bright yellow-green apples

Rock Tree

2006-09-24T16:02:00.000+01:00

Perhaps inspired by the great David Hockney's stunning watercolours of the Yorkshire countryside, this is a combined effort by myself, Martin, and Mary - done on the train to York, on our way to see Phill and Steph for the day. Needless to say, their face gives this image a certain necessary poignancy.

stupid policies

2006-09-14T13:38:00.000+01:00

Chris has been doing some interesting ranting, over here, about all that politics and war stuff. It kinda coincides with my thinking, yesterday, while I was potting up some lovely tropical orchids for a client.

Simon Jenkins, ever perceptive, has managed to drive home some really good points – even in amidst praise for the wonkified David Cameron. The whole thing is worth reading, chiefly because he’s sensible enough to point out that the whole talk about terrorists being a threat to western life and civilisation is ludicrous hot air.

Indeed, the greater threat to our whole "way of life", as societies and cultures, is going to come chiefly through our reactions to the existence of violent extremism. So much of what is being done in the name of a war on terror – that difficult and spoilt child - appears to be doing damage to ourselves and to others. It isn’t in the capacity of middle-eastern insurgents and alienated youth to be able to somehow endanger our very nation in some total way, and certainly not when compared to the psychotic and misguided actions of the administrations of nation states themselves. The conduct of the middle-eastern wars, led by politicians in denial about their own lack of perception, is stirring up hornets nests of new problems for their peoples. The tough talk and revisionist approach to civil liberties of western citizens traps some in a terrible limbo, and the lives of the majority are curbed by increasing surveillance and restriction.

Terrorism hasn’t increased to the extent of rhetoric, except in the regions where wars and occupations have been conducted, despite the hysterical talk of some politicians. I sincerely hope this, as Jenkinds brands it,"stupid foreign policy", and, indeed, the reckless approach to home affairs, is going to be marginalised with the advent of new leaders. For all our sakes.

It's all in questionable taste

2006-09-10T23:38:00.000+01:00

Last week was a final family holiday, before I move out again for the big city life of Sheffield. I did feel kinda awkward and out of place with them, and ended up wandering around the cliffs and bays. There was some very attractive seaweed that I ended up painting portraits of, and turned them into mementos of my trip - trying to catch some of the odd feel of Lizard Peninsular. Click on the images, entitled SPIRIT OF CORNWALL:

While I was away, the Mercury Music Prize was announced. Now the Arctic Monkeys are great, but there's no way they made a right decision this year. Sway, Thom Yorke, and Hot Chip were all more deserving. Anyway, it's time to announce my own PL Alternative Prize. And this year, it's.......

......Silent Shout, by The Knife, for being so completely insane and having a constant range of sharp beats to hand.

Getting away.

2006-08-31T23:59:00.000+01:00

This is kinda how I felt, the other night. I'd just got into another spat with my younger brother, and huffed upstairs to get out the way. I set about pulling down all the half-finished pictures on my walls, as a first start on packing. It's only a few days till I'm going to Sheffield, and I'm ready to go now. I'll be glad to get out of here, with so much untracable guilt and so many demands on me, and seek some more adventure and life in the city of culture. Hey, it's not going to be THE PROMISED LAND, but it's heaven compared to being stuck here. How's that for a mixed metaphor? So I just wave off, with a bit of a relieved smile. I need to be in study, in a place where I can get into everything arty, close to my girlfriend.

But first I must pay my dues, by joining the household on a familt holiday. I'll turn it into a romantic sketching jaunt, like the up-and-coming gentlemen used to do with thier lady companions, and it might even be fun. I'm taking Miracle of the Rose with me, by a guy called Jean Genet. It's such stereotypically French stuff, intense and packed with feelings, almost laughably so. At one point two of the prisoners encounter each other in thier chains - the eponymous protagonist and an angelic Harcomone - and Jean sees roses growing around them, and approaches Harcomone, who nearly swoons over him. Homoerotic prisoners - yes!

snakes on a plane!

2006-08-20T23:01:00.000+01:00

I'm pleased to report it really did live up the hype. There was so much snake action, so many colourful ways to die, and so many dregs of the cliched B-move lines. "I need you to be strong". Funnier than any comedy film around, you definately need to enjoy this flick. My three favourite moments were:

*Anonymous guy going to the toilet, and having a snake jump out of it to bite him on the crotch, as we flails round with an extra long appendage.
*Camp steward grabbing a snake, showing it in a microwave, and exploding it in a little ping of bright red.
*Samuel L. Jackson's FBI cop finally losing his patience and yelling "That's enough! I have had it with these mother fucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" to cheers from most of the audience.

A triumph! Well done to all concerned.

it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feeel finn

2006-07-31T01:08:00.000+01:00

Ha, I really hate performing to type. Of course I was going to love The Eraser - it's made by someone who's on my roll call of ultimate idols - and of course I did. Luckily it took some time, and I had to keep listening to like it, so this wasn't just a reflex action. It's suprising how many beautiful details have been conjured out of a laptop's electronic repetoire, with fuzz and bleeps and curt beats - even if some of the lyrics are sometimes a little aimless. Having said that, the moment where it all comes together is on the touching ballard Atoms for Peace, where he sings:

"No more talk about the old days
It's time for something great"

So much for depressing - this is gloriously, constructively, hopeful. Along with its linocut cover, The Eraser puts me in a very good mood. I feel like I can achieve summit, and that the best is yet to come. Which is kinda strange, for themes of the world being washed away.

Talking of world destruction, I finally decided to get War of the Worlds out the way. I do so wish Tom Cruise could've hidden his face behind the nearest building, but then he - and every other human there - were really plot devices, part of the landscape. Most of it's shot from eye level, but the main point of this is to see how relative we are to the gorgeous tableaux of civilization disintergrating under pressure. I'm very surprised that Hollywood managed to convey the alien storms so well, sweeping away life with suddenness. It's very flat, though, and if you're looking for some redemption you should stick with Thom, even at his most claustrophobic.

unshakable follies

2006-07-28T22:59:00.000+01:00

>

Hurrah! for the special relationship. Our Prime Minister flew to meet with the President of the USA - a man who he apparently has some persuasive position with, due to our government's acquiescence over pretty much everything. Yes Blair flew there to persuade Bush about the need for a ceasefire, and then agreed with everything he said. Well done, Tony!

Cos obviously what the region doesn't need is an end to the war. So there was no talk of telling Israel to stop it's bombardment, and no talk of trying to get diplomatic with Hezbollah. There's this curious phrase that keeps coming up, "lasting peace". Given the current USA administrations fondness for euphemisms like collateral damage (killing innocents along the way) and freedom (neo-liberal free-market economics), it makes me very suspicious. And sure enough:

"our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region"

Along with Condoleezza Rice's talk of these being birth pangs of a new middle east, we can only summise that the administration sees this as a useful turn of events. There certainly seems to be little enthusiasm for stopping it, but rather shaping the forces into whatever warped vision they've dreamed up this week. Last time I looked, Lebanon was that rare and delicate flower; a truly middle eastern democratic country with a popular progressive movement forging it. But now it's merely a battlefield once more, as the wheel turns against Islamicist hate figures. So there'll be lots of talk, and lots of prevaricating. Meanwhile ordinary people continue to die, and their country burns, and innocents in Israel are hit by random missile attacks. All to serve the fantasies of Olmert's warped Kadima party, the neo-cons, and insane terrorist groups. Cease fire, please.

oooooh the tension

2006-07-28T22:49:00.000+01:00

As promised, here's the shortlist for the 2006 PL Alternative Prize - or whatever it is! (Remember y'all, this is simply about what I've heard, in it's entirity, since last August - so ¡Forward Russia! don't quite make it yet). I really can't see how chosing is going to be easy, what with the past year being one of the best I can remember. Top quality stuff.

AFX - Hangable Auto Bulb
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
The Knife - Silent Shout
Scott Walker - Drift
Cat Power - The Greatest
Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Ink Spots - Best of the Ink Spots
Kate Bush - Aerial
Soulwax - Nite Versions

cut that tape, cut it out, cut the crap, cut-off point

2006-07-25T00:23:00.000+01:00

(detail from Ghost of a Tree 3 - with apologies to Munch, Van Gough, and Blake)

I got whisked off by Martin, out the blue, on Saturday. We went to Eyam, which is a charming Peak District village whose main claim to fame is having been ravaged by the plague in the 1600s. I also got to meet Eleanor, who's come up to our provincial county for a few days, and who's lovely and funny - you should be reading her weblog, which features here. It's like Lilly Allens, but less caustic and more varied. So we took in the ambience of the village whose people starred death in the face and mostly died.

That evening I got to see Superman Returns, which was the very most shallow and delightful kinda film - it's fair to say that a 10 second bit of rehashed Marlon Brando easily outacted everyone else in it! But this was a spectacle, and Superman is at his best when he's just saving the world without having to deal with some crippling existential angst, social battle, or tendancy to be hip and cool like most superheroes seem to do.

The next day was spent locked in my room, drawing some BIG towaring black clouds and clashing shafts of light onto A1 tracing paper. It's an image I've been trying to sort out for a couple of years, and is all about resolving how romance has led to a fair amount of emotional overload and heartpain at times. It was all a bit intense, what with the Nick Cave, Primal Scream, Super Furry Animals, and New Order soundtrack blasting out my tapeplayer. So I had to run up to the loft and paint a few wistful little fluffy clouds throught the skylight, to calm down. Actually I needed to do this, today, when my gardening client appeared to have no faith in my horticultural judgement whatsoever. Gah, I hate having to hold back a sarcastic comeback and just offer a ptihy platittude to the paying customer. Cos you do spy on me, you are cloyingly hard-nosed, and you interferre when I'm doing summit very competantly. Oh yes you do, you smug organic obsessive N.I.M.B.Y.

Oh looky, it's the Mercury Prize shortlist. It's got to be Thom Yorke or Sway, if quality's any measure. But where on earth are ¡Forward Russia!? Perhaps they'll make it onto the third annual PL alternative prize, if they're ever so lucky.

letter

2006-07-17T00:38:00.000+01:00

Dear Matlock Mercury,

Tonight I was walking my dog through Matlock town centre, and happened to come across some lads trying to climb over the gates behind a public building. Thinking they could be attempting to break in, or to commit arson, I wandered past the police station and let them know what I'd seen. Upon returning the same way, I found they were simply climbing a low roof to try jumping across spaces, a la "parkour" (a French-originated urban jumping and climbing movement).

So I'm just writing to publicly apologise to them, for having made assumptions about them, and having come close to reacting in the worst small-town mentality. There's precious little for young people to do in this town, as it is, and that kind of creative free play should be encouraged in the broadest possible way - rather than threatened away. I hope they continue, bearing in mind due safety and good sense, and I wish them well.

regards,

Laurence Craig.

RIP the pages

2006-07-06T09:54:00.000+01:00

I find it fascinating and wonderful that books could be treated with such respect as this. It's a better fate than simply languishing, in dust and apathy.

nonesense you say? what nonesense

2006-07-06T09:22:00.000+01:00

the image and the reality?

I awoke this morning to the usual delights of Radio 4's Today programme (actually this was the second time - there was a crash in my room, at 4am, when a cat had managed to knock all my tapes off the windowsill). This time it was John Prescott being unusually belligerent, in the face of 'allegations' about him. John Humphrys seemed to be fairly restrained, today, in his questioning - probably cos he couldn't really get a purchase, what with there being very little actually substantive. Just lots of talk, and 'questions' - whatever these questions are.

Having said that, I do find the idea of making new big casinos - flashily titled Super Casinos, as if they're here to save us - abominable. For a so-called progressive government to be actively supporting new ways for people to lose lots and lots of money beggars belief.

moved by some spirit

2006-06-15T00:39:00.000+01:00

Here're three dreams I've had in the last week - a very busy time! The Forth was less colourful, so I've omitted it. Each ended with waking up...

The people with sharp teeth
(The latest vampire episode, in a long series)

Some bumbling Victorian figure, like a ragged Dr Watson, comes running into the high Church we're in. They're coming, he says with great urgency. So we few did what we could; I grabbed a big hymn notice sign and set it on an easel facing the door. Anything with any supernatural power must be used, to hold them back. Sat on a pew, I saw them start to enter and walk to whever we're sitting in the nave. They had wikedly sharp teeth, in rows like sharks, and looked hungry and ready. Two - a female and a youngster - came and sit next to me. I recoiled desperately, as close to Mary as I could. But they were very close anyway. I saw all those people who're left, like me, kissing invisible tongues suspended in front of their faces, and I knew they'll soon turn as well. I knew there were only two ways out, now - the back door went through somewhere utterly dark, with an unamed terror. If I went through there, I'd have to ignore it if I was to get through unharmed, which was no tall order. Or else I could go through the front door, and be chased down and torn up by all the sharp teeth. They huddled round in a horseshoe shaped bunch, while I stood there, ready. The head of them all, with his long back hair, fell on the floor saying "oh no no no " again and again in his mildly amused way. Later, on a second floor of some 60s-built school room, I asked Mary if she could help me get out. We went along the window until there was a bit of flat roof near by, and I jumped. I think I pulled her with me...

Escapades

The two of us were hiding below the edge of an open-air swimming-pool, in a lido complex, hiding from a bunch of various people in uniform. We had to find a way out, through various paths and through jump boards and dive boards. I was standing amongst some yew trees, in the dusk light. I was going to watch on the lone occupant, a frail Margaret Thatcher. But she knew I was there, and came out. I tried keeping close to the wall, but she came closer, and I had to run for it. "Wait!", she cried, but I dashed towards a gate in the plastic-covered metal link fence, wondering if I could leap over the fence on the other side of the road...

Where the hell did football come from?

I heard the results of a football team - somewhere slightly exotic and obscure - playing against that of Derby. It was 5-20...

shouty apologia

2006-06-04T01:20:00.000+01:00

With the advent of summer (come on now, all you naysayers, it's definately the season), a gardener is much more in demand at the moment. It's wonderfully satisfying, and, as my mind can often become fitful and manically full of static, very good for clearing my thoughts. But it does tend to mean that a lot of other things can get sidelined, when I get home and quickly head out into our own garden for a while. So, whilst I get to listen to a lot of fine radio while I'm out there (such as Heresy, which does the remarkable job of making David Baddiel seem refreshingly witty and lucid), I do struggle to keep up friendly relations with everyone at the same time. But at least I get to talk to a lot of quirky fellow bus passengers, at the same time. I'm sure some of you out there notice when I'm gone, and I can only plead that I mean well!

Today's best single? Atlantis to Interzone by Klaxons! It's brilliant! Listen to it!

the beautiful and the strange

2006-05-15T00:18:00.000+01:00

Good evening, Clarice

Onto more highbrow music, now, as I feel moved to point you in the direction of this year's Rieth Lectures. Daniel Barenboim, who I'd never heard of until now, has been an absolutely brilliant choice to deliver them. Over the course of five weeks he's discussed issues of music - from the poetics of how it affects us to the abuse it may undergo in the wrong hands - with wit, sharpness, poetry, and perception. The only downside, as Marcel Berlins points out, is that he's a terrible snob who can't conceive of any good music beyond his own love of high classical. Still, just carry it over to whichever kind you're into. But still; go and listen! This is absolutely compelling radio.

After tea, tonight, I happened to glance down at the floor at what I'd assumed was a crumb of food. When I bent down to clear it up, I found it was a mouse's face that'd been carefully removed behind the eyes. It was truly one of the strangest things I've ever seen! Welcome to the world of Hannibal Lecter...

the red hot self-parodies

2006-05-08T16:23:00.000+01:00

It's quite a relief to find such articulate rudeness about the Red Hot Chilli Peppers - now my vague irritation with them has a voice! Hurah!

"Seeing as Smash Hits is no longer with us, it's my duty to supply you with the lyrics to the new single by this over-rated and much-loved (by themselves, ho, ho, ho) American rocky-funky-bendy-bandy. Here goes, sing along: "a hip henna henna hoo/a hoo henny hen/ Haliforniha" repeat x35. Surely it's not just me who hears Vic Reeves' pub singer accompanied by Mark "chin-high bass" King from Level 42? It is? Sorry, rocky-funky fans." Johnny Dee.

"I'm forever near a stereo saying, "What the fuck is this GARBAGE?" And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers." Nick Cave.

the politics of a nation

2006-05-03T15:09:00.000+01:00

Whose faith? Whose country?

In one swoop, with today's House of Common's statement, Charles Clarke has managed to persuade me that he should go after all. Rather than seriously commit to implementing the current system properly, whereby convicted foreign nationals are considered for deportation, he now wishes to change the system, such that: "The guiding principle will be that foreign nationals guilty of criminality should expect to be deported." Such a shallow response, nakedly appealing to every prejudice to expel any troublesome element from our country in an effort to appear 'tough' and 'decisive', has shredded any sympathy I might have had with the idea that he should stay and clear up the troubles. He's just overreacting and trying to mask the troubles.

With voting going on in the local elections tomorrow, and the apparent threat of the BNP in some areas, it’s worth flagging up the latest exploits of those committed to the deportation of all people with any immigrant link whatsoever. A group has been set up, calling itself The Christian Council of Britain, which is said to be a facade for the BNP to try and establish links with right-wing Christianity. Except it’s such a sham that even Christian Voice have renounced any association with this new group, expressing concern about its racist motives (though their full list of charges is a bit crazy, including pagan revivalism!)

But the BNP can certainly keep their ugly mitts off, given that a paramount vision in Christianity is for complete equality and emancipation of all peoples. Indeed a radical transcendence of all that makes us different, acknowledging our unity and diversity. Giles Frasier sums up the insanity of the BNP’s attempts to tie our faith up with a hateful, distorted, racist, nationalism very well:

"But what is so utterly ridiculous about the BNP's desire to defend "Christian culture" is that the vast majority of Christians in the world are not white. The average Anglican, for instance is a black woman living in Africa. Moreover, if Jesus were ever to walk this green and pleasant land, the BNP would be committed to his repatriation. Even their great love of St George is a joke: George was either Turkish or Palestinian, and his legend migrated to this country from the Middle East."

the problems of hysteria

2006-04-29T11:55:00.000+01:00

Should I stay or should I go, now?

To put it bluntly, I don't think the Home Secretary should resign. I also think that a lot of the calls for his resignation, over the recent furure, have rather spurious basis.

Firstly there seems to be a fetish for resignations, such that any mistake is enough to require one. Every minister and every mistake, the the catcalls are the same. It's lost any real meaning when there actually is a cause for resgination, which does crop up from time to time. They are ignore the fact that it would take a while for someone else to bed into the post, which might further delay and sort-out of the problems.

Secondly, there appears to be a lot of whollyness about what's actually happened. Foreign nationals have committed crimes, of varying degrees of seriousness, and then served their times in jail before being released. Yet people act as if criminals have been released prematurely, accidentally, and will all roam the streets looking for another offense to commit. And thus they must be expelled, to their home countries, before they unleash their crime waves upon us all. It does seem to be a cocktail of fear of foreigners and fear of criminals - both of which become inflated into a monstrous beast - that is behind the hype. At worst, this mistake in the system might be seen as a case of there being insufficient post-incarceration care - but this should be seen as common to all who're released. The hysteria is absurd, and you don't help people not to reoffend by shooting them off elsewhere. Otherwise it's just NIMBY xenophobia.

Or: how violence develops and where it can lead

2006-04-27T00:42:00.000+01:00

"Let there not be too much talk about blood here, since only necessary differences in level are to be regarded as inevitable; we would therefore direct the reader to television and the movies and the appropriate musicals and grusicals; if there is to be something fluid here, let it not be blood. Perhaps attention should merely be drawn to certain colour effects: the murdered Töges was wearing an improvised sheikh costume concocted from a rather worn sheet, and the effect of a lot of blood on a lot of white sheet is well known; a pistol is then sure to act almost like a spray gun, and since in this instance the costume was made of a large square of white cotton, modern painting, stage effects would seem to be more appropriate here than drainage. So be it. These are the facts."

How is it that I can be so utterly squeamish, and yet relish the beauty and precision of this extract from 3 of The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum? It's certainly one of the most satisfying stories I've read for a long while and - like the film Fight Club - manages to touch parts of me that're rarely stimulated and satisfied. Through a combination of rigourous attention to aesthetics and a sharply observed story. It's an appropriate comparison to make, in some ways, cos Heinrich Böll's short story is very cinematic. Though its target is as much about media manipulation as a critique of the alienation that can come with modern materialism.

Christ is risen and life is freed

2006-04-15T23:56:00.000+01:00

CLICK ON the image, for the message.

"When Isaias foresaw all this, he cried out:
"O Hades, you have been angered by encountering Him in the nether world."
Hades is angered because frustrated,
it is angered because it has been mocked,
it is angered because it has been destroyed,
it is angered because it has been reduced to naught,
it is angered because it is now captive.
It seized a body, and, lo! it discovered God;
it seized earth, and, behold! it encountered heaven;
it seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible."

Happy Easter to you all.

heady days (edited)

2006-04-05T00:12:00.000+01:00

A couple of weekends ago, before going to the second SCM gathering, I was at my chapel's annual spring fair. And for once I was doing the bookstall rather than the plants. Pleasant as they are, it was fortuitous as they wouldn't have afforded me the chance to be part of a brief flurry of controversy. Gasp! The new joint circuit minister, a lovely lass who shall remain nameless, came over to browse and then firmly declared some of the material to be occult. I assumed she was joking in some way, as nobody's ever spoken like that round these parts, so did my mock "oh what will become of us?" face. But she went on to insist, in all seriousness, that they should really be cast out the building as liable to corrupt the ickle minds of new Christians. Satan likes to sneak in them with - ahem - subtle ways such as books of the clearly occult type. Who was the author concerned but Dennis Wheatley?

I've never heard of him, but decided this was a reason to acquaint myself. Thus far The Irish Witch is no disappointment; it's brilliantly trashy, with stilted dialogue and terrifyingly clunky scenarios. It's fair to say that, in amidst gentlemen out for the defence of honor and licentious young ladies, there are no surprises on the horizon with this tale. So not only did I get to nostalgically re-live the heady days of my bust-up with Reading University Christian Union over issues around the bookstall, but I've got a tacky bit of literature to laugh over. Huzah!

I thought it might be helpful to give you an idea of the kind of book this is, so here’s an extract that brilliantly epitomises the whole sorry enterprise:

"It is not I who refuse, but your mother."
Jemima’s blue eyes opened wide.
Lady Luggala gave a gasp of dismay. "There! Oh Satan help me! By throwing me into a tizzy about Charles going off to the war and our losing him, you’ve led me into disclosing that she is not dead, as I’d given you to understand."
Springing up from the chaise-longue, Jemima cried, "Who is she? Who is she? I insist that you tell me."
"No, child! No! That I cannot do. I am sworn to secrecy."
"’Tis too late!" Jemima flared. "To me it is a secret no longer. Who could have refused your request that I should be admitted into the Hell Fire Club? Only one person. The Irish witch. It is she who is my mother."

It has the feel and flow of a locale amateur dramatics convention. Unlike The Blind Assassin, which is a beautiful and subtle story that manages to be profoundly moving without ever straying into cloyingness. But woven within it there are funny and clever pulp sci-fi short stories, rather like the above story. Only they have a point.

catchup

2006-03-22T15:08:00.000Z

All visitors welcome

Apologies for the lack of updates of late - as if you really missed them! The home computer's been broken, and never gets beyond the welcome message before freezing. Apparently this is a virus, though I feel really short-changed by the lack of dripping screen blood and copying of my email address book by worms. I demand a proper virus.

Well, this past handful of weeks have been unusually social. I waved off Mary again, after a lovely weekend playing tour guide to my home area – introducing her to family, locale sights, and friends (thanks to Martin, Heather, and, later, Ed, for a charming day spent looking for ducks, eating chip mountains, and watching Daddy G’s alarming forehead on videos), of all which she proceeded to describe as "cute". Kudos. Though this is topped by Yvonne, who came up to visit and see the Derby sights with her charming fiancée Nathan a few weeks ago, who coos and extols the virtues of my "perfect little life".

It only remains for me to step thoroughly into the mainstream and declare that When You Wasn’t Famous is not only The Street’s best single to date, but also a fine bit of pop music. Even if the title is as deceiving as Justin Timberlake’s Like I Love You, in promising witheringly ironic personal sarcasm and instead delivering some jolly dittyish humour.

lent: dust and reflection

2006-03-03T15:53:00.000Z

We're currently in Lent, whatever that means for you. I often find it can easily become a bit aimless - though I am trying some structured devotions, including prayers from an old Catholic spiritual book, that I found in Matlock's Save The Children, called The Key of Heaven. And so am grateful for a some helpful defining by Maggi Dawn:

"If our Lenten Fast is understood well, it will relieve us of the need to try harder, achieve more, feel worthy. It will ground us in the firm and unshakeable knowledge that we are human - we are but dust, and to dust we shall return - but that to be human is enough, under the loving gaze of God."

Keep an eye on Hopeful Imagination, as they're running special daily reflections for the season and you're likely to find some interesting and clever responces to the spiritual themes Lent throws up in each of us.

I'd also reccomend these reflections on the Wilderness pictures, by Stanley Spencer, sensitively ad intelligently depicting Jesus' 40 days in the desert.

getting back into the swing

2006-02-28T00:23:00.000Z

Wherein Joaquin curls his lip to an extraordinary degree

Last week's trip to the green hills of Northern Ireland, to join my Mary, was wonderful. She's already reviewed some of our goings-on, which I would mostly sign off - though with perhaps a slightly different perspective at times - such as how well Devlin handles the lady in Notorious! We were accompanied by Rach on a friendly tour of Belfast's avant-guard and rather crazily religious haunts. I got a vision of the substance-infused community that is Armagh college's studentdom, as I accompanied Mary to her ball in the role of arm candy. We bought insanely sweet Polish foods and rosary beads. Walked the fields, saw films aplenty, of which the most notable was...

After the Pride and Prejudice viewing last year, Walk the Line was definitely more of an anti-romantic movie. Johnny Cash may have been a rather brilliant musician and songwriter, but there were no allusions that he was a good man as well. He could have been a lot better to his wife and kids than leaving them behind for his singing and for June Carter, but he was fearsomely good on the stage - and this wasn't detracted by his personal background. We cannot demand that artists are good people, but that they make good art.

this is my body, given...

2006-02-13T00:16:00.000Z

Click on the image for an alternative version.

I'm flying off to Northern Ireland in the wee small hours of Friday morning, to visit my Mary. (Which I've been looking forward to for ages, and it'll be a real joy to see her again!) In the meantime, I'll leave you these two images in celebration of the fact that in the past few weeks I've banished the one last unconquerable artistic subject. Yep, people are definitely on the visual menu at the moment. In this case I tried to imagine some hybrid of Nick Cave's music and the Daily Mail. Take care everyone, and I'll be back with summit more current affairsy or religious in a weeks time.

the funny pages

2006-02-07T00:38:00.000Z

I wasn’t quite sure whether to add to the mountains of comment about the recent furore over some cartoons published in various newspapers. But there are number of things which bother me, about the coverage, and the principles of the various protagonists, that I need to set down. Plus the comment here goaded me on.

(1) The headline image is not an attack on Muhammad, that much is plainly obvious – but an attempt to satirise those who use him as an inspiration to harming others, and go about destroying innocent lives through their zealous violence. (There is, thus, a lot of irony in the protesters who called for bombings and killings of those they feel have affronted them). But the majority of the protesters have thus got the wrong end of the stick...

(2)...as much as the media coverage, which has been fascicle enough to help people imagine that there hasn’t been a long tradition of portraying Muhammad in Islamic art. The mere presentation is not an affront to the sacredness of religion, despite what some Muslims may say. There has been a lot of sanctimonious rushing to understand, without actually get a grip on the sheer diversity of Muslims around.

(3) This isn't really a matter of defending free speech, apart from in the fantasies of a few ideologues that manage to presume it's best to show how valuable our social openness is by using that chance to whip up trouble. Most of us need offending, to keep us on our toes. But it's an abuse of our press to use it for attention-seeking self-indulgence. Most of the cartoons that were fussed-over tried to make up for how dull their satire was by just being deliberately bad taste. They were just piss-poor humour. Like the Pete Kay skit where he has some "alternative comedians" with an act that consists of swearing at pensioners.

(4) The genuinely subversive cartoonists out there, please sharpen your pens and set to work - we need better than this extreme stupidity. Indeed we deserve the best our cultures have to offer, at this time more than ever, when some seem to want to spark off the supposed clash of civilisations.

stop the hate

2006-02-01T00:14:00.000Z

the cutting edge of satire wades in

So the government was defeated for a second time. That should keep them on their toes. But what is much more gratifying is that the laws about incitement to religious hatred are going through, even as amended. From being decidedly ambivalent a while back, I've got to the stage, now, where I'm almost willing it on because of those against it. The arguments have, in the main, been ludicrous. They mostly seem to consist of lines like "we won't be able to critique religion any more" or “we won't be able to preach any more" or, most tiresome of all, "oh it'll stop us telling jokes".

This is a matter of covering loopholes, whereby unpleasant people get to whip up hatred against others by using religion as a proxy. If your humour or arguments involve creating hatred, then they’re pretty rubbish anyway. Alongside religious people with a persecution-fetish, a large chunk of those who're most opposed to the laws are those who just haven't come to terms with the fact that not everyone wants to be a secularist. Get over it; Atkinson, Toynbe, et al!

the jukebox has to take a leak

2006-01-28T01:29:00.000Z

I really can't stop fiddling, so here's another clickable version of a picture I did for one of Martin's tracks.

With so much of consequence going on, I can only quote a song today. I heard it on Desert Island Disks - hardly a regular for finding anything close to popular music - and it seems like one of the most fluidly beautiful of Tom Waits'. Amazing immagery in The piano has been drinking, once again proving a reviewer right when commenting that "he's consistently resisted the temptation to turn crap":

"and the box-office is drooling
and the bar stools are on fire
and the newspapers were fooling
and the ash-trays have retired"

if you go down to the woods today...

2006-01-21T23:26:00.000Z

do not attempt a relationship with this man

The lesson of these two films seems to be that if you head out into the middle of nowhere, you'll be surprised.

Brokeback Mountain, adapted from the excellent short story by Anne Proulx, managed to convey the impact of this very intense love story. Ennis, played by Heath Ledger, was especially believable - playing the damaged, yet compelled, victim of love's forces. What the film captured well is that none of them - Jack, Ennis, and their families - were pure victims or monsters in the resulting betrayal and compromise. This is what I mean by realistic. It communicated the agony and ecstasy of the emotional forces we cannot easily control, or even take total responsibility for. From their first surprised fumblings on the eponymous mountain, to the final tragedy of death and separation, everyone has to put up with a lot - sometimes rising to the occasion, but often walking through a fog.

Wolf Creek is a seriously grim film. The tagline is that it's based on real incidents of backpackers and travellers going missing in the Australian outback. But the makers of this story seem to want to condense everything into grisly and harsh endurance test for the audience. The three characters predictably break down, get picked up by a slightly odd guy, fall asleep, wake up imprisoned, try to escape, and get picked-off with lots and lots of blood along the way. I suspect they were watching Jeepers Creepers and The Blair Witch Project while making this one, but this whole type of thing just irritates me. The lesson of this film seems to be that you should never go further than 10 miles inland, in Australia, cos you will get tied up and abused by a man with a receding chin.

In short, go with the gay cowboys and not the apparently nice loner - you might find your heart broken, but at least your skull will remain in one piece!

made it, now lie in it

2006-01-18T10:51:00.000Z

A few ago I finished reading this book; and there are so many quotable paragraphs. But since I've been having some graphic dreams recently, I thought this one appropriate somehow. The central character, Grace, is talking about the quilts they make hanging up to dry - looking like flags hung up by armies at war:

"And since that time I have thought, why is it that women have chosen to sew such flags , and then to lay them on the tops of beds? For they make the bed the most noticible thing in a room. And then I have thought, it's for a warning. Because you might think a bed is a peaceful thing, Sir and to you it may mean rest and comfort and a good night's sleep. But it isn't so for everyone; and there are many dangerous things that take place on a bed. It is where we are born, and that is our first peril in life; and it is where the women give birth, whIch is often thier last. And it is where the act takes place between men and women that I will not mention to you, Sir, but I suppose you know what it is; and some call it love, and others despair, or else merely an indiginity which they must suffer through. And finally beds are what we sleep in, and where we dream, and often where we die."

a continued absence

2006-01-13T16:23:00.000Z

Here's some more politics for you, though of a more light hearted nature, for your delectation. Pretending to be a cat on reality tv is good for politics? You decide.

au revoir, chuckey bum

2006-01-08T00:59:00.000Z

Events move fast, and I had been intending to write in support of Charles Kennedy's leadership of the Liberal Democrats. But it seems now we must all write obituaries, because he's been forced out. How dare they. The aggressive swivel-eyed tendency, the so called 'orange group', have had it in for him come what may - despite his being closer to real humanity than most of parliamentary front bench politicians. And nothing seems to satisfy them but to ape the worst of Tory policies - free markets and privatisation. We don’t need another right of centre party, as there are already two as it is. This was a collusion with a media that had little basis for getting at him than unspecific talk of his needing to go.

The frontbench spokesman Lembit Opik - one of the few to courageously speak out against the recent nonsense - put it best by saying: "They have violated the values of some of the party, and crucially they have given the impression their words and their views are more important than the electorate which chose him in the first place." I doubt I will be able to vote for the party for a long while, the way they’re going.

near enough might as be

2006-01-04T14:58:00.000Z

I'm not good on resolutions, but in line with the previous intentions I'd like to live more colourfully and cut out more dross. That'll do for 2006, in an entirely unoriginal kinda way.

The year certainly started off well, surrounded by fireworks and falling-over people under Edinburgh castle, stood alongside Mary as we spend some much needed time together. I'm very optimistic for the year ahead. Which seems as good a place as any to include a much-needed pointer to those contemporary artists that inspire me most at this juncture:

The Perry Bible Fellowship
David Godbold
David Shrigley
Nancy Spero

loose ends

2005-12-27T01:10:00.000Z

figure 75.8. As featured on my door, on the 25th

In a truly chop and change style, this is a clear out of all the important bits that demand it before the new year hits - which I intend to see out with Mary in Edinburgh.

(1) I've been honoured by managing to elbow my way into having an accompanying picture with one of Martin's songs. If you don't like it, graffiti is still an option.
(2) I forgot to include Welcome to Jam Rock (by the son Damien Marley), Demon Days (by Damen's pet Gorillaz), and Aerial (by Kate Bush, ironically writing a song about her washing machine) in my musical review of the past year. They shouldn't have been missed out, and I'm quite sorry for such a lapse!
(3) The Hopeful Imagination advent journey drew up to Christmas after a fascinating four weeks spent together. I suggest looking through the archives, cos there are some corking reflections to be found.

Which simply leaves me to wish you all a happy transition to the new year. Or, better still, a most fulfilling and appropriate arrival of 2006. See you all on the other side.

arrived

2005-12-25T00:02:00.000Z

What am I even doing online right now?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS anyway, to you and all your kith and kin.

of a year

2005-12-21T00:41:00.000Z

As part of the usual fare, here's my music of the two thousand and five. I was going to do an art one as well, but since it's all a bit piecemeal I've gone for album art as a substitute. It's been a great year for creative stuff, perhaps the best since 1997. Ooooh.

Get your hands off my creaking windowsill - the 12 albums

Low - The Great Destroyer
Kid Carpet - Ideas and Oh Dears
Slaeter Kinny - The Woods
The Dresdon Dolls
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Soulwax - Nite Versions
MIA - Arula
Roots Manuva - Awfully Deep
Teenage Fanclub - Man Made
Tom Waits - Real Gone
AFX - Hangable Auto Bulb
The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike

Ragged pockets hold only a few singles, still 11

Antony and the Johnsons - Hope There's Someone
Pharell Williams - Can I have it Like That?
System of a Down - B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bombs)
Pendulum - Slam
Benjamen Zephania - Wrong Radio Station
Royksopp - What Else is There?
Soulwax - NY Excuse/NY Lips
Sigur Ros - Glosoli
Hole - Retreat, Retreat
The Knife/Jose Gonzales - Heartbeats
Maximo Park - Graffitti

Some suprises in the 8 things spotted

suprised by Lewis

2005-12-15T16:01:00.000Z

Figure 45.7. the old classics

I was dragged along to see that Narnia film lastnight by my old friend Tim, thus foiling my plan to wait until it came out on video!

But it was rather good fun in the end, despite some slightly laughable moments – such as the ludicrous dark ugliness of the baddy horde. What appealed most to me about this film was that it’s a good romp – where The Lord of the Rings was so portentous and self consciously po-faced, as His Dark Materials looks likely to be, this has a wonderfully anarchic feel about it. There are fauns and talking beavers fighting alongside griffins, Santa Claus rides up on his sleigh to give out weapons to the kids.

This freedom in mucking around with every mythological element under the sun makes up a lot for the impossibly flaky characters - the kids were really annoying and bland. You could say this was simply their age and novelty in a film, but most of the Narnia inhabitants only opened their mouths to say summit morose like “I will stand by you no matter what, we have a bond beyond death” etc etc. without a shred of real involvement. I couldn’t really feel any empathy for them, they were all simply there as moving props, shadow puppets against a thrilling stage.

Cos the story is a pretty good one, precisely because it’s a biblical allegory. Some people seem to object to the very notion of this particular story that playing with metaphorical religious stories. But that’s absurd, as this article points out, since so much of our European culture is steeped in the narratives. They make for some of our most deeply resonating themes. I was ummming and arrring for ages, knowing the book, about all my objections to its portrayal – particularly the stated need to appease ‘deep magic’ with death. But then I realised you might as well switch off from such concerns about philosophical consistency - and recognise that the best stories are pretty rich, in all their spiky awkwardness, and will explore beyond what we find comfortable.

So despite myself, and despite aparently disagreeing with Ash on some of the actual content, I must say this is a top-notch film.

getting down with the beasties

2005-12-12T16:40:00.000Z

figure 30.2. boo!

This hardly counts as festival cheer, but I still strongly suggest you take a look at Perry Bible Fellowship. It’s very very funny, and just a little bit distracting. I’d like to know where the creator’s imagination sits!

No less depraved and cruel, are the stars of Life in the Undergrowth. But beautiful, too – if you haven’t been watching it yet, you’d best cotton on and enjoy the spectacular filming that captures such intricate delights. I guess Andy's been watching it, certainly. Who would’ve thought slug sex and dragonfly moulting could be quite so wonderful.

take a peek 2

2005-12-07T15:54:00.000Z

Partly inspired by the Edvard Munch painting Ashes, and partly by Radiohead’s Byzantine Ziggurat, this is a series of pictures I’ve come up with over the past few weeks. Variations on the same motif.

IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY, YOU’RE SURE OF A CLICHÉ PART I PART II PART III PART IV PART V

winners and winners

2005-12-07T00:33:00.000Z

figure 79.7. the legacy of the handbag

Yesterday saw Simon Starling win the Turner Prize, as someone who apparently represents ’research-based’ art. It’s interesting as summit close to a museum piece or community project, or perhaps a requisite headline grabber (for shedboat), but Jim Lambie’s instillation pressed all my art buttons. It’s a bit crazy, very attractive, and has some rather searing motifs that bear relation to everyday town life.

And today it was the turn of David Cameron to win the Conservative leadership contest. Kudos to him for racing from outranker to favourite, but I’m really not very keen. True I’m instinctively opposed to seeing the Tories in power, but they could at least have chosen someone who’d get them back into meaningful engagement. Instead there’s tons of empty rhetoric and hot air about change change change, with little to offer us but summit akin to the New Labour Project with a blue skin.

sounds on undergrounds

2005-12-01T16:09:00.000Z

figure 78.0. matters of taste and decency

Martin asked me a rather tricksy question the other night, which ran as follows:

"I recall that you took a very principled stand against Beenie Man when he was accused, rightly, of writing homophobic lyrics. Yet when hip-hop artists, including those you like, are accused, rightly, of writing misogynistic lyrics you seem to treat it as merely 'unfortunate'. How do you reconcile these two positions?"

I guess this revolves around my very public enjoyment of the single 99 Problems by Jay Z, which goes through the irritations of his life but then proclaims it alright with the chorus: "If you're havin' girl problems I feel bad for you son/I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one."

I had my original concerns about dancehall singers primarily because the music they made, brilliant as it was in musical terms, included lyrics that played up to a violent subculture in Jamaica – where homosexual people are regularly threatened, abused, or killed. In such a context, it’s wholly disturbing to find artists backing up prejudices with conviction (exhorting audiences to kill ‘battyman’) rather than challenging them. Beenie Man, Bounty Killa, et al have made no public contrition, and shame on them.

Now Jay Z’s song, in the context of his other material, is a lot less obviously regressive. He regularly makes tracks about how he’s into girls of all sorts (and lately his partner Byonce), and in the light of that I think it’s fair to say that 99 Problems is a teensy bit playful – trying to make light of those females who’ve done him wrong. The full lyrics bear that out. Indeed I think we can throw the greater charge at him of washing out any really sharp social comment (unlike Public Enemy et al) to sell more records, rather than bad vibes, in this instance. Not that we should assume anything like consistency, since he sings about not advertising clothes a few times then...lo and behold, he’s on adverts for trainers and suits! Reminds me of the disappointment I felt when I found John Peel had done a voiceover for a toothpaste advert. God bless him, but what a silly thing to do.

While I’m on music, there are some great singles out at the moment. Walk Away by Franz Ferdinand, Heard e’m Say by Kanye West, and Denial Twist by the White Stripes.

mark 2

2005-11-28T23:50:00.000Z

I have a tendency to re-work pictures. Maybe it's laziness, though I'd prefer to say it's about seeing what else the picture has to give. So here's that cute little scene done again - to bring out them doggy lassie qualities. Someone suggested to me that the motif has some Curious Incident air about it, so what the hey...

I JUST WANT YOU BACK FOR GOOD, COS YOU WAS EVER SO FRIENDLY AND FLUFFY

I bet you think this song is about you...

2005-11-25T15:14:00.000Z

figure 73.7. warning: contents may not resemble image

Big things and exciting news. Sort of. There's going to be an advent season on hopeful imagination. A few of us have been invited to join them in contributing a thought every day, minus the platitudes of course. So make sure you get your arses over there and have a look, from the 28th November onwards.

rhyme and reason

2005-11-22T00:21:00.000Z

figure 45.6. what does it do?

After the tangles of the last entry, and the knots that can be cast with language in the media, tonights thoughts seem even more appropriate. I read a fantastic article today, a riposte to those who question what poetry - and, really, art in general - is for. Who can't see any use in it. Anyway, by the by, the writer managed to make a sharp observation that "Poetry is not a pretty way of saying something straight, but the straightest way of saying something complex." I so often find things make a lot more sense if I explore them through verse, so this makes sense to me.

Tonight I heard a beautiful rendition of Heartbeats, by José González - delicate and vulnerable where The Knife's original is colourful dance-pop brilliance. Either way, it's a very lyrical song that perfectly demonstrates the above observation.

asking for it

2005-11-21T15:30:00.000Z

"yes I wore a slinky red thing
does that mean I should spread
for you, your friends
your father, mr ed"
Me and a Gun, by Tori Amos

I somehow ended up listening to Women's Hour today, while out walking the dog. Normally I switch it off quickly, feeling somewhat disenfranchised - but today's was just too compelling. According to a poll by Amnesty International, around a third of those asked thought that women were responsible for getting raped if they wore revealing clothing or were drunk/flirtatious.

This really shocked me - to find such an attitude still prevalent is appalling. What’s particularly scary here is that here's an inherent notion that those who commit the violence of rape are only following a course set by the victim, who make themselves available for sex whether they like it or not. Indeed consent is apparently utterly lacking in the respondents - i.e. there seems to be the view that if you show yourself off, that means you're asking for it. It’s foolish and bizarre to abdicate responsibility from the perpetrators of violence, who can so treat other people like a resource or object. There can be reforms of the legal and police systems, but there sure needs to be a lot more reform of our social attitudes.

ps. take a peek

2005-11-15T00:50:00.000Z

I'm getting impatient with the progress of my new website (who would've thought buying both a domain name and hosting could be so complicated!). So in the meantime here's a picture I made a couple of nights ago. It's likely to be called "he is cast down by Robin, as witnessed by Christopher" or "as they killed the satanic red thing, they realised a little bit of them had died".

***IT HAS BECOME APARENT THAT THE SYSTEM DOESN'T WANT TO CO-OPERATE, AND IS GENERALLY BEING A PILE OF POO AS REGARDS PUTTING A PICTURE STRAIGHT UP. BUT I WANT YOU TO SEE THIS ONE, COS I THINK IT'S VERY GOOD ACTUALLY, AND SO PLEASE CLICK HERE.***

what it felt like

2005-11-14T23:30:00.000Z

figure 57.1. music make you loose control

On the way back from Martin's birthday weekend, I was reading over the Saturday newspaper and came across an article discussing the lost art of protest in...well, art. Principally music, such as Bob Dylon and Public Enemy. There was a fascinating bit, where someone was trying to describe their experiences of being empowered by music as they faced life under oppression in China:

"At the same time, urban kids found an outlet for their frustrated energies in new, barely tolerated western fads, such as break-dancing. These are the words of a shop girl in Tianjin (quoted in Geremie Barmé and Linda Jaivin's New Ghosts, Old Dreams): "When I'm break-dancing I feel passionate and uninhibited ... I'm normally very quiet and soft-spoken...But when I hear that entrancing music ... The last drop of adolescent shyness evaporates as hot blood surges through my veins. After all, I'm a child of the 80s!"

The Chinese are no different to us. The appeal of Cui and other Chinese rockers was not their political message; it was the attitude, expressed in the music, of defiance. This was political enough. Discussing liberal democracy was for the Beijing University students. Other Chinese were less articulate, perhaps, but they knew what it felt like to be oppressed by authority."

I like how music was described as something that rouses people to agitation, beyond lyrics. I don’t always listen carefully to what's being sung, am more likely to emotionally surge along with the sounds of music. The way the vocals go hits me best, so often. It bypasses all thought to rouse my instincts to sorrow, anger, love, joy, or hope. This is often then directed through what I draw and paint - in an attempt to live up to the challenge the music has set me, in making sense of that for myself through movements of brush and pen.

out it goes,

2005-11-10T00:06:00.000Z

figure 45.7. a small hope

It's already been commented in much detail here and here, but I just wanted to add a little to the 90 days vote today. It's such a relief to see that after much intense pressure, that MPs had enough perspective to moderate the excesses of a government somewhat intoxicated on it's own fizzy rhetoric. To give police the power to detain people for up to 3 months, which, as we've been told, is equivilent to a 6 month prison sentance, would begin to shade in distinctly dodgy territory. Amnesty International campaigns on behalf people held indefinately without charge or trial for long periods of time, in various opressive situations abroad. What are the freedoms we're fighting to protect against "the terrorists", exactly?

get the red

2005-11-07T00:55:00.000Z

figure 91.9. know your place

The often brilliant Myrina Hyde wrote a breezy take on celebrity religion over the weekend. So while I try my best not to set my newly decourated bedroom on fire with 20-year-old candles, have a read. There are so many great moments, but this paragraph gets the gist nicely:

"This week, Madonna addressed the continuing derision concerning her embrace of Kabbalah, saying there'd be less fuss if she'd "joined the Nazi party". Well, quite. Sure, it's a fake-Jew cult where you don't get protected from the evil eye unless you buy a red string bracelet that costs £15 (and that doesn't come with a free £14 note). And, yes, they did send over hundreds of cases of their £4-a-bottle water to tsunami victims, somehow contriving to make Marie Antoinette look like she'd had 20 years' experience on Red Cross feeding programmes. But you know what? At the Los Angeles Kabbalah centre, they have celebrity pews."

Who needs awkward and trifling matters like equality and social justice, after all, when you can buy salvation? Pity the rest of us poor proles who aren't special, and can't afford the secrets of a good life. Or even a nifty jewellery-encrusted Jesus pedant.

new tours

2005-11-06T01:37:00.000Z

figure 62.1. you, too

Yes, I'm returned from a grande tour of the regions known as Northern Ireland. Mary's already filled in some of what we got up to over the week, so I'll do my best not to commit the sin of repetition. My first ever flight offered incomparible views of the world, and an hour of delight in weightlessness. Belfast was a strange hybrid of northern feel and southern character, though the main attraction was wondering round new agey bookshops and tropical houses with the charming Rach. Acoustic Ladyland were purvayors of furiously inspiring rhythms, with some of the most brilliantly complex and involving drumming I've heard for ages. Pride and Predjudice is better in the first half, when Mr Darcey is allowed not to care a toss about other people in a spectacular fashion. Dublin's modern art supply is fun and funny, contemporary stimulation with a shot of attractive humanity (particularly Martin Sastre). Portadown was infuriating, by its ingrained sectarianism. Armagh Cathedral has beautiful detail, and delightful electric prayer candles (you press a red button to do the business). The Culbertson household is most hospitable, and a den of teasing and hot debating. Mary was a fantastic companion for my stay, bless her damp cotton socks.

you've got to get mad

2005-10-27T00:06:00.000+01:00

figure 78.9. who, me?

I'm heading off to Northern Ireland tomorrow night, to see Mary for a week. And Rach, in the Belfast, of course. But before then, well I was listening to Radio 1 on my walkman while gardening. You know how they often say our generation doesn't care about things - indeed that we're self-obsessed? Well check out part of the latest song by the inexplicably popular My Chemical Romance, called I'm Not OK:

"I'm okay
I'm okay!
I'm okay, now
(I'm okay, now)

But you really need to listen to me
Because I'm telling you the truth
I mean this, I'm okay!
(Trust Me)

I'm not okay
I'm not okay
Well, I'm not okay
I'm not o-fucking-kay
I'm not okay
I'm not okay
(Okay)"

Such a gaspingly navel-gazing and mopy gesture, it's as if hard-rock can't even be arsed to get properly angry. Instead of furious about great injustice, he's merely not ok. A bit peeved and angsty, about some girl doing him wrong. Oh dear, diddums. The best nomination for a properly mad "I want to do more than survive, I want to rub it in your face" song, that does more than sigh and moan, will get a lolly pop when I return. Livid music - now there's edifying activity to keep you happy!

hardliners

2005-10-24T14:00:00.000+01:00

Figure 46.1. hot ideology

It's easy to see how often I read the Guardian, given how much I end up quoting stuff from its comment pages. I find much of the politics and social outlook there very amenable, despite the odd glitch. But one big issue I come against so often is how many of the contributors display an anti-religious sentiment that borders of the ridiculous. It's frustrating, to me, that left-leaning and liberal approaches seem to be perceived, by many, as mandating a secularism that denies any sacred or sacramental outlook.

Polly Toynbe is the archetypal indignant pontificator, here for example. Indeed in context this piece, calling for the toleration of silly religious people so long as it's for the cause of good works, seems positively inviting - though it doesn't go so far as to regard us religious people as fully Guardian-ites. The general line seems to be one of anger or pity for those of us infantile enough to confess a faith, and terrible enough to impose it on others (ie. let it affect how we live our lives). I have to vent every so often, cos this bothers me a lot.

But the regular weekly religious column often does a good job of blasting many simplistic assumptions expressed elsewhere in the pages. And the latest, from Giles Fraser, is a stunner. It's not online yet, but follows some points made earlier. Here's my favourite section:

"Many born-again atheists remain trapped in a 19th-Century time warp, reheating the standard refutations of religious belief based on a form of rationalism that harks back to an era of fob-watches and long sideburns. One Oxford don has called the website of the National Secular Society a "museum of modernity, untroubled by the awkward rise of postmodernity"...This commitment to Victorian philosophy turns to farse when secularists describe themsleves as free-thinkers. In truth, atheism is about as alternative as Rod Stewert."

A-men brother!

how darre you!

2005-10-20T00:06:00.000+01:00

I know I've already gone on about this to a couple of you, but it needs to be heard. Normally radio 4 is as bourgeoise as the Guardian, but this morning it was rather shaken up by the combined forces of Joan Rivers and Darkus Howe. Listen in to the latest show from about 10/15 minutes or so in. It becomes truly compelling car-crash radio!

spam javelin

2005-10-18T00:29:00.000+01:00

figure 57.0 it's really like that

It's going to be a bit of an arty week, with the Turner Prize shortlist out tomorrow, but I want to get some mentions in now anyway. Plus it'll provide a satisfying distraction from politics - what with the Tory leadership contest, which is about to kick off with a first vote tomorrow, likely to get me waffling about the terrors of conservative policies. Again.

Number one is that you should listen to The Go! Team's album, Thunder lightning strike, which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. It's such joyous music, without any consideration, analysis, or angst. Lots of saturated rhythms and strangely off-kilter melodies all banging together in short happy bursts. It's the nearest aural equivalent to eating fruit salad sweets.

Number two is that there was a special edition of the Guardian today, with some new art and an interview with Sarah Lucas (not to be confused with our own wee Sarah - despite wearing a funny knitted hat on the cover page). I'm not sure I identify with all the boozy living, but I love her way with titles and ability to come up with an impressive motif. Most people will know her best for the fried eggs self-portrait.

one nation?

2005-10-11T16:15:00.000+01:00

figure 89.2. least worst of a very bad bunch

What a shame. Ken Clarke is an unrepentant harbinger of the terrible 90s government. David Cameron is a Tony Blair-esc smarmer. Liam Fox is a right-wing loony like only Jon Redwood could better. David Davies seems to prefer stodgy hard line rhetoric to anything sensible. The one candidate in the Conservative Party leadership race that's even close to being anything close to reasonable, Malcolm Rifkind, has gone and bowed out due to lack of support. The Tory party are great ninnies.

hidden by leaves

2005-10-07T16:22:00.000+01:00

figure 45.7. not a true likeness

After some pretty weird dreaming last night, I woke up with an urge to be decisively assertive and clear out some of the dross I’ve been gathering for a few months now. In this case it was a fairly large wodge of unfinished pictures, that have remained in that state for so long that they’re really pressing on my mind every time I look at them. Like an accusation, of neglect. Is it that I don’t like to have failure – in this case the inability to make anything notable out of a few half-baked ideas – staring me in the face? The recycling bin was no good, as I’d only get reticent and hoof them out again in a couple of days. So I took them downstairs, stuck them in the fireplace, and set them alight with a couple of matches. What a blaze! Hopefully it’ll help me to come up with some new ideas, with such tangled rough ends out of the way.

Ideas are what Andy is after at the moment. If you have any interesting or unusual readings of the Genesis 3 story, please do pop over and share them with him. Unless you're into creationist diatribes, in which case this might be a safer bet.

take notes

2005-10-04T15:32:00.000+01:00

It's time to get the admin box out for just a few minutes.

I've had an ongoing project of updating the SCM weblinks page for a while now, trying to pick out a few notable sites from the fields of material. There needs to be some selection, just to start people off in their searching! If you know of any notable ones that I haven't included yet, please do let me know. There's no real selection criteria - I'm just looking for sites that liberal-ish questioning Christians would enjoy, or indeed anyone in the Church might be excited by. I've also added a couple more links to this site, down on the right of this site - with a promise to my friend Yvonne that I'd point her out to you. She's just started writing, so be gentle m'dears.

And I've made the first forays into trying out HTML coding all by myself, with a view to actually getting on with this promise to make a new website. Something of my very own, with pretty stripes and useful levers. It’s surprisingly simple, or at least in the basic elements. So at this rate I might be raking in the odd bit of collaboration from you all in due course, just like I have with my joint colouring book dream.

who d'you say that I am?

2005-09-28T12:33:00.000+01:00

hippie Jesus happy Jesus hip-hoping Jesus righteous Jesus pink Jesus singing Jesus community Jesus wondering Jesus dying Jesus faceless Jesus capitalist Jesus friendly Jesus fashionable Jesus working Jesus old Jesus urban Jesus monochrome Jesus insane Jesus touching Jesus scabby Jesus shopping Jesus baby Jesus floating Jesus sleeping Jesus infected Jesus eating Jesus yes Jesus movie Jesus animal Jesus playing Jesus yawning Jesus dirty Jesus bargain Jesus priestly Jesus zombie Jesus hidden Jesus protest Jesus working Jesus scientific Jesus driving Jesus pretty Jesus crumbling Jesus rehabilitated Jesus burning Jesus poster Jesus asylum Jesus comedy Jesus shameless Jesus ancient Jesus menace Jesus erotic Jesus accusing Jesus tempting Jesus irritating Jesus apathetic Jesus preacher Jesus future Jesus rock Jesus useful Jesus shocking Jesus recording Jesus helpless Jesus synthetic Jesus holiday Jesus observant Jesus wild Jesus dreaming Jesus dreamy Jesus contraband Jesus loving Jesus temple Jesus blotchy Jesus e Jesus persecuting Jesus holy Jesus disappointed Jesus thinking Jesus grieving Jesus obvious Jesus sugary Jesus aspirational Jesus kissing Jesus mocking Jesus druggy Jesus passionate Jesus fantasy Jesus picnic Jesus comforting Jesus international Jesus spirit Jesus sissy Jesus cyborg Jesus financial Jesus reticent Jesus entertaining Jesus alien Jesus lawful Jesus departing Jesus text Jesus authentic Jesus meditating Jesus radio Jesus running Jesus DIY Jesus reading Jesus prisoner Jesus heavenly Jesus story Jesus flying Jesus lonely Jesus disco Jesus changing Jesus godless Jesus who d'you say that I am?

the last gasp

2005-09-28T00:12:00.000+01:00

figure 12.9. "look up, there go the labour principles"

I've held back a certain amount for so long now, but no more. Listening to bits of Tony Blair's speech earlier today, I couldn't help but sigh inside when hearing him trancing on about how he wants to mash up - I mean reform - the public services for many years to come. A little bit of me died. That bit which was willing to give him some slack, thinking that he actually meant well. But no, he really is some slightly crazed political fanatic - willing to stamp around and gut some of the most socially beneficial aspects of our society just to prove an ideological point. How long do we have to put up with this tosh for?

And while I'm on a righteous bent, might I recommend a new poem by Ash. It's very fine - not just a list of invective, but leavened by thoughtful reflection. It's a welcome release.

oooh I don't need no minute man

2005-09-22T23:52:00.000+01:00

figure 97.9. the way it's carried

I found this picture over on Divine Talk, and for some reason it really fascinates me. It might be the presentation of God going through the motions, gesturing in a physical manner. I've certainly never seen so transcendent, mysterious, partial, a God visually presented to us in such a visually convincing way. Presenting to us with such assured potential, for how we might communicate that God ourselves and see. Move over word, the flesh is having its say.

Talking of which, there's been a 100 minute bible written. For better or worse, it seems to be a reflection of time of soundbites and short spans - the marketing of everything in an attempt to make it snappy. Maybe some people say this is about accessibility. This new format might help people find a hook into the bible, to get an overview of the narratives and a taster from which to further explore, which is surely for the good. I wouldn't wish to be a snob, even as I mourn the loss of poetry and subtlety that must surely follow this 'abstract'. But one worry I do have is of the image it creates, or is borne out of the approach. In treating the bible as something that can be condensed to a few pages, the writer's working on the basis that the bible is a linear treatise which we can communicate by maxims. Where's the mystery and discovery, as many stories as life, in a thin adaptation?

to bear in mind

2005-09-17T00:35:00.000+01:00

figure 45.8. none may go yet

The main road south from my town passes through a very windy and steep valley, at times pressed in on either side by trees. Because so many tourists pass through, complacently going at high speeds, we get a lot of accidents - of which a fair few have been, unfortunately, fatal. Apart from front page coverage in the Matlock Mercury, I've noticed in recent years a tendency for various memorials. Often a bunch of flowers and card, there have been the odd plaque or longer lasting token - there's a poignancy to it, when we see police helicopters flying overhead throughout the summer weekends.

Thus my eye was immediately drawn to this comment in the Guardian recently. It seems quite brave, in a way, to question the ad hoc shrines to grief. Because private mourning is not dealt with lightly. And because of the rising propensity to shared public emoting is becoming quite a force, even if people were eventually embarrassed post-Diana. I find his central point - about how easily this could slip into emotionally claiming our public spaces - quite convincing. The most vital element of public spaces, be they countryside or urban, is that there's a sense of ownership with all who use and pass through it. Connection with a wide variety of different people can be difficult if meaning and resonance is pared-down so dramatically, as can easily happen with the sharpest of emotions.

I'd like to think there were a way of opening up the shrines, of making them less of a prison built unwittingly by private need and emotion. There must be some lesson in acts like Holocaust Memorial day, with it's wider themes and resonances that play beyond the specific cause for remembrance. For at least ensuring against the common disenfranchisement, of all but a few concerned with the totems placed at the centre of the space, from our shared ground. I certainly think it's possible, and might happen with a bit of creativity. I found this picture (see above) of a roadside shrine in Japan. And though it wouldn't be absolute personal and specific like you could get from a personally-placed bunch of flowers in a place of resonance, be it mourning or celebration, there would at least be that shared meaning in a locus. When so much public religion seems to be in change, with new things developing ad hoc, this kinda example might be good to bear in mind.

bang bang

2005-09-12T16:48:00.000+01:00

I was in the lower room, at chapel, the other night. It was some kind of social thing, cos there were people all around, sat at chestnut brown formica tables chatting amiably. I was happy with them, until saw a figure sat by the east wall. He was smashing at one of the walls with some device and a hammer, on which there were the remains of beautiful deep green glazed tiles – overlaid with tracings of light turquoise pattern. I was upset by this desecration, and quickly asked him to stop. He refused, and told me no, indeed to go away. I got irate and said loudly that I was leaving, then. People were watching the commotion, as I was asked if this was forever. I replied that it was merely for tonight – or at least a short time – as I didn’t want to be around while they were doing such terrible things. So walking out into the dark, at near midnight...

It's funny what you dream about.

a question of moderation

2005-09-11T01:07:00.000+01:00

figure 67.9. what natures?

I was listening to Question Time the other night, which was entertaining as ever. Someone asked about 'the rise of China', as a lot of recent analysis puts it, and whether we should be worried. So much of the concern, about how the rest of us might be threatened, is guff - the county's undemocratic regime, and its countless abuses, notwithstanding. But one of the panellists, the ever annoying Clare Fox (right-wing loony, and lacking a sense of humour - she wouldn't even enter into the spirit of the traditional flippant last question), said that we shouldn't be concerned about the economics of the country. And that there were aspirations to a western lifestyle is something to be celebrated, as part of their betterment. But George Monbiot puts it well, when he pointed out that there isn't enough of the world to be able to support every single person living a western material lifestyle. It's just not possible:

"Modern economics, whether informed by Marx or Keynes or Hayek, is premised on the notion that the planet has an infinite capacity to supply us with wealth and absorb our pollution. The cure to all ills is endless growth. Yet endless growth, in a finite world, is impossible."

And to see continuous economic growth as a central plank of humanity's 'salvation' could eventually create the opposite, as we fashion a dysfunctional world by our exponential demands for stuff. This is where I would get worried about the way China is developing - the logical conclusion might be disastrous, with so many people living in the country. There are, after all, enough problems as it is with a limited part of the world living this lifestyle. If the larger population blocks of Asia reach it, then we might have cause for concern.

Appropriately enough, some quite inspirational lessons from China's past feature in this latest article by Karen Armstrong, of a number of stories:

"The Chinese had assumed that their resources were inexhaustible, so they had plundered the countryside and slaughtered its animals with no care for the morrow. Now they realised that this brutal insouciance could not continue. Aristocrats were forced to curtail their hunting, which had been their chief pleasure - almost their raison d'être - and an extensive ritual reform regulated every detail of their behaviour. Gradually this religious discipline transformed their mentality, so that a spirit of moderation and self-control replaced the former wasteful excess."

She's trying to make the case for a spiritually-inspired renaissance in sustainable living, with greater connection to the world we live in. Religious environmentalism? It's a tentative start, but worth a quick muse for those with the imagination to make something of it.

"It's kind of like a crazy contest between an orange and a spaceship and a potted plant and a spoon"

2005-09-06T23:29:00.000+01:00

So the one I'd settled on did win The Mercury, in the end. Hurray for Anthony And The Johnsons. Beautiful, singularly haunting,music.

And while we're here, let's bash off the PL Alternative Prize. After much deliberation, I finally settled on Soulwax. They're witty in so many ways, even if a bit on the smug self-regarding side. The obligatory perspex trophy thingy is winging its way themwards...unless any persons here present have due cause to object...

power and sanitisation

2005-09-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

figure 47.7. safety Christ

Another one of those little books I happily stumble upon in the library, Jesus: Authors Take Sides, compiled by Richard Ingrams, is proving to be a fantastic read. It's a compilation of many different extracts by various writers, with their many takes on Jesus. A standout so far is taken from "Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood", where Holman Hunt records what happens when he invites Thomas Carlyle into his studio to look at "Light of the world". Part of why I so enjoyed the rant is cos I find most Pre-Raphaelite art so much saccharine dross. Here's an excerpt, from the reaction, where Carlyle's getting into his stride:

“He walked about, as he was trying with his ever invincible soul to break down the obtuse stupidity of the cormorant-minded, bloated gang, who were doing, in desperate contention, their utmost to make the world go devilward with themselves. Search has been made honestly, and imposture striven to satisfy the desire to procure some portraits of him, but not the faintest shadow exists that can be accepted, nor any nor any legendic attempt to represent him can be credited, notwithstanding your fables of King Abgarus of Eddressa or of St Luke or of St Veronica’s napkin, Yet there were artists enough to spare, and the sculptor’s work has come down to us, filling all the museums of Europe. They adored their stone images of obsolete gods, and looked to the augurs of these as ruling their destinies, while the living mouthpiece of God, the giver of true wisdom, was amongst them,. It was a shadow-land in which they searched for their gods, and so made images of Jupiter, of Apollo, of Hercules, of all the deities and deeses who put no bridle upon the will of their voltaires, but left them to play into the hands of all the devils in hell, from whose reign indeed they were not separated, unless forsooth we have to take them for creatures of purposeless fancy. Male and female, they were the rulers of a heaven that all the intelligent men among them had long ceased to believe in, in spite of the statue of the “son of man”, as he called Himself, and shown us what manner of man He was, what his height and what His build, and what the features if His sorrow-marked face were, and what his dress, I for one would have thanked him who did it with all the gratitude of my heart for that portrait, as the most precious heirloom of the ages. Now I tell you, young man, you are doing exactly what the sculptors of Roman time did, and y’ll ne’er make your talent a benefit to your fellowmen of to-day and do to them that come afterwards if you go on working worn-out fables. I have seen the pictures, all of them by the great painters who have set themselves to portray Jesus, and what could be more wide o’ the mark? There’s that picture of “Christ Disputing with the Doctors” in our National Gallery by Leonardo da Vinci, and it makes him a puir, weak, girl-faced nonentity, bedecked in a fine silken sort of gown, with gems and precious stones bordering the whole, just as though He had been the darling of the court, with hands and fingers that have never done any work, and could do none whatever, a creature indeed altogether incapable of convincing any novice advanced enough to solve the simplest problem in logic. There are other notable presentations of conceptions of Christ in paint and marble familiar to us in prints, and they are all alike”. Here vin shrill voice and high, he continued, “And when I look, I say, “Thankyou Mr da Vinci”, “Thankyou Mr Michael Angelo”, “Thankyou Mr Raffaelle”, that may be your idea of Jesus Christ, but I’ve another of my own which I very much prefer.” I see the man toiling along in the hot sun, at times in the cold wind, going long stages, tired, hungry often, and footsore, drinking at the spring, eating by the way, His rough and parched clothes bedraggled and covered with duct, imparting blessings to others which no human power, be it king’s or emperor’s or priest’s, was strong enough to give to Him, a missioner of Heaven sent with brave tongue to utter doom on the babbling world and its godless nonsense, and to fashion out another teaching to supplant it, doing battle with that valiant voice of His, only against the proud and perverse, and charming, the simple with his love and lovableness, but ever disencharming such as would suppose that the kingdom of heaven that He preached would bring to Him or to his adherents earthly glory or riches; offering them rather ignominy and death. Surrounded by His little band of almost unteachable poor friends, I see him dispirited, dejected, and at times broken down in hope by their immovability and spleen of fools, who, being rich with armed slaves, determined to make the heavens bend to them. I see him unflinching in faith and spirit crying out, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear”. This was a man worth seeing, if likeness could be found.”

touched by his noodly appendage

2005-09-01T15:43:00.000+01:00

figure 78.9. lo and behold

After Chris's irreverent stab at the whole creationist diatribe recently, I thought this discovery might prove a helpful contribution to the debate. Yes, it seems there's a saucy new belief that's lining up to be taught as one of the "non-evolutionary theories", so extolled by creationists. Namely pastafarianism - the conviction that the world was created by a giant noodle monster. The 'prophet' concerned may have a good point, about the fallacies of implied causation, but I'm still quite taken with the idea. Now, where'd I put my fusilli...?

"a kind of faith in drag"

2005-08-31T00:11:00.000+01:00

figure 45.1. growing themes

Greenbelt was a resoundingly enjoyable weekend, as ever. Well, mostly. It was given an extra tinge of unwelcome drama the first night, when I lost my tent. After wandering around like a homeless bat for a couple of hours I finally gave in and, wrapped up in kid's trade justice banners, slept in one a marquee. Things improved significantly from the next day, after refinding my stuff and meeting pretty much everyone I know somewhere along the way.

I missed Dave Thomlinson's thoughts, and the great Archbishop Rowan wasn't there this year, so the highlight cam from unexpected quarters. I like suprises. The series of talks given by Betty Spackman hit just the right tone - eccentric and rambling, but packed with countless little germs of ideas. I suspect the things she came up with will be mulled over here during the next few weeks, as with other stuff about pacifism & war, and internet faith, and social activism, and [pre-]modern spirituality, and commercialisation of worship.

Anyway, one of the main themes our Betty explored was how kitsch is such a pervasive feature of our modern Church. She tried to draw a distinction between relics, and other Christian material things, and kitsch materials. Relics sit with the stories that we have (the gospel etc.), making sense within the kaleidoscope of diverse symbols that communicate our ideas visually. Kitsch items, on the other hand, are inherently limiting - in that they pare down the possibilities of a visual exploration of our faith to a few assumed types. The angels are all so often cute and sugary, for example - precious, even.

Being twee is no bad thing per say, but if it's about making Christianity safe and reassuringly predictable, then kitsch can mean the repression of life in all it's fullness. She made a stirring call for all involved in the arts, to freely play with our Christian narratives however we might feel called. To go where it seems right, and let the creative act do the talking. It's up to God to work out its implications of our artistic output in other people's reactions, rather than for us to assume and control how it might be taken.

On the first day, before my whole tent fiasco, I happened to glance at the short grass by the entrance to the site. Here I spotted a little plastic tab. It was a scrabble piece, with the letter A on it. Thought fairly mangled and dinted, I still thought it worth picking up. I've carried it with me, and will probably add it to my shrine - when that comes out of hiding. Though I'm trying to work out what the significance might be...

mug shots

2005-08-19T11:23:00.000+01:00

figure 45.1. look closer

He's done it again. It seems that Jesus' endless capacity to appear in the most incongruous of places has thrown up a new sighting - this time on a hawthron tree. I can't help but think it shows an impressive degree of imagination in those who discover them! To conjur the face of Christ in a smudge of mossy or burnt toast must take quite a particular outlook.

Perhaps more conventionally, I've been keeping an eye on this website as it's been building up - a catalogue of images of Christ through the centuries. A particular favourite of mine is the guerrilla Christ, as a highly charged and political piece, though I suspect there's some controversy about it.

weeds II

2005-08-17T16:13:00.000+01:00

figure 51.2. we are weeds, vegetation

Right, here’s another attempt to have a muse on the quote I was asked about by our Anderson a week or so ago:

"Unless we know the difference between flowers and weeds, we are not fit to take care of a garden. It is not enough to have truth planted in our minds. We must learn and labour to keep the ground clear of thorns and briars, follies and perversities, which have a wicked propensity to choke the word of life." (Clyde Francis Lytle)

Lytle has clearly based his thoughts on a parable of the weeds. To the original audience of the parable, it would make a great deal of sense. They were very close to agriculture in a direct way, and could see how their everyday lives depended on good harvests – the imagery he used to describe the gospel, as wheat, was perfectly tailored to connect. But what of us, here and now?

The quote has apparently worked on the basis that it’ll speak to us in the same way, with a little tweaking to apply to the genteel times (gardening was becoming seriously popular in the 1800s). This thinking essentially starts with the assumption that a garden has clearly demarked cultivated plants, the gospel of Christ that he’s planted in us, we are to care for. And that it has identifiable weeds, the heresies, fears, and hates of what runs counter to Christ, that must be checked. And in a way, it’s helpful - for here we have a dynamic vision of the truth, as a growing thing that develops and flowers as we’re involved with it. Andy has some fantastic thoughts on this view, if I could but find them (it’s best to ask him yourself).

Perhaps I see this differently than those for whom the imagery was first meant to speak to. From my perspective as a horticulturist, I’d like to be able to play around with these two images a bit more. Especially when we live in an age of naturalistic gardening and conservation, when there’s an effort to care for plants that another age would cast off as weeds. Demarkation isn't so easy now, with farmland purposefully set-aside for native flora, and cornflowers like poppies grown in our gardens. What if the very weeds themselves were actually the gospel of Christ, a sign of new life in God? Imagine that the divine is actually found in the wild and exuberant fecundity of the native invaders. Imagine that they’re actually bringing some unpredictable life into the ordered rigidity of human control. Imagine that they're actually sweeping in with purposeless colour, to upset the utilitarianism of a starkly managed field. Different times, perhaps.

About a year ago, I wrote a poem that tried to communicate some of this. I can’t remember if I’ve flagged it up before, but here you go anyway:

weeds or what is the kingdom of God like? what shall I compare it to? or a tale of the spirit and the system

"Under the weeds Act 1959 the Secretary of State may serve an enforcement notice on the occupier of land on which the injurious weeds are growing, requiring the occupier to take action to prevent the spread of injurious weeds."

They’re so variable, irregular outlines and
asymmetrical roughness of touch.
Yielding attractive multi-branched splendour,
they just keep on going, sending up shoots.
Common and perennial in breadth, an
abundant feature that spreads with vigour.
It’s on the frequent waste ground that one commonly
finds they’re most troublesome
[doorsteps and street corners their home]
Variability, defying uniform standards,
a nuisance because they’re designed to grow.

"weeds in general are characterised by a capacity for prolific seed production, remarkable in relation to their size, which enables them, rapidly, to colonise the open situations they mostly frequent."

Fertility is good, they are numerous spreading;
fecundity at the margins opens one by one.
They quickly become agencies for dispersal,
copiously strewn over long distances by the wind,
carried well from the rapid distribution to colonise
bare ground or areas sparsely occupied by
consistent formality and cultivation.
Divided from the main part, but separate. And unique.
Longer distance carried which gains rapid expansion,
those that’ve been distributed by one
agency may be further carried by others.
A great green fire, the viability of the prolific
split-apart seeds appears to be marked.

a matter of protection

2005-08-10T00:16:00.000+01:00

figure 49.0. reality, filtered

I know I said I'd be exploring the imagery of gardens before I ran off on holiday, and knock out some comments on some of your own sites, but recent news couldn't be left without comment of some sort first.

It seems that matters are moving fast with the government. They're proposing to deport foreign nationals who 'preach hate', and were apparently floating the idea of treason threats against them - though the latter is said to be less likely. Now my instinct is to worry somewhat about freedom of speech, and to talk about needing an open debate to talk extremists down. But perhaps I need to question my reflex for a minute? As far as can be ascertained, this is basically focussed about a phenomenon whereby Muslim clerics are imported from other countries, who have a particularly greater propensity to extremism. Or at least a questionable view of our country's cultures and society, and how Muslims are to respond to it. Fairly dos, it might be said, let's go and have it out in a reasonable way - and prove them wrong by sound argument.

But from what I gather, their particularly malignant influence is actually more difficult to pin down and confront. A lot of what might be described as dysfunctional Islam, that which involves inducing people into considering violence, is to be found amoungst young impressionable people who're untouched by the mainstream communities for whatever reason - rather than the open spaces of careful public debate. Those who're disaffected will, apparently, be more likely to fall alongside a hardliner who speaks with 'authority' - who talks their alienation in colourful religious mettanarratives. How better to find purpose than to be confirmed that your alienation is actually something purely divine in source, that it's an expression of your sanctity as an exemplary follower to feel antagonism to your society? And that the consequence of such an identity is that you must strike back at the world?

Perhaps some pragmatism might be allowed here. If there are a few people at the margins who're difficult to bring out into an accountable space, and whose activities deliberately stray around the edges of discussion at all - then faced with the reality of what they're doing, perhaps the only way to immediately safeguard the young people being abused by them is to remove the hardliners from their opportunities. There are a thousand caveats I could give. To ensure against any unfair focus on the problems of parts of Islam, without a balanced sense of perspective. That the mainstream cannot be let off the hook, by targetting marginals for action. Against any chance for a Mail 'send 'em all home' line. To wonder where the Government is likely to go with another draconian line of thinking, it's general instinct to ban, enforce, and lock up.

Those hardliners likely to be hit by the proposed laws seem to be so entrenched in their faith of disaffection, that they will always have some reason to draw others along with them in opposing the very notion of their society's existing - many victims who could know better otherwise, with the right influences. Essentially, the abuse of those who're vulnerable - and any potential resulting implications for the rest of us - might be partially dealt with by the laws. That much I cannot deny, as the most heartfelt libertarian.

unsure

2005-08-05T12:23:00.000+01:00

It's a family holiday to Anglesey's Holy Island next week. But I might well have to follow them on wednesday, as Mary is visiting my home town on Tuesday - which would be a crime to miss. So this might be my last entry for a wee while, or it might not not. In the meantime, I'll leave you with my threatened shortlist for the 'PL alternative to the Mercurys prize'. If you don't have any of these, I suggest you get hold of at least one cos they're all amazing! The week's game can be to try and guess which two are already the strongest contenders to win...

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.
The Concretes – Concretes
Tom Waits – Real Gone
Gorillaz - Demon Days
MIA – Arular
The The – Infected
Mylo – Destroy Rock and Roll
Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations
Low - The Great Destroyer
Bjork – Medulla
Roots Manuva – Awfully Deep.
Soulwax – Any Minute Now

explicible (sic)

2005-08-04T01:11:00.000+01:00

figure 39.0. they

The Conservatives have caught my eye again - I hope I don't seem like I'm developing an obsession, after tories and faith fairly recently. But it seems as if a couple are being half sensible at the moment in what they're saying. Just.

I'm referring to Dominic Grieve, a tory who had the gumption to come out and say the London bombings are "totally explicable in terms of the level of anger". This seemed all the more so, in the light of reactions. People leapt on him for condoning terrorism, for giving succour to evil people, and so on. In fact I heard a very odd exchange on the radio this evening, with Boris Johnson (bumbling in support) set against Peter Hitchens (spitting in rage) in discussion. When so many people seem unwilling to face up to the background this violence rests in, as if trying to understand something is the same as approval, his words are a welcome note. They have a sanity the pseudo-lefty 'get out of Iraq and we'll be alright" rhetoric is lacking - I don't think causality is a simple matter, and yet I don't think this is a simple isolatable crime that doesn't need wider reflection. I hope he doesn't face the same fate as Jenny Tonge.

satisfied to

2005-08-01T01:04:00.000+01:00

figure 45.5. at the end of the street

Two quotes, that could have a similar inspiration in mind.

The first is from an article in todays Observer, discussing what the author thinks are the implications of new media - such as mobile phones, ipods, and these ubiquitous webloggs:

"As the proprietor of MeWorld, your privileges extend beyond access to everything and selections of anything. You get to be the creator - and the star performer. Actual reality shows and personal blogs are only the most obvious manifestations of the democratisation of celebrity that the multiplication of media venues made possible."

It disturbs me a lot, to think of this side - that so much might be invested in creating our personal worlds, places of our own fancy. And that indwelling media in some ways might lead to strange relationships - where people are filtered according to whims and desires. Our mores. I'd hate to loose the unpredictability and uncontrollability, that comes from looking at things other than through a plastic device. Something to keep an eye on, there.

The second is from Summer in Algiers, a beautiful collection of short writings that're published as part of the Penguin 70th anniversary. This is the title piece, moving through the town that concerns Albert Camus:

"The loves we share with a city are often secret loves. Old walled towns like Paris, Prague, and even Florence are closed in on themselves and hence limit the world that belongs to them. But Algiers (together with certain other privileged places such as cities on the sea) opens to the sky like a mouth or a wound. In Algiers one loves the commonplace: the sea at the end of the street, a certain volume of sunlight, the beauty of the race. And, as always, in that unashamed offering there is a secret fragrance. In Paris it is possible to be homesick for space and a beating of wings. Here, at least, man is gratified in every wish and, sure of his desires, can at last measure his possessions.

Probably one has to live in Algiers for some time in order to realize how paralysing an excess of nature's bounty can be. There is nothing here for whoever would learn, educate himself, or better himself. This country has no lessons to teach. It neither promises nor affords glimpses. It is satisfied to give, but in abundance. It is completely accessible to the eyes, and you know it the moment you enjoy it. Its pleasures are without remedy and its joys without hope."

This captures the experiences of a place, with all it's serendipity and discovery -even in somewhere loved as a familiar - so well. It reminds me to be eager for surprise, to be careful never to allow myself the final arbitration in all that life might be, and what it might involve for me. Because I could miss the strangest of 'the other', the intensity of what might be brought.

Today’s lesson? You guessed it - get out more! Luckily I’ll be gardening for much of the week...

links list

2005-07-31T01:40:00.000+01:00

A brief technical note, for any as who wonder.

Martin asks here why I've structured the links in the way they are. III, IV, and so on. To put it simply, when adding the latest batch I realised the list was getting very long. So long, I wondered if stacking them in groups might help you visualise them - and re find certain ones. There is no order, there are no favourites, no "more worthy", and there are no themes. It's egalitarianism in action! And if you can think of a better way, I'd like to hear it...

high contrast

2005-07-28T16:29:00.000+01:00

figure 67.1. artist's impression of an editor's mind

While we're on the sheer slopes of inane rhetoric, my attention was helpfully drawn to yesterday’s headline by the ever moderate Daily Express. Apparently BOMBERS ARE ALL SPONGEING ASYLUM SEEKERS. Yet again they've excelled themselves, on the road to self-parody. The Guardian diary's already done a good job of poking it, and on one level it's hilarious. But I've written to the PCC for the first time, anyway, for what it’s worth.

Thankfully, there are some who can communicate with great pathos. I recommend you read this poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

supposed support

2005-07-27T00:55:00.000+01:00

figure 31.8. I am the weight of the roof

Apparently there are those going around telling the Tories that they need to be faith, flag and family in the manner or some USA Republicans.

Leaving aside the moot point of whether and how such an approach could find fertile soils in our country, in the same way it would in the USA, I find this line questionable - most of all on the point of religion . Such lines as

“We believe these values must be stressed: tradition; nation; family; religious ethics; free enterprise.”

Edward Leigh has basically set religion, or more precisely Christianity, up as a bulwark of a notion of the status quo. This peeves me off a lot - how dare he try and appropriate our religion into his party political efforts? Not least in using them as some automatic guarantor of his brand of social outlook. At best he omits to notice that religion has been in the vanguard of radical change, and at worst to notice the religion might inspire people to other outlooks than a conservative ethic/laissez faire economic.

fan

2005-07-25T00:35:00.000+01:00

figure 56.9. keep the faith

After the discussion following my last entry, and some interesting reflections elsewhere, I thought a bit more about how religion might react to the apparently ‘ideological’ violence we’ve seen recently.

There are some people who seem to actually conflate all religion with destructiveness. Such as the otherwise quite sane Polly Toynbe, who seems to see most religion as complicit in some kinda 'death cult'. Now I’m actually quite repulsed by the ‘ideal’ religion she describes, which seems to be essentially neutered and unchallenging. Something become a private cult, that has no relevance outside one’s front room or skull. Having said this, I hope I don't sound unnecessarily defensive by trying to de-couple enthusiasm for bringing and finding the holy in our communities from the violence she noted with almost relish. The need to urgently live our religion in the public sphere shouldn’t tip over into fanaticism of any sort. I’ve actually heard people say that Jesus was a fundamentalist, and that if it weren’t for fundamentalists down the ages we wouldn’t have the ‘essence’ of religions intact here today. But this misses the point somewhat, I think, about how that essential belief relates to the world it’s lived in. Fundamentalism is a whole different measure of belief from someone who has a defining vision of the world, such as the saints and inspired rebels.

The kind of mindset, that the wielders of any violence seem to hold, is very single-minded. It seems to place ideology above everything else, anything that might impinge on the closed unit of a worldview. It's so entered into a self-contained world that nothing - the care of people, the shifting events of reality - can make them think or do otherwise. That utter denial of the value of anything but what's in their head - their virtual world - is something we should flee from. We should renounce it with conviction, repent of any artifice we might be tempted to look through, if we really want to be humanely religious.

I admire those who give their lives, who sacrifice their whole selves for others, who dedicate their lives with courage to a cause of good. And perhaps we might hope to be able to show such courage and inspiration, in some small way, in our daily lives. But we must do so because of our grounding in this world - our connections and cares about everything around us. It cannot bear any resemblance to the nihilistic act of extinction that religious violence enacts, which is a finial denial of all we’re called to care for. And what's more; such actions simply perpetuate the status quo they claim to be a cry against. The status quo of suffering and dysfunctional relationships, with recrimination coming full circle into enacting the very thing it's supposedly caused by.

The great religious figures we look up to did their best to paint another picture - of a life well lived, with every other life their concern.

Sequel, defused

2005-07-22T00:55:00.000+01:00

figure 12.4. see them off

The attempted second round of bombings in London today may well teach us all a lot of things, in due course. For now, we can be thankful that it was apparently unsuccessful, and that nobody was hurt this time. One of the most imaginative responses to the first bombings, we'renotafraid.com, is continuing anew now. I recommend you take a look, if only for the admirable spirit of the entries - which will hopefully inspire many.

making tracks

2005-07-20T12:07:00.000+01:00

figure 23.1. Ray says listen

This years Mercury Music Prize shortlist is out, and there's a fair spread as always. Normally I can pick one by instinct as my favourite, but this year's proving tricksy with no outright blazer. Perhaps M.I.A, Antony & The Johnsons, or Maximo Park, who've all impressed me with thier sheer wit. Certainly not Coldplay or The Kieser Chiefs, who're way too obvious!

Oh yeas, give it a couple of weeks, and I'll reveal my own thoughts for this year's highly anticipated PL Alternative Prize. I say that cos the list's going to be THIS LONG.

While we're on the musical front, anyone who hasn't yet popped over and heard the recent offerings from Martin should do so now. Free songs; what more could you ask for? They're actually very good too, which helps.

there's no other way/all that you can do is watch them play

2005-07-16T00:06:00.000+01:00

figure 56.9. it's dare

I finally got to see Spirited Away last night, after looking to since it first came out. It's inspiring to see how people can still use 'conventional' animation to such astonishing effect, even as some say it's obsolete with the rise of Dreamworks-esc computer animation. That the hand can directly shine out with such inconceiveable splurges. The visuals and story are both very elegent and poetic, with a truely lyrical feel - it just flows and unfolds naturally (as much as something so supernatural could). The basic gist is the tale of a girl who somehow finds herself caught up in the life of a spa hostel, for gods. Through the central thread of trying to find her way back to our reality, we come across frog men, paper clouds, giant babies, and decieptful spirits. How much of the bemusing oddness is down to how I, as a western Viewer, am not familiar with the assumed cultural markers and references is open to quesrion (it is, in many ways, a new anime form of the Alice in Wonderland stories). But the film certainly works like a dream, with it's own internal logic that helps the whimsy and playful abandon mesh together.

from one playful cartoon venture to another

I was more suprised, perhaps, by how good the new Gorilaz album is. The first was great fun, and at times ever so creative in using fairly basic musical elements in the tunes. But it was all so considered and self conscious, with a bizarre cartoon virtual world of a band, that I couldn't help but think the venture would collapse in on itself. But Demon Days is, as they say, as if they've coloured the first one in. It's richer, happier to do complex experiments and yet trust to the music to be enjoyable. How on earth the indie boy Damon Alburn managed to get to the stage where he's making beatsy music with rappers, and getting Dennis Hopper to contribute vocals I don't know. But it caught me instantly by the second listen. It's particularly fun to see Sean Rider chipping-in with his usual charisma. Smashing.

killing in the name of

2005-07-12T01:14:00.000+01:00

figure 34.7. the Sayyid Qutb in us all?

I thought I might wait a while before saying anything in relation to the recent bomb attacks in London. But bearing in mind Martin’s sensible point that we need to keep the balance of internet debate balanced on the moderate side, I thought I might just make a couple of observations on the way Islam is talked about in relation to violence. We do not yet know for sure whether there was some ‘Islamic ideology’ motivating the perpetrators, but even if it turns out to be some other inspiration there’s going to be a lot of consideration anyway.

Almost as soon as the news of the bombs came out, some pretty ugly reactions apparently kicked-off. A mosque was targeted by arson, and the Muslim Council of Britain got thousands of abusive emails. There are some, going right down to the extremity of the BNP, who seem to assume that all Muslims are a homogenous block of hostile aliens that must be ‘dealt with’ – either repressed or pushed outside our borders. This line of thinking is as ludicrous as that behind such wilfully broad-spectrum terrorist attacks. The conflation of the acts of a few, into a collective guilt for all, fails to take account of a reality that's essentially varied. Some British people may have contributed to the detriment of Middle Easter societies, such that many feel threatened and materially & existentially alienated - but by no means do most seek to harm. Some middle-eastern, and even native, Muslims may wish to see British people killed in an idea of retaliation or to make a strong point - but by no means the majority. It's intellectually and imaginatively bankrupt, and shows a total loss of any will - to face the real world in all it's wondrous intricacies.

There are, however more general concerns about the everyday use of everyday language in our media and public debate. Some have even questioned the use of the term Islam in relation to violent acts, of which Karen Armstrong makes a persuasive case. In fact, I suggest you read her book on fundamentalism, to get some sense of the historical background that accounts for some of religion's modern use of violence. But I would add, after hearing Mona Siddiqui’s reflection, that we shouldn’t be to quick in trying to decouple terrible acts from ideologies.

Of course we should recognise the inherent rightness of Islam, in regard to it’s general message of peace. The mainstream traditions - as expressed, for example, here - are certainly something that most could affirm as principles of valuing life. But that doesn’t mean we should be in denial about how our religions can be tortured into demons. It’s fair to say that the fundamentalism that George Bush ascribes to draws from Christianity. Though it's often a figleaf for disreputable rhetoric, we have to understand the place of faith in his worldview - and that of his many supporters and allies - if we’re to deal with it. And furthermore we Christians must face up to something about our religion. Either in it’s practised history, or in the various inherited traditions that have been passed through the centuries, there's summit that inspires or gives space for Bush's destructive acts & approach to the rest of the world – the bombings, environmental degradation, and economic injustices. In a similar way, I would suggest the Islamic badge of those who bomb and hate others must be acknowledged. They draw upon something latent within the faith, in it’s shared stories or various practised forms, no matter how much it’s taken hostage by them.

We who are unfortunate enough to 'share' some notion of our faith with those who cruelly mangle it must face up to them. Not only to understand how to deal with them - but also in order to see genuine practice more clearly, in disentangling those potentially dangerous threads in our faiths. A realistic responce needs imaginative vision and self-awareness.

mountains and vallys

2005-07-09T12:09:00.000+01:00

figure 4.21. we, the class of 2005

It's been a very eventful week in this country - and on two matters, the getting the 2012 olympics and the London bombings, I think I'll best leave otherts to say for now.

There's been a whole range of reactions to the G8 decisions, with various lines taken. The fact that there's discussion of whether it's a half full or a half empty glass is sad; there shouldn't even be halves. What strikes me most about the actions they've agreed to is the time delays in implementation - the increases will be achieved by 2010, and so on. Ultimately they took some notion of 'realism' and allowed themselves to think things could carry on as normal, but a little bit more. Apart from some big thinking on aids, there was no real consideration of how approaches to trade and climate change need a big re-evaluation. The fundamentals were skirted over. Perhaps we expect too much, indeed, but it'd be nice to think they could be a little bit brave. Political will seems to be a selective thing. With any luck, the movement to help them see sense will now continue...

make poverty history responce

foukin' money

2005-07-05T12:27:00.000+01:00

figure 45.3. holy?

I didn't make it up to the Edinburgh march, which, despite the subsequent violence committed by a few regular hardcore 'professional' protesters in the last couple of days, seems to have been a pretty fantastic statement made. Perhaps a more focused one in it's message than a big concert, even if it got a lot less media attention. But this isn't really the time to discuss the rights and wrongs of one means or the other, for gaining the attention of people, in thier aims, and thier ways of convincing people about the message of tackling world poverty.

Angela Tilby's written a fantastic discussion of the current whirlwind of events and public dicsussion - quite tart but warm, both encouraging and reasonable in the face of much hype and misdirecting bluster. We certainly need realism, as well as astonishing vision. There is a sense in which we could inadvertently strengthen the worst of the socio-economic status-quo, if we lay everthing at the feet of 8 finance ministers at a particular time. They aren't heroes with the elixior of life, they're a bunch of men with notable power and opportunities to influence things either way. Yet one of them, our own Gorden Brown, is right to say that public expectations of them should be as high as we can make them. I don't know of thier motives (he looked very tired in a Channel news interview last night, which indicates he might well be heavily involved in pre-summit discussions), and would question some of his policy assumptions of pragmatically swallowing some economic 'givens' whole. But this statement struck a chord nonetheless.

The greatest hopes will probably never be totally fulfilled, but will certainly be closer to suceeding if driven and fueled by an ideal. Pragmatic realism doesn't really inspire great actions, so much as help to deal with the current unacceptable state of things. Yesturday a former Mozambique environment minister was interviewed on the Today programme, and he warned that we can take nothing for granted in assuming a gradual process of improvement will just happen. Increments are pithy and useless in the face of potentially massive climate change and poverty issues to come, which NGOs and scientists are noting with greater clarity. And fundamental actions might still have a chance of heading off greater environmental and human tragedy, which will impact us all in ways we cannot expect, that might otherwise only slow in its rate of increase.

The G8 meeting's start this Wednesday, and beyond media hype there does seem to be a lot of potential in them. With enough eyes turned upon the people concerned with the decisions, with enough expectation in the air, and hope building behind them. Heck, if they simply want to be remebered as great men who cared, whatever the reality of thier aims, that'll do. Anyone who's so minded could join in prayer over the next few days for all those involved in the whole summit - that the decisions which they make might be for the betterment of those in need, for the whole world concerned. I found some good intercessory ones up on the CAFOD website, if you need somewhere to start.

"We pray for those in government all over the world
that they may turn towards compassion,
That the leaders of the world’s richest nations
may choose this moment of the Great Jubilee
to make decisions in favour of the poor"

Tilby also touched on something less grandiose, but still profoundly important to us. In repudiation of the cult of money, sometimes almost presented almost as if the great evil and the agent of salvation, she pointed towards the reality that it's not the sum of our lives. Issues of wealth and living are as much for us to deal with as people 'over there', and about more than abstract monetry & economic systems that're out of our consuming hands. We all need a vision of modesty - that's not sentimentally pious about being poor, yet that hopes to see abundence for all those who lack. Life in all its fullness includes economic rightness, how we relate to our environment, how we be with every person we find ourselves alongside.

"We pray that we may accept
the light of your love
as a challenge to change
ourselves and our world"

the right space

2005-06-30T15:12:00.000+01:00

figure 13.9. get behind me

There’s talk of revival. But you needn't to put your hands in the air quite yet, rather Ash has given some fairly pugnacious thoughts on notions of revivalism, a scattering of intresting reflections.

By sheer coincidence, I’ve been reading an Open University study document called Women, Community, and Evangelicalism in 19th Century Britain – in a village carnival of all things. A couple of the essays discuss the early formation and development of Methodism, and the perceptions of what God was up to in it. There’s a fascinating contrast revealed between such founders as the Wesleys and some later participants who took the movement on. The latter included some very excitable preachers, who deliberately sought to provoke a state of high agitation in communities – drawing on any rhetoric and local issues that might push people in a religious hysteria through which they could gain converts to the Methodist chapels. The former were definitely quite averse to this approach – they took their gospel message and divine inspiration around the country, but sought to establish settled congregations that would live and integrate a long term (much as I hate the word in this context) sustainable life within the communities. They were trying to encourage an approach of continuous, organic, reformation - religion lived always anew. Funnily enough John Wesley – to whom so many Protestants, from Charismatics to Anglo-Catholics look with admiration - noticed how a crash revival soon followed into a drop in involvement as the mad enthusiasm abated, and people found a hangover with the loss of excitement and enthusiasm.

Ruth Ann’s been considering notions of space, with some possible implications for religion. There’s something very persuasive about the idea of trying to create the conditions in which people might grow and encounter God, without overly structured direction and layers of constructed meaning by others being placed on them immediately. Superficially at least, this would seem to support the approach of the freely radical revivalists, who shunned the denominational structures of institutionalised Methodism to deal with communities ad hoc. After all, they didn’t bother with consciously ecclesiastical belief, it was individual souls that were their focus. But I’d suggest the whole ‘crisis’ kinda approach - where people are in some way induced along the desired path of responce to thier gospel into the desired outcome, and thus each person finds conviction - is actually quite antithetical to the positive developmental space. It’s pretty close to abuse, to push people into pre-conceived notions of what a right spiritual result is – perhaps even bypassing the creatively sensitive work of the holy spirit. And to conceive the moment of encounter with Jesus Christ simply as an isolated revelation, for each single unit, misses the point of our faith as a relational one. Space is not the same as introspective spiritual masturbation.

must try harder

2005-06-25T00:49:00.000+01:00

figure 34.1.let's walk at the speed of sound

It's a year since I started this site, as you can see. Feel free to light some candles or have some cake, then tell me off for not keeping to the aims I set at the begginging!

For any musos out there, there's a fun piece in todays' Guardian Friday review, about songwriting. It's marvelously bitty, and has a good go at various bands. The satisfaction is spoilt only rarely, such as when Radiohead are dissed - cos, as anyone who knows me even loosely will soon find, I think they're utterly fabulous.

no-nonsense fantasy

2005-06-22T23:01:00.000+01:00

figure 12.8. how many different dæmons grow in an english country garden...

So I finished the whole Dark Materials set, in pretty good time. There's reams been said about the stories, so I'll try and keep this short. I also don't want to ruin the plot for those of you who haven't got in yet - so we'll keep this general.

One of the central threads to his books - about searching for the liberation to live a whole life, a life free of oppressive and destructive forces - is artfully told. The peoples and creatures, drawn into the many struggles and dreams, are often sympathetic and wonderfully compromised characters - that you could imagine living with at any time. The worst of them find redemption of some sort, and the best are deeply flawed and sometimes unlikable. As a mythological tale for our times, it generously lives up to the need for a realistic vision that's relevant to the reader's contemporary concerns - yet outside of being tied to just one time. Because he's managed to flit easily between various interrelated worlds, the layers of meaning and metaphor, fantastical and everyday, can integrate gracefully. Like a spatially playful painting, there's no clunkyness in plot devices to try and drag one with the other.

But contained within this integration of fantastical vision and everyday observation there is also one of the big letdowns of these books. The Church, in it's various guises, is presented like some monstrous conflation of all that The Humanist Society might trot out against religion - it's basically a callous, violent, and enslaving, institution. A monster, perhaps the only unredeemed character in the stories. In interviews Pullman's claimed that this is merely an artistic thing, and the story happened to come out that way. But when so much care has been put into telling a rich and clever interweaving of different worlds, this strikes me as a little disingenuous. He's clearly a very gifted storyteller, but even someone of his calibre might have their weaknesses - and in this case a slight reflex to crudely make a polemical point.

Despite the 'free Pagans good/enslaved Christians bad' kinda dichotomy, and numerous little moments that grate (but which I won't say for fear of revealing stuff to those who haven't yet read the books) they were pretty much enrapturing. He's an envangelist for telling stories, and that should be celebrated over all else. There's enough mystery and unresolved tension as I raced towards the end - sanctimonious as it so nearly becomes - to keep me mulling, and satisfied by how involved I could be in the tale. It has none of the pompous arseyness of most fantasy writing, on the whole being stripped of superfluous nonsense like detailed histories and wearisome songs. It's been compared to Tolkien, but I'd say it's more like Terry Pratchet - minus the jokes - in being quite tough and direct. All in all, a no-nonsense bit of fantasy fun with a touch of wonder about the world.

bizzarre venture

2005-06-21T00:49:00.000+01:00

figure 45.7. " you know we're reinfourcing the dominant male stereotype"

I've finished The Amber Spyglass, and I'll be coming out with some review soon. For now, let's cast our literary net a little wider. There's a rather twee little article about Thomas the Tank Engine, with the wonderfull summerisation:

"The stories themselves are plain little things, with...four basic plot lines: Troublesome Trucks, Proud Engine Gets His Comeuppance, Small Engine Shows His Worth, New Engine Is Shunned (And Then Wins Friends)."

Is this not a metaphor for the span of life experience, writ small?? For fun, I suggest you check out the socio-cultural analysis of the stories, it's a truely bizzarre venture.

and chosing

2005-06-17T00:57:00.000+01:00

figure 5.1. pot luck

I'll say that Martin's note about trying to deal with lots of ideas, and fixing on some that actually really mean something, strikes a chord with me. Though in my case it's something around the level of at least 150/200 more or less finished pictures in the last half year. So I've had a tremendously difficult time picking out 5 that really show the extent of what I get up to, to send off with my application form to the organisers of The Wirksworth Festival. Yes, I'm entering with the intention of showing work in it like I did back in 2001. It could be fun, and certainly was before - there's a really exciting atmosphere around for the weekend, with all sorts of interesting people showing in locale houses, shops, pubs. There's a lot of twee rubbish too, as might be expected in an area with a lovely landscape, but I like wandering around and chatting with people about what they do. It's beccoming ever more important and notable by the year...here's hoping.

Am I the only one getting slightly concerned about the unfolding spectacle of Live 8 - or to put it more accurately "the Bob Geldof show"? His latest intervention seems to show him on an ever more erratic and melodramatic curve. After calling for a 'new Dunkirk' and a total boycott of ebay, where might he go next? Whatever happens, it seems to serve a greater act of mixing the important issues up with personality profiling and cartoonish headlines. But if it pushes any sense of anti-povetry talk onto Radio 1 news, maybe there's some sense to the madness.

fashoned some new

2005-06-14T00:19:00.000+01:00

figure 2.3. double edged

The walk was, as I hope Ken and Ruth Ann also found, a very stimulating experience. We went round with Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Christian Scientists, and Jews. I don't know enough of the discussions and politics of it but - in spite of, or maybe perhaps because of, the majority of us being liberalish Christians - there was a distinct hole where a mainstream denomination might have been. It certainly seemed an oversight, by any estimation. There was some wonderful food shared, and things expressed. The highlight for me was such a small thing, in a way. We were in a Hindu temple, and while the talk was being given they were decrepitly trying to find someone from the community to play drums while a prayerful song was sung. In the end, a Sikh guy went up and obliged - providing expert accompaniment, apparently off the cuff. It seemed like such a good metaphorical lesson for religion in general, such instinctive harmony alongside distinctiveness.

On to less sentimental gushing. On the train journey back today I read the second of the Philip Pullman books. It was better than the first in many ways, as a story it had more racy umph and more varied telling - yet tighter. I suppose we're now more familiar with the story's background. He's got a good eye for bringing in whole swaths of interesting creatures and ideas and figures into the stories, adapting them with a sharp edge of new motives. It would almost seem churlish to point out how formulaic he sometimes is. We have segments where one person enters, does thier thing for a while, and then leaves suddenly - according to thier plot usefulness, rather than a real drive. As the comments here have indicated, he's pretty clear and unambiguous that the Church is bad and the pagans good. That if God is done away with, bad stuff will stop. When he puts so much into drawing such brilliantly compromised characters, to find such an easy underlying polemic is a tad disappointing. But I hope and pray that the last instalment'll salve my fears of a wasted new mythology.

a tale of two

2005-06-11T00:52:00.000+01:00

figure 45.1. true lies

Yes, so I've finally got MIA playing in full after ordering it ahead of my cool friend who normally gets this kinda thing before me. The shame of it for her, behind with the zietgist! It's a wonderfully colourful and exhuberent synthesis of world music, reggae, grime, hip-hop. Thus maybe quite different to what the coming Live 8 concerts promise to be, according to the critics. I do wonder about this, and will leave any points making till later. But hopefully all of you, who're able, will be heading up to Scotland for the big demo coinciding with the G8 summit this year. It could be fun, it could have an effect.

Yes, I've finally got onto reading those Philip Pullman books with Northern Lights safely raced through this week. The stories have an easy quality, that just flows, and they kinda tell themselves through the immagery. Like the Just So Stories, but more political - in a loose way, that might fire people's imagination rather than either telling them what to think or dulling thier imagination by sticking to parochial lit light themes. Good for him I say, such oblique wonders are better than silly Richard Dawkins polemics any day.

Right I'm off to bed, and later to join Ruth Ann and Ken at the great Southampton Interfaith walk on Sunday. Toodle pip...

or maybe

2005-06-06T23:49:00.000+01:00

figure 6.8. the new temple?

I couldn't believe it when I heard wind of the concept in a review, so clichéd and obviously satirical it seemed. But no, there really is a tv show called spirituality shopper. Oh deary me, I suppose it does help to shine a damning spotlight on the way some people seem to approach the whole of life - as a commodity, and a thing you can pick off the shelf. Some readers will know that I often return to thinking about consumerism, identity, and faith at intervals - and it'll be no surprise that I thought Giles Fraiser's characteristically pugnacious critique was both helpful and stimulating. I missed the first show tonight, but will try and catch it next week so I can actually have a more informed view. After all, the world can do without another Christian Voice-a-like!

Ruth Ann's given some comments here. There are aspects of the views that I find very sympathetic, and would affirm - anything more devolved, liberating, open source or whatever, is to be encouraged. To some extent, there does need to be a greater appreciation by religion of this important aspect of our contemporary situation. There needs to be the spirit of the Pharisees amoungst us, who managed to deveop religion to bring a sense of the divine in every part of life. But, it's precisely because of my wish to see religion that's empowering that I'm a little concerned. I am extremely wary of any shift in religion to take up the clothes of shopping. Ultimately it's an act of selecting, and is done according to what you can purchase. It's an act which is conducted on the basis of how much you have to spend. And there are plenty disadvantaged in this world - few are actually part of the ultimately leisured class, who can spend lots of time and resources in casting around. To those with the resources, this 'revolution' is very seductive - and claimed as liberation. To those who might not be in such a position, to flit around picking little bits, it's going to exclude them just like many of us are unable to enter a world where you can chose one kind of ipod or another.

I'd encourage anyone to explore as widely as possilble, and to adapt and adopt where they find encounter. But I'd hope that this was done with at least some notion of community and relationship, with a context in the cultures and stories in which it rests. I can read my Rumi poetry, and as a Methodist I'll probably find some visions of the divine that are a revelation to me. But I cannot make any pretence that it's religion in the spirit of the prophets and visionaries to go around chosing what bits I like. I may well miss some of the more inconvenient and challenging aspects along the way. We all do that a bit, of course - casting God in our own face as much as visa versa. Though with all elements of religion packaged up in self contained units - a bit of funny dance, and bit of a prayer, a kind of meditation - it can just be a lifestyle choice, easily adopted and easily dropped. Like putting on a red bracelet and buying bottled holy water. Questions must be asked of ourselves.

Gile's article also given me some thinking to do, as my shrine sits under my bed wrapped up and packed away safely. What do I actually have it for? Is it to retreat into my own little world of self-indulgence? Can private devotion, and personally idiosyncratic religion challenge me sufficiently? Can I adopt the most sympathetic of the other, and retain a coherent faithfulness to the best of my own, without just acting like it's a few brands of breakfast cereal? Am I asking rhetorical questions? I need to work on how it might ensure I don't simply develop into a consumer who picks little bits and never respects the whole - especially given that my main institutional involvement is back here in Derbyshire with my lifelong chapel, and I'll be running off when I get the chance...maybe this aparently unconnected poem I wrote absent mindedly this morning is opportune, or maybe not...

oh you'd like that, wouldn't you

where are the monks? where are the crowds
that were wild standing at the window?
where are their rosary beads blue in
the morning light? where are the seas of glass
on which stalk many-eyed heavenly beings,
crying their urgent praise and prayers?

england's polite lands no longer welcome them so much,
or open their doors to anything
other than a card box ascribed with tailored symbols
of happy spending and tidy adornment
it's near a self-confessional world, and we all admit
style desires of shelf-gained imagery

beautiful blues

2005-06-05T00:31:00.000+01:00

figure 45.7. where search

They were right. Blinking Lights and Other Revelations is a very fine album. It's rather grandiose in ambition, being one of those two disk thingys. Could even be indulgent, in a scary world. But the way E manages to conjour such beauty from the tradgedy he's gone through continues to be inspirational. Few of us can claim that level of terrible experience, and yet I'm sure there's example for us with our every day issues and sadness.

every moment's built to last
when you're living without a past
in a magic world

If I get to do student radio, I'll have to play a track from it. Yes the chances of getting to do the first stage of my university wishes, as expressed here, are becoming again more tangible. I now have the chance of a further education loan, or maybe some involvement from these boffins. So I've started thinking of what to read in advance, what societies I might throw myself at, and what tracklists I might play. Though not in the god-awful Nick Hornby sense, as Steve Lamaq so well dissects in this little piece about mix tapes. It's all ever so exciting, the chance to get studying and find a whole life again - rather than the slight sense of limbo Matlock continues to give.

So there's progress in life, and now at 22 I feel reassured that I might have a thread to follow. Where it'll lead is anyone's guess, but I'm ready to make the most of it this time - and not take anything for granted. If it goes as I've been hoping, then roll on the autumn!

In other news, I'm still intrigued by the anonymous commenter in my last pc entry. I haven't worked out who it is yet - and any clues would be welcome, because I like pondering little mysteries.

imagined

2005-05-25T11:19:00.000+01:00

figure 3.4. oh no, it's pc world

That's enough earnestness for one month, it's time for a bit of levity. On the one hand we have an enjoyable plot synopsis of the latest Star Wars film, linked from Martin's site. I don't even need to see the film now, thank god! On the other, by Marcus Brigstocke, we have a rather brilliant skewering of the whole "it's political correctness gone mad" line. Marvelous stuff.

green deserts and misunderstandings

2005-05-24T10:08:00.000+01:00

figure 45.2. par example

Last Saturday I took a trip to Hopton Quarry. It might not look like much, but then few really do. But it's one of the best places in my area for interesting flora - for I was celebrating ten years this month since I first got into plants. Call it a geeky anniversary or sorts! And I wasn't dissapointed by all the exciting little green things, that happen to be quite rare.

It strikes me as rather strange how people percieve things. Often things that seem messy and junk will be dismissed out of hand, yet something tidy and innocuous yet essntially sterile will be guarded with great energy. Hense greenbelts composed of monoculture farm crops are protected by laws, whilst Cawdor Quarry (just on the other side of the vally from where I live) is going to have a housing estate and supermarket plonked on it. The former is a green desert, the latter is a jumble of orchids and pond life. Oh where is the logic...

...talking of which, there's a rather fine contribution to a debate about the creation and fall story in Genesis by Robert here.

digging deep

2005-05-22T00:27:00.000+01:00

figure 45.3. family tree

I don't tend to do the whole confessional writing very well, or at least not directly. The poetry is all very tangential. But this must be done.

A couple of nights ago I was salvaging old paper from a bin bag, rubbish coming out of a periodic house clear-out. And I came across some letters that seemed interesting. But reading them shocked me totally. What I was reading was in fact a scattering of letters between my parents, from the time of their splitting up. It happened when I was very young, only just at school, and I have only one small fragment of memory about it. It's literally a blank in my mind, even though an implicit reality in my life, and something that's never been talked about. So reading what they both went through, the trouble and turmoil...I hadn't ever expected to be able to appreciate this in any real way - that could make sense to me, as someone who lives with tangled situations.

Maybe I shouldn't have read them at all, left the privacy to it. But somehow it gave me some answers that I needed. To see their real emotions and problems, that they were struggling with life and how best to live it...I've never resented them for what happened, but it's been a great unknown to me...this allows it all to rest at last, now that I have some small measure of context. I left the letters and tokens of the former love they had right there in the bin, it seems right not to cling onto these things of the past now that they've helped me so in looking to the future.

I've often been very ambivalent about those who rampage for 'family values', or definitive liberated free-for-all forms, any who might presume one form of family to be an unmitigated good or bad. I mean I don't want to get into cod psychology, but it's likely the split in such formulative years did me deep harm, and damaged me in many ways that I cannot possibly trace. Yet at the same time, me and Ben have four more pretty wonderful siblings by other subsequent parental combinations, who'd never even exist without the split. Blithe judgements of good an evil in relating - absolute rightness of one act in an abstract sense - seem to fall down in the light of reality. This kinda stuff is hard to describe, least of all to any of you who come from more 'stable' homes. I hope you'll forgive my indulgence in setting some of these mixed up things down here. A lighter touch will follow in due course.

Oh but another letter came up, which mum came down to show me, was much more obviously heartening. It seems my mum's granny thought she was bringing shame and disappointment for having me out of wedlock, and throwing her life away. She urged my parents to attend Chapel for my sake, and the sound moral environment of the household. Oh to be a part in scandal, we had a good laugh and the honour of it fair made my week!

a matter or concern

2005-05-15T01:43:00.000+01:00

figure 10.9. the pen is mightier than the truffle

For those who haven't seen it yet - and let's face it, there can't be many who don't subscribe to this hallowed organ - here's the letter I wrote a week ago. The full self-righteous indignation was preserved, though I suspect the sensitively political line "Oh sometimes it's really not surprising that we have a Conservative MP." was always destined to be excised. Opinionated interjections are such good fun, I might try this more often! Our small town mentality is occasionally to be seen. Oh yes...and for any fellow nature buffs, you're indeed right to note that this isn't really truffle season.

Dear Mercury

I was interested to read the comments on Matlock's recent French Market, namely that it was a bad thing to do on St George's day. I'm sorry, but what century are we living in here? Are we really so insecure about ourselves that we can't cope with a bit of trans-European celebration mixed in with our national pride? I suppose to be really patriotic we cannot contemplate enjoying, or even seeing, anything from the rest of the continent. After all, it would be a dishonour to the brave lads who died in the Hundred Years war if we had a stall selling French Cheeses in our park. And Wellington would be spinning in his grave at the idea of French chocolates being eaten on our national day. Oh the dishonour we bear. God forbid, we must instead do the decent thing and restrict ourselves to good wholesome English turnips and cabbages.

St George, that quintessentially English North African mythological hero, somehow careless enough to be a patron Saint of another great enemy, Germany, would doubtless ride fourth to our rescue and overturn the corrupting continental tables if he were only here among us today. Oh sometimes it's really not surprising that we have a Conservative MP. Rule Britannia ect, and long live a 'patriotism' of repressed jealousy.

regards

Laurence Craig.

visage

2005-05-13T00:33:00.000+01:00

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figure 67.1. yet to be

For quite some time now, I've had this little Buddha statuette - a whimsical present from my mum. It's an elegant thing - and though a cheap wooden trinket, it's come to signify quite a lot to me over time. Not least, the story of how the Buddha achieved nirvana and then returned out of compassion, to help all others. In the context of my shrine, it teaches me every day that religion isn't simply a private revelation or contemplation - that it's a vision taken out of the ritual or small sacred space into every part of life, which we might find as sacred.

Well the dog had been sniffing around for some time now, pinching the odd candle. I suppose having it in a low windowsill doesn't help, nor that most of the things in it are nicely chewable. One day disaster struck, and I found the Buddha statuette lying on the floor, with his face missing - chewed off. I was upset and angry, and gave the dog a rather frosty reception for a while. I packed my shrine up, and put it away, to avoid any more loss and destruction. But I got over it pretty quickly, and begun to contemplate the damaged object. I certainly recalled the two giant Buddhas that had long existed without faces, victims of violent attacks. Not that I'd accuse our dog of being akin to the Taliban - that would be a little like overreacting (which of course, I never do!) Anyways, maybe there was actually something I hadn't seen before now?

There's a story that if you ever meet the Buddha on a roadside, you should put him to death. Kill the Buddha. From my own reflections in faith, I've often returned to thoughts around this - that we should hold what we see and know in faith very lightly. And carefully let it go, in favour of allowing ourselves to see things afresh. I don't mean simply a novelty-seeking or restless approach, change for it's own sake, which would be tiring and lose so much along the way. More that we need a dynamic internal reformation, which allows ourselves to change and accommodate and to adapt with life's many lessons. In the face of new experience and what other people can teach us, any stolid fixed faith would be a little bit like spiritual death. Maybe this faceless statuette can keep reminding me of something. In it's sheer anonymity, losing any specific visage. That our religious truths come to us in many people living around us now, re-casting those great figures of Jesus Christ and the Buddha we know. That our truths need the potential to be seen in a multitude of faces, incarnated in everyone, if we might see and make our God and our salvation (to use Christianspeak unabashedly) in this life.

It's sat on what's left of my bookcase at the moment, while I wonder what to do with it and the rest of my shrine.

mind over matter?

2005-05-09T00:45:00.000+01:00

figure 46.3. par example

I found a very fine article in the book reviews on Saturday - though this view of the writing comes from my own opinions here. You see it's a celebration of the great French artist Georges Braque - in my view he's the most inspired painter we've seen for the past few hundred years. His pieces are astonishingly beautiful and absorbing, all the more so for the time (principallly the 1910's to the 1950's), drawing a fascination in their materiality. He makes something of the very stuff the pictures are made of, it becomes a key element to their success - rather than just a means to representation. I like him still, because he reminds me of the inherent good in our material world, the creative light that is in all. I don't want to be all grandiose, but his pictures are like a sacrament, they open a view on things. By consciously and prominently using specific materials (sand, oil paint, paper) to create beauty, he also shows what there is beautiful about materials themselves.

I can remember back in 1998, when I was at a low ebb with art - pretty much restricted to a few pencil drawings now and then, and what I had to do to fulfil GCSE work requirements. But then I came across cubist painting, and Braque's work coaxed me out of myself. Gradually I gained confidence again, and eventually grew to love painting utterly. I can safely say that without seeing his inspirational paintings, I wouldn't be so heavily involved in creativity today. And nor would I have a view of the world inspired so much by that, of how much good there is in this world. Nor a lot of my sanity, so maintained by making pictures. Big up St Georges. What a shame some of my fellow Matlockers are being a bit funny with other French produce - if my withering letter of reply to thier approach is printed on Thursday, I'll stick it up here.

post mortum

2005-05-07T12:01:00.000+01:00

figure 76.1. we can feel better, at least it's spring

This will be a very brief look at politics, what with the results having come in. Then we can get back to nice things for a while, like art and mysticism. The least worst scenario came to pass, pretty much. Though Steve Bell does a good job of summing up the mood for many of us, with the current polical state of things. The conservatives lost - and thank God, for all their visciousness has been blunted and the party of most spiteful jealousy is denied the chance to inflict themselves on us. How perverse that we needed the party led by the steely grin - or rather grimace - to ensure some notion of progressive social government continues. Even if they've pretty much forgotten what a lot of it means these days. But thier truely opulant majority has been cut back, so we'll have to see what becomes a priority and what will pragmatically get by.

I feel somewhat compromised, as in the end I voted for the Lib Dems. The ballot paper had little spare room, and I hadn't the wit to come up with another better responce. Better luck next time eh, here's to 2009 or whenever they see fit!

go and do it

2005-05-04T00:50:00.000+01:00

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figure 13.8. it could be you

The general election is nearlly upon us. So with trepidation, I'll make my last political comment (of which there have been few here, and fairly disparate) before the voting. Here're a few little impressions to carry as we go to the booth or postbox from my own little electoral mind:

(1) Tony Blair is not a liar. I don't think he's actually out to tell lies to us, despite what the en vogue view might be. I think he has a very elastic sense of things, choses his words and views so carefully, that he manages to come out feeling full of integrity. We might judge that his view of the world, and his way with words and ideas, is very dangerous. But we cannot call him a liar if we to see him with the complxity he deserves as a remarkable and conssumate politician. And that's not necesarily a compliment.
(2) The Conservative approach to 'the other' has been racist. Whether by explicit talk or by implication, thier national campaign has been extraordinarily xenophobic. We've seen attempts to insinuate crime, terrorism, disease, and economic disadvantage with incoming people. In fact they've been shockingly grubby and negative, trying to whip up our most selfish and dysfunctional impulses. Even the manifesto was spartan, reducing fundamental areas of our life to strange niche promises. So rather than 'better hospitals', we get 'cleaner hospitals'. Desperate? You don't know the meaning of the word till you get Lynton Crosby working for you.
(3) The media have been even more frustrating than usual. Whether The Daily Mail or Jeremy Paxman, so many have been out to make cheap points that resemble theatre more than dood analysis and discussion. And most ridiculous of all, they've chased the white rabbit of Iraq ad infinitum. When there are absolutely vital social and welfare policies around, they would rather ask the same question twenty times - one for which they know what answer they will get. But they wish to be simplistic and look tough and cynical. The war may be symptomatic of many things that are awry about this administration. But the coverage is symptomatic of many things that are awry about our broadcasters and print.
(4) There have been all sorts of dilemmas. Who to vote for? We seem to have been told by all sorts of people about the various dangers and advantages of going one way or another. I would like to keep the Tories out - but some say that it'll never happen, others that Labour are the only way to do so, still others that a good protest vote is in order. I want progressive government, even as I know so many use the term as a fig leaf. The resulting thought? That everyone's been spining thier own agenda for us, and feeding the stories to suit. Oh dear, I sound all cynical.
(5) I would vote for the Green Party by instinct. Environmental policies are more pivotal than most parties have really acknowledged. We cannot pay lip service here - it must be at the heart of every area of policy. From threatened biodiversity right up to climate change, this must be systematic and geniune - for our sake as a species and for the rest of the world in which we are a part. And this party has been the closest I've found to attempting that. I might vote for them, even if they're not on the paper. I'll write it on the bottom if need be.
(6) Not voting is a crime. Morally, there is no justification for it. We cannot allow our governmental system to become collonised by obsessive fringe parties and minority fanatics, who are more likely to be motivated to turn out than the moderate general public. Politics is a compromise, and you'll only ever be totally happy with a one person party of yourself. So chose someone and vote for them, the closest you can find. It's cheap and silly to say 'they're all the same'. They're not. And if you really want to have a go at the terrible stifling consensus - for there is some in some ways - then go out and spoil your ballot paper. Apathy can be used to a politicians interpretative agenda. A spoilt ballot paper is an official record of dissatisfaction. Whoever you vote for, get out there and do it.

"This was a party political broadcast on behalf of post liberal productions. No responsability will be taken for misunderstandings, innacuracies, indifference, or annoyance by the reader, as the writer's shortcomings are well known. See you after the vote..."