Tell Carillion to go to hell!

Well I’m very pleased to report that ‘Jane Austin Roller-Girl’ was an enormous success in that the distributers have withdrawn it from release after feminist literary critics burnt my house down and threatened to do the same to any cinema daring to show it. Given that it is the job of the creative to provoke reaction from the viewer, I am immensely satisfied with myself at least on an artistic level and am in no way disappointed by the less than enthusiastic critical reaction, which by no mean was universal. ”Outstanding” was one word used in a letter from my movie’s chief financers. Well I’m glad they liked it and hope that in some way compensates for the fact that the loan they gave me was secured to what is now the smoking ruins of my uninsured house.

Well there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That said, there is pretty good stuff to be had in the skips behind most hotels, restaurants and supermarkets but even this stuff is not totally free in that you have to sacrifice a bit of your human dignity to obtain it.  No free lunch, no free press, no free nothing. When you’ve an empty belly you realise how expensive the whole freedom thing is. What a swizz! Meanwhile the post-war state, created to provide a minimum level of civilised prosperity gets shaved away day by day and its activities replaced organisations with names that are unfamiliar but suddenly ubiquitous, accountable to no-one and protected by commercial confidentiality, who can provide your services at progressively lower costs and at progressively lower-quality. The straw-man argument the winners give you is how terrible state-planned societies are and that’s what you’ll get if you tie the hands of the today’s suited heroes. It is of course, perfectly true that command economies are unsuited to complex post-industrial societies as to use a rather weak analogy, it’s like trying to drive a motor-car at high speeds in low-gear. When things are running well, you release the constraints and let capital get on with its job of innovating solutions to the problems of human need.  However the current post cold-war civilizational paradigm has our car running out of control and falling apart around the smug, oblivious Clarkson-like driver.

It was the increasing dominance of these non-specialist companies in the economic life of UKOGBANI that inspired my next film- a sci-fi drama about space pirates. It was 10 years ago I first heard the name CARILLION when I was left manning the telephones in the office I was based in. I know! I had a normal job and everything. Well, not totally normal but anyhoo, a phone rang, I answered it and some gruff voice said  “ I’m from Carillion” and then something else I’ve forgotten as I was immediately visualising a space pirate like the one on the cassette cover of the rubbish Commodore 64 game SPACE HUNTER shown above. “ Tell Carillion to go to hell!” I shouted back in my best American movie accent and put the phone down.  After that the movie pretty much immediately wrote itself and I’d be making it now were it not for the fact that this café will be closing soon and I’ll have to go back to the waste-ground to stand around the fire with the men who are drunk. So despite my obvious counter-productive hostility to investors, I’m going to pitch my movie here by presenting the radio script to the first 2 scenes of …well whatever you want the film to be called. I’ve never bothered writing any more of it but I know what’s going to happen so will produce the rest of it  if even one person is interested. When I say person, I mean a real person. Not a talking Mongoose or a evil cyber-pet from the ancient past. No more of those please.

CARILLION AND THE ARK OF SERCO

(Various Space Ship noises)

(intercom buzz)

VIRADOR: Epsilon Theta 14 docking control, this is Captain Virador of Trading ship Carolgees at loading bay 11. I've unloaded my cargo and I'm ready to be on my way, pending....er...accreditation of course.

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Hold on there, Carolgees

VIRADOR: What? Is there a problem there?

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Just running some routine checks, Captain Virador, nothing to worry about.

(Low buzzing noise starts)

VIRADOR: Dock Control, have you just engaged your holding clamps?

 

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Just a routine precaution, Captain. Please don't be alarmed.

(Clamping noise)

VIRADOR: What the hell is this? I've done nothing wrong! Dammit, I demand to talk to the station manager, now!

DOCKING CONTROLLER: Don't get upset, Captain.

(Buzzing noises)

STATION MANAGER: Captain Virador? This is Veb Juzjek, the station manager of Epsilon Theta 14. Listen son, we'll have this sorted out in no time at all. I just need to ask you some questions.

VIRADOR: What sort of questions?

STATION MANAGER: This consignment of Zelkavian Prunes you've just unloaded....

VIRADOR: What? They were legitimate, I had all the paperwork, I swear!

STATION MANAGER: Son, have you ever seen Zelkavian Prunes?

VIRADOR: Sure, I've spent the last month with 2 tons of them at point-one K in the Carolgee's hold. I've seen plenty of them.

STATION MANAGER: I mean, before a month ago...?

VIRADOR: Well...I... guess not.

STATION MANAGER: See, Zelkovian prunes are bright yellow. Dazzling luminous yellow in fact, with glowing red spots. You can't mistake them, whereas these are...

VIRADOR: They're purple. Every single one.

STATION MANAGER: Yes and purple is the colour of Nectarian Giant Ant's eggs. 2 tons of which seem to have been among the cargo stolen from a Gromolean transport ship hijacked 6 weeks ago in Delta 18 sector.

VIRADOR: (slow and angry) God-damn.

STATION MANAGER: Yes it caused a major diplomatic incident between the Nectarians and the Gromoleans. It seems the Ants were relying on those eggs to keep their colony on Fregas 6 going. They were clicking on about genocide in the Federal Inter-System Council and the authorities had to intervene to stop a war. Now, those Ants can be unstoppable when the get all riled up and the FISC investigation said that human pirates were the most likely culprit. Now, as one human to another, son, just tell me where you got those ...er...prunes?

VIRADOR: I was sold them...by another trader. He assured me..that...that THAT BASTARD!

STATION MANAGER: It's ok, son. An FISC investigation team is on its way right now. All you've have to do is tell them all about this character and they'll treat you fair and square.

VIRADOR: The FISC cops? You've got to be joking. Sorry old man, I've not got time to get tortured on the electro-grid today.

STATION MANAGER: I'm sorry too, son. But you're not going anywhere.

VIRADOR: Oh no?

(Clicking. High pitched buzzing suggestive of a laser.)

STATION MANAGER: What the....?

VIRADOR: Clamp cutting beams. Never dock without 'em.

STATION MANAGER: I knew it, you're one of those pirates!

VIRADOR: I swear I'm not, Veb but I'm pretty sure I know who is and he's gonna pay!

(Whooooshing noise)

2

 (Static buzz -Female Android Voice)

PP (Femdroid): This is Pipitek Pippitippitron , spokesdroid for the Lagerian independent transport cruiser Daggermouse. Please identify yourself and state your business.

VIRADOR: (still sounding angry) Virador of the Carolgees. I need to talk to your boss.

 PP: The Daggermouse is owned by the collective mind Quozatz from the Meditation Planet of Oumzork and I'm afraid I must report that it or rather they will be beyond all forms of communication for the next 800 rotations of that planet.

VIRADOR: To hell with that Pippitippitron! You know very well who I'm talking about. Perhaps I should get on over to Oumzork and wake up the Quozatz with a few Ultra-nukes and ask him who's running his ship.

PP: Ask them, Captain Virador and I think that would be very unwise.

VIRADOR: Unwise huh? I'll show you unwise you jumped-up metal prostitute! I've got an itchy trigger finger here.

CARILLION: Hahaha! That's no way to talk to a lady, Virador.

VIRADOR: Carillion! At last. You god-damn son-of-a-bitch. Get over here so I can throttle you myself.

CARILLION; What's all this about? I thought we were friends? Hahaha!

VIRADOR: I've had diseases that were better friends than you. The eggs you bastard! The Nectarian Ant's eggs.

 

CARILLION: Ah, so that's where they got to. Administrative error. You have my sincere apologies. Hahaha!

VIRADOR: Bull-shit. You never had any Zelkavian prunes. You stole those eggs just to sell them to some dupe. Like...me.

CARILLION: Now that's just not true, old buddy. Those eggs were headed for Fregas 6, right? You ever been to Fregas 6, Virador? It's a paradise. It sure wouldn't have been if those Ants had started their colony there. They destroy entire eco-systems and turn them into goddamn ant-factories. Couldn't let that happen, old pal.

VIRADOR: So you're an environmentalist now?

 CARILLION: Sure! Those ants would have wiped the Fregan Wombat from the universe forever. They're beautiful creatures, Virador. I  just did what I had to do.

VIRADOR: You're a pirate! Since when did you care about the Fregan wombat?

CARILLION: Since I discovered how delicious they are! Hahaha!

VIRADOR: You're a goddamn monster, Carillion but I've got you outgunned here. The game's up.

CARILLION: Sure thing, Virador but before I place myself in your custody I'd like you to look at this holo-vid. 

(Flicks switches in front of him: There are sounds of a man screaming)

VIRADOR: What the hell? That's Virgij Narvis! He went missing at the end of the war with the Serco. What's happening to him?

CARILLION: He's being constantly electrocuted. Has been since the end of the war, every single day in constant pain. It's a miracle he's still alive.

VIRADOR  Where? Who?

CARILLION: I got the vid from a Wachovian trader who bought it off a defector from the Serco.

VIRADOR: So the Serco have him. It makes sense I suppose. If it wasn't for his bravery, they might have won the war.

CARILLION: Yes the Serco mother-ship. You his wing-man for the final assault weren’t you?

VIRADOR: Proudest day of my god-damn life. Of course you bravely sat out the war didn’t you Carillion?

CARILLION:  I’m a man of peace, Virador. I always have been despite your accusations but hey, none taken. I believe in trade and peaceful mutually beneficial contact between alien peoples. That’s why I’m working for the Quozatz, a wise and serene collective mind. But I respect Narvis and what that old soldier did for all our species and that’s why I need the best god-damn pilot in the galaxy to help me rescue him. Are you in?

VIRADOR: Something stinks here, Carillion but you bet your arse I am!

 ___________________________________________________________________________________

There you go!. Get that chequebook out. What tinseltown really needs right now is a new sci-fi franchise that is in no way totally hackneyed and awful.   It’ll be better than JOGGER KILLER I promise. It’ll make more money than LION’S CLAW and not endanger lives like JANE AUSTIN ROLLER-GIRL. My melancholy silent classic BIG BUNNY should have swept the Oscars but for blinkered philistines and idiots but even they will be unable to ignore this masterpiece.  

 Meanwhile in the real world, there’s some business to attend to: Firstly, I’ve got to bone to pick with Viz magazine who responded to my last post by printing another Dickie Beasley strip (the boy who only had one ambition in life- to be an advertising account executive) and then giving him round glasses instead of thin square ‘advertising account executive’ glasses. They made me look like an idiot! Perhaps Viz have met more advertising account executives than me? It’s an unsettling thought.  

Secondly if Margaret Atwood would like to get in touch, I owe you some money for stealing your new novel MADDADDAM using the internet. Desperate times and that…Still it was so good and I was so immersed in it for a day or two that it seems strangely immoral, a concept I don’t really understand, not to give you what is due for it. Minimising spoilers for those of you who are not Margaret Atwood, I must say that while I greatly enjoyed myself, I did end up feeling rather bereft. I went through Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood in 2011 and I must have been carrying those characters around in my head in suspended animation for 2 and half years and now their tale is done and I know what happened to them. It’s an odd feeling. Still, they were silly books; bloody top notch, though! Doris Lessing may have known about trucks but Atty can blow your mind like an agaric trip! Oh yeh and Zeb didn't want to wear my glasses neither. Huh!

 

OK I am nearly done here. Happy Birthday to yooo for yesterday. I’m referring to my only follower of course who is actually Richard Dawkins’ mum. Dawkins's mum? What-evo! It's a mother of a Dawkins. Gawd bless you, Maaam. Don’t tell Dickie! Just for you here’s a link to some Herbal Mixture which is actually The Groundhogs. Just can't get enough of those Groundhogs. Bye bye!

Kill a winner

Well I finally finished work on my latest movie! It’s a period piece which is a real departure for me this time after all those action thrillers and confusing low-budget flicks with hidden religious meanings for unbalanced sci-fi writers. It’s called Jane Austin Roller-Girl and it tells of the teenage roller-skating adventures of the future writer of Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. Owing to the manners and morals of society at that time, ‘accidently’ bumping into each other whilst roller-skating was one of the only ways of engineering close contact with opposite sex but of course that leaves the door open to actual real accidents and the crazy consequences that ensue. It’s like Shakespeare in Love but better.

So when I’m not doing that I’m also posting pictures of Jane out of 90s toon Daria, trying on Daria’s glasses. Why am I doing that? Well, pretty much as a weak way to introduce a light-hearted anecdote about being short-sighted. It’s better than that depressing Syria guff from the last 2 monthly instalments, surely? Meh! No pleasing some people.

You may have noticed that like me, Gandhi, Lennon, Koosalagoopagoop and Himmler; Daria has perfectly round glasses which are actually quite hard to get hold of these days. Pretty much all spectacles from your high-street opticians are thin and rectangular or what I call ‘advertising account executive glasses’. Ascetically they’re not for me but what with not looking like or actually being a human being that doesn’t really matter.  On a practical level, though, you can’t help but see the edges which I find highly annoying. I know, I know I’m like a grumpy old man.  I honestly thought the popularity of Harry Potter or Jon Ronson would turn the tide in my favour but no. We are solidly stuck in the age of the advertising account executive. Says it all really. Huh?

I cried when I found out I’d have to wear glasses. I knew what it meant. I didn’t want to be one of those kids. As it turned out, as soon as I got the things and realised that life wasn’t an impressionist painting, I happily turned into one of those kids and even today haven’t got over the thrill of picking out details in the middle-distance like the numbers painted on sheep or a couple of Wood Pigeons at it.

It tells you how shit-thick or highly skilled at avoiding the unpalatable obvious I am by how long I went not being able to see stuff properly. My favourite example was at junior school assemblies when we’d have to sing Christian songs with the words projected on a white-screen at the front of the hall. As I got older and had to sit further back I had real trouble reading these words and would learn them by listening to what everyone else seemed to be singing without ever facing the fact that they could all see them perfectly well. There was one song that started with the line: "Oh- Sinner-Man! Where will you run to?” Now I didn’t really know about sin and had never heard of a sinner-man so I was hearing: “Horse-in-a-man! Where will you run to?” as it sort-of made sense that if a man had a horse in him, he might want to run around, like a horse does.  However, to my mind the important question was ‘how did it get there?’ rather than ‘where will you run to?’ But I was aware that religion was a mysterious thing, full of things that didn’t make sense superficially (what one would now call metaphor and imagery)  and that this horse-man deal would probably make sense by the time I grew up. Of course I didn’t realise then that it is possible for a horse to be ‘in’ a man, as long as it’s a man horse rather than a lady horse. Oh sinner- man indeed!

So…er…If you did read it, perhaps you’re feeling a little short-changed from having just read what was essentially a ‘Gary-Davies bit-in-the-middle’- style twisted lyric. Well fuck you I’ve got loads of such material and I’m gonna fill you shitty internet up with it like foam fills a cavity or an American fills a quiet space. This one which was a going to be the introduction to a blog post years ago but got mothballed: Use it or lose it!

Back once again with the renegade master! Er…I’m afraid I don’t know any more lyrics to that song, if indeed it is a song. I could look it up on this here internet probably but you don’t always want to do that as it bursts your happy illusions like it did here (example). No it’s much better to believe that Londonbeat are singing ‘I’ve been thinking about you – Chihuahua! Or maybe they’re going on about the place in Mexico wot the dog is named after. It doesn’t really matter. We prefer Papillon’s here anyway. That constant shaking thing is weird.

Bah! Rubbish! Hey at least you dodged the bullet of what this month’s post was going to be. It was an attempt to defend the concept of the state from Libertarians, or more specifically in this case from libertarian Brendan O’Neil on the Jeremy Vine show. Whilst a strong argument, it wasn’t all that fun to compose, didn’t totally convince even me and it really just ran into the brick-wall of nobody giving a flying fuck what Brendan O’Neil thinks.  Or me, obviously. Why should they? I did broaden it out a bit to defend politicians and while it was a poorly composed half-an-argument I did like the punchline so I’ll inflict a bit on you: 

Who are the people above reproach? There are in our civilisation groups of people whose achievements mark them out as people whose merit is uncontested by all. Put them in the position of making decisions over what may or may not be done by and in a nation state and who pays for what and who should be paid for it and there you are; you got yourself a politician right there. Now obviously they don’t help themselves by being almost childishly partisan and being mostly very odd or annoyingly over-sincere people or too willing to take the opportunities for crafty self-betterment that are invariably placed under their noses or too keen to implement ill-thought out and expensive gimmicky policies  and too prone to pandering to herd-instinct news industry agenda. Yes yes. They are very annoying. That’s why Vine likes hanging around with them. It makes him feel likeable and normal. 

Poor Jeremy Vine! I wonder how many times he’s heard the phrase: “As I was saying to your researcher, Jeremy”. Usually from a lorry-driver. God, that would drive me nuts. I’m going to stop now. Not before I’ve imparted more vital information. The title was a piece of graffiti next to track on a railway bridge in a major Yorkshire town in the late 80s or early 90s but is similar to the title of this song 'ere. It has nothing to do with Michael Winner as he’s already dead in his grave. I wasn’t the first person to first person to come up with Jane Austin Roller-Girl neither, it must have been this lady who might now sue me for her bit of all the money my movie will make. Oh and I never mentioned Bee Gees as Hyenas. Dammit. Look it up on Google images. Hey long post. Sorry about the font problems.

If you’re looking for a way out

Phew! It looks like we may have got out of that one. That is if the United States doesn’t go ahead and attack Syria anyway for the hell of it. Next is to leapfrog from this settlement to some sort of face-saving deal with the moderate opposition and then everyone’s ok with fighting whoever’s left and if Hama has to be shelled again it’s because of those damned Al-Qaeda nuts and the US could even help out with that with a drone-strike here and there. If it does turn out anything like that it’ll be a big win for the other side like 2006 but maybe it has to be because there’s still a bigger win to be had. This would have to involve the interested powers forcing a deal on their various allied and client actors that would end this long middle-east war altogether, with an appointment to renew the agreement after a fixed amount of time, short enough so that no party is in a position where it has nothing to lose but long enough to prevent regular outbursts of coercion where better negotiation positions are sought  and allowing a more healthy status quo to form itself: Arab- Israeli, Saudi-Iran, Sunni-Shia, the lot of it on the table and to be shared out with those that remain seated. All the parties will have lost something to an aggressor but will be guaranteed that their existence is secure by mutual consent and trans-national supervision. Create losers and then compensate those losers. This alone stimulates the world economy with the promise of solutions to even bigger problems creating enough wealth to at least give us space to give up our various addictions on oil and weapons and the like.  This is do-able humanity! It’s just a choice. Is it imperialism? Maybe, but wasn’t it going to be anyway, whatever happened and whatever beautiful aspirations you held? Is this just cynicism? No,the Empire I propose will belong to all and form itself voluntarily from the realisation of common interests by rational players. Crackers! That is name of this Empire. No, it’s not a stupid name. The rainbow dragon king is lurking at the periphery of your vision waiting for you to start following his agenda and begin history proper. You will be bathed in the light like a rising sun. Do you see!

 

Anyway while I’m doing repeats I’m going to re-pontificate on a pressing local issue here in the green and pleasant land of UKOGBANI.I speak of transport and more specifically the 2 controversial infrastructure projects HS2( the proposed high-speed north-south rail link) and the possible construction of another London airport or extension of the existing ones. My alternative solution to both these problems is to combine them. HS2 instead of going straight to Birmingham, instead heads directly north from London along the existing M1 Motorway until it reaches Doncaster Robin Hood airport (formerly RAF Finningly) which already has a nice long runway and could easily be enhanced to be London’s next airport as I believe the journey between them would still be less than an hour. From this hub lines could run to Birmingham, to Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool and another to Newcastle and Edinburgh. Both problems, of course, are related to capacity which is ultimately a question of population. Another way you could deal with that problem is to start world war 3. It’s entirely your choice.

The picture this month is of the Koosalagoopagoop from the last series of Dexter’s Laboratory, slightly more yellow and less colourful than in his earlier appearances but as lovably annoying and ridiculous as ever. I was going to use the infamous Neville Chamberlain Peace-in-our-time picture as it amused me given my peacenik ramblings but I thought it might confuse you mammal cuties. It’s certainly not my intention to confuse people, merely to dazzle them a bit. Anywoo, this is the title! However, I’d also like to play something autumnal as we enter that saddest of seasons. I don’t care what you think I love these guys, possibly the best prog-rock band of them all. Better than Yes, better than Gryphon. Better even than Jethro Tull or the Moody Blues. This is Genesis in transition. Beloved genius Peter Gabriel has gone off to spend more time with the voices in his head so a young beardy cockney drummer steps up and shows the world what he can do.

24-09 Updates! Sorry this blog has been so boringly political for the last 2 months, Koos-fans. It's not always like this, honest! Any-whey, it's hard for a historical-politico anorak like me not to get all excitable when the nuclear powers start taking sides in what is already a disastrous conflict. Of course I still maintain, against all evidence and general opinion, that the John Kerry 'gaffe' that opened up the door for a peaceful settlement was actually hashed out at the G20 summit 2 days previously and that PM Cammers losing the vote on Syria in the H of C the week before was political choreography to extract us from whatever catastrophe may have followed military action. In both cases a perceived loss of face was preferable to the consequences of whatever kind of war Syria would have turned out to be. Of course, this situation is far from resolved and cannot be until peace returns to that unfortunate land and that still seems so desperately unlikely despite the comprehensive and not-at-all over-simplistic and naïve peace plan I have outlined above. I also like eating cakes. I'll talk about that next month I promise.

Lots of love

Your friend

Koos 

 #I'm not on twitter I'm afraid #sorry! #ijustlikehash

There may be trouble ahead…

….so while there’s moonlight and music and love and pictures of Crackers, let’s look at pictures of Crackers. Back from 2007 this one, when Crackers was a TV star albeit one viewed only briefly and occasionally on the never forgotten, never bested Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends. Why not? This is the Revolutionary Army of Crackers after all and it’s always worth re-iterating that that’s got nothing to do with the racial epithet bestowed on white people. Well….perhaps it’s no coincidence that the little cartoon Imaginary Friend Crackers was pink and whiney. Hmmm  I expect it is just a coincidence but even if it wasn’t then it’s hardly worth any dumb-ass crackers thinking, on that basis, that they’ve got themselves a revolutionary army led by me. Hey look big-man, take a look at yourself, it’s in the mirror that the real war starts. Oi! 

Anyway, one might as well make some whiney and pinko statements while sitting here typing under this small but inspiring imagery. You lucky proles almost didn’t get one of these this month as I keep getting distracted by massacres involving the various types of sand-crackers, which is my brand new term of racial abuse to throw at the people of the middle-east as let’s face it most of them look more like europeans than sub-saharan africans or east-asians. Don’t worry pc pals! My crass racial abuse is by far not the worst thing being thrown in the area around that great continental bridge right now. Not by a long charlie chalk. Remember that general regional settlement I was going on about a while ago? Imagine the exact opposite of that, spilling out in all directions. It’s a bad place, humo-friends and I’m properly afraid for you all. It’s not that all the actors involved are reckless or stupid by any means but there’s always the possibility that those who potentially perceive that compromise is a losing game will play double or quits as one party did by using chemical weapons on the battle-fronts of the east Damascus suburbs last Wednesday, whoever that may have been. It certainly looks like the work of the army of the government of Syria but unless one is 100% sure, a military strike by NATO, may be a terrible error with long-lasting repercussions. Plus a military strike on whom? Where? Certainly for the international community it must be a great priority that the use of chemical weapons remains taboo. Not  tabun. Ha ha ha!   

 

Excuse me.

Ouch!

Idiot.

Yes I was saying, that chemical warfare is going on should throw everyone in a tizzy and solicit a serious response- or should it? What if it turned out that the attack was just a massive concentration of CS gas which is routinely used for internal pacification by governments all over the world including those us snooty western scummos call ‘democracies’. Sometimes with lethal results too. Democracies have also used phosphorus bombs, napalm, thermobaric and even nuclear weapons to achieve military objectives whose long-term aim is to protect the lives of their citizens, disrupt terrorism etc. 'War Crimes' just isn't as b/w as all that or at all, for that matter. War is like, bad scene, man! The war is the crime and one that humans will probably keep committing till the last one is just a shadow on scorched rock. In about 6 months. Ha ha ha! As much as you believe that there is a thing called international law, an attack on Syria does not uphold it. Rather the opposite in fact; the 1925 convention prohibiting the use of chemical weapons makes no reference to its use within a nation plus Syria never signed it anyway.

It is hard to square the circle of needing to discourage the further use of WMD in the Syrian civil war when the only tool that has the ability to achieve that is bringing more fire-power into the situation. It’s all very well NATO sniping at Syria from a distance with Tomahawk missiles when they could decide to retaliate and double up in the face of defeat by lobbing some VX into Tel Aviv and widen the war by bringing Israel in like Saddam tried in 1991. Plus other fronts could flare up at the same time and there’s plenty of them, right? You don’t need a list.

 

So what to do? Well there’s nothing you or I can do directly and even lobbying elected governments is a waste of time. Just hope that that lot tread carefully and keep talking and listening as this plays out. I still contend that my Bismarck-style general regional settlement is a runner. What’s that? Bismarck’s diplomacy was a terrible failure and ultimately gave us 2 world wars? Nah. Shag that!  History will teach us nothing! Look if you really want to be positive remember that Syria is principally a humanitarian disaster. Go and give the victims medical care or whatever support you can offer. All these human breeders I’m always encountering who go on about how children are the future and shit should get their asses down there and put themselves in harm’s way in the name of somebody else’s stupid sand-cracker children who just aren’t getting the breaks that your little Prince Georges are getting. No I’m not going to. I have no stake in the future of your species save from enjoying the prettier bits of your world. Other than that I couldn’t give a shit. I can get out any damn time I want…. Sauropod deity, remember?  Anywei here’s one of those pretty things, one of my favourite things in fact. Well…I felt bad after going before and after jazz in that last post and missing the big wedge of tasty crumbly Cheshire cheese in the middle. Substitute your favourite sandwich filler to make the image work for you. Bye bye Monkey-chumps! I love you! I’ll miss you!


31/08/13 update. UKOGBANI's not going along for this ride. I think Cammers is secretly quite relieved about this, if not for all the reasons above but possibly also because he can't afford to empower the militarists in his own party who all want rid of him:Hague, Fox, Rifkind etc. I'm a little relieved too for all the difference it makes. This time it's France who's the US's deputy and that's just fine. Maybe we can do a better job than they did at being the bridge-builder for the urgently needed political solution. Wish! BTW references above to NATO seem to be completely wrong, for obvious reasons. This isn't a NATO thing....yet.
 

Before and after Jazz

It’s a picture of Quetzalcoatl eating a bloke. I’ll get round to why you might want to look at this slightly unpleasant, slightly manga-phallic image later on. To take you there here’s an overlong anecdote about the 2001 UK census. Enjoy!

 

Here in the UK (that’s UKOGBANI’s informal name btw) it is mandatory at 10 year intervals for all adult citizens to truthfully complete a census so that the government is able to form a realistic picture of for whom they are to devise policy. Amongst the information compiled on employment and marital status etc is a section devoted to religious identity. Now when I filled my 2001 UK Census, where I should have ticked the ‘No Religion’ box I instead started to fill out the ‘Others: Please specify’ box (if that indeed is what it is called, I can’t really remember). I got as far as the letter J then stopped abruptly as I quickly re-thought out, not my deeply-held religious beliefs of which I had none but my relationship to this entire human insitution. I had intended, like many others like me, to write ‘Jedi’ in that box as we believed that if enough of us wrote that we subscribed to this fictional monastic martial discipline then the authorities would then have to include ‘Jedi’ as a box on its own alongside Christianity and Hinduism and that lot on the next census form in 2011. Perhaps we were too immersed in our science fiction belief system to realise that the authorities were not some giant unthinking machine that would easily allow our student prank to slip through its logic programs or whatever.

 

Anyhoo I wrote the letter J and then I thought about what I was doing. Even if I had no religion, was I to be so dismissive of thousands of years of human culture? Even classical Marxism, where religion is viewed as part of the structure of oppressive class-based society and therefore to be abolished, acknowledges that religious writers have been a positive and progressive force in advancing human society and that in many ways the Communist Parties that followed Marx’s lead were inferior tribute acts of the institutions of Christian collectivism that had sustained stable (if violent and violently unfair) societies for hundreds of years. Plus I fucking hate Jedi’s. Actually that was the main reason. Yes, the only reason. I think Marxism had been pretty much debunked even in my slow-witted 20^th century brain by then. Don’t worry. It’ll be back.

 

So I was left with this useless letter J and it was irrevocable. I had to find another religion quick and it had to begin with J. I could have gone for Jainism which is a perfectly good religion but given my general ignorance of it and failure to even begin on the Jainist path, it seemed a little dishonest. In the end I plumped for Jazz. Now I’m well aware that Jazz is merely a kind of music but it did seem to offer at the very least a lifestyle and a set of core values that aren’t entirely dissimilar to a belief system. There is a vague notion of personal freedom, of living for the moment and the ambition to achieve states of extra-normal ecstasy and self-abolition through immersion in the music. None of this applies to Trad-Jazz of course. You know, the straw hat thing. It’s nice and everything but….you know what I mean. Even you Trad-Jazzers out there.

 

It was a bit thin I’ll admit but it was nonetheless mine uniquely and this was before I’d even heard Coltrane play. I felt pretty smug then about the 2001 census I can tell you but somehow knew in my heart of heart of hearts that even that pure evocation of whatever you humans call spirituality was not going to see me through to 2011. Jazz had pointed the way but to what? I followed its path through the dark times after the emancipation, emerging in its recognisable form between the wars and infecting late industrial culture changing everything it touched, merging with pre-existing folk culture creating hybrid forms glowing with colour and freedom  that continue to proliferate and evolve into forms beyond even my understanding.

 

The Afro-European cultural renaissance with Jazz at its core altered our visual as well as our audial culture which provides me with a thin veneer of continuity with which to explore my next religious awakening. Now I’ve probably talked about it enough in this blog and elsewhere so to cut a long story short, in the 2011 census I filled in the ‘Others: Please Specify’ box with the word KOOSISM. Which, as we all know, is the worship of the trans-dimensional rainbow lizard whose appearances in the 90s cartoon show DEXTER’S LABORATORY are like beautiful 2D shadows of the multi-dimensional reality human apparatus cannot yet perceive. (Dexter’s Laboratory of course was an allegorical drama of the eternal conflict between order and chaos played out in the texts of many a human religion). The Rainbow Lizard in the form of the serpent was venerated on the continent of Australia by the pre-European population, as was Quetzalcoatl the feathered serpent in Mesoamerica (or QC as he likes to be known) and another cold-blooded friend still makes an early appearance in the holy texts of the Abrahamic faith who fail to acknowledge that he rightly calls out their invisible deity as a big liar and frees the new human race from his direct enslavement, ultimately setting them up as masters of the Earth. We still debate the rightness of that policy, you know.  

It did occur to me that my conversion from to Jazz to Koosism was also a happily alphabetical progression that I intend to continue in the next census assuming by that point I haven’t succumbed to proper faith or orthodox atheism. Next time I intend to write LAGOOPINISM in that box which is of course an extremist and currently heretical form of Koosism. It will be the job of you, my one follower (thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks!) to at that point assume the leadership of mainstream Koosism and try to erase my influence in the development of that one enlightened religion while I spend 10 years working out what I can believe in that begins with the letter M. If I and UKOGBANI are still going in 2161 I’ll finally give in to a proper religion like Zoroastrianism or Zurvanism which are kind of where it all began anyway, especially in terms of the still currently dominant monotheism. It is dominant too and will doubtlessly remain so as long as I live regardless of the disrespect I continue to show it. If I am entirely wrong and there is one God then he can practice what he preaches and bloody well forgive me. He wouldn’t give a shit anyway, surely? If there is an entity which created all of this do you think any human mind has the power to comprehend what it might be up to? As I have stated elsewhere you might as well throw cheese down the well to appease the thing as it makes as much sense as anything you do. Or you might just try and be nice to your fellow life-possessors as Koosism teaches.

Well that was a long and pointless ride wasn’t it? Well heres some music that is as the title suggests an ancestor of and a descendent of Jazz. Firstly there’s this instantly recognisable melancholy classic from Erik Satie and secondly there’s a cracking song from the first album from Firehose whose punky-jazz influences are probably more evident on other tracks on this album but this is my absolute fave. Hear me!

 

 

Still falls the rain

 

This month's pic is a portrait of Dame Edith Sitwell by Wyndham Lewis. If you aint never read a Dame Edith Sitwell poem, you aint no friend of mine. She reminds me a little bit of a character called Chiaroscuro Schist in a story called A Hole to China what you can read here. No not here, back there. 12 words ago.

Phew! Made it. Nearly didn't get one of these out for June, not that there isn't a lot to comment on in a hilariously lop-sided way for the entertainment of virtually no-one. Actually it seems increasingly likely that while I may be practically unread by actual real people my ridiculous output is being stored for possible future scrutiny by the covert intelligence agencies of several nation-states including the one I'm parked in right now. How exciting! This is all real you guys! If you were high enough in your organisations you'd know that already, of course. I actually did know chap who was recruited to work in GCHQ and I must report that he was a complete shit-wipe. If GCHQ are any good I'm sure they've sacked him by now but you never know. He could be reading this right now with the knowledge of who I actually am. Hello! Shit-wipe! It's not absolutely impossible of course, after all I did back the Soviets and am therefore still potentially dodgy. Yes I am embarrassed by it as it happens but hey buddy, history aint over yet! Besides, while communism may have scored low in realising human potential, it certainly scored high at winning wars.

It is worth remembering of course, in the light of the Snowden revelations, that The German Democratic Republic, that is communist East Germany, failed as a regime despite being, by reputation, the most intrusive state in history. In those days of course, information was analog and there was only ever as much as human beings could process. Today's intelligence trawlers are too large and unwieldy to be of any use to their human captains and they should bloody well concentrate on their own business, which of course, the next world war. Besides, as I have spoken off on this virtual publication before, there's a monster growing in all that stored intelligence, dark as the world of man, black as his loss.

Here's the music bit- Morricone at his most sweet and succulent:

Beep-beep! Beep-beep! Yeh!

Welcome back to the RAC blog! Your one-stop-shop for on-the-road auto-care do-it-yourself pick-me-ups.  Nah. I’m only kidding, fella! This RAC is the Revolutionary Army of Crackers. Your one-stop-shop for …er….a load of made-up shit. Never mind! Now you’re here we might as well make the best of it. Anyway my shit is better than your gold. Truth.

 

What I try to do, now on a monthly basis apparently, is to convey, (usually unsuccessfully) that while this may look like a nonsensical ramblings of a mad person or a sarcastic idiot taking the piss of who-knows-what ineptly, this is actually a wonderful gift from an entity whose dimensions you have not yet built the machines to measure. In fact it will be machines built by machines that will able to achieve this and you only really be able to understand what they present to you in your meta-form where you exist as a unitary-organism outside the confines of your individual physical lives and concerns. Don’t worry, it’ll come and be much more satisfying than you’re imagining. The analogy I like to use is of the mushrooms on the lawn whose relationship seems to be that of one between autonomous entities whereas in fact they are merely manifestations of a single almost entirely subterranean organism. The trouble is that I’m very old, a bit confused and a very much  reduced version of the meta-entity I’m ultimately part of, so I forget of what use to us that analogy is supposed to be. All I do know is that in the analogy I’m supposed to be a different type of mushroom altogether. Or maybe I’ve just taken too many mushrooms. That sounds likely. It definitely involves mushrooms.  Hmmmm mushrooms! I’m hungry now.

 

Another type of mushroom is of course, Michael Portillo who’s obviously got all cocky since I mentioned him last month and has started shooting his mouth off about Europe. Maybe he figures he’s got nothing to lose now I’ve unmasked him as an alien visitor and that he might as well take whatever the city boys are offering to help normalise the idea of pulling UKOGBANI out of le EU before it gets round to regulate their highly profitable fun and games. Maybe him, Lawson, Healy et al are right and we’ll lose the goose that lays the golden eggs but to me, the European project is not just noble but necessary in the evolution of how human society is organised despite its very visible shortcomings. I propose that a voluntary federation of democratic states able to operate as a single unit when circumstances demand is the only model worth following. Sovereignty and identity are lost as a result of economic forces that are inevitable so long as there is a consensus in the world of the rightness of free-market capitalism which for the moment is successfully holding. Democracy on a trans-national scale is perhaps the only tool that can preserve any degree of sovereignty and identity in self-defining communities despite the widespread perception that the opposite is so. I do not see The European Union as looking to or having succeeded in any way in abolishing cultures and identities in even its core nations. Nor do I hear Germans bemoaning working-time directives or health and safety legislation etc as we are so often told here on our island our leaders of wealth constantly do. Naturally one is always concerned to prevent a concentration of power at the centre but in the electronic capitalism of early 21^st century Earth, the whole concept of power is not always easy to nail down. Power exists in mass-culture and flows onto the streets and through the politics and back into the money and into sex and into death and into the future. Er yeh…it’s poetry innit. Basically it isn’t just some guy in a uniform telling you not to do that or else. Human choices make the world. I want you to….I WANT YOU TO SENSE YOUR OWN STRENGTH!

As I say, I might be totally wrong. I’m not that brilliant at reading what you pretty Monkeyforms are apt to doing though I always love finding out through your many various news outlets. It’s like an exciting on-going planetary soap-opera. Some idiot psychologist said on the radio recently that it’s much better for one’s mental health to avoid the news altogether. Well that’s all very well but what if he’d started off showing off his Jim’ll Fix-It badge or something? He must have wondered what those wars were about if he heard about them at all. He’ll certainly wonder what’s going on when my followers take control of his civilisation and begin erecting an enormous statue of a pink cartoon dog-thing with nice ears for all to venerate as only I do today. Lovely Crackers! Bounce back to us, little Crackers! You are forsaken no more!

 

 OK let’s link you to somewhere better. First of all there's this if you want the end of the penultimate paragraph to to make any sense. You have to listen to till the end or maybe just the end if you're not a fan of early 80s pacifist-anarchist punk. Fight war not wars you barbarians! So sad. We end as it began with the fab-four (or was it the pre-fab four?) playing us out with one of their other hits than the one that gave me the title for this incredible and audacious post.

 

Sitting in Limbo

If you write something, you’re allowed some cake. 

I was beaten up by a mouse, a gull, a tortoise and a scampi. But Yuffy didn’t lift a finger.

 

That’s not good enough. That’s just a weak gag that no-one’s going to get anyway except for an increasingly vanishing demographic. Good riddance! Actually the computer doesn’t like me using ‘a Scampi’ it wants just ‘Scampi’. I can’t explain to it that the mistake was Yuffy’s, the stupid bearded memory. Scampi is a foodstuff made from Langoustines which is like a tiny Lobster. See! This is an educational resource! Come back!  

It is the end of April here in northern Ukogbani in 2013AD and I’ve managed a post a month so far this year so I’m loathed to let that slide or the Revolutionary Army of Crackers will fade away altogether. It’s just kind of hard given that there’s nothing very nice to say and pretty much no-one reads this anyway. Those apparent spikes of interest were almost certainly the work of some algorithmic oddity rather than any conscious minds. I have to keep my own flagging morale up by reminding myself that this thing is for posterity not for the now. This is just the wrong time to be Sauropod deity but these things come round like the seasons. There will be dancing and festivities in my holy name again and also will there be mighty thunder and terrible wrath for my quisling enemies. These things are certain. 

 

The picture is Adolphe Valette’s view of Manchester rooftops from about a hundred years ago. It’s not all that different today especially on a damp wintery day. As a pleasant contrast, from the sunny island of Jamaica is this song by Jimmy Cliff from the soundtrack to the movie ‘The Harder They Come’. You might also try his original version of Many Rivers to Cross. Yeh it’s all pretty random. You’re lucky I’m interested enough to bother, you theoretical future nobodies! Actually I’m lucky nobody does read this thing right now given some of the controversial stuff about chemical weapons and suchlike. Really, humanity, it’s time to build a general settlement that ends these wars altogether. It’s closer now than ever but still hard to see through the fountains of blood. Start with small agreements and keep building on the back of them till you have an honest global dialogue between the many shifting and overlapping tribes of man. Nuclear stalemate has provided a window of opportunity that is starting to close. WMDs are back out of the box albeit in uncertain circumstances. Situations like state actors being pushed into corners and fatal misunderstanding of the positions of one’s opponents are scenarios that become much more dangerous when extraordinary military hardware is in town. Those who still can must ask those who have some leverage over belligerent parties what is it worth to gain a compromise that ends the fighting? Let them know that victory is unobtainable and that they must accept the best defeat possible that gives them a stake in the future and a guarantee of security. Despite all the violence left over from the grim struggle of a semi-carnivorous evolution, the active warriors are somehow a minority. Most human beings are now working and trading peacefully with other human beings and attempting by these means to improve their situation and by extension that of their communities and of humanity in general. Later on as interconnected beings in a pan-organic global identity but that’s quite a lot later. One thing at a time, eh? Can I have some cake now?

Get your cold dead hand off my dirty ape gun!

Nope. Not going to talk about it. Not any of the issues implied in Charlton Heston’s assertive ‘quote’ there. You can make a nice audio file if you want.  Be surprised if someone hadn’t and perhaps that’s how it came to appear in my mind. Wha-tev-ur! It’s yours now to do with as you will.  I would request that you treat Mr Heston’s memory with some respect as he was a tremendous cinema presence regardless of what you think of what he came to represent; firearms & stuff. It’s certainly not for me to say as I’ve never had any need to touch a gun. Of course, I can simply raise an eyebrow and make your testicles catch fire (and not in the good way) so it’s pretty much a mooot point.  Just show the ‘Hes’ some res-pect, hear! More than I have here anyway. 

Did I happen to mention that when I get bored I like to imagine that I’m an extra-dimensional  Sauropod deity? Yes well obviously one can see why you might tactfully not want to press the issue of why that would be. Well maybe you should have because the reason why I like to imagine that I’m an extra-dimensional Sauropod deity is, as it turns out, because I actually am an extra-dimensional Sauropod deity! I was surprised too, frankly, but there you go. All the evidence fell into place and in one of those slightly suspicious moments of revelation, all the falsehoods of terrestrial life were peeled away and the glittering rainbow ‘candy mountain’ reality of the multi-verse shone out in all its dubious glory. I was so over-come by this vision, I immediately beheld my task to birth a new religion of the light that is lovingly curled around the darkness, to confront and extinguish the authoritarian hierarchies and mental repression afoot on this world, to re-unite all life-kind in one consciousness and get a load of money off some loser feebs and spend it on drugs and ladies and generally having a good time before I drop dead which is likely to be soon; too soon anyway, for my liking. You may feel differently.

So -Thanks to the unknowing help of your foremost scholars, I’ve been able to reconstruct the ancient history of your species’ occupation of the surface of this planet and worked this into the religious narrative I’m erroneously constructing.  It goes like this:

Before you lot showed up, your world was a battleground between 2 factions- the lizard people and the amorphous deities. Their almost complete absence of matter makes the deities seem kind of ethereal and superior but really they’re not. Just like you and me they evolved from less complex organic forms, in their case from common unseen elemental forces like the ones you so often see kicking up piles of dry leaves in the woods and tossing them round in a little spiral for a bit,  generating  energy in the form of friction to sustain themselves. Well that’s all the deities do really - they harvest the energy they generate by getting people to do things for them.

Anyway these deities were an extended family group who won a terrible military encounter that all but extinguished the lizards on this planet and thus went setting themselves up as overlords of what had survived their apocalypse. As humanity emerged from the confusion and innocence of animalism, the deities directly enslaved them until agents from lizard faction were able to communicate to these wide-eyed naïve apelings the truth of their situation and henceforth all manner of chaos erupted. Firstly between the rebellious humanity and the deities then among the deities themselves, then among the humans and for a long time everyone was at war with everyone else and you couldn’t tell what was going on.  This would have carried on forever were it not for the intervention of the peaceful Fish People from Po Tolo who brokered a truce that has lasted ever since. Naturally the conflict continues beneath the surface on all sorts of subtle fronts and we all have our particular allies and enemies but outright meltdowns are rare or at least containable, most of the time.

 

Hey, while I’ve mentioned it I’ve got to tell you about Po Tolo. You must go, it’s a lovely place, hence the reason the fish people from there are so nice.  It’s an Earth-sized dwarf star in orbit around the star you know as Sirius but it’s as  heavy as your sun so all sorts of material ends up in its gravity-well creating the possibilities for a lush diversity of environment and life forms. The aquatic habitat, for example, where the fish-heads live is just about the best beach destination in the universe. The strong gravity has odd effects on time and light so that not only do the nice sunny days last longer due to time-stretching  but the bending of the light makes big old Sirius A look like a giant glowing Banana in the sky - or a big bright smile as some would have it. Yes it’s a great place, all sorts of funny creatures hail from Po Tolo. In fact Michael Portillo does, the clue’s in the name. Yes that’s why he has that funny walk. All us off-worlders have funny walks.

So yes, in the week where once again chemical weapons have been used on this planet down there in El Gabul’s old stomping ground it’s pretty apparent we need a new general settlement rather than the new proxy war we’re actually getting and this time there’s no sign the fish-heads are going to turn up and help out. Chances are they’ve been exterminated by the Heron people or just a bigger bunch of fish-people. That’s the problem with pacifism, when somebody isn’t in the slightest bit vulnerable to moral ju-jitsu it’s kind of rendered redundant. The same is actually true of Charlton Heston-style coercion as well of course. All your hardness is of no value to you if somebody much, much harder comes along and flattens you. There’s no easy answer. Never has been.

Did you spot the hidden cow? Here's a Stevie Wonder link from his best album:

 

Voice of the Beehive

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! I’ll explain later! Got some housekeeping to deal with first:

My delight at actually having some viewers in the stats section of my blog dashboard crashed to earth when I was contacted by the trans-dimensional Buddhist 'Beings’-rights' campaign organisation OMNESTY INTERPLANETRY about some things I’d written about abducting children and livestock in Dragons, Communists & Fairies. To clear up this misunderstanding as best I can and so as to not get in any trouble with your terrestrial authorities I’ll tell you humes what I told them. Well, not exactly what I told them as it would be impossible for you to comprehend fully the language and concepts of their transcendental compassion in which the discussion was framed. Don’t beat yourself up about that. Honestly you’re much better for being the belligerent, cynical and unpleasant cuties that you are. You know the look that Kittens get when they’re fighting? It’s like that. Way better than the snooty superiority of the infinitely compassionate ones.

Anyhoo, while it is true that I do occasionally unethically abduct beings from the naïve, I absolutely guarantee that none of them are harmed. Not really anyway. The children are invariably given back to their communities after a brief indoctrination so that when they return as star-children or whatever, they grow up to be leaders of their communities and develop their future civilisations as I see fit. Admittedly sometimes they are crucified and stuff but that’s not my doing is it? It only happens in a very small, statistically insignificant number of cases. I know none of that is totally politically-correct but to be frank, there’s way worse than me doing it - as well you know from the history of this planet alone. I could name names but it might get me in even worse trouble.

As for the livestock, well they generally get a much better deal than you would expect. As a consumption-culture it’s very hard for you to imagine a lot else to do with, for example, a Cow, than drink its milk, eat its flesh and wear its arse. Well for starters, while eating is undoubtedly pleasurable, it’s at the bottom end of sensory experiences and is a laughably inefficient way of obtaining energy for sustaining life. The best thing that can be said for it is that it does produce shit which is a wonderful substance if, so I’m told, a bit smelly. No, there are lots of good uses I can put your cow to.  There are some places (there even used to be one here on Earth) where cows are venerated. So if I turn up at such a place with a cow then I’m immediately recognised as semi-divine and so me and the Cow can take it easy. There are even places (possibly future-Earth!) where Cows have evolved to be the dominant life-form so their scientists are absolutely fascinated to see a primative Bovinate. There are so many variations in the near-infinite universe that whatever you’ve got, there’s a world where someone will be pleased to see you. The Chicken world, for instance, is highly irritating.

Naturally the Omnesty types were totally unimpressed with this but other than some tutting and more looking down their noses , there’s not a lot a lot they can do to stop me. Obviously I’m not allowed to enter Nirvana but from what I hear, it’s pretty boring. I can still listen to this and this so what else do I need, Nirvanawise? Other than the disapproval, it was nice to see them, despite everything, as they are exceedingly beautiful. The picture above was a photo I took with my digicam. It didn’t come out totally flattering to them (always smile for a photo) and I suppose with human optics it just looks like a psychedelic blurry mess. You’d have to borrow my glasses.

OK why Voice of the Beehive? Well partly as it was going to be a way into talking about Quantum Biology which I probably won’t bother with now. Basically when you understand it, lots of mysteries like swarm-communication and post-temporal divination will be cleared up nicely for you. For another day! No, mostly, it was because yesterday I went to work with insufficient material on my MP3 player so had to listen to a few songs more than once. 'Don't Call Me Baby' by Voice of the Beehive-was listened to  4 times, closely followed by ‘Modern Love’ by David Bowie and ‘The Killing Moon’ by Echo and the Bunnyman 3 times and ‘Safety Dance’ by Men Without Hats twice. They was off some dodgy 80s compilation.

Never too late

Time to resume contact with the rest of the world. Your  world, little friends. I've chosen to communicate to you again just so you know that while I do have an appointment with DIGNITAS, I'm constantly annoying their staff by putting it off week after week. The hilarious thing is that they have to maintain the facade of humanitarianism instead of telling me to fuck off and get a life or more preferably decisively terminate the possibility  of ever having one. Ha ha! Go stick it in some holey cheese you white-chocolate cuckoo-clock-loving murderers!

It's snowing! It's like a beautiful alpine scene here especially if you sort of squint when you look at the bonsai. There's a link here to a nice audio short-story called 'Snow' that's read by the man with the best speaking voice on Earth since Richard Burton passed on. It's on a SF site but I'm not altogether sure what it is. A ghost story? Religious? I think the fact I don't totally get it is something to do with why I like it so much. Maybe I'm just a misery chick like Daria. Yeh. That'll be it. Same glasses anyway.

Well as you've probably figured out by now, I've been away so long because I've got very little of interest to say. Certainly nothing to say with any level of coherence. Wasn't that always the case? Meh! Who cares? I couldn't leave old Crackers to wither and die all alone in this big cold internet. I've at least got to provide some confusing disappointment for all those hundreds of people who search for PLASTIC PALACE PEOPLE BLOGSPOT and end up here instead of whatever it was they were actually looking for. It'd better be Scott Walker related you glombies! He's got a new album with a title so horrible I'm not even go to repeat it. Good to see him and Bowie still working so late in the game. Never too late! XTC may beg to differ. That's today's music link. Those adverts are fucking annoying arn't they? Anyhoo I've linked to one of their songs before, from the same album no less. I'm getting old and repetitive. Which reminds me I must tell you about this amazing talking Mongoose or something. Yawn! This, btw is fun. Keep yours ears open for Nahustan who is a character of potentially great significance to followers of the Koosist religion like me and er...just me.

Seeing as I'm obviously done here and am already thinking about my next hit I'll post some of the earlier aborted attempts to get this post written so they don't turn out to be a 100% monumental waste of fucking time.

1- Free Pussy Riot!

That’s right. Now no-one’s saying that what these ladies did was advisable or even commendable but if Britain in the late 70s can put up with Crass and the Poison Girls then the Russians can bloody well put up with this. The eccentric beards (there’s always eccentric beards) who run the Russian orthodox church should think themselves lucky that my lot (communists) didn’t completely wipe them and their buildings completely off the face of the earth as we started off trying to do.  Return the favour beard-boyz and forgive my femmopunk chums. What would Jesus do?  I’m not best placed to say I’ll admit, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t involve whining to the Russian judiciary and getting them to impose harsher sentences. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone! A risky tactic there from big J I always thought. There’s usually some deluded twat who thinks they’re entirely blameless in any situation.

So yeh. C’mon ZZ Top. Be nice to the ladies.

2- WOOT! Yes we still say woot here. WOOT!

Today’s woot is a woot of celebration as this is actually the hundredth post of the RAC blog in its current post-2009 form. Well it’s actually 101 as one post was completely deleted but at the same time there is one unpublished one that is intended to see the light of day should I ever finish it. Actually it had occurred to me to delete of the first 2 year’s posts as they’re really not all that entertaining, mainly consisting of me whining about how broke I am or some bit of fluff. Too anchored to the real world and not overly pleasant to read back is what it is. Anywayway  I probably will leave the early posts alone as deleting them would make a nonsense of these spectacular centennial  celebrations, which chiefly consist of me typing woot in capitals. WOOT! 

 This is as good as it gets Koos-fans. Now walk-away!

 3- There is a man handcuffed to a Rhinoceros. It is out of control and  causing possibly fatal damage to the man as it drags him along. The man has a key to the handcuffs and could release himself at any time but he does not. Why? The Rhinoceros is charging across a narrow bridge of a ravine. Release of the handcuff means certain death. Why was he handcuffed to a Rhino in the first place? To stop it charging or at least slow it down.  Pretty weak reasoning but what alternative did he have? That Rhino was going to charge.

 
4- The traditional conception of politics as a one-dimensional line between Left and Right is retarding our ability to model policy responses to the challenges of post-industrial civilisation and has led to a fallacious division, particularly in the English-speaking world that has even influenced the language with which political issues are approached.

 Wowser! You can see why that one was abandoned! If anyone can work out what I'm going on about in number 3 they win a lifetime's supply of Terry Nutkin's specialist nut-free Food for nut-allergic Squirrels. I tell you, that man had a heart of gold. Much missed. There is more of this. Is this the right font?