A belated 'Get Well Soon' to a man who has done just that

I've been dipping in and out Stuart Maconie's musical memoir 'Cider With Roadies', and so last Saturday I was in a Halifax reading how he first came across The Smith's.... and in a sort of non-connection (since I don't hold with the view that the fate of the world lies in my reading habits) the next news I heard was that Morrissey had collapsed while performing in Swindon... And I've delayed this posting long enough to read now that he is up and perfoming again, so, er, thats good isn't it?

SM writes that he connects his falling in love with the music of Morrisey, Marr and co while travelling in the boot of a car. My similar recollection isn't quite as transportingly uncomfortable but it is still in the 'never forget catagory', but mainly because it was the night that Gillingham nearly knocked Everton out the FA cup.

Like many shy males of my age, The Smiths provided the soundtrack to my university career. I don't listen to the music as much as I once did, but there are a handful of lyrics so solidly fixed in my brain that certain trigger words never fail to bring them to mind.... Specifically if anyone ever mentions their intention to spend the evening socially outwith their abode, I'll pipe up, possibly internally, Well, I would go out put I havn't got a stitch to wear.

Another example is any mention of 'The Book', to which my natural response is to point out that there is more to life than books y'know, which you may just have noticed I've tried to immortalise even FURTHER - if that were possible - in the title of this 'publication'.

Anyone following my train of thought will also know that the rider on the quote is 'but not much more'... so perhaps I'm guilty of a controvening of some blog description act, for I have as yet not mentioned any books

Warren Buffett - man of the day

I woke up this morning to an interview on the Today program with Warren Buffett. I knew the name, and knew he is jolly rich, but hey, this is my most researched entry so far and I find he is 'The richest man in the World'

It occurs to me I could 'go off on one' here about 'the injustice of the inequality of wealth', but instead I'll just quote, or paraphrase, the man, and make him my 'Person of the day'

"The Market system allows me to get an enormous amount of the country's resorces into my hands one way or another a fair amount should get back to society"

(Interviewer) "Are you saying we should have higher taxes"

WB "I don't think society to count entirely on the goodwill of the rich... i believe in a very progressive tax on income."

I've been watching a load of people on TV waving banners, and I find myself sympathising but not agreeing with them. The BBC really had no choice, within the terms of its remit, to invite NG onto QT.

There are two reasons why I agree with the BBC's decision. For the first I wouldn't expect the protestors to agree with me. Time will tell if I'm correct with the second reason.

I've never been too sure how far I'd personally take Voltaire's declaration that he would die fighting to protect free speech for his political opponent. Call me a coward, but I've only got me, so I suppose if I were to actually die in defence of anything, I'd choose a different cause. But as a principle, it does stand. Democracy can only exist on a fundemental level if freedom of speech is awarded at a higher level than any one individuals whim, or even the whim of a group. That ceases to be democracy and starts to be dictatorship by the majority, and the BBC couldn't survive if it was forced to be the arbiter.

The second reason I want NG to be heard is this man's views are our greatest weopon against him. While he is allowed to float around in a quasi-mythical anti-politicians space, he will be able to bask in some kind of heroic victim hood. Subject his views to the full glare of scrutiny and he will find that position far more difficult to maintain

Its only been two days since I discovered the new Muse record, but I already feel intimate with the first two songs. this is partly a function of my car CD player which is having difficulty translating into unjumpy sound anything past the first two songs on ANY CD, so I get to listen to those two again and again and again...

I've been playing with the idea that either of these two songs could act as a 'Theme Song' for one of my current Fictions in progress, but I'm now of the view that neither quite works on that score..

and then I was mentally humming one of the tunes this evening and i've realised why its so familiar... its really a reworking of Erasure's "A Little Respect"!


The other 'News of the week' isn't going to die down until after Thursday, thus keeping the BNP in the news all week, which is a regretable side effect of what is nevertheless the right thing to happen...

In my university days it was standard practise to say 'no platform for racists and fascists' and as a bit part player in the politico scene I sorta went along with it. The time has come though to shine a bright light on Griffen, because the man is an idiot and he will be exposed. Right now he is able to hide behind an aura of outsider to the current discredited political scene, but he has no answers. the last time he was given 'the floor', on Radios 4 & 5 the day after he snuck under the wire into the European parliament, he used that moment to

i) Say that to be 'British' you have to prove your genetic make up was on these islands at the time of the last Ice age. Now I'm not sure there even were British isles then, but its certain that the migration of mankind around the world was such that the 'British' were some millenia away - the Celts hadn't reached this part of the world, let alone the Angles or Saxons with whom BNP types like to claim 'affinity'..... which is far more effort typing that the initial argument deserved, so now I'll be brief

ii) Deny the reality of man created Climate change. So, er, he was talking bollocks.

So lets bring on rational argument, and watch him shrivel in the spotlight

On Jan Moir

Loosely themed introductions aside, this birth of these pages was strated under the influence of a day following Twitter - something I don't do often because I'm still trying to find a place for twittering in my life. However like many beginining twitterers I do follow Stephen Fry, which means I did get to follow the furore over The Jan Moir article on Stephen Gateley. I'm now listening to a radio 5 debate on this woman's article and the response to it... and some how all participants are talking round the issue of 'free speech'... its like should people have the right to write utter nonsense.. Do people who object to offensive articles have the right to suppress the free speech of writers of utter nonensense?

Of course not. But they have the right to point out that it is utter nonsense, and in this case utter nonsense that is offensive to many and dangerous to us all. Thats all I've heard from Moir's detractors.

A person should say what they think, short of inciting actual violence, and if that leads me, or others, think the writer an ill-informed bigoted idiot then I shall... and in this case I do.

Free speech is a right. Unchallenged Free speech is not.

We shall all be known by our words.

First Impressions and Why I don't like them.

As I an aspiring writer, I don't believe the first page should be written first - it should be written last, and I'm never to sure about first impressions anyway. As one of my many unpublished protagonists says

" I don’t believe in first impressions. I never have. You always learn more about a person on the second visit than you do on the first. Then you learn even more on the third, then the forth.
Sometime after that a law of diminishing returns kicks in."

None of which helps me start a blog. So here is what I will write about
Books I read.. and occasionally write
The occasional film and play I see
The heroes and idiots I read about, and occasionally meet

(All starting tonight with a play about the Bronte sisters but i'll have to be nice because one friend is in the cast and another directs.)

Otherwise it will be the most interesting set of notes on life you will ever read by a Leeds based It person of 'worker-rank' who delivers and discusses for the Liberal Democrat Party and can get a bit excited should Gillingham FC ever win a match