Watching political programmes on tv definitely isn’t good for me. I was watching question time last night, disagreeing with what was being said so vehemently that I was shaking with rage. I know I should keep calm, and people are entitled to their opinions, but I can’t seem to help it. For instance, Alex salmond was being referred to as a socialist. Socialist my arse! There’s nothing socialist about wanting to divide a country, onlŷ caring about yourself. He’s as bad as a Tory, or even Farage. And speaking about tories, don’t get me started on that set of self-congratulatory, murderous pieces of shit.

See what I mean? I got so angry last night I swore to myself I would kill anyone i see reading the daily Mail. Lyn, meanwhile, looks on in bemusement and concern:

she stays calm, and I don’t think she likes seing me get so aggitated. Thus I have to stop; if I can’t keep calm watching such programmes, I have to stop watching them. It’s not good for my heart.

As a film student, the internet movie database is – or used to be – my first point of reference. Whenever I come across a new film, the first thing I did was look it up on IMDB. It is one’ bread and butter, used daily. You can imagine my pride, then, when yesterday I discovered Lyn had a page on it. I was bowled over when I found it my fiancee, up there with the likes of Shore and Burnstien. She has one credit so far, for the soundtrack she did for Unstoppables, but that is enough to fill me with pride.

Talking bout film, though, one further note: Yesterday afternoon Dominik showed us The Intouchables, a 2011 french film by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano about a disabled rich man and his new, rather unconventional personal assistant. As I watched it I fell deeper and deeper in love with it. I could relate very well to it’s touching yet fun depiction of a PA/PA-user relationship; I’ve been in a few similar scrapes to those shown. It struck me that this was the type of story which needs to be told. I’d need to rewatch it, of course, before I write a proper review, but I would say it’s definitely worth hunting out if you can.

A very happy birthday to my amazing brother luke. As I wrote a year ago this very day, I still don’t see much of my brother. He’s always so busy, I half expect him to be on some super-secret government mission. Yes, he says he’s doing research, but research into what, precisely? Maybe it’s cyborgs, or artificial intelligence, or the army”s secret weapon, the cow catapult! Whatever luke is doing, I hope its fun, and wish him the best of days.

I have been vaguely aware of the so-called culture war for some time now. My background is, of course, in film, on top of which I’m highly political, so you might have thought I would be into that sort of thing. Yet before today I’ve never given it much consideration, dismissing it as something trivial. However, I was watching the news earlier, and it occurred to me that the row between Harriet harman and the daily mail is in fact a battleground in that very war: it is a fight over what constitutes reality and truth, between right-wing gut reactionism and left-wing balanced wisdom. It is a fight over whose worldview is the more valid. How the Mail can publish such bull is beyond me, as it is seeking to rewrite history and smear it’s political enemies.

Frankly, I think the mail should apologise and take itself out of print. On the left we are too nice and tolerant, ad hold back from questioning other peoples views, but it’s time to end the right’s moronic bullshit. If it weren’t for liberal restraint forcing us to tolerate such intolerance, the culture wars would be a pretty one sided affair and conservatism would be seen as the childish, selfish ideology it is. That’s why, as I wrote here, it’s time to confront idiots like Katie Hopkins; its time to engage with the right and demonstrate how brainless their ideas are.

Time to take the gloves off: immigration is a good thing, and anyone with more than half a brain relishes living in a multicultural society. Without it we’d dwindle, so it is the St. George flag waving numpties who are betraying britain through their isolationism and xenophobia.

The EU is a good thing: it bring the peoples on this wonderful continent together. A fragmented europe leads back to the status quo of the beginning of the last century. Because of the EU such savagery can be stopped. It is inherently wise to remain a part of it, monumentally stupid not to.

Objecting to taxation amounts to greed. There is no curve, no point after which income from tax falls if it is too high: that is a myth perpetuated by those who care only for theirselves and who hate contributing to society. Such assholes need to grow up. As I wrote here, only when we outgrow such greed can w flourish as a race.

I could go on. I could take any conservative viewpoint and demonstrate its folly, intolerance and lack of logic. They are unscientific, unthought out and often oppressive. Just look at religion for example: look at how conservatives in america use religion to oppress gay rights and abortion, all based on a bunch of bronze age myths which no longer hold water. That is to say, believing in something is fair enough, but when that belief is used to validate discrimination against people with traits they have not chosen and have no control over, then that belief system is open to scrutiny: to oppose gay marriage or religious grounds, and then to cry foul when someone like Richard Dawkins examines that religion as one would any other phenomena, is pure hypocrisy. In short, it is time for the left to speak out to end this foolishness. Time to argue. You might ask what about the liberal tennets of freedom of speech and religion, but when those freedoms are being used to oppress, to slander, and to spread blatant misinformation, I’m beginning to think a line must be drawn. The Right is hurting people; it’s time for the left to question their right to do so. The former is more harmful than the latter.

It seems Lyn and I have a busy few weeks ahead of us – Lyn especially. Last night was the first event of what seems to be becoming quite a busy spring: we went to Gus’ usual gig in the thai restaurant around the corner. As always it was an awesome night, with many cool songs from Gus himself – he plays a mixture of contemporary and older rock tunes. He then invited lyn up to play some of her songs: I always love watching Lyn perform live (well, I would, wouldn’t I?) It captivates me watching her trigger loops on her Ipad, which, although pre-programmed, combine to form something unique to that occasions. Then, after Lyn, something completely different but no less magical: a man performed ancient folk melodies in a deep, velvety voice, transporting us all to another time and place. I got lost in his songs, and could have listened for hours. After him, two or three more from gus, and then it was time to come home, singing as we went.

My nephew oliver comes to visit this afternoon. Can you believe he’s ten already? The last decade has flown by. Mark and Kat are over here visiting London – they say they need to escape Paris as it gears up for the Olympics – and are leaving Olly with me and Lyn for an afternoon. Mark says he has to work on something called a dilithium matrix without being distracted. What we’ll do with my nephew I’m not sure; Mark seemed a bit worried about how we’ll cope, so I told him if he gets too much I’ll just give him a beer and put him to bed, at which Kat gave me a dirty look. Seriously, though, we’ll probably just take him to the park, or to Woolwich, which, incidentally, looks great after it’s 2022 facelift. Who’d have thought a bomb could have done so much good – besides obliterating most of the Tory party, that is. I wonder who planted it. Either way, we can’t be there too long as mum and dad are coming to pick Olly up at five, after which Lyn needs to get on with her soundtrack for Mr. Spielberg. They are still loving being grandparents – you can hardly get mum out of the kitchen, she bakes so many cakes an buns. Oliver scoffs them up as soon as they are cool enough to eat. As for dad, watching him teach his grandson ho to play cricket two summers ago was a joy to behold. Mind you, Oliver’s enthusiasm for the game is now surely helped now we’re thrashing the Aussies at last. Well, Mark will be dropping him off soon so I better go. While he has visited us before, this will be the first time Oliver spends any amount of time with just Lyn and myself. We have a PA with us, so it should be fine; I just hope nothing goes too amiss.

Posted February 23 2024.. Comments 5

Popping down to Bexleyheath

I’m curious: what lies beneath Once this was part of kent but now part of a vast city the fields replaced with concrete rivers with roads

Once a town now just a suburb And yet a feeling remains it is still akin to the towns of my childhood: Northern market towns, with their slow pace defiantly unurban, still small It reminds me of somewhere else and you forget you’re in london.

It still feels Kentish, small, homely

As if this small corner of the metropolis

Clings to the past

While I’m not completely sure what it means or it’s consequences, I greet you today with this quite epic news that ATOS has decided to ”’end its hated testing regime for the ConDem government – because it says the system ‘isn’t working’. A nationwide campaign against the French firm’s benefit tests have forced the company to seek an early exit from a £500m government contract.” Knowing the suffering this despicable company is responsible for, part of me is jumping for joy – the protests worked! Yet the question remains, what will it be replaced with? Most people online seem cautious rather than joyful: yes, one monster is slain, but could the tory bastards replace i with something even worse?

I just stumbled across this, pretty much the most glorious thing ever. I, like a lot of people I’m told, have been getting into the curling in Sochi; it is a fascinating game, highly tactical but involving quite a bit of physics and maths too. Yesterday, though, Sir David Attenborough lent his dulcet tones to the commentary, and the result is very amusing indeed. I love t!

By the time I got home yesterday evening, I was fuming: the more I thought about what I had seen and heard at the ATOS protest, the angrier I got. I’d heard some horrific stories of poverty and despair; what they are doing has lead a growing number of people to take their own lives. To date, over 1500 people have died just months after this barbaric company assessed them as ‘fit to work’. I write the following in utter seriousness: what is going on amounts to a holocaust. All these deaths were preventable, but thanks to Tory cuts and lack of humanity, some very vulnerable people were driven over the edge. This is wrong, and must be stopped.

I note on tuesday evening the UN published a report on North Korea, unambiguously stating that what is happening there is akin to what happened in nazi Germany. On that, of course, we must act – such barbarities should never be allowed to happen again. But while there are no gas chambers or execution squads here yet, people are indeed being forced out of existence in other ways. The evidence is there! CaMoron might try to dress it up as something necessary or noble (‘Freeing people from welfare dependancy’, or some such bullshit) it amounts to the same thing: the persecution of the weak by the strong, the poor by the rich.

But we are not weak; we must fight back. We do not tolerate such despotism in Britain. The next step, it seems to me, is to convince the media of our cause: while there was very little on last night’s news about our protests, we must go to broadcasters like the BBC to implore them to stop towing the line. The beeb especially must stop respecting this unelected government as if it was legitimate, and side wholeheartedly with the people. If this happens, CaMoron will have nowhere to turn, nobody to spread his lies. We must therefore go to the bbc and ask them to side with the people who pay their wages; only then can we bring this unelected government down and end the suffering.