It's all happening 'round our way

Blimey. Yesterday Mr Scribbles opened the door to a DC who was investigating a series of serious crimes "in or around the area" of the Baptist Church that sits on the corner of my road. Mr Scribbles couldn't get out of the copper what the series of serious crimes were, but I'm scared anyway. I always knew that church was dodgy. I actually suspect the Pastor of it is one of them snake box men or whatever you call them, the ones you find in evangelical churches in American. On a Sunday afternoon I can hear his gabble, which goes on uninterrupted for hours, from every room in my house. I think he holds the type of sermon that tries to induce the speaking-in-tongues stuff. Although he speaks in French I think and the congregation are black, which might be quite telling if only I could be arsed to do any research.

Anyway, today I answered a very loud and desperate knock on my door to a small, smartly dressed young woman, who seemed ready to step inside as soon as I opened it. I didn't let her in, oddly, not knowing who she was and what with a series of serious events having happened on the corner of my road. She turned out to be a reporter from the Birmingham Bugle or whatever, a free rag that clutters up my porch until I can be bothered to move it into the recycling bin. She wanted my opinion on a local issue of which I have scant knowledge. Actually, she didn't want my opinion, she wanted to put words into my mouth which is not the same thing. She suggested, a few times, that this local thing was a "disgusting" state of affairs, and that all my neighbours thought so, and could she have a quote off me. I wanted to ask why if my neighbours had said it was disgusting that she had to get a quote off me, but I didn't. I suggested instead that "cynical" might be a better word than "disgusting", and couched it in terms of "they run the risk of appearing cynical" rather than an out-and-out accusation.

I'd like to say she went away happy, but I think it was the cold that eventually drove her from my doorstep. She probably thought me a miserable cow for not inviting her in.

I now feel dull apprehension at having words attributed to me in the public domain that I haven't typed up and edited myself. And I'm not at all sure I like the real world come knocking at my door and asking questions. I prefer reality presented to me in a passive way through newspapers and the telly as is custom.

The play's the thing

Reading about Howard Brenton's The Romans in Britain in last Saturday's Guardian brought back memories, not because I ever saw the play, but because I well remember studying it at university in the mid-nineties. Much was made of the controversy the play had caused in its time, and if you've ever read/seen it you'll know it is a very powerful piece of work. I seem to remember that as well as the male rape scene causing such an angry stir, the points it made about Northern Ireland were a matter for strife too, but Brenton doesn't mention this in his piece so I could be wrong.

There was a sense, when I was a student, that theatre had lost its power since then, that it was no longer a dangerous and dynamic force. What was there to be dangerous or dynamic about? The destruction of the Thatcher years were over, not that theatre had tackled that period particularly well, and there was a general sense of liberalism having won. Anything went, and even if it didn't, who was interested anymore in what theatre had to say when there were so many other mediums that were so much louder and larger and more accessible?

One of my professors was married to a Russian, and he would talk all misty-eyed about the important role theatre played there before glasnost. Actors, playwrights, producers all risking their lives to try and keep freedom of expression alive, all be it in code. Theatre was the one place where what needed to be said could be said, but it had to be careful how it said it. Something of theatre had been lost when that fight was over, so I was told, and we would never see the like in this country. We had long since won our fight.

Then last year came Bhezti and The Jerry Springer Show, both shows targeted by mobs fueled with religion and testosterone, seemingly incapable of understanding that theatre is Make Believe. They use actors and props and sets up there on that stage. It's not really a Gurdwara. It's not really baby Jesus. But no matter, Gurpreet Bhatti, the playwright of Bhezti, and her family still live under the threat of death, and death threats were also made to the owners of other theatres who wanted to take on the production after it had to be cancelled at Birmingham's Rep.

Last Sunday's Observer ran a story under the headline "playwright's attack over intimidation" about Gary Mitchell, a Protestant, who writes about loyalist communities in Northern Ireland. He is currently having to live in a secret address after his home and family were attacked and his car blown up by certain "groups" incensed at his work.

It is hard to believe that we are talking about theatre here. Not telly, not film, not books, but theatre - that outdated, middle-class, stuffy, often pseudo intellectual medium that no one bothers with these days. But in a sense theatre is the frontline in the current and growing battle between extreme religion and its insistence upon being outside of criticism, and freedom of expression. It's vulnerable in a way that other mediums aren't. Targetting TV executives and hounding authors makes for good copy, but a mob actually shutting down a live theatre production can happen in the full glare of the cameras, the violence and power of the mob witnessed in full, and the affects immediate and total.

And yet theatre also has a strength that few other mediums do. It is not tied to realism in the same way that TV and film are. It can and often does talk in an obscure language that allows many things to be said without directly saying anything. Rather than using Gurdwaras and baby Jesus, theatre can make up its own world, and if some people just happen to draw parallels, well, that can't be helped. You would have thought that in Britain in 2006 there would be no need to talk in Soviet-style code about religion. But clearly there is, and today is an important day in deciding just how this country's core values stand up to the demands of the intolerant religious.

Mr Shakespeare told us that the purpose of theatre was, as t'were, to hold a mirror up to life. Some members of the religious community can't stand to look in that mirror. People of the Theatre, you wanted a fight; I give you the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

Time Cops

I watched ITV's "Lewis" tonight more out of curiosity than anything else. I wanted to know how they would do it; carry on "Morse" without Morse. It was almost all there; the honey-coloured buildings, the high violin chords, the posh people killing each other, the incomprehensible plot, and of course Kevin Whately.

But he woz missed woz Morse. I've watched the occasional repeat of "Morse" on a Saturday afternoon of late and part of what made the series so watchable was John Thaw. You could spend hours tracing around those deep lines on his face, or staring into those eyes, too beautiful a shade of blue to be in such a craggy miserable face. And his voice. You could listen to that voice for an eternity, imbibed as it was with the same melancholy that pervaded his whole character.

Neither Whately's, nor his new sidekick Laurence Fox's, face have the same hypnotic affect. And neither did I quite get Fox's character. He didn't feel fully fleshed out, and not much of an interesting compliment to Whately's character.

But what was interesting was the slight sense of time travel. Whately, sorry, Lewis, has been away for five years and in that time he finds things have changed. And so do we. It was slightly surreal to have mobile phones and hoodies mixed in amongst classic Morse motifs. A disconcerting mix of the old familiar with the new.

In that sense it reminded me of the new series "Life On Mars", but it suffered by comparison because "Life On Mars" is quite simply the best new TV prog that has come to TV in a long time. John Simm and Philip Glenister have created the best cop buddies since "Starsky and Hutch" (yes, by God, THAT good). Simm's ability to convince of his character's unreality and Glenister's unbeatable skill in delivering a line make thrilling telly. And if they both weren't thrilling enough, which quite frankly for me they are, then there's a script that has you laughing out loud one minute and then hiding behind the sofa the next. The first time the little girl stepped out of the telly from the Test Card with her clown doll and hounded Simm into a corner, I wanted to run out of the room screaming.

And of course there is something of "The Sweeney" about the 1970s cop world Simm has found himself transported back to. Bet Glenister watched a few tapes of Thaw in that before he went into rehearsal.




Gratuitous photo of "thrilling" Gene and Sam

Spooky!

Had to document this...

Last Thursday night, lying in the bath trying to relax, I heard something slap onto the bathroom floor. I look over the rim of my bath and see my "Flash Bathroom Wipes" sitting on the bathroom tiles. Slightly odd. I could have sworn they were on the set of metal shelves just behind me. In order to fall on the floor they would have had to have leapt an inch high ledge. But no matter. I could've put them somewhere else for a change and they just slid off something.

Then, later that same night I'm in bed trying to sleep, as you do, when there's this almighty clatter across the room. I sit up and through the dim street-light filtering in through the curtains I can see that the lamp is no longer on top of the TV. Lamp silhouette cannot be seen. I turn over and carry on trying to go to sleep. The next morning the lamp is discovered lying boldly on the bedroom floor.

Now, the "Flash Bathroom Wipes" can possibly be explained, but just how does a lamp sitting squat on a flat surface fall off that surface without some force moving it?

I fear my poltergeist is back...

One Person Can Make A Difference

The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year, you may or may not know, is One Person Can Make a Difference:

"During the years of the Holocaust everyone had to make moral choices. Some people became perpetrators, others were bystanders. A small minority chose to help the persecuted, these are the rescuers and helpers. This was an extraordinary selfless choice. It meant risking not only their own lives but the lives of their own family and children. Many paid with their lives... Each chose to defy the power of the Nazis and their collaborators mostly single-handedly... they showed the power of the individual and provided hope in otherwise hopeless circumstances by demonstrating the importance of moral courage in action.

... there were courageous people... found in every Nazi-occupied country and... drawn from all walks of life. What is clear is that most of these people were very ordinary people, making individual choices of conscience. Their actions demonstrated that true heroes are often just ordinary people acting on their convictions."

It is easy to say that everyone, given the right circumstances, could become perpetrators in crimes against humanity, but that is to forget the ones - in Nazi Germany and elsewhere - who at great risk to themselves chose to decline the invitation. It is also to deny that the perpetrators made a moral choice. By saying that their actions were understandable or even inevitable given the circumstances, we affectively absolve them of their crime. I don't feel we should do that.

Tonight I'm lighting a candle to burn through the night just as a way of holding a thought for all those effected by the Holocaust. I know this might be seen as excess of feeling from someone who is not a Jew, not a gypsy, and has no other true affiliation with those persecuted by the Nazis, but I don't care. The Holocaust remains for me the greatest crime against humanity this world has ever seen, and I want to mark a personal feeling of deep sadness that people were ever made to suffer so.

Simon Hughes: When Lib Dems go bad.

“I have always taken the view that somebody’s sexuality should not be of great significance in the public domain. It is a private matter." Says Simon Hughes MP in his interview in The Sun.

Always taken the view, Mr Hughes?

What, even in the Bermondsey by-election of 1983, when you ran a notoriously nasty homophobic campaign against Labour candidate Peter Tatchell?

Odd that you decided to apologise for that campaign (Simon Hughes - "The Straight Choice") just two days ago. Can't think what prompted that.

No, not always taken the view that people's sexuality have no place in the "public domain" have we, Mr Hughes? Only when it serves your own purposes.

How very noble.

Knew it!

I'm an Audi TT!

You're not the fastest, nor the most nimble,

but you're cute and you have style.

You're not intensely competitive,

but when you pass by, everyone turns to look.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

From, where else, Normblog.

It's not very pretty I tell thee*

Sonny and Cher 2006?

* "I Predict A Riot" by the Kaiser Chiefs

I can't believe once you and me did sex*

I don't know, you get to 33 years of age and you think you have a good grip on the way the world works, but then you do something as innocent as read the Guardian leader and a new world is revealed in all its shocking nakedness:

"Mark Oaten is not the first politician to be brought down by a sex scandal and he will certainly not be the last. Nor do politicians - or even men - have any monopoly on human frailty, especially now that the internet, apparently instrumental in Mr Oaten's fall, has made so many forms of sexual temptation far more accessible than they have ever been. Politicians are no stronger or weaker than anyone else in the face of this ever expanding sexual marketplace. Journalists and even priests can just as easily fall victim too. For these reasons, much of what will be written and said about the shaming of the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman this weekend can safely be dismissed as humbug."

Little did I guess all these years that all men - even journalists and priests, by God! - are in a perpetual battle against being "weak" and falling prey to the "ever expanding sexual marketplace."

Blimey! Talk about human frailty. I look around me and where I used to see committed and happy male partners and husbands, I now see tormented warriors bravely fighting daily battles against looking up dirty things on the internet and running off down the local brothel.

Eeewwww. You're all filthy and I think you should be banned.

* "Everyday I Love You Less and Less" by the Kaiser Chiefs.

Mark Oaten. When Lib Dems go bad.

Oh Me God! Labour picked the right week to put prostitution in the news.

A debate has raged in the Scribbles' household as to whether or not a man who has been found to have inappropriately dangled his dinglies, should automatically be expected to resign from front-bench politics. Mr Scribbles says a resounding Yes. But I'm more Yes and No. Should an inappropriate dangle mean the end of a useful political career? - No, not necessarily; it depends. However, should a man who paid a prostitute for sex be expected to resign from front-bench politics? My answer then is Yes. All rights to high political status denied. Please report to your superior and hand over your badge and gun.

As to whether Mark Oaten should be allowed to remain an MP, that, I believe, is up to his constituents.

But they might want to reflect a little upon what he had to say on the recently proposed strategy for tackling prostitution by the government. At least now we understand a little better why Mr Oaten was so in favour of 'managed zones' (see, "Prostitution Strategy Missed An Opportunity"). He might have said his proposals were for the benefit of the prostitutes, but I'm thinking we might have more than a little justification for wondering were he not thinking more of the punters. One might even say he had a conflict of interests - why would he want a successful policy on tackling prostitution when it was such a source of obvious pleasure to him?

But is there even more drama to come from the Lib Dems? Over at Mikey's Tent of Reality (via Britblog roundup) we have this:

"One more thing: recent Popbitch gossip concerns a "Lib Dem wannabe leader" who "used to be a regular visitor to a brothel in Paddington where he used to pay girls". Oaten's perverted practices allegedly took place in South London and involved young men. And even the Sky News presenter inadvertently commented last night that he initially thought the News of the World revelations were about someone else. Is there more Lib Dem filth yet to come out?"

Blimey, it's like the boiling political cauldron of ancient Rome or something. Which reminds me - very funny joke from my mom and dad's MP:

Q: What have Charles Kennedy and Julius Caesar got in common?
A: They've both been stabbed in the back by men in sandals.

And seen as how Mark Oaten is so into humiliation someone should come up with a few jokes just for him. Something about sowing wild oatens. Or something.

Prostitution: Intolerable

Oh Lordy, I can just imagine the types of hits I'm going to get with a headline like that. But it is in the news.

Prostitution, ladies and gentlemen, is the oldest profession. It's always been with us and it always will be. Some women like it and become a prostitute through choice.

Bollocks to that. Bollocks to all of that. Bollocks to all of that lazy thinking and pseudo liberalism and complete and utter lack of compassion for the women who have been brought so low as to sell their own bodies.

The oldest profession - Profession? Forgive me, but I don't remember it being one of the options put forward by my career advisor at school, as far as I know there are no college or university courses for this "profession", and unless I'm very much out of the zeitgeist, there is not much social status to be gained by earning your living giving men hand-shandies and blow jobs either, so by what definition is it a profession?

There's always been prostitution and there always will be - There's also always been murder, poverty, bigotry, robbery, paedophilia. Do we shrug our shoulders at those? No. We don't.

Some women choose to become a prostitute and like doing it - I can only wonder what has happened in a woman's life if she makes such a choice, and if she can find such a dangerous and degrading job enjoyable. And don't talk to me of advantages such as flexible hours and good money. Burglary offers the same advantages to men, but I don't see anyone wanting a tolerance zone for burglars.

And oh yes, the wonderful idea of "the tolerance zone". Ask the people of Balsall Heath in Birmingham what they think of tolerance zones. They lived for years in a red light district that, day and night, resembled something like the famous streets in Amsterdam. To anybody who thinks that tolerance zones create a safe little cottage industry for the local prozzies, then you only have to look at what happened there. As soon as it was known in the criminal world that the area "tolerated" prostitution it became the place to be for every pimp and punter and druggie in the entire country. Prostitutes were bussed in from as far away as Liverpool, drug dealers set up residence, and every perve in a twenty mile radius dogged the streets day-in day-out.

How would you fancy living in an area like that? Let me tell you, it's not nice. One day the good people of Balsall Heath decided enough was enough and they started on a concerted campaign to clear the area. Their campaign was a great success, but because such a huge concentration of criminal activity was being displaced that crime spread outwards to other areas, who in turn had to organise their own clean-up campaigns.

Eventually it reached my own neck of the woods. It seemed for a long while that everybody tolerated it, the police as well as the residents. But let me tell you what you have to tolerate. Seeing sick looking women, some of them very young, standing on the corner of your street in next-to-nothing shivering in the rain and the freezing cold. Sorry, for their sake, I don't see why that should be tolerated. Two or more women, drunk or drugged, shouting at school kids on their way home from school. Sorry, I don't see why that should be tolerated. Lone women walking down the shops, standing in a Bus Stop, walking her toddler home from playschool, becoming a target for men in cars after sex. Sorry, I don't see why that should be tolerated. Drug related crime going up in the area. Sorry, I don't see why that should be tolerated. The whole area becoming a no-go-zone after dark for local residents. Sorry, I don't see why that should be tolerated.

I joined the local Street Watch campaign and was active in it for maybe a year. Eventually I left because the only thing we were ever capable of doing was moving the prostitutes on (for an hour or two anyway), even though our role was supposed to be to log down the registration numbers of kerb crawlers. Some of the girls were so young and so in need of help rather than more harassment that it played on my conscience too much. I'll never forget the young small blonde girl, fifteen years old, who was a runaway from a children's home and was being pimped out by her own brothers. And I'll never understand how that kind if abuse can carry on right under the noses of the police (they knew who she was and what she was doing) in a supposably civilised country like this.

And for those of you who would like to argue that for the sake of that young girl tolerance zones should be set up, away from residential areas if need be, to keep her safe, then let me ask you something - why should we be falling over ourselves to give into the depraved desires of men who are so psychologically ill that they can get sexual pleasure from children, drug addicts, and the abused and degraded? Why? Why must we provide a whole "industry" of women for these complete and utter sickos? Instead of trying to find a safe way to serve up a daily offering of females to these degenerates, we should be fighting tooth-and-nail to keep women away from these beasts. What the hell does it say about us as a society, what kind of culture are we helping to create, when we let women suffer, no, more than that, when we SUPPORT their suffering, because we think that every man's degraded sexual appetite should be catered for. Why don't we ever question ourselves on this?

And let's not forget, teenage females are not as low as it gets. Some men also go for little boys and girls. If we are going to do this, then shall we start offering up pre-pubescent kids too? After all, we'd only be driving paedophilia further "underground" if we don't keep it where we can see it.

And if none of the above has convinced you I'm right - if you still think that we should support women to live a dangerous and degrading life so that men get the ejaculation they demand - then here's another question for you. How would you feel about your mother being a prostitute? Your sister? Your daughter? Over half of all prostitutes started selling their bodies when they were a teenager. Would you like your daughter's career adviser to offer her a job of pleasuring up to twenty men a day for a living?

If the answer to all the above is no, then you have no right, absolutely no right, to say that it is okay for any other woman to earn her living this way.

Hate mail to the usual address.

The Omen

I watched The Omen the other night. It's one of those films I can watch over and over.

I wasn't old enough to have gone to the pictures to watch it, but it managed to have a big enough impact on my life that I remember an adolescence themed with the idea of the devil incarnate turning up in West Bromwich. Kids would regularly accuse someone of being the anti-Christ, we'd periodically write 666 on each other with biro, and to protect ourselves from the might of some ungodly power (mothers; a teacher) we'd put out our index fingers in the shape of a cross and hiss. The only part of the Bible I ever read of my own accord was The Book of Revelations. I don't think I got it, but it had atmosphere.

And so does the film. It has a sort of creeping sense of foreboding. The dialogue is sparse and the story is told in a sequence of well placed key scenes which move things forward effortlessly. When it comes, the gore, which punctuates the film unobtrusively, is truly shocking because it's not been cheapened by a plot which exists soley to showpiece that gore. And by the time Gregory Peck finally accepts that his son is the Devil and has to die, you are right there with him shouting him on.

I'm sure I read a while back that they are doing a re-make. If they set it in modern times they'd have to make a lot of changes. I doubt they'd let the Lee Remick character be just a devout and caring wife. She'd probably have to be some High Flying Lawyer or some-such. And we couldn't have her be so in the dark either. She'd have to have as much to do with things as Mr Peck, and we'd have to chart her progress of belief that her son is the spawn of the Devil too, which would mess things up a bit. And these days would we believe that a politician would trust so readily in a journo? Er, no. And do the rich and powerful people just let a nanny come in and take over Billie Whitelaw fashion these days? I think even the political elite take a bit more notice of their kids these days.

And all subtlety would be gone in a re-make. Film-makers these days seem to need to get the characters to periodically explain what's going on to the audience. At some point they'd have to stick in a scene in which the Gregory Peck character sits his wife down and says something like; "You're not going to believe this, but..."

And can you imagine The Special Effects? Because they'd have to chuck in a load of those wouldn't they? I can imagine red glowing eyes, talking dogs, and exploding buildings.

I'm hating it already. But I suppose if it brings another generation of kids up to get all excited about the coming of The End of the World, then it won't be all bad.

cooking tip

Garlic porridge does not work.

Does Gordon Brown read this blog?

Brown: Remembrance Sunday should become 'British Day'.

I seem to remember advocating a while back that if we want to celebrate Britishness then we should forget all that patron saint nonsense, because the best of British can be seen when we celebrate knocking those Nazis into a cock-a-hoop.

Of course, we might be open to criticism of anti-Germanism, but I think we've all grown-up enough now to think of the deeds of the Second World War as something that was perpetrated by Nazi Germany. I don't mean to speak for the whole of Europe (for a change), but I don't think anyone sees modern day Germany through the lens of that period in time. Piers Morgan excepting.

And, after all, the American "Independence Day" celebrates getting rid of us, and that doesn't seem to have harmed international relations. The idea should be to concentrate on the core values of the nation in a positive sense, and I think it's a good one.

Not sure on all this flag-in-the-garden business though. Nothing personal against American citizens who do this, but when when I was in America I found it quite creepy.

Update:

Do the people at the The Observer read this blog?

All this Britishness just a trifle un-British.

I seem to remember pointing out a while back that it doesn't do to brag, and that what people often interpret as an embarrassed silence is actually a quiet confidence in who we are and what we stand for.

So how to have a day that celebrates the best of British, when one of our national traits is not to make a big deal of things? We seem to be up for celebrating important British military victories (as in Trafalgar Day last year) or British sporting achievements (winning the Olympic bid), but how do you celebrate abstract ideas without some event to framework them?

Answers on a postcard please (and make it a dirty postcard from a suitably shabby seaside town).

Jodie Marsh: Bullied

Blimey. I'm agreeing wholeheartedly with Germaine Greer.

Jodie Marsh is the subject of the most vicious piece of bullying I have ever seen on the programme. It's textbook. The Bullies have got her so utterly and completely cornered that the girl has absolutely no chance of escape. Her habits are no worse than any of the rest of the group, and yet at every turn she is criticised. If she tries to defend herself, she is told to shut up, and that one of her faults is that she doesn't listen. When she cries she is called manipulative, but when she fights back and makes Barrymore cry, she's told she should be ashamed of herself. When she makes a friendship, the girl is pulled away from her, and she is told that she is a bad influence, that nasty girls like her should not mix with "angels" like Chantelle.

And the power of The Bullies (the Three Uglies - Burns, Galloway, Barrymore) is such that not only are people cowered from speaking in her defence, but they join in with the assault - anything in order that the guns are not turned on them. Because whilst Jodi is getting it with both barrels then they are not, and that's all that matters.

And as for Jodie. Greer gets it exactly when she says that "she can think clearly and express herself exactly." Even whilst the hate and aggression is being levelled at her by a group of slavering henchmen, she argues with reason and a calmness that quite frankly I doubt I could muster. In fact, no doubt about it, I would not be handling this as well as she is.

And the saddest thing is that this is so typical of human nature. Who has not seen this scenario played out in real life, in the playground, in the office, in the family living room? No doubt everyone has their reasons for allowing such bloodletting to take place before their very own eyes. Perhaps they argue to themselves that it's none of their business. Perhaps they tell themselves that Jodie Marsh really is the devil incarnate and deserving of every bit of hatred fired her way. Perhaps they kid themselves that the bullying isn't as bad as it seems, and even not really bullying at all. Perhaps they are incapable of empathy and what happens to another human being has no affect upon them. Perhaps they cannot think for themselves and if some plastic-surgery monstrosity in a gorrilla fur jacket tells them to hate somone, they cannot help themselves. Or perhaps they are just cowards.

And what is really depressing is that if someone did stand up for Jodie, and if they did it in such as fashion as to get the guns turned on them, then in all probability Jodie would slink away and leave them to it. That's no judgment on Jodie. That is, as far as I have personally witnessed and experienced, just what seems to happen.

Sometimes I don't like being a member of the Human Race.

Update:

Anybody who watched Jodie's eviction last night can be in little doubt that that is a woman seriously depressed by her experience.

My prediction of what will happen in the BB house now - The Three Uglies will play nice. It will be important to them for it appear as if all the tension was caused by Jodie. But I don't think they'll be able to help themselves. Especially monkey-coat man. He's probably already sizing up his next victim.

George the pussy

Oh. My. God.

Following on from George and Rula's nice little chat about how loved Saddam Hussein was by the ordinary Iraqis, we now have George and Rula play acting animals to one and other. Tonight, George pretended to be a cat whilst Rula fed and petted him, at one point stroking his moustache to "wipe the cream off." This made George purrrrr.

Now, Rula is (was) an actress. Actors are used to making an arse of themselves in this way. This is how actors train - be a monkey, be an elephant, move with the energy of a jellyfish. As a drama student I suffered this type of thing on an almost daily basis. But a British MP? They just should not be seen humiliating themselves in this way. They should keep that sort of behaviour to the confines of their private clubs with favourite mistresses where it belongs.

Entertaining though. Someone give the pair their own show.

And bravo to the man behind the voice of Big Brother who gave George a "telling off" for breaking BB rules. He quivered not a jot. Unlike the American senate.

Flat Pack

Dear Argos,

You asked for feedback on the assembly instructions sheet for product FR4546, so I thought I'd make a few points.

Your diagrams on how to use the "cam" made no sense at all. The objects in the pictures didn't relate in any way to the bits I had in the plastic bag. It looked more like a depiction of an alien spaceship firing rockets at the surface of a planet, which helps not at all in making a bedside cabinet.

Don't use technical terms like "cam". I'm not an engineer.

Why must you call the assembly parts by strange code sequences to which I have to keep referring to an index to decipher? Why not call them what they are? Big screw, little screw, wooden peg, round metal bit with hole in it, etc.

There was no M4546 code printed on one of the T56567s like you said.

I had two big screws left over and one wooden peg, and yet every orifice of the cabinet was filled. This will keep me awake at night.

I must say however that the finished product is very sturdy and looks very good in my boudoir. And I now have three more drawers in which to keep things that I do not need and will never use again.

Thank you for your attention.

Mrs Scribbles

Funny Blonde Joke!

From To the Tooting Station, the best blonde joke ever.

Big Brother: surreal isn't the word

Did anybody watch Big Brother tonight?

I only just caught it, but I'm sure I heard George Galloway trying to tell Rula Lenska that the people of Iraq did not hate Saddam Hussein, and that this has now become obvious. I mean, does he really actually believe this?

And I must say that Rula disappointed in her response. "And is there anybody to replace him?" she asked, seemingly upset that such a beloved leader had been removed. And they're calling Jodie Marsh the stupid one.

Jodie meanwhile is being bullied by a sicko that wears the fur of endangered species and a sicko whose only emotion when a young man died a violent death in his home was self-pity. I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm feeling quite protective of Jodie. I hope she gives them hell.

That woman who slept with Sven? I can't figure out her accent. It ranges from west country, to Basildon, to the American south. Hope she keeps up her typing skills because her "career" in celebville won't last long. She has no obvious personality and her type of beauty won't hold. She's not got many more years before the frump monster comes and takes it away.

Rodney, that basketball player. I only know he spat on the carpet and peed in the sink. This does not endear me to him.

Final word goes on the nasty piece of work that is Barrymore: I see emptiness where there should be a soul.

Cats Are Great

From Nazis to cats. Don't you just love blogs?

Anyone in the Birmingham area want to take on a stray cat? She's knocking around some flats just off the Broad Street area and is obviously a bit lost and underfed. She's short-haired, a mix of black, tan and ginger, and very, very friendly.

My own thoughts are that the owners put the cat out when she was too young (she looks less than six months to me) and she can't find her way home. Enquiries in the area have drawn a blank, the RSPCA won't take healthy cats, none of the other cat organisations have places for her, and my friend who found her and who is currently fostering her, can't take on a cat.

E-mail me if you can help. And just think, one day she might end up saving your life.

Menschlichkeit macht frei

I've not been well this past week, but despite my shot-to-pieces concentration levels I've been working my way through 2005 Blogged: Dispatches from the blogosphere. I think Tim Worstall did the blogosphere proud. You get a real feel for the broad scope of the medium, the quality of its writing, and the originality of its thinking.

I'm already happily acquainted with some of the bloggers in the book, but there are loads more I'm going to check out when health permits. As a blogger, I got the itch to reply to several of the posts, but of course that's not possible, what with it being a book an' all. One post however resonated with particular thoughts I've been having lately. Arbeit macht frie (scroll down) by "Naked Blog". There's something atmospheric about the post, something darkly human. And it's very thought provoking.

"Arbeit macht frie" is the famous sign that still hangs over one of the gates into Auschwitz that translates as "work makes you free". Naked Blog's post is about his thoughts after attending the Holocaust Memorial in London last year. It raises a few points, but I wanted to respond to Naked Blog's sentiment that "the horror is in us all - in you, not just in 'them' - waiting to choose its moment, its charismatic leader and its identifiable victims."

I've often wondered if this is true. Under the right circumstances are we all capable of murder, torture, violence?

Last week saw Derren Brown's latest wtf experiment The Heist. He took a group of middle-management men and women and through the power of suggestion got them to do an armed robbery. On the basis of that, it would suggest that, yes, we're all capable of deviant behaviour if someone messes with our head in just the right way. But. Thousands of people were screened out before the group of middle-managers were carefully picked. Then of the large group of people who went through Brown's two day head-fug seminar, only four were picked for further head-fugging in order to prepare them for committing armed robbery. Then only three of the four middle-managers actually went through with the heist. And they knew they were not wielding a real gun.

My point is not to try and argue that Derren Brown is crap. I wouldn't do that. The man scares the hell out of me. My point is that not even Derren Brown could mind-fug everybody into doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do. Not even Derren Brown.

But what if you were worked on for more than two weeks? What if you had a life-time of social conditioning and then a figurehead comes along and says all the right things at the right time? If I were alive in 1930s Germany, could I have become a Nazi?

Impossible to say of course, because essentially what that question really asks is what would I do if I were someone else - which is pretty unanswerable, is it not?

But, I do know this. Not every German became a Nazi.

Not everyone walks along to the beat of the loudest drum. Some people have minds of their own and a conscience that dictates another message to the one being popularly spouted and commonly followed.

I grew up regularly hearing black people being referred to as nig-nogs and Asians as pakis. And yet from the moment I could reasonably string a sentence together I'd argue with anyone who wanted to say such things in my presence. I obviously wouldn't have known about racism at first, but I knew nastiness when I heard it. Then as the years progressed I did come to understand about racism and no one, but no one, got away with racial nastiness in my presence. Most of the bigots in my life were relatives. Family gatherings in my teens were great a laugh, as you can imagine. They would all start very cordially, but then Aunty M would have one glass of Asti Spumanti too many and - casting a sly look in my direction - she'd start on the blacks and the pakis. I'd raise to the bait, because not only did these people hold these views, but they also wanted to antagonise a teenage girl with them.

Now, there are several reasons that I can think of as to why I didn't become a bigot, despite the regular airing of nastiness i was subjected to. Firstly, my parents aren't racist, and they had the most influence on me. Secondly I went to two good schools, my primary school being slightly hippyish (it was the 70s) and my High School education given mostly by teachers of a socialist bent. I can't remember any racism at either school. Both schools had a sizable portion of black and Asian kids, and I had good black and Asian buddies. When you put it like that actually, it looks like I can't take credit for not turning into a bigot at all. But I do believe there was a large element of choice in how I turned out, and I do believe I chose not to be a bigot.

And not only did I choose not to be a bigot, I chose to speak out against bigots. At those faintly disturbing family gatherings, I was the only one who would argue with them. Someone might try and make a joke of it all, to lighten the atmosphere, others might quietly agree with my points, sometimes if I had stormed off wound-up to the point of tears with the antagonism aimed at me in the name of others, someone would come and tell me they agreed with everything I said.

But I was the only one who ever spoke out. And my parents, who disliked what was being said I guess as much as I did, were embarrassed by my behaviour and not that of the bigoted adults.

But perhaps it was my brother who disappointed most of all. It was sometimes not only blacks and the pakis who got it, but gay people as well. The poofs. The ones who did all those disgusting and unnatural things. I fired back against these hate tirades too, but my brother who was a lot older than me and probably knew then that he was gay - although I didn't - remained silent.

And that, I think, is my answer to Naked Blog's assertion that all of us have the horror in us. We don't, I believe. When feminists used to say that all men were rapists, it used to cause outrage. But when someone says we are all killers, everyone shrugs their shoulders and nods. We aren't. We aren't all capable of committing horrific acts. Some people are. Some remain silent. Some people make a stand.

Bad things happen when good people let them. Twas ever thus.

I suppose I could be accused of being a politically correct lefty. Know all the right things to say don't I, me? Proper educated, liberal, middle-classish, white girl. I love all them blacks, pakis, gays, lesbos, gypos, Jews, cripples. Very right on. But I don't really feel a word of it, do I?

Wrong. Feeling and wanting to express a common sense of humanity and the essential goodness of people makes does not mean you are a vacuous do-gooder. I find myself incapable of hating a whole swathe of this world's populace just because they fall into some random category. I've said it before on this blog, and I'll have cause to say it again no doubt, the lines across this world are not drawn by race, culture, geography, sexuality, religion, or gender. The front line is between those who want to live in peace and those who want to hate.

I essentially believe we all have a choice. The German who stood guard over the the naked lines of Jews going into the gas chambers, made a choice. The Muslim who strapped explosives around himself and blew up a London bus, made a choice. To say that they didn't, that they are somehow merely victims of circumstances that could at one time or another grab us too, is an insult driven into the very core of humanity.

Life is not simple. In the complexity of the world we live in, it's not always possible to be good all the time. In extreme conditions we might find ourselves capable of doing things that otherwise we may never have done. But it does not follow that we all have the horror in us. It does not follow. Who can hold their hand on their heart and say that they would never do the same? I can. Many can. Menschlichkeit macht frei.

On Charles Kennedy and the Lib Dems

This exactly.

Serves You Bloody Right!

The Where's our MP? post at Harry's Place got little sympathy for me.

Now his constituents are saying he's abandoned his responsibilities, now they are saying he sets a bad example to (Muslim) children, now they are saying they are disappointed. For Christ's sake, it's been bleedin' obvious to the rest of the country from the day the man got voted in that he doesn't give a rat's eye for his MP duties, much less for the people he's supposed to represent and help.

For all of those in Bethnal Green and Bow who voted for this individual - you've got exactly what you deserved. He played you like a pipe and you've served your purpose nicely, thanks.

My sympathy for those who didn't vote for him.

Dear God, NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Before entering the house, teetotal Galloway, who is MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said the show would be a "chance to show a large and different audience what I'm really like".

Bollocks.

Why is he doing this? Why? Why?

Personality disorder? Mental breakdown? Mid-life crisis?

This is not my universe. This is not my reality.

Scribbles recommends...

"Employment" by the Kaiser Chiefs.

An album so good there seems no point in any other band in this world bothering to exist.

David Cameron. Fraudster and Hypocrite.

I was half-asleep, but my ears pricked up with something Teresa May said this morning on the Today Programme. Apparently David Cameron put an advert in the Sunday Telegraph outlining what the Tory party stands for now. For this week at least they intend to "stand up to business".

When May was pressed to give an example of exactly what this means, she waffled for a while until she remembered what it was she was supposed to say, which was something about the work-life balance, in particular flexible working hours for carers and families of young children.

But hang on. Cameron voted against the following Labour proposals:

Extended maternity leave up to 26 weeks
Raised maternity pay
Two weeks' paid leave for fathers and adoptive parents
The right of parents of young or disabled children to request flexible working hours

Hmmm. So what are we to make of this change of heart? Has Cameron suddenly combusted into a compassionate conservative? Was it his nasty right-wing friends who bullied him before into voting for things he didn't believe in, but now he's boss the caring-sharing-touchy-feely Cameron has broken free?

No. Let's not kid ourselves. The man's a fraud and a hypocrite. He's trying to slime his way onto the middle ground in politics by trying to say all the right things to the right people without meaning a stinking word of it.

Welcome to the new Tory party, people. Everything they were before only more so.

Helen Grays's Diary

New Year's Resolutions

I WILL NOT

Smoke.

Obsess over Doctor Who as pathetic to have crush on TV character in manner of teenager.

Switch on computer until all housework done and necessary phonecalls made.

Think uncharitable thoughts about certain members of family.

Hold grudges.

Take piss out of Lib Dems so often.

Say "fuck off wanker" every time George Galloway appears on the telly, but instead be poised and cool ice-queen and offer intelligent rebuttal of points he makes.

Sulk about not being able to afford to go on holiday, but spend time developing routine of spiritual, emotional and physical well-being so that always feel like on holiday.

Buy shoes that hurt to walk in.


I WILL

Practice yoga daily and use when stressed instead of emergency Silk Cut.

Go out and drink more.

Not obsess over David Tennant.

Eat five portions of fresh fruit and veg a day.

If not five then at least four or three.

Be more positive when leave house and stop thinking that am going to get stabbed with screwdriver by hoodie or blown-up by al-Qaeda.

Do washing-up as soon as eaten and not leave things in sink to "soak".

Get up straight away when wake up in mornings.

Write wittier and more insightful blog posts with no spelling mistakes on important and interesting world affairs (start tomorrow).

Get grown up hairstyle.

Visit parents more often.

If not visit, then phone.

Keep on top of housework always, so that can spend more time doing artful things such as charcoal sketches of cats and reading Dostoyevsky.

Write 2000 words a day of own book and submit for rejections by end of summer.

Not keep talking about blogosphere to people who don't know what it is and are not interested.

Develop inner poise and stop getting so annoyed with world.