculous that, as with death and the sun, it is impossible to look directly at them.
But sadly, Celebration was written in 1999, so the Nobel-winning Pinter was well on the way to the sterile senility that produced his sub-sixth form 'anti-war' 'poems'.
Oh God it was bad. A really, stinkingly bad exercise in empty misanthropy: a forty minute eternity of inadequate Beckett-imitation. There was one saving grace: a waiter played by Stephen Rea who kept ‘interjecting’ with amusing tall-tales about his grandfather. But Pinter managed to ruin even this by giving him a vacuous soliloquy to end the piece. Best avoided, really.
*see also The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; The Singing Detective etc. (I’m only surprised he didn’t announce his inauguration as Albus Dumbledore by telling the gathered pupils of Hogwarts to “Shut your mouths, you ‘orrible f***** wizard c****”).
I tried to watch it with an open mind. Honestly I did. After all, I like some of Pinter’s stuff. (Well, I liked the film of The Go-Between and I can tolerate The Birthday Party in the same numb sort of way that I can tolerate watching endless pile-ups in a show called something like America’s Most Shocking Car Crashes 7).
I tried to wipe from my mind the knowledge that this was a man with political views so ridiculous that, as with death and the sun, it is impossible to look directly at them.
But sadly, Celebration was written in 1999, so the Nobel-winning Pinter was well on the way to the sterile senility that produced his sub-sixth form 'anti-war' 'poems'.
Oh God it was bad. A really, stinkingly bad exercise in empty misanthropy: a forty minute eternity of inadequate Beckett-imitation. There was one saving grace: a waiter played by Stephen Rea who kept ‘interjecting’ with amusing tall-tales about his grandfather. But Pinter managed to ruin even this by giving him a vacuous soliloquy to end the piece. Best avoided, really.
*see also The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; The Singing Detective etc. (I’m only surprised he didn’t announce his inauguration as Albus Dumbledore by telling the gathered pupils of Hogwarts to “Shut your mouths, you ‘orrible f***** wizard c****”).
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Art Snobs
To be read aloud, with venom.
The Art Snobs
Saints save us from the Art Snobs.
Their great big gobs. Those super-
cilious, bilious blobs of snoot.
Ugly to boot. You’ve seen,
You know the ones I mean:
They peer down ridged nose bridges.
They sneer down half-mast glasses.
They’ve been to college, they think they know it.
They’ve drawn the line and you must toe it.
They tell you what you must or mustn’t rate
and have and haven’t read. They prate
away and say ‘It’s all a swizz!
It isn’t art if it don’t look like what it is!’
It can’t be art if you have to see it twice
(Though Monet’s allowed in, okay, he’s quite nice.)
And every modern monument must be
'A carbuncle' and 'a mad monstrosity'.
And music isn’t if it’s not melody, just Art
Garfunkel, Sinatra, Mozart and that TV
ad for the airline. All the rest
don’t count if they don’t pass the Whistle Test.
And other boring tests, and boring laws.
They’ve decreed a boring canon even more
strict than any canon gone before.
(Fear not, they’ve not forgotten
to exclude the trashy bottom.
Tabloid pop and mags and chav hip hop.
They’ve just lopped off the top.
Or anything that requires a stretch;
The certainty of the certifiably unsure
wretch.)
So saints save us from the Art Snobs.
Their great big gobs. Those super-
cilious, bilious blobs of snoot. Back to
the Age of Hooper we ought to boot
the haughty brutes. The wilful stupor
of an Age which scuttled out the old snobs -
the Cambridge Queers and Oxford Nobs -
and God we almost miss 'em,
now our Gods are King and Grisham.
But still. Every action has a reaction.
Antithesis, synthesis, repulsion, attraction.
A critical mass of half-mast glasses, Kipling verses.
The critics and the masses. The common classes versus
the literati class. My arse! Keep your Common Man,
I’ve not yet met him.
I used to think the first snobs were a curse.
The Reverse are worse.
And to the po-faced, red-faced bar-room wit,
Who rules a poem must rhyme, I say:
bullcrap.
The Art Snobs
Saints save us from the Art Snobs.
Their great big gobs. Those super-
cilious, bilious blobs of snoot.
Ugly to boot. You’ve seen,
You know the ones I mean:
They peer down ridged nose bridges.
They sneer down half-mast glasses.
They’ve been to college, they think they know it.
They’ve drawn the line and you must toe it.
They tell you what you must or mustn’t rate
and have and haven’t read. They prate
away and say ‘It’s all a swizz!
It isn’t art if it don’t look like what it is!’
It can’t be art if you have to see it twice
(Though Monet’s allowed in, okay, he’s quite nice.)
And every modern monument must be
'A carbuncle' and 'a mad monstrosity'.
And music isn’t if it’s not melody, just Art
Garfunkel, Sinatra, Mozart and that TV
ad for the airline. All the rest
don’t count if they don’t pass the Whistle Test.
And other boring tests, and boring laws.
They’ve decreed a boring canon even more
strict than any canon gone before.
(Fear not, they’ve not forgotten
to exclude the trashy bottom.
Tabloid pop and mags and chav hip hop.
They’ve just lopped off the top.
Or anything that requires a stretch;
The certainty of the certifiably unsure
wretch.)
So saints save us from the Art Snobs.
Their great big gobs. Those super-
cilious, bilious blobs of snoot. Back to
the Age of Hooper we ought to boot
the haughty brutes. The wilful stupor
of an Age which scuttled out the old snobs -
the Cambridge Queers and Oxford Nobs -
and God we almost miss 'em,
now our Gods are King and Grisham.
But still. Every action has a reaction.
Antithesis, synthesis, repulsion, attraction.
A critical mass of half-mast glasses, Kipling verses.
The critics and the masses. The common classes versus
the literati class. My arse! Keep your Common Man,
I’ve not yet met him.
I used to think the first snobs were a curse.
The Reverse are worse.
And to the po-faced, red-faced bar-room wit,
Who rules a poem must rhyme, I say:
bullcrap.
Monday, February 26, 2007
The British Empire rises again - in the blogosphere
Over on Diversely We Sail, Peter says that “the British press seems to be going through a period of introspective fixation on the issues of marriage, family cohesion and youthful dysfunction.”
This post isn’t about that, but it is about the British press: in particular, the British newspaper opinion column.
This in an area where Britannia still indisputably rules the world. In terms of quantity, the US dominates the political/social blogs of course, but a vastly disproportionate number of cut-and-pastings on them come from the hacks at The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent.
The instant editorial comment on contemporary trends and zeitgeists seems to be a British speciality. This is not an unqualified Good Thing, but it is a great thing for the way that the blogosphere works. It helps that all the British broadsheets have terrific websites of course, but British newspapers do just seem to be in a different league when it comes to quality of writing.
Bryan Appleyard observes that the best US writing is to be found in magazines rather than papers. For some reason, whereas US magazine writing is top-notch and in-depth, the American newspaper hacks don’t seem so able to discover that happy middle ground between extremist shock-jock polemic on the one hand; and bland statement of the factually correct and the uncontroversial obvious on the other.
The British are in danger of completely monopolising this blog-friendly middle-ground of thoughtful but forthright daily hackery.
For proof, take a look at Daniel Finkelstein’s 'Daily Fix' round-up of all the journos.
This post isn’t about that, but it is about the British press: in particular, the British newspaper opinion column.
This in an area where Britannia still indisputably rules the world. In terms of quantity, the US dominates the political/social blogs of course, but a vastly disproportionate number of cut-and-pastings on them come from the hacks at The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent.
The instant editorial comment on contemporary trends and zeitgeists seems to be a British speciality. This is not an unqualified Good Thing, but it is a great thing for the way that the blogosphere works. It helps that all the British broadsheets have terrific websites of course, but British newspapers do just seem to be in a different league when it comes to quality of writing.
Bryan Appleyard observes that the best US writing is to be found in magazines rather than papers. For some reason, whereas US magazine writing is top-notch and in-depth, the American newspaper hacks don’t seem so able to discover that happy middle ground between extremist shock-jock polemic on the one hand; and bland statement of the factually correct and the uncontroversial obvious on the other.
The British are in danger of completely monopolising this blog-friendly middle-ground of thoughtful but forthright daily hackery.
For proof, take a look at Daniel Finkelstein’s 'Daily Fix' round-up of all the journos.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Croke Park
A genuine moment of goosebumps yesterday.
Ireland walloped England at rugby but for once I really didn't mind. Because of redevelopment work at usual rugby venue Lansdowne Road, the game was hosted at Croke Park, scene of the 1920 massacre on Bloody Sunday and still focal point of anti-English sentiment.
Pre-match, there was controversy about whether God Save the Queen could be played in the stadium. Minutes before the anthem, I had some horrible premonitions. These turned out to be quite wrong, as the Irish fans heard it in respectful silence, then applauded. If there can be a pointed round of applause, this was it.
We talk about 'vital' matches and heroic performances, and those who dislike sport scoff at the pomposity. And rightly so, to a degree. In itself, sport is trivial, but this triviality allows it to reflect the important. TV debates and poltical forums are, in the short term anyway, platforms for argument and division. Sporting occasions afford a unique opportunity for populations to unite, to express the sentiment of the majority and the spirit of the age.
Ireland walloped England at rugby but for once I really didn't mind. Because of redevelopment work at usual rugby venue Lansdowne Road, the game was hosted at Croke Park, scene of the 1920 massacre on Bloody Sunday and still focal point of anti-English sentiment.
Pre-match, there was controversy about whether God Save the Queen could be played in the stadium. Minutes before the anthem, I had some horrible premonitions. These turned out to be quite wrong, as the Irish fans heard it in respectful silence, then applauded. If there can be a pointed round of applause, this was it.
We talk about 'vital' matches and heroic performances, and those who dislike sport scoff at the pomposity. And rightly so, to a degree. In itself, sport is trivial, but this triviality allows it to reflect the important. TV debates and poltical forums are, in the short term anyway, platforms for argument and division. Sporting occasions afford a unique opportunity for populations to unite, to express the sentiment of the majority and the spirit of the age.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
The Founding Fathers: bunch of poofs
I posted this elsewhere recently, but in case you missed it, here's me the other night explaining to a chap called Neil about why we love America.
Warning to Duck: contains dissing of the moon landing
Warning to everyone else: contains some swearing
Warning to Duck: contains dissing of the moon landing
Warning to everyone else: contains some swearing
Friday, February 23, 2007
Auden, the major-major poet
Wednesday saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of WH Auden, so the BBC has been stopping the clocks, catching the Night Mail and Telling the Truth about Love all week.
On his excellent blog, Bryan Appleyard calls Auden “the last great English poet.” This bold statement raises the ghost of Larkin. Years ago, Appleyard famously dismissed Larkin as an example of “repellent, smelly, inadequate masculinity”, though he now distances himself from this dismissal.
He does however still claim that Larkin is major-minor, whereas Auden is major-major. Aside from the danger of coming over all Catch-22 (Major Major Major Major), this gives us an interesting method for categorizing poets.
Larkin is major-minor because he is brilliant but in a very narrow range – albeit the most important range. Betjeman is also major-minor because he is just on the wrong side of the style-substance balance. Ted Hughes, on the other hand, is minor-major, because he is epic and wide-ranging but not universal, ie. too obscure and self-indulgent.
Auden alone, therefore, is major-major, because he has the range, the style and the universality.
I can buy that, though I still like Auden best when he is Betjemanish (funny and rhyming) or Larkinish (writing about death). But possibly none of the other major-minors and minor-majors could have written something quite as different and brilliant as Moon Landing.
On his excellent blog, Bryan Appleyard calls Auden “the last great English poet.” This bold statement raises the ghost of Larkin. Years ago, Appleyard famously dismissed Larkin as an example of “repellent, smelly, inadequate masculinity”, though he now distances himself from this dismissal.
He does however still claim that Larkin is major-minor, whereas Auden is major-major. Aside from the danger of coming over all Catch-22 (Major Major Major Major), this gives us an interesting method for categorizing poets.
Larkin is major-minor because he is brilliant but in a very narrow range – albeit the most important range. Betjeman is also major-minor because he is just on the wrong side of the style-substance balance. Ted Hughes, on the other hand, is minor-major, because he is epic and wide-ranging but not universal, ie. too obscure and self-indulgent.
Auden alone, therefore, is major-major, because he has the range, the style and the universality.
I can buy that, though I still like Auden best when he is Betjemanish (funny and rhyming) or Larkinish (writing about death). But possibly none of the other major-minors and minor-majors could have written something quite as different and brilliant as Moon Landing.
On American teeth (in the style of Martin Amis)
Were we to plot on graph paper the sum dental health of humanity, we would find ourselves carving a bulbing arc, a Molar Mountain.
At the front foothills of this orthodontic Alp dwell the dental dead-losses, the odontophobes. The ones who never even made it to base camp. A rotten, head-clutching mass of groaning tramps and espresso-swigging, chain-smoking literary hacks, hacking gobs of yellow phlegm through yellow tombstones. These are the children that Denplan left behind.
Follow the little red lane up to the peak of this Canine Kilimanjaro and we find, in various degrees of agony, the moderate majority. The brushers, pickers, occasional flossers, getting by on chewing gum and the drill. Here we feel safe. This is the territory we know. The red wine stain and the antidote dose of Pearl Drops. The tepid promises of toothpaste ads, where the blue stripe does one thing and the red another.
But let us leave the safety of this hilltop and begin our descent, down the enamel Everest. The Other Side. Few have trodden these paths. This is the land of the Californian Smile. This is the Great American Beam. These are the toothy Hilarys; their Sherpas are superstar surgeons: dental deconstructionists and reconstructionists. This is the world of ‘Have a nice day’, of the breast implant and the Extreme Makeover, the automatic motel and the pneumatic blonde. Uniform rows of identical pegs gleam in robot grins that say “I belong here. You do not.” Hide your English inadequacy behind a curling lip and your mother tongue. Here every man is a movie star. Every woman is a Stepford Divorcee. It chills the sensitive soul and sears the sensitive tooth.
Gape on in despair at the artifice of perfection. Open wide and say ‘Aaaaaaaah’.
At the front foothills of this orthodontic Alp dwell the dental dead-losses, the odontophobes. The ones who never even made it to base camp. A rotten, head-clutching mass of groaning tramps and espresso-swigging, chain-smoking literary hacks, hacking gobs of yellow phlegm through yellow tombstones. These are the children that Denplan left behind.
Follow the little red lane up to the peak of this Canine Kilimanjaro and we find, in various degrees of agony, the moderate majority. The brushers, pickers, occasional flossers, getting by on chewing gum and the drill. Here we feel safe. This is the territory we know. The red wine stain and the antidote dose of Pearl Drops. The tepid promises of toothpaste ads, where the blue stripe does one thing and the red another.
But let us leave the safety of this hilltop and begin our descent, down the enamel Everest. The Other Side. Few have trodden these paths. This is the land of the Californian Smile. This is the Great American Beam. These are the toothy Hilarys; their Sherpas are superstar surgeons: dental deconstructionists and reconstructionists. This is the world of ‘Have a nice day’, of the breast implant and the Extreme Makeover, the automatic motel and the pneumatic blonde. Uniform rows of identical pegs gleam in robot grins that say “I belong here. You do not.” Hide your English inadequacy behind a curling lip and your mother tongue. Here every man is a movie star. Every woman is a Stepford Divorcee. It chills the sensitive soul and sears the sensitive tooth.
Gape on in despair at the artifice of perfection. Open wide and say ‘Aaaaaaaah’.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
For erp
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we brushed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose premolars and canines, so brilliant and white,
At the dentist we flashed, oh so happily beaming?
And the gums’ bright red glare, and the orthodontist’s chair,
Gave proof through the night that all our teeth were still there;
O say, does that star-spangled dental floss still glide
O’er the chops of the free and the home of fluoride?
What so proudly we brushed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose premolars and canines, so brilliant and white,
At the dentist we flashed, oh so happily beaming?
And the gums’ bright red glare, and the orthodontist’s chair,
Gave proof through the night that all our teeth were still there;
O say, does that star-spangled dental floss still glide
O’er the chops of the free and the home of fluoride?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Martin Amis’s teeth
Julia Buckley ponders the rule that all literary publicity photos must show the author in an attitude of pensive gloom.
Why can’t they ever smile? In the case of Martin Amis, we know the reason: his teeth. Amis's mouth is a notorious disaster-zone which must never see the light of day.
Amis’s dental trials and tribulations form a major strand of his finest book, Experience . This strange, looping memoir is one of the best books I have ever read about anything.
I always enjoy reading his non-fiction and his print media articles, but I have a love-hate relationship with Amis’s novels, as indeed I do with his father’s. They are both intense writers, albeit in very different ways.
Martin has a unique genius for vivid descriptive prose, but his determination to always avoid the cliché at any cost is exhausting over a whole book. Kingsley is the opposite, writing in determinedly plain everyday English, but his extreme close-up, real-time style is claustrophobic and equally exhausting.
The four essential Amis books are:
Kingsley: The King's English
and The Old Devils
Martin: Experience and The War Against Cliché.
Why can’t they ever smile? In the case of Martin Amis, we know the reason: his teeth. Amis's mouth is a notorious disaster-zone which must never see the light of day.
Amis’s dental trials and tribulations form a major strand of his finest book, Experience . This strange, looping memoir is one of the best books I have ever read about anything.
I always enjoy reading his non-fiction and his print media articles, but I have a love-hate relationship with Amis’s novels, as indeed I do with his father’s. They are both intense writers, albeit in very different ways.
Martin has a unique genius for vivid descriptive prose, but his determination to always avoid the cliché at any cost is exhausting over a whole book. Kingsley is the opposite, writing in determinedly plain everyday English, but his extreme close-up, real-time style is claustrophobic and equally exhausting.
The four essential Amis books are:
Kingsley: The King's English
and The Old DevilsMartin: Experience
and The War Against Cliché. Fidget for England (via Monix)
Anglo-Aussie wit and raconteur Clive James amusingly skewers what he calls 'fidgeting' - the modern disease whereby everything has to be constantly renamed and rebranded. You can listen to it on BBC Radio 4 here.
James is a genuine polymath of intermittent brilliance, who has embraced the internet age with a premier league-quality website.
(His poems are a bit dodgy though).
James is a genuine polymath of intermittent brilliance, who has embraced the internet age with a premier league-quality website.
(His poems are a bit dodgy though).
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
More on the conspiracy nuts
The BBC programme about 9/11 nonsense and David’s link has introduced me to a horrible, horrible world of conspiracy and double-conspiracy of which I had hitherto had only an inkling.
Why do people need conspiracy theories? These are generally intelligent-seeming human beings: able to operate a computer, string sentences together, clothe and dress themselves and probably even use the toilet unassisted. And yet... such on-the-face-of-it, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face stupidity.
The BBC programme did touch on this wider question about the psychology of conspiracy theorists, with one interviewee suggesting that some people find it hard to grasp that something so appalling could have been committed by a small group of fanatics, so they need something else, something bigger, to blame.
That’s part of it, I’m sure. As is the paranoia created by this age of information-overload, plus real political spin and lies (Lewinsky, Watergate, all that other stuff ending in ‘gate’) and conspiracy-based TV shows like The X-Files.
But another factor is the ‘narrow-thinking’ trap. It’s like the family tree con we were talking about a few weeks ago. We have thousands of ancestors in incredibly bushy trees, yet people can be tricked into focusing on only one of these ‘lines’ of connection, in order to link themselves with a particular famous historical figure (when in reality, nearly everybody can trace a line to him). Likewise, the conspiracy theorist focuses so intensely on a particular series of events, such as the American Air Force’s ineffective response to the hijacks, or the puffs of air that precede the collapse of the WTC towers, that he becomes obsessed with it and is unable to see the wider picture or indeed, obvious explanations.
The other common link between these conspiracy nuts is staggering hubris. Their fragile egos need the boost of seeming smarter than their fellow citizens. They alone can see The Truth, while the rest of the sheep just follow the leaders. Consequently, they are far too far down the road to accept any debunking of their theories.
Dylan Avery, the spotty youth who made the Loose Change film, was pathetically proud of his achievements. Showing the cameraman his bedroom/studio, he boasted: “This is where the magic happens. Yes, sir.” He then went on to tell the tale of how he saved up to buy the laptop that “started the whole thing”. Having created a sick myth about an act of mass murder, he was now busy building a mythology about the Great Dylan Avery.
Why do people need conspiracy theories? These are generally intelligent-seeming human beings: able to operate a computer, string sentences together, clothe and dress themselves and probably even use the toilet unassisted. And yet... such on-the-face-of-it, plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face stupidity.
The BBC programme did touch on this wider question about the psychology of conspiracy theorists, with one interviewee suggesting that some people find it hard to grasp that something so appalling could have been committed by a small group of fanatics, so they need something else, something bigger, to blame.
That’s part of it, I’m sure. As is the paranoia created by this age of information-overload, plus real political spin and lies (Lewinsky, Watergate, all that other stuff ending in ‘gate’) and conspiracy-based TV shows like The X-Files.
But another factor is the ‘narrow-thinking’ trap. It’s like the family tree con we were talking about a few weeks ago. We have thousands of ancestors in incredibly bushy trees, yet people can be tricked into focusing on only one of these ‘lines’ of connection, in order to link themselves with a particular famous historical figure (when in reality, nearly everybody can trace a line to him). Likewise, the conspiracy theorist focuses so intensely on a particular series of events, such as the American Air Force’s ineffective response to the hijacks, or the puffs of air that precede the collapse of the WTC towers, that he becomes obsessed with it and is unable to see the wider picture or indeed, obvious explanations.
The other common link between these conspiracy nuts is staggering hubris. Their fragile egos need the boost of seeming smarter than their fellow citizens. They alone can see The Truth, while the rest of the sheep just follow the leaders. Consequently, they are far too far down the road to accept any debunking of their theories.
Dylan Avery, the spotty youth who made the Loose Change film, was pathetically proud of his achievements. Showing the cameraman his bedroom/studio, he boasted: “This is where the magic happens. Yes, sir.” He then went on to tell the tale of how he saved up to buy the laptop that “started the whole thing”. Having created a sick myth about an act of mass murder, he was now busy building a mythology about the Great Dylan Avery.
'Drum 'n bass' taken to its logical conclusion
Mod-rockers The Jam are to reform and tour but without frontman Paul Weller.
Bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler have not toured together in 25 years but will play a 20-date tour from 2 May, beginning in Oxford.
The Jam without the vocals or the lead guitar? Man alive, that sounds like a rotten gig. Mind you, if they can do an Elvis show without Elvis, anything is possible these days.
Anyway, it’s an excuse for a bit of this.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Blatcherism's shadow
Janet Daley writes a brave but sensible Emperor’s New Clothes-type piece in the Telegraph following the recent spate of gun deaths in London.
Contra Unicef's destructive and hateful report, modern Britain is a place numerically dominated by an affluent, ever-growing, multi-ethnic middle-class whose children are living in a positive Golden Age of parental care and attention.
The problems lie beneath that gentrified, recycling, 4x4-driving majority in a small but disproportionately disruptive welfare-dependent underclass that has riches (globally-speaking) but no culture of responsibility.
Gun violence is a problem within black drugs gangs in specific, identifiable urban areas, and general low-level antisocial behaviour is a problem of dysfunctional, white, welfare-funded families. Everybody knows this, but our politicians insist on tiptoeing up to the brink of admitting it before backing away. The failure of Blatcherism is thus ultimately a failure of nerve.
Everything fails to some degree, and Blatcherism fails a lot less than anything else that’s ever been tried. But that’s no reason to condemn further generations of the minority underclass to failure, and its neighbours to misery.
Two of the best things to have happened recently are this initiative and the rise of the Dragons' Den entreprenurial culture.
Loose screws
BBC 2 had a good programme last night about 9/11 conspiracy theorists. The principal ones featured were a loudmouth Texan radio jerk called Alex Jones, an ex-Philosophy Professor called James Fetzer, and a spotty youth who made a popular internet film, Loose Change.
They are all firmly convinced that 9/11 was an incredibly elaborate, deliberate plan by the US government to justify the Afghanistan and possibly Iraq wars. Worryingly, quite a few people seem to believe them. Jones was seen preaching to a large theatre audience, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ as only Americans can.
The programme patiently debunked all the conspiracy theory ‘evidence’ piece by piece. But to my mind it failed in its duty to ask these geniuses the obvious question: if the US government is capable of contriving and covering up an intricate plot to kill 3,000 of its citizens and destroy two iconic buildings, why would it be happy to sit back and let a loudmouth Texan radio jerk, an ex-Philosophy Professor and a spotty youth expose the whole thing?
They are all firmly convinced that 9/11 was an incredibly elaborate, deliberate plan by the US government to justify the Afghanistan and possibly Iraq wars. Worryingly, quite a few people seem to believe them. Jones was seen preaching to a large theatre audience, a-whoopin’ and a-hollerin’ as only Americans can.
The programme patiently debunked all the conspiracy theory ‘evidence’ piece by piece. But to my mind it failed in its duty to ask these geniuses the obvious question: if the US government is capable of contriving and covering up an intricate plot to kill 3,000 of its citizens and destroy two iconic buildings, why would it be happy to sit back and let a loudmouth Texan radio jerk, an ex-Philosophy Professor and a spotty youth expose the whole thing?
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