Go on with your bad self Jon Boone
I was pleased to see my old colleague Jon Boone bylined on the front page of the Grauniad today (- now, er, yesterday; but I can’t sleep due to blogging excitement).
I remember old Boonie when he was education correspondent at the Financial Times and I was an editorial assistant there. He was something of a hero of mine: when all there journos there would be bashing the phones trying to get a lead, the Boonester would be leaning back, feet resting on a cluttered desk, staring into space – as though it was all somehow irrelevant.
I think Boone may even have pipped me to the post when it came to ‘most insouciant member of the FT staff’.
Anyway, Boonie (I never actually called him that, by the way) got shipped off to Afghanistan, because he made such a balls up of being education correspondent. He and I were both victim, in the end, of the FT’s zealous purging of anyone who might be remotely cool and imaginative. Now he’s freelancing out in the sandpit; and, from the looks of it, he’s going from strength to strength!
Jon Boone, I salute you!
I walked in some old white guy in on full on racist flow this week. He was in the cobblers near to my work in London Bridge. There’s me, happily bouncing my way to get the sole stuck back on my smart shoes, I pull open the door: “The old parties are finished. You gotta vote for the new blood, I don’t care who: UKIP, BNP, National Front, we need something new.”
Obviously, an awkward moment passed as he looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. The customer he’d been speaking to said her goodbyes and hurried out, avoiding my eye. I let it go. Maybe I should have said something?
Even worse, a colleague of mine at work, someone who I had credited with a bit of an awareness, a bit of nous, said the other day that he could ‘understand’ the position of parties like the BNP. He said this to my face. Obviously I didn’t let this one go. I told him that it was the policy of the BNP to repatriate all ethnic minorities to their original homelands. “Where,” I asked, “would that leave me?” He changed the subject.
Stolen moments and cigarette breaks
For all the excessive puritannical nonsense of the smoking ban, and the general hostility to smoking which has become so fashionable, there is one benefit to the smoker in being outcast from acceptable company, whether in the home, workplace or place of entertainment. While in days past smoking was simply an accompaniment to the day to day activities of life, now the cigarette has assumed a semi-legitimate status as an excuse for a break. Fifteen minutes of every hour or two can now be devoted to nothing less than a complete time out, a chance to stop and reflect on the rigours of life in an increasingly hectic world.
This is important, because the overwhelming trend of the last few years has been to inexorably squeeze those opportunities for idleness out of our pathetic, rushed existence. The worker is encouraged to be always productive, to speed up, or even give up altogether, those daily activities that do not contribute towards the economic life of the nation – breakfast, lunch, tea-break chats with colleagues. But the cigarette, by virtue of its demonisation, has given a select few the opportunity to opt out of the normal economic structure of society, even for just fifteen minutes at a time, a few times a day.
But there is an art to the perfect cigarette break. Yes, you can simply rush out the office, stand ten feet from the door with all the other smokers, then hurriedly drag on a Lambert & Butler, sending smoke signals of dissatisfaction up to the management offices above. Or you can wander out of the office, off company grounds, to a quiet, secluded spot of your own choosing, somewhere off the beaten track. Once there you must make yourself comfortable, sit on a likely looking ledge or step, then – as I prefer – roll your own – herbal tobacco enhancer optional.
Then comes the actual smoking. This must never be rushed – if tobacco smoking is as deadly as they say then you may as well appreciate the actual sensation. Nor is it good form to distract yourself with a newspaper or book, unless there is something really worth reading. For the real pleasure of this time comes from the actual doing of nothing, in the most Zen sense. You might have spent the morning in the quiet and frustrating contemplation of piles of irreconcilable paperwork, as your manager gleefully assigns tasks to you that make cleaning the Stygian stables seem like a bit of light dusting, but when cigarette break time comes you have the chance to go back to the basic immediacy of existence. That time when it’s just you, the cigarette and the wind is your opportunity to steal back a moment of your life and spend a period of quiet contemplation, where of course you can decide whether or not it is all worth it.
Long live the cigarette break!
God is your albatross
From the dizzying heights of Heaven God casts his all encompassing shadow over your life. In this permanent dusk you live, and for all the wonders he is supposed to offer, you are damned to an ongoing struggle, trying in vain to live up to his unattainable ideals. You carry with you this burden to work, when seeing your family, spending time with your lover, a guilt so weighty you buckle to your knees at the end of the week begging for respite.
‘Oh wondrous, benevolent God, please forgive me!’
Why not instead rid yourself of this baggage. Fuck pleading- fuck church, and yes fuck God. What does he do for you that you cannot do for yourself? Believe me, the benefits of widening your perspective are plentiful. Firstly you can start fucking enjoying yourself! You as an individual have specific needs and desires that deserve to be sated. Without the abundance of prohibitions religion ever so generously offers, you are free to go about your business tasting all of life’s pleasures. No longer need you relinquish your right to a little sexual healing, you may freely pander to your natural omnivorous desires to eat pork, still more, you are free to indulge in your inherent curiosity to learn and understand our world- our streets. With this attitude not only will you be more fulfilled, you life suddenly seems more worthwhile, and you find constant opportunities to have fun! Why then stick to the dead-end road of religion which stumps our development; All is as it is because He wished it so!Open your mind to exploring new, better ways our world can exist. After all with so much misery and suffering under his watch since life began, err… on the 6th day, why should you be resistant to thinking beyond God, to a society where we all have the power and responsibility and see if we could do a better job.
Rather than divulging you rights think and act for yourself. How much more human do you feel when you are in control of your life, stretching your mind and responding with your own wisdom to the events around you. Isn’t this freedom of thought and action necessary to keep you from turning into a mere robot with no point to your existence but to obey, serve, and follow orders.
Thinking keeps you human, ‘I think therefore I am’. If ‘God’ and his gang are doing it all for you, you relinquish your own contribution to humanity and are… nothing.
Live your life in the sunshine.
minimum price for alcohol is racist
I swear on my life that there must be a secret government department devoted to formulating policy to fuck me off. Now apparently they plan to set a minimum price for booze.
According to the Beeb (another bunch of bastards who would never give me a job), our nation’s top medical advisor has proposed that no drinks should be sold for less than 50p per unit of alcohol they contain.
Jamaica's only export beer
I’m no mathematician, but I reckon off the top of my head that this will at least double the price of a bottle of Dragon Stout – just another example of the government’s racist targeting of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, this time aimed at our ultra vulnerable alcoholic sub section.
Let’s not forget that binge drinking, along with bass heavy, melancholic dance music, has been the UK’s most significant cultural export of the last decade. In France they now bemoan their own youth’s fondness for ‘le Binge Drinking’, accepting that the UK is the socio-cultural daddy of youth culture across North West Europe.
The only decent thing these Labour cunts ever did was get rid of our stupid, Dickensian licensing laws – laws that made downing 3 pints of wife beater at 11:15pm virtually obligatory. Now they are determined to roll back our freedom to poison ourselves, and turn us into a nation of boring, productive, acquiescent sheep.
blogs, shmhogs
That’s it, I officially hate blogging. But now the TV’s bust I’ve got nothing else to do but write. In keeping with my ambition to become an all round Renaissance man I have been reading the Bible’s super horny Song of Solomon for titillation.
You’ve got to check this shit out. I was alerted to this remarkable bit the Old Testament by the excellent and slightly sick Sex in Christ website, an unparalleled resource of Bible lunacy. The nutters behind this website have scoured the Good Book for religious justification for a variety of deviant sexual practices.
The Song Of Solomon is an all out celebration of sensual love, the kind which usually makes god-fearers quite uncomfortable. ”Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.” Or: “Awake, O north wind, and come, wind of the south; make my garden breathe out fragrance, let its spices be wafted abroad. May my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice of fruits!” Maybe I’ll become religious after all…
journalism bursary applications
It’s that time of year again; that time of year when thousands of eager, young, bright, talented, hopeful writers apply for the few precious bursaries handed out by Guardian owners The Scott Trust.
At least that’s how it feels to those of us applying. As I have whined on this very blog several times in the past, it’s nigh on impossible to get your hands on first class journalism training, the kind you need to get a job on a decent newspaper, without investing serious amounts of cash. And that’s before taking into account the scandalous unpaid work experience placements, de rigeur for anyone who wants to get ahead – or rather, anywhere – in the media industry. If you can’t put up the cash, then you’re out in the cold. Bloody bastards.
So, in my imagination at least, there are thousands of young hopefuls hunched over their keyboards tonight, just like me, trying to craft together the perfect missives, in no more than 200-300 words a piece, that will sufficiently tug at the heartstrings of the HR execs at Guardian News Media. You see, what they seem to want in these things are real stories of Hard Times, they want to feel as if they’re really rescuing you from the ghetto; from a life of drudgery and dissatisfaction to the sparkling middle class world of journalistic luminaries like Robert Peston or Polly Toynbee.
Think I’m overstating the case? They ask: “Describe any experiences in your life that you have found challenging. (Max 300 words)” What the fuck kind of question is that, huh? Rephrase: ”How ghetto are you?” Well, how ghetto would you like me to be, baby? Then they ask: “Why do you deserve this award? Tell us why we should offer YOU a bursary?” Well God damn! I just want to write for a living, somehow; but it seems to be rather inacessible. They ask for details of “any, not previously mentioned, special circumstances behind your application that you would like [them] to consider,” just so you have a chance to soften their hearts with any hard luck stories you hadn’t managed to squeeze in before. They even ask applicants to tell them details of how they funded themselves through uni, and if family and friends helped at all. Suddenly I begin to wonder if I’m deserving enough. I’m not an orphan or anything.
I’ve been through some shit in my time, just like everyone else: we’re all faced with challenges that we’ve got to deal with everyday, and we’ve all had to deal with shit while we where growing up. But this kind of sob story competition makes me uncomfortable. What’s the use? It seems almost like they’re auditioning for those Guardian Society features about mental health, drug addiction and spousal abuse that I always manage not to read.
I shouldn’t single out the Guardian unfairly, as that other great liberal news institution, the BBC, structures applications for their journalism training scheme in exactly the same way, except their big focus is on multiculturalism. You don’t need to be ghetto for the Beeb – I guess they reckon they’d only have to invest loads on elocution lessons – but you do have to be able to offer them some kind of insight into a minority culture. Witness the plethora of South Asian honeys all over the TV news these days. I probably failed in my application attempts simply because I’m too London, too British – whatever that means when the nation’s favourite dish is Chicken Tikka Massala and everyone listens to Jamaican music.
I’ve been robbed!
Over the last month I (stupidly I know) have been leaving my kitchen window as wide open as a whore’s legs so that my little Cooks can come and go as she pleases. Unfortunately someone has taken the opportunity to plunder my belongings. They’ve stolen my laptop, or rather the laptop entrusted to me by my employers, which is shit as they need no more excuses to bollock me, and the only other item I’ve noticed missing- my beautiful nude vintage shoes!
Don’t underestimate my despair. The subtle shallow point to the toe swinging up to the adorable 4 inch slim line heel, and the simple slip of gray encircling the round of my ankle is the kind of thing you just don’t see on the highstreet anymore. Nowadays you’ve got vulgar blocks of plastic in brash colours and ridiculous sheens that never seem to sit so snugly under my arches. They are truly unmatched in modern footwear. From the moment my eyes clasped them I knew I would never let them go and would love them always. And this perfect pair of classics are now forever lost to me. Almost… almost enough to make me cry.
For a robber this must be an unusual second choice by anyone’s standards. Unlike the laptop they shouldn’t hold much value to anyone bar their devoted owner, and so my first instinct was that the thief must be a woman. She, like me, must have been seduced on sight by the unadulterated elegance and snatched them on a whim as she hopskipped it over the sink. Fuck that bitch! was my first thought- and I bet she has fat feet! I reckoned every step she took my little faithfuls would squeeze the rippling excess over the delicate rims and would eventually self destruct under her bulbous weight.
But as I bemoaned my loss I thought of other possible villains. My flat looks out over the large flat roof of the nursery below and is under the watch of 80 odd windows, and that’s not even including the massive estate opposite. My bedroom and open plan sitting-room /kitchen bit are practically walled in glass the windows are so big, and so I am pretty expose to any peering eye. Now I imagine I have a peeping Tom. Jerking over my movements he must know of my coming and goings, and most relevant how much I adored these shoes demonstrated each time I danced in my apparent fish tank naked as a wildchild with my little lovelies blending as if I really was 4 inches taller and had glided on tips like Guillem herself.
Of course I called the cops and they’re due any minute. By leaving all the rest of my stuff alone – camera- computer- TV- hot shit HD ready filming equipment- I’m willing to bet anything my new arch enemy is plotting a return. I want to set a trap, lie in wait, dare them to cross my sill again, catch them in the act and get my shoes back! But I can’t take the time off work for fear of being made redundant and apparently this isn’t what coppers actually do. Instead I’m told to expect them to turn up, take my details and go back to the office to bury it under a pile of other unsolved robberies.
Well screw that bitch, screw my unrequited lover, and oh yeah, fuck the police!
Peckham Streets
Whose streets? Lord Harris’ streets apparently. He OWNS Peckham, and he has his massive Carpetright parked on the Old Kent Road to prove it.
Now I’m not sure how this works cos I read somewhere that Lord Harris used to be a broke little kid like me. Somehow he makes some of cash selling carpets and bam! Decides he wants to run the streets? Peckham boy Harris trying to be a bad man! I know there’s just two of us on this blog right now but I promise you my gang will beat your gang, no probs!
The thing is the streets are not lined with your cheap, crusty carpets, and I know us residents have been paying plenty contributing to make sure Peckham is clean and basic needs of the community provided for. So how come even though people paying through the nose to buy a home here, eventually it goes back to the Harris freehold? In the words of a Jackson, ‘What have you done for me lately?’ These aren’t your streets, I don’t see your name on it. I do see monikers a plenty of my young neighbours detailed over walls, boards and posts.
Lord Harris of Peckham, my arse!
New contributor
I’d like to welcome Lillith Hoyden to the Whose Streets? family.
Lillith comes to us from sunny Peckham, where she enjoys such past times as ram-raiding, hanging on street corners and feeding the monkeys on the crack squirrels’ backs.
Welcome Lillith!
Now write some shit!
dopeheads beware
Do you remember years ago when there was all that momentum for legalising weed? I remember going to a massive demo at Clapham Common on May Day one year when I was a kiddie. The shit was wicked. The sun shone, I was with my buddies, we had a boombox playing Cypress Hill, people gave away free ten-draws, and damn, we got blazed till our eyes bled. May Day was Jay Day.
Why?
Man, who fucking knows. There’s been all that shit written in the press about how it causes psychosis, real-life features in the Guardian society pages about nice middle-class boys being transformed into reprobates by the demon weed. But I don’t really believe any of that shit about cannabis having got stronger. I got you high then, and it gets you high now – if anything I think that shit got weaker.
I’ve written before about some of the ideas about why we really have drug prohibition, or rather why some things are illegal and others aren’t. It’s all down to targeting certain social groups, a method of control through criminalisation. The drug problem is socially engineered to suppress certain communities.
Can you imagine what life would be like if the authorities managed to achieve total weed prohibition? Everyone needs an ecape – unless you’re some kind of tantric master who’s achieved transcendental enlightment, in which place you’re probably a cunt anyway; or even worse if you think God’s got you sorted, which is just unspeakable. Without weed the people would have to turn to alcohol, the country would spin back in time to the middle ages and we’d all die of plague. No shit. Or everyone would become so efficient and productive that eventually all jobs could be done by one person working one hour a day and the economy would collapse. And just think kids are bad enough these days, what with junk food, stabbings and all that hyper sped up grime rapping, imagine if they didn’t have weed to chill them out a bit? The teenage murder rate gonna go through the roof, especially as the next most popular drug is probably cocaine. You want your teenagers running round in a frenzy of cocaine abuse, or floating in a profound stupor? (Yeah, I meant that shit at the end, trying to be poetic innit)
Hello world!
Yeah, new name. Fuck it, I was sick of the last one and, to be honest, I stole the idea off a mate. This name is all my own work.
Whose Streets?
Our fuckin Streets!!
telly’s broken!
Expect a massive increase in blogging and general creative productivity!
Faaacking Cants!
Class consciousness is alive and well amongst our rulers – sorry, I mean elected representatives – in Parliament.
As if bailing out their mates in the financial sector wasn’t brazen enough, now ministers are poised to exempt MPs and peers from having to publish details of their expenses.
Next week’s move, announced yesterday by leader of the Commons Harriet ‘Starvin’ Harman, reverses hard fought victories won by journalists and campaigners to force MPs to reveal the details of their expenses under Freedom of Information rules.
Details to be disclosed included claims for office staffing and equipment, furnishings, maintenance, travel, rent and even mortgage payments.
With the introduction of the new rules, members of both houses of Parliament will now be the only paid public officials who will not have to disclose full details of their expenses.
According to reports, Harman pressed for the changes to the rules after being lobbied by the Tories’ backbench 1922 Committee and the parliamentary Labour Party Committee.
Although, in theory, MPs are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents, they have shown time and time again that they are first and foremost interested in looking after themselves as a class.
Recently, David Cameron had to abandon plans to force Tory front benchers to give up their second (and third, and fourth) jobs, after realising the potential for a fierce backlash from his own party.
Conservative MPs are, of course, notorious for cynically lining their own pockets through whatever means necessary – a habit that has, unfortunately, spread throughout the entire Commons in the last couple of decades.
One Tory claimed, unconvincingly, that he and his colleagues needed to moonlight from their day jobs as representatives of the people in order to maintain their ‘middle class’ lifestyles.
Also recently, the government reformed tax rules to make the cut off point for the top rate of tax just above the rate of pay for a cabinet minister.
Consider the idea that politicians represent anyone beyond themselves and those who can enrich them comprehensively refuted.
