BEAUTY & THE BEAST

Every day, in the mishapen, mutant masks that that morph and ming from the cinema screens to the high-street glossies, we see the results when humans interfere and try to create beauty, so we shouldn't be surprised when we hear of the consequences of the selective breeding programmes of man's best friend. Only saddened, oh, and maybe a little bit angry, too.

However, the picture accompanying the article did draw a smile across my face - you'll need to click on the link below to see it. Who the hell is she to judge the beauty of a dog - has she ever looked in a mirror?

Go on, have a look:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/05/dogs-pets-crufts-bbc-animal

WANNA BE A MONKEY?

"Britain is poised to approve China's application today to become a licensed ivory trader in spite of protests from environmental and animal welfare groups and nearly 150 MPs"

"Ms Ruddock, a highly-respected MP with a strong record on environmental protection, appears to have been given orders from No 10 not to risk upsetting China by opposing the bid"

Isn't this one of the most hypocritical governments you have ever seen. By now, I should be able to believe it, but I can't, I really can't.

Not that any other major party would behave any differently under pressure from whatever interest really has a hand on the reigns of power.

But none of us has the strength to make the 'sacrifices' necessary to remove at least our own little society from the dirty, global back-scratching that goes on in the name of economic progress, so why don't we just return to 'three monkey mode'?

The indigestion that results from swallowing the guilt caused by your feigned ignorance is uncomfortable, but return to the 'Daily Mail' and the pain shall soon be eased.

Either that or accept the fact that much of what we accept as normal is rotten, and the only people that can do anything to change anything is US!

But do what?

Quotes above taken from:http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/britain-poised-to-approve-china-ivory-licence-867621.html

IT IS WHAT IT IS

Didn’t really want to touch upon music too much although it is the passion and obsession of my life. Although semi-consumed with a multitude of thoughts and emotions bang-bashing around inside me regarding it, it being such a personal experience, I’ve always believed commenting on it was one’s way of trying to imprint yourself and your beliefs on a world that is too weak to be content with its own tastes and preferences, or on people who don’t have taste but merely want to fit in (aagh, scum of scum, but I don’t really want to go there at the moment), so I’ve never really bothered. Always happy enough with whatever is rocking my socks at a particular moment.

However, I bought an album recently that, while seventeen years old, highlights some issues in music that were discussed over a beer or two on Sunday evening. So we’re talking about issues rather than a particular album or epoch in music.

The issue being experimentation in music: where’s the line between music that does what it should – moves the soul, body and mind (that’s kind of roughly in my order of preference) – and experimentation-fuelled shite that only says “we’re so clever and funny and oh so original with our lack of adherence to any particular patterns or structures in our music?” So clever that you can see that they’ve enjoyed themselves so much fucking around on whatever pieces of equipment they happen to have in front of them that they’ve forgotten that music, and art in general, is a relationship between the creator and the receiver with both parties gaining something from this interaction. Sometimes I get the feeling that those praised by critics – who the fuck are they? – as being at the cutting edge, pushing envelopes and all that stuff are only interested in themselves and are so self-absorbed that they’re essentially taking the piss out of their audience with their output.

And sometimes I think that without those at the edges for others to follow, music, and art in general, wouldn’t move anywhere particularly quickly and while what they may create may be a bit patchy, hard-going, unlistenable or whatever due to its experimental nature, the fact that they are moving a music or whatever into a new area means that the artists who follow more traditional, consistent structures that make for more solid and entertaining packages are less restricted and have more possibilities available to them, and, therefore, the art-form in question benefits as a whole due to this.

So I guess, if you have any interest in the value of any particular art-form to bring colour and add meaning to our lives, you have to go with the second line of argument though, and this is the ‘though’ that is the point of this piece, I wish more people would recognise that such creations are ‘merely’ examples of forms that are charting new territories and should be listened to or seen as such, and are not things that actually provide much in the way of actual entertainment. Let me repeat: they are fine, and worthy, and necessary, and should be supported, but it is the ones that follow that will benefit most by producing more consistent works that a person out for pleasure will get more from on a day-to-day basis.

NOTHING IS IMMUNE TO CRITICISM. Don’t just say something is ‘good’. Something is good – or bad – for a particular reason: what are those reasons? Savour the good. Accept the bad. Art is not maths: ‘good’ plus ‘bad’ does not equal ‘gobodad’. Some may see more good, some bad, who cares as long as you know where you stand?

OPINIONS ARE ONLY OPINIONS. If you like something, you like something and that is the only reason to like something.

BEING DERIVATIVE SUCKS!!!

Being influenced does not, and it's unavoidable anyway. Experimenting within recognisable – or not – structures moves everyone forwards, backwards, sidewards or whateverwards and means our landscapes are constantly evolving and revolving, and, therefore, new colours are there for us all to enjoy if we are prepared to open our ears and eyes a little more.

THE WORLD'S POLLUTER

OK, so China may oppress and repress a number of its population in order to maintain the running of the country according to its current interpretation of Maoist ideology and, no doubt about it, it’s a sizeable number, with something like 3,000,000 people executed or ‘disappeared’ each year. However, tragic as that figure is, considering the size of the population, it ain’t all that.

How about if it were half of a nation’s population that were repressed and oppressed?

Not possible, is it?

How could that be kept concealed and managed on such a scale?

Surely someone would have to act; that’s abuse on a (half-)nationwide level! No way that that would be tolerated. It would be half of the nation, so outside assistance would surely come to aid their struggle for liberation, wouldn’t it? Well, yes, in the theoretical world I guess it would. But in the real world in which Saudi Arabia – supplier of much of the world’s oil and an adherent, proponent and enforcer of Islamic law – exists, sweet f.a. is done.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about already, I’ll tell you: the ritual oppression and humiliation of the entire female population, that’s what! And why is nothing done about it?

Fucking money!!!

And fucking religion!!!

Those two bastardions of much that is destructive in the world today.

But what can you do about it?

The money thing? Well, we’re all fucking hypocrites living off the back of an oil-based economy. Unless we can remove our own financial support for this economy, which would pretty much mean withdrawing from society in general, nothing’s going to change; why should it? And it’s not just the cars we use – oil lubricates in places we don’t imagine (oo-er, matron) – but everytime we get in a car or on a bus or on a plane, we’re fucking over a half (44.6%) of a country’s people, that’s 12,050,800 people.

And, of course the rest of the shit that’s done in order to maintain our fix of the black stuff, but that’s another story...

Of course, maybe more would be done to put pressure on such oil-supplying regimes to change if it weren’t for the second factor in the equation – the religion thing. Where to begin? I mean, doing something in the name of religion makes it all alright, doesn’t it? It does in the eyes of the religious of the world anyway, and I’m not just talking about Muslims here: religions stroke each other’s penises in order to maintain their stranglehold over their sheep and, therefore, tend to generally keep themselves to themselves. After all, if they debase one religion too much, which is essentially founded on the same bollocks, how long before even the blindest of the blind begin to see holes in their own little Christian/Jewish narrative? So a few – there must be a few, though I’ve seen precious little evidence of this – may bleat on a little about it, but only in terms of ‘how bad their religion is, so stay here with us where you’re safe’; they don’t actually do anything about it.

Who does?

The rest of us, who are either atheist, agnostic, non-practising or whatever? Well, we don’t say anything as we don’t understand religion and it would be wrong to criticise someone else’s faith.

Is it wrong?

Is it?

Is it wrong to speak out and maybe try and do something for people who can’t speak out for themselves due to the physical and metaphysical fear that they have lived with since birth?

Is it?

For a bit of background to this article, follow the following link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-women-appeal-for-legal-freedoms-812657.html

ENGLAND STINKS OF SHIT - WHO DO WE BLAME?

Foreigners of course. Anything bad can only ever come from overseas! Fucking hell, is it any wonder that Pythonesque humour came from such a land? And, although the link is to the story as it is featured on Yahoo! news, the story appeared in pretty much the same style in all the newspapers. Newspapers such as the right-on Guardian and Independent, which, yes, I do read by the way. But, would they write in a similar vein about the BO problem being brought in with the latest wave of unwashed immigrants? No, they wouldn’t. Can’t they see that it’s just more of the same scapegoating of all life’s crap? Blame it on Johnny Foreigner and his untreated turds, why not indeed?!

It’s not only shit.

Dirty, disease-ridden, super-stinging, biting bugs that breed in summer’s sun. Hmm, they’re quite nasty, they can’t have bred in England’s green and pleasant land, can they? So where did they come from? Of course, they drifted in from the continent on some wind current or other. My God, praise be that we live where we do. It must be such a cesspool over there. No wonder they all want to come and live here, taking our jobs and claiming our benefits (at the same time – clever bastards!).

We’re so lucky!!!

And they’re so dirty...

Keep England clean.

Keep foreigners and their unwelcome odours away.

Phooey!

It’s all about mental pictures – maintaining the myth – and stories such as these are all part of that tapestry of toss:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080419/tuk-european-pong-lingers-over-london-dba1618.html

YOU SCRATCH MY BACK AND I'LL ... ER ...

For those who’ve ever woken up feeling a little worse for wear and with a fear over what the blank parts have erased; not to worry:

“[You] were drinking and what doesn't happen when you're drunk?"

Follow link for further details (you could possibly read the rest of the blog before you jump away until next time):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7353025.stm

So that's where the true spirit of Christianity lay: at the bottom of a glass of your favourite tipple. [puns on the holy spirit and the like may be inserted here]. No mention of forgiveness. No garnering of that sense of self-superiority at having chosen to take the higher ground; just no hard feelings at all.

Whatever innit.

Wonderful.

As Oliver Reed once said to that self-satisfied smug-head, Clive James:

"...the finest people I've ever met were in pubs."

Well, whatever the merits of that actual statement, he definitely wouldn't have met them in a church, where forgiveness feels more like a punishment than an act of charity. Or maybe it is charity cos charity sucks too: something that often feels like it's done more for the sake of the 'giver' than the receiver.

THIS ISN'T FUNNY, BUT ...

“A female Italian artist hitch-hiking to the Middle East in a wedding dress to promote world peace is murdered in Turkey.”

If you need a better comment on the type of world we live in, then... well, I guess y'do, but for me, that pretty much says it all.

No wonder those veneers of cool cynicism we cultivate to cocoon soon harden to finally suffocate the hopes and dreams we once harbored.

Quote taken from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7344381.stm