Author: James Lark

A friend of mine yesterday alleged that ‘all children’s BBC presenters are gay’. He went on to claim that Dick and Dom were both gay, something he said he knew because he ‘once kissed somebody who has kissed Dick’.

Hmmm…..

I’ve just watched Penny Woolcock’s frankly phenomenal film version of John Adams’ opera The Death of Klinghoffer, his dramatisation of the Achille Lauro hijacking in 1985. This is something I feel every schoolkid – or better still every politician – should be made to watch, not least because it demonstrates the power and importance of the arts, but moreso because of its relevance to the times we live in and its unusually rounded approach towards the topic of terrorism.

The opera is still considered controversial because in depicting a relatively recent event it dares to show the terrorists’ perspective. But this is the reason for its importance; without condoning the actions of the terrorists or diminishing the horror of the experience, the opera (particularly in the film version with its astonishing use of archive documentary footage) puts the hijacking into the context of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, showing the decades of violence suffered by the terrorists from childhood. We see them as people who have lost family and wept in the street for murdered friends; in short, these killers, these terrorists, also become human beings.

What the film demonstrates is the possibility that we can sympathise with and actually understand the reasons why people are led to extremist terrorist actions – and surely understanding them is the very first thing we need to do if we are ever going to deal with the problem?

And yet the government – and I’m talking especially about you, Mr Blair – is apparently yet to grasp that brazenly obvious fact, as it continues to insist on explaining terrorist actions with simplistic labels like ‘evil ideology’.

YES, terrorist actions are evil. But to write off terrorists in terms that imply we are in a basic B-movie ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ situation, is to belittle the complexity of the situation and to evade our responsibilities – until we see the government taking any accountability for the circumstances that have caused terrorism to arise in the first place, we will never begin to tackle the problem at its roots.

I don’t mean that the government should give in to terrorist threats, or change its policies at every terrorist whim. I don’t even mean that admitting some responsibility would lead to an immediate ceasing of terrorism and reasonable conversation suddenly breaking out with everyone. But the government’s resolute black-and-white mentality is surely one of the things that is generating extremism in the first place – it’s no wonder people feel that it’s necessary to blow up trains when their whole ideology, which has grown out of conflict and hardships and wrongs going back generations, is labelled simply as ‘evil’.

This afternoon, Osama Bin Laden’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri said that Tony Blair’s foreign policy decisions were to blame for the London bombings. Here’s a little prediction for you: Blair will issue an official response insisting that his foreign policy is irrelevant to the situation because we are facing a far bigger threat from people who are fundamentally evil and we all need to unite in fighting that. Prove me wrong, by all means, but I’m expecting a response in that kind of blinkered, don’t-point-the-finger-at-me, we’re ‘good’ and they’re ‘bad’ vein. Because compared to Woolcock/Adams, it seems to me that the politicians’ approach towards terrorism is fucking immature.

…this being the third day in a row that he’s walked past me looking shifty.

As far as one can deduce (or possibly allege, since my basis for deduction is somewhat shakey), a good night out for Rory involves a trip to my local with his wife or lady friend, where he has a glass of wine and plays on a slot machine, then leaves again with said wife or lady friend.

I can only assume he lives very close to me, because it seems unlikely that he is following me around, and he always looks very annoyed to see me even though I have never so much as said to him ‘hey, you’re Rory McGrath!’

I am not a particular devotee of Neighbours, though readers of this weblog will be aware that I have become more interested in it since Paul Robinson returned and has been acting in a suitably villainous manner. Today, because I had more important activities to attend to, I missed it, but my housemate Tim and his girlfriend Jessica (who is an Australian no less) didn’t; so when I got home they acted out the whole episode for me.

Some of the scenes had the hallmark of absolute authenticity, and it seemed that they had remembered much of it line for line (when Jessica delivered the line “there isn’t any us because there isn’t any trust!” I could almost have been in Ramsey Street).

Tim did a passable Harold, and Jessica’s Izzy was very commendable, though her Cindy was the most entertaining part of the spectacle. And as a viewing experience it was ten times more enjoyable than Neighbours itself.

So I’m wondering whether I ought to make it a regular institution. As long as Tim and Jessica are happy to do it I think it will be fun for all. And perhaps some other Neighbours watchers might like to come round and join in? I imagine that in a few years’ time, my living room might fill up with people at about 6 o’clock, eager to see the spectacle of the superior, live-action Neighbours Reconstructed…

I am planning to give my website a thorough overhall as it’s currently merely adequate but nothing special. Was talking about this with somebody on MSN messenger earlier and he told me I would need Corel design and all sorts of fancy PHP or PMT or something.

“Can’t I use paintbrush?” I innocently enquired. But no, no, apparently it’s impossible to design anything in the least bit good on paintbrush…..HE THOUGHT.

Hah! I soon showed him!

Tony Blair on those naughty terrorists:

“Let us expose the obscenity of these people saying it is concern for Iraq that drives them to terrorism. If it is concern for Iraq then why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a group of children and killing them?”

Roughly translates as: “Let us describe as obscene anyone who implies that people have been driven to terrorism by any of my policies. If I make a reference to children, I will hopefully disguise the fact that it is also a non-sequitur.”

“We are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level – and not just their methods but their ideas.”

Roughly translates as: “We are not going to deal with this problem. We are going to talk about roots, levels, methods and ideas (specifically evil IDeologies), to reinforce the fact that terrorism is just evil people and unrelated to any of our policies.”

Sarah Jane Smith is to return in the new series of Dr Who. This is surely the best news since – oh, since Paul Robinson returned to Neighbours.

And I’m sure that David Tennant’s new costume will grow on me. Not quite so sure about Billie Piper’s decision to dress as a marshmallow.

Earlier this week a friend of mine told me that Sir John Barbirolli claimed that the overture to The Marriage of Figaro was the right length of time to make the perfect boiled egg. Since I have always been hopeless at getting boiled eggs right, this morinng I decided to put the theory to the test.

My conclusions were that either Barbirolli conducted an unusually slow Marriage of Figaro overture, or that he liked a considerably runnier egg than I do.

I am not one to waste an egg, half-raw as it may be, so I resourcefully popped the open egg back into the boiling water to achieve a half-boiled, half-poached effect. The resulting creation, which I have named Eggs Barbirolli, and which I can confirm was revolting, is served with burned toast. (Never time your toast to the Tristan overture.)

I just skipped home thinking I must be full of joi de vivre. Then I realised it was hoegaarden.

“We interrupt this programme to bring you a special BBC news broadcast following rumours that there has been an incident today. Although we are unable to confirm these rumours and don’t yet know the nature or scale of the possible incident, we are able to confirm that it is rumoured that the police have told us that as yet they are unable to confirm any rumours that there has been an incident, although this remains as yet unconfirmed. We’re looking now at a street in London, where as you can see some traffic is moving and some people are milling around, though we can not at the moment confirm whether the street in question has anything to do with the rumoured incident, or indeed whether it is actually a street in London, though we have now heard from some witnesses that there is indeed a street in London, which I must stress the BBC can not ratify in any way. There have been definite rumours that somebody who may have been near the incident had a mobile phone with them at the time, and may at one stage have taken some grainy photographs of a street in London, though at this stage police have not confirmed whether the photographs on your screen are related to the incident or whether they are actually taken from a different incident altogether. Our correspondent is at the Oval now – are you able to confirm any rumours about the incident which may have taken place at the Oval today?”

“Well, it has been an exciting day at the Oval, there are rumours that Glen McGrath took five wickets in a devastating few overs, though it’s impossible to confirm these rumours as yet. Specatators have commented that there has been an incident at the Oval, though there has been no official confirmation of this yet and as you can see from your screen, there is a street in London just in this area in which nothing appears to be happening, though police won’t confirm whether this is anything to do with the incident, and as the cameras are pointing in the wrong direction it is difficult at this stage to show you any cricket.”

“Well, if you’ve just joined us expecting to see today’s episode of Neighbours, I’m afraid that it has been postponed for this special news broadcast to tell you that we know nothing at all about any possible rumoured unconfirmed incident though it is rumoured that an unconfirmed incident has taken place. Our correspondent is watching BBC1 now – can you confirm any of the rumours that David Bishop has been accused of fraud and his wife has left him?”

“Indeed, no I can not, it has been rumoured that there have been incidents on Ramsey Street, but because of the special news broadcast to bring people news that we have no news at the moment it is impossible to say whether any of these rumours are actually true.”

“Thank you, well, we will continue to bring you news throughout the day of how little we actually know, though I can not confirm that at the moment, in the mean time here is a picture of a street in London…”