The Valerie Solanas School of Art Criticism

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Yahan Main Ghar Ghar Kheli

2012-01-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

Yahan Main Ghar Ghar Kheli (Zee TV) :

Sky EPG:
The story revolves around the Thakur family. The head of the family is blinded by false pride, thus forcing his family bear the brunt of his uncompromising lifestyle.

Harridan: In an exception, the Harridan is not the mother in law but a stroppy daughter. Maybe she doesn’t count. Cindy Beale was never a Harridan was she? Then there the anti-harridan, the infernally forgiving Maaa. Insipid.

Hunt-Sharples rating: -0.5

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Mrs. Kaushik Ki Paanch Bahuein

2012-01-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

Mrs. Kaushik Ki Paanch Bahuein: (Zee TV)

Sky EPG:
Mrs Kaushik, a strict disciplinarian, is on the look out for a nice girl for her youngest son Kartik. Will she succeed in getting him a perfect match?

Harridan: Mrs Bindeshwari Kaushik (Vibha Chibber)

Oh now, how could you hate a poochie little face like that? Look at her! Isn’t she adorable? In flaccid conflict with irksomely wholesome doe-eyed daughter-in-law Lovely Karthik Kaushik. Mildly peeved rather than terrifying. Pathetic.

Hunt-Sharples rating: 15. Mediocre.

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Bandini

2012-01-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

Bandini: (NDTV Imagine)

Sky EPG:
Breaking away from the cult of conventional soaps, Balaji Telefilms presents Bandini, an invigorating tale of a young girl, forced into a marriage of convenience with an elderly man twice her age.

Harridan: Moti Ben/Tarulata (Rasika Joshi).
It actually became physically exhausting to watch this one. I hadn’t seen so much Pug-faced rage tearing up the screen since Jade Goody in the Celeb Big Brother House. The sheer *vitriol* of the hatred unleashed by Joshi against lesser characters rapidly became the scene-stealer. Hindsight suggests that the battle character actress Joshi (early 40’s, so playing mid 50’s) was losing against terminal cancer might have informed the *fire* of her performance. She died in July 2011.

Hunt-Sharples rating: 50. She could have wrought absolute HAVOC in Eastenders as a Masood Sister-in-law.

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Adapting the Hunt-Sharples Indices for Harridanry

2012-01-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

I’m struggling here to fully convey the nature of the drudgery and pettiness of the domestic crises and the central protagonists. You really have to watch to fully appreciate the histrionics. Entire episodes can revolve around a family confrontation over a poorly cooked meal. For years I endured the unfailing wholesomeness of the ‘betis’ when faced with torment after torment at the hands of seething womenfolk. Each new soap would degenerate into more extreme harridanry that it became exasperating watching hooked relatives splutter with indignation at the new levels of persecution being unleashed on each new martyr. “They are all mistaken! She is plotting and has manipulated the situation!!!!!! Someone must SAVE her!!” It was only when the most vicious iterations started sprouting that it finally dawned on me: I was rooting for the wrong characters.

To fully convey this, then, I have adapted the SI Unit for Soaps, the Hunt-Sharples Index to illustrate the toxicity levels involved in each soap, or continuing drama as they like to delude themselves. IMDB barely covers these programmes so for most background info I have used Sky EPG, programme websites and Wiki.

Pavitra Rishta (Zee TV)

Sky EPG:
The story of Archana, a girl who is not highly educated but handles the whole house work impeccably. This is her journey to find a life partner.

Harridan: Savita Damodar Deshmukh () Hunt-Sharples rating: 10. Supposedly the most horrendous Mother-in-law in Zee’s pantheon. Must try harder. Just looks slightly mardy most the time. Probably The Change.

Goodnight Christopher

2012-01-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

All Extended Families Are Psychotic

2011-09-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

So I’m watching the riots and Eastenders and Vanessa GoldnotTaniaTurner going MeNtAl and rubbish moaning Zainab consistently FAILING to approach anything like the terrifying matriarchs I have known and then Coronation Street and insipid awful AWFUL Sunita telling her trademark comedy Asian interfering Aunties to “Shut Up*” in some whimsical aside and I’m thinking Nnghhhhhhhhhhhhg and reading this sneering, excessively exclamation-marked blog about soap operas in India (http://www.littleindia.com/news/125/ARTICLE/8175/2011-07-12.html) and I find myself perplexed by the writer who seems to be under the impression that soap operas in India represent some sort of bold march of wimmins rights against the patriarchy. Because he is almost right but hopelessly wrong about why.

"Last time..."

First, the basics. Indian Soap Operas are hardly ever about places (Walford, Wetherfield) but instead focus on individual families, or more usually a single female. Is this a hammer blow for feminism? Hardly. Since it’s mainly women who watch soap operas you wouldn’t expect swaggering 40-something men pretending they’re still teenagers. The other trope is that soap titles must either:

a) consist of a single word title (Bandini, Devi, Ardhangini, Kunku) or 50 (Waqt Batayega Kaun Apna Kaun Paraya, Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai).

b) Feature the female protagonist, moping in the title credits. Extra points for a single
slovenly tear rolling down her cheeks as she contemplates her cruel fate.

An additional obsession is with titles consisting of the letter K. You really cannot write an article about Indian soap without mentioning the strangle hold of numerologist loon Ekta Kapoor and Balaji Telefilms on the format. More later.

Sweet GOD the women in Indian soap operas are pathetic. I could attempt some incoherent Laurie Penny impersonation at this point and blither about some giant conspiracy and squeak about patriarchal zzzzzzzz but that’s bollocks. No. Instead, acknowledge the grimly insatiable appetite that nicely brought up young women have for masochistic fiction depicting other young women SUFFERING. Those familiar with the works of Tammy Comics (Child Slaves of War Orphan Farm!) should agree.

Off limits

The other thing you can kiss goodbye to is any attempt at character development. Most soaps concentrate on the saas-bahu (Mother-in-law/daughter-in-law) warfare endemic in all joint families.
There will never be a character as conflicted, as headstrong, self-destructive and wounded as Elsie Tanner from Coronation Street in Indian soap purely for the reason that she is a middle aged woman who has a love life after having had children. Forget about anything approaching Kat Slater in Eastenders unless she is an out and out embittered harridan constantly seething with jealousy there to torment a more doe-eyed newlywed.
This is Indian Soap remember: Once you complete childbearing, your hymen grows back. There is no complexity in this genre. You will either be Gail Platt or Ena Sharples. There IS no middle ground. Indian Soap Awards however cannot bring themselves to brand these characters as pantomime angels or devils. Instead you get awards for ‘Best character in a negative role’. Pitiful.

Rules:

1) Physically assaulting women is Fine and Dandy as long as it is done by the matriarch, male authority figure and is in response to set-pieces revealing the nefarious deeds of aforementioned shameless woman. And such is the emotional manipulation of these dramas, that they actually make you want this to happen. Indian Soaps make you violent. You. Are. Being. Manipulated.

2) Your sister-in-law is trying to kill you, possibly through poisoning, and is engaged in an intricate tarantella to shape events in your household to turn everyone against you in order to obtain a share of some property you are assumed to be due to inherit.

3) Praying to a porcelain replica of a deity in your household prayer room WORKS.
Wife of sadistic landlord is beaten in punishment for perceived sleight to family prestige for being seen within 50 yards of unrelated male at village gathering. Instead of doing what every right thinking woman in British Soap would do and plunging a knife through the fuckers chest, she decamps to beseech idol for mercy. Next day, she is beaten but her assailant hurts his ankle slightly. Glory Be to God in all her infinite mercy.

And so the procession of woe and misery unfolds. A helpless young girl is either
a) never to be married due to duty to support her ever-expanding feckless needy over-entitled relatives (despite sneering at the shame of sending their daughter out to work) or: b) married in some sham wedding to someone she weally weally wuvs but who is spineless in the face of his family.

Life is dismal and unendingly cruel. Soaps, then, do at least attempt to illustrate the fate awaiting couples after the standard Bollywood Film ending. But there are only so many permutations of this plotline available (no sexual intrigue allowed, remember). So producers have resorted to increasingly desperate angles to wrench Every. Last. Drop. out of the fantasy. Girl protagonist is persecuted because she is:
dark skinned (Saloni Ki Safar),
Poor (Agle Janam Bitiyie Hi Kijo),
Single mother (Kunti),
pretty (Aradhangini),
wearing blackface makeup and monobrow (Laagi Tujse Lagaan),
careworn eldest daughter (Jyoti),
Dwarf (Baba Aisa Var Dhundo),
illiterate village girl (Bandini, Kunku),
female (Ne Anna Is Des Laado). Etc etc

Having exhausted the saas-bahu conflict the next seem to mine became child exploitation. It started with Child-bride soap Balika Vadhu on Colors. You’d like to think Serious Drama Making A Point is meant to highlight problems to persuade people *not* to copy this. Questions were asked in the Indian parliament. The furore even managed to rouse the cursory interest of the BBC.

Instead it triggers a Paed0 jailba1t arms-race amongst the other networks once they realised ch1ld cruelty is RATINGS GOLD.

*This would NEVER happen in real life. There would be blood and hellfire to endure.

The unfailing and profound sense of consideration of the Liberal Democrats

2011-05-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

Such sweethearts. Such poppetts. Bless their cotton socks.

Ming/ Menzies Campbell was on BBC News 24 just before Midday UK time.

He is annoyed.

About the unseemly celebrations across America.

About.... that News

As A Lib Dem councillor on ThatTwitter puts it:

http://twitter.com/#!/Lisa4Woking/status/65012525590249472

Ming Campbell bang on the money. Remember the distaste when 9/11 happened and Muslim countries celebrated. We should not do the same
2nd May via Echofon

Except.....

When the WTC attacks took place, the only (and infamous) instance of celebrations was in the West Bank - incidents rapidly shouted down by others in the Muslim world, as I recall. There were vigils across the 'Muslim world', and the same, as I remember, in the aftermath of Beslan. A sense that whatever gripes could be lain at the door of the West/unnamed others, this was simply too much. I seem to remember even Iran and Iraq (pih) sent official notes of condolence.

But anyways, how proundly considerate of the Lib Dems. You would prefer the standard response: mention past crimes against Saladin and say Insh'allah a lot to prove you Iz Down Wit Da Ummah

And not just there.

I always wondered if there was a flow chart somewhere, that people of a generally leftish (or in truth, those who would aim to define themselves as generically anti-establishment, poo-pooing at the mindless untermenschen who buy popular music, hating the Manic Street Preachers after they sold more than 2000 singles, that sort of thing) people navigate their opinions by.

You'd think quisling Lib Dems would have nothing in common with hardened Marxists now. Apparently not. And it has already been pointed out that those mortified at boozed up frat boys chanting USA USA will more than likely cheer the death of Thatcher /Blair/BuSSh

Key question:
What are the Americans doing?
A: being a bit lairy coz the cunt that ordered the deaths of 3000 of their fellow office workers has finally been killed

How in hell should you react?
A: By maintaining an arch, knowing, petulance usually reserved for supporters of struggling football teams at the hands of another crushing defeat by insisting that
a) well actually its nothing compared to the death of [insert UK/US atrocity here, hell even mention shit from the British Empire, its all good]
b) Its EXACTLY THE SAME as celebrating the WTC attacks.

Do this on Question Time, and you will get a round of applause and be hailed as the new Charlie Brooker.

An early example of this was at my old workplace, when it was announced that there would be a 2 minute silence for the victims of the WTC attacks. Our predictably Trotty (though non SWP) union reps first retort, rather than noting the deaths, was to simply cuonter that, actually, Ok? If, Uh, We had a minutes silence for, like, uh, the dead from American Imperialism, actually, we'd like, have to be silent, for like, A MILLION YEARS.

An article linked to from Jason Burke
Deadly Vanguards

#WeLoveTheNHS pt 3456

2010-09-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

Belated but recent discussions have reminded me of the importance of not just a healthcare system free at the point of use, but one that is organised.

A story from April, about a riot triggered in a hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal in India.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Dying-boy-turned-away-mob-unleashes-terror-in-hospitals/articleshow/5799203.cms

Dying boy turned away, mob unleashes terror in hospitals

TNN, Apr 14, 2010, 04.16am IST

KOLKATA: Lawlessness in Kolkata touched an abysmal low on Tuesday, moving from the streets to the wards and operating theatres of two private hospitals on EM Bypass. Angered by the doctors' alleged refusal to admit a critically injured accident victim, a mob vandalized Peerless Hospital and Apex Hospital, smashed up equipment, thrashed doctors and nurses, stole the cash box and attacked policemen

Riots in hospital are astonishing, disgusting and should be condemned, as I do. Its a horrifying destruction of facilities that should be used to treat the sick.

It all started after Peerless Hospital authorities allegedly refused admission to 13-year-old Sonai Tarafdar, who was brought there around 7 am, covered in blood. He was among four killed and five injured in a collision between a van and a lorry near Bagha Jatin flyover in south Kolkata. Sonai's relatives said they approached doctors at the emergency twice, but were turned away. He gasped his last breath an hour later at the hospital gates. "The doctors asked us to get money first. We left the hospital carrying a dying Sonai in our arms," said Tapan Mandal, a relative. "They demanded Rs 50,000 before starting treatment," said Manju Gayen, whose daughter Arati was among the dead. The hospital has denied the allegation.

The corpses were lying on the road outside the hospital when residents from nearby slums started gathering. Armed with shovels, rods, axes and sticks, they charged into Peerless Hospital, dragged out staff from a restaurant and set fire to it. The security guards' office was torched, too. The vandals then stormed into the operation theatre and broke the door when surgery was on. Equipment and furniture were wrecked in the haematooncology, gastroenterology, OPD, X-ray and ultrasonography rooms. The CT scan machine was also damaged. Even the blood bank wasn't spared. The mob hurled fans and water filters and started moving towards the wards.

.......

Peerless hospital chairman S K Roy, however, denied the charge, saying: "Nobody asked for money from the patients. The allegations are baseless and the attack motivated. This is not a charitable hospital but a corporate one*. This is an attack on the entire health industry. The government should give us protection." Dr Sudipto Mukherjee, who was at the emergency when the attack started, claimed Sonai was dead when he was brought to the hospital.

*Not quite sure what their corporate status should have to do with whether they should be protected or not, but there you go.

West Bengal, it should be pointed out, has been Communist (Marxist-Leninist, if I remember correctly, not plain Marxist) for the past 30 years.

Even private patients don't get the sort of joined up healthcare that is routine in the NHS. They do not get things like food, for instance. That comes from relatives visiting. Neither do they get medicines. Those have to be obtained (and paid for) seperately. Also, it is unlikely you will actually have an ambulance to take you to a hospital.

Zee News recently spoke, in awestruck terms, of a new fleet of ambulances that had - white heat of technology - just been fitted with defibrillators. They trumpeted that these would only cost '1 lakh Rupees' (100 thousand Rupees, approx £1250) for a callout.

Not that these Ambulances were anywhere in sight when the footbridge for the Comonwealth Games collapsed last week.

Oh yes, The Games. That list of cliches spouted by bent politicians as an excuse and relayed by know-nothing media hacks (the latest jibberer being Sunrise Radio's own equivalent of Richard Madeley, Tony Patti) on why it is run by incompetent fuckwits;

# It's like an Indian Wedding! It'll all get done at the last minute and come good like in dem Bollywood films!

Of course we are all meant to laugh along at this hokey little piece of shit, ignoring that most parents are born endebted due to their parents dowry and start saving for their childrens (daughters') wedding bribe from before she is born. 'Daughters Wedding' syndrome is also a term applied to contractors squeezing the nuts of developers in the certain knowledge that they will HAVE to pay up as it it too late to hire anyone else. This may explain why Indian families face such crippling debt.

# But its different standards in India!

Different meaning reosrting to using child labour and now calling in the Army after a lying incompetent pigs bladder on a stick (Suresh Kalmadi) managed to fob off the Indian Media and everyone else for the past 2 years with assurances that everything will be alright. Also means that Indians don't mind living in shit. Of course if that was an Australian saying that Indian public opinion would go BoNkERsMenTAl but hey lets not fuss yah? Its unpatriotic.

And the Indian Healthcare system is now being held up as a model of how the NHS could operate by Vince Cable.

In a series of wards upstairs, heart patients are recovering from surgery and waiting to go home. The average cost of surgery here is a fraction of what it costs in the West, and patients come to Bangalore from all over the world.

The very poorest are never turned away either. Under a subsidised scheme, CS Manju Nath, a local man, had complex heart surgery here for next to nothing.

Next to nothing, note. Not 'free'.

......

In other words, some patients are treated for a significant financial loss to the hospital. But the volume of operations is so large, that it still makes an overall profit.

So they are doing away with top-down 'stalinist' targets for hospitals and instead building, well, health 'collectives' where happy cardiothoracic operatives can toil for the empowered localist agenda of the Big Society.

So in the UK, that would be like there only being 1 or 2 large hospitals specialising in only cancer treatment. A cynic might point out that is centralising services into fewer and fewer locations, which, if you believe Conservative LibDem rhetoric is utterly against the aims of the new localism.

Vince: Fuck Off.

Carefully Cultivating the Appearance of Not Giving A Fuck

2010-08-14T09:59:00.001-07:00

The catastrophic floods and torrential rains that have hit Pakistan have been headline news since they first occured at the end of July 2010.

Perhaps because the country was already in the news thanks to dastardly Britisher PM David Cameron's comments on the country looking both ways over support for terror attacks in India and Afghanistan, and the already-controversial planned visit of Pakistani Prime Minister/ spiv Asif Ali Zardari to the UK a few days later, UK news media were able to report on the floods that began farily quickly. International News channels (CNN, Wall Street Journal, Aljazeera, Xinhua News Agency, Sky etc) were also covering the unfolding disaster almost within a day of the first reports of flooding. Combined with the news of landslides caused by torrential rains in North West China (ongoing for a month, and with consequences for water courses affecting Russia), as well as the Russian wildfires out of control, awareness has been high in the UK, US, European media as well as Middle Eastern and Russian Media.

The story, then, has been a lead news item for (writing on 15th Aug) a full fortnight in most news channels. Most news channels.

Courtesy of Dawn paper, a timeline of events, interspersed with additions on top news stories from Zee News Network, Aaj Tak and India Today.

- July 29: Flash floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains hit northwestern Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir as the country mourns its worst aviation disaster, which killed 152 people in Islamabad.

- July 31: Local authorities say the floods have killed at least 800. The deluge kills another 65 people in mountains across the border in Afghanistan.

- August 2: The UN says that nearly 980,000 people have been left homeless or have been displaced.

- The Red Cross appeals for aid.
- BBC News already reporting that Islamists have taken up the running in supplying aid, in competition with the Army and in contrast to the non-existent civilian Government. You might think this has implications at a strategic level for, you know nearby countries.
Indian TV News channel Aaj Tak main headline: A Giant Solar Storm IS coMing!??!! It could wipes out all commUnIcAtiON!!! Bravo for the English Gentleman Mister David Camroon!
Coverage time of floods in Pakistan in Zee, Aaj Tak and NDTV: 0 minutes

- August 4: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani calls on his administration to speed up the delivery of aid. There is a growing backlash against the civilian government and President Asif Ali Zardari over failures to provide food, water and sanitation to the victims.

- August 5: The UN estimates that the flooding has killed 1,600 people in northwestern Pakistan alone.

- Numerous cases of diarrhoea.

- The UN says it has received 18 million dollars of international aid.

Coverage time of floods in Pakistan in Zee, Aaj Tak and NDTV: 0 minutes

- August 6: Pakistan declares a red alert as the flooding worsens, reaching the south and leading to the evacuation of half a million people.

- The floods have affected 12 million people in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, the National Disaster Management Agency says.

- Floods occur in the Indian Kashmir/ Ladakh town of Leh. Twitter is inundated with Bollywood stars emoting on the sheer awfulnes of it all, together with reports from Indian media appealing for help and donations.

"Little contributions go a long way :)" writes Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor feeding his recent tweet in support of the Leh victims.

"I request people to make small contributions to help the affected children of Leh region. Children are the most vulnerable and it is now important that they get clean drinking water. We know how unsafe drinking water can lead to diarrhoea and cause even death among young children. Small steps on your part can go a long way to help save children," Kunal Kapoor said.

- August 7: In the south of Pakistan, notably in the densely populated province of Sindh, a million people are evacuated, bringing to 15 million the number affected across the country according to the local authorities.

- Shoe thrown at Zardari by protester enraged at him larging it in Birmingham whilst millions of his electorate are now treading water.

- August 8: Landslides in Gilgit-Baltistan province in the far north.

- Gilani visits flood-hit areas of Sindh province, calling again for international aid.

- These are now being called the worst floods in living memory. Aaj Tak notes, proudly that America has criticised Pakistan for its tardy relief effort. Main headlines: Still the looming shock news that the 2010 Commonwealth Games look set to be as the channels put it, 'a disaster'. Also coverage of the landslides in China, the wildfires in Russia and the mudslides in Leh. Some TOURISTS were there! They must be rescued immediately!

Coverage time of floods in Pakistan in Zee, Aaj Tak and NDTV: 0 minutes

- August 9: Around 13.8 million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan, making the scale of the disaster worse than the 2004 tsunami, 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a UN official says.

- August 10: Six million people need humanitarian aid in order to survive, according to the UN.

- Zardari returns to Pakistan, after a European tour for which he was criticised.

- August 11: The UN appeals for 460 million dollars in emergency aid for flood victims.

- A senior UN envoy warns that militants could exploit Pakistan's worst humanitarian disaster.

- The United States triples the number of helicopters helping Pakistan's flood relief effort.

Zee News finally features an item on the Pakistan floods. Out of a 30 minute slot it consists of 3 minutes. Of that 3 minutes 90 seconds is given over to an interview with the shoethrower from Birmingham. Some incongruous stock footage of Pakistan. It is approx the 5th item in the line up. 1st: the ongoing fiasco of the incompetence and gross corruption of the looming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. Fancy that! An event that has attracted Billions of dollars of funding is shot through with backhanders and shoddy construction work! Also a feature on super posh diplomat Shashi Tharoor (I bet Mark Tully fucking loves him) and his wedding. He was DIVORCED you know! Total coverage: 15 minutes. Also something on the Ambani Brothers. The newsreader appears to grin extra snarkily on the report on the shoethrowing. How novel! Indians would never do THAT sort of thing!

- August 13: India 'still debating' whether to send aid or not. It is starting to look increasingly odd that save a comment of 'deep distress' for those affected, India has kept out of this one. Articles discussing this (e.g. The Diplomat) are inundated with enraged Indians with barely concealed contempt for any mooted relief effort.
Eventually announces that it will send some money, approx $7million, in the spirit of magnanimity. Doubles all round! Tharoor deigns to comment on the unfolding unpleasantness over the border on twitter:

Proud that India donated US$ 5 million to Pakistan in its hour of need. Pity that Indian volunteers and aid agencies can't go there to help

.

- August 14 Elizabeth and Bandit Queen Director Shekhar Kapur (Nikki 'My Ex-Husband WAS a Bond Villain! Its true!' Bedi fucked him too) wins plaudits for being the first Bollywood scum to bother mentioning the floods from his followers. mentioning. Not actually suggesting help. Gawping at the pics, like.

Main stories on Aaj Tak, NDTV, Zee: Dastardly Britishers in propaganda rag Lancet! They are smearing India in accusational jugglery over name of new superbug based in Delhi! Jai Hind! Also: A pretty dancing model lady had items of jewelry stolen from her car! And it was caught on camera! Also a repeated feature on an Elephant going on a walkabout (sorry, DEADLY RAMPAGE OF TERROR) in Bihar. Also a feature on the rscue efforts in China. Indian Media tend to repeat the same buit of stock footage again and again and so they do with this. Floods in China. Well its good to be informed of local events.

Coverage time of floods in Pakistan in Zee, Aaj Tak and NDTV: a passing mention max 3 minutes out of a possible 60.

- August 15. Ban-Ki Moon, UN Secretary General visits Pakistan, declaring this the worst disaster in living memory.
Forget about India covering anything else apart from its Independence Day celebrations, it ain't happening. Current lead headlines on India Today:

-A Shoe protest in Kashmir
-Website of Raj Sabhya (upper chamber)/Industrialist Vijay Mallya hacked. By Pakistanis.
-a Meeting on Commonwealth Games
-Taj Hotel reopens. Such pretty furnishings!!!....

That Bollywood Hitler film

2010-07-17T13:25:00.000-07:00

re:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/08/bollywood-adolf-hitler-film

Anupam Kher, the proposed lead for Hitler, has now dropped out since a colleague (casting couch king Mahesh Bhatt*) felt the need to explain his mother in law had to flee Hitler.

You would think that the accounts of non-showbiz chums might have persuaded him this was A Bad Move particularly as he has appeared in western films,but still.

The female lead, Neha Dhupia is still signed to play Eva Braun.
Doesn't she look *adorable* at the launch party?
http://www.highheelconfidential.com/neha-dhupia-at-dear-friend-hitler-launch/

Here she is on twitter
http://twitter.com/Neha_Dhupia

*Strange that Mahesh Bhatt didn't realise this might be a faux pas when he actually turned up alongside the lead actors for the launch party

It already has some fans:
User 'spentonmediocrity':

Well blow me down,the long arm of judeo centrist american culture has not reached this woman.
I bet Abe Foxman is already on this one.

As detailed on LiveMint, there is a strange ambivalence about Hitler in India.

As a schoolboy in Bombay, I recall seeing dozens of films at Sterling, Metro, Regal and Eros, in which Nazis were always the bad guys, period. The Longest Day, The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, A Bridge Too Far, Is Paris Burning?, or Battle of Britain. And yet, at college, I recall a well-read student senior to me telling me with great conviction that the Holocaust never happened and that there was a giant conspiracy against Hitler.

He had read Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler’s autobiography, which sold 100,000 copies in the last decade, according to Jaico Books, its publisher. Like the Indian youngsters the BBC interviewed recently, he admired Hitler’s sense of “discipline”, “nationalism”, and “spirit”.

These kids aren’t alone. The Shiv Sena’s patriarch, Bal Thackeray, has often praised Hitler. Some Gujarat textbooks look uncritically at Hitler, focusing on his role in building German nationalism after the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, glossing over the blood-splattered record.

There is an older Hindu nationalist obsession with Hitler. Leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have at various times praised Hitler’s nationalism, though to be fair, some have also decried Hitler’s anti-Semitism. Balkrishna Munje of the Hindu Mahasabha went briefly to Mussolini’s Italy in 1931 and came back impressed. Hitler’s quest for Aryan supremacy makes some Hindu nationalists nostalgic; his usurping of the swastika makes some feel a vague kinship. Adding mumbo-jumbo to the mix is Maximine Julia Portas, a French writer, who took the name Savitri Devi and wrote extensively praising Hitler, and dabbled in Hinduism and occult. (She died in 1982).

I have elderly relatives who claim that in the 1930's bookstalls in India were regularly visited by German scholars buying up ancient Hindu texts.

In the crazy batshit world of racial taxonomy, Indians (north Indians and upper caste North Indians more specifically) view themselves as part of the glorious Aryan tribes who (depending on the telling) invaded/migrated to the sub-continent and imposed their enlightened social system of job stratification as a means of ordering civil society, known as the caste system. Everything in its place.

From a website promulgating the lifestyle tips of beardy YogaNazi** Swami Ramdev:

http://health.icttn.com/archives/1236
One admirer notes:

In India no North-South East-West divide exists. Most of us Indians are the purest Aryans. Colour changes due to climate. Baba Ramdev reflects Aryan Hinduism and Aryavarta at her best. May Aryavarta and Swastika show the world true nobility and power.

**Ramdev used to declare on his website that he was on a mission to restore India to a great Aryan Nation. Oddly enough these references have been removed from his website but are still on his yoga videos.

Famous Last Words

2010-03-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Steven Wells: (10 May 1960 – 24 June 2009)

Further to my previous posting on the woeful US Healthcare system, belated condolences on the demise of StVeN wElLS.

The Lymphatic Cancer that the US Healthcare system punished him for having the temerity to contract (how come a nation that prides itself on its Christian values can punish the sick?) returned last year and done did for him.

This, then, from his last column, published posthumously:

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/steven-wells/Steven-Wells-Says-Goodbye-49054426.html

And of course all this bollocks is written by an idiot who has polished his image as an existentialist, atheist hard-man and anti-mope, forever sneering at the tribes who wallow in self-pity -- the gothers, the emo kids, the Smiths fans -- the whole 900-block-wide marching band composed entirely of the white male urban middle classes who are convinced that (as the most affluent and pampered human beings who have ever walked the planet) theirs is a story worth hearing. Blissfully unaware that they are but a few generations away from regular visits to the doctor who would wind parasitic worms from their beer bloated assholes using sticks. (Check out the AMA logos, those smiling beasts are not snakes.)

You could blame this fallacy on poor education, cultural deterioration, or simple moral decline.

Me? I blame it on sunshine. I blame it on the moonlight. I blame it on the boogie.

Blame it on the Boogie. Published mere hours before That Other Death.

#WeLoveTheNHS

PS: Friend went to Hong Kong and was taken violently ill. Before he would even be seen in the Emergency Room, he had to hand over an advanced payment in 1 lump sum. $HK 40,000. Cash.

Well I never! People watch Bollywood films in Britain!

2010-03-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

Amazing! Fancy that! Nikki "My ex-husband was a Bond Villain" Bedi has helped introduce Radio 2 listeners to documentary Bollywood Britain, covering in 3 parts of 30 minutes each how People have watched Films-That-Are-Not-In-English, and - lordy - how Bollywood films are going to take over Britain. My! I never realised these existed! Glib doesn't even begin to explain it. Apparently, Bollywood films are all very cheeful (except when they are miserable and Serious) and all the people wear pretty costumes! And as Nikki "yes its True everyone! My ex-husband WAS a Bond Villain!" Bedi (to be honest, if Kabir Bedi is known for anything in the West its for playing Arab Sheikhs in episodes of Murder She Wrote in the 80's. Perhaps he prepared for this by attending the numerous parties held by gangster and Islamist go-between Daud Ibrahim alongside numerous other overpaid celebrities who then feign excessive patriotism by either siding with bigots like the Shiv Sena or making patronising comments about Indians' humility in the face of terror) pointed out, Bollywood films are a NEW alternative to the TYRANNY posed by Hollywood! Horray! Its like having the USSR to fight the dastardly Neocon Military Industrial Complex! Bollywood films must tell me EVERYTHING YOU ever NEED TO KNOW about THE ENTIRE SOUTH ASIAN SUBCONTINENT!

What you missed:
#token Britisher Simon Beaufouy making characteristically gormless comments like "I used to avoid these films when I watched at home in Yorkshire but actually all those pretty dresses and melodrama are actually just what India is all about! And don't they all look pretty!".

#Nikki "I know! Its amazing! My ex-husband was a Bond Villain! People always ALWAYS mention it and I ALWAYS confirm it EVERYTIME I AM ON THE RADIO" Bedi aswell as other know-nothing no marks Raj and Pablo painstakingly taking care to pronounce the names of Amitabh Bhachchan and Mumbai because they are OH So Desi.

# The aforementioned getting relentlessly namechecked, alongside endless (and increasingly unjustified) fawning over ageing ham Amitbh Bhachchan, with more relentless comparisons to him being like Al Pacino crossed with Elvis, and Michael Jackson, and simliar crosscultural twinning exercises to see Shah Rukh Khan likened to Jonny Depp, or someone else.

#Completely unquestioning promotion of the increasing influence of Bollywood. Its a radical alternative to Hollywood? What, you mean like Pepsi is the radical alternative to Coca Cola?

#Hilarious asides about how all the singing and dancing in Indian films has really high pitched voices for the women and all have happy endings. Alongside completely inaccruate accounts of how it was the Indian film industry that wanted to make more dark and complex films, against the demands of the mythical NRI target audience, rather than the other way round.

The thing is, there have been these 'Bollywood is coming' documentaries for at least 15 if not 20 years. Other than listing more recent films (Slumdog, inevitably) you never get any sort of knowing and intelligent information on the Indian film industry, and this extends to the crapness of the film reviews on Asian Network.

Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal is a dreadful cunt of a human being by all accounts, for instance, but at least he managed some nicely scathing articles and reviews of films for the Grauniad worthy of the sort of stuff that Neon magazine in its heyday.

Here's what they didn't get round to mentioning:
#The nexus between the few families that dominate Bollywood and politics. Most obviously demonstrated by the wierd stalker-like relationship between crackpot fascist Bal Thackeray from the Shiv Sena and ageing Ham Amitabh Bhachchan, and the complete silence of the movie fraternity, who find Shiv Sena thugs handy for keeping labour relations in check.

#The shift onto crap yoof culture most markedly since the millenium. Mostly these are just eye-rollingly bad and have been pw3ned before. What is puzzling though, is that nowadays films almost exclusively concentrate on the Indian Middle class (and you haven't cringed until you've seen an expensively educated son of a CEO trying to throw gangsta shapes and rap - in English - about being like, rilly pissed off yah?). The thing that endeared these films to wider audiences in the 50's was the sense that you had ordinary characters trying to make their way to a peaceful life against the relentless obstacles of poverty and society (Mother India, Boot Polish, Black Market, or the later cheap as chips films like Coolie).

#The fact that nowadays most films are full of patriotic guff about the sanctity of the extended Indian family. You would think that Bollywood Britain would have picked up on the rise of fatheaded family melodramas from Yash Chopra or starring the arch simperer Aishwarya Rai as having mirrored the rise of the BJP, culminating in the phrase 'India Shining', but no.

#Given they like gloating about the success of Bollywood in Africa, how come they still have the nerve to advertise skin lighteners?

Radio 2 are currently airing a 3 part documentary on ancient singer Al Bowley. You would think the Asian Network, if it was worth saving, would have managed, say, a 2 part documentary on the exquisite misery of Geeta Dutt, or the ethereal films of VN Shantaram, or maybe even something on RD Burman. No? Not part of the target 18-25 audience?

The Modern Indian Ettiquette for Molesting One's Maid

2010-01-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

I realise that there are plenty of idiotic newspaper columists filling space with pointless shit related to lifetyle issues in the UK. The unhinged Liz Jones, the infuriating 'Impoverished Millionaire' Rosie Millard. But every now and then you come cross an article so inane, so utterly facile in the foreign press that you are compelled to write, if only so screee gaaaaaarrrrrrgrgghhhahahasjdskdkaaa on a keyboard at the rage they have managed to induce.

Step forward Kalpana Sharma of the Times of India. This article has everything: inappropriate use of exclamation marks, spurious quotes from a cockamamy doctor to speculate on circumtances, conjecture, attempts at name dropping.

To explain: Recently the Indian newspapers have been filled with the lurid details concerning an allegation of rape filed by the domestic servant of a middling film actor called Shiney Ahuja. Shiney. Thats his real first name. The extent of domestic service in Indian households, together with their low rates of protection from abuse remains one of the grubby little secrets that nice shining middle class India would rather not mention in those self aggrandising adverts they keep trailing on tv. And according to Sharma the thought of even considering your 'jhi' as an entity that might be on the receiving end of sexual attention is a dangerous western idea. (Why of course, before western Imperialism the lower orders simply did their duty out of sheer gratitude to their superior fairskinned masters without the latter ever sullying themselves with impure thought. Why would you desire something not of your species?) You know its gong to go wrong right from the title:

Beware of the maid! http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Lifestyle/Beware-of-the-maid/articleshow/4667727.cms

"When did a domestic help become a man’s object of fantasy? Have they become the latest male snatchers?"

Having run out of vaguely celebrity-related sex stories to tangentially mention in connection with the rape case, Sharma turns her attention to Nannies. This is because apparently they wear skimpy uniforms or bend over and that. Except thats in the west. Of all the footage I have seen of domestic service workers in India, they nearly all wear saris, or the usual Indian dress of their contemporaries.
The harridan gives the game away in the 5th paragraph:

"Many men also perceive these maids in India as prominicuous (sic). They feel she would be sleeping for money. "Not only that if you observe the way these maids work- putting ample cleavage on display, bending and making a posture that would entice any man. And with the common image of these harmless women, men feel like overpowering them. It's like unleashing the beast within that they know their wife or their girlfriend won't tolerate," opines dermatologist Shuruchi Verma. .......
The fact is that men don't really fall in love with a maid but feel like exploring the alternative world of headless, harmless women.."

Headless, harmless women. I often wonder if this might actually be strategically placed covert recruitment material for the Naxalites. Apparently not.

So, then, courtesy of the National Domestic Workers Movement, are some RED HOT pics of some lissom and lovely maids simply GAGGING for the attention of a fat privately educated member of the professional classes to attempt to manhandle her. Ready?

http://www.ndwm.org/functions-activities/pictures/empowering-dw1.jpg
eh? EH? and how's about... shhh, this is *special*...

http://www.ndwm.org/functions-activities/pictures/empowering-dw3.jpg

But lets not be Sexist. Women can abuse their domestic staff too, as evidenced by a string of child cruelty cases involving actresses knocking 7 bells out of kids they were employing. Take this snivelling example from minor league soap actress Urvashi Dhanorkar:

a 10-year-old girl has accused her employer, Urvashi Dhanorkar, of brutally torturing her for six months.

The girl says she was brought to Mumbai from Amravati to study, but was instead told to be a maid. Her employer was arrested, but later given bail by a local court.

"My hand is burnt. I was burnt with a hot spoon and water," said Rameshwari, the victim.

Scalded with boiling water by her employer, deep bruises under her eyes, Rameshwari can barely bring herself to speak.

Yet, hours after she was arrested for this horrific crime, her employer, Urvashi Dhanorkar, was already out on bail.

25th Anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Leak: Bollywood reacts

2009-12-06T08:15:00.000-08:00

Given the amazing power of ThatTwitter in terms of outing litigious cunts and routing hate-ridden Daily Mail columnists (Jan Moir was reasonably alright when she worked at the Observer. What happened? Oh yeah, she went to work for the Daily Mail), The VSSoAC is getting into some Meeja analysis and doing a round up of the pourings of outrage at the continuing injustice endured by the residents of the Bhopal area, after years of corporate and Government denials, cover ups, and brutality meted out to survivors by Bollywood celebs and other 'leading Indian opinon formers' via their Twitter feeds. Responses taken from logs of Twitter comments on 3rd December, or searches referring to Bhopal up to 6th December 4pm GMT:

Priyanka Chopra (http://twitter.com/priyankachopra):
On my way to the gym.. Ugh!! Pls remind me why we need to suffer like this!!??
2:38 AM Dec 4th from Twitterrific

Shashi Tharoor (http://twitter.com/ShashiTharoor):
RT @sardesairajdeep: 25 years of bhopal gas tragedy today.still rembr pablo barthomelew's haunting picture of a child buried alive.(As do I) 8:06 PM Dec 2nd from UberTwitter

Shahid Kapoor (http://twitter.com/shahidkapoor):
Thank u for all da luv n appreciation ... Really ....
4:18 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Hey ... Mornin people ... Am off to another day of shootin ....
4:17 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter

Karan Johar (http://twitter.com/kjohar25):
amitabh bachchan is just pure genius!!! paa ia all soul....all heart...way to go @juniorbachchan!!! superb!!!!
1:36 PM Dec 3rd from mobile web off to see PAA later tonight!! super excited and dying to see it!!!
4:28 AM Dec 3rd from mobile web Hey Guys Male version of Ektara for all who want to hear it!!! http://twaud.io/rx1
3:29 AM Dec 3rd from twaud.io

Abhishek 'Gavin' Bhachan (http://twitter.com/juniorbachchan):
...It means the world to me and the family. I hope we don't let you down.
3:03 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Can't sleep! Don't know how to express or share what all I'm feeling. All I can say is THANK YOU! For all your wishes....
3:02 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Just got back home, forget tired, just too overwhelmed with the response! Can't say much now.... Good night!
12:55 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Interval just got over. Great reactions so far. Let's hope they feel the same after the next half!!!!
10:26 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Reached the venue. Wish me luck!!!! More from inside.
7:03 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Argh!!!! What to wear? Indian or western???? Come on guys, HELP!!!!
4:43 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Press done with.Its now home to a pooja which we do before our releases.You can't bribe the big guy, but its nice to say hi once in a while!
12:10 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter

Ritiesh Deshmukh (actor and son of high ranking Indian politician Vilasrao Dagadojirao Deshmukh, current Minister for Heavy Industries in India ) (http://twitter.com/Riteishd):

God! just saw the news Sehwag scored 283* hope he smashes Brian Lara's 400*. missed this knock. wished i was at CCI cheering for him n INDIA
4:09 AM Dec 3rd from web

Lara Dutta (actress, model and 'human rights activist', pffffrrt) (http://twitter.com/DuttaLara):
I missed being in bombay for the screening of PAA. Chose being with my own paa in bangalore. Am sure Mr. B rocked! Love him!
10:38 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter Spent a good 2hrs in conversation with my dad! Some good parental advice being passed down! :-) guess I'll always b a 'daddys girl' :-)
10:37 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter

Ram Gopal Verma (self styled auteur convinced he makes films of great social importance) (http://twitter.com/rgvzoomin): last entry on 20th Aug
the point of life is tht thrs no point to it.so its btr to live it point by point nd point to point
10:25 PM Aug 20th from mobile web

Mallika Sherawat (self-styled Bollywood queen of Twitter, mistress of Ja***e C***) (http://twitter.com/MallikaLA):
k... photo shoot in d morn, need my booty sleep;) 'nite tweeps! xoMS
11:22 PM Dec 3rd from web http://twitpic.com/s2lfk - With Young Victoria producers Graham King n Dennis O'Sullivan of Sarah the Duchess of York's film. She's d origin
11:18 PM Dec 3rd from TwitPic http://twitpic.com/s2l3e - Ssshe is a vibrant and very warm person! I loved her immediately:)
11:14 PM Dec 3rd from TwitPic http://twitpic.com/s2ktg - hangin with the Duchesss, it was her night!
11:10 PM Dec 3rd from TwitPic

Dino Morea (http://twitter.com/DinoMorea9):
Dammm, got to work little late tnite. Will miss paaa.
5:03 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter @fayazshaikh hey my 1st crush was a cute girl who used to sit next to me when I was in school. Have vivid memoriew, very sweet and innocent
1:30 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter in reply to fayazshaikh Hello tweeps, what's going on everyone. Am buzzing with energy tday, feeling good. Dnt think I can make paaa premier, will b fun though.
1:29 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter RT @MitaliParekh: Your the Indian version of Brad Pitt! I say that everytimee you come on tv and now i can say that directly to you!(Thank u
1:22 AM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter

Barkha Dutt ('anchor-journalist' and starfucker, NDTV India) (http://twitter.com/BDUTT):
folks- its nearly four am in singapore. I will sleep feeling blessed- by the wishes and genorisity of you all, and my super team at ndtv
11:40 AM Dec 3rd from web http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/yet_another_award_for_ndtvs_we_the_people.php WTP wins at asian tv awards in singapore
11:39 AM Dec 3rd from web

Pritish Nandy ('A chronicler of my times') (http://twitter.com/PritishNandy):
@neeraj True. Its the disconnect between the governed and those who govern is so sharp that it is getting worrisome.
10:04 PM Dec 3rd from web in reply to neeraj @bharat_k You are dead right. I saw the caught and bowled by M. I was wrong.
10:02 PM Dec 3rd from web in reply to bharat_k @abhishekshete Thats right. Rajat is very good.
9:58 PM Dec 3rd from web in reply to abhishekshete @arkab Who is ever going to monitor these cuts? These are all symbolic igestures.
9:57 PM Dec 3rd from web in reply to arkab

Celina Jaitley ('Film Star and Human Rights and animal rights actvist') (http://twitter.com/CelinaJaitly):
@meenukumarr in dubai meenu at the address
10:44 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter in reply to meenukumarr @sandy4ufolks :)
10:44 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter in reply to sandy4ufolks @linahraymond thanks x
10:43 PM Dec 3rd from UberTwitter in reply to linahraymond @Alexander__H hi alex
11:31 AM Dec 3rd from TweetDeck in reply to Alexander__H Going out with friends to a nice lounge .. on the 63rd floor .. will tweet later alligators .. xx
11:30 AM Dec 3rd from TweetDeck

Pranav Roy ('Educationalist, Managing Trustee- Lady K.C.Roy Memorial Trust of india,Social Activist & Blogger' )(http://twitter.com/pranavroy):
@priyankachopra ur an angel mam. ur d most incredible looking women in the world. u luk awesum in the first look of pyaar impossible.
6:46 AM Dec 4th from web in reply to priyankachopra

Unequivocal proof there of the power of the internet and the ongoing social commitment of Bollywood's favourite stars.
http://www.bhopal.org/.

Of course, if there were to be a fashion event where assorted BollywoodScum such as those mentioned above could attend and actually have the opportunity to have their photo taken, preferably with some photogenically wheezing toddlers, you'd probably get more of a response. Elle Magazine India hold a 'Carnival for a Cause', after parasitic Ladies Who Lunch realise that Breast Cancer is bad:

The Great Bhopal Whitewash (Sunil Jain)

A message from RAWA

2009-08-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

Bearing in mind the events unfolding in Afghanistan, and the growing opposition to continued presence of British (or any) troops in the country, I had some questions I wanted to ask. The TV News has its stable of experts that they bring on to discuss such complex and troubling matters. I thought I would ask the ladies at RAWA. They very kindly responded to my questions, reproduced here in full.

---
From RAWA (My questions in italics)

Sorry for the late reply. I hope your questions have been answered. Please feel more than free to write to us in case you have further inquiries.

Here are the questions with the answers:

# What would be the immediate consequence of a troop withdrawal in southern afghanistan? Kabul-based NGO worker Rory Stewart (interviewed on the BBC), for example, believes that the Taliban would pose no major threat to the people of Afghanistan, let alone the greater security of the world at large, and that any military effort should be expended on hunting Al-Quaeda as opposed to the Taliban. Is this really the case?

Ideologically, there is no difference between the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Both are fundamentalists created and supported by foreigners so eliminating one and sparing the other doesn’t change much. Both of them are terrorists. If the troops immediately withdraw the Taliban will take power eventually as they are much stronger than the warlords in the government. Many say a civil war will start and things will get worse. A war is already going on and matters cannot be made worse.

We should not forget though that after the withdrawal of the troops there will be three forces left in Afghanistan, the Taliban, Northern Alliance and the democratic forces who are with the people. If the US and its allies stop supporting these fundamentalists the people will definitely be victorious in defeating these criminals and establishing real democracy, freedom and peace in the country. The US and its allies should also pressurize the neighboring countries o Afghanistan and other countries such as Saudi Arabia not to support these fundamentalist.

Plus it should uproot fundamentalists of every brand, may it be the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or the Northern Alliance criminals in the government as all of the fundamentalists are equally dangerous. We believe US and its allies are not serious in finishing terrorism because such an enormous superpower cannot possibly be incapable of defeating a small band of medieval-minded and illiterate men. And again if it is apparently fighting the Taliban, it is supporting the Northern Alliance with all its strength, who are the brethren-in-creed of the Taliban. So this shows the dishonesty of the US and its allies in this war.

#Is a conflict in Southern Afghanistan really felt to be unwinnable? Do the Taliban have overwhelming grass roots support of the People of southern Afghanistan? As a follow up to this, if the Taliban were permitted to re-gain prominece in Civil life in Southern Afghanistan, having effecively 'won' the conflict against the UK and by extension NATO, would it be posible that 'moderate elements' of the Taliban could be co-opted by NATO forces to perhaps bring stability to the region, allowing development to take place, and being generally a preferable option to the described carnage being visitd upon the region by the presence of foreign troops? This is the chief argument put forward for those opposed to a NATO presence in Afghanistan. In your opinion, would this outcome be possible?

Not at all. The conflict is definitely winnable especially by the superpower US and its other powerful allies including Britain. It is just that these countries are not serious in their pledge to fight terrorism. In fact they need a reason to stay in Afghanistan for their own interests and the Taliban provide the best excuse to deceive the world.

The Taliban don’t have support among the people. How is it possible that the criminals who took Afghanistan into the Stone Age, beheaded young Ajmal Naqshbandi (the Afghan journalist kidnapped along with the Italian journalist), turned stadiums into hanging places, cut hands and humiliated women on streets by beating, have immense support among the people? But it is also true that today our people are so fed up with the lawlessness of the Karzai government and by the killings of the innocent people by the foreign troops that they do prefer the Taliban because they provide security. People are protected from night raids by foreign troops and criminals get punished by the Taliban, something which the government fails to do. So in these terrible conditions the people prefer Taliban out of the three enemies.

The Taliban will not bring stability to the region. Even if they bring stability, as in peace and security, they will continue their dark laws the way they did from 1996-2001 which is also bad. Although it is preferable to have one enemy – the Taliban – instead of two (foreign troops and Taliban), the Taliban are not going to bring any positive changes in the lives of our people, especially women. There are no such things as “moderate Taliban” because all Taliban are misogynists and dark-minded. Not a single Talib has stepped forward and condemned what its government did against the Afghan people for almost four years. They just act slightly open-minded so they get some share of power in the present government but they are all ideologically similar. So even these “moderate” elements won’t make much difference.

Best wishes,

RAWA (sent late July 09, only uploaded now coz of, er, technical difficulties).

Lymphatic Cancer? That will be $51,000 thank you plz

2008-07-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

Belated birthday wishes to the UK National Health Service on its 60th Birthday.

I happened to chance upon the following article about the experience over in the US when browsing Wikipedia.

I've always been fond of Steven Wells' writing in the NME since the 1990's, in particular his relentless baiting of miserablist self pitying bigot Morrissey, his championing of Daphne & Celeste and Atari Teenage Riot and the casual way in which he'd bandy about such heartwarming notions as 'stringing Gary Bushell up by his tiny Cockerneeeee bollocks and battering him about the head with a breezeblock'.

He even printed my letter urging pre-emptive strikes and warning of the threat to international stability posed by Chris Moyles. Did they listen? No. And now look where we are.

Swells subsequently went to Americaland and recently had the misfortune to fall ill. The sum mentioned above seems to be his initial payment of a total of $180000 total medical debts.

Weeks later—weeks during which I nearly die, become hideously deformed and then spend entire days crying like a baby—the wife and I are in the elevator in our apartment building when she opens the bill from our bat-shit crazy American insurance company.

"How much?" I giggle.

"$51,000," she snorts.

It might as well be 51 gazillion billion bazillion trillion. We both start laughing like hyenas on helium.

The ghastliness of the US healthcare system is well known but it should also be noted that the Indian healthcare system is also -in effect - totally privatised. It is not uncommon for families to be bankrupted by medical expenses, and even if cash is readily available, the equipment and organisation is dire, causing people to die in hospital for want of adequate oxygen, pills, etc. If a prescription is made, it has to be purchased from the hospital pharmacy - if its open (what? You think the nurses will just GIVE it to you? Who do you think you are?). Another spectre looming over proceedings is that of bribery - often at least floated as a consideration by Doctors who really see no reason to bother treating you in far far too many cases. And they don't do call outs either.

Sadly Tony H Wilson didn't survive his cancer diagnosis, but he wrote a very sweet love letter to the medical team who looked after him.

Here

Happy 60th xxxxxxx

Wldnt it B gr8 tho yeh? If der wur like load of Asian babez and dat in the FHM poll to wank over cuz desi babes is Fit hunneyz innit

2008-05-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

I realise of course that this sort of inane shit is only going to add further publicity to some shitehawk writer eager to release another snoozesome collection of pisspoor cuurrrrrrrrrrazzzy reminiscences about comedy parents and sub-Carrie Bradshaw witterings (fucking A, Countdown AND My Family), but it can't be helped. Well done, I've bitten.

First, an anecdote from that bastion of insight into modern gender politics, Mid Week with Libby Purves. Interviewing guest Sofia Hayat about how she escaped the strictures of a corner-shop running Pakistani family who wanted her to become a Doctor to pursue her dream of being a minor-league titjiggler on Zee Tv, Purves remarks that "it's quite strange really, isn't it, as most western working class families it would be the other way round with you having to struggle to want to be allowed to study medicine and being expected to take higher-paying work". Hayat pauses. To date, la Hayats' achievements are listed as having been a written a song for Pakistani earthquake victims (see? she cares) and killing off her Bollywood film career after turning up to a film premiere with her arse hanging out of her dress (pointedly omitted from her website).

Is De$i bebes Sexy? Or Not Sexy? Forfuckzake, "sexy" has become the most overrused adjective in Bollywood. Everyone does a sexy now (gone is the Barbara Windsor sweet-natured strumpetry of old), the industry having recently re-located its' clitoris. Witness kiddy singing contest Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil' Champs where the contestants (genuinely gruesome) were singing the usual racy ditties about wanning yer baaaadddies and parrrrrtying being commended by various judges as "you are so SEXXXYYYY!!!!" UGH.

No, there is no shortage of generically fair skinned supamoddul body-fascist (privately educated, plastic surgeried, wheatish, upper caste, wealthy, tediously smug ) hunneyz to induce tumescence in the spunk-flecked chuddies of herds of unmarried men across the subcontinent. As a recent article on Indian Independence noted, films seem to have got more explicit (or bold as the Indian press put it) as women in the population seem to have declined.

Less an appreciation of wimmin being 'sexually visible', as CiF would have it, more a tantalasing glimpse of an increasingly rare commodity.

This desperate need for approval from FHM readers though, doesn't it smack of servility?
"See??!!?! We asians babes can B sexy too! aren't we special!!!!!!! seeeeeee?"

And just look at the resounding response:
"Personally I find Thai women some of the most beautiful in the world. "
"So graceful, so dignified" (translation: "Uggghhh, Uggghh! Give me purity! GIVE IT TO ME!!! Not like those ugly gobby demanding dirty white women!!!")

"Ok, since I am a connoisseur of Asian women, here is the most objective report you will ever read on the planet.

1. Korean Women - when they are good looking, then they are stunning. Downside is that they can be very materialistic.
2. Burmese Women - this is one notch up from Thai. Hate to be judgemental, because I love all women, but Burmese have the edge.
3. Indian Women - for humour, the women from Mumbai are hard to beat. For looks Dehli has the edge.
4. Pakistani Women - Lahore is the great gene pool of the world, where Greek mixes with Indian, Saka Iranian and Chinese. Beautiful women with blue and green eyes.
5. Malay, Indonesia and Pinoy - more or less the same people. Warm, cuddly, great sense of humour. Downside ... sometimes magnificently crazy. Love the women of the
Philippines, especially Cebu, but occasionally they verge towards soap opera psychotic.
6. Chinese - personally I love the Taiwanese and Hong Kong ladies - great characters. Singaporeans are great lookers, but again very materialistic. Also like the women from Beijing and Chengdu ... but Shanghai women .. they just scare me. Great lookers, but they devour men.
7. Japanese women - various layers waiting to be discovered.
8. And finally what about the Iranians ... if we are to include them as part of Asia. Such beautiful eyes ... "

(Translation: See earlier post on Dan Cruikshank)

Please note, the flipside to all this wanking over the alleged charms of females of South Asian is usually scorn - if not open contempt - for the percieved lack of hunnyness amongst females from europe/ america, in particular the barbed comments about british (white) women. Seems the commenters of CiF cannot quite bring themselves to jism over the merits of many African women either. I'm sure Rosa Parks would be disappointed if she was here.

Still, I'm sure that this could be a useful ploy to target the endemic infanticide in the sub-continent.

Hey, don't put that salt in your young daughters' mouth, just think, one day she could have some cunt in London making weak puns about her being really spicy and hotter than a vindaloo. Wouldn't you want that?

And then they wonder why more British Muslim women are choosing to wear the Hijab.

Where I Went on my Holidays, by Sunny Hundal

2007-12-15T13:15:00.000-08:00

Isn't Dubai Brilliant? They've got, like loads of rich people and they all have really nice hotels and stuff and the people who are being employed as servants are really really nice to you and everything! BRILLIANT! And they've got, like a reallly reaaaaalllllyyyyy reeaallly big indoor ski slope, and like this Hotel, but - you'll never guess - right. IT LOOKS LIKE A SAIL BOAT AND IS SURROUNDED BY WATER! BRILLIANT! And then when I was over there they even had famous people like that tennis player - and she's western and a blonde and everything so its not just got Arabs in it and they didn't kill her or tell her to put some clothes on or anything at all! Brilliant!

Aren't paying people as servants Brilliant? Like there's loads of bad things like exploitation of workers and things like that, and someone said they have that in Dubai.

*pause*

But there's at least one other place I can think of that's worse so that's alright then.

BRILLIANT!

Wouldn't it be brilliant if everywhere in the Middle East was like Dubai? They could have Anna Kournikova and Bollywood film stars staying there for publicity and they could employ loads of asian workers and stuff and they could pay them fuck all money and house them in labour camps outside the main city so no one could see them but they'd be grateful for the work what with asians being good little workers. Aren't asians brilliant? They do loads of work everywhere and run shops and clean houses and stuff and that helps disaffected monied Middle Eastern dilletantes from wanting to join Al-Quaeda because it shows how nice people who aren't from the Middle East are! And they haven't got any of them Musliamist Fundalkoranic Literalists (Islamofascist is such a silly term, *lol*) because ... er..

everyone is just Really Really nice and everything.

BRILLIANT!
http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/7430/brilliant2edxvbu4.gif
-------

At the moment, and for the past couple of years, virtually every asian tv channel has been running ads flogging property and buy-to-let opportunities in Dubai, on an almost back-to-back basis.

If its not DubaiHeavenOnEarth "final sale now nearing compleation",

Its Seaview Dubai, and this is not to mention the myriad other property companies, flogging computer generated images of fantasy housing developments, or ones flogging plots of land in the UK as development opportunities such "panning permission not guaranteed, not regulated by fsa".

I'm sure, however, that the prices they quote for the plots in Dubai, have come down in recent years, compared to a short time ago.

They couldn't possibly have trouble selling. Could they?

Buttafly. Iz gud.

2007-11-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

My George Bush Conspiracy Theory

George W. Bush made Britney Spears lose custody of her kids so that oil companies, white men, and gun owners could kill The French.

Create your own at Buttafly.com

Via
DSTPFW.

PUNISH BAD CINEMA!

2007-09-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

Just how bad has the state of the Indian film industry got?

So bad that even the Maoists in Nepal are protesting about the quality of the film output.

Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag", Bollywood director Ram Gopal Varma's much-talked about remake of the blockbuster Hindi film "Sholay", has come under fire from Maoists in Nepal, who say the film has obscene scenes that would pollute society.

The controversial remake, which was released in four cinemas in Kathmandu Valley Friday, has been especially taken to task for a sizzling dance number featuring Bollywood star Urmila Matondkar.

The film - a jazzed up jump-cutting remake of the 70's 'masala' film(itself a version of the Magnificent Seven/ 7 Samurai)has bombed in cinemas across India and sucks cock on an epic scale by all accounts.

The dance scenes (Item numbers) themselves are as grisly as expected. Urmila Matondkar was something of a starlet in the late 90's, and like Shilpa Shetty before Big Brother was reduced to these - essentially titjiggling interludes to keep their name in the headlines with a flagging career. Both her and Shetty also have this antiseptic quality that also make the bump and grind feel extra wrong. They are all attractive women (in that Fair and Lovely generic way Bollywood produces starlets nowadays) but their appeal was in being slightly wholesome and girl-next-door rather than absolute maneaters. Its like watching Felicity Kendall give a lapdance.

Whilst there have always been these item numbers the marked difference now is that the dancing is notably raunchier, and it is often at odds with the rest of the film. Dance routines in serial killer films? Plus, with all this added rutting all the sheer demented joy has gone out of the filmi world, replaced by leaden 'making of' films where increasingly pretentious actors and actresses (nearly all now from the modelling world and therefore bland as fuck) gabble on endlessly about their groundbreaking work.

This is what they can't manage any more: sheer bonkers genius dance routines like from Helen in the 1969 film Talash:

The Sublime Poetry of the Sky Electronic Programme Guide

2007-07-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

I thought that Wikipedia didn't do slander.

On the Bangladeshi film industry:

the industry has been criticized for producing low-quality films whose only appeal is that of sex, violence, or melodrama

My ears are burning!

These are outright falsehoods. I have recently developed something of a mania for Bangladeshi films. Bangladesh. Most denseley populated country in the world. Birthplace of writers, thinkers, artists and directors such as Tagore, Amartya Sen and Satyajit Ray (Ok they are from West Bengal but still). Producers of epic bonkers-genius action films and a new artform as a by-product: The Electronic Programme Guide Haiku.

In particular, the channels that cater for the Bangladeshi community on Sky satellite are all free to air (something conspicuously absent for channels for the Punjabi, let alone Gujarati community).

This means that its quite usual to stumble across feature films playing on the main channels (Bangla TV, Sky 791, Channel S (Sylheti TV), Sky 814, and two Bangladeshi channels on Sky 826 and 827 whose names escape me).

Its GREAT. Because the prevailing culture is still conservative, the films have not yet lapsed into flesh-flashing shit softcore rutting of their pretentious neighbours in India. (Alas, modern-style progressive films don't mean women who can make their own decisions about where they work and live their lives in Bollywood cinema, but they do tend to mean women prancing about in Bikinis and being exactly as servile to their menfolk as the days of the bouffant and dupatta). Also. The women in these films...

How to describe?

For a start, they ain't having nothing to do with this superwaif shit. Bangladeshi lasses are well fed, and there is something glorious about watching them in dance routines and love scenes completely unfazed by any comparisons with Bollywood ex-models.

Watch them and the thing that strikes is just how stunningly violent these women are.

I mean they are fierce.

I've lost track of the number of Indian films (this being a culture that supposedly venerates women where apologists prattle on about Indian godesses) where the basic plotline is:

Indian woman moping

Its true that Bangldesh suffers appalling violence against women, but I've seen far more fights (proper headkickings) involving women battering men, and generally being shouty (and crucially not being punished for it) than the standard helpless Fair and Lovely maiden rescued by action hero of Bollywood.

These are normally labelled Social films in the Electronic programme guide (EPG).

Which is where Bangldeshi cinema truly excels.

I don't know who it is that has drafted the EPG descrptions of these films, they tend to be repetitive, but they are wonderful to read:

For the Film Shopner Bhalobasha (shown June 2007 on ATN Bangla):

This is a story about a rising singer entangled in the trap of social discriminations and triangle love..

The film Mone Pore Tomake (Ch 814, May 2007):

It is a beautiful story of triangular love. Passion struggle and sacrifice for love have been depicted here with a great emotional view.

The action epic Adhihar (May 2007):

This movie portrays the protest againstcorruption in the society

And then there is existential oddness:

Rajdhani (ch 827 June 2007):

In this mysterious world, anything can happen. Gratefulness could have opposite meaning. Love could be fake. This movie depicted the fact with an artistic view.

and the films Protishodh and Gang Chill both have the following cryptic note:

If you want to be something special, you must have to keep your eyes open. Are you ready? Keep watching the movie and get the answer.

The Man Don't Give A Fuck

2007-07-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Young People are cunts.

I've always known that ever since I was one.

And how comforting to have it reaffirmed after viewing tonight's Qustion Time (special edition for middle class 6th form pricks from the Home Counties who do debating competitions and London kids who've read No Logo).

I long ago gave up on Question Time when I realised that it merely consisted of various parties throwing out punchlines to get the most ooohs and Aaaahs from the audience. Charlie Brooker has written at length about 'bellowing cow people' on shows like Jeremy kyle, but in effect you have the same thing here, except its people who would like to think they are above all that sort of thing. Hamas likened to the Suffragettes? God almighty.

As I mentioned on DrinkSoaked Trots, Shirley Williams is essentially rehashing the 6th form laziness of Marcus Brigstocke's stand up act by bashing americans, foreign policy, americans, etc for the laughs & "yeeeaaaaaaaaahhh"s it gets with the crowds. This was merely made more evident by the pantomime booing of tonight's shower of cunts. I've always loathed Davina McCall (every hardened Big Brother addict does. Honest). And now to see her spewing out so much horseshit about Hamas... well, its not a surprise is it? She's famous for fuckwittery. So BBC: Why couldn't you get Lauren Laverne? She eloquently described the Spice Girls as 'TORY SCUM' in her Kenickie* heyday and does actually seem to know something about politics.

Never mind.

The one thing I like on QT is unpopular guests. The people who definitely DON'T get the quick applause. David Starkey on a few years ago caused disquiet in a debate over the NHS by pointing out that actually the NHS had to ration its resources, and no you couldn't be seen instantly by a doctor if you didn't want to pay for it one way or another.

Here, from a few weeks back, is Christopher Hitchens. TheChristopherHitchens.

On Afghanistan. Note the eerie silence as he singularly fails to rouse approval for his statements about how the UK will probably need to keep troops in Afghanistan for the very long haul (and that the UK would probably need troops who've seen combat), as opposed to 'why can't we let them all kill each other?' from the Hitchens Minor. Its not comforting news but it has the unvarnished truth about it, which never goesw down well on a tv show. Nicked from Drink Soaked Trots, who are good at finding this sort of thing.

*Best Girlpunk band EVAH

This Soap Destroys Taliban

2007-04-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

Heard something a couple of weeks back about Journalist Sarah Cheyes. She has a book out on the Afghan experience of the War On Terror. She has also, in a bid to help regenerate the area, set up a women's collective producing luxury soaps from local products.

http://www.arghand.org/product.htm

Give the women some financial clout and you put in place mechanisms that help prevent the temptation of locals to resort to the growing of Opium poppies and the resurgence of the Taliban. I like the smell of that.

They retail in America and Canada but no outlets in the UK yet which is a pity.

[15/4/07: I realise belatedly that I could have titled this 'This Amandine kills Islamofascists'. Duuuuh]

Greer Fisk attempted with mediocre results

2007-01-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

There is already a much better rebuttal of Germaine Greers' idiotic piece on Big Brother on the WivenoeFunnyFarm site, but I might as well add my tuppence worth a bit late.
------------------

'Why does everyone hate me?'

Thousands of viewers have complained about the racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother. But we should not be surprised by the housemates' behaviour - it reflects the widespread bigotry of British society, says Germaine Greer

Wednesday January 17, 2007
The Guardian

Greer essentially indulges in a bit of cultural oneupwomanship when discussing the many reasons why we should loathe Shilpa Shetty. I willingly admit that I too have ample reason to loathe a beautiful film star with a charmed life dozens of servants (ferfuxzacke, I link to Bollywoodscum), but whereas Greer opts to turn it into an opportunity to show off her Knowledge Of India Like A Right Intellectual, I do it because of sheer misanthropy. I think that somehow there is a degree of honesty in that which is lacking in the fig-leaf exercise here.

There are no good reasons for watching Celebrity Big Brother and very good reasons for not. Not watching will spare you the nerve-fraying annoyingness that is Shilpa Shetty. Everything about her is infuriating: her haughty way of stalking about, her indomitable self-confidence, her chandelier earrings, her leaping eyebrows, her mirthless smile, her putty nose and her eternal bray, "Why does everyone hate me?" Not to mention the crying jags.

So: She’s a posh hoity rich bitch who has grown up in the lap of luxury with no real contact of the Real India that Greer has had SO much contact with, and she was reared on idiotic beauty contests to boot. Parasitic SCUM!

What no one seems to have quite understood is that Shilpa is a very good actress. Everyone hates her because she wants them to. She also knows that if she infuriates people enough, their innate racism will spew forth.

And from hereonin it goes tits up. “Shilpa is a very good actress”. Whereas Greer may wish to show off her knowledge of Indian film stars (oh to imagine the smiles of delight from equal ops awareness officers across the land), even a cursory glance at the acting in most of the new-school Bollywood films would show you that, really, its hamminess of the highest order. This is an industry that last year awarded a lifetime achievement award to David Fucking Hasselhoff.

“She also knows that if she infuriates people enough, their innate racism will spew forth.” This also fatally underestimates the degree of awareness that Indians (particularly Middle class Indians) have of the sheer extent of racism they could expect in Britain from certain quarters.

You could write extensively at this point on the double standards that exist in Indian society in regard to sneering at Dalits whilst slavishly seeking approval from western compatriots, but then it was Germaine Greer who said that “Women have no idea how much men hate them“, a comment that you should hear echoing in your head of every time a call centre operative in Bangalore, patiently explains to an enraged caller that, actually, no, they aren’t a ‘P*ki’, as they are from India, so surely they should like them as they had good relations with them, and haven’t knowingly conspired to kill any westerners.

Never mind, Germaine Greer is convinced that acting posh is enough to invoke the Wrath of Goody, and so it has. Presumably if Shetty were subject to sexual harrasment in the house, Greer would cite Shetty’s clothing and behaviour as ample excuse for her ‘comeuppance’?

Greer then plays amateur Freud by pointing out her Tamil roots. Tamil roots that the Graun later had to correct. This is used as an opening gambit to display her half-cobbled knowledge of Skin Lighteners And Their Ill-Effects on WIMMINS Self Esteem.

Her only motive for parading in front of the other women in the house with whitener on her face was to show what utter hicks they are, how little they understand of her complex reality or of a billion people in the subcontinent who all want to have wheat-coloured skin.

Or maybe - *maybe*, it was because whatever shit she was smearing on took 15 minutes to work and was eager for a little bit of approval from white co-stars . Skin lighteners are poisonous shit at the best of times and Shetty (an self proclaimed animal rights activist) deserves to be hauled up for this. But hey, its not best done by 3 fucktards laughing their arses off at her waning to be white.

I bet thousands of brown-skinned girls in Southall fell off the sofa laughing when she did that.

You guessed wrong then.

Bollywood is no picnic; anyone who makes 51 Bollywood movies in 13 years has to be tough. Shilpa has a black belt in karate. She is just the girl to raise the pit bull in a dizzy little drip like Danielle and keep her frothing at the mouth long enough for her nascent career as a sweet little Wag to disappear down the drain.

More teed showing off of how much she knows about Bollywood. “She is just the girl to raise ..”. GIRL? She’s 31 for fucksake.

She knows what she is doing. She will shred the nerves of all the other women in that house until even Cleo pulls back her frozen lips and shows the fangs behind her witless Mona Lisa smile.

WRONG. Cleo (best described as ‘quintessentially Lib Dem’ and imitating the UN in Bosnia with regard her stellar non-intervention in the worst excesses of bullying) merely simpered and drifted away with the fairies. But then you’d expect that from a former girlfriend of Gary Glitter.

But now to the meat of the problem. Its not so much that the housemates hate Shilpa, but because they don’t hate her for the right reasons and hate her in the Greer-approved way:

The problem is that most of the housemates are too dim to convey what a pain in the ass Shilpa is without appearing to persecute her. So Danielle, beside herself with rage because Shilpa cooks with onions, calls her a dog. Jack Tweed calls her a cunt. The word was bleeped out, leading many viewers to speculate that she had been racially abused. That is not surprising. This is a racist country; to the vast majority of couch potatoes out there, Shilpa is a "P*ki bird".

The vast majority obviously excludes the entirely unrepresentative 40,000 people (sneeringly dismissed as bandwagon jumpers by Sunny Hundal and other wankers) who were so unrepresentative of Racist Britain tha they chose to complain to OFCOM. Greer then goes on to make excuses for how Jackieyeeeye Budden failing to even BOTHER to learn to pronounce her name was the same as Shilpa failing to correctly pronounce the name ‘Dirk’. The difference being that she tried and tried and eventually id learn to pronounce the name, whereas Jackieye was mortally insulted a Shilpa’s request to try and help her pronounce it when she resorted to calling her ‘Indian’.

Interestingly, ‘Indian’ has 3 syllables whereas ‘Shilpa’ only has 2. Has the 1-armed fanny bandit never known anyone called Sheila?

Greer then goes to moan on about how unfair it is that you can’t take the piss out of Indian Accents like you can wiTh Autralian or cockerny, and claims that Jade and scum pals would never have seen an Indian movie (except Jade has done a Bollywood style dance skit on one of her endless reality shows), nor would they have had Indian friends (except Jo, ringleader who first broached the subject of Shilpa’s accent, who has several Indian cousins, and Danielle, who has had a troupe of scabby relatives proclaiming how in touch with other races she is).

Even people who go out once a week for "an Indian" don't realise and don't care that they are almost certain to be in a Sylheti restaurant. (Sylhet is part of Bangladesh.)

More showing off of the kind that was deeply impressive pre 1997 and the MacPherson report but which now just looks like she’s swotting up for the River Café annual quiz. Sylhet is part of Bangladesh? You don’t say. But I thought that the people who went out every week for ‘an Indian’ would actually be going out for ‘a P*ki’ according to the logic stated above? In which case, they are probably aware of the difference, but DON’T CARE.

Shilpa likes to be seen cooking. She looks utterly virtuous while she is doing it, she doesn't have to try to converse with the women in the house, she gets to eat food she likes, spice it any way she chooses and time it to please herself. It is a perfect ploy to drive everyone else crazy.

Again Greer fails to grasp the extent of how cooking & general chore work is seen as the main means to earn approval in the bear pit of female bitchery that is an average Indian extended family, something you’d thing she would be aware of given her background. Its not just India either. Hasn’t she seen Eat Drink Man Woman?

Greer then attempts some sub-Littlejohn (I actually typed that. ‘Sub-Littlejohn’) style homilies on oh - how calling someone a P*ki is worse than calling them a dog

Sexism is fine.

Not to the several thousand who cited this in complaints it wasn’t.

What you mustn't do is call her a "P*ki". As if to be Pakistani was to be worse than being a dog.

No, calling her both (behind her back, natch), is wrong and - something you still fail to grasp - a manifestation of the same vitriol.

If you call me an Aussie you don't insult me because Aussieness is OK. P*kiness is evidently not OK.

Someone give her an honorary doctorate. The crucial difference - I would suppose- is that when Asians were and are being firebombed out of their houses and attacked in the street, the term P*ki gets bandied about to a much greater extent, suggesting it is intended as a term of abuse. I’m sure you could make a case (like bad art wierdos Gilbert and George) that it’s a term of endearment. I’m sure that if there are enough racially motivated attacks against Australians the term Aussie could also lose its relatively harmless connotations (it already does in South Africa). The issue though, is that Australians themselves choose to describe themselves as Aussies, whereas most Asians (bar pisspoor controversy baiting twats ) patently Do NOT refer to themselves as P*kis. DUUUUUUUUUH.

Then some more sniping about how it looks like Shilpa Shetty is going to win. What an injustice. Someone who - through the sheer manipulation of he personality into appearing ‘nice’, - has managed to brainwash the ENTIRE VOTING PUBLIC that she deserves to win when Germaine knows better.

Last year Germaine Greer hosted a programme on Balderdash and Piffle about reclaiming the word Cunt.

I’m sure she’d approve of me calling her one then, because I mean it affectionately, really I do.

Hooray for The Dave Gorman

2007-01-14T07:14:00.000-08:00

So far the only person on one of Endemol's many many many spin off shows to have pulled up Jackiey and refer to her racism.

(Youtube clip added 20/1/07. Even Gorman's mst polite tentative suggestion 1min 28s in, is rebutted by O'Leary, who shares an agent with the Goody family):
Dermot: "Oh Come ON!"

Look at that. Essex boy's turned into a cunt in front of my own eyes.

That'll be the bootfaced munter who gave up pronoucing the name shupa. Sherpa. Sheppey. Shunter. Sheppa. and by the time of her exit interview was simply referring to 'The Indian'.

This is being pulled up on talkboards on Channel 4 and Digispy.

The Indian tabs, of course, are clueless as usual, still stuck in a permafroth over 'Shilpa is teaching Britishers to say OM!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and Indian viewers are being fed an edited version playing up the 'Flirting!!!!" inside the house.

I expect Indian gossip sources to reveal an exclusive on how Shetty is about to pair off with H, the wanker from Steps.

Its doubtful whether they would notice any racism anyway - short of several dozen call centre workers turning to their families when confronted with the moon-faced bellowing of Jadepig and coven to wail "This is what we have to put up with!". Its reminiscent of that old Germaine Greer comment, about how women have no idea how much men hate them. Most Bolly films feature the London Landmarks, and still labour under the delusion that ex-pat Indians live in mansions in Surrey. English actors in Bolly films are of the middle class wooden variety (Chris Pattens daughter) and involved in interminable Bollywood scum fare on the trails of the Middle class. Well Ms Shetty, welcome to my world.

Big Brother seems to have achieved the impossible. It has reduced someone of near- Godlike status in one country to a shadow of themselves and 'just the cook' as Danielle scouser put it, in another. Now I'm all for Bollywood's vile rich getting a good drubbing but seeing it actually happen in this manner is more like the low unwinding of Charlotte Rampling in The Night Porter than the glorious transformation of a dozen old School filmis where a rich hoity toity would be forced to keep it real by living in a slum by a love interest with a mullet.

So anyway, did racist cunt no-mark Jack Tweedy call Shilpa Shetty a 'P*ki Bitch' or not?

2007-01-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ5NbUBavB4
I don't want to show a picture of the balding fuckturd, so here instead is a doctored picture taken from a Graun talkboard:

Many thanks to a man called Leonard Hatred.

Pickled Politics. Duntcha love it? It sets itself up with its own manifesto calling for tolerance in choosing progressive community leaders to repsresent the diversity of viewzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and when (an admittedly irritating la-di-da-principessa prime time Bollywoodscum) Indian actress starts to fall victim to some stunningly low-grade bullying with some -not-really-too-difficult-to-spot racist overtones what does it do?

Two articles.

One on why asian parents should be more relaxed about sex*, and another on oooh, religion, its all a bit vague and confusing isn't it? So you would expect another offshoot, 'Asians in Media', who would have an interest in the devlopments in , er, Asians in Media, to comment.
Well?

The AIM magazine team is now on hiatus until mid-January, when we will resume updating the website more regularly and send out our next newsletter.
Have a Happy Christmas and New Year!

Gormless fucks.

*Perhaps we can now be enthralled by another Comment is Free article by Sunny Hundal on how if only the Shettyparents could have been more like 1-armed clipper Jackieyeeeyyyeye and looked on whilst balding cunt no-mark Jack spunked all over her rancid porcine daughter Jade none of this cultural misunderstanding would have happened.

David Quantick is surprisingly tall

2006-12-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

I saw David Quantick on the Central Line several months ago and I can attest that he is enormous. He also appears to be on Youtube providing stellar mash-ups. Here as a festive dub tip is his remix of the Two Ronnies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3il0c4Wx04

Merry Christmas and all that.

You Tube delights

2006-11-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

Scott Walker has become an icon of the tortured artist, beloved by music connoisseurs. His struggles for autonomy in terms of creative output and artistical integrity have produced long periods of silence punctuated by startling pieces of music dealing with subject matters as profound as Stalinism and Elvis talking to his dead twin brother.

Here he is advertising chocolate bars in Japan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlPXClJYbsI

Stop Climate Chaos event Sat November 4th Trafalgar Square

2006-11-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

A newsletter arrives informing me of the upcoming day of events to tackle climate change . This comes a week after the special reports from the BBC’s rather fabulous environmental correspondent Roger Harrabin. This includes a special on BBC News 24 about the gradual drowning of Bangladesh. There is an awareness that it will be the nations of the poorest people (the developing world) who will be most drastically affected by climate change and sea level rise. They are the very people least able to cope with the consequences.

Here’s the perverse thing. There is more coverage of climate change in the western media than in the very areas which seem to be most in danger. Here I should make an exception for the Bangladeshi media. Of the channels which I have access to, most do at least ‘keep it real’ in terms of concentrating on issues affecting the country itself, whilst also noting world events. They also score plus points for having programming dedicated to rural issues and that way of life.

In a way, Bangladeshi TV reminds me of where Indian TV used to be in relation to its diaspora in the 90’s. Without the corporate yoof culture of MTV et al, and without the monied Middle class able to ride roughshod quite so much over the needs of the majority of people struggling to survive as in India, there are dozens of programmes on folk songs, dramas and religious programmes.

Meanwhile, the Indian government has - at least notionally - agreed to work towards a watered down form of Kyoto. Not that you’d know it from monitoring the Indian media. Instead, CNN-IBN covers the festival season or feel good coverage. It deigns to report on the outbreaks of Dengue Fever and Chikungunya in Delhi and Tamil Nadu, this feels like a minor victory (or Wicktery as they call it), as what its REALLY wound up by is the Channel 4 programme exposing thefts of data from call centres.

What it would much rather concentrate on is the showbiz and fashion news. Aspirational doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Why not fly to work instead of sitting in those boring old traffic jams surrounded by these horrendous poor brown people?

A search for climate on their website reveals that so far the only item they have on climate, apart from an obscure article on the effect of climate change on frogs, is one sneering at religious beliefs in weird weather presaging the end of the world.

Religion and faith propound the fact that out-of-turn weather is often a prophecy of bad things to come. So does the recent change in the climate with floods in the desert, snow in summer and overflowing rivers forebode disaster?…

However, while faith and foreboding go hand in hand, reason becomes a casualty.

"Scientists have said in so many words that its because we are not looking after the world that weather is going against us. And instead of caring for the environment and doing some thing constructive about it, people believe in such stupid things. Its very strange," says Sanal Edamaruku of the Indian Rationalist Association.

Doomsday prophecies have been around for decades cutting across religious barriers. And while the weather Gods play their little sport human beings are playing along.

So why aren’t the Indian media giving more prominence to climate change?

Polly Toynbee and the Parallel Universe

2006-08-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Of all the havoc that was unleashed by the 7/7 attacks in London, one thing - well alright, quite a lot of things, but one thing in particular in the aftermath, has stuck in my mind. In the slew of columns and think pieces published trying to make sense of why such nice young boys would eviscerate themselves and 52 others (because its all Tony BLIARs fault, of course), Polly Toynbee published a ‘pox on all your houses’ diatribe against religion as, right, the main cause of all this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/comment/story/0,,1534014,00.html
In The Name of God, dt. 22nd July 2005

“There have been sects of killer Christians and indeed the whole of Christendom has been at times bent on wiping out heathens. Jewish zealots in their settlements crazily claim legal rights to land from the Old Testament. Some African Pentecostal churches harbour sects of torturing exorcism and child abuse. Muslims have a very long tradition of jihadist slaughter. Sikhs rose up to stop a play that exposed deformities of abuse within their temples. Buddhism too has its sinister wing.”

I know about Muslim, Christian and Jewish Fundamentalists. I know about Sikh and Hindu fundamentalists (the RSS: runners up only to the Nation Of Islam for the prize of Most Ridiculous Uniform for An Extremist Group). But Buddhists? This strikes me as carefully included to avoid accusations of favouritism by Toynbee. You have to include every religion in a homily like this or else you get complaints.

I searched for this on Google after reading her article. At the time, the only reference I could find was an Eddie Izzard joke: What would a Buddhist extremist look like? Really calm. But Polly Toynbee included this in her article as one of the menacing forces of religious belief threatening humane progressive civilisation. Sinister wing of Buddhism. It therefore MUST exist in some form or other. But where?

More recent Google expeditions reveal more details. Linked is an article by one Denis Drew claiming that - if - America had armed China and colluded with it in China’s annexation of Tibet, that we should, by now, be facing an onslaught from Buddhist fundamentalists, enraged at the Superpower’s meddlings (he’s talking about Palestinians):
http://www.hejleh.com/edna_yaghi/suppose.html Denis Drew

An admirable theory. Except America has been as near as silent on the occupation of Tibet as possible, as has most of the world, and, frankly, Buddhists patently HAVEN’T risen up en masse to wreak revenge on a complicit world. Further searches. ‘Buddhist Fundamentalist’ now has more entries thanks to the broken ceasefire in Sri Lanka.

Sourcewatch provide a handy rundown of fundies: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fundamentalist

“….. Today, the inflexibility of Buddhist priests in Sri Lanka prevents reconciliation between the Sinhalese Buddhist majority and the minority Tamils who have stooped to vicious terrorism as a violent means to achieve their goal of an independent homeland.”

It goes on to note that Jains and Zoroastrians don’t really have much of a fundamentalist threat.

Phew.

But then, maybe I shouldn’t be saying that so flippantly. Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong questions all this time. Perhaps if detonating oneself is such a normal reaction to oppression we should be asking why others aren’t resorting to this.

I’m watching the anniversary of the 7/7 attacks and the coverage of the memorial services. On BBC2 they are repeating an edition of Horizon dealing with Parallel Universe(s). I conclude that Polly Toynbee must have access to a Parallel Universe where Buddhist extremism poses the greatest threat to life in the west.

On ITN, in front of the Kings Cross Memorial, is a spokesman for the Muslim orgnisation MPACUK, who says that (again) whilst its all awful about the bombs these things are (again) inevitable because of Iraq. And Afghanistan, and Palestine. The self-righteous bitchslap again. I wonder why on Earth a Muslim organisation should be invoking the concept of Karma.

Nihal Amaranayake: Apology issued

2006-04-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

COMMUNICATION RECEIVED FROM THE BOLLYWOOD SCUM WEBSITE

"Mr Amaranakayake,

The website Bollywood Scum would like to apologise for the comments pertaining to yourself on the BollywoodScum website, namely, the description of you as “Current Reigning Lord-God-King of 2nd Generation Asian Wankerdom”.

It is clear following recent revelations by a Mr Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal, the toyboy Designated Fuck of a batshit mental fashionista memsahib that this appelation is no longer an appropriate description when other, mre fitting candidates are in existence.

We would like to apologise unreservedly for the remarks, but we probably won’t get round to removing them just yet because we can’t be arsed. "

(Message ends)

"From my mum's point of view, I haven't gone wrong because I'm with a woman who's successful. And also Liz is very Indian in lots of ways. She's very proper, very ladylike. I've never seen her drunk, she almost never uses bad language, she can count the number of men she's slept with on one hand. She's like a little Indian woman, and my mum recognises those qualities." "

Radical Cartoonist responds to protests over cartoon no one has seen by drawing picture of George Bush as a monkey

2006-02-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

Where do I start? With the furore over the Danish Cartoonists? With imminent Nuclear confrontation looming in Iran? With Hamas about to put their policies on waste recycling and library provisions into effect in Palestine? Come to think of it, why has no one noticed that the Iranian president Ahmedinijad looks like a monkey? Steve Bell has spent the past 5 years faithfully representing Mr Bush as a simian and yet no one notices the resemblance between Mahmoud and a macacque. Is it racist to even point it out? Its the hirsuit face that is the dead giveaway.

I Want a Coat Made Out of Pete Burns' Skin

2006-01-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

Cribbed from a posting on DrinkSoaked Trots.

My prophet-like warnings of disaster start to come true

2006-01-02T11:05:00.000-08:00

Connoiseur of fine weblogs Pete Ashton wonders aloud whether it would be nice if a flash animation of the Scout Walkers performing the Scott Walker version of Jackie would be an idea, you know, it could be linked and things and it would be like that one someone did of 'Vertigo' by U2 only it sounded lke Birmingham didn't it that was on a Holy Moly mailout.

My suggestion for an animation of fat self pitying Walker wannabe Robbie Williams being beaten to death with a breezeblock to the strains of anotherJacquesBrelCLASSIC! Amsterdam draws favourable responses (and Adex, I'm touched by your intention to join my gang, your initiation involves kidnapping Jeremy Kyle).

But you see, I was tempting fate. Radio 2 reveals that the chubster Williams claims that Jackie by Scott Walker is his favwettest songever, because Marc Almond covered it (its a Brel Cover you fuckwit) and therefore made it cool to like as otherwise he blatantly ignores the chinstroking musos who would favour the likes of Walker and the dreaded Leonard Cohen (oh. So I suppose the whining little shit howling about how no-one took him seriously as an artist to the music press throughout the 1990's and who insisted on trashing his glorious Take That legacy was an imposter designed by Al Quaeda yes?).

And he claims that he is determined to cover Jackie on his next album. I tell you it won't stop there. He's already pulverised Frank Sinatra in an album, next it'll be an album of Scott Walker covers. Robbie Williams sings Such a Small Love, with a cheeky lil' wink to the ladies about how miserable he is because he's worth £80 Million.

Stop him. Stop him now.

It’s. A Fucking. BUS.

2005-12-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

Matthew Parris is a lightweight. The London Liberal Democrats in the GLA, Stephen Pound MP, Robert Elms, The Evening Standard and Time Out: all johnny-com-lately’s - neigh - positively gatecrashers. No. If you want someone who’s been hardcore involved in the insane jihad to preserve the Bastard Routemaster, elevated post its last ‘normal’ run on 9th December 2005 to the status of martyr to the fascist ‘wheelchair lobby’ seeking to impose an ‘access apartheid’ on the 90% of able bodied Londoners (oh yes, London, don’t let any of those provincial types tell you its irrelevant to them, this is worthy of national news) allegedly adore, there is a man who is currently seething.

He will mention to you the online poll that claimed 90% of respondents to a poll (including the disabled) that argued for the bus to be kept for its quaint charm. The Routemaster for its Olde English charms and ‘Londonability’ is exalted because it lets you get on or off (or if you’re really lucky, get pushed on or fall off) when its stuck in the middle of a traffic jam. He has, for at least the last 3 years been writing irritated letters and boring everyone senseless with his complaints on the subject. Now of course, everyone is whining about it, and he has become like an original Manics fan, squirming at the belated interest in HIS cause.

It’s as if every time the vehicle tootled by, the theme tune to Genevieve should be playing somewhere in the background. Don’t get me wrong, I like quaint. I like the odd charm of old vehicles, they’re sweet until you actually ride in one. In the 1990’s we went on a school trip in some form of bottle-green vehicle that looked like something from the 50’s to visit a factory. Never mind bumpy or the issue of wheelchair access, what we were really concerned about was the metal fatigue that had produced a hole under one of the seats. Where IS the lobby to bring back the Charabanc?

Those comments about the Wheelchair fascists come straight from my acquintance. Ditto the forlorn whining about the belated response to the last of Old London Towns last bastion of Albion from the media. A howl normally accompanied by straining at the leash over EU regulations and political correctness gone mad from the papers, He is a leftwinger ranting about the tories, and yet he seems to genuinely despise the fact that it’s the fact that -in his view- ‘a tiny minority’ of people in wheelchairs cannot get into them. He cannot see why the wheelchair people can’t simply use dial-a-ride or that money can’t be spent on accessibility on rail stations.

Yes, that’s a point about the rail stations, but here’s a clue: there are more roads, and buses and bus stops, than there are trains and train stations. Do you see? If you are in a wheelchair and you want to go to the shops, should you have to depend on dial-a-ride scheme that may be an hour late in traffic if it even fucking operates, when there is no point going to your nearest train station and catching a train to go one stop and then travelling back to where you wanted to go? There is also a strange blindspot to the awareness that accessibility regulations from EU directives are the reason this has come to a head. Routemasters are great as long as you don’t have to actually use one on a regular basis.

Try waiting at a bus stop in central London when they were still in full effect: one, two, three would come along, already full to standing, and only let people off. Yes? See? They are TOO SMALL NOW. Let alone if you have a bag (not even a buggy). Try getting to the near impossible to reach front window-side seats on a bus. Try, if you really want to be shoved hither and yon, getting OUT of that seat when its standing room only. And the thing about the open back is now unworkable because they don’t let you off or on them unless the bus is docked at the nearest stop, the risk of passengers getting splatted by passing traffic or ////courier cyclists\\\\\ killed that off years ago. Hence no overriding need for that function. “But the bus conductors HELPED get the disabled people IN” he continues, battling Seasonal Affective Disorder and his own poor personal hygiene by moaning aloud to anyone who’ll listen about the demise. Here’s a solution for Transport for London: put conductors on the new mega huge and comfy bendy buses.

The only real advantage of the Routemasters was if you got on one of the back-end seats which meant you could get on or off quickly. When those were filled you were fucked. He actually said that dial a ride and suchlike should be made available to the ‘genuinely disabled’, whilst he seemed scandalised at the *nerve* of the protestors who showed such ingratitude for waving banners proclaiming “GODD RIDDANCE TO THE ROUTEMASTER“. I don’t think he’s aware of Little Britain’s Lou and Andy sketch. Genuinely disabled? Que? What are they? I’m reminded of a Mark Thomas skit where he described Cops running in a break up a ‘lie-in’ protest by wheelchair activists but having to volte-face when they realised they couldn’t batter them as per usual; “Don’t be like *this*, I done a fun-run for you”.

I haven’t even mentioned the upper deck, with the tiny curving stairs virtually guaranteeing a twisted or broken ankle if you happen to be making your way up or down in a futile attempt to find breathing space when it breaks or turns a corner. One woman - a deranged woman - interviewed on The Today Programme (Radio 4) on Friday morning lamented that this meant you wouldn’t be able to sit on the top deck anymore and look out at the world. BUT YOU CAN. Duuuuuuuuh, they still have thousands of the better designed, wider, more spacious other buses (no I don’t know what their proper name is) to do that, and besides, the top deck of any type of bus has long been the preserve of the psychotic teenager, so at least the single tier bendy buses mean that the little shits can have an eye kept on them by everyone. Its like the Diana thing for people who think they’d be above that sort of thing that the Proles do. The Requiem for the thing. A ‘special’ on BBC4.

More radio 4 Today Programme lunacy. The day before (Thursday 8.50am) they had interviewed chief Lennon Apologist Phillip Norman, who’d glibly stated that the speccy tax exile’s violence towards his wife was because he was from the North”. He’d later qualified that by saying it was The North in ‘the old days’ (if only they’d had Routemasters as a civilising force).

Friday 8.50am or so and Stephen Pound is being interviewed and makes most of the same points about “give ‘em a dial-a-ride” (so how does increasing car use like that work with the integrated transport policy?). Further, the ability to jump on and off the back of one of the bastards is actually a rite of passage for a Londoner. Yes, if you‘re 18 and you‘ve just moved there and the novelty is immense and you can think of yourself like Amelie frolicking through Paris or Charlotte Rampling or Julie Christie in 60‘s London but really? A vox pop from another woman with busmania, a slack jawed cockney, saying that yeah, they can be a hazard but:
“Yeah I’ve seen people injured on them, sure. I’ve seen people lose legs, lose arms, all sorts. But that’s just people isn’t it? People are just *Careless*”.

Maybe they were just doing it to get free dial-a-ride?

I (((Heart))) Bastard Pop

2005-10-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

It's here! It's finally accessible to ancient technologies courtesy of Musicalbear!
The 59 minute remix mashup by Strictly Kev featuring Paul Morley theorising about Kylie Minogue Is! Now! Here!

Download it!

Never Trust a Hippy

2005-09-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

Never Trust a Hippy

NEW DANIEL O'DONNELL ALBUM OUT NOW

2005-09-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

Be away with you James Blunt!

On ITV this morning I saw the trailer for the forthcoming Daniel O'Donnell album.

It. Is. ASTOUNDING.

A cover of 50's teen love songs, featuring DOD dressed as a 50's teen (an Eammon Holmes version of a 50's teen), lilting through the songs.

Islamists: essentially Goths with semtex?

2005-07-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Blitz spirit.... resilience....... Tariq Ali and several million other people saying this is all our fault anyway.....

From the slew of articles finger wagging at Blair for letting the London bomb attacks happen there is one very clear assumption, that this would have been impossible without the war in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or the war on terror. Or sanctions.

Its strange comparing the reaction of the urgent need for love and understanding with the rampant pre-millenial tension of the 1990s and unasuaged nameless fear of cults and extremists. From the New Statesman article:

"British Islamists target other countries. Why? According to Sifaoui, it has long been recognised by the British Islamists, by the British government and by UK intelligence agencies, that as long as Britain guarantees a degree of freedom to the likes of Hassan Butt, the terrorist strikes will continue to be planned within the borders of the UK but will not occur here. Ironically, then, the presence of vocal and active Islamist terrorist sympathisers in the UK actually makes British people safer, while the full brunt of British-based terrorist plotting is suffered by people in other countries."
New Statesman article

8th July, Dr Zaki Badawi is being interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme. He expresses his dismay at the bombings, and is appalled that it could be the foriegn born radicals of the hue mentioned in the article above, as they could not wish to "dirty their nests". The phrase sticks in the mind. To me it had been obvious that it would be british born bombers who would detonate on the Underground.

A whole heap of questions get thrown up. Realistically, how long could the whole notion of the 'covenant of security' have lasted in the UK's favour? The whole phrase and rationale behind it conjure up an image of a Johnathan Aitken or Sir Humphrey type somewhere in the Foreign Office, reasoning that these chaps were good eggs essentially, and would recognise that the Brits were on their side as they were formerly the mother country, or somesuch delusion pertaining to TE Lawrence.

By the day after, there were reports on Sunrise radio, a station for the Asian community in West London, that 'several asian youths' up in Oldham had been reported to the police for making 'offensive comments' in light of the bombings, at a GP surgery. I wonder how to discreetly get rid of my Fun-da-Mental T-shirt.

"I am a Jihadi, feel my pain"

Oh, but it all seemed like such a good idea at the time. It's the early 1990's, and the term desi hasn't yet been invented. Fun Da Mental are getting all Public Enemy Fear of a Brown Planet with thunderous (repetitive) raps about racism and the sooncome great uprising of da oppressed brown (or did they only ever mean Muslim?) yoof in an expression of fury. The target is the newly-formed BNP and other white supremacists making gains across the UK and victimising the browns. The Grrrrr, political, right message is hammered home with the assistance of a range of uncompromising merchandise with which to advertise the state of mind. Chief among these is a T-shirt bearing the Legend:

You have never seen the Wrath of the Black Man

Accompanying this is a portrait of a row of women in Burkhas undertaking target practise, holding guns and stuff. Wooooargh! radical! don't fuck wit da Jihadi crew! I bought it. Perhaps it was the inspiration for the burkha clad women's group The Maryam Squad who have recently been enforcing sharia in Kashmir. It's certainly iconic. Religious fundamentalism advocated as a bulwark against racial violence, it all seemed so simple at the time.

It backfired. There are echoes of it in the relationship between the Respect Party and its core Muslim vote, documented at length by disaffected Trots and lefties such as The Drink Soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for WAR.

The thing that seems so startling from the goodbye video made by suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan aired on Al Jazeera isn't so much his Yorkshire accent, nor the justification he gives for his upcoming evisceration of himself and fellow travellers on a tube train, but how utterly interchangeable the reasons for his actions were with virtually any other disaffected religious or political group. He mentions

"the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people."
Elsewhere he refers to the bombing as being the only way that the British public will finally feel the suffering of his people. Killing as a path to greater understanding.

I wonder darkly why he didn't just bother killing all the children he had in his care as a Primary School teacher. Surely, if you want the western world who voted for the Blair government to suffer, there would be no more horrific act to perpetrate with which to inflict pain. Wouldn't be too fiddly, would it? They managed it at Beslan. I wonder if , whether the Columbine killers had left a goodbye video before carrying out their school massacre in 1999, there would have been any advancement in the understanding of their acts. I wonder what the next step is, and where this will lead to.

What's so shocking about saying Leon Brittan likes Chicken?

2005-06-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

And what is so alarming about De Laud's preference for Cheese and Biscuits?

da-ding-ding da-da-d-ad-a-a-d-da BaAAAAAAa Bbaa Bay Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

2005-05-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

Text Message intercourse spotted this morning on FIZZ TV (previously subtitled 'Frog Free TV' until the mighty Crazy Frog conglomerate plc released their single).

(Intellectual texter attempting to flaunt his/her superiority over the untermenschen via the medium of SMS text):
"Why R U all so Superficial? Sorry about the long word"

(Bemused logged in member attempting to communicate with superior texting new entrant):
"Hi. Where not all thick"

2005-04-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

2005-03-26T12:05:00.000-08:00

On Sex Tourism and Dan Cruikshank

Its the hat that gives it away. The white Panama Hat and the white Englishman Abroad trousers.
"Woooaaargh! Warm Bodies!....... The Joyous throng"
He ejaculates as he is jostled by Chinese tourists in the Forbidden City in Beijing. The city draws 7 million tourists each year, making it the most visited attraction in the world. Most are Chinese. "Most of them seem to be here today", hahahahahahahahahahaha! Such thrilling wit!

He has already sniped at the beastly Chinese authorities for only allowing two hours private filming before letting the rest of the tourists in (Dan Cruikshank isn't a tourist, oh no, he's not common like that at ALL), but the crew have fucked up coz its been so moist in the early morning dew that the equipment isn't running properly, so they've only had 2 minutes filming in tranquility. Now the Sadistic evil evil BAD Chinese authorities must be called to account for not allowing him to get his grasping - sorry- curious and admiring educational hands on their precious Ming pottery. The reason they have given for not yielding their treasure to Mr Cruikshank, Who is From The BBC And Therefore Very Important, is that the humidity of the atmosphere might damage them, since they are over 1000 years old. This does not wash with Cruikshank (Indeed, judging by the sweat marks visible on his shirt in most of this series it looks like he doesn't either), who doubts how humidity can affect porcelain is such a way. Can it? I haven't got a fucking clue. Were the Chinese authorities not aware of how Incredibly Important this series was? Did this mean they were keeping their beloved Ming away from the Gwailo on purpose, so that if anyone else had turned up at any other time of the day or year, it would have been available?

Maybe its better to ask: if it was a camera crew from France, Germany, the Middle East or Japan, would they have been able to grant the same privelidges to the camera crew?

Nevermind, you can always trust the profound insight from the presenter to neatly sum up an entire nation with a few trite observations masquerading as insights. So, China and Japan, then: They are very modern looking, and very high tech, but they still have a lot of tradition in them. And, actually, they are a bit... well..... inscrutable, aren't they? Because, you see, you could never quite tell when they would let you see their treasures.

How in fuck did this man get into the presenting lark again? Is he a professor of something? He seems to have moved into it by osmosis, having been friends with the American man who owned a house in Bethnal Green that he renovated into an authentic inauthentic artisistic rendering of life among Hugenot tailoring families in the 18th Century. He still lives in Bethnal Green, in what is the heart of Britains' Bangladeshi community. He doesn't seem to have found any treasures there though, as it isn't on his trip list. Southern India, Sri Lanka and the Islands of Indonesia & Cambodia are though. And it is here that the more creepy side of this little jaunt comes to the fore.

It first came to the fore in Cambodia when he traipsed all over the ancient Khmer city of Angkor Wat laid out to mirror the Hindu/Buddhist vision of the cosmos. There are 9 layers of the palaces, each representing 9 levels of consciousness in Buddhism. But Dan really wants to talk about sex. And the carvings of celestial maidens. And their tits. Definitely about their tits. Dan is a tit man. Dan proves this by relentlessly rubbing the (already smoothed and polished) nauks of a number of the carvings, and babbling about the link between sexuality and enlightenment in Eastern Asian cultures, and Ooooh, they're really spiritual in the East aren't they? And they see the virtue of sex and spirituality, with pleasures of the flesh not being diametrically opposed to opening of the mind. Those Thai and Cambodian girls, they're goers aren't they? And he's very very impressed. Bravo, I'm sure the peoples of East Asia are welling up right now that you rate them. Except the ones who are Muslim, possibly, which is most of them actually. Not that Dan Cruikshank visited Bangkok, since it was vulgar, although he did stay there overnight. He's saving his juices for the wank fest coming in India and Sri Lanka:

Around the World in 80 TreasuresSat 26 Mar, 7:20 pm - 8:20 pm 60mins
India to Sri Lanka
Fertility and sex are recurrent themes in the fifth leg of Dan Cruickshank's epic journey to seek out humanity's greatest creations.In Calcutta he tangles with a ten-armed naked goddess and is moved to passion in the Cave of Heavenly Maidens. Everything becomes clearer when he meets the triple-breasted goddess Menakshi.Dan's personal journey of enlightenment is marked out by beautiful and noble giant Buddhas. He finds the key to the cosmos in the celestial city of Jaipur, worships at the Temple of the Tooth, loses at cricket and revels in a palace of smells. Finally, he is blessed by an elephant before ending up in the world's greatest temple to love, the Taj Mahal.For Dan, Nirvana is India and Sri Lanka.

An hour long frottage frenzy. Do people normally jerk themselves off like this whenever they see a naked female body? Does Cruikshank get the urge to caress the crotches and breasts of unclothed shop window dummies as a symbol of the naked greed of modern capitalism? Does he have special interest magazines filled with pictures of Reubens and carvings of celestial (Christian) maidens done by Michealangelo? Would he do this to carvings if they were in a museum? No? Did any of the locals in the film do that? So how come its OK in the tropical heat for an Englishman to go perving over some fucking stone carvings and babbling cod-mystical bollocks? "Its not a dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, its both sacred AND profane! ungh! Ungh! Urrrrnnnnnghah!"
greeeeuogh
I suppose this means he likes them dark and doe eyed. Homily #5: Ooohhh, they're really impressive and buxom in Sri Lanka and India aren't they? And then he marvelled at the dancing girls brought into dance in temples by the Bra-minz as a gesture of profound spirituality, and other types of dancing, nudge-nudge wink wink, and I had to hurl. Yes. Its called prostitution, they have it in the west but it doesn't quite have that same spiritual mystique, does it?
He saw the Taj Mahal, so far the only Iszlaaaaaarrrmik era building and babbled some shit about love or something, and you suddenly thought that the old puritanical Moguls smashing idolatrous statues maybe wasn't so bad after all, if only it would stop some old pervert centuries later fuelling his wank fantasies with inept musings about fertility and sex.
I'm surprised he didn't visit the Golden Temple, nor find any of the treasure of Mohenjo daro or Dollavera, now in South western pakistan, let alone the Baluchistan figurines and settlements widely credited with being the oldest in history. Perhaps there weren't enough statues of naked ladies. Or perhaps he was worried about having his fucking hands chopped off.

2005-02-19T10:39:00.000-08:00

Can't we simply film Pete Doherty being battered with the bloodied lifeless corpse of Jimmy Carr and put that on telly on a Friday night?

Why isn't the glassy eyed moomin dead yet? Hurry up! This is the only reason the media are interested in you Doherty! Its the only reason your arrest gets mentioned on Radio 4's Today programme and the only way you can get on the front of the Daily Mail. Its already been noted that your interview with Kirsty Wark, perhaps undertaken to assuage awestruck teenage children, had 'the air of a pre-obituary interview' about it, see the editor picking up all the salient bits about seeing himself as a poet and emphasising the word OVER in time for the ready-made tribute programmes that will be lined up the minute you finally fulfill the masochistic pleasures of the rock audience and leave a relatively unravaged cadaver for overwrought adolescents and twats to fawn over.

COME ON! You are 25 for Heaven's sake! By the time Sid Vicious was your age he'd been dead for 4 YEARS! Or are you going to wait until 27, thus aligning yourself with Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, make our mind up will you? The Live Fast Die Young Doomed Poet Who Took Smack As He Thought It Was Opium And Isn't Addicted Because He Only Smokes It.
Oh. Byron was 25 when he checked out wasn't he?
AHhhhhhhh,
See the gameplan

2005-01-30T07:52:00.000-08:00

Salam Pax for president of Iraq

He's resiliently funny, of course. Is he a meeja ho? His piece on Newsnight was disarmingly candid and witty.

This came barely a day after the same programme had John Harris as a well meaning antiwarandcorporatefascist interviewing George Galloway, who informed him that the people being killed in Iraq by insurgents were traitors to their country, just as the French collaborators with the Nazis (and the US and British are even worse than the Nazis, remember) were punished.

Currently there are interview on the news with iraqi voters affirming that it is their moral duty to vote, and to defy the insurgents who are threatening to kill them. Turnout so far is 72 %.

Which, presumably, means that they are all traitors to Iraq by Galloways' standards, and so deserve to be killed.

2005-01-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

"Let Us Trim Our Hair in Accordance With Socialist Lifestyle"

Oh yes, blogged instantly across the globe. "Whenever I go on overseas trips, I tidy myself in accordance with the Socialist lifestyle."

Hooray and Hurrah, that Male-gendered revolutionary worker of the Glorious People's Republic.

Note the proliferation of long hairs amongst the reationary pseudo-left of the neo-Stalinist tendency of the Stop The War coalition, many of whose most vocal supporters at work seem to now be devoting their energies to sniping at, like, right, why are we having 3 minutes silence for the Tsunami victims when there weren't any for the victims of Tony Blairmurderererair in Iraq and all the other natural disasters like China and SudanGodtheWestaresofuckinghypotcriticalitsalljustaboutpoliticsisn'titImeanweshould allhavespentthat3minuteslikegivingmoneyinsteadIagreewith Max Hastingsactuallyandthe Daily MailitsallaboutthecheapeneingofBritiain and the scouserisation of highcultureintoamorassofsentimentalitylikewithTeddyBearson kidiesgravesandflowersontheroadsidehowinfernallyoffensiveispoliticalcorrectnessgone mad.

Cunts.

2004-12-31T11:37:00.000-08:00

The Bland Plays On

Sri Lanka has cancelled its New Years celebrations. As has Thailand. It would be, you'd think, a wise move in light of the thousands of dead still being recovered from across the continent.

Not India though. Zee News, after waiting a suitable amount of time for decorum (approx 72 hours), has returned to its showbiz new quota with a vengeance.
Witness: Thursday evening news, devoting plenty screentime in its bulletin to an interview with The Lovely Bubbly Exciting Actress (TM) Perizaad Zorabian, at her darling little party to celebrate her simply stunning new film/book/play/artistic meditation on the nature of society.

Held in Goa. Right on the coast, then, not that far from The Maldives, the other coast from India. And so there was about 5 minutes of this really minging freakish (ex-model, probable smackhead) showbiz reporter drunkenly chatting to the verry drunk and simply adorable (TM) Perizaad, about her films, and how she realllllly likes to express herself, and actually, she'slookinforamaaaann, and like, she really really loves the minging showboiz reporterslikeher sister, mkaayy?

Bless.

So glad the stench of rotting corpses hasn't put you off your fucking champagne, sweetie.

2004-12-29T13:48:00.000-08:00

100,000 dead, 5 million homeless, 12 nations devastated. Hindustan Times 2nd Story: "How rich and famous coped"

I should be inured to this shit from Bollywood Scum. Never mind, lets find out how the attractive lighter-skinned English speaking escapees form Sundays' Tsunami fared:

Rich and poor alike were swept up by Asia's killer tsunami, with a supermodel, multi-millionaire football players, royalty and movie stars among those running for their lives.
Czech supermodel Petra Nemcova clung to a palm tree for eight hours in the devastated Thai resort of Khao Lak after being hit by a wall of water in Sunday's deadly tidal waves, her publicist in New York said.
Her British boyfriend, fashion photographer Simon Atlee, is missing. "People were screaming and kids were screaming all over the place, screaming 'help, help'. And after a few minutes you didn't hear the kids any more," Nemcova told The New York Daily News from her hospital bed in Thailand.
There was no lucky escape for Bhumi Jensen, the 21-year-old grandson of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej who was killed at the same popular resort area when the waves struck.
"It's a national tragedy," said a grim-faced PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
British actor and film director Richard Attenborough was also in mourning after the death of his granddaughter in the Thai catastrophe. Attenborough's eldest daughter Jane is missing, as is her mother-in-law, Jane Holland.
Chinese action hero Jet Li survived the horror on the picture-postcard Maldive islands, sustaining minor injuries when the tidal wave swamped the hotel where he was staying.
Li, who starred in Hollywood flicks including Lethal Weapon 4 and Romeo Must Die grabbed his four-year-old daughter when their hotel room started to flood and escaped, the Singtao Daily reported, citing his management.
Stars of the sporting arena were also caught up in the tsunami nightmare that has left more than 55,000 people dead. A number of Italian football players were also holidaying in the Maldives when the full force of the tidal wave hit, Gazzetta dello Sport reported.
Among them were AC Milan's Paolo Maldini, Alessandro Nesta, Filippo Inzaghi and Cristian Brocchi, and Juventus defender Gianluca Zambrotta. The newspaper's website said they were safe.
Sri Lankan cricket spin king Muttiah Muralitharan declared himself "lucky to be alive" after narrowly missing one of the tsunamis that killed over 17,000 people in his home country.
Muralitharan told the Sydney Morning Herald he drove out of the southern city of Galle just minutes before it was swamped by a massive surge of water.

2004-11-28T08:31:00.000-08:00

Pop Jihad!
Band Aid 20 stars unite in call for armed struggle in Darfur.

There were emotional scenes today as top popstars from the British music industry came together to record a new version of "Do They Know it Christmas (death to the theocratic regime)".

"One thing has become clear, dead Janjaweed don't rape", said top female popster Dido, known for her easygoing female-oriented post-modern danced infused AOR songs such as "Thank You" and "Life for Rent", which have become favourite soundtracks in chain retailers such as Ikea and Gap.

Referring to the armed Arab Militias accused of committing atrocities in the Darfur region as "Murderous Islamo-fascist Cunts", the singer then pointed to fellow popstars Will Young and Lemar, who were planning to fly out to the war-torn region in the near future to institute training camps to train the Black African peoples of the southern Sudan in guerilla warfare techniques "What we need", said Pop Idol winner Young, "Is a black Jihad. If my help in setting up more effective means of armed struggle for the peoples of Sudan have any success in slaughtering bands of armed thugs, then me Bredren Lemar and I and I will have fulfilled our civic duties as human beings from the beautiful land of our forefathers birth.

Comrade Lemar then spoke eloquently of the desire to end the 'Black-on-Black' violence of street gangs in South London and unite them in combatting the genocide currently being alleged in the area. Singer Lemar, whose most recent single "If There's any Justice" was a poignant plea for self determination of the West Saharan peoples of Morocco to a musical accompaniment reminiscent of "Would I Lie to You" by Charles & Eddie, then commented that he 'wouldn't be surprised' if the recently publicised peace talks between the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) were another stalling measure by the government enabling the military to continue with their genocidal policies against the black African communities in the area, and that, intriguingly, 'it was only a matter of time' before the centres of power in the North of the troubled country 'came to know the horrors of suicide bombing and devastation they have inflicted on others, such is the way of things'.

The comments came in response to recent criticisms of the Band Aid 20 by listeners, charity workers and virtually all of the music buying public, whose general concensus was that the venture was a mish-mash of musical styles aiming to appeal to everyone and yet pleasing no-one, and worse, that the lyrics were mawkish bordering on the offensive and over-simplified the problems of debt, poverty, financial mismanagement, corruption, disease and natural disaster in the continent into sentiments over Christmas designed to induce guilt rather than awareness in buyers and smug self satisfaction in those involved in the recording.

"Yes, Yes, that would have been the case if we were only doing this to raise money for Band Aid" Stormed former S Club Seven singer Rachel Stevens, "Of course you're only going to get over-earnest wankers like Bono and the insufferable Chris Martin emoting badly if the money is just going to go for Band Aid", replied the pop temptress, "I mean, look at that fucking turncoat Martin, now the little shit is trying backpedal furiously now saying that he thinks its a bad idea, but that's coz he's a snivelling little chickenshit who's never seen hardcore action in the field. I half expected him, with his clenching desire for beatification, to be one of those who was the first to be oh-so-caring and angst-ridden at first, even in the first tranche to sign up for the recording of Band Aid 20, and then come over all Pussy when he realises his precious reputation as an allegedly serious artiste who's read Noam bastard Chomsky gets compromised when he gets associated with the likes of Robbie Williams (estimated Net worth, £80 Million). Admittedly, Williams is a cunt, but his experiences in fighting with the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda in the early 90's with Take That provided valuable insight into what myself and sister Jamelia will need to watch for when we start running radical feminist teach-ins for the mums and little kiddies in the refugee camps".

Jamelia, who signed a £250,000 sponsorship deal with Reebok the day after the recording, then commented that if 'Che were still with us', Martin would have been ritually disembowelled as a traitor to the people, and that the Sportswear manufacturer had kindly agreed to provide free trainers and casual sportingwear to the armed resistance fighters who would soon be unleashed upon the Arab Militia men.

The revelations come in the aftermath of organiser Bob Geldworfs decision to finally allow MOR Irish Boy Band Westlife to finally perform the song. Geldworfs initial reluctance, hilariously thought to be because they were 'too commercial' and so might end up selling too many versions of Midge Ure's 1984 song, (whereas those invited to perform were felt to be able to give a deeper sense of feeling to "Put your arms around the world at Christmastime" and "The Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom"), was greeted warmly by Young, "The Bhoys know what they're talking about", said the wide faced crooner, who mysteriously mentioned that their 'friends in Colombia and the homeland' would produce 'FAARCing great results'.

The single is released on 29th November.

2004-11-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

Blame Springsteen
“Don’t You have Neo-Cons in Canada?”
“Sure, but we punch them out in bars we don’t get them fucking elected”
BBC 2 shows Rich Hall’s election special after the polls close and before the marathon election coverage begins.
Wonder if this’ll be on BBC America soon. Rather fantastically also takes time to pour scorn on the 2 party system and the non-choice it offers via the Democrats, pointed out as now being more right wing than Reagan in the 80’s, but with the promise of being nicer to the French as their main selling point to the hapless citizens of the US. I guess this was why so many celebs flocked to democrat colours, when interviewed, all of them were saying that America needs to be respected (read loved) in the world again. Celebs don’t like unpopular people. How many of them lick Tony Blair’s arse now? Bush might as well have run on the Millwall slogan “No-one likes us, we don’t care”.

Which is why, if they want people to credit them with helping to swing elections, celebrities must take responsibility (alright, blame) for failing to incite the god fearing masses of the grain belt to rise up and replace the English-mangling billionaire Texan gun-nut in favour of guns and against Kyoto with the Vietnam vet multimillionaire pretend Duck-hunter in favour of guns and against Kyoto.

It’s no good just labelling everyone who voted for him as thick (cf: Daily Mirror) two days after you were pleading with them to Move On (dealt with rather swiftly in another documentary on “The Dirty Race for the White House” as essentially Democrats’ attack dogs but still woefully unorganised, they couldn‘t possibly be a self-seeking interest group like the republicans have, why, they have ordinary people like Moby and Hollywood producers in their ranks).

“What do you mean anyone but Bush? How about someone better than Bush? The lesser of two evils is still pretty fucking evil OK?”

“The real struggle in America is between the stupid and the really stupid”

This comes the night after a radio 1(they still exist!) documentary on - oh God- conservative punks (current constituency: 4), and the cataclysmic rift they have created within the punk movement in the US. The lone Muslim, Syrian Neo-con punk singer of some band called With God On Our Side or something rails against the abuse he’s faced for coming out, as it were, as a republican, and I cringe at the tales of attack and counterattack as it becomes clear what‘s happened.

They’ve found it.

The punk movement’s Achilles heel.

Ever since Fugazi retorted in one of their lyrics that they ran their own business and so were not scrounger scum, this was on the cards. The report repeats that the punk movement has historically been left leaning. In the main. But that’s not how it started out. Richard Littlejohn (favourite band: The Buzzcocks)and Gary Bushell dabbled with punk bands, ferfuxzake, it was only after the Clash started flirting with reggae that some sort of accommodation was reached between white working class rock and black culture. Donkeys years back, I bought the latest missive from Islamic radical hip-hop /punk band Fun*Da*Mental. Very loud shouty ranting at unleashing the wrath of the Black Man and incredibly repetitive. But lauded at the time by the UK music press for its punk rock anti-establishment rabble rousing sentiments. Unless you listen to this outside the West where it essentially represents more of the same, or the mob that is coming to hunt out Westernised traitors.

There’s a precedent for this. Anarcho-syndicalism is more compatible with Republican Libetarians on the right. Fundamentally, both do not accept that a government with its laws should bring them into account. Libetarians are more freaked out about taxes, where Anarchists object to the organised bit. But there is no inherent opposition. There’s nothing automatically left wing about being a vegan, either.
The anti-Bush punk replies that, actually, their website has had 15 million hits since it aired its Get Bush Out theme/campaign/petition/bake off. So the lone tory punk can just fuck off because no-one else is listening and everyone thinks he’s a freak, OK?

Its come full circle.

2004-11-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

If you were undecided about voting for John Kerry, why in fuck do the Democrats think Ben Affleck would manage to finally persuade you?

Hunh?
I'm watching all the stuff about the celebrity endorsements for the 2-hander in the USA. Gwyneth paltrow, soon to achieve neo-sainthood courtesy of hubby Chris Martin's attempt to re-animate the chariddee record via Band Aid (3? II? Band Aid revisited?), is endorsing Kerry as she is tired of having to defend America to her husband's british chums in dear old blighty.

Paltrow the environmental activist. Who drives a crappy environmental car as her sack cloth and ashes and advertisies low energy lightbulbs in the state that kicked out the only senator who tried to take on Enron.

Endorsing a candidate who won't sign up to Kyoto.

Its not that I don't understand the Anyone But Bush mentality. Its just that this was exactly what all manner of celeb scum did when they signed up to the New Labour project in 1997 in the UK to kick out the tories. I do recall the sheer joy that would be brought by the regime change, including everyone becoming millionaires overnight, and cars being able to run on water. Um, no. It was more of the same, but less (initially) smug and blatantly establishment. Have they not learnt anything? Seemingly, even Morrissey has done it. Micheal Stipe, yes, that one, even went onto the Weekly Politics on BBC1 (hosted by Diane Abbot & Micheal Portillo), to urge people to support Kerry as he is the best choice for the rest of the world as well as America. He is joking isn't he? Whats so beneficial about a candidate almost (if not equally) as loved up with soft money who'll be obliged to carry on with the shit in Iraq, with the exception of being able to (superficially) suck up to the EU and UN whilst fucking over everone as before? Would he sign up to an International Court for war crimes?

What is the point of celebrity endorsement of a political candidate that most of these people don't actually support? Its Blairism and Clintonianism (I should copyright that). Look at the *bright* *shining* *objects* and the pretty people urging you lumpen midwest cretins to vote.

Would Bill Hicks have supported John Kerry? Nader perhaps, we'd like to think. People do now, in the manner of all lost Seers, try to imagine what he would have been doing today. But hell, the fucker died 10 years ago. Maybe he decided to check out before metamorphosed into a neo-libetarian republican.

But more importantly, who is supporting Granny D?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/3965027.stm

2004-10-31T13:21:00.000-08:00

Radio 1 advert, c. 1994

(Vox Pop)
1st Speaker:

John Peel's God. Put John Peel on in the day

2nd speaker:

I really like John Peel I love the way he''ll play anything like, um...

final speaker:

John Peels' great and he'll stay great. He'll be good when he's 100, he'll be good when he dies, and even then he'll be god on ,um, ......... Ghost FM or something

John Peel (for it is he)
Today's kids really know what they're talking about, don't they?

Did they put him on in the day? Did they fuck.

2004-10-29T05:42:00.000-07:00

Neo-Con Christians revert to pseudo-educational chain e-mail to advance cause:

"IRAQ - VERY INTERESTING - DID YOU KNOW?
>>
>>1. The garden of Eden was in Iraq.
>>
>>2. Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq, was the cradle of civilization!
>>
>>3. Noah built the ark in Iraq.
>>
>>4. The Tower of Babel was in Iraq.
>>
>>5. Abraham was from Ur, which is in Southern Iraq!
>>
>>6. Isaac's wife Rebekah is from Nahor, which is in Iraq.
>>
>>7. Jacob met Rachel in Iraq.
>>
>>8. Jonah preached in Nineveh - which is in Iraq.
>>
>>9. Assyria, which is in Iraq, conquered the ten tribes of Israel.
>>
>>10. Amos cried out in Iraq!
>>
>>11. Babylon, which is in Iraq, destroyed Jerusalem.
>>
>>12. Daniel was in the lion's den in Iraq!
>>
>>13. The three Hebrew children were in the fire in Iraq (Jesus had
>>been in Iraq also as the fourth person in the fiery furnace!)
>>
>>14. Belshazzar, the King of Babylon saw the "writing on the wall"
>>in Iraq.
>>
>>15. Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, carried the Jews captive into
>>Iraq.
>>
>>16. Ezekiel preached in Iraq.
>>
>>17. The wise men were from Iraq.
>>
>>18. Peter preached in Iraq.
>>
>>19. The "Empire of Man" described in Revelation is called
>>Babylon,which was a city in Iraq!
>>
>>And you have probably seen this one. Israel is the nation most
>>often mentioned in the Bible. But do you know which nation is
>>second? It is Iraq! However, that is not the name that is used in
>>the Bible The names used in the Bible are Babylon, Land of Shinar,
>>and Mesopotamia. The word Mesopotamia means between the two rivers,
>>more exactly between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The name
>>Iraq, means country with deep roots.
>>
>>Indeed Iraq is a country with deep roots and is a very significant
>>country in the Bible.
>>
>>No other nation, except Israel, has more history and prophecy
>>associated it than Iraq.
>>
>>And also... This is something to think about! Since America is
>>typically represented by an eagle. Saddam should have read up on
>>his Muslim passages...
>>
>>The following verse is from the Kor an, (the Islamic Bible)
>>
>>Koran (9:11) - For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken
>>a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout
>>the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in
>>despair still more rejoiced; for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed
>>the lands of Allah; and there was peace.
>>
>>(Note the verse number!) Hmmmmmmm?! God Bless you all Amen !
>>
>>I BETTER NOT HEAR OF ANYONE BREAKING THIS ONE OR SEE DELETED This
>>is a ribbon for soldiers fighting in Iraq. Pass it on to everyone
>>and pray. Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM.
>>This is not a joke. Someone will either call you or will talk to
>>you online and say that they love you. Do not break this chain.
>>Send this to 13 people in the next 15 minutes. Go. "
>>

Although, Adam Curtis' programme The Power of Nightmares is deeply awry in totally glossing over the crimes of the Iraqi regime with the phrase "Neo-Cons had decided (Sad) was the most evil tyrant..."

decided?

There was a subjective element to weighing up the relative merits of chucking people into shredders and using chemical weapons 200 times?

2004-10-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

In memoriam: Lynda Lee-Potter 1905 - 2004

So, Farewell then
Linda Lee-Potter
"The voice of Middle England"
said the BBC tribute
"A disgrace to Britain"
Yes, that was your catchphrase

With any luck, in your final months,
you were cared for
by Somali lesbian single mothers
and will be laid to rest
in the working class village
you tried so hard to deny you came from
you deranged harridan

2004-10-03T05:21:00.000-07:00

Ode to Journalist Euan Ferguson in the style of the Virgin mobile rhymlets from c. 2002

Oh Euan

You're Simply Stewin'

And Bubbly Brewin'

And you hate John Lennon

And cats

But you like dogs.

Which means you might smell slightly.

But I could still shag you for your beautiful mind

And Scottishness.

2004-08-18T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Valerie Solanas School of Art Criticism

2004-08-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

The middle management cretin posts in response to watching the Channel 4 documentary Stalin (why do i fel the irresistible urge to add an exclamation mark at the end of his name?)

He proclaims that "He had some good ideas. Discuss."

Chief amongst this is 'His basic intolerance of those who didn't want to work'.

wow.

Jesus.

That is a turn up for the books. One would have expected lionising of Josef Djugashvili from remnants of the old hard left (see Koba The Dread: Laughter and the 20 million by Martin Amis), owing to the tendency to gloss over crimes of Stalin 'coz he wasn't Hitler' (see also: The Second Battle of Stalingrad chapter of Pretty Straight Guys by Nick Cohen), or more likely, as there weren't the same volumes of refugees from their rule impacting on western consciousness (or that many images).

But I didn't think a conservative business middle management type would dig him.
Oh well, considering that there are now economists who call themslves 'Marxians' (as opposed to Marxists)who use Marx's analysis to help corporations that little bit more, and that there are all manner of management books such as 'Leadership Secrets of Atilla The Hun' and Sun Tsu's Art of War for Business Executives, I feel its only a matter of time before we see:

What would Stalin do? Learning from great tyrants of history for the modern workplace environment
hitting the more incredulous of specialist bookshops soon.

2004-08-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Dance Music Is the New Stalinism

Obviously the video for Shapeshifters with "Lola's Theme" is the best video around at the moment, since it is set in a fairground, and, short of entry to the local dive or Iberian fleshpit, dance music really comes into its own when listened to on clunking huge bastard great bits of machinery gyrating dangerously over the sea for a few cheap thrills. I could and should include a critique of Clacton pier at this point, but I can't be bothered at the moment. See, functionalism in form. Shapeshifters: good.

And then the Chart Show channel goes all cultural and shows the latest video art montage from Faithless, called , uh, War Is Bad, Positive Love Vibes, or something.

Which features North Korean Totalitarian choreography! Staged performances! Utopian Stalinism! I bloody LOVE it!

And it is probably taken from that BBC4 documentary on States of Mind that I missed, but hey Faithless probably actually did the soundtrack, so its not theft nor inspiration. No doubt programmers at BBC4 actively aspire to have their channel described in terms of 'the sort of thing people who dig faithless would watch', the cognoscenti and the intelligentsia.

But AH! It highlights the slow death of Utopianism in word culture and stalinist tendencies in dance music!

Dance Music advocates utopia in a club, with a pill.

Stalinism advocates it with guns and sort of general killing people and stuff. Which is nearly almost the same.
Except it isn't.

I don't know whether this could be applied to ambient house though. But definitely the straggling remnants of acid house.

2004-07-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, the relentless sexing up of Indian light entertainment continues apace. Bye bye leaping gaily round the hillsides of Srinagar in saris and bouffants and sensible knitwear with a jaunty soundtrack.

Hello badsex, as demonstrated by the gorgeous, pouting (TM) Bipasha Basu and fucking greaseball sometime fuckpiece modelboy John Abraham. To whit: their softcore triumph, Jism (oh, if only, the pointlessness of watching softcore romping in Bollywood films was brought home by wondering if we can now look forward to plenty hot Indian minge in the near future on screen, or the lovely Ms Basu in some *tastefully shot* softfocus bukake, with a helium voiced hunny breathing winsomely over the soundtrack. Its doubtful, coz that would just be crude, wouldn't it?). Featuring la Basu (former advertiser for Fair and Lovely Skin lightener) rubbing her legs all over modelboy, then straddling him in the car as he drives, then straddling him on the beach. But he doesn't grab her chest or anything like that, oh no, because this is classy erotica, like what it had in the Karma Sutra, coz its cultural, innit. So she just writhes up and down all over him.

And looks gorgeous and pouting. Just like everyone else on screen who's a Model Turned Actress/ MTV presenter cretin nowadays. Really, Hindi films can show anything now, sex, violence, lesbetariansim, anything.

Apart from people who actually look Indian, rather than a bit latino or mediterranian. And anything apart from a woman wearing a Hijab out of choice.

2004-07-06T17:29:00.001-07:00

It is on the news today. It is, all old, a large story. The UN has published its latest, grim report of the global toll of HIV infection. Chief findings include that there are now (by conservative estimates) 5.1 million people in India who are HIV+. This makes it on course to be as 'big', if that is the right term, as Sub-saharan Africa. BBC news covers it with a predicatably depressing piece on Truck drivers and the dirt poor hookers who live off them in Rajasthan. Whole villages doubling up as brothels. Comely hicksville girls saying they don't know no-on whats died of AIDS, truckers who say they can't be bothered using condoms when drunk. Aw, bless.

Does Zee TV cover it then? Does it my arse. Indian railways budget, yes, adverts for Heart to Heart with Priyanka fucking Chopra, yes. A long puff piece on some exhibit on some designer fucking boutique in the over moneyed part of Mumbai that really wants to kid itself its Manhattan, replete with strung out looking deigners waxingon about Moroccan vases and andles holders being .really essential to add armth to a room, or some such inanity you'd normally put up with from Linda Barker, yes. But not a single mention of HIV.

Why is this not news?

2004-06-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Does the following chain email constitute a cry for help?

"THE MAYONNAISE JAR & THE COFFEE
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the coffee:

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began,wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it in to the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes." The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things -- your family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions-- things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full."The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else --the small stuff." If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same
goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. "Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.

Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18 holes.
There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal.
Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled.
"I'm glad you asked," he said. "It just goes to show you that no matter how full
your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend."

Have a Great Day, Friend!"

2004-06-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

There's lots of adverts for the new flagship Mk One store opening soon. It'll be next to the New Look, and opposite the old Athena, which is temporarily being used to sell various ethnic delights.

The big chain stores have deserted the high street. Its like my bit of the world is retreating further into East Anglia. The only exception is a few 'meantime' shops that are squatting empty shopfronts, chocka with the sort of delights you only previously got in Green Street in da heart of east london: Transparent plastic toilet seats with seashells embedded into them. Novelty toilet brushes, beautiful handicrafts from the indian subcontinent, very tatty nylon knickers, plastic beaded cutains. Chinese made metal handbags that you would get in any seaside giftshop. Clarse.

2004-06-15T11:57:00.000-07:00

Stop the clocks. Halt the Euro 2004 championships. What Sadie Did Next , is being shown on terrestrial tv (Channel 4) next Tuesday at midnight.

Really, can't wait.

2004-06-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Portents of global insurrection part 1:

Petrol in the UK hits £1 per litre.

Civil sociey is now expected to disintegrate, with MPV-driving parents due to devour their offspring under the extreme stress of shelling out even more money for their ugly fat lumps of motoring smugness.

Blockades can be expected at oil terminals from outraged truckers over their businesses being driven to the wall (although the really stupid thing is that cheaper petrol means there'll actually be more competition that they're up aginst, but hey, they're truck drivers, and when they strike, no-one is allowed to break their blockade). The Socialist Workers party will turn up to pledge 'solidarity', as an ex-comrade did in 2000, explaining away the large numbers of Union Jacks on blockades (and polite cheering of the police) as the gut instinct of the heroic oppressed working class.

2004-05-30T11:59:00.000-07:00

Leytonstone revolts:

Saatchi devastated by art blaze

Emin wails:

Emin anger over public 'sniggers'

The Solanas School of Art Criticism curses to itself at a job half done:
Hirst Sculpture 'escapes blaze'

Bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! You is all my children now, this revolt shall be unstoppable in he face of opposiion from bourgeouis high culture and that actually quite nice posh bloke called Matt who does programes on Channel 4 about old masters. And possiby Tony Hart.

2004-05-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Its 40 Gb of sophisticated electronica, and i've been spending most of my time on it playing solitaire.

the super efficient software for making music is wonderful, but won't accept MP3 downloads.

Genius. Just genius.

2004-03-17T06:52:00.000-08:00

email account being terminated

figures

2004-01-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

Pakistan contaminant

airpark freedmen

tweeter critique

2003-12-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

it won't work of course.

2003-12-19T12:39:00.000-08:00

fucker still hasn't replied

now have access to the awful Zee TV.

unspeakable.

i was once in college with a minor league MTV India presenter. I couldn't recognise her if I saw her thogh, the presenters all look as if they've been churned out of the same factory somewhere in southern california.

there was a feature on the Indian (sorry, Indian middle class) craze for harry potter.

A bunch of no-mark model turned actors/resses (the bain of most sane people outside the bollywood shit factory) turned up to see and be seen in Deradhun (where else?) public school with the indian kids.

except the MTAs actually looks like they're from a totally different continents, let alone the same country.

But thats bearable compared to the endless bad rapping from Zee Music. Bhangra bad bwoys.

A gang of PunjabiJatSikhMafiffffiaBhangraposse rood boys.

all posing in front of the same hired sports car (preferably red, ideally a Mercedes if there's no chicks in view.

Bhangra.
BHANGRA.

Its not that i have anything against it, it serves a valuable purpose in keeping wailing drunks off the streets most nights.

just don't try and put the mono-beatdugga-dugga-dugga-duggaout of everything else and stop fronting like you're John Gotti.

And the tinny ninga-ninga-ninga-ninga-ninga aswell

2003-10-31T11:08:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, BBC2 wakes up to the wog constituent of its audience and decies to put on some ethnic freindly programming re:
big dreams micro season.
Consisting of:
Programmes about curry.
Programmes about being rich if you are asian (chemists,doctors and del boy entrepreneurs living the diamond life, naturellement).

Brilliant, itsjust what you need, Paul Ross leering over Madhur 'monopoly' Jaffrey being a hottie in the 70's.

really, thats great.

yeah, and that documentary about the one million coolies? Put that on after newsnight, no-one else 'll want to watch it, will they?

Coolies: How Britain Re-Invented Slavery

2003-10-31T11:03:00.000-08:00

punish bad art
punish bad artists

2003-10-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

Actually, he's a bastard, as frankly he's stolen my idea, although i claim the theft from John Waters, under the ancient moral law of
crime= beauty= art.

RIGHT:
Is there anyone there? No,there probably isn't, is there? But if you are there, OUR LEADER IS IN PERIL.
Ican't be arsed to read the article now,m as i'm running out of credit on my easy Evryfing account, but he must be more popular than david fucking Blaine

2003-10-31T10:57:00.000-08:00

THIS MAN IS A GENIUS:

AARON BARSCHAK: YOUR PUBLIC ADORE YOU

2003-10-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Old Skool Bollywood films you simply MUST see:

Jewel Thief
Pure bizarre genius on a par with The Prisoner, and with proper Indian looking women with buxom bodies and killer bouffants.

Dharam Veer
Ultra camp genius featuring bitch princesses with whips, dwarves, burly men in Leather 'Xena, warrior princess' style skirts and - YES!- "Chiroo, the wonder Falcon"

2003-10-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

Keep meaning to buy the following but failing to:

Books:
Nick Cohen: Pretty Straight Guys
Mike Davis: Late Victorian Holocausts
Jermey Harding: Refugees at the Rich Mans Gate

CD:
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works
Shut Up And Dance: New album, whatever its called
Nicolette: Let No-one Live Rent Free in Your Head
Minnie Ripperton: come into my garden.

2003-10-03T09:34:00.000-07:00

The Idler has published its bok of Crap Towns.
Idler.com.

Number 1 is Hull.

I'm shocked, not so much at the winner, but that- since it was voted for by actual residents, people in Hull have access to The Idler..

I thought it was the exclusive preserve of The Sarcastic tribes of Northern London.
Fancy that.

2003-10-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to leave my job on Tuesday.

Which is nice.

2003-07-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Anger is an energy.

People off sick with Nervous Exhaustion

2003-07-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

See also:
http://www.namebase.org/xrow/James-Rusbridger.html

Info on James Rusbridger.

2003-07-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

Mole found dead after becoming embroiled in Iraqgate shenanigans? Its nothing compared to the shit sprayed in the 1980's:

http://www.geocities.com/proutyuk/suicides.html

2003-07-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

I was right,they'refucking terrible.
No matter,there is the excellent Easties blogspot for that

2003-06-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Anticipate disaster with new Eastenders family

2003-05-15T12:28:00.000-07:00

Birthday was a fucking disaster. But I suppose thats what I always wanted.

2003-04-17T10:46:00.000-07:00

Been in my current job nearly two years now. Its going nowhere, but i am so used to slumming it (fuck knows how little I know in there) that i am terrified of leaving and coming unstuck. I don't really do the 'being a human being' thing too well. I just lurk around my parents instead. I know this isn't healthy, I know this is going to end up being regretted by me bitterly, but i get incredibly freaked out by being around people for too long. Oh well. Wonder what my Dad'll say when i tell him i ant to go to a funeral on my birthday, something ominous about ill omens, superstitions about travel on your birthday, probably something about Mum being ill too. He's like one big long mawkish, maudlin howl, all day, every day. Continually reminded that he and Mum are dying (actually just old and ill)

2003-04-17T10:35:00.000-07:00

When people go missing, its not that they don't know where they are, its just that they don't know who they are.

2003-04-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

I don't go out at weekends. Continually reminded that weekends are for resting. And besides, most of my contacts, and the place where I am alive is in London, and i'm only there on a weekday.

2003-04-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

I don't really know how to describe the atmosphere at home. You don't see anything like it on TV, perhaps in a Dickens novel. Permanent sickness. A hushed silence, curtains always drawn. The real meaning of drudgery comes to life when you look around and realise how shabby the house is. I clean, but there's always activity. Permanent tiredness, lethargy I suppose but its a killer. W spend our weekends asleep. We are preparing for hibernation. A year ago, I saw a prograamme on 4 Irish sisters, and their elderly aunt, devout Catholics, who entered seme sort of pact to starve themselves to death. They prepared meticulously for months. No-one noticed them disappear.

Its pretty obvious that my parents, or more specifically my mother, is on the start of a long process of withdrawal from social activity of any sort.Its not self-willed, but due to the confidence in her health ebbing away.

Right from the time when she first arrived in this country, my father would tell neighbours, and other enquiriers, that she was ill so couldn't come to whatever event in question. Is it social phobia? I know i've fucking got it. I'm incapable of planning things. Witness: I am about to turn 27 and have never gone on holiday by myself. I hav never lived away from home. I do not have a permanent set of friends as such. I've made myself this way deliberately. Was once described as aloof. I think part of doesn't want to admit to existing.

2003-04-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

I live in a very superstitious household. My mother has been ill, absurdly under the weather, for months now.

2003-04-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

Life sucks right now.

Wednesday is my birthday. I've just found out that a very good, kind and wonderful person in my office has died suddenly last week, that is the day of his funeral. I should go. I should. So whats stopping me?

2003-03-19T06:42:00.000-08:00

Good GOD.

A furious argument broke out yesterday at work over this. The only other person remotely, actually VERY pro-war, and for admirable reasons (he doesn't impress with all this anti-American bullshit) ends up cornered by retard slogan spouter who I manage, plus devout Catholic embittered shrew who manages him.

Among her arguments:
Chemical and Biological weapons "aren't that bad", and sadly, need to be used to control poplulations that are somehow, she implied, less civilised.

What about ntervention in Kosovo then? That didn't have UN backing.

"Yeah, but, of course it was a little extreme, but the Serbs were getting their own back."

The uselessness of teh UN (Srebrnicza, Rwanda, etc)
"Well my husband was saying to me the other night, you know they should just be left to fight it out amongst themselves," and then she mouths over to her fellow, Catholic opposer, " because a lot of these are (mime) Muslim, they'll fight each other all the time anyway" She's been reading the Book on the Clash of Civilisations.

And people not anti-war are hypocrites?

2003-03-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

Nick Cohen articles, Nick Cohen is good.
Left in Stalins' shadow
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,910417,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,910417,00.html

The only way to peace
"Anti-war campaigners believe there is another way to be rid of Saddam. There isn't"
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,905657,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,905657,00.html

The Left isn't listening
The Stop the War coalition is the greatest threat to any hope for a democratic Iraq
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,896502,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,896502,00.html

Saddam won't run

There is nothing in the past of Iraq's dictator to suggest he will do anything but fight

http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,868794,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,868794,00.html

Tony Blair in 'unusual ally' shocker

2003-03-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

Th Union I belong to holds an emergency motion opposing war in Iraq. I ask if they will pass another motion condemning Saddam Hussein for his persistent flouting of the SEVENTEEN FUCKING RESOLUTIONS politely, yet, uh,m firmly, mm-kay to give up his weapons or else, right, there'll be you know, um, serious consequences, actually.

They say there isn't enough time. Actually they just smile wryly

I'm glad i didn't go on the march.

Ms Dynamiteeeeee-eee and Tony Benn?
Jesus.

2003-03-14T06:42:00.000-08:00

POPBITCH, I love ya:

>> Popbitch Say War! <<
George Bush better than George Michael

We're against violence and suffering, but the
anti-war movement is so horribly smug that
we've decided that war is the best option.
Here are some reasons why George should
press the button:

1 George Michael's anti-war dirge is the worst
thing he's ever done and if it gets more
publicity/success we might never again see the
disco genius behind tracks like Outside and
Fastlove. (ps stop smoking the weed, George)

2. All those smart bombs look good on TV.

3. Sigue Sigue Sputnik will re-release Love
Missile F1-11 when war with Iraq starts.
See what SSS look like now:
http://www.sputnikworld.com/

4. It'll piss off Bono.

(FYI: The US Congress have responded to the
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys by renaming
French fries Freedom fries).

2003-02-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

Currently, the only people willing to do this are the Islamic Fundamentalists of Al-Quada.

The very people the (admit it) NIMBYs of most of the west ("he's only a threat to his own"- oh thats alright then) are terrified of gaining ground in the eventof the west attaacking Iraq.

They're gaining ground anyway.

Ha!

2003-02-19T11:07:00.000-08:00

So: If the west is serious about overthrowing saddam, but the peaceniks cannot stomach the thought of US intervention, the alternative is this:
An International Brigade

2003-02-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

The anti-war rally last Saturday wasn't really as life-affirming as i initiallly thought it would be. Peace at All Costs, No to War. Tariq Ali calling for Blair to be overthrown.
Hang on.

Where were the posters for FUCK SADDAM FREE IRAQ?

There is no way in hell you can describe the present situation in Iraq as 'peace'-> how many bombs have been dropped as part of containment? Why do the peaceniks insist it is working when before this whole war thing, they were the people most vociferously campaigning for sanctions to be lifted?Why does the UN still recognise Saddam as the legit ruler of Iraq? Read a couple of articles from Kanan Makiya- the would-be head of a liberal, secular democratic Iraq, and get an absolute torrent from anti-war campaigners insisting he is a CIA stooge.

Anyone who disagrees with them is a CIA stooge. Its oppositionism for its own sake. Ken Loach on Breakfast BBC last Friday insists that Saddam is no longer a threat to his own people, to counter a so-called 'Hawk' trying to highlight Sad's misdemeanours.

And then the whole fucking Palestine thing flares up.

2003-02-19T11:00:00.000-08:00

How fucking cool is Christopher Hitchens?

2003-01-29T10:25:00.000-08:00

Am being ordered to 'look after' ailing mother.

This chiefly involves trailing round whilst she goes on with her daily business.

She was so frail the other day, I sat there and thought about the timebomb tick tick ticking that is due to go off.

2003-01-29T10:24:00.000-08:00

OH!

That's it:

FEBRUARY 20TH.

That's the day marked out for war war to begin.

The Valerie Solanas School of Art Criticism

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Yahan Main Ghar Ghar Kheli

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Mrs. Kaushik Ki Paanch Bahuein

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Bandini

All Extended Families Are Psychotic: Adapting the Hunt-Sharples Indices for Harridanry

Goodnight Christopher

All Extended Families Are Psychotic

The unfailing and profound sense of *consideration* of the Liberal Democrats

#WeLoveTheNHS pt 3456

Carefully Cultivating the Appearance of Not Giving A Fuck

That Bollywood Hitler film

Famous Last Words

Well I never! People watch Bollywood films in Britain!

The Modern Indian Ettiquette for Molesting One's Maid

25th Anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Leak: Bollywood reacts

A message from RAWA

Lymphatic Cancer? That will be $51,000 thank you plz

Wldnt it B gr8 tho yeh? If der wur like load of Asian babez and dat in the FHM poll to wank over cuz desi babes is Fit hunneyz innit

Where I Went on my Holidays, by Sunny Hundal

Buttafly. Iz gud.

PUNISH BAD CINEMA!

The Sublime Poetry of the Sky Electronic Programme Guide

The Man Don't Give A Fuck

This Soap Destroys Taliban

Greer Fisk attempted with mediocre results

Hooray for The Dave Gorman

So anyway, did racist cunt no-mark Jack Tweedy call Shilpa Shetty a 'P*ki Bitch' or not?

David Quantick is surprisingly tall

You Tube delights

Stop Climate Chaos event Sat November 4th Trafalgar Square

Polly Toynbee and the Parallel Universe

Nihal Amaranayake: Apology issued

Radical Cartoonist responds to protests over cartoon no one has seen by drawing picture of George Bush as a monkey

I Want a Coat Made Out of Pete Burns' Skin

My prophet-like warnings of disaster start to come true

It’s. A Fucking. BUS.

I (((Heart))) Bastard Pop

Never Trust a Hippy

NEW DANIEL O'DONNELL ALBUM OUT NOW

Islamists: essentially Goths with semtex?

What's so shocking about saying Leon Brittan likes Chicken?

da-ding-ding da-da-d-ad-a-a-d-da BaAAAAAAa Bbaa Bay Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

The unfailing and profound sense of consideration of the Liberal Democrats