Ankle deep in dirty water

“Climate change” is all over the news everywhere, with the Copenhagen Summit in full swing.

I put it in inverted comments not because I am a “sceptic” or, like the Reverend gentleman of the cloth [sorry, I forget his name because his letter made me so angry] who wrote in to Private Eye to proudly proclaim himself, a climate change “denier”, but just to highlight the contentiousness of the phrase.

My position is that for a species to grow from approximately one billion in number to nearly over six billion in number in the space of 100 years to think it is NOT going to have an effect on the environment, its surrounds, that happy mix of gas, liquids and solids that stops us all perishing in the cold vacuum of space, takes a very special kind of solipsism.

There is a large, country-sized mass of plastic and debris in the middle of the Pacific that I might with some confidence suggest was not left there by ocelots.

Anyway, thousands of representatives, delegates and so on are discussing the issues. Others are nearby to report on the events from specific perspectives, such as the recently converted to environmental activism Andy Cato of Groove Armada.

I’m not a huge fan of Groove Armada, although they put on a good festival (Lovebox, where I met the love of my life) and the odd decent tune, etc, but I get a mailing list email from them, and it was in this that I discovered his adoption of the cause. Well done to Mr Cato for trying to say something about the issue in a forward-looking manner. It perhaps almost begins to make up for allowing his music to be used to advertise cars.

Anyway, anyway… “I’d rather you think I’m a hypocrite than be a zombie forever”, as one of the Beastie Boys once said. Cato’s downloadable pamphlet has some interesting points in it, many of which I agree with. The section about what human ingenuity can achieve refers to the ramp-up in technology (and spending) between 1939 and 1945 that led to jet planes and radars, from a chocks away start. I heard a speaker at a thinktank called the Westminster Energy Forum use the same analogy.

It’s pointless denying that the climate, our “fault” or not, is changing, periodic inevitability that it may be or not; it will impact us, given the regrettably still-unescapable fact that we live on the planet, so perhaps the analogy of ingenuity in times of duress might be extended… instead of wars against each other we might encourage some sort of war on our imminent warm soggy demise. Or at least give it a go, rather than pretend some god will swoop down and save us because we’re special cases.

Hilariously, the next email I got was from business flight company bmi, telling me ‘More rewards the more you fly’. Environment and grammar be damned.

 

Beat down the upset

Gordon Brown’s squinty handwriting has caused the mother of (at least)one more deceased soldier annoyance, according to the new soaraway Tory-supporting Sun.

Righteous fury from the also-pro-war Bun, though they at least stop short of accusing Brown of pissing on the Cenotaph…

…but calm down, everyone! Broon has already contacted Jacqui Janes [mother of Jamie Janes, the apparently mis-named and unfortunately slain] to say sorry, it say here at the Beeb.

Another of the voguishly swift apologies that reflects the fact that our society is currently operating, as in the old adage my parents used to use, with ‘mouth in top, brain in neutral.’

Anyway, Ed Miliband, one of the Milibank Tower Clones, says of the PM: “I’m sure he will be very upset himself at the upset she’s feeling.”

This is so sad – now I’M feeling upset at the upset the PM probably feels at causing upset. When will it end?

Sorry if this has offended anyone.

 

Interval… interval time

Last week the mortal bather was taking a well-deserved holiday from work, with a limping interweb connexion at home, no free papers to fend off and consequent little ability or inclination to find out Things Happening in the World and add my commentary.

Of course, there was radio and tv to keep me informed, so I didn’t miss anything important like Stephen Fry leaving Twitter, the continuing existence of ‘Jedward’ on our screens (cueing myself up for a later article on The Actual Death of Light Entertainment, which may have a different title), and, I discover this morning, the Berlin Wall coming down… oh, that was a repeat. (“…und I did not sink zey would be careless enough to knock down zer Wall again!”)

Relaxed in a “Turkish Bath”, went for a really nice special romantic meal, and watched quite a lot of The Wire. And fireworks in Victoria Park.

The holiday from information was great.

 

Tall Poppy Syndrome

Listening to 6Music this morning, the news came on at 07.30 and the first item was a summary of this piece’ about the devastating impact of Afghanistan’s opium monopoly (it says here an astonishing 92% of global production), despite (discuss) the best efforts of coalition troops in the region.

I am glad to note that my license fee is funding some sort of bitter ironist in an editorial role at the Beeb, because that news item was followed by the announcement that Dame Vera Lynn and others were launching the British Legion’s 2009 Poppy Appeal.

 

WHAAAT? #3

After a considerable hiatus, and being ankle deep in bits of paper, glue, slicing and snipping equipment for a few weeks (as well as trips abroad and two days in bed for manflu), I am delighted to trumpet the long-awaited* issue number 3 of WHAAAT?, the infrequent journal of the incredulous.

Available in glorious hard copy only (it’s like a blog for the bog, yeah?), please get in touch if you would like one.

* thanks mother

 

newsbite crash sketch

[Car interior - grainy fixed shot from POV of gear stick. Driver concentrating on road, windscreen wipers going, etc.]

Drive Time Radio voice-over:
More than a third of motorists who took part in a survey said they had become seriously distracted when driving, by changing compact discs, fiddling with sat-navs and using mobile phones.

Driver [Looking at radio incredulously]:
More than a third? That’s a load of shieeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaahhh!

[Smacks into car in front. Airbag balloons. Gets shunted from behind. FX breaking glass and angry shouts off, etc, etc...]

 

You ‘orrible shower!

The BBC (always my first port of call for “the news”, not least because I pay 61p a month for it) offered this early morning joy:

Taking showers ‘can make you ill’

I towelled my freshly-showered hair and read on, suspiciously. The story noted that a US study suggests one may be getting a dose of “Mycobacterium avium (M. avium)” from the shower… potentially leading to a number of unpleasant respiratory symptoms such as wheezing, dry cough, etc.

Lead researcher Professor Norman Pace, said: “If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy.”

I kind of started giggling at that point. First, because this is what I think of when I see the words ‘Norman Pace’:

Gareth Hale (L) and Norman Pace (R), try-hard comedians of yesteryear

Second, with reference to the foregrounded ‘dirty shower heads’, germ paranoia in UK media and advertising (as noted hilariously here) is, well, virulent. If some medical concern about the impact of cleaning products on the respiratory system is considered sufficient cause by the UK Cleaning Products Industry to issue a six page pdf ‘fact sheet’ saying it’s so totally not them… there must be something to the idea that when it comes to there being a constant massing of trillions of nasty cartoon bacteria lurking in the bathroom plotting our demise, as in the ads, it’s all a load of not-as-dirty-as-we-are-being-encouraged-to-fear bollocks?

Third and finally, because of the phrase ‘getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on’. I don’t doubt there may be something to the idea that lung-tampering nasties could loiter in the showerhead. I would certainly never have considered ‘Hot tub lung’ or ‘Lady Windermere’s syndrome’ to be anything other than super titles for jazz numbers before researching this article today, that’s for sure.

However, getting in the shower and then switching it on is simply not good shower practice. Anyone enjoying that thirty seconds of icy water first thing in the morning would probably agree that a face full of germs is also a bracing fix for what ails you.

I will continue to enjoy a shower as part of a balanced hygiene regime.

 

Hard Copy {Slight Return}

My previous post {here} saw me somewhat enthusiatically note a Mumford and Sons track that

‘… I wouldn’t have heard unless I was skulking inside snipping, sticking and eating boiled eggs…’

I note that this could be more accurately phrased to represent the activity… The thought of making and consuming a zine of boiled eggs was quite appealing, in a mentalist Tim Burton character kind of way, so I just left it.

 

Hard copy is democracy

I’ve been writing zines for quite some time now (first one was ‘Thingy’ in about 1996) and have always found it hard work, what with other things to do (working for money, eating, drinking heavily, having sex, enjoying the sunshine, writing and listening to Adam and Joe again… etc…)

This is why I’m quite glad of the instant publishing appeal of the blog format, because you just go ‘blaah’ and hit ‘publish’. However, it’s a bit unsatisfactory because you can’t really take a laptop into the lav (and the wap on my mobile is unreliable in the smallest room), and anyway it’s NOT THE SAME, dammit, as cutting and pasting using actual scissors and actual glue, constructing an actual object…

So! Issue 3 of Whaaat?, the zine me and m’colleague Julia at the Ministry and ‘other contributors’ have been putting off compiling a new one of for far too long is ON, it’s IN HAND (well, in pieces on the table next to me), and coming out in time for Zineswap.

There, I said it. It’s been announced, so it has to happen. Setting out the equipment here – scissors, paper, glue, pics, printer, slicing board, all those accoutrements, bof alors, I may don a beret I’m half-cut with left bank ponce excitement – I am actually beside myself with glee. I don’t get that waiting for the computer to finish dicking about with the virus checker.

You can see a scanned version of the first edition here. Meanwhile, in the trad ‘fanzine’ spirit, here’s my new favourite band, Mumford and Sons who I wouldn’t have heard unless I was skulking inside snipping, sticking and eating boiled eggs instead of going out and enjoying this delicious September blue sky, so the interweb’s good for some stuff I spose…

Oh, and then Dr Buckles and Dr Sexy stuck the Ballad of Dorothy Parker on… and now it’s Gruff Rhys! Well, maybe I’ll make it out by noon.

Giddy!

snip snip snip

 

Mock the Nick

I don’t normally watch Mock the Week… I have a low telly threshold, and it seems just another one of a million diminishing returns set of channel fillers, like a live comedy writers’ brainstorming panel, where some of the gags stick and some should have been left to expire.

It makes me wonder about locking them all in a room somewhere, getting a comedy distillery going, or even better extend the format to make it like Big Brother-X-Factor-Mock-the-Week meets Obama’s mythical death panels. ALL the comedians of Britain are involved, and the ones who tell a duff gag are killed by Jerry Sadowitz? ‘Laugh or the Stand-up Gets It’?

I know I’d tune in! However, last night a rich seam of invective was discovered, as the panellists set about porky Cambridge graduate and neo-Nazi Nick Griffin. I’ve written about darlin Nicky before, in the what I hope was unequivocal post ‘Off our streets, Nazi scum’… so I was kind of loath to tag him again, given that Heston Blumenthal is already looming large in the clouds to our right, and I don’t want any nascent readership getting the idea I’m a stereomaniac (or whatever the correct word for someone with a twin obsession is).

But he IS a risible, if compelling character, as fascists often are, and they had a good go at him, which makes me happy. So much for the ‘debate’ about not having him on Question Time. Get him all over telly! Get him on Have I Got News For You? Ten minutes with Paul Merton would destroy him.

ANYWAY, Mock the Nick. I laughed for ten whole minutes at Frankie Boyle’s comment:

“He looks like a plucked owl that’s been fast-tracked for management at Greggs.”

Every word beautifully weighted. More choice quotes and a video from James Manning’s suspicious blog. Some people just get up earlier than me.