Riviera Gigolo now available on ebay

Fans of Alistair Campell, the Riviera Gigolo who started his journalistic career writing softcore porn for Penthouse before eventually becoming Tony Blair’s uber spin doctor; producing hardcore porn for Downing Street, including the occasional dodgy intelligence dossier, will want to grab this opportunity to bid for his contact details on Ebay…

Alastair Campbell's phone and fax numbers

Here it is, folks... your chance to hire a PR guru

Per the item description…

The item you are buying is a partial scan of documents #HO5/HO6 from the Labour Party 2004/5 General Election Campaign Return (in JPEG format) that contain the work phone and fax numbers of that famous and popular public relations consultant Alastair Campbell. This information is in the public domain, but is very hard to come by.

After you have made your purchase, a copy of the relevant file will be sent to you via email.

Please note that your purchase does not in any way cover any part of Alastair Campbell's service fees; it is merely an opportunity to contact this much sought-after professional for the purpose of proposed employment (and/or to seek his signature on a suitable item for the charity auction of your choice).

Please also be aware that we have - to the best of our ability - confirmed the validity/accuracy of these numbers, but Mr Campbell may at any time decide to screen his calls or change his number(s) if he feels he is receiving too many job offers.

And, yes, this is arguably just a childish schoolboy prank but, as I recall, childish schoolboy pranks used to drive 'Teacher' up the wall

Cynicism – correct application and usage

I wrote that last entry in response to a couple of specific issues

• a semi-drunken evening a few nights ago where I found myself trying to explain to someone that it was perfectly possible to have concerns about the current rate of migration into the UK and not be a xenophobic, Right Wing, Daily Express reading nutjob
• a comment somebody made under a previous post about Brian Haw’s demonstration in Parliament Square
• the start of that woeful Red campaign and all its unholy consumerist tie ins

The person I was chatting to during the semi-drunken evening reads this blog and confessed that, on occasions, I come up with some heinous thoughts that leave him with question marks about my essential soundness.

That’s because I’m a cynic.

Being a confirmed cynic I could write an entire book on cynicism but, mindful of writing overlong turgid posts, I cut the last piece short at a thousand words

Given that a few people actually read it I’m beginning to think I should have made it a little bit longer.

Being a cynic doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t care. Nor does it mean that you believe that there’s nothing ordinary people can do to change the world. What it does mean is that when someone, particularly a powerful someone safely esconced in an Ivory Tower, tries to sell you a story you have to ask yourself...

Cui Bono?

Who benefits?

Take a relatively trivial example. I was chatting with my brother a few days ago about, of all things, pus in milk. He runs a snack bar, has an interest in food safety and hygene and was curious for my take on a couple of stories he’d heard recently about pus infected milk and whether I knew if milk was becoming scummier or not. I hadn’t heard those stories but my first reaction was to think…

• Monsanto and all the GM food gang are currently engaged on a major drive to shove mutant soya products down our necks, including various brands of soya milk that have been launched onto the UK market recently
• It wouldn’t take much for a large Frankenfood multinational to bung a few bucks to a public relations agency, make some contributions to a few vegetarian activist groups, support some skewed research, get people freaked out about cows' milk, then sit back and watch the sales of its own products rise
• … even though soya milk tastes like over-processed chemical muck that will give you man boobs and fuck up your hormone balance in general

That’s how a cynic thinks.

And no, I’m not switching to soya milk. Pus or no pus. Besides, it's pasteurised pus.

Being a cynic doesn’t mean giving up. It does mean that you end up questioning everything you are told – even if the source appears to be super-fluffy, super-sincere and really, really concerned about the world. The very niceness of some of these people makes them easier to dupe and be transformed into useful idiots.

The real challenge is finding a way for the nice, well-intentioned people, who want the world to be better, to co-exist with the nasty grumpy, cynical people who also want the world to be better.

Alternatively, there is always the hemlock option

-

And returning to Brian Haw and 7/7 for moment

Brian Haw pissed off the government so much that it had to draft legislation to turf him out. For a cynic who profoundly mistrusts our present government that’s fucking marvellous.

And those who are seeking a fuller investigation and account of what happened in London last July are themselves cynics who refuse to be sold a fairy story without adequate proof. So, in answer to the question posted as a comment to my last post...

"Do you think anything will come of it or should we throw the 7/7 truth movement into the cynicism bin?"

Absolutely no way. The thing that needs throwing into the cynicism bin is the half-baked account that our politicians and press are passing off as the ‘Truth’.

And, don’t forget, keep smiling

\ laughs cynically

Cynicism

Whenever people refer to George Orwell’s 1984 they are generally making reference to Orwell’s depiction of a surveillance-based, police state. Big Brother and all that.

A much more neglected theme of the novel is the suggestion that the supposedly opposing regimes in Orwell’s world are ideologically indistinguishable and not really enemies. They are engaged in a perpetual, unwinnable war whose only purpose use up human labour and the fruits of human labour so that each superstate's economy cannot support a decent standard of living for every citizen.

According to 1984, it is perfectly possible that the entire world is controlled by a single entity.

Orwell was a pretty smart cookie.

And if you buy into Orwell’s implication that our world works like that, one of your conclusions will be that all major political parties, all the supposed differences between them, all the supposed political debate that they engage in, is bullshit, staged to bamboozle the masses and keep them out of the loop.

Hmmm

And, surprisingly or not, when you start to scratch at the issues of our times and the parameters imposed on their debate it’s quite easy to reach the conclusion that the bulk of us are having their collective chain yanked.

I saw this poster in the Carphone Warehouse yesterday

I must confess to having a big problem with the coverage of the AIDS issue…

I live in area with the highest incidence of teenage pregnancies in Western Europe and the UK in general is suffering from record rates of sexually transmitted diseases, so it would be reasonable to conclude condom use is not all that it should be.

So why isn’t the country swimming in AIDS?

Our case numbers are up, sure enough, as certain pressure groups like to remind us, but only if you include recent migrants who arrived with AIDS.

If you read around a little you discover that there is some serious dispute about the very nature of HIV/ AIDS and its transmission mechanism. And if you start to consider possible reasons why debate may have been stifled you start coming up with some pretty unsavoury answers concerning the AIDS lobby and the drugs companies.

So, Stef looks at the poster from the Carphone Warehouse and thinks it sucks arse because

• he instinctively reacts to the unholy alliance of multinational corporations, consumerism and worthy causes and the mindset of people who could conceive of and buy into crap like that
• he is genuinely worried that the entire approach to the treatment of AIDS may be a colossal con

But then, of course, a less cynical person could come along and say ‘Well, it’s better than nothing. What are you doing to change the world?’

Well, actually, if something like St Bono’s ‘Red’ campaign is merely offering a band aid to patch up white middle class western guilt about the third world, provide a veneer of social conscience to large companies and use its funds to enrich drugs companies then it is worse than nothing. Much worse

Ditto for Live 8

In case it’s escaped anyone’s attention much of the additional debt reflief that was promised is linked to ‘economic reforms’ in the recipient countries. The kind of economic reforms that kill labour rights and turn over local utilities, infrastructure and natural resources to those lovely, caring multinationals.

And, yes, I did laugh when I discovered that the Make Poverty History bracelets were made in a sweatshop that failed to meet even China’s skimpy workers’ rights legislation.

I laughed because it exposed the Lie and all the ‘Well, it’s better nothing’s in the world couldn’t hide that

The climate change lobby?

Currently engaged in drumming into the people that they, not companies, are to blame and that the only solutions to the problem lie in implementation of ‘global’ solutions i.e. global government.

Yes, very accountable. Power to the people and all that.

And, of course, we're going to have to pay those big companies a lot more for a lot less in future. Ever-larger corporate profits are a proven cure for global warming don't you know.

And, curiously, no mention whatsover that climate change is inevitable whatever we do.

The adoption of the Euro by the UK?

A little less global than my previous examples but I just adored the way the two opposing points of view was phrased in terms of ‘cool, young inclusive’ people wanting the Euro and ‘reactionary old farts’ not wanting the Euro.

Of course, the fact that implementation of the Euro would make movement of capital much easier, further enabling companies to hold workers over a barrel with the threat of closing their workplaces down, barely figured in the ‘debate’.

And so on, and so on

Not only is the debate over key issues phrased in terms that frustrate objective consideration, opinions relating to key issues are also conveniently packaged into mutually exclusive ‘Right Wing’ and ‘Left Wing’ mindsets.

So, if you’re Left Wing in this country you read the Guardian newspaper. You read the Guardian rather than anything else because you don’t want to be exposed to anything that challenges your worldview. And you rely on the Guardian and its supposedly Left Wing opinion-forming journalists on their six figure salaries to tell you what your position is on the issues of the day. You rely on them because you are either too busy to think for yourself or you simply cannot be arsed.

The same applies to Right-thinking people; though Right Wingers have little more choice as they can select from a number of newspapers ranging from conservative with a small ‘c’ to the downright demented.

And there we have it; the entire spectrum of human personalities essentially packaged into one of two or three opposing teams all participating in a rigged game.

You’ve got maybe 1% of people running our world and they do a pretty respectable job of splitting the other 99% into two or three parts and setting them at each other’s throats, fighting over crumbs.

It’s so elegant a solution it’s almost beautiful.

Orwell would have fucking loved it

Save our Sauce

A couple of responses to some comments made on earlier posts; made either underneath the post itself or by other means

Re. Brian Haw

‘Brian Haw is mentally ill’

Quite possibly so.

And yes, before it was reduced from 40m across to nearer 3m across by police in the small hours, his little peace camp was arguably an eyesore. Though, in my opinion, a couple of the artworks there were pretty good. Plus, pictures of babies mutilated by war are never going to look all that appealing, however tidy you keep their immediate environment.

And yes, there was a time when I too would have looked at someone like Brian Haw and said ‘who’s looking after your seven kids whilst you’re sitting on your arse in Parliament Square preaching to the rest of the world how we should behave’.

However

Life is rarely like the movies. Well, aside from my glamorous, high-octane existence obviously. Flesh and blood heroes or icons are rarely, if ever, perfect. Martin Luther King cheated on his wife, Gandhi was a sanctimonious little tit, Princess Diana spent enough on frocks to feed a small African nation, and Bono is an utter, utter wanker...

A very rich one though, admittedly

Back in April 2002 Tony Blair explained to us idiots out there…

"I pass protesters every day at Downing Street, and believe me, you name it, they protest against it. I may not like what they call me but I thank God they can. That's called freedom"

That would be the freedom his government legislated against by way of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005

...except Blair’s government is so inept that the legislation, phrased with Haw in mind, wasn't retrospective and therefore couldn’t be applied to Haw. And the government then had to go through the courts having to say that it really was meant to be retrospective. And now Haw has appealed. And, in the meantime, our police have turned over Haw’s camp on the pretext that it represented a security risk

A health hazard maybe but the jumping off point for a potential terrorist attack on our sweet precious freedoms?

Bollocks

So how is it that a 'mental' person is able to demonstrate that our government is led by repressive and incompetent hypocrites; more than willing to play the terrorism card to cover up their own failings?

If a mental person is capable of that what does it say about them?

-

I strolled over to Westminster Square on Wednesday to check out the new slimline version of Haw’s camp and also to see how the police would deal with a Haw supporters protest timed to coincide with Blair’s motorcade, taking Blair to answer weekly Parliamentary Questions.

As it happened, Blair pussied out and opted to get into the Commons via the underground Bat Cave style passageway. So, everyone else ended up standing around for an hour; scratching their nuts, occasionally blowing their whistles and gently mocking the police who were presumably thinking that they didn’t join up for this kind of nonsense.

My trip wasn’t a complete wash-out though as I was well-impressed by a parallel protest demanding that production of HP (Houses of Parliament) Sauce stayed in Britain.

Maybe they’re the ones who scared off Blair rather than Haw’s lot

-

Re. A comment someone made to me elsewhere about apparent inconsistencies in two links I quoted about Flight 93

One of the links I quoted made the point that there was no evidence that plastic knives or box-cutters were used to take over all four flight on 9/11

But another link that I quoted, the one that raised the point that cell phones don’t work in aircraft travelling above 10,000ft, does refer to box-cutters in the context of calls made from Flight 93.

There is an apparent contradiction here

Apparently

That’s down to sloppy writing in the article that mentions box-cutters. One of the supposed calls made from Flight 93 certainly did mention that one of the aircrew was knifed but, to my knowledge, the caller did not explain how or with what.

Now I originally raised this as an issue because this entire box-cutter thing is an example of material used in the Flight 93 movie and other mainstream accounts of 9/11 that are repeated as matters of fact when they’re not.

But, fuck it, I’ll swap out that Flight 93 anomaly and replace it with another instead. I can afford to be generous…

• The fact that cellphones don’t work in airliners flying at 30,000ft
• The fact that debris from the flight was scattered over 8 miles
• That eyewitness accounts sound awfully like it (or something) was shot down
• ***New*** Does this really look like an airliner has just crashed here…

-

I'm always up for any correction of these or any other statements I make. After all, I wouldn't want to be believing any fairy tales would I?

--

Oh, and whilst I’m clarifying/ revising statements and facts made in previous posts, when I said 50 police raided Brian Haw’s peace camp at 2.30am the other night I’d got the number dead wrong.

It was 78

So if you want to improve levels of policing in your local area you know what to do

-

I say, I say, I say. What do you call a government that employs 78 policemen to deal with one slightly mental person?

I don't know. What do you call a government that employs 78 policemen to deal with one slightly mental person?

--- feel free to add your own answer here ---

Just think about the mortgage

I’m just blogamental at the moment but there’s just so much primo material out there. I could do another thirty posts before breakfast if I wasn’t quite so peckish.

Take the story about Cherie Blair autographing a copy of the Hutton Report for a Labour charity fundraiser for example. I would be hard put to write anything that added to what has already been said but someone did a spoof Sun front page that would be criminal not to share…

and then there’s the news that Brian Haw’s protest display was bundled up, thrown into a container and carted away at 2.30am in the morning by 50 policemen, who thoughtfully took the time to point the Westminister Square traffic camera in the opposite direction before getting stuck into the business in hand.

A worrying story, no doubt, but it did result in a series of excellent pictures that can be seen at the UK Indymedia site here

which in turn resulted in this fine piece of work from Bloggerheads…

Truly, we live in marvellous times

Plausible Truth

© Steve Bell 2006

Hats off to BBC’s Newsnight last night.

The production team managed to cram in no less than three separate 9/11 stories.

• A report on Osama Bin Laden’s latest taped message
• An Interview with Flight 93’s director Paul Greengrass
• Nomination of a 9/11 newspaper headline for their Most Memorable Front Page of the Last 100 Years contest

Sooner or later they’re going to have to rename it 9/11night. It’s almost as if somebody is, desperately, trying to remind us of what happened.

As 9/11 scepticism grows and gets ever-nearer to breaking into the mainstream the more those media bitches whine.

-

The interview with Greengrass turned particularly surreal at one point when the interviewer quoted Greengrass’ stated aim of presenting a ‘plausible truth’ of what happened to Flight 93.

WTF is a plausible truth when it’s at home?

I’m guessing that it’s the kind of truth that discounts…

• The fact that cellphones don’t work in airliners flying at 30,000ft
• The fact that debris from the flight was scattered over 8 miles
• That eyewitness accounts sound awfully like it was shot down
• The fact that all those stories about knives and box cutters are completely made up

And all the rest

My personal favourite Flight 93 anomaly is the transcript of this line of dialogue from one of passengers supposedly calling from the plane…

"Mom? This is Mark Brigham."

Whoops

-

And these Osama tapes are starting to wear a little thin now.

I am particularly impressed by the way our mainstream media, normally so scornful of the Internet, merrily trots out reports of these OBL tapes and videos tout suite, without even waiting for them to be verified as genuine first.

A truly heart-warming display of trust, particularly when there are loads of experts out there who believe that every supposed OBL tape since 2001 is a fake.

Now what sort of naughty person would want to fake Bin Laden tapes? And why?

My favourite is the one OBL released the day before the last US Presidential election. George Bush must have been gutted when he heard about that.

-

Amusing as all this bollocks may be, a couple of thoughts worry me. The first is that a lot of people died on 9/11 and since. The second is, if you’re as sceptical about the War on Terror as I am and you’re thinking that the old propaganda just isn’t so effective any more, you’ve just got to start worrying that someone somewhere is going to have to start blowing some more shit up to slap us all back into line

Neither of those thoughts is particularly funny.

Say hello to my little friend

OK, here’s my latest selection of questionable links that I’d like to share with you, my beautiful friends from all over the World

… though it’s going to be hard to top either the Brick Testament or Bozeta’s combined Alsatian stud farm / Sean Connery tribute page that I rustled up last time

Some videos first…

Al Pacino in Scarface the Short Version – caution, contains occasional foul language

The best video I have ever seen of somebody lighting one of their own farts

Hooked on a Feeling by David Hasselhoff – a repeat link but this should watched at least a couple of times a week for maximum psychological well-being. 3.9 million satisfied customers can’t be wrong

Snuggly the Security Bear – strictly speaking only of potential interest to telephone-owing Americans but even over here in the UK Snuggly leaves me feeling all warm and, er, snuggly all over

Non-video based, more static entertainment can be found on…

The homepage of the World Toilet Organization. There’s nothing specifically super-funny here aside from the general ‘World Toilet’ concept, the tasteful logo and reading lots of articles with the word toilet in them e.g. ‘World Toilet Day is declared on November 19 of each year’ (that’s gone straight into my diary) and ‘Today on World Toilet’ and ‘Tourism and Toilets – An Australian perspective’. Definitely worth five minutes browsing of any bored, and juvenile, person’s time

A handy and concise summary of all available sick jokes about Paul McCartney’s impending divorce from an evil, gold-digging monoped can be found by way of this Flickr discussion thread here

And last but not least, a couple of interesting attempts at establishing personality cults, devoted to the perfect male form, can be found here…

Amostrado

Gunther

Pleasureman Gunther is obviously a slicker individual but there’s something about Amostrado’s innocent charm that has won me over. That and comments underneath his photos like this…

I want married. I like sex.

Visit my homepage www.amostrado.com you can host in my house. I know many beautiful places in Brazil.

I like to travel too

Internet veterans will notice some distinct echoes from Mahir’s legendary homepage of many moons back. For old time’s sake I’ve just visited Mahir’s page for the first time in a long time. Mahir has clearly matured and grown into the role of world statesman that was thrust upon him…

This is my page .......

WELCOME TO MY HOME PAGE !!!!!!!!!

I KISS YOU !!!!!

" I love prophet MUHAMMED (s.a.v) and I would die or shed my blood for him and the ALLAH (c.c)-God. He is light has been sent for the whole humanity and the universe. Whoever doesn’t acknowledge him or doesn’t like him or doesn’t get his light loses. I acknowledge that Jesus (who is also one of the Prophets of the ALLAH (c.c)God and also a human) and Moses have been sent by the ALLAH(c.c)God and I love them and respect them. All Muslims also think same as I do. I and all muslims respect other people religions and their holys and please respect my and all mulims religions and holys you too.

Mahir for World President now

OK, maybe Vice President

Taking the piss

The view out of my back door, 50 days after Thames Water introduced preliminary drought restrictions, including a hosepipe and sprinkler ban…

Other amusing facts relating to the current water shortage in the South East of England, aside from the fact that we've barely seen the Sun for weeks and it’s been pissing down quite a lot but that doesn’t matter because our fucking useless, but profitable, water industry only captures 5% of our copious rainfall...

• Thames Water increased its charges by 21% this year

• In the year to the end of March, operating profits at German-owned Thames Water were up 6% at £385.5m. Directors' bonuses rose from £228,000 to £615,000 last year, with total remuneration of the four executive directors up 62% at £1.26m
  
  
• Thames Water is currently losing 946m litres of water a day through leaky pipes
  
  
• Our Mayor Ken Livingstone has helpfully suggested that we don’t flush our toilets after taking a whizz
  

Of course, one could mull over the fact that our water, like many other key public services here in the UK and elsewhere, is under the control of an ever-smaller number of unaccountable multinational companies who seem to be able to gouge their customers at will.

You could even think to yourself that in the case of privately owned monopolies when they fuck up we pay for the fuck up and that, consequently, privatisation of monopolies is a really stupid thing for everyone except the new owners of the monopolies.

But me, all I can think about is the leakage figure - 946m litres per day. That’s something like 300 litres per household. I’d have to flush my toilet 30 times a day to waste that much water, whether I take a leak each time or not.

Apparently most of our pipes are over 100 years old and Thames Water has only just noticed.

And yet, in spite of everything, those profiteering jerk offs in the water industry have the brass balls to blame absolutely everyone else except themselves i.e. God and Us. Truly they are without sin and more than willing to cast the first stone, or impose the first water restrictions.

You’ve just got to love it when a large corporation, along with a compliant media, plays the environmental card to mask its own useless, but nevertheless highly lucrative, management of its business (see also – the British gas industry). Expect to see a lot more of that kind of bullshit from all sorts of industries in the very near future. It’s just so damned easy. Thanks Eco-Warriors, corrupt business just loves your arses.

But, sorry, I don't believe for one minute that having my bathroom reeking of stale urine is going to help save the planet in any meaningful way. How about having everyone do their bit by drinking a little less instead? Less water consumed plus less urine to flush away. Or maybe we could all do a 'Madonna'? I'm sure the whales and dolphins would love us for it.

The technical term for all of this is what is known in English vernacular as taking the piss – only don’t forget not to flush afterwards.

If only Thames Water would move into organised crime and the drugs business. We'd be able to disband our police force within a decade.

Key dates for your hectic social diary

Whilst on the subject of occult symbolism and fruity little secret clubs here are a couple of forthcoming events to slot into your hectic social calendar

• This year's Bilderberger meeting will be held in the Brook Street Resort, Ottawa, June 8-11 (but don’t tell anyone else – it’s a secret)
  
  
• Bohemian Grove - the last couple of weeks in July, Monte Rio, California, as usual

and if you can make it to Bohemian Grove remember to pack a large bedsheet

…. and something nice for Molech, the enormous pagan Owl God

And don’t forget to say ‘hi’ to Tony and George for me whilst you’re there

-

Out of curiousity’s sake I just fired up Google Earth to see if I could have a peek into the Bohemian Grove complex. It didn’t come as any great surprise to discover that the maps are distinctly ‘low res’ over the site, whereas just a few miles to the East I can pick out individual trees.

I’m not suggesting that the Bohemian Grove kiddies have nobbled Google Earth or anything like that, it’s just a bit of a shame, that’s all.

King of the Potato People moments

Mr Flibble's very cross. You shouldn't have run away from him.
What should we do to them, Mr Flibble?

In my previous post I mentioned that this blog is its own worst enemy in the way I mix up serious with more, er, more ‘marginal’ material

And here’s a cracking example

I like to refer to what follows as my King of the Potato People moment

-

Fans of Red Dwarf will fondly the remember the episode where Rimmer assures his crewmates that he is not insane followed by this classic exchange of dialogue

Cat: No, of course not. It's just that we thought you had gone nuts! We were tryin' to humour you.
Rimmer: I was just doing a little test -- a little test to see if you had gone crazy. If there is one thing I can't stand it's crazy people.
Lister: Well we've passed the test, Rimmer. You can let us out.
Rimmer: I can't let you out.
Lister: Why not?
Rimmer: Because the King of the Potato People won't let me…

One of the most interesting qualities of a certain category of obsessive is that they appear to be perfectly rational - right up to the point where you touch on their pet obsession. Some of the finest moments in British Comedy, and real life, are based on this.

The supreme exponent of King of the Potato People moments is, of course, David Icke. You can listen to entire chunks of his speeches where he is talking about globalist control of our political and economic systems that sound relatively well researched and lucid, and then he says…

‘Of course, it’s all controlled by blood sucking pan-dimensional space lizards who have assumed human form’

Uh, OK

per Wikipedia’s entry on Icke…

‘Icke has strongly denied that he is an anti-Semite, stressing that the Rothschilds are reptiles, not Jews.’

Er, whatever

-

I’d argue strongly that today’s obsessive is sometimes tomorrow’s visionary. Science is largely based on people collecting apparently unconnected observations and formulating an explanation that brings that data together. The process of honestly distinguishing a viable theory from a batshit one can sometimes be a lot trickier than popular culture would have us believe.

By and large, we live in a singularly uncurious age. People are certainly as cynical than they’ve ever been but it is a largely passive, unquestioning brand of cynicism.

In a previous post I referred to the form of psychosis known apophenia - the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data. To my knowledge no one has coined a term for the exact opposite form of psychosis; as in not seeing patterns or connections in ordered or meaningful data.

-

Anyway, my personal King of the Potato People obsessive thing is…

Seeing symbolic messages in architecture and street plans.

This obsession has become much trendier and altogether more mainstream since the whole Da Vinci Code thing got going. The only wee fly in the ointment thing being that virtually all of the encoded symbolism in the Da Vinci Code is bullshit. So whilst it has made my hobby trendier the Da Vinci Code has also made it appear to be crankier.

I suspect that this outcome is not entirely coincidental.

But I would, wouldn’t I.

And, going back to the anti-apophenia thing for a moment, it just baffles me how someone can walk through a cemetery and see something like this...

And not realise what it represents.

Short of painting the top purple and adding some bulbous veins I’m not sure how the symbolism could be any more blatant

I’ve just engaged in a protracted on-line discussion debating with some sceptics about whether this sort of thing is accidental or not. I even went so far as to set up a Flickr group entitled ‘Phallic Tombstones’ with the intention of populating it with as many ‘accidental’ examples of that sort of thing as I could find. It’s not a particularly large group yet, understandably people are a little bit suspicious when I invite them to submit pictures to it, but there are still some fine examples of the genre in there nevertheless.

I have also got involved in a discussion about the geometry of the Washington DC street plan, occult symbolism on dollar bills, the true identity of the Statue of Liberty and, well, all sorts.

The thing is, er, well so much of this stuff is verging on the undeniable it’s kind of interesting to see how people react to it; some people blow it off as coincidence, others as interesting but of no real significance and most just blank it out in a dissonant kind of way.

So, the fact that America is a country with occult symbols on its money, with a capital city based on a occult street plan, that wages war from a pentagon and has pentagrams plastered all over its tanks is not an interesting or significant observation?

I am, of course, clearly nuttier than David Icke on bad acid in a crocodile farm.

Anyway, the reason for this post is that a couple of posts back Antagonist switched me onto a couple of excellent 'coincidentally random' street plans, much nearer to home than DC, that tickled me pink. A quick Google search seems to indicate that they haven’t had much of an airing on the Interweb so I’d like to redress that shocking omission.

There’s Nelson’s Jolly Roger at Trafalgar Square...

And Buckingham Pyramid...

Neither of which looks anything at all like long-established occult symbols used by rich and powerful people. Nothing like these two here for example

And if anyone says you can see occult symbolism in anything if you look hard enough, I say…

9/11 and 7/7 Truth

If blogging serves only one useful purpose it is this

‘Ordinary’ people can let other ordinary people know that they are not alone in holding particular opinions about certain issues.

Take 9/11 or 7/7 for example.

If we were to just accept the mainstream media’s presentation of those events we would believe that any individual who disbelieves official accounts of those days is a marginalized nutcase.

Fortunately, we have the Internet. And even though it is heavily polluted by spooks and cooks there is still enough material out there to let those of us who doubt know that no, they’re not alone and no, they’re not mad.

And the mainstream media just hates bloggers. Not because they’re jealous of the news gathering ability of bloggers but because blogging, and the Internet in general, has robbed the media of its monopoly of the analysis of current events.

This particular blog is not a specifically political one. It is just as likely to include links to amusing things made out of Lego as criticisms of the official account of the London Bombings. Arguably, the result is that I dilute the impact of my more serious posts but, at the end of the day, it’s a stream of consciousness thing and that’s my consciousness. As a consequence, I don’t expect much in the way of readership, other than occasional visits from real or virtual chums when they’re bored.

But, novelty Lego aside, I am deadly serious about what is being done to my country and other countries in the name of the War on Terror

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My last post was a little sceptical about the latest Pentagon footage and unspecified aspects of the London Bombings.

Someone commented at the end of the post

‘I disagree with the analysis Stef, particularly over 7/7, people need to keep shouting the accused were framed so the government is forced to provide evidence, much like with the Pentagon, people kept saying there was no plane so the government had to prove them wrong. The recent 9/11 footage has done the opposite’

Now even though the commentator believes that he disagrees with my own take on things, to a large extent he does not – except in one key respect.

Americans should absolutely be pressing for ALL the footage from the Pentagon. Just as we in the UK should be pressing for ALL the footage from 7/7

What I don’t think people should be doing is putting all their eggs in one basket by committing to one particular alternative account of what happened on 9/11 or 7/7.

Personally, I think that there is much about 7/7 that points to the notion that the four bombers were duped into taking those bombs into London. They thought they were going back home. But, off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen different ways 7/7 could have been staged…

• They thought they were delivering drugs or drug money
• They thought they were taking part in a security exercise
• They weren’t even carrying any explosives and the bombs were set by someone else
• They knew they were carrying bombs but didn’t know they were going to explode
• They were recruited and manipulated in some way by an agent pretending to be a jihadist or a member of the security forces
• They really were jihadist suicide bombers and elements within the security forces knew what they were planning but did nothing to stop them

With a little more thought I could carry on like this all day. So one thing I am damned certain of is that if I had a 10 minute spot on national television to try and convince my fellow citizens of my doubts I would not commit to any one alternative account. In the deliberate absence of so much basic information and the presence of so much contradictory information about what happened that day it would be foolish to identify one possible alternate explanation as the one to stake everything on.

What I would do is present a list of outstanding questions about what happened that day and demand an independent enquiry and full disclosure. Even people who would shy away from anything that sounds like a conspiracy theory should want to support that. And, fair play to the folks behind the July 7th Truth Campaign web site they have stuck pretty much to that approach and kept their hypothesising separate from their questioning.

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Back to the Pentagon

The latest videotape is total crap.

The people who released that tape must know it’s crap. They must also know that 9/11 sceptics will be drawn to it like bees to honey. Straight away, the media started to imply that the No Plane at the Pentagon Theory lies at the heart of 9/11 scepticism. It most certainly does not. The release of this dodgy video smells to me like 9/11 sceptics are being set up for a damned good rogering, probably through the release of clearer footage in a couple of months’ time, just before the US mid term elections

Back to 7/7

On Sunday, the Sunday Times published a leaked story that MI5 withheld tapes of one of the 7/7 bombers planning the attack a few months beforehand…

MI5 is being accused of a cover-up for failing to disclose to a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers discussing the building of a bomb months before the London attacks.

MI5 had secret tape recordings of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the gang leader, talking about how to build the device and then leave the country because there would be a lot of police activity.

However, despite the recordings, MI5 allowed him to escape the net. Transcripts of the tapes were never shown to the parliamentary intelligence and security committee (ISC), which investigated the attacks.

At first sight, this seems like primo evidence of shady goings on on the part of our security services. Maybe all us sceptics should pile in and pursue this story in whatever way we can?

However, on second sight the primary purpose of this story is clearly to reinforce the larger, largely unsubstantiated, myth of four lunatic jihadists planning to visit London for a day’s shopping and suicide.

Just like the recent Pentagon video it’s a potential honey pot intended to draw people’s attention away from the key questions.

Our police and government have been pulling similar, distractive shit with the Stockwell shooting.

The only thing this story proves for certain is that either the Sunday Times, MI5 or someone else is lying through their fucking teeth. And, well, if that's the case anything goes.

Shout, ask questions, demand full disclosure but don’t be played for a fool. There are some sneaky bastards out there.

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… and thanks to Bridget for the enhanced Pentagon footage

Right, back to the novelty Lego

Honeypots at the Pentagon

Has everyone seen the new Pentagon footage from 9/11 yet?

The original video can be found here and an animated gif of the best bits (ie four frames) here

Rubbish isn’t it?

Yet, somehow, the likes of the BBC, CNN and Fox seem pretty confident that this puts a stake through the heart of 9/11 conspiracy theories once and for all

Which is kind of hard to accept unless you’re willing to believe that a man who washed out of a basic Cesna pilot’s course was able to fly a Boeing 757 two feet off the ground at 300mph and apparently operate some kind of rudimentary Star Trek style cloaking device at the same time.

Hmmm…

Actually, I have no trouble accepting that Flight 77 may have hit the Pentagon as claimed. If for no other reason than I have heard no reasonable explanation as to why the supposed conspirators would have decided to swap it for a missile or drone.

I am a Flight 77 agnostic.

I do have an a strong opinion regarding the many people chattering away on the Internet who buy into the No Plane Hit the Pentagon conspiracy theory, big time.

One of these days some non crap footage of a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon, as described by official accounts, may very well appear.

There are plenty of other, sounder, reasons to be super sceptical about what really happened on 9/11. Off the top of my head…

• the collapse of WTC7
• the stand down of the US air defence
  
• the short sales of airline stocks
• the suppressed testimony of firemen talking about secondary explosions within the Twin Towers
• magic cell phones that work at 30,000ft travelling at 400mph
• George Bush’s bizarre behaviour on the day

and many, many more

Amongst the veritable plethora of unanswered questions about that day the question of whether or not a plane hit the Pentagon is one of the shakiest on which to build a case.

If I were a professional 9/11 Conspiricist I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. That is unless the US Government insists on producing even more shonky footage.

The release of the new Pentagon video has relevance to an issue much nearer to home.

I haven’t blogged yet on the Official Narrative of the 7/7 bombings that was published last week, though plenty of others have. Suffice to say for now that it’s patent bollocks and the reluctance of our government to release any of the supposedly copious video footage of 7/7 strongly parallels the withholding of 9/11 footage.

The lesson to be learned from the shakiness of the No Plane Hit the Pentagon story is that people who smell a rat with regard to 7/7 would be well advised not to invest all their efforts and credibility on ‘honey pot’ issues that could blow up in their faces. I have a few examples in mind but... another time.

The cost of telling the Truth

Thanks to Rahid for forwarding me a link to this story from the Guardian here…

Police arrested ITV News producer Neil Garrett after he secured the sensational leak from the Stockwell shooting inquiry. Cleared earlier this month, he tells the full story

Unfortunately, the article is screened behind a compulsory registration field.

However, coincidentally, another chum is mirroring the full article on his website here…

Police arrested ITV News producer Neil Garrett after he secured the sensational leak from the Stockwell shooting inquiry. Cleared earlier this month, he tells the full story

Which arguably saves having to make up a fake registration name like Ivor Biggun or Chris P. Bacon or whatever else seems funny at the time. So, in that respect he's actually doing the Guardian a favour

Reading about the efforts some of our police are willing to go to to protect our freedoms and our well-being truly brings a tear to the eye

Edible synchronisms

A few days ago I was chatting on-line with a friend about, as I do, Jungian archetypes in the context of some of the symbolism used in Western architecture.

I look at a structure like this …

and I interpret it as a large stone phallus capped with a 220 ton pentagram, erected to convey a specific message in accordance with a very specific belief system. My friend looks at it as an archetype with no specific message.

But that’s not important right now.

Jung is particularly well-known because of his writings on the concept of synchronicity. Whilst I appreciate that I may be suffering from a mild dose of apophenia, I have to admit that I buy into the synchronicity idea.

And after chatting about Jung a few days ago I have been delighted by a series of apparent synchronisms. Trivial synchronisms admittedly but they are often the most entertaining. A couple of examples...

Take the picture of the panda-shaped spam I posted earlier. I was cruising Google for pictures of mortadella (long story) a few days ago and came across the panda image. I paused my search for a while to catch up with my inbox. The first mail I opened was a link someone had sent me to a short film entitled – ‘They’re made out of meat’.

Good one

But not a clincher

Yesterday, after I had got chatting with someone about how much I loved Colorado I uploaded a few scans of some slides I took there twenty years ago

Just as I had uploaded the last jpg my other half returned home after a short trip to Berlin. We said hello and then she started showing me some of the things she’d picked up for me on her travels. The first thing out of the bag was this…

and, no, she hadn't noticed the name when she bought them

Now come on, spooky or what?

Ask an Expert - Update

A nice piece of spin control from the BBC today in response to its staff making complete bell ends of themselves by interviewing a ‘taxi driver’ on air instead of an IT ‘expert’. In the words of a report in the Entertainment News section of the BBC website…

Mr Goma, who was wrongly identified in the press as a taxi driver, was really at the BBC for a job interview.

Well that’s alright then.

Perfectly understandable.

And two slaps on the wrist to the naughty press for getting a news story wrong. What kind of idiot would do something like that?

And bravo to the BBC for being such good sports and placing the offending interview on line. The fact that every person connected to the Internet and their pet hamster have already hosted or linked to the clip might have something to do with that decision

Mr Goma said his interview was "very short", but he was prepared to return to the airwaves and was "happy to speak about any situation".

Now there’s a good sport

They're made out of meat

They’re made out of Meat – the short story

They’re made out of Meat - the short film

"... I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise? ..."

Ask an expert

Even with the proliferation of TV channels that came with the introduction of satellite and cable TV, paid for television advertising is not particularly cheap

But there are other, more cost-effective ways to publicise your business, even on the supposedly non-commercial BBC channels. The two most popular wheezes are

1. Commission a low-cost public opinion survey and issue a press release based on its results. Fax the press release to everyone and pray that it’s a slow news day
2. Make an expert pundit available for incisive comment on current events, on the proviso that your company name gets mentioned and slapped up on screen whilst he’s talking

In my last firm we favoured Option 2 highly. We employed an economist with an impressive CV and we used to whore him around the likes of BBC News 24 and Bloomberg shamelessly. That’s not strictly true, very often they’d phone us. Twenty-four hours of television that needs filling. Day after day after day after day. I’m surprised more television researchers don’t turn postal and go into work with an assault rifle more often.

‘Can you make it? Great. I’ll send a car. Thank you. Dear God. Thank you’

The War on Terror in particular has led to a Golden Era for security and risk consultants from tuppeny hapenny firms getting onto to tele and advertising their flimsy wares by burbling government-compliant crap at 6.00 am in the morning.

The dismal quality of some of the ‘experts’ given airtime by the news channels only goes to demonstrate the ordinary public’s relative priorities when it comes to news stories. If a news channel were covering a football or a cricket story it wouldn’t dream of wheeling on some random nonentity and referring to them as an expert. Viewers wouldn't stand for it. However, virtually any other topic is fair game.

All this serves merely as a preamble for a link to the marvellous Guy Kewney interview on BBC News 24 the other day…

BBC Interviews Cab Driver

… where the BBC accidentally interviews the expert’s taxi driver rather than the expert.

I reckon they could have got away with it.

He was talking fish but his dreamy eyes were full of megadeath

I’m currently re-reading Michael Herr’s Dispatches for the umpteenth time.

Dispatches is the book about the Vietnam War in my opinion, arguably about any War the Americans have fought post 1945.

I only mention this because, and I’m not being particularly original here, it dawned on me some time ago that you could just do a search and replace on the text; replacing Saigon with Baghdad, Vietnam with Iraq and VC with insurgent, and publish it under a new name tomorrow…

Sitting in Saigon was like sitting inside the folded petals of a poisonous flower, the poison history, fucked in its root no matter how far back you wanted to run your trace....You'd stand there nailed in your tracks sometimes, no bearings and none in sight, thinking, Where the fuck am I?…

…Roof of the Rex, ground zero, men who looked like they'd been suckled by wolves, they could die right there and their jaws would work for another half-hour. This is where they asked you, 'Are you a Dove or a Hawk?' and 'Would you rather fight them here or in Pasadena?' Maybe we could beat them in Pasadena, I'd think but I wouldn't say it...

…That night I listened while a colonel explained the war in terms of protein. We were a nation of high-protein, meat-eating hunters, while the other guy just ate rice and a few grungy fish heads. We were going to club him to death with our meat; what could you say except, 'Colonel, you're insane'? It was like turning up in the middle of some black looneytune where the Duck had all the lines….

…(they had) chemicals, gases, lasers, sonic-electric ballbreakers that were still on the boards; and for back-up, deep in all their hearts, there were always the Nukes, they loved to remind you that we had some, 'right here in-country.' Once I met a colonel who had a plan to shorten the war by dropping piranha into the paddies of the North. He was talking fish but his dreamy eyes were full of mega-death...

A most recommended read. As with most decent books if you get ‘it’ you get it big time. If you don’t, fuck it, it don’t mean nuthing

Restless Natives pt2

Another weekend... another story about dead British soldiers in Basra

And as I mentioned in a previous post, no real explanation for the increasing Iraqi anger at the British presence.

After all, we are trying to do them a favour aren’t we?

Why would they be so ungrateful?

In a previous post I mentioned that one of the reasons Iraqis are upset with us is that they think coalition forces are behind some of the terrorist attacks ripping Iraq apart.

Unlike the mainstream Western media, which is curiously muted on the subject, alternative and non Western sources are airing the possibility that at least some of the bombs and killings are being arranged by our boys.

Their most common conspiracy theory comes in two basic variations

1. Ordinary Iraqi stopped at a check point. Taken into an office while his car is searched. Told to report to another police station or check point. Discovers Kinder Surprise bomb underneath car on the way.
   
2. Trainee Iraqi policeman given a mobile phone, told to get in an unmarked car and report on a demonstration. Drives to demonstration. Can’t get a signal on the phone. Leaves car to make a call. Car blows up.

I won’t bother pasting links to these stories as they are invariably phrased along the lines of ‘My brother in law in Baghdad told me that a mate of his heard that…’. Names, dates and verifiable facts are thin on the ground. That’s not to say the stories are necessarily untrue. They certainly represent a viable method to stage an apparent suicide bombing and some Iraqi, and non Iraqis, are inclined to believe them

And in the back of my mind I keep thinking about those two SAS men, at least we were told they were SAS men, caught dressed as Shia militia last year and the efforts our army went to liberate them – going so far as to demolish a police station with an APC.

And the locals went mental. And the reasons why they went mental and started lobbing fire bombs at British soldiers were faffed and obscured in the mainstream reporting of the incident.

Exciting SAS 'Basra' figurines available here. Shia militiamen uniforms, unmarked Nissan Sunny and remote controlled car bomb not included

Local Iraqi militia leaders were less reluctant to give their view on what was going on...

"What our police found in their car was very disturbing – weapons, explosives, and a remote control detonator. These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets, and thanks be to god they were stopped and countless lives were saved."

And then, a few weeks later, the regular British Army officer responsible for investigating the incident, Captain Ken Masters, was found dead in his quarters.

If there has been any follow-up to what the supposed SAS men were doing in Basra or the circumstances of Captain Masters’ death it has passed me by. I don’t know anything near enough about these events to reasonably speculate anything but the very absence of information is a concern in itself. And I say once again, whether the rumours are true or not, some Iraqis believe them and that’s why they’re so angry and yet our media is reluctant to explain what’s pissing the Iraqis off with us so much.

Why would our television and newspapers be so coy?

And why am I so interested in the possibility of ‘false flag’ terrorist attacks, unwitting suicide bombers and spooks running around pretending to be somebody else?

Well, that should be fairly obvious…