I've been too busy to write and too busy to think lately, but I'm up realtively early on a Saturday (9.30 on a Saturday for me is like the crack of dawn), so here's time to make some comments before going about the business of the day (getting Hair cut, posting letter to Tel in Korea, drawing some of Davis, reading some of Watchmen, listening to some Weller, playing some Ibanez Guitar - yeah, Saturdays man). god save the queen I didn't catch much of the Oscars, but I caught the last few, and I'm really glad that Helen Mirren won Best Actress for the Queen. She did such a good job as EIIR she should be given the job of Heir to the Throne. Crikey, I remember that crazy week in 1997. I'd actually been eating at an Egyptian restaurant right by Kensington Palace that night, and next morning I went to France with Tel. We missed the initial shockwaves of it all in Britain, though of course it was never off the news in France either. People would stop and ask us, as Britishers, "how are you feeling, are you alright?" Um, yes, we're fine. We were going around the streets of Strasbourg on our bikes flashing our cameras pretending to be paparazzi (we were young, stupid and satirical), and then we got back to England and it was like, whoah, what the hell is going on? And everyone was slagging off the Queen. I still have the News of the World I got on the morning Diana crashed, where the front pages are all about the nation's darling princess being gone forever, killed by the evil media and the old-fashioned royals, whereas the interior pages had been written before news of the crash had reached the editor, and were full of all the anti-Diana "who does she think she is, she's a disgrace" diatribes that were at fever-pitch in the weeks before she snuffed it. Vive la presse. it's a fascist regime I've just finished re-reading Philip Pullman's excellent trilogy His Dark Materials. It's one of my favourite stories, mainly because I think the characters are so strong and individual, but also because it is so sad towards the end. There is a bit in the book in which the main character, Lyra, makes a journey into the world of the dead, but is forced by the rules of nature to leave her daemon, part of her very soul, behind on the grey shores as the boatman takes her on. It is a terribly sad moment, and you know she is being torn apart at this moment, and I think that is how I felt when I moved to America. I left people I loved (my family) on the shores when I flew over the Atlantic, and it was like leaving a part of my soul elsewhere. Eventually, Lyra is reunited with her daemon, but they have grown a little, and have learnt how to live far from each other, to get used to it. Interesting. It's a great story. she'll make you a moron I saw an advert for that show 'American Idol' the other day. It's one of the more popular imports from Britain's starsearch/reality-TV craze, and has gotten to the point where even one of its rejects went and won an Oscar last weekend. And of course they have Simon Cowell and his tight t-shirts. There is another show where they have, oh my god I couldn't bloody believe it, Piers Morgan on the panel. Piers flipping Morgan, him from the Daily Mirror, who would always be roundly ridiculed on Have I Got News For You, now a TV ('totally vacuous?' ) personality in America. Anyway. There was this woman singing (howling like a cat with a personality disorder), and Cowell said she was just not good enough. Well she was in a rage of angry tears backstage, "what does he know, he's not even American! this is an American show, American Idol!" Apparently this is not the first or even the second time he's been blasted for not being American. Evidently Xenophobic remarks are fine on TV here. A couple of weeks ago there was a humourous reporter asking a French basketball player in the NBA if ever he wanted to just surrender halfway though a game. He should have responded, at least we don't join the game halfway through. But what does he know, he's not even American. potential h-bomb The major marketing campaign to convince the public that Iran is the urgent enemy and we must attack them without delay is on. If we can blame the Iranians for the chaos in Iraq, if we can say it enough times, it will become true, and everybody will support an attack because they have been convinced by the politics of the media which doesn't need hard evidence to prove anything, just hard headlines and a firm demonisation of Ahmedinedjad and mistranslation of all he says (this famous 'wipe Israel off the map' thing we hear so much about, let's not forget that other places were wiped off the map, such as Middlesex and Rutland, without international outcry, we just assume he means with mass-destruction, because that's what we'd do). That's not to say we can trust the Iranian government, but we seem to be doing everything we can to antagonize them. I just worry that the war-hungry Admisitraitors can actually scare and convince the public for a second time that opening a second front in the endless war and invading another sovereign nation that never threatened us will be the right thing to do to protect us. I probably don't speak for everybody in the West, but I personally have felt far more threatened and unprotected since we invaded Iraq than at any time before, even during the Cold War. I'm afraid that acts of global aggression and antagonism will bounce back on us one day. In the words of Marvin Gaye, what's going on? And that's my two cents for the week. Now for my haircut.
we mean it, maaaaan
3.3.07 19:30
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amillionpieces / Website (3.3.07 20:05) Americans - Have you seen conservapedia? I hit the roof when I read some daft yank saying they had to join the war because we were losing. Ignorant morons. Also, one of the key reasons wikipedia is "anti-America" is because they often use British spellings. Grrr. sadly they have disable the ability to join, so I have been as of yet unable to correct them. As too Iran, it's getting scarily like 2002 again with all of this rhetoric, it's scary stuff, not only is attacking Iran totally unjustified, but even if it was it's biting off more than America can chew. Have Bush and Blair no idea how much damage to our security it could do? |
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petescully / Website (5.3.07 06:40) no, no well i wouldn't judge americans by these things any more than i'd judge brits by the likes of jade goodie. As for attacking Iran, well if that's what the Bushistas want then we'd be better off with Lex Luthor as president. |
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Linden Parker / Website (6.3.07 14:22) Hopefully after Blair goes, Brown (presuming it's him) will be more reserved about attacking another country... (who knows? maybe he will cut all of the UK's links with the US Gov.t? - until Hilary Clinton is in the WH, that is.) I agree with the comment from 'amillionpieces' regarding Iran. I just hope that nothing is going to come of it, and the UN can intervene before the US start another illegal war. And on the other comment, I agree. But you should be able to judge a country based on its president - a great reason to believe that if the US is in the Driving Seat of the world, then we are all doomed! |
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sulz / Website (10.3.07 08:41) i've been meaning to read 'his dark materials' ever since you recommended it to me and i've been reading other bloggers rave about it, but right now i have more than 10 library books waiting for me.  don't worry, i'll get the trilogy from my library as soon as i'm done with these books and my exams.
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