car stickers intrigue
seen around Greenwich, London:
“It’s a Dub thing!” on a VW beetle, old-skool version
“Bon Jovi”. car unknown. too astonished. some people really do have style
Archive for March, 2006
What do you when yr mum is a skinhead?
Write a song about it. but when you find racist propaganda on your door? attempt vandalisation, i guess. no borders.
inside, outside, USA
we see it as reducing violence
says John Gnagey of the National Tactical Officers Association, USA, in response to concerns about the dramatic rise of heavily armed SWAT team deployment, after another innocent man is shot.
Dr Salvator Culosi was being investigated regarding an alleged illegal gambling problem, when he was shot after walking onto his own front lawn to meet an officer. He was not acting in a threatening manner. Look at him. This man’s only previous contact with violence was clearly the occasional smack in the mouth when he took his sleazy face to the wrong bar at the wrong time. The bullet that killed him was discharged “accidentally”. In the 1980s, SWAT teams such as those whose carelessness ended this man’s life were deployed around 3000 times per year. This has now risen to 40,000. Those naive enough to believe that the British police will be able to handle their weaponry with more care must be sleeping soundly.
budgetary consequences
am i going to stop smoking because cigarettes cost a halfpenny more?
are 4×4s going to stop killing pedestrians because their owners pay £210 road tax?
is a monument to our civilian cannon fodder going to stop me dying on the tube?
perhaps if any of their survivors have the eleqounce of edith cavell
should i stay or should i go now?
i spent today applying for my own job, and now the clash comes on the stereo, all about indecision and wanting to be set free. it could be a sign, even if the sign is that it’s time to remove combat rock from the stereo. i can never get used to the strange telephonic bleeps on rock the casbah. i will know in a week. leery hints indicated i would be called if succesful, and written to if not. speculation would seem to serve no purpose. i need to listen to the fall.
prose perused, title pretentious
left the country for just long enough to feel bitter nostalgia on my return. read this line about my home town:
Dover an utter fright staffed by Bolsheviks. Versified cliffs as romantic as my arse and of a similar hue.
have started writing in short bursts after reading said journal entry from cloud atlas. hardly time for punctuation. life short.
just this. justice.
The paper popularly known as the uber-lite Daily Mail today relegated a story on the media’s latest victory for free speech to page 23, and left the front page to someone who is merely confused, albeit fatally. Why were they not celebrating that poor old Kurt Walker has had his case dropped by Kent Police. The Fedz* were onto him a while back when he shocked the nation with his four letter outburst in a public place, but after it made the front page of the acceptable-cos-its-free face of der steurmer the case was dropped “on the grounds they don’t have enough evidence”.
What a pile of turgid horseshit. The reason that Mr Walker was not involuntarily violated by every truncheon within thirty miles for his crimes is the vast gulf between rhetoric and reality that has emerged in this supposedly liberal democracy. Although it is probably news to most people, the use of ‘offensive language’ in public became illegal in 2003 as part of Rev. Blairs ‘Respect’ agenda. I can only think of the Iraq war and candyfloss that are more spun and harder to swallow. I pray to my whatever deity listens to atheists that someone asked in vicar’s questions who exactly this respect should be directed towards. Every single one of God’s creatures, excepting those who taketh his Lord’s name in vain, in the sight of an officer of the law, before the watershed? Or perhaps the Great Bearded One himself, who will be indeed needing all the props we can give him if his to judge favourably our Reverend’s Adventures in The East?
Kurt Walker still has his £80 because he knew that he needed the press on his side to embarrass the pigs into dropping the case. According to the letter of the law, he is a dangerous criminal and deserves to be punished. He had the misfortune of offending one of the bigots whose sensibilities it is now illegal to upset. This seems not to include anyone who is offended by our government invading foreign countries to increase the likelihood of someone putting a bomb on my train Or the home secretary riding roughshed on our democratic checks and balances in order to make us pay a hundred quid for a worthless piece of plastic Far more important, it would seem, is protecting the ears of those who find the manner a person chooses to express themselves with. I think we can expect the imminent banning of Hamlet thanks to the Dane’s quip regarding ‘country matters’. Save our ears.
*not an accurate description of Deal’s pig population, but allthe cool kids are doing it
no puns.
some people feel justified in titling their writing with the first pun that comes to mind, whether or not it’s funny or relevant. just because my brother and his band esio trot are supporting ian mackay and the evens in brighton on the 5th may, in the same beautiful church that they played with jens lekman a few weeks ago, and i’m really excited and can’t type, i’m not gonna title this post even stevens. or is it stephens? it’s neither, its wonderful. this is no time to forget that i am more equal than others. hahaha.
Smooooosh
In whimsical melancholy at my failure to see smoosh play in london this weekend, here they are playing at cargo a few months back. any criticism is nullified by how much they clearly love it. i spoke to the singer briefly and she was sweet, and although this may be standard behaviour for 14 year old girls i would guess it is exceptional. all the remains to be said is they got the tunes, and there is actually photographic evidence of me feeling said tunes on the smoosh site. now that’s big time
want to entertain the nation at your own expense? “Gladly”
was the fantastic response from English footballing legend John Barnes, when asked if he would step up to the mic once again.
If you write a rap like Kanye West or Busta Rhymes, something which gives me a bit more street cred, a bit of a gangsta rap, then I will gladly do it
“Barnsey”, as Christian O’Connell, Virgin radio’s XFM convert who is organising the single, doesn’t seem to be deterred by the blindingly obvious fact that this is yet another vanity project for the self-inflated disc-jockey. The tune will be written, like all great music, by the winner of a nationwide contest. Proceeds will go to charity, so my only complaint will come if the lyrics don’t match up to that of his former classic hit, World in Motion:
Express yourself
Create the space
You know you can win
Don’t give up the chaseBeat the man
Take him on
You never give up
Its one on oneExpress yourself
Its one on one
Express yourself
Its one on one
Express yourself
You can’t be wrong
I can feel a knighthood coming on.
