Sorry about the lack of postage, been a bit distracted for a few days. To make it up to you though here's a post so big I had to cleave it in two!

It could be the climate of perpetual fear manufactured by the media; it could be a deep buried instinct warning of the dire consequences of our actions; it could be simple realism in the face of the suicidal stupidity of our leaders. Whatever it is, every so often I see something on the news and think to myself, this could be it, the beginning of the end.

Since the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced that Israel should be 'wiped off the face of the earth', I've been waiting, as a good friend aptly put it, 'for the world to explode'. Luckily it hasn't, so far, giving us time to have a think about things.

After the President's widely condemned speech there followed a great anti-Israel demonstration complete with caricatures and burning effigies which not only made exciting TV but added to the building apocalyptic fever. The thing is that, as BBCN24 admitted, such demonstrations are apparently pretty common in Iran.

At the Iranian Presidential elections the voters were faced with what appeared to be a stark choice. There was the diplomatic moderniser or the hardass traditionalist. It was assumed that even though the first guy was seen as a bit dirty, there was a growing desire for progress, with regards equality for women etc, and this would carry him into office.

Surprise then when the weird little bloke, initially dismissed as a psycho extremist by western commentators, wins the election. Could it be that there is more support for outward anger than there is for inward progress in Iran?

I don't know, but this simple question raises some more interesting ones. For example, the President's speech drew a great deal of condemnation but if he was not simply sounding off, but rather voicing an opinion widely held among his people, us just telling him he's wrong is pretty futile. Speaking for his people is, after all, his job, though he could be a bit more diplomatic!

It seems to me that if a whole country of people are that pissed off at another whole country of people no number of threats or sanctions will resolve the situation. Understanding why all these people are so pissed off is surely job one. Not being in a position to be able to ask them all directly we just have to keep our eyes open and above all, think.

I saw a news story the other day that lead me to a relevant example here. The story was about a Palestinian suicide bombing in Israel. Now I know Palestine isn't Iran but the fact that the specific anti-Israel demo mentioned above was an annual thing done to show solidarity with the Palestinians shows that there is sympathy between the two.

While telling the story of the suicide bombing the reporter mentioned that it was thought to be in retaliation for earlier Israeli military action which in turn was in retaliation for a Palestinian missile attack. What first occurred to me was that the Israeli military action had not been a news story, or certainly not as much of one. Were the media just outright biased towards Israel?

It then occurred that the missile attack had not been a story, or a big one, either. I finally realised that this story was 'a story' because it featured a suicide bomber. Our news media now has such a hard-on for this technique, because it catches people's eyes and ears so sharply, that it will always be reported more than conventional military means.

Because only the Palestinians, generally, use suicide bombs, their acts of aggression will always be given more coverage. Clearly then, without relation to religion or politics, media coverage is going to be biased towards Israel. If I identified with the Palestinians to the degree that many Iranians do i can see that this kind of thing would piss me off.

I've just finished reading George Orwell's 'Down And Out In Paris And London', which is pure gold by the way. In his closing Orwell makes some typically insightful comments about poverty and our attitudes toward it.

He considers why mainstream society is so repulsed by the tramp, because the tramp is a parasite, answers conventional wisdom, he does not work. Through his own experiences however, Orwell testifies that the life of a tramp involves a great deal of physical effort, that a great deal of hard labour goes into staying alive. So perhaps it is not so much that the tramp does not work, rather that he works but does not produce anything.

Orwell continues to argue however, that many respectable people are paid good salaries yet, in reality, produce nothing. He concludes that the tramp is despised in fact because he earns so little and that, should living the life of a tramp suddenly become a highly paid job, vagrancy would correspondingly become entirely respectable.

It is not so much what the tramp does, but rather how he does it. With this in mind I reflected on my suicide bomber observation above and noticed some parallels. It is almost as if there is something inherently more respectable about killing people with very expensive military hardware than with cheap homemade bombs.

Now such a stomach turning double standard pisses me off but is, I'm sure, is infinitely more infuriating to those aforementioned on the streets of Iran. It's funny but I can almost hear the APOLOGIST brand sizzling in the background, how dare I sit here and justify terrorism huh? Well before the gimp has his fun let me tell you a story.

Working from home and to no particular schedule it's easy to lose track of the days and so TV shows that appear strictly once each week on the same day can be a godsend. For example, I know it's Sunday if, when I turn to BBC Parliament, I find myself watching the US C-SPAN network, in particular their international phone in show.

Around the time that the EU was pondering whether to sell arms to China earlier this year, I saw one of these phone ins and remember two callers in particular. The first was a grizzled old man from the US who had rung up to complain about Jews.

The US was of course deeply opposed to the EU selling arms to China but what had really got on this guy's tits was that, 'the Jews', were selling US military hardware to China behind the US's back. He worked himself into the predictable bigoted, self righteous frenzy before ringing off and leaving presenter, guest and audience alike saying in unison, 'anyway...'

The next caller was calm and polite middle aged woman, also from the US. Her concerns related to three newspaper articles which she cited as she went. These pieces from the national press reported that Israel had been selling arms to China. The caller expressed her concern that such a close ally of the US should be acting so contrary to US interests and wondered why the US was kicking off with the EU but staying quiet about Israel.

The thing is that both callers were saying pretty much the same thing. The issue, as shown by the second caller, was nothing to do with religion but rather international diplomacy. The first caller was basically right in the point he was trying to make but because he could only do it with all the fascist bells and whistles attached he was ignored.

My point here is that just because someone is a raving bigot doesn't mean there is absolutely no truth to anything they say and, subsequently, it is possible to agree with them on particular points without selling your soul to Satan and getting a swastika tattooed on your face.

I do not, for a second, condone what the President of Iran suggested, and I think it was ill advised and entirely unnecessary. This said however, it is not in anyone's interests to dismiss his and his people's concerns and grievances outright just because he's a prat.

Unfortunately for all of us this seems to be exactly what our leaders are doing and I see the climate surrounding this situation as a perfect example of something much bigger and much more sinister. A tendency towards simplicity and convenience at the expense of human life; a tendancy that, I suspect just like media bias for Israel as described above, has nothing to do with religion or politics. It is into this uncomfortable tangle of ideas that this post veers next...

It occurred to me the other day that should I get an interview in the near future I may be asked this question, given that my CV gives my current occupation as Freelance Writer. The thing is that the project I’ve spent most time on recently, and the one I am happiest with, is this blog and I’m just not convinced that drug fuelled posts about politics and the fourth dimension are going to win over any potential employers.

Now some among you may be thinking that this post is a bit of a cop out, an easy way for me to avoid writing a proper full length post. Well to you I would say what God said to Jesus, ‘just because you’re right doesn’t mean someone won’t nail you to a tree.’ Enjoy

Unfortunately I've had to remove this story from the site for copyright reasons, basically someone wants to publish it so I have to give them exclusivity. Hope those who read it for free liked it, the rest of you can catch it in paperback

I can't write.

This is not some surprising admission of secret illiteracy on my part but rather it refers to my supposed current profession. I had been working on a teen fantasy, as that's where publishers' interest seems to be focussed at the moment. Despite trying to make the thing as subtly subversive as possible, I still feel like a bit of a whore for working under such motivation.

Initially I tried to pretend that these uneasy feelings were the root of my apparent loss of literary capability and so turned my attention back to a more comfortable project, one that is really just for the enjoyment of story-telling rather than trying to make any great point.

No change, the paralysis remained and remained still as I went through the numerous and varied other unfinished works so carefully filed about me. Now the rot has reached even here, as today I find myself able to find neither issue to explore, nor point nor pun to make. I find the idea of writing about not being able to write uncomfortably self indulgent but as the other choice is not to write anything at all, fuck it.

I am gripped by it now, this being perhaps the twentieth sentence I have written here having deleted the others almost instantly. The dreaded, 'block,' serves not only to stop any work being done, but also ensures what little can be produced is so forced as to be only the most vapid, pretentious and, above all, cliched shash.

If to understand something is halfway to overcoming it then perhaps it is worthwhile, for me anyway, to note that this blockage is motivational rather than creative. Maddeningly, my flow of abstract ideas generally runs faster and brighter under such circumstances, it's pinning the thing to the page that causes the trouble.

For example, when cursing the seemingly insurmountable potential of all this unfinished work the other night, I was struck by an idea for a play, something I had never really considered before. It had occurred to me a few months back but hadn't seem to go anywhere at the time. Suddenly the thing grew legs and off we went.

A few sides of notes as I felt my way through it and all that was left was to actually start drafting it, bang, there's that block again. Gripped by a strangely apathetic frustration, I feel like my bed is on fire, with me in it, but I'm just too tired to put it out.

I've been staring at the arse end of that paragraph for ages now, unsure how to continue, let's just jump to something else. When my GP diagnosed my depression, (some genetic thing to do with brain chemistry apparently, ) it answered a lot of questions but posed a particularly difficult new one.

I'm never sure whether writing makes me happy or being happy makes me write but there's definitely some connection, maybe it's both. When I'm up and working I feel better about things, stronger and more able to continue established projects. The problem is that when I'm down, like now, my abstract and creative thought seems so much clearer, the focus sharper and this is when the ideas appear.

I was supposed to go back to the doctor's one week after my first appointment to arrange starting meds and counselling, that was eight months ago. The thing is, I realise, if there were a big red button on my desk right now that would instantly ‘cure’ my depression, I would be hesitant to push it, and in fact I probably wouldn’t.

Giving this thing in me a name really did help but all it’s done is reinforce my gut feeling that it’s an integral part of me, and that if I were to lose it I would become someone else and lose those ideas. This said, things really suck at the moment and while I do want to keep this part of myself, I can’t live forever at it’s mercy.

To this end I’ve made myself volunteer to work on the Leeds International Film Festival. I’ll see some films for free, meet some new people and get out of this damn house. In fact such is my effort, I’ve even applied for some day jobs with the council!

Well there, managed to produce some kind of post anyway, I’m going to go back to staring at half filled pages and cursing myself for a bit before retiring to the XBOX in disgust. Anyone in the Leeds area should definitely check out the Film Festival which starts next month. There’s a wide range of great stuff on and if you’re really lucky it might be me who tears your ticket!

Just got the new issue of Adbusters and, as usual, came across something interesting and unusual almost right away. For those unfamiliar with the title, Adbusters is the self styled ‘Journal of the Mental Environment’ and if you appreciate the themes regularly explored here you might want to check it out.(1)

Anyway, the minor piece that caught my eye was describing a group started in Spain a few years back, called Yomango(2), (Spanish for, ‘I steal’.) The group specialises in, ‘promoting .. shoplifting as a form of disobedience and direct action against multinational corporations,’ and has now franchises in Argentina and Germany among others.

A little more creativity goes into Yomango ‘actions’ than might at first be assumed, such as a mob looting a clothes store only to the next day return modelling the stolen garments as part of an impromptu fashion show. Brave, funny even, but at the end of the day it’s still theft, isn’t it?

Herein lies a dark and complex argument, the mere conception of which threatens to fray at the edges of civilised society. We get very excited about ethics, seeing them almost as magic rites that keep barbarism at bay. Theft is wrong, we say, because the weak and innocent are as entitled to own things without fear of robbery as the rest of us. To question such a fundamental tenet? That way lies chaos.

The only problem with this is that ethics are abstract forms, their practical applications however, are entirely our own work and are thereby inherently vulnerable to our own flaws. Our rules become, ‘the rules’ and, if we’re not careful, we eventually convince ourselves that no other forms of society are possible, there is only right and wrong, ie. us and them.

My own take on this is conveniently fence-sitting in nature: I’m just very wary of judging someone who is acting amid a situation I have no experience of. We form our ideas of how things should work based on the world around us right? Well with the quality and content of human life being as unimaginably varied as it is, the ‘world around’ each individual can appear wildly different.

So stuff it, ‘each to their own’ yeah? When in Rome etc. Well maybe not. There’s been one ongoing news story recently that I can’t seem to make my peace with. Saddam Hussein has finally come to trial and, although honest effort is being made to ensure the trial itself is fair, there is little doubt anywhere about the outcome.

Neither does there appear to be any doubt about the subsequent penalty, execution. Now capital punishment is part of Iraqi law and so, while I disagree with it, I accept that it’s up to them how they run their society. Where I begin to feel uncomfortable is the fact that we are currently sacrificing our children to fight a war to defend an institution that condones a practice we consider too uncivilised to use ourselves.

This is the problem, I suppose, when we entangle ourselves so completely in another nation’s sovereignty. While in one breath we’ll apply our moral rules against theft to dismiss Yomango’s stunts, while in the next we’ll somehow forget our views on state sanctioned murder and aid an execution.

Now it can be argued that Yomango break the law and this is the difference, but such an argument assumes that the law is itself the ethic. Throughout history there have been laws that have violated ethical codes we now consider sacrosanct.

It’s also worth remembering that the US faces no such moral dilemma as they joyfully murder prison inmates on a regular basis. Besides causing me to wonder exactly whose values we are spreading here, the number of innocent people executed by the US justice system serves only to reinforce caution at relying so completely on the written law for moral guidance.

It’s continual enigma, wrestled with by politicians and philosophers alike: how can right and wrong be so endlessly difficult to ultimately define when every single one of us instinctively knows the difference? I don’t see our super rich, mass murdering leaders resolving this one any time soon, do you?

footnotes

(1) check out the various facets of the Adbusters movement @ www.adbusters.org

(2) a Yomango resource site:
http://www.sindominio.net/lasagencias/yomango/en/index.php
and a mainstream article on Yomango: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68609,00.html?tw=wn_2culthead
(you‘ll have to cut and paste this one as it has commas in it, sorry)

What exactly is the point of this little tradition I developed here? I've never claimed to know what was in HST's mind when he coined the phrase but instead began to compile this League Of Swine, at least partly, as a way to remember him often.

I have to hold my hands up also to being driven, to another extent, by the lowest-common-denominator-entertainment-style thrills of just slagging people off for the fun of it. There is a third reason though, and I like to think of it as being the dominant one.

I find I am unable to deliver a straight and solid definition of Swinery and that, each week as I look out for a name to add to the list, I am forced to work on instinct. The winner of the week is usually the one that has caused me to shout at the TV most vehemently, ie. the ones that provoke the greatest initial reaction.

Every bearer of the bacon crown wears it for distinct reasons of their own and are not necessarily guilty of their co-Swine's crimes. Rather than collecting the names of uniform bastards I prefer to think of each member of the League as providing yet another angle of Swinery, adding another facet to the overall form.

To understand the Swine is to identify that in our everyday selves which we would be better off without. For example, the urge to indulge in petty and irresponsible ego trips at the grievous expense of society as demonstrated by this week's Swine, 'Wearside Jack'.

When my mates and I were looking at houses up in the Woodhouse area of Leeds a few years ago, one landlord drove us up there to show his house but gave us a bit if a sight seeing tour on the way. He was pointing out shops and pubs etc but only one landmark stuck in my mind.

Turning onto an ordinary looking street he pointed towards an ordinary looking garden and said, "See that garden? That's where they found the Yorkshire Ripper's last victim." For me this gruesome tour turned the Ripper into a real guy, rather than just a photo

For whatever reason, and frankly who gives cares, Wearside Jack decided to masquerade as the Ripper, sending taunting tape recordings to the Police and leading them on a wild goose chase. In the meantime the real Ripper was released and went on to kill three more women. What really infuriated me here was just how utterly unnecessary it all was, so pointless and yet so costly.

There is a perpetual argument about the balance between individual freedom and social responsibility, just exactly how much of a duty do you have to those around you? The idea that people should put their society before themselves is often dismissed as dangerous, Communist bullshit, but what's the alternative?

So cheers Jack, you've given us a point on the other end of scale that all will agree can be marked, 'too far', you are in fact a benchmark bastard. You are also this week's Swine Of The Week, dickhead.

PS

A Mr. John Humble has been arrested and charged for the hoax but is, of course, innocent until proven guilty at his forthcoming trial. This post criticises the hoaxer, whoever he was.

So the long, long awaited Conservative Party leadership contest is finally underway and soon to be resolved. Those behind the scenes have done a pretty good job in selling this thing to the media as a big deal, a turning point for the party etc. but somehow I have managed to remain immune from the enthusiasm. To me they still seem stuck in the shadow of a stale cloud, a party gathering dust while the world moves on.

Now don't get me wrong, growing up in the North of England in the 80's instilled a lifelong aversion to the Tories in me, but a lack of strong opposition in the Commons does nobody any good. All that happens is that the government can run wild with whatever wet dream schemes they come up with, sound familiar?

I've written before about the inherent dichotomy currently faced by the Tories, be themselves and lose elections or change with the times and betray their roots. The thing is, this is nothing new and worryingly , as I've also said before, this was a similar position from which sprang both Thatcherism, (read as New Conservatism,) and New Labour.

This leads me rather neatly into the first of a list of examples that illustrate the single most defining characteristic of this leadership contest so far: contradiction. Several candidates have, as they desperately try to balance their modernising policies against tradition, invoked the history of the party and sold themselves as being the ones to continue the legacy.

The contradiction here is the assumption that the Tories are still the old 'party of Churchill' etc. Thatcher redefined the Conservatives just as Blair has redefined Labour. Both can claim some rough, overall ideological continuity but, in reality, the reinventions have been driven by the desire to be elected more than to further any cause or moral code.

Let's look to the candidates themselves. Ken Clarke, first to go. Contradiction? This 'historical' contest has been billed as the key to reconnecting the Party with the public. Of the four remaining mean, after Rifkin bowed out almost immediately, Clarke was by far the most likeable and appeared furthest from the 'sleazy, Archer, Hamilton Tory,' image that has so damaged them.

But hey, the Conservative Party decided that letting its public members make these decisions was the wrong way to go, the MPs are to be trusted and it is not our place to question their wisdom. Anyway, the remaining three, so soon to be two, are rife with contradiction.

David Davies is probably feeling pretty sick right now but he has no-one to blame but himself. It was surely abundantly clear to everyone that he had peaked too early, his high point being before the party conference, David what were you thinking? Political enthusiasm has a lifespan both fragile and limited meaning that timing is everything.

Davies sold himself, successful at first, as being the perfect balance. He was seen as a hawk, a hard man, and yet having the common touch. Telling everyone who'd listen that he grew up on a council estate as the son of a single mother, he was the golden boy. Contradiction? The main reason his campaign has collapsed, besides his premature climax, is that he has been shoved into the slot of the 'right wing candidate' meaning he has to share votes with Liam Fox.

So that's three contradictions but we're going to have to abandon the magic of three for today as I've still got plenty to say I'm afraid. Now the 'left wing candidate', David Cameron, has, to be fair, played an absolute blinder. His own campaign laid back at first, happy enough to be ignored as an outside chance and keep his head down. This meant that conference expectations were lower, giving him an opportunity to pleasantly surprise delegates.

A minor, and possibly intentional, scandal flared up late enough for him to dominate the coverage right up to the actual voting but early enough for him to ride it out and earn people's sympathy and respect. With Clarke gone, Cameron is now seen as the only real choice for the 'left wing' of the party while Davis is left to fight over votes with Liam Fox.

Contradiction? Cameron appears to be seen as 'left wing' mainly because of his age. Davies' working class background actually does set him apart from the traditional Conservative leaders. Cameron went to Eton and is probably, aside from his age, the closest to the dreaded Conservative cliché of the lot!

Just so that I don't have to keep using these bastard apostrophes let's tackle this business of 'left' and 'right'.
Obviously there is a spectrum of political opinion within any party, the simplistic stereotype says that the right tend to defend tradition while the left preach modernisation.

Contradiction? The left to right spectrum within the Conservative party accounts for a pretty narrow centre-right band of the overall spectrum. The difference between the furthest left and right within a party is not necessarily significant in the grand scheme of things.

Beyond this however, in order to have any hope of being elected to lead the party the candidate must have a pretty wide appeal, ie. he, (I don't see any female candidates, do you?) cannot be from the fringes of the party and so the difference between those actually running is even smaller still.

There's the way in which these inappropriate titles have been earned. The background card has failed for Davis and been politely ignored for Cameron while manner and appearance seem to have played a major role. Wasn't there supposed to be something else? That's right, policy.

Contradiction? This was the contest supposed to reconnect the Conservatives with the people and for all that the MPs choose the final two, it's still the public party members that make the ultimate choice. This being the case, why is it that the only people with any real idea about what these guys would actually do if given power over party or even country are other MPs and journalists?

The answer is simple, no-one has spoken about policy. Is this because their policies are crap? Maybe it's because Labour have already used most of them or perhaps it's just to hide the fact that there's really no great difference between the candidates. Whatever the reason, those who will actually make this decision have been denied the opportunity to find out.

Contradiction? The candidate's campaigns are so sensitive to the tides of opinion that they are probably less likely to make any bold, outright statements of opinion or intent during the contest than at any other time. So ok, you get it, the Conservative Party, and its leadership, is swamped under a mess of conflict and hard decisions, I'll stop.

I'll close with a warning however, not to write off the Conservative Party just yet. I believe that this party, as we know it, will never hold power again. I also believe, however, that it is entirely possible for someone to take advantage of Labour's mistakes and reinvent the party in their own image, again. I don't see that happening with any of the guys mentioned here, (I'm still fearfully awaiting the return of Portillo,) but I do see it happening one day and it's not a rosy view.

PS
Just found out that Cameron came top followed by Davies leaving Fox out of the running. These two will go to the public as it were, and no doubt the contest will be billed as prog vs trad, left vs right, young vs old and various other contradictory notions.

We all tend to use words like possible and impossible pretty regularly in every day life, despite the great weight of implied consequence attached to each. The are no certainties in our world and yet we talk in absolutes all the time, perhaps because it makes us feel safe to do so.

Now the insistence that something apparently impossible can indeed be achieved is often seen as a noble, and perhaps defining, facet of the human spirit. This is more likely in, but strangely not limited to, situations where the insistent are eventually proved right.

If such blind determination is indeed the pride of humanity then surely acceptance of the impossible, surrender to circumstance, is humanity's shame. Watching the utterly tragic events unfold in the Kashmir region on my TV I found myself struggling with these very concepts.

First off I saw some guy being interviewed who, quite matter-of-factly, told the BBC reporter that his parents, wife, siblings and children had all died in the earthquake. I was aghast and utterly unable to grasp this guy's situation. How could anyone possibly continue to function in the aftermath of such events? Surely grief alone would just choke the life out of you, you'd just lay down and stop living.

But no, apparently not. Every single day people face situations that, from the outside, appear impossible to overcome, and yet they just get up and keep going. They make the impossible possible before our eyes, not through any great noble pioneering urge but as a simple act of survival and it just blows my safe, comfortable mind.

The other example I saw that infuriated as well as saddened me concerned a river. Before the earthquake people lived and worked on both sides of this river, connected by a single bridge. The quake destroyed the bridge with everything else leaving hundreds of people stranded across the water.

At the time of the report vital supplies could only be ferried across the water in the single small boat that happened to be available, (donated and piloted by an 'Islamic extremist' according BBCN24, not as evil as we thought hey?) Needless to say this was hampering the aid effort significantly.

Now the Red Cross and Crescent are in there, along with the relevant UN agencies, and these are surely the professionals, those to whom dealing with disaster is a daily job. I'm quite prepared to believe that the relief agencies are doing their best so if they're not doing something it must be because it's impossible for them to do it. My outrage stemmed from the fact that getting supplies over that river in sufficient volume is certainly not impossible, despite appearances on the ground.

Imagine, as I did, that the British military were in a conflict situation and needed to get vital supplies across a river. Forget for the moment that we spend a whole shed load of our taxes on helicopters, something currently sorely lacking in the quake hit area, to overcome such a problem. What would happen? The army would just build a fucking bridge, probably in a few short hours too. Job done.

Now how can this be? That the exact same thing is easily 'possible' when the aim is to conquer and kill, yet sadly 'impossible' when lives need to be saved? In comes the politics, defining possibilities in terms of financial and diplomatic cost. They claim realism as their justification and dismiss the urge to , 'just get on with it,' as simplistic and naive.

Yet again we return to the issue of agenda setting, of letting other people make distinctions and decisions for us. The fact is, and this is a fact, the human race has the both technology and the sustainable resources to feed, clothe and house every single one of us forever. In cold physical terms, this is 'possible'. Only our attitudes redefine this as an 'impossible' task.

Of course if something is impossible then there is no failure and therefore no responsibility. The thing is that when tiny children are having to undergo surgery without anaesthetic and sleep outside, the risk to some suit's career suddenly seems less significant. It would appear that, for the good of people everywhere, our global society and requires fundamental changes to both its priorities and systems, but of course such a revolutionary shift would be 'impossible'...

There's something different about this post, something special. Now it may appear the same as all the rest, though perhaps slightly more cryptic and slightly less interesting, and this is because it's not the content itself that's special but rather its position.

The year 2000 had no physical significance yet those zeroes got us all very excited and this, my 100th post, is much the same, albeit to a lesser degree. There is no suggestion, for example, that the publishing of this post will cause all the computers in the world to crash and the world to end, (no, I'm saving that post for another time )

Looking back to my very first post on here I found my opening gambit to be worryingly prophetic:

"Having completed the housework, the DIY tasks and fed the cat I'm left with nothing to do but actually work on my novel, except, no! A blog! What a brilliant way to avoid doing any real work while feeling like doing something worthwhile!"

To be honest I haven't written anything besides this blog and the other since I broke my hand but I have sworn to both my girlfriend and mate that this week things are going to change. If only someone out there was prepared to pay me large amounts of cash for writing this bollocks I'd be sorted, but there's no-one beating down my door so I guess I just have to pull my finger out and write some other stuff too.

Producing this blog has done me good by providing a vent and ensuring that I've at least written something most days. By far the best thing about it, however, is you guys. I could have written all this stuff down in a book and kept it in a drawer but sharing and listening is far more fun so I just want to say thanks

As I suggested above, the number doesn't really mean anything but we just seem to have an inbuilt thing about zeroes. Anyway this is surely as good a time as any to try and look at this thing in its entirety, to get a feel for what this has become. With this in mind I had a flick back through the previous posts and came up with the following summary, the distilled essence of vftcs if you will, a hundred words for a hundred posts:

window, identity, no?, Tories, Trisha, greed, Sin, writing, drugs, using, history, today, costs, traffic, agriculture, US, debt, evil, god, depressed, cash, communication, inspiration, stimulation, peace, supermarkets, expectations, need, environment, work, sport, ignorance, caterpillars, progress, protest, Bush, London, solidarity, Leeds, suicide, terror, excuses, nature, culture, technology, poetry, nazis, tolerance, terrorism, diplomacy, Blair, fascism, apocalypse, Islam, ASS, striking, losers, selection, comment, truth, Swine, advertising, Gourmet, 1984, numbers, Swine, defence, Great Britain, common, justice, Swine, violence, dimensions, Swine, doings, action, Night, Dawn, Day, law, Swine, economics, messages, Swine, response, blogs, Turkey, Japan, politics, expectation, Swine, ethics, smoke, propaganda, prejudice, Swine, reasons, chickens, list,

A big mess of random words that only hints towards some kind of meaning? I'd say that sums it up perfectly

Are you scared? As you read this flocks of dirty foreign wild fowl could be wheezing their way towards our clean and noble lands and at any second their diseased corpses may begin to fall from the air, scattering mysterious eastern death.

That's a pretty grim picture for anyone to have to deal with, let alone someone who knows that if their bus journey doesn't end in explosive death then the fumes from a successful journey will cause a great an terrible flood.

The romantic past fears of German invasion, and even the nihilist terror of sudden nuclear destruction, seem somehow tame compared to the various swords currently hanging over our head. The fashion of fear has returned to the dramatic, the spectacular and the downright biblical.

We no longer look to the skies, however, for solace or protection, but instead place our faith in technology to save us from all ills. The, apparently, forthcoming avian flu pandemic, for example, is to be met head on by the brave and wonderful drugs currently being stockpiled by governments around the world.

It's worth remembering that amid this climate of impending doom, things do not look so glum for everyone. The one pharmaceutical company that holds the patent for the avian flu jab is having a pretty good time at the moment and you can't blame them.

Imagine being in a business where you have the monopoly over saving people's lives, talk about a captive market. The thing doesn't even need to work as, chances are, it'll never be used, but no government can take the risk of appearing unprepared and so they're buying stacks of the stuff. You'd be laughing all the way to the bank.

There's much to be said on the issue of a 'climate of fear', and one strong, if simplistic, argument is that we all need to chill the fuck out. Living in fear helps no-one but the minority who've learned to profit from such a situation. Perpetual tension destroys our communities and encourages reactionary and impractical lawmaking.

In principle I'd agree with this but with one caveat, there is plenty to be scared of. Now this isn't necessarily as contradictory as it may first appear. While I do agree that a panic over avian flu is entirely counterproductive I have to recognise that, at any time, a virus really could randomly mutate into something new and decimate mankind.

Equally we could all awake tomorrow to be told that a decent sized asteroid is on an unfortunate course. That'd be it, end of, game over. The fact is that life is fragile and we exist only at the whim of a variety of natural forces. This said, there is nothing we can do about any of these things and so getting stressed about them is a waste of time.

Recognising our own vulnerability is to recognise that we are just another part of the great system, no more special or ordinary than anything else. It also reminds us of the value of life itself and the simple pleasures that come with each day.

For a long, long time we have tried to wrap ourselves in an illusion of safety, convincing ourselves that we are special and therefore less at risk. Believing ourselves to be comfortable and secure seems to have made us forget the importance of simple things and has taught us to expect lives free from threat or pain as a god given standard.

Now it is not in the interests of anyone seeking power, be it political or economic, to remind us of their own limitations in keeping us safe. Far better that we be terrified of things they can do something about, far better for them anyway. I guess what this really comes down to is not, to fear or not to fear, but rather, who's setting the agenda.

So yes, I may well be proved wrong and die horribly of apocalyptic chicken disease, but I'm much more likely to be knocked down in the street by a car. I don't know about you but I've never woken up in a cold sweat, plagued by stalking visions of BMWs, I just look both ways when I cross the street and trust myself.

Well it's soon to be that time of year again when the international film festival comes to Leeds and I, through a chronic lack of funds, organisation and self motivation, usually miss most of the interesting sounding films. This year is to be different however, as I finally managed to get my shit together and volunteer to work on the festival.

Don't know exactly what I'll be doing yet but hopefully I'll not only be able to see most of the films I want to for free but also get out of this damn house and meet some new people. There was an early event last night which was free, quite interesting and, of course, inspired me to draw some parallels with utterly unconnected issues.

The event was a screening of some of, 'the best of UK shorts,' and some of them were very good. The first film was a single idea done very simply that worked very well. A couple of the others also seemed to be there to make a single point and yet, somehow, tangled themselves up in 'art' and ended up somewhat shapeless, the point smothered and lost.

Others had something to show rather than something to say and focussed on the image or the situation, more an attempt to convey atmosphere and experience than to communicate a specific notion. Again there was a variety in quality with some hitting the spot and others remaining frustratingly vague.

Short films share much with short stories and the quality of the final product depends on much the same things too. I think our host last night may have made this point in introducing one of the films but as the screening took place in the back of a pub on campus, on a Friday night, I couldn't hear much of anything so I can't say for sure.

Anyway the point is the reason for making the film, for writing the story. Many shorts are produced as people practice their craft in preparation for a full length piece. This is a perfectly valid learning method but ultimately fails to do the genre justice.

The difference between a short film or story to a feature film or novel is greater than simply duration. In a short every shot or line must serve a purpose to justify its presence. The skill of being able to successfully convey the intended message or feeling in such a minimal amount of time should not be underestimated.

The best example of this I can think of is 'Polaris' by HP Lovecraft which is, to my mind, the greatest short story ever written. Its greatness lies in the fact that it is ridiculously short, even for a short story, and yet somehow manages not only to take the reader on significant journey but also carries all the weight of a longer tale.

It seemed entirely plausible, from watching them, that the stronger shorts from last night were those made as shorts, as opposed for practice or experiment. So why we do something decides how well we do it, that’s no great revelation is it? It is worth remembering though, especially when your maxim for life, like me, is ‘question everything’.

Politics is one arena were this idea demonstrates itself most brutally. When introducing our seventh Swine Of The Week I mentioned the apparent lack of ability shown by the US when installing new foreign leaders for, so they claim, the good of foreign peoples. This was of course later qualified with the point that they’re crap at what they claim to be doing but probably rather good at what they’re really doing.

So when a genre of communication is used for its intended reasons and with a clear vision of the message or feeling to be conveyed, something wonderful can be created. When the genre is misused and the root ideas are either unclear or require concealment, we are left with confusion, frustration and disappointment. Sound familiar?

My good friend Murray left a comment the other day about a website where he'd been making an nuisance of himself. www.faithfreedom.org is an anti-Islamic website and forum based around the fundamentally floored assumption that the historical accuracy of a religion's sacred text is the sole measure of its nature and worth.

The guy ignores point blank the wildly diverse, and even opposing, strands of Christianity, for example, who all take their lead from more or less the same Bible. Apparently not only is Islam a religion of hatred and violence, but all Muslims secretly know this and just pretend disagree when in the presence of outsiders. Foil helmet anyone?

Murray left some links with his comment to particularly interesting posts on the forum but they no longer work as the whole thing seems to have recently been taken offline for 'routine maintenance' or something similar.

Yes there certainly are some crazy people out there on the old internet and a few of them got themselves in the news this week. Apparently suicide chat rooms are the latest thing, particularly in Japan, land of the rampant fad. According to the BBC suicidal people use these chat rooms to talk to like other like-minded people and discuss techniques.

The story has reignited calls for internet regulation and the introduction of measured censorship. I must admit that as I read the introduction to the faithfreedom site I did feel a little offended, mostly because the guy seems to have put so much effort into such a negative project.

Surely if regulation were to limit or prohibit sites like his, and those suicide sites thereby saving lives, it would be a good thing. Well no, I don't think so. I think the guy at faithfreedom is doing us all a service. The more I read of his theories the more laughable they became, all he manages to do is demonstrate how ill founded his beliefs are.

As for the 'suicide rooms', isn't the problem that these people are suicidal in the first place? The reasons behind people feeling that way would surely still be there even if we took the net offline altogether, the only difference being that they'd be even more isolated.

It seems to me that the internet is humanity in its purest form, a vast babble of voices, each unique, forming a whole greater than the sum of the parts. Regulation would serve only to damage this while providing no real benefit, and my other blog would probably get pulled. (1)

So this week's Swine are wannabe internet censors. Your refusal to acknowledge the significance of premeditation keeps you from seeing the bigger problems or actually helping anyone. Ignorance does not keep people safe.

footnote

(1) Things like child porn and fraud are, quite rightly, illegal whether you do them online or not. Internet regulation would serve only to curb expression.

Had an odd and uncomfortable experience the other day. I was walking home from the city just making my way along the side of the park just up the road. The road itself was busy but the pavement was not and I was ambling along, lost in thought as usual when I noticed a police car drive past.

Nothing too unusual there but, by the time I'd reached the edge of the park, three more police cars had passed me, two in each direction. It occurred to me then that maybe it was the same car circling back and forth. It was at this point that, just for a moment, a horrible thought gripped me.

Maybe they were following me home to grab me because of my other blog. Now anyone who knows what's been going down in this area of Leeds recently will appreciate why there was a sudden increase in police visibility.

A few days back a body was found in a bin a couple of streets over from here. Not long after that another guy was shot a little further up the way, revenge for the body in the bin according to rumour. So clearly my moment of panic was stupid and utterly irrational, but then it's surprising how easily the stupid and irrational can take hold of us if we're not careful.

Are you racist? Most people would answer no, and pretty quickly too not wanting to give the impression that it needs to be thought about. All questions should be thought about though so let's break with etiquette and have a look.

Several things contribute to the true answer of the question above, firstly upbringing. I was raised to see all people, regardless of ethnicity, sexuality or socio-economic background, as being equally worthy of respect. Does this mean that I am automatically a fully paid up none racist? No.

I was also raised an Anglican but, after giving it both a great deal of thought and an enthusiastic try, I rejected this part of the lifestyle I was raised in. Even with the most solid childhood foundations, fundamental ideals can still fall apart under scrutiny.

The 'isms', or rather the aversion to them, however stood their ground. I thought about it and couldn't find any reason to break away from what I had been taught as a child, in fact my own thoughts reinforced what i had been taught. For example, skin colour, in my opinion, is no more valid a distinguishing factor among people than height.

Imagine if you could stand the whole human race in a line in order of colour, with the very darkest skinned human at one end and the lightest at the other. The categories that appear on forms would not manifest themselves in this line up, instead you would see a continual and smooth spectrum and no definite lines could be drawn to separate one 'group' from another. (1)

So with upbringing and reasoned logic firmly on the right side of public opinion, surely I can answer that damn question above firmly and confidently. Well, no, again. There is, at least, one more thing to be considered.

My girlfriend got in the other night having been hassled by some young lads on her way home. Now as it happens, these lads were Asian and the few other times she's ever had any trouble while out and about the perpetrators were also Asian. She told me she was concerned because she was starting to find that she felt intimidated when she saw groups of young Asian men and because she, 'didn't want to think like that.'

The thing is, despite the qualifying factors outlined above, I'm exactly the same, albeit in the opposite way. I have only been insulted and assaulted by white guys, be it youths or men, public or police. My experiences have bred just the same kind of aversion as my girlfriend, just towards different people. So now, are we racists?

The temptation is, I suppose, to sympathise with our respective situations and thereby justify sparing us the punishment of the label. I'm still not quite convinced I that can claim the moral high ground and declare myself non-racist however as the notion itself is, to me, screaming out to be looked at harder.

Political correctness was part of a shift in our society after which racism was no longer acceptable, and that in itself is certainly a good thing, the problem is that it left nothing else behind. Certain words and attitudes were rightly outlawed but no note was taken of the ignorance through which the words and attitudes came to be in the first place.

That ignorance remains, driven underground and frustrated. Instead of talking about how to dealing with prejudices we were simply told that it was not acceptable to have them. Ricky Gervais's recent series Extras, which I thought was fantastic, portrayed some truly wonderful social horror stories.

Whether it was stumbling about over homosexuality at the BBC, or digging the hole of racism with Samuel L Jackson, the picture was of someone desperately trying to play a game to which they don't know all the rules. The fear of inadvertently crossing the line out of warm, acceptable society becomes far more important than the 'crimes' that would put you over.

This twisting of equality into just another kind of conformity has also led to a bizarre kind of racist-non-racism, where instead of treating all people like people, we treat all people like white people. The idea that it's somehow racist to acknowledge or mention someone's colour comes back down to ignorance again: I don't how to handle this so I'll pretend it's not happening.

In the end I reassured both my girlfriend and myself with the following: You can't control how you react to something so there's no benefit to anyone in beating yourself up over it. What counts is how you act in response. Everyone has prejudices, we just have to recognise them as such so as not to rely on them.

Now generally, race doesn't really occur to me consciously when I'm interacting with people but, this in itself can potentially cause problems. A few months back I had a weird afternoon involving a lost child, two mosques and a whole load of police in body armour. I'll not go into it all now, I've described the whole thing in detail in an earlier post.

The salient episode came later when I visited my local shop. West Yorkshire Police had closed off the area directly around the mosque near here. There were swarms of them, all tooled up and hard faced. One PC told me that, 'there had been an incident', but that was all. (2)

Seeing nothing on the local news that night I headed up to the shop and mentioned it to the guy behind the counter. Now, just like a hundred other people round here, I often have a bit of a chat with the guy when I go in so I thought, if anyone's heard what's going down it'll be him. He hadn't.

I was surprised that no-one had even mentioned it what with the mosque being so close. 'There were all up round the mosque,' I said, 'I thought you'd have heard about it.' All of a sudden his face hardened ever so slightly and replied, annoyed, 'I've been in here all day haven't I.'

Confused I left the shop and headed home, rerunning the conversation in my head. The family that run the shop are Asian and suddenly, in retrospect, I realised how what I said must have sounded: 'You're Asian therefore you must know what's happened at the mosque.'

Shit.

My immediate reaction was to want to set things right. I didn't want the guy to be offended and I didn't want him to think I was racist, (there's that fear you see,) but what could I do? I couldn't very well walk back into the shop and say 'by the way...' could I?

Ultimately it is a subject both tricky and sticky. For me it's a case of trusting my upbringing and logic to overcome the impact of isolated incidents in life. Am I racist? Well compared to the true sense of the word, probably a little. Compared to the hysterically polarised sense the word has come to have, however, I am not and understanding the difference between these two is, I think, the key to problem.

footnotes

(1) culture and colour are not the same thing, there's just a lot of cross over between the two because both are denoted by geography,

(2) this happened long before the London bombings by the way, and I never saw any mention of it in the local or national media, what were they looking for? did they miss something?

Saw a film the other night called, 'The Bunker' for which I had high hopes but was ultimately let down. Reading about it the idea seemed solid with great potential, though perhaps not originality. Set in WWII it followed a group of German soldiers on the run from US troops who take refuge in an almost abandoned German bunker.

Of course the spot in the forest were the bunker has been built has a bad history, burning witches, plagues pits etc, and 'something' is stalking the tunnels beneath that lead to the only other exit. Amid an increasingly claustrophobic atmosphere, military discipline begins to fall apart and people start dying. All very good though a little too much like the far superior, 'Deathwatch' which features British s