The Peanut Crunching Crowd
Listening to Innocence and Experience - The best of Blake Babies
Why is smell the most evocative sense? You would think that sight or sound would give the most intense impressions of things past but one slight whiff of some scent from childhood can bring so many memories back. Today seems to have been marked by a higher-than normal number of such impressions. There was a plasticy burning smell, this morning, which made me, think of our front room from when I was quite small. I used to burn plastic things in the fire, which apart from being incredibly dangerous in several ways made the whole room smell disgusting. Then there was a smell of grilling peanuts (where from?) which took me back to Bali and all the Sate I ate while I was there. Of course, the problem with smell as a memory jogger is that you are often not able to tie down the proper source and so are left with a hugely disconcerting overdose of emotion without any idea where it has come from. My day is often a confused mass of smells and so many of them seem to have a link back to what I always think are important events. Maybe it is just the intensity of the recollection that makes me think it is important.
We had snow here early this morning though none stuck so no chance of throwing number one son out in the garden with his snowsuit to see if it does what it says on the tin. Well maybe it will happen. Instead, it just kept on raining. Just call me Lt. Kije. I am looking forward to a few hours just quietly reading over the next week. That was my favourite bit of Christmas when I was a kid, just being able to take whatever book I had got as a present and sit somewhere warm to finish it. I came across a few of those presents in the bookcase (there is a second row - like sharks' teeth - hidden behind the cool covers, which are allowed to be seen). There were several books by Nigel Calder and loads of Astronomy books. Anyway, my present this year is The Ancestor's Tale which promises all of the old magic though if you want the evolution/creation debate, then go the US Amazon Site. See you all later.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Friday, December 17, 2004
Loud, Louder and Loudest
Listening to {fill in your own guess here}
emails to rdeweyden@hotmail.com
Defining Cliché.
I cannot be bothered to put the accent on. Oh well, yes I can. I know is mucks up the text but it should be there. Cliché should only be so if it is already within experience. But then when does Cliché become familiarity of vice-versa? And when does this stop sounding like pretentious rubbish, designed to fill up a slack Friday?
I have been listening to In C a lot recently with a view to using some of the festive free time to implement my programmed version. I can't have listened to it properly because it is only now that I know that the length of each segment is irrelevant to when the start of each drops into the whole thing. Each bit is designed to just fit in anyway wherever it starts. This makes the job of programming it so much easier. The instructions are here if you want to try it for yourself. I don't sight-read music though I have just been able to follow the score quite easily. It seems simpler to follow a piece fragmented this way than to stay up with a conventional melody. I would like to do Six Pianos as well but the score costs real money. I have the first bar in a book on minimalism and although changing the volume of each track creates a huge amount of variation, it seems not quite proper. Do you have the feeling you have read this all before?
Listening to {fill in your own guess here}
emails to rdeweyden@hotmail.com
Defining Cliché.
I cannot be bothered to put the accent on. Oh well, yes I can. I know is mucks up the text but it should be there. Cliché should only be so if it is already within experience. But then when does Cliché become familiarity of vice-versa? And when does this stop sounding like pretentious rubbish, designed to fill up a slack Friday?
I have been listening to In C a lot recently with a view to using some of the festive free time to implement my programmed version. I can't have listened to it properly because it is only now that I know that the length of each segment is irrelevant to when the start of each drops into the whole thing. Each bit is designed to just fit in anyway wherever it starts. This makes the job of programming it so much easier. The instructions are here if you want to try it for yourself. I don't sight-read music though I have just been able to follow the score quite easily. It seems simpler to follow a piece fragmented this way than to stay up with a conventional melody. I would like to do Six Pianos as well but the score costs real money. I have the first bar in a book on minimalism and although changing the volume of each track creates a huge amount of variation, it seems not quite proper. Do you have the feeling you have read this all before?
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Big Shouty Crowd
Listening to Secret World Live - Peter Gabriel
You can just guess how good this website is going to look.
A nice day, late in the year, pretty much like now and almost unreadable like some wittering diary, make poetry of prose. This is clean weather, a day with nothing bad and the promise of rest and riches to come. Or maybe hiding in a corner or behind the curtains where you really are hidden from everyone else. The dreamers dream and stand back, trying to find science in all this religion. I am still hiding and this book is just perfect. It is red science, the engineering of the Soviet space programme or something that once and for all proves evolution is not just a theory but is indeed complete and unequivocal fact, fact and more FACT. I am ten again, like just before the war, with no anticipation of being a machine gunner. I would be too young even to lie about my age. The sent me back to my books and that quiet corner with no more than a clipped ear.
Sometime back in the sixties I found art, all those huge and glossy books at the back of the library. I almost couldn't lift them but I covered the table with them and turned over every page and looked closely at every picture and photograph. The sun always shone in from the side, always lighting the dust in the air. I there I was half way up the stairs like Kermit's nephew, and still with a book. Never read the words except those in books without pictures. Duduk sounds in the background make the dust dance and show up the grief and sadness of the wars that went on all the time over the sea. People I knew shouted, at me sometimes, but head down in all those words, I could easily ignore it all. Until I remembered the B52s pouring towers of bombs into the jungle and making communists of everyone down below. I saw riots in Ireland and I think I can even recall some of the Paris stuff from 1968. And still the dust dances.
Now it is as if I cannot concentrate on these things I read; everything is just too real and no book has the level of escape it once did. I still long to sit behind the curtains or down at the bottom of the garden and waste whole halves of the day there. No music has the emotion it once had. Sometimes I put on proper black vinyl records and the crackles cannot drown out that analogue emotion. Music these days is ALL digital and clean and nothing seems to connect. Sometimes I think that vinyl has a spirit that CD plastic doesn't; the ghost of the disk perhaps, some animist deity that we should placate with record cleaner and a lint free cloth. I cannot write anything and this sentence is false.
I crawled up under the stoop and the world turned into flashing lights, like an aircraft coming into land at night. All the debris the family had stored, crowded in on me and cut my face. I still have the scar; sometimes the baby looks at it quizzically and then changes expression as if he knows what happened all those years ago. And between us, after I came back we started a band. I played the bass not very well and it was good. The vibration went through me and I was mended. And this music, this minute is the best thing I have ever heard; and tomorrow, the track I am listening to will be the best thing I have ever heard.
Rare Vinyl
Jagged records scraped, make this girl gutter,
a wince like lemon juice on blues and jazz,
the rare and breakable in cardboard,
glossed and cleaned like lovers held
in gentle sleeve and plastic.
And each one touched has made a tear,
as if I have her whole life in these discs,
as if she lived in some hole before she came;
a vinyl freak so freaked by us, the enemy.
I hold up Blues, edgewise spinning
with my eye for dust at dust and static,
a greasy alien threatening the blackness
with my own powder, my flaking skin.
Until she cracks. This disc is mine,
my father, the only voice I have.
And in the guttering, the wow and bend
of this deck, this state-of-art machine,
I am not suitable, could not love enough
the green-haired freak, the bluesman.
I wrote her poetry, all girls dreams,
such gritty stuff, the death of bass,
technicians noise I thought, but swinging
through the night and rain like Steinbeck
Hemmingway and Lowell.
I made her African, a polished, white colonial
ex-patriot on white verandas with her gin
while all around the falls made white sounds
in the woodwork and the clouds.
And it all vanished, sucked out of me
and spat back flat and drained of words.
Blues girl scraped and made me gutter,
a wince like lemon juice on blues and Jazz.
Listening to Secret World Live - Peter Gabriel
You can just guess how good this website is going to look.
A nice day, late in the year, pretty much like now and almost unreadable like some wittering diary, make poetry of prose. This is clean weather, a day with nothing bad and the promise of rest and riches to come. Or maybe hiding in a corner or behind the curtains where you really are hidden from everyone else. The dreamers dream and stand back, trying to find science in all this religion. I am still hiding and this book is just perfect. It is red science, the engineering of the Soviet space programme or something that once and for all proves evolution is not just a theory but is indeed complete and unequivocal fact, fact and more FACT. I am ten again, like just before the war, with no anticipation of being a machine gunner. I would be too young even to lie about my age. The sent me back to my books and that quiet corner with no more than a clipped ear.
Sometime back in the sixties I found art, all those huge and glossy books at the back of the library. I almost couldn't lift them but I covered the table with them and turned over every page and looked closely at every picture and photograph. The sun always shone in from the side, always lighting the dust in the air. I there I was half way up the stairs like Kermit's nephew, and still with a book. Never read the words except those in books without pictures. Duduk sounds in the background make the dust dance and show up the grief and sadness of the wars that went on all the time over the sea. People I knew shouted, at me sometimes, but head down in all those words, I could easily ignore it all. Until I remembered the B52s pouring towers of bombs into the jungle and making communists of everyone down below. I saw riots in Ireland and I think I can even recall some of the Paris stuff from 1968. And still the dust dances.
Now it is as if I cannot concentrate on these things I read; everything is just too real and no book has the level of escape it once did. I still long to sit behind the curtains or down at the bottom of the garden and waste whole halves of the day there. No music has the emotion it once had. Sometimes I put on proper black vinyl records and the crackles cannot drown out that analogue emotion. Music these days is ALL digital and clean and nothing seems to connect. Sometimes I think that vinyl has a spirit that CD plastic doesn't; the ghost of the disk perhaps, some animist deity that we should placate with record cleaner and a lint free cloth. I cannot write anything and this sentence is false.
I crawled up under the stoop and the world turned into flashing lights, like an aircraft coming into land at night. All the debris the family had stored, crowded in on me and cut my face. I still have the scar; sometimes the baby looks at it quizzically and then changes expression as if he knows what happened all those years ago. And between us, after I came back we started a band. I played the bass not very well and it was good. The vibration went through me and I was mended. And this music, this minute is the best thing I have ever heard; and tomorrow, the track I am listening to will be the best thing I have ever heard.
Rare Vinyl
Jagged records scraped, make this girl gutter,
a wince like lemon juice on blues and jazz,
the rare and breakable in cardboard,
glossed and cleaned like lovers held
in gentle sleeve and plastic.
And each one touched has made a tear,
as if I have her whole life in these discs,
as if she lived in some hole before she came;
a vinyl freak so freaked by us, the enemy.
I hold up Blues, edgewise spinning
with my eye for dust at dust and static,
a greasy alien threatening the blackness
with my own powder, my flaking skin.
Until she cracks. This disc is mine,
my father, the only voice I have.
And in the guttering, the wow and bend
of this deck, this state-of-art machine,
I am not suitable, could not love enough
the green-haired freak, the bluesman.
I wrote her poetry, all girls dreams,
such gritty stuff, the death of bass,
technicians noise I thought, but swinging
through the night and rain like Steinbeck
Hemmingway and Lowell.
I made her African, a polished, white colonial
ex-patriot on white verandas with her gin
while all around the falls made white sounds
in the woodwork and the clouds.
And it all vanished, sucked out of me
and spat back flat and drained of words.
Blues girl scraped and made me gutter,
a wince like lemon juice on blues and Jazz.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Music for 12 Clarinets
Listening to New York Counterpoint by Steve Reich
Note sure I feel worthy enough to write anything here. You know when things keep progressing in a satisfactory manner and then catastrophe theory dictates that everything switched round and the path is in some other direction. I am not going to try and please anyone other than myself today. It is impossible to sail a course down the middle of all the requirements put upon one by simple day-to-day things.
The House Full Of Toys
A strong scent here,
the smell of things left out,
to clear themselves
after years in the attic,
in the dark.
I think of all these toys,
with eyes and minds
and place them high
up in the room,
so that they may see
all that happens here.
I build my birth high
in coloured towers
made with bricks and
waterwork to steal all sound
and make it hide again.
They take me, insensible
up the ladder to their prison
and have me tied down in boxes
where the winter wind
comes in the gaps
and freezes them.
A year of dark immobility
has made them mad at me
enough to spike me,
pain me with their safe eyes
pulled out and sharp
and dangerous.
Listening to New York Counterpoint by Steve Reich
Note sure I feel worthy enough to write anything here. You know when things keep progressing in a satisfactory manner and then catastrophe theory dictates that everything switched round and the path is in some other direction. I am not going to try and please anyone other than myself today. It is impossible to sail a course down the middle of all the requirements put upon one by simple day-to-day things.
The House Full Of Toys
A strong scent here,
the smell of things left out,
to clear themselves
after years in the attic,
in the dark.
I think of all these toys,
with eyes and minds
and place them high
up in the room,
so that they may see
all that happens here.
I build my birth high
in coloured towers
made with bricks and
waterwork to steal all sound
and make it hide again.
They take me, insensible
up the ladder to their prison
and have me tied down in boxes
where the winter wind
comes in the gaps
and freezes them.
A year of dark immobility
has made them mad at me
enough to spike me,
pain me with their safe eyes
pulled out and sharp
and dangerous.
Monday, December 13, 2004
Shut your North and South
Listening to Lovelife by Lush
I'm not really a fan of costume dramas. Usually you will find me with my head in a book muttering at the unreality and anachronism in some flouncy, Austen thing. However, I have to say I was glued to North and South the past few weeks. It might be that I think it was mentioned quite a bit in Nice Work as the archetypal Industrial Novel which it obviously is. North and South in book form is now safely residing in the place up to now taken by Ulysses and my regular forays into the shed of hell are brightened by the chance that Nice Work will turn up sometime. Nice Work was adapted for TV some years ago and was so close to the book that I have trouble sorting out images from my head and those from the film but well worth a reading anyway.
I suppose its all those dark, satanic mills and consumptive coughs which took North and South above the normal dramas of manners. I have to do a rethink here because the Films of Sense and Sensibility and Emma were very good and gained me points with my wife because I started opening the car door for her again after seeing them. Apparently there is an accepted system of points which husbands are able to gain for doing various things for their wives. From what I remember, the allocation is not as logical as you might think with small things gaining more points.
Anyway, now that I have gone all Mr Darcy on you, some big ideas. I watched the documentary about the making of the Band Aid 20 single (got yours yet?) and I thought about all the various famous people who lend their names to all sorts of causes around the world. There are obviously common themes to a lot of these causes so how about a meta-cause, a look at the root causes of everything that needs people to say that something is wrong. Its not as if anyone can argue that most of the campaigns and things are wrong. Political Freedom, Freedom from Hunger, justice etc; they are all things that unless you were pig-headedly anti-social cannot be described as unnecessary. They all come about through inaction or as side-effects of other things. Remember when Bob Geldof was trying to talk to Mrs Thatcher (Any time soon Elvis!) and she tried to justify the Government's actions? We can remember Bob Saying "people are dying now" but what did Mrs T reply? No idea! It was just complicated twaddle designed to try and maintain a safe and comfy position for - well whomever. My wife humbled me again last night when I went off into this rant when she said that I am always complaining rather than actually doing anything. I think the suggestion was to join Amnesty which has me thinking. I managed to restrain myself from setting up a whole-salary direct debit there and then but she is so right. Watch out for this self-righteous prig. Someone is coming to get you.
Listening to Lovelife by Lush
I'm not really a fan of costume dramas. Usually you will find me with my head in a book muttering at the unreality and anachronism in some flouncy, Austen thing. However, I have to say I was glued to North and South the past few weeks. It might be that I think it was mentioned quite a bit in Nice Work as the archetypal Industrial Novel which it obviously is. North and South in book form is now safely residing in the place up to now taken by Ulysses and my regular forays into the shed of hell are brightened by the chance that Nice Work will turn up sometime. Nice Work was adapted for TV some years ago and was so close to the book that I have trouble sorting out images from my head and those from the film but well worth a reading anyway.
I suppose its all those dark, satanic mills and consumptive coughs which took North and South above the normal dramas of manners. I have to do a rethink here because the Films of Sense and Sensibility and Emma were very good and gained me points with my wife because I started opening the car door for her again after seeing them. Apparently there is an accepted system of points which husbands are able to gain for doing various things for their wives. From what I remember, the allocation is not as logical as you might think with small things gaining more points.
Anyway, now that I have gone all Mr Darcy on you, some big ideas. I watched the documentary about the making of the Band Aid 20 single (got yours yet?) and I thought about all the various famous people who lend their names to all sorts of causes around the world. There are obviously common themes to a lot of these causes so how about a meta-cause, a look at the root causes of everything that needs people to say that something is wrong. Its not as if anyone can argue that most of the campaigns and things are wrong. Political Freedom, Freedom from Hunger, justice etc; they are all things that unless you were pig-headedly anti-social cannot be described as unnecessary. They all come about through inaction or as side-effects of other things. Remember when Bob Geldof was trying to talk to Mrs Thatcher (Any time soon Elvis!) and she tried to justify the Government's actions? We can remember Bob Saying "people are dying now" but what did Mrs T reply? No idea! It was just complicated twaddle designed to try and maintain a safe and comfy position for - well whomever. My wife humbled me again last night when I went off into this rant when she said that I am always complaining rather than actually doing anything. I think the suggestion was to join Amnesty which has me thinking. I managed to restrain myself from setting up a whole-salary direct debit there and then but she is so right. Watch out for this self-righteous prig. Someone is coming to get you.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Toxteth O'Grady and the Peak Freans Trotsky assortment.
Listening to Treasure - The Cocteau Twins
The Cocteaus are always worth a listen. Lorelei, the second track on Treasure is indeed flawless. And unlike My Bloody Valentine, they didn't take years to create that perfection. (Despite this, MBV will be next on the playlist.) I can remember the first snatches of stuff through the wall from my flatmate's room; it was Victorialand, which isn’t exactly archetypal, but it did the job. I have this problem with things that are not real, computer games are only worth it if they are close to reality and for this reason I have a problem with songs. Why sing about something when you can just talk about it. That sounds terrible from someone who claims to be a poet and you may be wondering how relevant it is to my argument. The fact is that Elizabeth Fraser's voice is just another instrument. All the songs are just about music without any of the poetry that can often seem at odds with the raw emotion of the sounds and rhythm. I know you can sometimes hear the words but even then I am sure that the phrases are just used for the fact that they scan and sound nice in the overall feel of the music.
And is one of these songs lifted from Golden Years by Bowie?
Listening to Treasure - The Cocteau Twins
The Cocteaus are always worth a listen. Lorelei, the second track on Treasure is indeed flawless. And unlike My Bloody Valentine, they didn't take years to create that perfection. (Despite this, MBV will be next on the playlist.) I can remember the first snatches of stuff through the wall from my flatmate's room; it was Victorialand, which isn’t exactly archetypal, but it did the job. I have this problem with things that are not real, computer games are only worth it if they are close to reality and for this reason I have a problem with songs. Why sing about something when you can just talk about it. That sounds terrible from someone who claims to be a poet and you may be wondering how relevant it is to my argument. The fact is that Elizabeth Fraser's voice is just another instrument. All the songs are just about music without any of the poetry that can often seem at odds with the raw emotion of the sounds and rhythm. I know you can sometimes hear the words but even then I am sure that the phrases are just used for the fact that they scan and sound nice in the overall feel of the music.
And is one of these songs lifted from Golden Years by Bowie?
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Pis-Pronounced Worms
Apparently I have been mis-pronouncing the word 'rural' for years. Someone commented on my yokel version, which for ages I have thought was the received pronunciation of the word. The dictionary says (if you excuse what I may be mistakenly thinking is a pathetic fallacy) it should be 'roar - rall' rather than my 'roor - rall'. My wife tells me that she avoids the word 'Almond' because I always correct her audible 'l' and say 'AaahMond' though I have to say that all versions seem to be allowed. 'Says' rather than 'ses' also annoys me but that too is also allowed. You might ask why I moved to Liverpool but that would be dangerous and wrong of you.
Anyway, the reason I had to mis-pronounce 'rural' was that we were talking about strange subjects at school. We had to do rural science, which involved Bee-Keeping, knowledge of stock and crop rotation in its modern form (rather than in history). Our rural science teacher was an ex-farmer and was a stickler for neatness; no crossings-out were allowed other than with a simple double ruled line. He used to provide us with animal versions of those paper dolls that you have to dress. The outline of the animal on one page was accompanied by a set of cutout internal organs that had to be stuck on in the correct place. Nice! It may sound snobby but this was obviously because the local authority thought that so many of the kids at our school (Location Here) only had the option of working on farms. I'm not sure how many actually ended up doing that but from Friends Reunited it seems like it wasn't many.
Don't tell me about the spelling mistakes. This keyboard is bouncing like a trampoline champion.
Apparently I have been mis-pronouncing the word 'rural' for years. Someone commented on my yokel version, which for ages I have thought was the received pronunciation of the word. The dictionary says (if you excuse what I may be mistakenly thinking is a pathetic fallacy) it should be 'roar - rall' rather than my 'roor - rall'. My wife tells me that she avoids the word 'Almond' because I always correct her audible 'l' and say 'AaahMond' though I have to say that all versions seem to be allowed. 'Says' rather than 'ses' also annoys me but that too is also allowed. You might ask why I moved to Liverpool but that would be dangerous and wrong of you.
Anyway, the reason I had to mis-pronounce 'rural' was that we were talking about strange subjects at school. We had to do rural science, which involved Bee-Keeping, knowledge of stock and crop rotation in its modern form (rather than in history). Our rural science teacher was an ex-farmer and was a stickler for neatness; no crossings-out were allowed other than with a simple double ruled line. He used to provide us with animal versions of those paper dolls that you have to dress. The outline of the animal on one page was accompanied by a set of cutout internal organs that had to be stuck on in the correct place. Nice! It may sound snobby but this was obviously because the local authority thought that so many of the kids at our school (Location Here) only had the option of working on farms. I'm not sure how many actually ended up doing that but from Friends Reunited it seems like it wasn't many.
Don't tell me about the spelling mistakes. This keyboard is bouncing like a trampoline champion.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Who do you think I am?
The edition of Who do you think you are? we were all waiting for last night. Meera Syal has been on my radar for some years, long before Goodness Gracious me I am sure. I am certain that I was intrigued that she had written a book when Anita and Me came out.
I sat through the programme last night with that that tingly feeling you get from a truly exceptional piece of music and just thinking about it has brought that feeling back. Both of Meera's grandfathers were involved in the Freedom movement protesting against British Rule in India. Her Mother's father, Phuman Singh, was involved in an episode when the British barred Sikhs from worshipping at the temple in Jaito. Many men marched from the Golden Temple at Amritsar (Possibly the best religious building in the world) and many were shot. Phuman Singh was imprisoned for eighteen months before the Raj relented and opened the temple for worship again. Eventually he received a Freedom Fighters medal for his part in the defiance.
As a postscript, we now have an idea where some of the elements of Granny in the Kumars come from. Meera visited her mother's old house in the Punjab, a bucolic mess of Buffaloes and people in a muddy yard. She was allowed to take a piece of the house for her mother who on receipt of it, took a deep sniff and said "It smells of India - Dung!"
The edition of Who do you think you are? we were all waiting for last night. Meera Syal has been on my radar for some years, long before Goodness Gracious me I am sure. I am certain that I was intrigued that she had written a book when Anita and Me came out.
I sat through the programme last night with that that tingly feeling you get from a truly exceptional piece of music and just thinking about it has brought that feeling back. Both of Meera's grandfathers were involved in the Freedom movement protesting against British Rule in India. Her Mother's father, Phuman Singh, was involved in an episode when the British barred Sikhs from worshipping at the temple in Jaito. Many men marched from the Golden Temple at Amritsar (Possibly the best religious building in the world) and many were shot. Phuman Singh was imprisoned for eighteen months before the Raj relented and opened the temple for worship again. Eventually he received a Freedom Fighters medal for his part in the defiance.
As a postscript, we now have an idea where some of the elements of Granny in the Kumars come from. Meera visited her mother's old house in the Punjab, a bucolic mess of Buffaloes and people in a muddy yard. She was allowed to take a piece of the house for her mother who on receipt of it, took a deep sniff and said "It smells of India - Dung!"
Serious Point Warning
It seems that Human life is so little valued these days that it is possible for people to argue over the number of civilians killed in a war (and I think you know which one I mean). How can no one be sure whether the number is 98,000, the number given in the Lancet study, or 4000 which is what Jack Straw said was correct. Do we have some type of destructor gun which makes the body vanish like the Daleks' exterminator?
It is also nice to know that the intelligence services are on the top of their game as normal. Who would have guessed this? Obviously they have been spending all their time working this out rather than counting the bodies. Sorry! Maybe I should avoid the slightly satirical tone because it should not really be treated as a joke. Do I think too much?
Can't think. I want to write something comparing the case of the Israeli officer who shot dead a 13-year-old girl to that of the Israeli soldiers who posed naked in the snow so please do not think I am being biased in any way. Which case led to dismissals from the army? I think you may be able to guess. And then making the Palestinian violinist play at a checkpoint simply made me think of the Holocaust. Same for many other people I think. Maybe a grass-roots not-in-my-name campaign amongst the Israeli people is a good thing but, as I always say when writing about these things, there is no solution that results in a complete end to the problem. We can only hope that it gets no worse.
It seems that Human life is so little valued these days that it is possible for people to argue over the number of civilians killed in a war (and I think you know which one I mean). How can no one be sure whether the number is 98,000, the number given in the Lancet study, or 4000 which is what Jack Straw said was correct. Do we have some type of destructor gun which makes the body vanish like the Daleks' exterminator?
It is also nice to know that the intelligence services are on the top of their game as normal. Who would have guessed this? Obviously they have been spending all their time working this out rather than counting the bodies. Sorry! Maybe I should avoid the slightly satirical tone because it should not really be treated as a joke. Do I think too much?
Can't think. I want to write something comparing the case of the Israeli officer who shot dead a 13-year-old girl to that of the Israeli soldiers who posed naked in the snow so please do not think I am being biased in any way. Which case led to dismissals from the army? I think you may be able to guess. And then making the Palestinian violinist play at a checkpoint simply made me think of the Holocaust. Same for many other people I think. Maybe a grass-roots not-in-my-name campaign amongst the Israeli people is a good thing but, as I always say when writing about these things, there is no solution that results in a complete end to the problem. We can only hope that it gets no worse.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Random Rando Rand Ran Ra R
Nothing for a week! Was it that long really? I do apologise. I wasn't entirely idle; The first review here is mine. I don't think there were any poems but I don't put many of them up anyway.
Something is not quite right with the week. We should be in the ramp up of euphoria that is supposed to accompany the end of the year! Why isn't it here yet? Why does everything seem so futile? Anyway this is all I feel like writing today so bye for now. Not even going to bother with the spellcheck.
Nothing for a week! Was it that long really? I do apologise. I wasn't entirely idle; The first review here is mine. I don't think there were any poems but I don't put many of them up anyway.
Something is not quite right with the week. We should be in the ramp up of euphoria that is supposed to accompany the end of the year! Why isn't it here yet? Why does everything seem so futile? Anyway this is all I feel like writing today so bye for now. Not even going to bother with the spellcheck.