National Shite Day

In this bold new world we are now living in, the bright sunlit uplands of Brexit Britain, it seems appropriate that we find a new national anthem, a song with a stirring tune that we can all sing together, a song with words that celebrate our newfound independence, a song where the people, all 52% of them, can all join in, put their arms around each other and raise their voices to the heavens… Nigel Farage, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees- Mogg, Anne Widdicombe, Ian Duncan Smith, Dominic Cummings, Michael Gove, Mark Francois, Dominic Raab and all the rest, this one is very much for you…

‘Pulling the ice axe from my leg
I staggered on
Spindrift stinging my remaining eye
I finally managed to reach the station
Only to find the bus replacement service had broken down

After wondering to myself whether it should actually be called a train replacement service
I walked out onto the concourse and noticed the giant screen seemed to have been tampered with
Probably by a junior employee
Disgruntled commuters were being regaled with some dismal TVM
Involving a tug-of-love-custody-battle
Stockard Channing held sway

Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots without due care or attention
I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette
I.e. sidle out of the store gingerly
Embrace the margin

Fat kids with sausage rolls
Poor sods conducting polls

There’s a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets

I try to put everything into perspective

Set it against the scale of human suffering
And I thought of the Mugabe government
And the children of the Calcutta railways
This works for a while
But then I encounter Primark FM
Overhead a rainbow appears
In black and white

Shite Day

I guess this must be National Shite Day

This surely must be National Shite Day
Don’t tell me, it’s National Shite Day

Float… float on
Float… float on
Barry… Herpes

I got a letter from Stringy Bob
Still on suicide watch
Screws not happy
Spotted a Marsh Fritillary during association
Was roundly ignored
”What news you?”
I felt sorry for him
He’d only been locked up for public nuisance offences
One of which saw him beachcombing the Dee Estuary
Found a dead wading bird
Took it home, parcelled it up, and sent it off to the rubber-faced irritant Phil Cool
With a note inside which read: “Is this your Sanderling?”

Another time saw him answering an advert in the music press
“Keyboard player required: Doors, Floyd, etc.
Must be committed, no time wasters”
You can guess the rest

I always imagined he would simply wander off some day into the hills
To be found months later
His carcass stripped by homeless dogs
His exposed skull a perch for the quartering crow

I folded away the letter and put it in my inside pocket
All of a sudden I felt brushed by the wings of something dark
May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob

Shite Day
I do believe it’s National Shite Day
It all points to National Shite Day
Someone’s declared it National Shite Day

Shite Day
My birthday! On National Shite Day

No bogroll, it’s National Shite Day
Cue drumroll, it’s National Shite Day’

National Shite Day

Still, blue passports eh?

Is This The Road That We Take To The End?

Brexit is happening suddenly but quietly. It’s largely disappeared as a news story, forced off the front pages/ top of the hour reports by Johnson’s victory in December which has taken all the debate and opposition out of it and a flurry of other stories- the royal family and paedophilia, the royal family and racism, the royal family and the entirely sensible decision by two of its members to get out of it, the Coronavirus, Trump’s impeachment and Iran to name but a few. Johnson promised to get it done. What he’s done is get everyone to stop talking about it. In two days time Britain will leave the E.U. Admittedly we won’t see any real changes until the end of the year. Freedom of movement will remain while the UK is in the transition period, we will still be bound by E.U. laws, and the European Court of Justice, worker’s rights and trade will remain the same but without any representation in the European Parliament. As the press looks elsewhere the government will supposedly get on with the job of negotiating the terms of the real departure and the UK’s future relationship with Europe, trade deals and all the rest. They’ve already passed legislation banning themselves from extending the transition period beyond the end of 2020 which means that we could conceivably slip out of the EU on December 31st without any deal. Something that a good number of these bastards have wanted all along.

Symbolically the moment when we leave is midnight on January 31st (Brussels time, nicely). That’s the moment that this country takes the step to make itself poorer, worse off in all sorts of ways, to cut itself off from the largest single market in the world, the moment this country chooses to be an inward looking, mean spirited, small minded Little Englander nation. There will be some arseholes draped in Union flags having parties where they’ve ‘banned’ French wine, Dutch cheese and German  sausage, Little Englanders to a man. They will be misty eyed dickheads standing staring at Big Ben, willing it to bong, and sharing pictures of the White Cliffs of Dover. These people will be gone one day, forgotten, swallowed up by the mess they created, the country they chose to reduce, the country they willingly have turned into a laughing stock around the world. I hope each one of them at some point has a moment where they see what they’ve done and silently admit to themselves that they made a massive fucking error.

Two late period Big Audio Dynamite songs, both showing in different ways that there was life in Mick Jones’ band after they were seen to have passed their sell- by date. In 1991 Mick put together a new version following the departure of the original line up after Megatop Phoenix. Recruiting three younger players (Nick Hawkins, Gary Stonadge and Chris Kavanagh) and renaming the band Big Audio Dynamite II they released Kool Aid in 1990 and then The Globe in 1991. The Globe was in part a re-working of Kool Aid, kicking off with Rush and the cracking title track plus fan favourite Innocent Child and one or two others that still cut the mustard. The Globe was remixed by ambient house heroes The Orb, nine minutes of bliss starting out with the song, then going all dubby bubbly and ambient before bringing in Mick’s most famous guitar riff to see us throgh the last few minutes.

The Globe (By The Orb)

By the mid 90s B.A.D. II had become Big Audio and then back to B.A.D. They were dropped by their major label and signed to Radioactive. In 1995 they released F- Punk, eleven songs created with the same line up Mick put together in 1990 but now with Andre Shapps on board on keyboards and co- production. Andre is the cousin of Grant Shapps, former chairman of the Conservative party and currently transport minister in Johnson’s cabinet. We can’t really hold this against Andre but it’s a bizarre link. F- Punk contained one end period B.A.D. classic…

I Turned Out A Punk (U.S. Mix)

Counted in by Mick shouting ‘1- 2- 3- 4’, a tinny two chord riff crashes in, backed by wheezy organ and then Mick’s familiar reedy voice…

‘Mummy was a hostess, daddy was a drunk
Cos the didn’t love me then, I turned out a punk…

… Slowly started slipping round, til my ship was sunk
Going nowhere in my life, I turned out a punk…

… took my disabilities, packed them in a trunk
rock ‘n’ roll’s alright with me, I turned out a punk’

Tremendous stuff, Mick still kicking against the pricks and writing from the heart. Fuck Brexit.

Some Folks Are Born To Wave The Flag

There’s a lot of war in the ether at the moment, both real and imagined. Obviously the Iran- USA situation but also Brexit looming and the lunatic fringe making their usual absurd comparisons. Leave.EU recently tweeted that 1st February should see all the church bells ring across the country to celebrate ‘our independence’. The original tweet read-

‘BELLS FOR VICTORY
Just as we did to mark the Allies’ victory in Europe in 1945 we’re calling all patriots to ring the bell at their local church… to celebrate Britain’s new found independence! If the powers that be don’t like it? We’ll do it anyway!’

I’m sure we don’t really need to unpack this swivel eyed insanity any further but this shows what we’re dealing with and where the leave ultras heads are at- leaving the EU is for them on a par with defeating Nazi Germany. Mark Francois, comedy little right wing Tory bellend, repeated this call in the House of Commons, demanding Big Ben ring out to mark the occasion.

The right wing who have pursued this national idiocy have made these World War II comparisons all the way through. Brought up on Second World War films and comics like Commando and Victor, there is an enormous emasculating shadow that falls over them, the knowledge that their fathers and grandfathers served in the two big wars of the Twentieth Century and that they never would. They’re obsessed with the Germans, Dunkirk, Churchill, Spitfires and D- Day, never missing an opportunity to hark back. This idealised Britain of their imagination, all white cliffs, Sten guns and Anderson shelters, is of course a Britain before immigration and before the liberalisation of the 1960s. In their version of World War II the Soviets are always inconsequential, despite losses of 20 million, and the USA always arrives late, ‘after all the serious fighting’s done’. Francois, Farage et al, a lifetime spent wishing the Second World War was on their CV, their little Dunkirk hard ons leading their politics.

Meanwhile in the USA the last two Republican Presidents both had the opportunity to serve in the jungles of South East Asia and both passed it up. Trump had five deferments from Vietnam. George W Bush had his Dad pull strings and served with the National Guard at home. Trump (especially) loves the hard man imagery of assassinating men in foreign countries by drone strike.

These things came together last week. And then I heard Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1969 song Fortunate Son while looking for some footage of Vietnam for a lesson with my Year 11s.

Fortunate Son

 

Green Milkshake

I thought it was interesting that the message the two major political parties took from the local elections three weeks ago was that ‘the British public want Brexit got on with- get us out of the EU’. That I suppose was one interpretation, despite both of the them losing seats nationwide (Tory losses admittedly outstripping Labour losses by some distance). Another take on the results was that the parties that gained the most at the local elections were those explicitly taking a stance against Brexit, who have opposing Brexit as policy. Today we have European elections, three years after voting to leave which is a small victory in itself, and it seems that this is an ideal opportunity for those of us still against leaving the EU, those of us who have seen and heard nothing to convince us that leaving is in the national interest, to send a loud and clear message. The only way to do this is to vote for parties who have remaining in the EU as their policy.

The Tories want to leave, it’s their baby, they started digging the hole and have kept on shovelling. Labour, despite Keir Starmer’s efforts, are a leave party- it is party policy and they have spent the last three years fudging it. The ongoing attempt to appeal to both leavers and remainers, for fear of ‘losing the north’, is misguided and unprincipled (which is odd in itself for a party led by people for whom principles are supposedly the key to their politics). Labour’s stance on Brexit is political, has nothing to do with principles, and is failing. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party will undoubtedly mop up lots of votes, from disillusioned Tories and ex-UKIPers, from people who voted Leave in the referendum but rarely otherwise vote and from Labour too. I’ve been told repeatedly in the media recently that having voted Labour at the 2017 general election (as I have throughout my adult life) that I am one of the 81% of British people who voted for a party who want Brexit. I’ve seen Farage staring down the camera telling me this even though I voted Labour despite their Brexit policy not because of it. That won’t be happening again. These are European elections that matter (for once), where our votes may count more than usual and where the whole election is about the future of Europe and our relationship with it.

The advice I’ve read is that if you want to vote for remain/oppose Brexit you should do the following depending on where you live- vote SNP if you live in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales and either Lib Dem or Green if you live in England. I can understand why some people on the left will have a problem with voting Lib Dem, memories of the coalition lingering, but going off the local elections there are increasing numbers of people able to vote for them. There are plenty of good arguments for voting Green and their stance on Brexit is one of them- I voted Green at the local elections three weeks. Putting my X in a different box really wasn’t that difficult under the circumstances.

This is Brian Eno’s lovely piano remixed beautifully by Mojo Filter.

Another Green World (The Blue Realm)

While we’re in the political arena the rise of the milkshake as the weapon of choice against fascists and rabble rousers has been a real highlight of 2019. I know some people have said it adds little to public discourse, that reasoned debate and discussion should always be the way to win arguments, and that the throwing of milkshakes is the thin end of the wedge but these people – Farage and Tommy ‘Robinson’- have been spreading the seeds of hatred, xenophobia and racism in the public realm for years now and it’s no surprise that when faced with that some people will use more direct action. For two men who like to pose as outsider tough guys, they also go scuttling off quickly crying ‘foul’ when small quantities of dairy products are used against them. Violent language will always breed similar responses and you reap what you sow. Plus, it is very funny and maybe humiliating these people is the best way to deal with them. This article by Aditya Chakrabortty is a much better articulated piece about the milkshake spring. All of this can only be soundtracked by Kelis.

Milkshake

Monday’s Long Song

Sometimes things just come together really nicely. I had something else planned for today’s long song but then Twitter throws this photo up and one thing leads to another and we have Neu! instead. Krautrock against Brexit!

Fuer Immer

I originally wrote a long post here about the ongoing Brexit disaster but then deleted it- does anyone need any more opinions right now? Then I remembered Daniel Avery’s ambient/techno track from last year, a track named after the label our Prime Minster (at the time of writing) gave to nearly half the population a couple of years ago back. On Wednesday night Theresa May claimed on live TV that she’s on ‘our side’ and that actually parliament is to blame. Nice bit of anti-democratic demagoguery there. Thankfully, in a world increasingly full of right wing demagogues and populists, our own version is a shit populist, completely lacking the common touch and with little actual popular support.

Remain

The author Robert Harris tweeted last week ‘How foul this referendum is. The most depressing, divisive, duplicitous political event in my lifetime. may there never be another’. Which just about covers it. Nigel Farage has forced a ‘discussion’ into public, a discussion which has unleashed all kinds of racist and xenophobic forces which have at least partly contributed to the murder of MP Jo Cox last week. Farage is a political charlatan, a fraud, a man who basks in a man-in-the-street image despite a wealthy, privileged background. A demagogue who hates the EU yet is paid by it, who represents constituents at the European parliament but rarely goes. A man who poses in front of Nazi inspired posters and complains that the murder of Jo Cox has ‘taken the momentum out of the Leave campaign’. On every and any level, he is a disgrace.

David Cameron has to take the blame here too- despite being the leader of the Remain campaign, he is the one who called this referendum, a cynical response to the rise of Ukip and the defection of Tory votes, a piece of political opportunism that has blown up in his face, shown the cracks in his party and that he’ll pay for politically at some point, win or lose.

Let’s Kiss And Make Up

This is original The Field Mice version covered by St Etienne with their Eurocentric cover art.

A vote to Leave is a backwards step, a vote for a past that doesn’t exist. I can’t see any positives in leaving. Taking back control, taking back sovereignty is a smokescreen- how is leaving the ‘undemocratic’ E.U. increasing democracy in a country which has an unelected second chamber and is a constitutional monarchy? My vote today is to Remain. Let’s stay together.

Enough preaching.

Stay

Stay is off Bowie’s Station To Station, sometimes my favourite Bowie album. The choppy guitar part, Carlos Alomar I assume, is wonderful.

And finally Portishead have released this cover of ABA’s SOS, a tribute to Jo Cox.

Union

When you look at the group of people who have coalesced around the Vote Leave campaign- a melange of bigots, regressive Little Englanders, folk who think that they can turn back the clock to ‘how things used to be’, myopic people who think that because we have traffic jams and queues this is because as an island we are full up, and then the general xenophobes and racists (and there are plenty out there who say ‘I’m not racist but…’. Actually, you’re probably are racist.), it becomes increasingly clear what to do on June 23rd. Factor in the joys of political fuckwits like Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, George Galloway and Nigel Farage, it would seem that voting Remain is the only sensible and possible option. I keep hearing vox pops on the TV news where the man and woman in the street say ‘stop all the name calling and mud slinging and just give us the facts’ but as far as I can see there aren’t any facts, there are only opinions. No one knows what the impact of leaving the EU will be. It’s all conjecture. So I have to go with my gut, which is that if there’s a union of democratic nations that want to work together to ensure better rights for citizens and may have contributed to a largely peaceful Europe since 1945 (a continent not known for peace before 1945) and which ensures that we can all move about more freely and become more aware of each other’s differences (and our similarities) and then soak up each other’s cultures… then I’m in favour. I have no problem with immigration. I think it’s a good thing.

And it’s given us this absolutely gorgeous love song song from Gruff Rhys.