Children On Stun - Tourniquets Of Loves Desire (CD)

I'm definitely not getting a pay rise this year, your probably not getting a pay rise this year... Indeed, should we be doing the whole humble 'just-glad-to-have-a-job' thing?

One thing's for sure: our MPs are getting a pay rise! And thoroughly deserved I am sure you all agree.

But just to be sure you know they aren't going hungry, we can have a look at last years MP expenses claims. With the average claim being £135k, on top of a salary of £63k, it is clearly a lucrative business. How many other jobs out there offer this extensive range of allowances plus a final salary pension scheme?

And yet they can't help but abuse it. The list of nepotism, dodgy claims and creative accounting, from both Labour and Conservative, is a long one and the support for reform, from all MPs, is universal- in a hollow kind of way.

When people put a cross next to a name on a piece of paper is this where they think it will end up? How many people do you know who actually know the name of their local MP? Not too tricky you would hope. But how many of those people will actually be aware enough of what their MP has, or has not, done to formulate an opinion? Fewer still. And of those, how many will have a good opinion?

Strangely we allow this system to persist and our parliamentary representatives, along with their assorted family members, business cronies and hangers-on, are still in charge. Democracy, ain't it a kick in the teeth?


Children On Stun - Tourniquets Of Loves Desire (CD) (Cleopatra CLEO7208-2 1994)

1. Elegance
2. Hollow
3. By The Wayside
4. Levelled Out
5. Downfall
6. Beginning Of The End
7. Sidelined
8. Cats Or Devils Eyes
9. Pandora's Box
10. Choices (Hollow Ep Version)

Children On Stun - pwd: c4ctusm0uth
(Let me know if this upload is OK please. Trying this due to my Sharebee issues)

Zig Zag Apr 1981 - The Dancing Did, The Stranglers & Another Pretty Face

In The Eyes Of The Law

Doesn't he look stupid in that get-up?

Two BBC news stories here for you which, I think, illustrate perfectly the attitude of the police and judiciary under capitalism.

1. A hard working, assistant bank manager who got into financial difficulties and ended up taking money out of customers accounts gets a year in prison. She loses her bank pension as a result but the customers affected have all been reimbursed.

The only people that will really suffer are her and her family.

2. An executive in charge of a bank steers it into financial difficulties such that it reports massive losses, by his actions he actively contributes to the Credit Crunch, employees of the bank - and others - will lose their jobs, government debt has to rise to bail the bank out and people will lose their homes. He gets a £700k a year pension from age 50 and extra security paid for by the bank.

But his actions mean we will all suffer.

Statement Of Fact 1

Sharebee Problems

Sorry for the delay.

Been trying to upload a couple of things to Sharebee with no success. Anybody else that uses Sharebee been having any problems?

Them And Us

Fred Goodwin enjoys a stroll on a rainy Edinburgh day.

The BBC has published a couple of interesting stories relating to the ongoing debacle that is Royal Bank of Scotland.

The first discloses how Sir Fred Goodwin's (ironic name huh? 'goodwin') pension arrangements were wangled and tweaked with all manner of top-ups, tax breaks and bonuses in order to reach the staggering figure of £700k a year. That's his pension remember - now, at age 50.

Here are some examples:

- Freddy joined RBS aged 40 but the group treated him as though he joined aged 20 for the purposes of the final salary pension scheme (jeez - remember them? final salary pensions - theres a blast from the past)
- While he was at the bank he was to accrue pension at twice the rate of ordinary members (or plebs if you prefer), that is 2/60ths instead of 1/60ths
- Any shortfall in entitlement or limitation on pensionable salary (damn that pesky Tax Man) would be made up directly from the banks own FURBS: thats Funded Unapproved Retirements Benefits Scheme or Fuck U Real Bank employeeS as I prefer it
- Finally, the bank effectively agreed to pay the 40% tax bill he could expect if he took any lump sum out of his pension

So for 10 years work in bringing the bank to near collapse and forcing it to come cap in hand to us, as taxpayers, he has been rewarded with a pension 'pot' of £16m. I wonder what he would have got if he had actually done his job well...


The second story really takes the biscuit for a supreme illustration of how far removed from any semblance of reality the likes of Goodwin or, in this case, the deputy chief executive Gordon Pell really are.

Apparently Mr Pell thinks the row over Freddy's pension has become a 'distraction'. Thats right, a 'distraction'. He reckons that "history would recognise his many skills and huge contribution" - yes, his huge contribution to Great Depression 2 no doubt.

Mr Pell also said it was hard to raise staff morale when all this nasty, horrid stuff about Fred was appearing daily in the papers. I don't suppose the low morale had anything to do with their pay and pension arrangements as compared with Freds, the near-collapse of the company or, heaven forbid, the impending round of job cuts that RBS has instituted. 2700 employees will soon have more time on their hands to read all about the positive things RBS is doing. You know, positive things like announcing massive losses, things like paying off their former boss with obscene amounts of cash and things like announcing 2700 job cuts. I wonder if all those employees will be able to retire at 50 as well...

If you happen to know where Goodwin or Pell live, feel free to send them a dog shit in the post from me.

Zig Zag Sep 1984 - The Lotus Eaters, Rubella Ballet & Furniture

The Lost World Of Communism

Watched The Lost World of Communism on BBC 2 last night.

The first episode, of three, was entitled 'A Socialist Paradise' and told a compressed story of the rise and fall of East Germany through personal recollection - from its formation at the end of the 2nd World War, as part of the Soviet zone of control, to its disappearance in 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Whilst the voice over made much of the demise of socialism with references to 'a way of life that no longer exists' and such like, there was no explanation of the East German implementation of socialism which appears to have been Stalinist. That is to say, it was a dictatorship built around the Communist Party head and, by extension, the leader of the Soviet Union at the time.

This would go some way to explain the colossal nature of the State and how everything in East German life, both good and bad, appeared to originate therefrom: the systematic control of the people through personality cults in combination with fear and repression as well as the elevated status of artists and women and the underlying supportive welfare state.

Following a 1953 strike and protests by ordinary East Germans, the hold of the secret police - the Stasi - become absolute. The government, such as it was, decided that civil unrest would not happen again and a massive programme of spying on its own people resulted. It is estimated that 1 in 6 East Germans was a Stasi informer so fear of saying, or doing, the wrong thing became endemic.

The tales of political thought-policing that took place and resulted in thousands of East Germans being sent to Siberian work camps, and much worse, were horrific. What would appear to be minor offences, one woman recalled how, as a teenager, she drew lipstick on a poster of Stalin because "he looked unhappy", resulted in life-destroying punishments.

Similarly the emergence of the youth movements devoted to Stalin, while ordinary Germans were obviously uncomfortable with the Hitler Youth echoes, were 'creepy'. One man recalled how his father, as a teacher, was expected to encourage enrollment in the Pioneer movement and that not doing so would appear anti-socialist irrespective of his fathers own political commitment.

However, there were plus sides. Another woman recalled the support given to expectant and working mothers with good child-care facilities and maternity leave. In her own words, "a single mother would not have been abandoned". Another recalled the value placed on artists and dancers whom she likened to "commodities" now that the Wall had come down.

Even towards the end of the regime, when mass protests ensued, another couple noted that they were not really protesting to get rid of "their socialism" but to improve it - largely by removing the influence of the Stasi and allowing the people to enjoy luxuries only previously obtainable by Communist Party dignitaries. Or Westerners.

The stories were interspersed with film footage of mass rallies and such like as well as film taken by the participants themselves and overall it provided an intriguing backward glance. Next Saturdays episode is entitled "The Kingdom of Forgetting" and looks at Czechoslovakia.

The Sisters Of Mercy - Walk Away (EP)

Rather than subject myself to the bi-annual hypocrisy-fest that is Red Nose Day evening TV, I thought I would post this instead.

(For non-UK readers, Red Nose Day is basically a day of charity fund-raising for Comic Relief. Lots of local events take place the length and breadth of the country in workplaces, clubs, shops and so on via sponsorship and donations in order to raise money.

The BBC devote an evening to broadcasting a whole plethora of celebrities, far wealthier than you or I, who come on begging, pleading and cajoling you into donating money interspersed with heart-breaking stories of where the money is, or could be, used.)

The entire event is like a collective boil lancing procedure whereby we allow ourselves to indulge these over-paid, under-talented phonies who guilt-trip us into sticking our hands into our wallets. They get their faces associated with a good cause, we get to alleviate ourselves of some of the responsibility we should feel for our fellow humanity (we have donated to charity after all) and on Monday we can all go back to our day jobs. You know, the ones where we work for somebody else's profit.

Here are some fun figures for comparison:

Red Nose Day 2007 raised £63m

Cristiano Ronaldo's annual salary £5.76m

Simon Cowell worth £112m

Bill Gates worth £28bn

UK Defense Budget £35bn

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi Scheme £35.7bn

UK bank bail out package £964bn

What do you think is the most worthy cause on that list?


The Sisters Of Mercy - Walk Away (EP) (Merciful Release MR033T 1984)

1. Walk Away
2. Poison Door
3. On The Wire

Walk Away - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Soliloquy

Soliloquy

When I was young I had a care
Lest I should cheat me of my share
Of that which makes it sweet to strive
For life, and dying still survive,
A name in sunshine written higher
Than lark or poet dare aspire.

But I grew weary doing well.
Besides, 'twas sweeter in that hell,
Down with the loud banditti people
Who robbed the orchards, climbed the steeple
For jackdaws' eggs and made the cock
Crow ere 'twas daylight on the clock.
I was so very bad the neighbours
Spoke of me at their daily labours.

And now I'm drinking wine in France,
The helpless child of circumstance.
Tomorrow will be loud with war,
How will I be accounted for?

It is too late now to retrieve
A fallen dream, too late to grieve
A name unmade, but not too late
To thank the gods for what is great;
A keen-edged sword, a soldier's heart,
Is greater than a poet's art.
And greater than a poet's fame
A little grave that has no name.

Francis Ledwidge - killed in action 1917

Record Mirror 20th February 1988 - The Sisters Of Mercy

The Sisters Of Mercy - Body And Soul (EP)

I occasionally visit BlogCatalog to partake of the discussion forums, read others comments, see what ruses bloggers are using to generate traffic to their sites and shake my head in disdain at the "Can you make money from blogging?" brigade.

One recent-ish discussion that generated 800+ replies was the classic "Do you believe in God? Yes or no?" debate. The originator stipulated "I want you to tell me if you believe in God or not. If you said Yes, tell me one reason why. and if you said no, tell me one reason why not?"

As you would expect this degenerated fairly quickly into two camps - the Saved (or Believers if you prefer) and the Damned (or those with their heads screwed on). Guess where I landed?

I would like to pick on two of the main arguments purported by the Saved:

1. The "God is everywhere" theorem.

So for every "Gods exists in the beauty of rainbows" we have a "God also exists in the destruction of hurricanes" or for every "God exists in the bountiful harvest" we have a "God exists in the gaping mouths of starving children" or for every "God exists in the kindness of strangers" we have a "God exists in the torturer's implements and the pitiful cries of the torturer's victim".

If God is everywhere and omnipotent then he must also be without a moral sense. If God has no moral sense then one of underlying premises of the Church, to teach and differentiate between good and evil (or right and wrong), has no basis. Further to this, the teachings of the Church would stand in direct contradiction to God the Being. The Church would be imposing upon God their interpretation of his essence, which they see as 'good', as opposed to recognising his non-moral existence, that is he 'decides not to intervene in Earthly matters'. (I use the terms essence and existence here as existential terms)

I don't say this to disprove the existence of God but to highlight the innate flaw in organised religion which, I think, leads us further towards the conclusion that God is man-made - an attempt, if you will, to inculcate upon the many the moral beliefs of the few.


2. The "Spirit" or "Seek inside yourself and ye shall find God" theorem.

Now, this appears to be in direct contradiction to argument 1 above. If God is everywhere then why does the individual need to discover an "inner spirituality" to find Him? Hmmmm...

But lets not deny the religious nuts their opinion.

If God is inside me then he has to be a construct of mine - that is, I have to have created Him. Now whether I created him using my mind or using some unknown quantity, lets call it a 'soul' for the sake of argument, that does not lessen the fact that I made Him.

If, on the other hand, the religious argument is that God wasn't made by me but is, in fact, some latent Being residing within me that only a significant amount of 'soul-searching' will discover then lets look at that. By my very nature I can only be aware of that which I am aware of (bare with me) so if I am not aware of my soul then how do I rake through it to find this mysterious third-party?

Lets give them one more chance. If we assume the term soul-searching is actually a quasi-religious way of saying "giving something some very serious thought" then I have to use my brain for that purpose. If I am using my brain then I am not using, or indeed searching, my soul. At the end of that process if I choose to take a "leap of faith" and find God then it has still only ever been an entirely introspective process, using my synapses, so we must still come to the conclusion that I have created God within me. Ergo he can not exist outside of any given individual and must, therefore, be a man-made construct.


Still, as long as the Church coffers keep filling and we keep teaching our children this hocus-pocus tale of salvation then I am sure we will all remember to stay put in our, very humble, places devoid of any aspiration for improvement in the (very real) World.


The Sisters Of Mercy - Body And Soul (EP) (Merciful Release MR029T 1984)

1. Body And Soul
2. Body Electric
3. Train
4. Afterhours

Body And Soul - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

The Sisters Of Mercy - No Time To Cry (EP)

At my high school in the mid to late 80's there was, naturally, a fairly diverse selection of musical genres represented amongst my fellow pupils. As the initial surge of Positive Punk had been waning for a few years prior to this there were, unsurprisingly, very few Goths (myself among them) but there was a fairly large Indie contingent - the presence of which I attribute to the emerging Scottish bands (think Shop Assistants, Jesus & Mary Chain et al) and the ability of those interested to seek out any alternative to the mind-numbing SAW domination of everything.

There was also a fairly hefty group of what were affectionately known as 'Metal Muvvers' and, while I detested the music, I counted numerous good friends amongst this Motley Crew (pun intended). Their taste largely veered towards the 80's Hair Bands with the odd one or two branching out into Slayer, Metallica and Anthrax. But this meant that on the regualr trips to friends houses I would be subjected to the latest rancid release from Bon Jovi or Van Halen and much eye-rolling would ensue accompanied by comments like, "This is PISH!".

What I could not understand was how, in any way, this music spoke to people; paricularly my teenage friends in Edinburgh. It reeked of LA, drugs, alcohol and woman and whilst I will concede that these are not necessarily bad things in, and of, themselves, their presence in any teenage boys life is sadly lacking. Unless of course he happens to live in LA and have a Rock Star or drug dealer for a father! We didn't however - we lived in a suburb of Edinburgh and were only just making our initial forays into the world of under-age drinking. Plucking up the courage to try and go and buy some cider from the off-licence on a Friday evening was about as Rock 'n' Roll as it got.

So, for that reason, I have always had a problem associating the word "Gothic" with "Rock". To me, it was, is and always will be "Goth". And it spoke to me in a way "Rock" or "Metal" never would. It answered my burgeoning teenage introspection and kept me company through long tortuous evenings spent in my room weighing myself down with existential misery (Mrs H would probably say that never ended...) The sheer bleakness of the music served to reflect how I actually felt a significant proportion of the time. There is no Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll with Joy Division (still my favourite band) - only the mental anguish that arises from the realisation that release from the prison bars of my own mind will only occur, and I say this without melodrama, at the point of death. And, in a small way, that is comforting.

When bands of the Goth ilk then decided to crossover into more Metal terrain they sounded their own death-knell as far as my music collection was concerned - absolute betrayal to my teenage self. For instance, The Cult ceased to exist post-'Love' and I must admit to struggling with The Sisters of Mercy post-'Floodland' (Andrew Eldritch didn't help their case by being a dick either).

But, for the purposes of this post, I will now don my rose-tinted specs, climb into my DeLorean and take you back to 1985 (think of me as a black clad Marty McFly) and classic-era Sisters. Gary Marx hasn't left to form Ghost Dance, Wayne Hussey is still providing backing vocals and twiddly guitar lines, Craig Adams is thundering away on bass and The Mission is only a film in production. Aaah, bliss.


The Sisters Of Mercy - No Time To Cry (EP) (Merciful Release MR335T 1985)

1. No Time To Cry
2. Blood Money
3. Bury Me Deep

No Time To Cry - pwd: c4ctusm0uth