Category: News

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I’d Put My House On It

Well, let’s not be too hasty. I’d put my house on their relative guilt, but yours on the legal outcome.

It seems Prince Andrew, Duke of York [or former titles, presumably, now the Queen has thrown him under the bus, uh, horse-drawn carriage, stripped naked of his royal credentials – and if you fully believe that, you’ll believe anything – but, as I oft do, digress] and Novak Djokovic [or Novichok as he’s now known to me for short – move on, nothing to see here but, ummm, a cathedral enthusiast] have something in common. Are you keeping up? Sorry. [I’ll remove the digression brackets now.]

Wealth. Obscene wealth. And what does that buy you? Obscene lawyers.

If you read my previous two captions [on Instagram], firstly, a week ago, with a degree of neat prescience, I cynically referred to Novichok as potentially suffering from ‘bullshit or simple arrogance’. A week later, I believe that plump chicken has largely come home to roost. Secondly, as per yesterday’s caption, I believe the royal formerly known as Prince to be about as innocent as a crocodile with a wildebeest leg hanging from the corner of its mouth implying he was only using it as a toothpick.

We all know the world is catastrophically imbalanced between, not even so much as the haves and have nots, but the obscenely haves and have nots, who essentially have their obscene wealth to throw at anything. Imagine, for a moment, a world where everyone had that access when it came to the law. We wouldn’t need many prisons, eh?

And people like Prince, Novichok [apologies for lumping you in with these, by the way – bad timing, like a loose forehand going into the stand!], Maxwell and Epstein will have their day in court, and then their appeal in court, maybe even a further appeal in court, or a brown envelope filled with cash should guilt feel a bit too uncomfortably close.

Climate change arguably sounds like a good thing when faced with such warped ugliness, eh? Albeit, the lawyers would still likely survive, with the cockroaches, to start again.

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The Reality

It’s morning. And Donald packs up his briefcase, affectionately grabs his wife’s pussy, pats his lovely daughter’s ass … ‘If only,’ he thought … yells at Juan, the gardener, to stand on the other side of the ornamental wall he’s asked him to build, and sets off for his new work experience placement at The White House.

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Curtains?

At 70-years-old it’s relatively old to consider starting a new career for which you have absolutely no experience but Donald has ambitions to one day become an intern.

Unfortunately, when Donald later bursts into the Oval Office without knocking he’s immediately shot in head, many many times with an assault weapon, due to the country’s lax gun laws. “I thought he was an intruder,” Mr Obama later explained. “This orange face suddenly burst into the room and my first instinct was to protect my family … all Americans.”

Ahhhh, wait a minute. Is that an alarm? And all America then woke up to find themselves in the shower with Bobby Ewing.

Or did they? …

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In The End

Space is pretty amazing, I think many would agree. Huh? No, not green space, or a parking space, or even personal space – all of which have their place – but space space, that really big black, shimmery thing up in the air where the stars and things live …

 

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Somewhere In Outer Space Tomorrow

 

It fascinates me. And I’ve been hugely fascinated by Rosetta, which ended its two-year space mission by crash landing onto the Comet 67P earlier today. You might recall it launched its own lander, Philae, which after a bumpy start has since returned extraordinary data. The comet is not only highly porous – like a vast pumice stone; it would actually float in water. But is thought to be made up from material billions of years old dating back to the creation of the solar system.

On the dark side of the comet they also discovered early outlets for both McDonald’s and Starbucks. It’s understood they were probably built there simply as a tax offshoot.

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The Camera Eye

Images possess the undeniable power to potentially focus minds. Few will be able to forget the sight of the lifeless body of 3-year-old Syrian refugee, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach in September 2015, or that of the Vietnamese ‘Napalm Girl’ [Kim Phuc – now 52-years-old and still undergoing treatment for the horrific injuries she sustained in 1972], or that of the solitary figure that stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, during the 1989 student demonstrations. 

This weekend another extraordinary image emerged from a Black Lives Matter protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the epitome of grace under pressure.

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Image: Jonathon Bachman/Reuters

And amidst the chaotic turmoil – following further black deaths at the hands of the police and the police themselves in Dallas – the value of such imagery can never be underestimated. And with them, the hope that in the focusing of minds, things can change.

At the weekend I took my own image during the Bristol Pride march and wrote my own thoughts on my Instagram feed under the heading All Lives Matter:

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“… the event itself felt … timely … healing. Whether you’re part of the LGBT community, black [especially in America right now], an immigrant [especially in the post-Brexit UK right now], or a refugee, or you suffer with mental health, or even if you’re a traumatised England football supporter [or maybe that should be ‘sufferer’, too, like me] we’ve all felt doubt, fear and persecution served in a soup of misrepresentation and lack of understanding, uh, drizzled with ignorance. There will always be extremes of views, and it’s a sad fact that most of these extremes are invariably attached to the loudest, foghorn voices. But if there’s a crumb of comfort amidst any form of social chaos, maybe it’s that sometimes the quieter voices begin to be heard and the quietly complacent are less likely to keep sitting on their hands. We all have our individual lives but we will all ultimately stand or fall together.”

We live in a time where both still and video imagery are within relatively easy reach and can be immediately shared via social media; and despite the irritation often associated with their overwhelming saturation it can no longer be denied we now have the potential to inform, educate and shape debate and focus collective minds like never before.

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Here are a few additional thoughts generated from Followers as a result of my Instagram post:

Ena:  “I believe that respect is something that we should teach children as well as ourselves – on daily basis, critical thinking and accepting our differences, zero tolerance to all kinds of violence… It sounds Utopian but peace, freedom and equal rights to all is something I would love to see during my lifetime.”

Jeff: “One day kids will say what was a pride march? They will be amused by racist stupidity (as their electronic DNA id will show 12 to 25 different nationalities). People are never more equal and accepting than when they are very young. Bigotry and hatred are learned behaviors and sadly undoing the teachings is almost impossible!”

Patrick: “Respect for all should be our battle. Battle of words and act of kindness towards the others . We are all different. This is our strength.”

Respect.

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Finally, in a sense that all our future hopes will be carried on the shoulders of the young and generations to come, I was incredibly moved to see another moment captured in the aftermath of the Euro 2016 final when this apparently inconsolable French fan was lifted from his own private torment: BBC clip

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Talking About A Revolution

So, another Glastonbury Festival has slid into the muddy abyss; and all week regional hospitals have been reporting their usual increase of admissions with trench foot, dysentery, cholera and a pathological fear of public toilets. Climate change, meanwhile, rampages on unabated like an overwrought Coldplay set.

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A musician without boots and revelers enjoying underground heating yesterday

Glastonbury needs to move with the times; this is the modern world. The time has come to install artificial grass and drainage. And for the remaining 51 weeks of the year the landscape could be dotted with herds of plastic cows; people could be employed to move them around under cover of darkness to give the illusion of a working farm. Or, if the budget allows, they could even make them animatronic; preprogrammed to sit down at the first sign of rain.

And with no more real cows, not only is the threat of disease virtually wiped out at a stroke, excessive methane farts and slurry are also eradicated*, thus repairing the hole in the ozone layer.

Either that, or simply move the festival into the local village hall. Sorted.

* This might also require some tighter constraints on some of the food stalls at the festival itself. 

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