Thersites Writes

Of course, my previous post told one part of China's story. But it missed out the poverty, the bad blood and the people left behind to rot. The world marches on, all too often over you as well as with you.

I remember George Orwell writing that in order to make an omelette - his metaphor for a modern society - you needed to break some 'eggs'. (I.E., those poor sods who get crushed under the wheels of 'progress' and get nothing or little in return.) But isn't it so easy to be callous when it's not your eggs being broken? Hey, it's for the greater good...

Here's a news report for you, about China's rising might as an industrial force. You may need to get RealPlayer first, which is a pain, but that’s the ‘Net for you

People have always been dismissive of China. But like Mr. Ankong, it just takes up all the junk and trash hurled at its shores and makes a great future out of that raw potential. No one wants to admit fully, I think, that China will be a super power by 2100 - or even 2050. Where will that put us? Who is to say.

But JG Ballard foresaw how things will be at the end of his autobiography, Empire Of The Sun. For one day China will indeed wreak a terrible revenge on the rest of the world for treating it like dirt for oh so long. And as Tom Wolfe asked in The New Journalism, will the "Chinese give a damn about American history" in 2073? It might now be a good time to get on their good side...

One of the things I often think about is what happens to actors after they disappear from the spotlight. By that, I mean what happens to those B and C list actors who star in one major film but then seem to just vanish? I always worry - are they living in a cardboard box? Working in McDonald's? Lying in a pauper's grave somewhere, having OD'd on smack in 1987?

So I felt rather happy to read this story. Firstly, because it was a good yarn. Here it is in summary: a 19th Century US Adventurer Josiah Harlan goes to Afghanistan, lives a life of danger, fights a few wars and then gets made Prince of his own Afghan fiefdom. How many jumped-up backpacker divs and irritating Sports Studies students on their 'Year Off' can claim to have done that?

But also, it let me find out what happened to an actor from one of my favourite films. By that, I mean Dawn of the Dead c.1978, as opposed to the shit remake that oozed into cinemas this year. It turns out that Scott Reiniger, who played Roger in the film, is in fact Harlan's great, great, great grandson. This means he is in line for the throne, but he prefers his younger brother as present incumbent. (But it's not as if he can just walk in and make his claim, not without a fair-sized army behind him. Ask any self-respecting Taliban, ex-Soviet Soldier or Nato squaddie.)

Interesting in itself. But I also found out that Scott is doing well for himself and now runs a coaching consultancy in America. Ken Foree, who played Stephen in DoD '78, has also dodged the cardboard box, being the proud owner of his own website and a steady workload. In fact, much of the cast seems to be thriving, which means that the worst case scenario (or at least, the one that does not involve zombies) has not come to be. Aaah.

This was all nice to hear. The stage is after all an unreliable profession. Much like journalism in fact. Although, I guess, a 'resting actor' has a faint decadent romance about his plight. Whereas, a hack with no job is just a dosser with a Teeline speed of 55 wpm.

But what about that Afghan province? Ghor is no doubt in as much shit as the rest of that hapless country. Isn't it a shame that we're only discussing it by virtue of an American having gone there in the 19th century and how his descendent then went on to star in a Zombie film? Oh yes, I'm sure the locals are whooping for joy over that, while they try to scrape a living out of the soil, try to dodge bandits and hope their children don't stand on a landmine. Do the people of Ghor really care about trivia? Or are they just doing their best to get by? Something for us to think about. Or rather, to do something about.

The irony is, this whole issue has come out of a UK hack, Ben Macintyre, bringing it to light, while he was writing a book about the woes of the Afghans, post-911. So here we are, having a chat that somehow ropes in a lapsed Quaker, zombies, Afghans, Al-Qaeida, poverty, the perils of the acting trade, life coaching, cardboard boxes and Teeline, all at once. Isn't it strange how everything is linked to everything in one big web of circumstance?

This is all too fluffy and nice. I will go back to being a bastard later.

Hoorah for Fire. Giver of light, cooker of food, the means through which man has harnassed nature. It's also just destroyed the biggest stockpile of crap in this country. Fire's great - you can't argue with it.

What am I referring to? This.

I don't like advertising guru Charles Saatchi. This is not because of how his advertising campaign in 1979 helped Margaret Thatcher win the '79 election. The fact is, it was actually rather good and simply put the argument across. It was the electorate that made Thatcher; Charles just gave them a briefing first. They could have ignored his campaign if they wanted to. In fact, I admire his ability to come up with superb ad campaigns, that communicated with the public with such deft skill. There is indeed much to admire about him.

What I don't admire is how he has used all the money he has made to bankroll the bankrupt, corrupt, shallow and banal 'conceptual art scene' which has grown ever more bloated and prominent, like a huge pus-filled boil on the collective arsehole of British culture. The Young British Artists (YBA) scene is a colossal joke played on the rich and undescerning. He might think that owning Cows and Sharks In Formaldehyde, tents with a list of quick shags sewn onto them and whatever slack-arsed gimmick the Chapman Brothers have just gobbed out might be 'cool'. Indeed, he may well find it a wonderful talking point at cocktail parties infested with the usual pack of coked-up, blinkered, petty and smugly elitist media whores, who think this load of old shit is worth loads simply because it makes them hip in front of the rest of the Islington Ponce Brigade. Hey, each to their own! But the fact of the matter is, 'Conceptual Art', so beluv'd of the twot-mongers who run the Turner Prize, only really amounts to is a faintly banal one-second joke, a waste of resources and the hegemony of the new elite who deem themselves fit to tell everyone else what to think, how to feel, how to percieve and how to enjoy life. The term 'Wankers Wanking into Wankerdom' leaps to mind.

The fact is, Conceptual Art is one big swindle. Read this article. Shocking, isn't it? Most YBAs can't be arsed to make their own 'art'. They just come up with a lame but 'evocative' idea (evocative, that is, in the same way as fashion victims wearing FCUK t-shirts) which they then either delegate to their minions or get the erstwhile Mike Smith to do the donkey work. I know the term 'Emperor's New Clothes' is such a huge cliche. But it surely applies here, and on a near cosmic scale.

It's a shame, as Mr. Saatchi seems an astute, adroit man. (Apart from the fact that he likes spending good money on worthless dross.) Why doesn't he spend all that money on supporting young artists who actually do their own work and have original ideas that don't just ape the latest trend? Why doesn't he sponsor the arts as a whole rather than a small niche? There's a whole spectrum of old and new arts out there that could do with the money. And isn't it about time that HR Giger got a retrospective at Tate Modern? Or he could even go the whole hog and support the likes of Anthony Gormley, a man who truly represents what modern art should be. He inspires, he provokes, he attracts attention - or at least attention beyond the usual tired array of pseudo intellectuals who keep the YBAs in business The fact is, people will be discussing Gormley's Angel of The North, the Quantum Cloud series and The Field in a century's time, as the truly iconic symbols of our times. Meanwhile, dodgy geezer Damien Hirst, the just plain silly Tracey Emin and the frankly ridiculous Sarah Lucas will be consigned to the dustbin, unremembered and unmourned.

One of the best things to happen to London was the Great Fire of 1666. Alas, it claimed lives, which can never be justified. But on the other hand, it got rid of the conditions that brought about the Plague of 1665 and swept away much of the old, decrepit, rotting London. This allowed a new London to rise from the ashes, signified by the masterpiece that is St. Paul's Cathedral. Why shouldn't the fire at Mr. Saatchi's wharehouse do the same for True British Art?

It looks like someone else is thinking along the same lines as I:

Michael and me

(I really need to stop linking to this site, shouldn't I? It's as if I'm trying to suck up to them so they'll give me a job...)

Quote of the day!

Last week the Prime Minister seemed confused as he spoke to a conference on alcoholism. On the one hand, he commended his administration's plans to tear up Gladstonian restrictions on closing times and allow pubs to stay open as late as landlords wanted. On the other, he warned that the full force of the law would be felt by those who stayed up all night drinking and smashed up the town and its inhabitants… (But) the Tuscan holidays of the progressive middle class have had a dreadful effect. They have stopped it from grasping that the British have been binge drinking since the Vikings and the last thing that this country's pubs are about is the promotion of family values. Pubs are where men go to get away from women, and, increasingly, where the young go to get away from the old…

Source: Nic Cohen, Newsunlimited.com

I am of course in an anti-booze sort of mood right now, of a kind our American friends may well know and love. Which is to say, I drank myself silly on Thursday and I regret it even as I now type. But while my stomach squeals in pain, and thoughts of ‘NEVER AGAIN!’ scream through my brain, the most honest part of me is sure I will be doing the exact same thing again in two weeks’ time.

You see, that’s my point. You can regulate or stigmatise or ban whatever it is we like to do our bodies in with (drugs, booze, lard, sugar, e-numbers) but as long as we WANT them, it won’t work. No state can suppress desire. We must, as a society, choose to limit ourselves. We just simply can’t be bullied into it. And why does no one ask WHY we like to abuse ourselves like this? Why am I, and so much of my generation, driven to drink like non-Islamic fish and then piss and moan about it on my/our badly written weblog(s)? I don’t know – but it’s as if our lives are so lacking in one way or another that we need to overcompensate, as if we've failed to live up to something. Or perhaps we’re just barbarians who like to piss it up? I’ll tell you in a fortnight’s time when I repeat ad infinitum, ad nauseum (with the emphasis on the nauseum) what I did on Thursday…

Before you carry on, please read this article on Michael Moore...

...What did you think? Perhaps your mind is already made up. After all, lots of people have it in for Michael Moore with a passion. Others worship him, not least in the UK as he seems to confirm all our knee-jerk reactions towards those ghastly Americans. But I don't hate or love him. I fear him. He and his kind are masters of rhetoric and foes of the facts when they get in the way.

Now you may well wonder what I am on about. But the fact is, Moore is to the Left in America what Rush Limbaugh is to the US Right. They are both Demagogues who tell their audiences what they want to hear. They are clearly biased and indeed sell themselves on this and their approach to the facts is just as Cavalier. They both help aggravate the split between Blue and Red America. And they are both products of a US media that has increasingly turned to bias as a sales pitch. (You can thank the FCC for casting out fairness like a pox in 1987 and thus opening a Pandora's Box of trash polemic.) Not that we British can talk. The American media has simply slid down to the sewer where the UK press has dwelt all along. So never mind the argument, FEEL the invective. Verily.

And it's not as if Moore is the most precise of sources. (Then again, nor is Charlton Heston.) Many of the scenes in 'Bowling For Columbine' were staged and edited for extra effect. Take, for example, the scene where he got a free gun after he opened a bank account. Before the bank gave Moore his shooter, it had to vet him for 10 days. The scene where he fills in a form and then gets his gun straight after was really just Moore pretending to get on camera how one opens an account before he then claimed his free gun. But he implied in the film that this was his original application and that the gun was given to him straight after he signed his name on the dotted line. Somewhat ‘grey’ in an ethical sense, don’t you think?

And as anyone who has read his smart alec solution to the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland – in ‘Stupid White Men' - will tell you, he's also very good at talking out his arse on subjects he does not understand. (I recommend this article for a far truer picture of Northern Ireland's woes.) Just like Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly (a sore loser par excellence) and all the other sleazed-up prophets of friction before fact, bile before balance; he's just more of the same. It's just he dwells on the left of the spectrum rather than the right, unlike the rest of his peers.

So, is Moore the political saviour some say he is? Or just another soap box rider who leaves discord in his wake as he leads America into yet more rancour, name-calling and tribalism? Either way, he's not the first of his kind. And no doubt he'll give rise to many a successor, peddling the same biased drivel, if not always from the left.

So there are still people in the UK who care for freedom, have a healthy distrust of the state and are willing to fight for their rights. Thank Tzeentch for that! That 28% (16.8 million!) of the UK population are willing to take to the streets against ID cards is good enough. But that 16% (2.8 million) would be willing to engage in civil disobedience and 6% (3.5 million!) would go to prison rather than be given internal passports is better still. You've made me proud to be British again. Thanks!

Of course, no doubt Davey Blunkett and The Dear Leader (dusting off purple powder as we speak) will ignore this poll. They want ID cards because they are used to getting their way, like spoilt children. Also, gaining and retaining power are Blairite obsessions. (They may have devolved power in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But that's just a ploy to drain support from Nationalists and entrench loyal Labour strongholds in those areas.) Look how Blair has tried to stitch up the Lords, and turn the Commons into an obedient poodle. (Made in his own image in fact.) He's already broken the Labour Party, which wasn't difficult as it has always been keen to sell out for power and/or to suck up to its vested interests.

ID cards would take this control freakery to the next level - now 'Our Tone' would not just ride roughshod over the state but over the public too. These are dangerous men whose power needs to be curbed. Still, Phoney Blair's days seem numbered, and the inevitable disasters at the Local and European elections next month will no doubt speed him on his way. Hopefully, Blunkett, who is not liked in cabinet, will be hurled back onto the backbenches thereafter, sending ID cards back to the dustbin of history.

// posted by Thersites @ 1:18 PM 0 comments

What better way to open this web log than to add yet another self-serving 'Net rant about WMD to the huge pile of self-serving 'Net rants on WMD? You slags know you love it REALLY.

Anyway, my thought are like so. Two shells (one with mustard gas, one with Sarin) do not a WMD stockpile make. The most likely explanation is that Saddam's collection of killer chemicals was destroyed but remnants got lost in the system and ended up in conventional stockpiles. Considering how badly run and corrupt Saddam's Iraq could be at times (like how the allies blew the Iraqi army to buggery in 1991 and 2003 with little effort), it isn't surprising that this sort of thing happened. The shells were rigged up as booby traps anyway, which is not the best way to deploy this kind of weapon. This is to say, the insurgents who rigged them up assumed they were conventional shells too - a roundabout way of saying that Saddam's stockpiles were all but gone by the time the first Tomahawk missile was flung at Baghdad on the 20th of March, 2003. Be that a lesson to you all: top-down government always leads to fuck-ups. But all it really proves is that a fluke lead to Iraqi rebels getting two old chemical shells - WITHOUT THEM REALISING THIS.

The lesson here is not that the war was right, which it wasn't (it was more of a grudge match and military adventure looking for a good excuse) but that the best way to deal with WMDs is not to have them in the first place. If you do have such a stockpile and then choose to destroy it (which seems to be the most likely thing Saddam did), there's still a chance that parts of it could go missing by accident or design. And all it takes is one admin error and a similar shell or weapon could again end up in the wrong hands. So how safe are Britain's WMD stockpiles? Or Russia's? Or America's? They're all big enough for one little mistake to have serious consequences. Never mind Saddam's fabled arsenal. What if terrorists got access to the stockpiles of 'respectable' countries?