"That's Entertainment": Socialist analysis of the media

Thanks to InvereskStreetIngrate for alerting me to this forthcoming event of the Socialist Party. Now who could we sign up to attend this....?

The West Wing and other great cultural offerings

Following a little note from a USophile (or is that USophile as a name?) making a public thanks for those works of liberal progressiveness produced by the United States of America, it seemed apt to record here that Cloud and I spent much of the long weekend period (Thursday to Sunday) indulging in The West Wing Season 5 on DVD. Thought-provoking stuff, even without Aaron Sorkin over-seeing the proceedings. Complex characters - not always likeable; flawed opinions; intentions versus political realities versus the effects on individual lives. All tackled deftly. Do we do anything remotely similar over in the UK? We can sometimes get comedic satire right, but this combination of drama, comedy, thriller-narratives AND politics...? I don't think we do. House of Cards? I loved A Very British Coup --- and it was certainly in the same league for quality of writing --- but to have that combination of approaches?

On another note regarding cultural works, I am also living up to my promise to start re-reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman books, which remain as intellectually challenging and visually stimulating as ever. Have just finished re-reading Dream Country, which, as stand-alone stories, probably offers newcomers an easy road in. Then again, it doesn't allow readers to be swept into the Sandman story - Morpheus, Oneiros, Dream - or that of The Endless as a 'family'. And that seems a great shame. Start where you like, but if you have an interest in history, myth, the telling of stories, religion, dreams, or just already like narratives told with images (as well as words), then do get hold of The Sandman. It's worth the investment.

Light relief: the language of Rufus

Sorry, post-election I needed a burst of alternative thinking. Catch these definition discussions over at the Rufus Wainwright message-boards on the Concise Rufus Dictionary (apologies for cutting the specific credited originators on these but some don't make sense outside the discussion on the boards).

Credits to: Noynal (originator of the discussion); zencorrine; Rhapsody; cindyloohoo; arian_mor; Captain; Goody Wainwright; Cosmo; sleeping_pirate; scaredofhershadow; ScissorSister; and kat_in_blue

Rufunoidal - term used todescribe those attempting to sound like Rufus –in car singing-possible rather nasal or having a ‘breathy’ quality
Rufied - not good
Ruphoria - The feelings and emotions during and just after seeing Rufus perform in concert Rufusish - of or pertaining to an article of clothing or piece of jewelry that perfectly accessorizes an outfit
Rufusitis - (1) being unable to listen to any music that is not being sung by Rufus; or (2) hearing Rufus's voice no matter what song is playing
Rufobia - fear of losing a Rufus CD for a short period of time
Rufanus shot? Or maybe even (God forbid) a Rufotomy
Rufable - a person or moment that needs r w music
Rufusology - the study of rufus
Rufalicious!
Rufusesque - adjective used to describe a man resembling Rufus
Rufusion - what most people's CD collections are in need of: "honey, you've got some awfully boring CD's - you need a Rufusion"
Rufusian - a certain style of mannerism, of dress, of hair, etc, that is decidedly reminiscent of Rufus
Rufism- denying a religion (organized or privatized) and the acceptence of Rufus as your savior
Rufoxicated - an altered state of consciousness as a result of imbibing want one and two in one sitting
Rufhalla - almost like heaven, only better
Rufusonian - The area in your living space that is set aside for posters, articles, autographs...and all Rufus memorabilia
Rufusity (no Rufusitis) - quality of something or someone who looks like Rufus or carries some of his essence

Given the exchanges I have had in recent weeks with my pal Ian - ever grateful for him really getting Cloud and me into RW - I have noticed that unwittingly we too have been using the language of Rufus... Oh What a World...!

Feeling better in the mornings

Smiled when I read Norm's comment on the election and how "from 1979 to 1992 [he] went to bed on election nights (actually mornings) a lot less happy than [he] did at 5.30 today".

Agreed. I did A level politics back in 1983-85 and since the 1979 election of Thatcher and the turning of Nottingham from Labour Red to Tory blue, I had sat up with my mother to watch the election results come in. Despite our longings, the blueness of the area was reinforced in 1983, yet still I sat up, hoping against hope. Finally, Nottingham returned to being a Labour held area in 1992, but I well remember the disappointment and commiserating camaraderie felt when we realised this was not enough to push the Tories out of power. Exhausted and frustrated as I staggered into work, I got into the lift with a guy called John who worked at the banking administrators on the floor below me. Both of us were bleary-eyed and downcast. "If only the local vote had been reflected nationally..." he trailed, wistfully. I often wondered come 1997 what his response was on the bright blue-skied morning of May 2nd when somehow the darkness felt as if it had lifted, despite our deep ideological reservations about the New labour project... fears that in many respects were realised.

Yet, for all my concerns and regrets about how the parties have shifted further and further from the ideals I cherish, the alternatives are SO much more destructive that I still feel a smidgeon of pleasure in election nights... and I hope that I don't have to return to the dark emotions of those nights from 1979 to 1992.

East Midlands: an election PS

The three Tory gains from Labour in the East Midlands --- all in the South of the region, all bordering on the solid southern Tory-leaning Eastern region.

Labour back in power

There has been much talk over the last 12 hours about the anti-Labour vote. There was much anticipation about the Liberal Democrat's hopes to challenge and truly bring about 3-party politics in the UK (something we note they say pretty much at every election).

What actually happened? Many Labour strongholds saw shifts to the LibDems without it necessarily affecting how close the Tories got to the Labour vote. Where Tories did make inroads, it was generally to 'gain' seats that had historically been strong swing seats between the Tories and Labour or seats which had gone Labour (in some instances for the first time ever) back in the election of 1997 when the scale of the anti-Tory vote astonished even the Labour party. The LibDems generally lost out to a strengthened Tory vote in seats where the LibDems proclaimed the possibility of 'decapitating' the Tory front-bench. There were some horrifying numbers voting for far-right parties.

What does this show? In 1983 The Labour party was deemed dead and buried with a similar result to that of the Tories in this new parliament. The Tories not only need to continue to hold onto the seats they won this time around, but substantially need to win over more of those seats which Labour held onto - seats where in several instances the LibDem vote went up. And that LibDem increase can't help but be acknowledged as partly a ill-thought out search for a more radical left-ish political agenda [I could talk at length about how the LibDems have been situated by the media as a more left-wing party than the Labour party. I think there are aspects of that which are true, but many more that illustrate this was specious nonsense --- mostly because, as frustrating as LibDems may find it, under the current electoral system they are still NO WHERE NEAR being an electable government].

And as for George Galloway... I feel sick. I have hugely mixed feelings about the war, and the manner in which the decision was made, justified and squabbled over in the period after ground troops declared their ceasefire on hostilities (pity not everyone else has done the same). I sadly don't believe that the quagmire of Iraq is one that will go away anytime soon. But I DO firmly believe that free elections in Iraq, and the demolition of Saddam's regime (so long after he was let off the hook by the post-1990 Tory and Republican agendas) are absolutely GOOD THINGS. As such, the divisive manner in which Galloway fought his election campaign - which in some ways would not have disgraced the sentiments of the BNP - can in no way be celebrated as a positive thing for politics in this country and I feel heartily sorry for a Jewish-black woman MP like Oona King who had to deal with such attacks upon herself. It does no credit at all the our electoral system and for once I have some empathy with Paxo's attacking style of interview.

A quiet place to work for Clare Sudbery

Come on, there must be someone due to go away who would relish a house-sitter for a week to meet an appeal for help so that Clare can get some quality time with her writing. Or someone with a spare property (well, that's perhaps less likely)... Or just a quiet space to rent for a week, preferably for less than the heart-attack inducing 400 smackers everything quotes at this time of year.

Contact Clare if you have any solutions!

George Vol 2: the further adventures of non-MP3 selections

I have to say that to my mind the self-made compilation is a gorgeous thing. Put together with care and attentiveness to the recipient (even if it's yourself in terms of an MP3 organised set of tracks), it can offer new insight to rarely heard tracks and fresh pleasures in material you may have thought over-familiar. Sitting side-by-side, tracks take on new shapes and offer us the chance to think about the past - associations, memories - and the present.

I knew I had found a fellow soul of taste when Cloud first played me his beloved Derrida's Deconstruction tape: 45 mins of quality and eclecticism that summed up why he was worth the emotional investment. I should get him to tell you about it - and how, despite the technology - it segues together so well!

Anyway, here is volume two of the George Collection:


David Grubbs: Transom
Bjork mit Funkstroming: All is Full of Love
Eels: Spunky
Magnetic Fields: I Don’t Believe You
Aimee Mann: Save Me
Nanci Griffiths: It's a Hard Life (Wherever You Go)
This Mortal Coil: Your Sister
Magnetic Fields: It’s Only Time
St Etienne: Hobart Paving
Sleater Kinney: Was it a lie?
Pulp: My Legendary Girlfriend
Johnny Cash: Hurt
Magnetic Fields: Is This What They Used to Call Love?
Lampchop: TheOne
The 6ths (Momus): As You Turn to Go
Talvin Singh: Traveller

George Vol 1: equally not an MP3 collection

I'm getting into tracking these lists now. This one comprises a series of items selected in connection with our good friend George.


Einstuerzende Neubauten: Reduckt (live)
Pere Ubu: My Friend is a Stooge for the Media Priests
Jefferson Airplane: Somebody to Love
The Teardrop Explodes: Rachael Built a Steamboat
Half Man Half Biscuit: Trumpton Riots
Ian Dury: Spasticus Autisticus
The Roots: !!!!!!!
CSNY: Almost Cut My Hair
Hazeldine: Tarmac
Goats Don’t Shave: Las Vegas (In the Hills of Donegal)
Sixteen Horsepower: Coal Black Horses
Randy Newman: Political Science
Jonathan Richman: Ice Cream Man
Lampchop: This Corrosion
Pere Ubu: Vacuum in my Head
Mindless Drug Hoover: Fuck Off
REM: Bad Day (N.B. selected especially for the misheard lyric "It's been a bad day in Beeston, take a picture...")

Encouragement to vote

As ever, Cloud gets to all the good political stuff ahead of me.

SIAW propose how to consider voting here. Check it out and then ask yourself what the alternatives could lead to.

Shudder.

A Jacket I nearly purchased

Am just getting over the yearning I felt this weekend when I nearly succumbed to buying a jacket designed by Vivienne Westwood (Red Label). The jacket was red velvet, 3/4 length, lined and fitted me perfectly (thanks for nothing Cloud in getting me to try it on!)

Sadly, being sold as part of a designer's private collection of items, it was a whopping £350 to buy: "I could do it you for £320" the seller gallantly offered.

Yikes. I left the shop - only open for three days in Nottingham - gnashing my teeth and wailing that I was not t0 be allowed within a 100 yard radius of the shop whilst it was open in case I was seduced.

As compensation, Cloud led me to the more affordable delights of H&M - purveyors of affordable fashion - where I picked up a pair of red velvet trousers for £12.50. I let go of the idea of getting the jacket...

I'm claiming this was ultimately a Very Good Thing, as when I got home and got changed I found three bite-marks on my arms. EEK! I think I just had a close shave from little biting things and though I wish to cast no aspersions on the quality of storage the VW jacket had had, telling myself I narrowly avoided spending money I don't have, on something I would scarcely dare wear, that was a little more lively than one would like... well that feels good.

AND I didn't slip into saving the £350 only to spend an equivalent on cheap tat!

It did look nice though: sadly I can't track a web-picture of one. Sniff. And it fitted me so well... (I'm over it... really I am).

Music selections: not quite an MP3 list

Inspired by the excellent choices of that InvereskStreetIngrate, I thought I would start to post up my own compilation lists.

So here is the first, put together a few weeks ago until the title of Gender Split Songsters for the lovely Chrissie.

Boom Bip (featuring Nina Nastasia): The Matter (of our discussion)
Frost: Duo
PJ Harvey: A Perfect Day Elise
Melys: I Can't Stop This Now (even if I wanted to)
Tanya Donnelly: Lantern
Camera Obscura: Phil and Don
Laura Cantrell: Not the Tremblin' Kind
Caroline Martin: The Singer
Holly Go Lightly: Wide Open
PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love
Sleater Kinney: The Swimmer
The Delgados: And So the Talking Stopped

The Rentals: These Days
Terry Hall: Chasing a Rainbow
The Delgados: No Danger
Menswear: Being Brave
Pulp: Razzamatazz (Acoustic version)
Ballboy: You Should Fall in Love With Me
The Proclaimers: Sunshine on Leith
Aztec Camera: Oblivious
The Ramones: I Want You Around
The Pixies: La La Love You
Ben Lee: All in this Together
Lampchop: Theme from 'Dallas'

How to get my vote...

Oh well, that does it...

Utterly unprepared, there in the middle of the Labour Party election broadcast last night, between the not-particularly appealing spectacle of Alan Sugar and a selection of 'ordinary' people, up pops the man of the moment.

Yes, dominating our screens in both narrative and news, here comes David Tennant!

Cloud smirked, I grinned, and if my vote hadn't already been decided....



...oh come on! You don't actually think I am so shallow as to cast a vote according to the encouragement of a Paisley-born actor do you?



ahem....


it is a vague possibility.

:)

Flipping Ada! David Duff gets his panties in a twist about culture and class debates

I go away for a couple of days (bank hol weekend: a nice bit of gardening since you ask) and I come back to a flurry of comments to-and-fro between Reidski and de Duff. AND I find yet another post all about me (shucks) on Duff's blog (one would almost think he has a real issue with what I write: as if it matters much in the great scheme of things...)

Well, as a riposte to this demolition of me (how I quake to have stirred such antagonism: it's almost as if these debates are important enough for Duff to be frightened by their mighty influence?) can I offer a few remarks?

Presumably it's perfectly fine to accept that systems of power have inequalities and never shall these be thought about, discussed or challenged? On that basis, I suspect most of us would still not have a vote and would be condemned to poverty in numbers even greater than those that currently suffer such an experience in our so-called free world. And don't try any "hard work reaps reward" rubbish: check out my previous remarks more extensively.

Regarding art history (though I think it can apply to many aspects of society and history), if feminism is to mean anything it cannot just add on women to the history of great artists since that leaves fundamentally unchallenged the reasons why women have generally been excluded from lists of great artists. Likewise, as the same post just cited said, from whence the quote about feminist art history was ripped (and can I just state for the record I'm not "some dizzy whore, 1804"), nor is it enough to separate off feminism into a ghetto labelled 'feminism'. I would like to think that we can ask questions about why women are economically so disadvantaged, why the structures of power continue to devalue their work and contributions to society and culture, and why women being more like men ultimately doesn't really change anything. Both ghettoisation and the add-on approach to including women in history fails to explore how certain default positions are set as the norm against which everything else must be marked. It's how many political parties are able to demonise 'the other' - shouldn't we at least be thinking about how this happens and its consequences (one of which is some currently rampantly racist ideologies).

In terms of upsetting applecarts ...Nottingham has built its reputation on trying to be in the same league as Oxbridge, and it attracts a fair number of very nice middle-class boys and gals to its towers. Some of these are beautifully well-mannered, with perfect etiquette, and of reasonably good intelligence. I get a hell of a lot out of teaching students, and always have: these students included. But you can only cope with so many such students with four first-names, RP, and a near-bottomless parental fund prepared to financially support these students. They frequently arrive with a bunch of prejudices and a lot of ignorance about how the other 90% lives. Before long you start feeling that the efforts (both intellectual, social and economic) required to successfully complete a degree are worth something indefinably greater for those without advantages. Mature students, working class students, for whom the decision to go into (further/higher) education is not an automatic process: I admit it, I get a really big buzz about working with these students. And for these students, seeing examples of others like them breaking through the systems can be really empowering. Moreover, explaining just how hard it can be to those who arrive with the full weight of advantage behind them, helps me to keep my head and makes me constantly aware of how they still dominate so many of the most powerful structures in society.

On matters Popish, I would say that thus far we have had a mixed bag of remarks from PapaRazi. On some issues he has proved more conciliatory than expected (eg on dialogue between faiths), but overall his election does not suggest a shift to a more liberal and open theological and social stance (on sexuality, the place of women etc). What a shame that Liberation Theology has been effectively outlawed by the Catholic church...

As for disputing the inherent racism of the Tory party's current elision of immigration and asylum... could anyone tell me how the current Tory party are NOT racist? (On second thoughts, PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT inundate me with discussions about how the Tories are just nice fluffy bunny-lovers who are not at all racist: I am more than capable of searching the web and reading books and articles from the press. I've read their stuff and plenty of the journalism supporting them and frankly it just makes me sick to see how this panders to 'worst-fears' attitudes.... And don't think I haven't noticed how Labour frequently wears similarly shabby politics on its sleeves).

And to conclude: education. the minds of the young deserve to mix fully and freely. Yes I do believe that students should encounter ideas that alert them to the power structures of society. I do think that the constant division of public/private schooling does nothing to help debate or challenge those structures. Since they are largely damaging and restrictive, I do want students to become aware of them, how they operate and the effect they have. To respond to one of Duff's correspondents, anything so crass as playing a pro-peace record with a fulmination for the pupil audience to be something other than are is doomed to failure (and rightly so). The problem is that accepting the status quo, accepting the current structures as normal and rightful dooms too many to failure and subjugation. And I can't really sit comfortable with perpetuating that, no matter how many Duffs take me to task for propounding my views online...

Ah well. I could probably spend all my days replying to the Duff and his criticisms which hardly feels productive. Nevertheless, I hope that he and my other readers (I have some!) have got something out of reading my musings.

Dry Your Eyes by The Streets: Dido for blokes

According to Cloud (probably not the first person to say this but it made me laugh).

Also: middle-aged literature academics wrote endless commentaries on this... because they could actually make out the words.

Bwah, ha ha.

Sorry. We were gardening all weekend. I needed a laugh.