Record Collector - Goth Rarities - Pt 2

Record Collector - Goth Rarities - Pt 1

Have been having a post-Christmas sort-and-throw-out of various bits of stuff and found this. Part 2 tomorrow. (Still think my one's better)

My Work ID Card

Knocked together, most professionally, by Jim B - whom this post is for. Sadly Jim was one of the ones that jumped and he is now swimming to, if not already basking on, much happier work-related shores.

If you look carefully you can see it's laminated and everything. Now if I can only find that sepia-tinged picture of me in full naval uniform taken at the Titanic museum then I can Photoshop that in for the full-on identification experience.

The Wolfhounds - The Anti-Midas Touch (EP)

A couple of New Labour MPs have been lamenting Gordo's remarks about "the playing fields of Eton" from a few weeks back and are getting all concerned about a "class war" strategy for the upcoming (lost) election.

Well of course they are concerned.

When you form part of the ruling class the last thing you want to do is to start reminding people of that fact - in a kind of cack-handed "we represent the common man" election campaign. Its bound to backfire when people start trying to differentiate you by your actions.

So the Labour vision of free market economics, convenient wars (with our US buddies of course), lax financial regulation, increased intrusion into citizens lives and anti-union/anti-protest legislation is very different from the Tory core values of free market economics, convenient wars (you're not telling me the Falklands wasn't convenient), lax financial regulation, increased law and order and anti-union legislation.

Hang on a minute....

You only need to refer to the ongoing expenses revelations to see that the last person any MP represents is the common man.

It may be the case that the Tory route to power is nominally greasier, and quite probably easier, than the Labour one but it is the end destination that is the problem. Once they achieve their dream of career politician, and especially once they get into government, they all form part of the same faceless, bureaucratic state and they all start making the links into business with lucrative directorships and financial 'arrangements'. And the creeping sense that "they know best" starts to take over and excuse their behaviour.

Tony Blair's accounts are a case in point. He's making fucking millions whoring his sorry, half-arsed approach to World Peace across the planet (that's the approach that goes to war on an excuse he didn't believe at the time) and he takes advantage of the very legislation passed while he was in power to keep his accounts secret. Very Labour. And seeing as we aren't talking class war politics, his education isn't so far removed from "the playing fields of Eton" either. A typical, working ex-Labour MP? One of the brighter lights undoubtedly. Representative of the common man? No. And Never.


There is a 'Best Of' The WolfHounds here and the line-up for this release was:

Bolton - Bass, Synthesiser
Callahan - Vocals, Guitar
Clark - Guitar, Backing Vocals, Bass
Golding - Guitar
Stebbing - Drums, Percussion


The Wolfhounds - The Anti-Midas Touch (EP) (The Pink Label PINKY14T 1986) 320kbps

1. The Anti-Midas Touch
2. Midget Horror
3. One Foot Wrong
4. Slow Loris
5. Restless Spell

The Anti-MP Touch - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

The Other White Stuff

The view from the window of the room in which I blog.

Zig Zag Jun 1981 - John Cale & Altered Images

Talking Of The Planet

Well, what a colossal waste of time, money and effort that was!

The BBC's Richard Black gives a summary here and it makes for fairly pessimistic reading.

The fact that our two favourite global bullies - that's the US explicitly and China implicitly - essentially brokered their own deal has to bring it home to the other countries that their own economic and military status is of no consequence. If you turn up to the party armed with your favourite six-shooter and the Americans and Chinese roll in on gold plated nuclear missiles then you know you're in trouble.

And what of the deal? Or non-binding pact that fails to deliver on any key point and, as the name 'non-binding' suggests, has only been noted by the delegates? Well, there you have it. They agreed nothing bar some money for aid and even that is iffy long-term. These guys will have sea-water from the melted ice caps lapping round their ankles before they will believe that we can't actually turn the whole planet into a fucking supermarket and get away with it.

The fundamental problem is that we can't run the planet based on the capitalist ideal. We are already consuming and polluting more than the planet can regenerate or repair. And if the long-term goal is to get developing countries standard of living up to our consumption levels then clearly we need a rethink.

But if our leaders won't deviate from this doctrine, neo-conservative or various reformed flavours thereof, or even discuss the possibility of an alternative then there appears to be little hope of progress on any kind of global solution for, what is after all, a global problem. Clearly there's still too much money to be made.

As If People And The Planet Mattered

The New Economics Foundation released a report earlier this week into the relative worth to society of various jobs contrasted against their pay levels. And you've got to have time for any Think Tank that believes in, "Economics as if people and the planet mattered" because the inclusion of the "as if" always sounds sarcastic in my head. I wonder if its supposed to be...

Although they must be completely nuts as NEF spokeswoman Eilis Lawlor explained, "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment." Like I said, stark raving bonkers. Using unfashionable terms like "societal benefit" isn't going to get them anywhere in this Capitalist dog-eat-dog world.

Here are the key findings for their chosen six jobs but it pretty much confirms what you probably would've thought anyway given that you are reading this blog in the first place:


The Elite Wanker Banker
"Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse. Paid between £500,000 and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate."

Childcare Workers
"Both for families and society as a whole, looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up to £9.50 worth of benefits to society."

Hospital Cleaners
"Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created."

Advertising Executives
The advertising industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate."

Tax Accountants
"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."

Waste Recycling Workers
"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."


So, as per bleeding usual, the way we are running things at the moment is rewarding the dicks. For being dicks.

Size Of An iPod 4

Blankety Blank

I will often sit and surf through the various music channels on offer on the telly while my daughter plays the DS further down the settee.

So it was yesterday that we both enjoyed this before I skipped merrily over a few offerings from the 70s and 80s when my daughter pipes up with, "leave this on."

Having sat through Lady GaGa's big budget slave fantasy flesh fest, we then encountered this. I nearly spat my coffee out before sitting back perplexed when I noticed that the line, "There were times when I could have strangled her" had been censored to "There were times when I could have". Why?

Here we have a Smith's song, delivered in Morrisseys usual sardonic wit, set in, I believe, a hospital. Our hero is fighting himself and wrestling with his emotions as he deals with the shock of his girlfriend's predicament - which is why the line, "There were times when I could have strangled her," is followed up with, "But you know I would hate anything to happen to her." Within the context of the song I just can not understand the logic of removing it. I defy anyone to state that they have not had a similar thought with or without there being any real weight behind it. So Is it the threat of female violence or something else? As Beefy Bert would say, "I dunno."

Anyway, I noted that the "freak bitch" bits of Ms Gaga's song were removed on the telly but this kind of became insignificant under the sheer onslaught of the remaining audio and visual sexual imagery. Including a good long look at her arse. Brilliant.

Our society is so fucked up with this. We are subjected to a barrage of 'sexy' in adverts and music videos and thanks to our celebrities, all whipped up nicely by a press and media that know it sells copy. Children are marketed to as though they are adults and then we comment on how children are growing older before they're ready and the fear-of-paedophiles-ometer is hovering between 'terror' and 'lynching'! It's nuts.

As unconscious influences on my daughter go I confess I would prefer Morrissey to Lady Gaga.

Money

Money

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex,
You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
Clearly money has something to do with life

- In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:
You can't put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

Philip Larkin

Zig Zag Dec 1980 - Echo And The Bunnymen & Marty Thau