Current affairs

An economic crisis

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 1 Comment

Money can be personal and it can be political. By that I mean we feel its impact acutely both in our individual lives and more abstractly via some sense of how the high street, the county, the country seems. Right now, I have a personal shortage of dark vulture-swung-canyon proportions, mirroring that which apparently afflicts the (entire?) eurozone.

So am I a special case? Clearly not. Is there any comfort in this current, fateful tessellation of inner and outer skinthood? Is there bollocks. The laughably small business I have lies broken-backed on the valley floor whilst the inevitable narrowly post-dinosaur nimrods scan for signs of weakness. The fact that half of Europe feels like this fails, at this particular moment, to lighten the spirit.

So I need to make jokes/watch wonderful sport/write about stuff/recycle the juicy juice/hope that something gives. And I am. Believing and offering up and pursuing, with my characteristic utter lack of proportion, rationality, guile. Hugely, honestly aware that though I can’t afford to fix the truck/am not able to draw cash from the business etc. etc. my more significant privileges remain free from the shadow of capital(ist) fact.

And I breathe them in deeply and think, powerfully and laterally and without any despair how we might dance through this together. Work on the refinery shutdown; work at the gallery/tourist centre; work please god following a call sending me urgently to New Zealand to shadow Eddie Butler, who’s having trouble with his laptop… and writer’s block… and could I possibly knock out coupla columns? Likely or unlikely ways onward.

In one sense I love this knife-edge of possible bankruptcy and possible mindblowing leap forward. At the risk of sounding nauseatingly indulged (I can’t make you believe that there’s really no financial airbag here but I’m not seeing one) I’ve often claimed to be contentedly insecure. Not entirely in some crypto-buddhist unattached present, but pretty close, where a healthy insecurity is certainly preferred to a reactionary stasis. As a unit, me and my beautiful wife do believe we can live for a while off our wits and now we may have to. This, for us, is a test of will and imagination as well as book-keeping.

Each of our cases is unique and I seek no comparisons, being clear that we are fortunate that the prolonged exercise of my evidently poor business skills may yet be a springboard towards less prosaic business in an ideal world. Conversely, and necessarily, I am gearing my expectations down (too), being prepared to go back to where my working life started – in the frozen food factories of Great Grimsby, if you must know – or to the Pembrokeshire equivalent.

How many of us now, with how many cruel or crushing backstories are congregating in this generally greying niche of the crisis? How many have real hope of betterment? Or of achieving financial parity ‘once things straighten out’? Best not to focus on these abstract economic concepts too keenly methinks; we might find people wriggling underneath.

Impure speculation

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Ok so I spent time in Canada and was struck by the locals (everywhere!) passion for hockey. I watched schoolboys from Oakville and semi-pro’s from Thunder Bay; the same. High tensile, testosterone-fuelled balletic brutality cheered upon by parents or truck drivers psychotic with feeling. Equivalent, absolutely, to our footie. Wayne Gretski and Mario Le Mieux (if I remember correctly) were godlike – Rooneyesque – in their pomp. I watched Canada v USSR in a university campus bar and nearly suicidally cheered for the Soviets, such was the volume, magnificence and crassness of the home support. But man they meant it; this was the lurid expression of something powerful and wonderful as well as daft and politically dubious.

Now an appalling number – does the number matter? – of fellow hockey people have been wiped out; in Russia. A sort of Busby Babes echo – only more multi-nationally devastating – reverberates, for now even this hard-wired northern sport has ‘gone big’ and gathered in players from distant lands. Thus in a city we know nothing about (Yaroslavl) a spectacular pool of A list skating talent has been cruelly wasted. Lost too a Canadian coach – Brad McCrimmon.  And inevitably cruel worries will begin to gnaw, about what immediately should have been done and what, more broadly, consists airline safety policy in the region.

But having loved Canada’s heartiness, through the depths of several feet of snow, in fact; through the clatter and skid and bawl and body-check of hockey games; despite the absurdity – perversity even – of this link, I feel sad, deeply sad to hear of this loss. And I imagine and I think I hope that my soul brothers and sisters in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan are, at least in their minds, laying wreaths for their Russian friends, for the 11 foreign players, as well as the teams Canadian coach.

This petrol emotion

~ bowlingatvincent ~ 2 Comments

Hey look I’m living some kind of idyllic family thing in Pembrokeshire. So I’ve undoubtedly ‘escaped’ to some degree. And I feel conflicted – isn’t that what they say? – about even talking about this rioting thing. What right have I? etc etc. But… let me make some contribution to the debate please.

In no particular order – like is there any order? – the following strike me;

  • The cops may have bollocksed up this Duggan thing; by again failing to be brilliantly sharp and clear and aware and sensitive when they absolutely needed to be bringing out their A game. (They can’t afford to be doing that).
  • A pile of (working class?) people – families even – have been disgracing themselves by ‘joining in’.
  • The Daily Mail, amongst others, has again been shockingly inflammatory – an agent of cheap division when we need intelligence.
  • The race card has been predictably but insidiously played.
  • Certain public figures have sounded off, apparently unaware of the delicious ironies implicit in this – some of them being both embarrassingly privileged and guilty of abusing that privilege through exploitation of expenses protocols, for example.
  • There are issues; there is an underclass.
  • Many of these rioters deserve a hiding. (It wouldn’t help).
  • There is no foreseeable possibility of resolving either the exclusion or disenfranchisement or the cheap, cynical, materialist ignorance of those who perpetrate the criminality, or the casual/’incidental’ (re)actions.
  • The exclusion of some of these people from opportunity is, for want of a better word, criminal.

So we go round. Thugs and communities; brave men in uniform; the outraged, the sinned against, the scumbags. Dark shadows. The whiff of petrol. But what if we really do think about this? If we use its energy positively? Get beyond the obvious, take the emotion out; maybe even put some philosophy, some generosity in?.

Clearly we are right to penalise those guilty of ‘trashing their own communities’. We can unite in our disgust/moral outrage/sadness at that. But can we, if we are to reasonably judge, take the emotion out? Put a sensible, even helpful, constructive value on the quality of wrongdoing and then penalise it and take steps to legislate, in the broader sense, for improvement.

By this I mean (for one thing) improvement in terms of respecting defining principles; such as ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL. Why not start with that one?

That might necessitate a fairly acute look at aspects of the aforementioned privilege. The still stunning domination of Public School/Oxbridge alumni throughout higher levels of government/media/business. The facts and figures, historically and now, re- top earners in relation to those on the breadline. Perceptions around the knowledge of that. For one view might be that unforgiveable as much of the recent action has been, it may be a historically inevitable consequence of a perception of inequality. If that were true would that mean that the following were worthy of consideration?

  • The abolition of private schooling.
  • Bigger, better, intelligent government; government that led.
  • The imposition of some kind of wage-capping, for proportionality.
  • Steps to curb both the notion that growth is god and indeed the acceptance that capitalism per se works for ALL ANIMALS.

These are, of course, hilarious, post-coital and anti-social suggestions arising from liberal/shared gay sex with E P Thompson, Ken Livingstone, Angela Carter, Ken Loach and Elvis Costello on a Red Wedge weekend in Brent. Much more realistic and practical solutions are offered below;

  • Use water cannon upon every gathering of more than 2.
  • Use plastic bullets on every gathering of more than 4.
  • Send all convicted rioters to Marines standard boot camp.
  • Blame teachers.
  • Blame parents.
  • Reduce the school curriculum to the learning of reading, writing and arithmetic. And entrepreneurism.
  • Tell kids god will be their judge.
  • Tell kids they will never be paid to think.
  • Tell kids they need more products… like blackberries, flat screen TV’s, designer labels, watches, gold stuff, shiny stuff, stuff everybody’s got – stuff you can get young kids to nick for ya, when it gets wild. Late, right, in the dark shadows, with the sirens going off and all, and the feds goin’ ballistic, but… like… when they can’t touch ya man.

Amy come back.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m ill at ease with my previous blog. Apart from its cheap ego-centrism – how dare I call into question her realness when all around are saying Amy Winehouse was absolutely (and possibly uniquely) the real deal? An apology may yet be in order. But I do cling with a little confidence to the notion that I can legitimately make some argument here a) because I have to my knowledge no beef with the woman (not even for her later, unappealing habit of pooping on her fans) b) because there were years in my life when music was The Most Important Thing Bar None and c) I could, in the words of another icon of The Smoke, be wrong.

So setting aside the ripeness of the moment – which I fully understand may be difficult for the majority – I think the process of appreciation for any real artist is such a rich and rewarding and on times such an enlightening thing that I ask you to persevere right on past my gaucheness. To, ideally, a place where I can ask whether that instrument of hers was that of a truly great jazz/soul singer?

Sure it was magnificently easy; there was something of the sublime there, in the cadence of the thing. It was utterly in tune with a smoky, druggy London; out on the town with it, swigging bourbon and creasing into cleavage-wobbling laughter. And most of that appeals to the wannabe metropolitan in most of us – happy or sad. What I’m not sure about is how moving any of this carousing was.

It may be a mistake to entirely associate greatness with the ability to truly ‘move’. Pop can be great/a horn section can be great; what does that tell us about commonalities between great human noises? Naff all. The matter may then be complex but the issue at hand is this; whether or not Amy Winehouse went past music into the colours of the heart. Many would answer an emphatic YES to that one.

Me, I wouldn’t. So I’m going to have to listen to ‘Back to Black’ again, ‘properly’. Check out whether these were good songs or ordinary songs. Whether there’s anything being said as well as whether that voice was really special. I’m looking forward to that.

Judge the work

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I’d like to write a post about Amy Winehouse that doesn’t get too trapped. Or that’s what I was thinking. Partly because although there is no question that she was a talent, and it is (always) a loss, I have to confess that I found her voice affected rather than affecting.

By that I think I mean that I felt she was kindof pitching at some role rather than truly expressing her self.   Consequently I let the music drift away – or maybe even pushed it. Right now that feels a pretty shockingly harsh judgement, but my soul’s response to that salty/soaked velvet croon was to simply fail to believe in it. It was unreal. And in the face of so much contrary emotion, I find that interesting, even if it does reflect badly upon me.

Now I’m aware of the absurdity – insensitivity even – of indulging in this particular moan at this particular moment. It may be something to do with wanting to ‘balance’ the understandable hyperbole. And I am heavily aware of the relative weakness of my position in terms of critical opinion. But when the critics and many of the great unwashed are foaming, look out, right? Especially when so much cool factor is invested, right?

Acclaim is surely a fickle and politicised beast; sometimes we suspect its motives as well as any intellectual quality it may have or lack. In addition, in the Winehouse situation, the thing is loaded with edgy but marketable ‘issues’ – drugs/irresponsibility/stridency/the inevitable car crash factor – all, arguably, clouding anyone’s ability to judge. For how many of us remain neutral in the Heroin debate, the What’s Her Family Been Doin’ debate, the Rehab With Your Loyal But Heavily Disappointed Fans debate?

On the one hand, cruelly, it seems Amy had a lot of support. On the other a void, an absence – her own. She wasn’t there when she needed her and presumably neither were the real friends that might have supplanted the illness. Or likely not.

We are fortunate that the music persists; the relatively small back catalogue that so gripped the handers-out of major awards as well as millions of ‘ordinary fans’. As is always the case with an artist – judge the work.

That’s entertainment?

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So, whilst a newer, finer democracy may be fighting its way out of the News International web, what the Ten O’clock News seems to be keen to remind us – sorry, report – is that M Senior (80) is being closely supported by a wife ludicrously higher up the shaggability ladder. Meaning she’s actually on it, being 30-odd. Outrageous, perhaps, but this is pretty much how this particular story might be spun in Ole Rupert’s formerly finest rag, or, to be fair, in half the NOTW’s tabloid competitors. In other words, there’s a lot of cheap crap flying about, even now the story’s gotten beautifully serious.

Beautifully because there is just the tantalising possibility that a more fragrant public life may be waiting for us all. Serious because 1. Somebody died now. 2. Important people are in the mire. 3. It’s increasingly apparent that The Law and The Papers have been bent. Things have snowballed in the way that news often does; but rarely has the quality of the snow been so high.

Murdoch Senior is, however I maintain, a hugely unattractive individual. I find the politics of his empire offensive as well as the bottom-feeding fish set of his jaw. But my guess is that beyond the humiliation of the now, his banner will thrive after this extraordinary period. The UK business, as he suggested today, is relatively insignificant; only if the perception of the shocking practices of the NOTW impacts on US morals and under US law (which seems possible) will Roops be really in the poops. Otherwise the carousel of nonsense and right wing Foxiness will surely swing lustily into the future – possibly beyond the man himself. It seems dangerously imprudent to do much predicting of that future, but is it too much I wonder to hope that the local unravelling of NI and the exposure of appalling standards at The Met, in journoville and yes generally in parliament might lead to uplifting and enervating change in how we construct and receive our world?

For though I’m absolutely with Tony Judt when it comes to judging our pervasively gutless and witless lack of discourse regarding political matters – where are we going? Why is growth good? – I see some potential for important change here. The shackles may be off; there might be more trust around; people might really talk. Parliamentarians – ministers even – may be able to express themselves relatively openly and honestly in the kind of quality debate cherished by Real Humans Who Happened To Be MP’s such as my old mate Bob Marshall-Andrews. It might be entertaining as well as invigorating for democracy. If only.

More likely, sadly, is that whilst a few folks will go to jail, the self-whipping nature of party politics may engulf this opening for radicalism and truths. What a missed opportunity that would be – and what other opportunity is parliament likely to be gifted in the long haul back to public favour? After a near-exhilarating phase of real, engaging news, are the Great Unwashed destined to drift apathetically away again? And just when we thought that the public castration of a media mogul had them right in our sweaty palms…

July 19th 2011.