Author: James Lark

I had a small dinner party this evening and while we ate I put Bill Evans on iTunes as every good host knows to. Then, when we reached the coffee stage, I turned off the computer speakers and we migrated to my (second) living room upstairs.

I’m now turning everything off and paused at my computer to briefly check emails and BBC news, and turned up for the volume for this rather tragic clip of Europe Minister Chris Bryant learning of the Hoon-Hewitt bid to oust Brown whilst talking live on TV.

And I was astounded, but deeply impressed, that the BBC had backed the whole painful moment with a particularly angsty quartet by Webern.

I was equally disappointed when I realised that the music was just coming from iTunes.

The suggestion in Gordon Brown’s new year’s message that 2010 is when everything gets better is tragically naive, because even in the unlikely event that things get easier for most of us, it isn’t going to be an easy year for him. At least, not until May, when his schedule looks like getting a lot lighter.

So as we near the end of his unwhelming stint as PM, I thought it would be nice to look back on the noughties and remember a happier time when Gordon Brown didn’t wear a desperate smile but proudly grimaced like the moody Scot he is; a time when people wrote musicals about him being ‘locked in a semi-gay sadomasochistic tango’ with Tony Blair (that’s how Johann Hari saw it, at least)…

And if that brought a nostalgic tear to your eye, you’ll be pleased to know you can get the whole jolly award-winning sell-out musical on iTunes!

Last Christmas day I accompanied my parents to their church, which is a little on the trendy side, and was forced to endure a congregational rendition of a “hymn” to the tune of the hokey cokey (I’m not making this up) which had the refrain “Sheep, shepherds, baby Jesus!”.

And actions.

So churches are supposed to save your soul, not destroy it, but I’ve learned to expect this kind of thing from a certain branch of evangelicalism. I had naively imagined that traditional places of worship would never be infected by such lunacy.

So I am appalled – it’s the only word – to learn that this year’s Carols from King’s will include a carol set to the tune of “Where has the knitted character been this week?”…

What we’ve heard so far about Tony Blair’s interview with Fern Britton is about as revealing as it gets with a man who persists in revealing absolutely nothing – whilst he constantly denies possible reasons for the war in Iraq, can anybody find me a single interview in which Blair explains what the actual reasons were? Except for his oft-repeated assurance that he thought it was the right thing?

But it is revealing that he is now downplaying the significance of WMD and falling back on the Saddam-was-a-nasty-man argument that holds so little water as a reason for the invasion (if getting rid of dodgy leaders is a valid reason for war – which it isn’t – why not Zimbabwee? Why not Korea? Why not Italy? Why not put in the time and resources needed to make the operation successful?). Blair is obviously on the defensive, downplaying the original cited reasons for war by suggesting that, even without those reasons, it was a jolly good job we went in anyway. It’s as if he’s expecting to need back-up justification for when he’s revealed to have led us into war on false pretences.

Equally concerning is his statement about his Christian faith, which he speaks of as something which “sustains” him, with the pretty massive caveat that “what your faith can’t do, I’m afraid, is tell you what is the right thing.”

This is worrying for two reasons: firstly, because as self-elected faith leader Blair misunderstands the very core of Christianity. For him, it is simply a crutch: a way of feeling better when everything is going wrong, a reason to be nice to each other. That’s not Christianity – it’s humanism with fancy clothes.

It’s no wonder he doesn’t see his faith as serving any useful purpose. Not for him a transformative God whose sacrifice conquered death; not for him a living word which, rehearsed through communion with church and God, can offer wisdom even on contemporary moral issues. Certainly not for him a faith worth dying for. The ironically-named Tony Blair Faith “Foundation” is grounded in such vague theology that Richard Dawkins could sign up for a membership card with no qualms whatsoever.

As a society we’re wary of personal belief coming into politics – I would say unreasonably so. Before you get your knickers in a twist, I’m not advocating politicians justifying decisions with their faith either publically or personally – faith used as a claim of infallibility is also a serious misunderstanding of what it actually means. But the second reason why Blair’s statement undermines his credibility, not just as a faith leader but a political one, is that he distances what he calls “the right thing” from the beliefs on which his values are (presumably) based. Essentially, it is an admission that political expediency overruled any system of morality in his decisions.

Cynical generation that we are, we already know that’s true for most politics. But we can’t surgically remove morality from everything that goes on in government – without denying the complexity of political decisions, or suggesting that they can be simply split into decisions of “right or wrong”, what Blair calls “the right thing” must be informed and guided by personal (and indeed universal) beliefs – otherwise, what is it based on?

It is a particularly worrying question in the case of Iraq, given that the only solid reason Blair has given for the invasion was that he “thought it was the right thing”.

We are heading, I am told, for another Cowell-flavoured Christmas number one in the UK singles charts this year. As that unexceptional Scottish woman* breaks album sales records and the backing tracks are being laid down for the single of whoever is going to win X-factor this year, it falls to me (yes, me, even though I haven’t paid attention to the UK pop charts since 1989) to explain why it matters not one whit who tops this charts this year.

And the reason is this:

What intelligent person would buy anything at full price in this day and age?

In this era of discounts and sales and Fopp, we all know that any CD we really want is certainly going to be available to buy for half the price in – well, these days in about three weeks.

When Bowie or the Beatles or the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band were releasing albums you had to rush out and buy them – it was the only way of hearing them, except for unpredictable radio play of some of the singles, and in any case, you wanted the full vinyl quality, not some hissing wireless version. Sadly – and I really do mean sadly – things have changed and we can all get what we want pretty much instantly in any manner of formats. And if we want to keep it, we only have to wait a little while before it plummets in price. I can’t remember the last time I rushed out to buy a recent release at full price. (Well, actually I can – it was the DVD of The History Boys, a decision I’ve regretted ever since not because I haven’t enjoyed watching the film many times but because I could have picked it up for next to nothing if I’d waited a couple of months.) And there’s no call for impatience, especially not where chart music is concerned – we can readily hear said tracks on Spotify, or YouTube, or indeed on Listen Again and Again and Again.

Yes, I know the UK charts now include iTunes downloads, and I know young people are impetuous and have a tendency to download first and think afterwards, but the clever ones have worked out how to illegally download the tracks they want without spending money and therefore without registering on the UK chart radar.

By which I deduce that the only people who do register on the UK charts are the stupid ones.

It explains why so much chart music is so rubbish. Take the Scottish woman*: the people who bought her album are idiots. Complete idiots. Not because she is of questionable talent or the album is undeniably of no lasting value whatsoever – people have odd tastes and I’m nobody to judge them for it. But purely because whatever records she has broken, it is inevitable that before 2010 is out, her album will be in every bargain bin in the country. My bet is I could pick up a copy for £2 by September.

It also suggests that we shouldn’t get so bothered about what nonsense is in the charts. Last year I got fed up of being told to pay money for Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’ to stop a horrific cover version getting to number one**; I have Jeff Buckley’s very fine album, I’m not going to part with more money to have a copy of one of the tracks in a more digital, compressed format. Already this year I’ve been urged to buy the Muppets’ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to stop Cowell monopolising the Christmas charts: I won’t. I’ve seen the Muppets track on YouTube, it’s fun. Not the kind of thing I’d want on my playlist however, and if I ever get a hankering for it, it’ll still be on YouTube.

I couldn’t care less what gets to number one at Christmas; it has ceased to mean anything. Indeed, the worse the track is, the happier I’ll be, because it means that while I’m saving money, stupid people with no musical taste are helping the country recover from economic crisis.

Happy Christmas and bah humbug.

*Sorry, I simply can’t remember her name. Perhaps it’s because the press keep referring to her as MoJo, or SuMo, or BoKo or something… why this sudden need to reduce every celebrity to four letters? Imagine, if Molly Malone had been treated in such a fashion, she’d be MoMa.

**Can’t remember whose. Can anybody?

I dreamt that I had a meeting with Gordon Brown on behalf of some committee that wanted him to fund their magazine in return for a year’s free subscription. The committee itself seemed to be full of Anglican-looking old biddies who were cross that I’d visited Gordon Brown previously and failed to bring up the subscription offer, so this time I was rather sheepishly accompanying them in a visit.

We descended a long, red carpeted staircase to get to Brown’s office, which was a large, plush affair, and he shook our hands and invited us to sit on some equally plush sofas. Then he got started by asking with a smile, “so, do we think families are a good thing?”

He obviously wasn’t that interested in what we really thought about families, because he immediately went off on one about family values and how he intended to implement them. I decided I’d show how on the ball I was by making a slightly jokey comment about how it all seemed a bit Thatcherist, but Gordon was extremely pissed off at me interrupting and shook his hand in my face as he carried on talking aggressively about his values. Then, hitting his head repeatedly with his fists, he shouted “but people just criticise everything I say and it’s like there’s this GREAT – BIG – STONE on my head!”

I woke up feeling annoyed with Gordon Brown for not being more willing to listen to what I thought.

Against the Odds is New Labour’s latest party political broadcast. Here it is:

In case you can’t be bothered to watch it, here’s a quick precis:

Archive footage is accompanied by disgusting music while a deep-voiced man with an acceptably RP working class accent explicitly takes the credit for the things Labour governments have achieved (“the bright shining vision of a national health service was for many an impossible dream… until we created it”) whilst implicitly taking the credit for things that were achieved by Tory governments (“they said we were wasting our time making a stand against apartheid and that things could never change… but they did”).

It’s a nice enough trip through the archives and if it has a message it is this: both Labour and Tory governments occasionally get things right. It’s an encouraging message, especially for one too cynical about democracy to be remotely partisan.

However, the Nymanesque strings and soprano soundtrack suggest that New Labour want us to read special political significance into it for them, which is worrying since they (explicitly, in this case) take credit for the Battle of Cable Street, in which a number of minority groups attacked a fascist march and a load of policemen.

For all that the minority groups were quite right to protest against the march (though I would question their methods), is this really something New Labour want to be taking the credit for? Especially when their government provoked the biggest recorded demonstration in the country? Or when police under its control have been liberal in attacking, injuring and possibly killing people involved (or indeed not involved) in peaceful protests?

New Labour might claim to be on the side of the downtrodden, or even the anarchic, but their leadership has proved that in that respect at least, they’re no different to the other side.

It’s enough to make you vote Tory, except…

Pathetic. It’s not really the smear tactics that bother me – since Labour have persisted in fighting the last three elections with similar campaigns I suppose they deserve anything they get – it’s more that it’s such a rubbish joke. Rhyming Jedward with Deadwood might cut it on facebook, but you want us to think you can lead the country and that’s the best you can do? And how long did you spend on photoshop, two minutes?

I suppose the message is this: both Labour and the Tories have crap ideas a lot of the time.

Today I made the mistake of clicking on the “Have Your Say” bit of BBC online news, and with an impartiality almost equivalent to that shown by the BBC I am forced to admit to our readers that the ridiculousness of BBC online pales in comparison to the ridiculousness of the people who read it.

The comments about the sacking of Professor Nutt are enough to make one take LSD or have a horse riding accident. I’ll skip over the GP (sorry, “gp”) who doesn’t use capital letters or full stops, and only briefly stop to take in Pat Hyde’s profound “Why have advisers if your attitude is.” Let’s get to the magnificent “jjs” from dundee:

I agree with the experts that cannabis is not as harmful as alcohol and cigarettes.

But how do we define harm? It’s a little more complicated ….

Consider two examples

Little boy – “daddy can you play chess with me tonight?”
Daddy – “wooo hooo heey man woo hoo hoo”

“Mummy can you help me with my maths homework?”
“woo hooo swish hee hoo fi fum diddly doo heey bwrrr goo man cool woo hoo”

Looks like the government knows best.

I have been considering both examples for a while now (well, for longer than I feel they really warrant) and I’m still not entirely sure what I’m supposed to glean from them, but I have a few suggestions (if jjs is reading, perhaps he/she/they could let me know which is the right one):

1. Daddy likes playing chess a lot.

2. Mummy is doing the vacuum cleaning; Mummy enjoys doing the vacuum cleaning (swish hee hoo).

3. Parents who take drugs are a lot more fun than mine were.

4. jjs was taking cannabis, or drunk, or on a horse, when he wrote this.

Professor Nutt must be quaking in his boots to have such detractors.