Back in Town pt2

I’m still sorting through the pictures I took in Italy earlier in the month.

They get sorted into three piles

1. Crap – (by far and way the largest)
2. Shots that might be worth cleaning up in PhotoShop
3. Crap shots that I’ll keep anyway because they amuse me or remind me of something

A selection of my recent Category 3 shots...


Exhibit A - Bottle of Pagan Man aftershave

You too can smell like a bison

Left and forgotten in a bathroom cabinet decades ago and a reminder of a time when you could sell products with slogans like ‘Brings out the Pagan in you’


Exhibit B - A photograph of my Great Grandfather’s fireplace



A reminder of a time when my ancestors took a certain devil may care attitude to the handling and storage of high explosives...

A cousin is renovating the room in the photograph and exposed the chunk of chimney directly above the fireplace. Hidden in a hole cut in one side of the chimney he found some 70-year-old coins and … half a stick of dynamite.

At least he thought it was half a stick of dynamite but he handed it to me for a second opinion. And yes, yes it was. The nitro had seeped out of it long ago (to where?) but we still got rid of the fucking thing tout suite. For some reason, I decided not to spend any time taking pictures of it

Later that day I told my mother about the find and she told me a story about someone in the village who had attempted to dry a few sacks of black powder that had got wet in the rain by putting them in front of an open fire. She pointed out where his house once stood…

She then told me another couple of stories about how challenged my Great Grandfather’s generation was by technology, including…

My Great Grandfather being astounded that you could listen to Italian broadcasts on an English made radio – ‘It can speak Italian as well as English?’

His first encounter with a telephone answering machine - ‘He said he wasn’t there but I recognised his voice’

Yet in spite of all that – the carefree attitude to firearms and explosives, the copious production of illicit alcohol, living in villages where everyone, including the village, had the same surname, and thinking that anyone who retained all ten fingers and thumbs was a bit strange – my mum still doesn’t understand why I maintain that our ancestors made Appalachian Hillbillies look like sophisticated city dwellers




Exhibit C - The front page of Liberta, the local newspaper



The reason why we were in Italy in the first place was for my nephew’s christening. And, for some reason I still haven’t got to the bottom of, the Christening made the front page of the local newspaper and a few minutes coverage on the local TV station.

Junior, a few days after being christened - definitely allergic to Church

Liberta actually covered two Christenings that day – my nephew’s and the child of a player in the Italian national football team. My nephew’s got top billing

Even better still, the story completely bollocksed up its account of my family’s history and included the memorable line...

‘in 1896 they migrated from the high Arda Valley, towards England - crossing, on foot, first the Alps, then a part of Switzerland and all of France’

Yes, that's exactly what happened

My ancestors desperately fighting their way towards England so that they could open some cafes

Exhibit D - Euro Road


Built at great expense to connect my mum’s village (Permanent Year Round Population: 2 people) with another village (Permanent Year Round Population: 8 people). I’ve spent hours walking along and around it without ever seeing a single car



And the best part is that it was built across a series of active landslips, falls down the mountain every winter and has to be resurfaced every summer. Italy is full of EU-funded shit like this. As is Ireland, Spain, Greece and God knows where else…


Exhibit E - Clock, Parma Airport

This picture includes roughly 70% of the entire floor space of Parma airport and 100% of its enormous clock

Small Airport. Big Clock

Just one question ... Why?


Er, that’s enough exhibits for now…

.

Superstars of the 70s

I’m currently sorting through and scanning a few boxes of old family photographs and amongst other things I’ve stumbled across a small cache of signed publicity photographs from that Golden Age of Entertainment - the 1970s.

My best finds so far include this picture of possibly the most unfortunately named family entertainer of all time – Wayne King…


and a splendid shot of the Fairy Godmother of British drag acts, Danny La Rue



Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, the fact that Danny spent most of his career claiming that, offstage, he was vigorously heterosexual says something about those days.

Priceless artefacts such as these need to be secured for posterity so I popped copies onto Flickr for safe-keeping where the Fairy Godmother of Flickr, shhexycorin, pointed out a spooky similarity between Danny and another well known British novelty stage act…



And it’s true, you never see them in the same place at the same time

-

And on the subject of Flickr, all connoscenti of photographic weirdness will be pleased to welcome the triumphant return of Building Crusher to the world of photosharing. It took a while but the trauma of his photos being excluded from the Godzilla photogroup because he doesn't look like Godzilla seems to have passed. Truly an individual in a world of conformity...



Any similarities between the work of Building Crusher and David Shayler are entirely coincidental.

Is it possible to love Jarvis Cocker any more than I already do?

Speaking as someone who grew up living in a flat above a shop and who spontaneously combusted on going to college and meeting rich kids for the first time I have always had a soft spot for the lyrics of Common People and Jarvis Cocker generally.

Any native Londoner who has had to listen to some pampered twot who moved into the city two minutes ago tell you how great everything is and how you shouldn't be so negative about things cannot help but warm to the lines...

'cos everybody hates a tourist
especially one who thinks
it's all such a laugh

A few years ago William Shatner released a cover of Common People complete with backing vocals by Joe Jackson.

For a moment in space-time, it was as if my own deranged personal fantasy world had interfaced with reality and been given tangible form -




It took days for me to clean myself up after first hearing it. I was spontaneously giggling in public places for months afterwards.

As for that abusing Michael Jackson thing - well, Jarvis should have been given a knighthood on the spot, even before he sobered up.

And if my own deranged personal fantasy world does ever break through into reality ever again we'll have Jarvis' face on our money.

Anyway, as proof that the old magic is still there, Jarvis has just slapped up a new DIY music video on Myspace...

Cunts are still running the World

... lyrically perfect, and if it doesn't win this year's Ivor Novello award there is no justice in this Life

Tim Ireland of bloggerheads has posted a slightly different presentation of the song...

Cunts are still running the World - the Video Game

... which gives you something to do with your hands whilst singing along to the chorus for the xhundreth time

Jarvis you're a fucking hero - don't ever change, please

Cable Street

I've just watched a cracking video clip of the Battle of Cable Street which took place 70 years ago today. The combination of period dress, vintage street violence and the clipped narration works well. There's some particularly fine baton work from horse-mounted police midway through (it's not as easy as it looks).

Depending on which way you look at it, as demonstrated by the comments at the foot of this BBC article on the anniversary, the Battle of Cable Street was either...

• a high point for the ordinary people fighting back against racist fascism

or

• suppression of the age-old British right to free speech by a violent mob

Personally, I've little doubt that Mosely was a twat and I can totally understand why some of the residents of the East End, particularly European Refugees, would have had issues with the march. But, having said that, Mosely-style fascism failed to take root in this country because British people didn't take to that sort of thing, not because some of his supporters got a good kicking one day.

It's fun to watch though.

And let's not forget that, less than three years after Cable Street, British Communists tacitly condoned the Nazi invasion of Poland because Stalin was still best mates with Hitler and told them to. So much for the Polish prolitariat, eh comrades?

My take on the Battle of Cable Street is that lots of ordinary, somewhat misguided, people - communists, fascists, refugees, and police - spent the day whacking the shit out of each other whilst the people pulling their strings sat down with their whisky and sodas and had a right old laugh.

The prospect of a few thousand people hitting each other on the head with bricks rather than hitting you on the head with bricks must be quite sublime.

And the one thing thought you must never, never, permit those ordinary people to entertain is the notion that they all basically want the same things from life and that finding common cause would not be all that difficult - if they put their minds to it and strung up a few of their leaders, and their leaders, beforehand.

Nobody thinks that they are the bad guy

After the War, the architecture of Cable Street was 'improved' by the kind of people who didn't get any bricks in their faces and it's now more of a crap hole reeking of social exclusion than it ever was.



And whilst on the subject of grainy black and white videos from Britain's Golden Age when people knew their place and old ladies could walk safely on the streets...

• George Formby connossieurs will enjoy this clip of him performing a cover of Motorhead's Ace of Spades

• Fans of London ghettoes that achieved a modicum of fame off the back of fascism sixty or seventy years ago will enjoy this classic video - The Lambeth Walk

... the story goes that Goebbels, a man who understood a thing or two about human psychology, went mental and stormed out of the cinema when he first saw it (The Lambeth Walk not the Motorhead cover). The moral of the tale being that taking the piss out of wankers in uniforms is, sometimes, far mightier than the sword. If for no other reason than they usually have bigger swords.

She'll follow you anywhere

Thanks to the person who after reading that last post emailed me a link to this handy primer on how to drink like a Russian and stay sober

Russian Blog: How to drink vodka and stay sober

The secret is, apparently, lots of raw eggs and a glass of pickle brine the morning after.

Some of the readers' comments are especially erudite and informative.

And, thanks to the power of the Internet, after I finished reading Russian Blog one click naturally led to another and I soon found myself grazing through a particularly fine collection of vintage advertising posters from more innocent, and sometimes significiantly less innocent, times here.






Weren't people silly back then. Not clever like we are now.

The great taste of Kbac!

Every now and again I get a note from a stranger who bumped into something I’ve posted on the Internet that they have taken exception to or, much more rarely, been inspired by and they drop me a line.

And my Dear Old Mum always told me that if someone takes the time to write to you it’s only fair that you should reply. But I’m kind of busy with real world issues at the moment and I’ve been putting the latest receipts to one side to be dealt with when I was kind of less busy.

Well, I’m still busy but I’ve been sitting on a few emails for almost two months now. Plus, all the pre release publicity (and publicity stunts) for the new Borat movie have reminded me of one email in particular that I haven’t yet responded to.

Look at the funny Kazakh man. This Kazakh man is
smiling because he comes from a country with some of
the largest fuel and mineral reserves in the world. And if
he's smiling now he's going to be pissing himself in a
few years time. He also happens to be Muslim.
Aren't we clever

The email is about Kvas

Kvas is the national soft drink of Russia and, I suspect, quite a few other FSU republics.

It’s primary ingredient is stale bread soaked in water which is then fermented in old plastic Fanta bottles and flavoured with whatever comes to hand – raisins, tree bark, horseradish … let your imagination run wild!


I’ve described Kvas in far from flattering terms a couple of times on the web.

In my defence, my first Kvas experience took place as part of a bizarre afternoon spent on the banks of the River Don which culminated in a group of very, very drunk people (including me) dancing in the woods to the sound of Cossack folk music blasting out from a car stereo; each of us holding half a tomato in our hands.

You would have had to be there to understand.

Taken before tomatoes were handed out and the
dancing began - Note Kvas in foreground.
And, yes, that chap on the far right is a Kazakh

The fact that Kvas is sometimes sold on roadsides from what appear to be ex-Red Army fuel bowsers doesn’t do its reputation as the drink of sophisticates any favours either


Anyway, I got this email from a guy called Vlad a couple of months ago


I thought you were kind of harsh on Kvass.

Before you dismiss my opinion and perceive my liking of Kvass as more evidence for your theory that only Russians like Kvass, you should understand that I had only lived in Russia in my childhood, up until I was 11 years old, at which point my family moved to Canada, and have been living here since then. I am now in my twenties, and am completely integrated into western culture. I have several Canadians friends whom I have offered Kvass, and I have never gotten a bad reaction from it.

As you say yourself, there are several ways of making Kvass, so perhaps your experiences with it are only negative due to a coincidence of drinking a version of kvass made from a shitty recipe? I've never tried kvass made with beets, as my family has always made it out of bread alone, and the street-vender kvass in Russia is made from bread alone as a standard. However, the stuff with beets in it does sound disgusting.

What I like about kvass is the contrast between in its taste which is mild, and yet its very strong and distinct at the same time. The semi-carbonation is a nice touch as well.

Give kvass another shot, or try a couple of different types. I'm not trying to say that your opinion is somehow wrong, but I just think that if locals here in Canada like it, your very strong words against kvass seem a little disproportional.

Thanks,

Vlad


Vlad, I’m sorry I didn’t write back to you sooner. I apologise if what passes for my sense of humour caused any offence and, yes, I will give Kvas another try – this time without being drunk to the point of nausea first and most definitely without the half tomato.

The smallest policeman in the world

I've just read The Antagonist's post about that tiny but devoted band of 'radicalised' British Islamicists who turn up right on cue to spout inflammatory horseshit whenever the government needs them to. Even though Antagonist has failed to pick up on the crucial link between the domestic war on terror and Gerry Andersen produced puppet TV series, one line did tickle me in particular

Following his outburst, Izzadeen (Trevor) was ejected from the venue by the world's smallest policeman, but not before being allowed to utter some choice words in front of the assembled crowd, cameras and microphones, thereby making sure that everyone received the full weight of the not-quite-so subliminal messages being conveyed.

Small copper. Big Mullet

Comedy-sized policemen are becoming a fairly common sight on the streets of London. I originally thought they were employed because they were handy in tunnels and inserting into one bedroom flats packed to the ceiling with dozens of underage Moldovan sex slaves (quite common hereabouts) but now that I think about it they can also provide a useful scaling option when trying to provide Bert and Ernie style visual comparisons between the Power of the State and the Muslim Menace

State smaaaaaall. Muslim Terror threat biiiiiiig.
Ernie like cookies. Ernie want rubby duckie...

Mind you, as everyone already knows, Bert was radicalized years ago...




And is it just me or did the Home Secretary before last sound just like Elmo?

Charles 'Tickle Me' Clarke

Elmo

If you are open to their message, classic children's TV puppet shows can teach you a lot more about a Life than any current affairs programming. Watch more, especially Oliver Postgate's stuff

Stand by for radicalization

I’ve got some serious issues with a word that is being bandied around a lot right now. Everyone in the media seems to be using it. Not many people seem to be defining or explaining it…

RADICALISE!!!

There’s the obvious issue that using a word like that, in the context it is being used, is the hallmark of an intellectually lazy, dumb fuckhead who finds it easier to recycle trite, meaningless, fantasy-gobshite cliches rather than discuss an issue in the manner of someone who approximates to some form of sentient being.

That sort of behaviour is to be expected.

After all, we have a long and noble tradition of writing-off anyone who is pissed off with the way our leaders behave as being an ideologically fanatical robot. It’s virtually a prerequisite for a successful war.

That kind of thinking makes it much easier to kill people (well, it’s not like they’re normal is it?) and also takes the pressure off having to worry about any minor inconsistencies in your own world view.

Anyway, I’m sure that abuse of the word ‘radicalise’ is being done to death in blogs all over the place.

I would, however, like to know more about the actual mechanics of this radicalisation of British Muslims that’s apparently going on all over the place. For some reason I’ve got this mental image of laser beams shooting out of some bearded cleric’s eyes. Or maybe they have a special headset that does it. The news coverage seems to be hinting at some irresistible, industrial-scale process but, tantalisingly, there’s no detail.

It’s a bit of a tease really.

But my biggest question about the radicalization process is

‘If so many British Muslims have been radicalized how come it's always the same couple of wallies who appear on tele and the papers every time radical Muslims are mentioned, time and time again?’

People like Trevor

and his mate, that other wally

In fact, the British mainstream media, especially the BBC, seem to be suffering from a serious case of Stingray Syndrome.

I mean the 1960’s TV puppet series not the fish

Unlike the fish, the 1960's TV puppet series promised a lot more than it delivered and didn’t pack much of a punch. The opening music was pretty damned exciting, a demented voice would scream out lines like ‘Stand by for Action!!!’ and ‘Anything can happen in the next half hour!!!’ whilst it was playing, and there were lots of short clips of things exploding and then, once the show started properly …

not very much happened at all

Even though I stood by for the specified 30 minutes I was, more often than not, cruelly disappointed.

The problem was that Stingray’s budget could only stretch to half a dozen puppets. So, the total cast for each episode consisted of the four regular characters plus two puppet extras who played the bad guys every week.

Hence lines like ‘We are a scouting party for the mighty Aquaphibian empire. Just behind us there are thousands of Aquaphibians coming to destroy you but right now you have to get by with just the two of us’

Sometimes they would wear different helmets

Even as a five year old I soon cottoned onto what was going on, got bored and started watching Star Trek and its vastly superior production values instead.

Whether or not the two bad guy puppets from Stingray, as opposed to Newsnight, were subject to any form of Islamic radicalization before turning up on set was never made clear

Prototype Puppet Radicalization Unit

Shoot a Brazilian and win a prize

‘One of the senior officers in charge on the day Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police is to be promoted.

Commander Cressida Dick is to become a deputy assistant commissioner, the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) announced on Tuesday.’

I know! Why don't we shoot him in the face!

The best quote of the day on the promotion came from our beloved Mayor Ken Livingstone

"I am particularly pleased to note the appointment of two women to the position of deputy assistant commissioner which sends out a very powerful positive signal about the development of the Met as a modern police service."

The positive signal being that it’s OK to execute an innocent man and be promoted as long as you’re a woman?

I’m all for female empowerment but this seems a trifle excessive.

Obviously the members of the Metropolitan Police Authority are big fans of the principles set out in such scholarly works as Catch 22 and LA Confidential. As in, when faced with a really embarrassing fuck up give the bozo responsible a medal or promote them and pretend they did something really clever.

It’s a winner.

"I admire you as a policeman, particularly your adherence
to violence as a necessary adjunct to the job."

Or maybe the MPA are Judge Dredd fans

Which is also more than possible.

‘Dredd is a law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future where uniformed Judges combine the powers of police, judiciary and government. Dredd and his fellow Judges are empowered to arrest, sentence and even execute criminals on the spot.’

I can remember back to a time when the Dredd comic strip was a fantasy parody of fascism. It seems more like serious mainstream journalism today.

Which is kind of ironic, given that most serious mainstream journalism today reads like a fantasy parody of fascism.

I can also remember confusing Judge Dredd with Judge Dread, the chubby white reggae star who spent his entire career singing about how very big his willy was and who, to my knowledge, didn’t execute anybody as part of his act.

But I digress

All together now…

Shave your beard if you're brown and you best salute the crown
Or they’ll do you like Brazillians and shoot your ass down