The Brilliant Corners - Why Do You Have To Go Out With Him? (EP)

If it really were possible to legislate for stupidity then I am sure the British government, of whatever hue, would have a go at it and outlaw themselves in the process.

I mean, what do you make of this story? Its got all the elements required for a cracking piss-take of the government:

- Police women
- Women going back to work after kids
- Ofsted
- Childcare
- the Dept for Children, Schools & Families
- CRB checks
- "Childrens safety"
- Interfering busy-bodies
- Uber-regulation

But, despite all this, I am just tying myself up in knots attempting to come up with anything scathing enough.

I'll just let the story speak for itself in so many different ways.


The Brilliant Corners line-up:

Davey - Singer, Guitars
Chris - Bass
Bob - Drums
Winston - Guitars
Dan - Trumpet, Organ
Amelia - Backing Singer


The Brilliant Corners - Why Do You Have To Go Out With Him... (EP) (McQueen Records MCQ2T 1988)

1. Why Do You Have To Go Out With Him When You Could Go Out With Me?
2. Shangri La
3. Things Will Get Better
4. Goodbye

Ignore The State

Media Alternatives

The Radio Times had this to say, see left, for the program 'The Love Of Money':

"The final episode of the documentary series reveals just how close the world came to the brink of economic ruin last autumn.......Few people, they argue, realise just how close society came to a truly catastrophic breakdown."


Because, after all, we just couldn't survive without our monolithic capitalist system could we? The mainstream media perpetuate this belief that we wouldn't be able to manage by ourselves so they devote whole programs to our beloved politicians telling us about how they saved us and there really is no need to worry and that, in fact, we shouldn't even bother thinking about anything at all.

Just keep working, keep shopping, keep consuming and our politicians will come up with the 'Big Ideas' and our media will either praise them or ridicule them. (I can hear Gordon's dulcet, Scots tones even now, "Just throw fucking tons of money at it!!") Our politicians and our media will play out this delicate little charade where the media will expose something, whether it be affairs, expenses or arms deals, and the politician or party will object or retort, withdraw or confess but they are both just part of the bigger machine. They feed off each other. If there were no politicians there would be no scandals to write about, no policies to decry and no expenses to feel outraged about. And in turn there would be no leaks to the press so the relationship is, at best, parasitic.

Our marvellous democratic freedom extends to the discussion of slightly different flavours of capitalism in the papers and on TV. It is self-evident in the underlying theme of 'The Love Of Money' and apparent in the tiresome 'Question Time' guest list. The two party democracy lumbers on with varying levels of commitment to reform of the one system country.

Discussion of the revolutionary alternatives isn't a possibility.

Remorse For Intemperate Speech

Remorse For Intemperate Speech

I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.

I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart.

Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.

W.B. Yeats

Zig Zag Feb 1984 - Toyah

Cor Blimey! Innit?

Street urchins dreaming of what it must be like to live in debt. As opposed to poverty.

You wait ages for one and two come along at once. CBI stories that is.

Here we have the voice of all that is greed and work and toil and debt telling us how we can burden our children's futures still further. "Never mind that they won't have a pension worth the name by the time they get to retirement age," the CBI say, "we can saddle 'em up with student loans at the start of their working lives as well!"

The CBI engage in suitably duplicitous capitalist doublespeak freely. They argue that additional funding for universities should come from the students themselves in the form of reduced subsidies on student loans and higher tuition fees while also claiming they do not want a drop in student numbers. Naturally that makes sense as a debt-riddled workforce is more likely to be compliant and the higher numbers there are the better. Conversely, you would expect a drop in student numbers if the cost of a university education reached a given threshold and this would ensure the managers of the future were the ones who could afford it. So capitalism has it sewn up quite nicely.

Given that we now pretty much know we can't run an economy on debt alone - (I'll tell you a secret. Lots of people, like me, already knew we couldn't but we just enjoy riding that old boom and bust rollercoaster with everybody else. But we do dream of building a new ride.) - why do we have the CBI again extolling the virtues of debt? I mean, can you imagine a rosier future? Picture it. Millions of drones working the first however many years of their lives to pay off their student debt and then working the remainder to try and accrue some meagre pittance for old age.

Once we have children paying back loans with interest, they are terrific consumers after all, then we will truly be able to claim that we have capitalism from the cradle to the grave.

Book Club

Few quotes from chapter 12, "Forget Government":

"In our Western, more-or-less liberal democracies, it rarely occurs to us that we might be able to live free of government. A vast, centralized state seems such an unavoidable reality that the most we seem to be able to hope for is to vote every five years for a very slightly different oligarchy to correct the worst excesses of the previous one. We cannot see beyond parliament as a means of organizing things. We grumble about the clowns in power and then elect a new lot of clowns. We believe in 'reform', that endless, futile process of meddling. Hope triumphs over experience."

"Politics is not the art of running a country, it is the art of persuading the people that they need a set of paid politicians to run the country. And in this dark art, our leaders are skilled and proficient."

"There is a real alternative to elected governments. It is self-government, or anarchy, or running one's own affairs without relying on external authority."

'How To Be Free' by Tom Hodgkinson

Corporate Bluffing Inequity

Like many a grumpy politico I should imagine, I wander around with an image of the "Boss" inside my head. Thats him on the left. The proverbial Fat Cat, wearing a tailored suit, smoking a cigar, lord of all he surveys and bloated with his own self-importance. This mental picture serves my purposes quite nicely most of the time as it allows a 'them and us' mentality to embed itself in my cerebrum while allowing me to nurture both image and attitude in others.

However I appreciate that it is not quite true. I have met many managers over the years and, remarkably enough, not one of them looked like that picture and most were, perhaps even more unbelievably, almost human. I daresay that many managers have a similar picture of the "Worker" inside their heads - lazy, under-achieving, disinterested, etc. - which is similarly skewed to their point of view.

Thankfully, the "Voice Of Business" - the CBI - do everything in their power to perpetuate those images and thus continue the confrontational nature of workplace politics. Remember how the CBI rejected extending maternity/paternity leave as it would be an undue burden on business? Or how they opposed, and continue to oppose rises in, the minimum wage because companies wouldn't be able to afford it? Or indeed how they would like you to stay at work longer, by "choice" as they put it? Well, despite modest improvements in all of the aforementioned items, I haven't yet seen the UK economy disappear down a black hole due to maternity leave, a minimum wage or the right to not be at work all the fucking time.

But I have seen the UK economy collapse thanks to the actions of the people the CBI represents - funny that.

Well, the CBI now have a terrifying new EU ruling to deal with . The European Court of Justice has ruled that workers on leave who become sick can claim the time back into their own annual leave entitlement. In the CBI world view this naturally means that 'unscrupulous workers could cheat their bosses' because, after all, you can't possibly trust the people you have employed to work for you.

Bring it on I say. Anything that allows people to spend less time engaged in wage-slavery and more time doing the things they really want to do can only be a good thing. And if that means they fiddle their annual and sick leave to achieve it then fine - I shall await the resulting, CBI predicted, collapse of civilization with disinterest.

Zig Zag Feb 1984 - Look Back In Anger & 1000 Mexicans

Ye, 'Great' Offer

Paul Weller once wrote about a mysterious 'Girl On The Phone' who seemed to know everything about him. Well Tesco may not know the size of my cock but I reckon they could have a pretty good stab at what brand of condom I might buy.

I go to Tesco often enough for them to know that I never, ever buy beer or lager.

(This may come as a shock but I rarely drink and, if I do, it definitely won't be beer or lager. I learned pretty quickly in my early drinking days that my body just flatly refuses to process those liquids, in however small amounts, in anything other than some kind of vomit/headache ratio. It may be 65%/35% one time or 45%/55% another but those would be the only two ingredients - sick and pain - the next day. I stuck to spirits in the main.)

I have a Clubcard after all so naturally I assume that every single item I have ever purchased from them, by and large, resides on a vast marketing database somewhere. After all, how else could they target my needs as a consumer with their advertising? Or their partners advertising - finance, insurance et al? How can they track who spends what on where by postcode? You know, the essentials.

So why is it then, if they look back through their records from the time I moved to Manchester (2003) and note that I have NOT ONCE bought beer or lager, that I am the lucky recipient of a £5-00 off voucher that I will never use? I'll see if my neighbour wants it.

Capitalism - its enough to turn you to drink.

Children On Stun - Overland (CD)

Capitalism is perverse in its ability to provide blind-alleys down which to lead you with alluring promises of wealth and choice. These double-play promises often deliver, and that is why it is such a cunning system, as the delivery is never quite how you thought it would be: you will always be competing for wealth and you will have no choice.

The market. Aaahhh, the mythical market. It reeks of cheery sellers shouting prices over the hustle and bustle of people going from stall to stall haggling a bargain. In modern terms it means the competition of the market will drive down prices for you, the consumer. Surely that can only be a good thing? This would give rise to an expectation that one would have a large number of companies, offering any given service, to choose from.

But what you end up with is takeover after merger after takeover after merger until that competitive market you were anticipating is reduced to a few players. The gas and electricity markets in the UK are an example - there are a relatively small number of wholesalers who largely own the retailing side as well (E.ON for example) - and the recent bank mergers are another. It may be more newsworthy at the moment but it goes on all the time and it gives rise to price fixing and market dominance (Think Tesco, BT or Virgin).

Not only that but in an effort to keep costs as low as possible, thus increasing profits, you can expect there to be competition in the wage market - downwards. You can expect goods to be sourced as cheaply as possible - yes, food as well. You can expect to be both worker and consumer within this great money churning bonanza which promises little and delivers less.

The sting is that you do get a lot of choice, but only from the one or two sellers. Tesco have a bewildering array of ketchup, most of it completely unnecessary.


Children On Stun - Overland (CD) (M&A Music Art MACDL942 1994)

1. Intro
2. Tortured By A Sense Of Humour
3. Celebration (Rejoice)
4. Crawl (R.I.P.)
5. Overland
6. Desperate Miranda
7. Phoenix
8. Celebration (80's Revival Mix)

Underground Overland - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Euro Septic Holiday Blues

Enjoyed my hols.