(WARNING: THIS POST MAY, AT FIRST, APPEAR TO JUST RAMBLE ON ABOUT AN OBSCURE MUSIC SCENE BUT THERE IS MORE BEYOND, SO READ IT, AND DON'T BITCH! )

Haven't listened to EW for a while but a mate and I went over to Manchester to see them on Sunday and I am well truly back in the mood. As it was a Sunday night I borrowed a car and we drove over, unfortunately Manchester is an absolute bastard to drive round. The dashboard lights weren't working and all we had with us was a lighter and a 20+ year old A-Z.

We found a pub we went to last time we were over there, quite by accident; then the venue; then the car park; then the entrance; then the right floor; then give in the ticket; past the bar and into the crowd just in time to hear Grand Magus play one note and say, "thank you Manchester".

Annoying, but they were only the first band of the night. Not too long later the house lights dimmed before the front end of the room descended into swathes of weird lighting amid gentle clouds of weed, all to an eerie sound effect track from, (I'm convinced,) "The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue".

Electric Wizard made their way on stage and proceeded to play only three songs, although to be fair that was about half an hour of music. After opening with the first track from the latest album they tore out two stalwart anthems in their own unique mind blowing way, at one point I could actually feel the bass vibrating through the air in my sinuses, which feels weird but actually pretty cool

Having enjoyed, what I consider, a transcendental gig experience we fell back a bit to watch the main act, namely the godfathers of UK doom, Cathedral. Now a long time ago Cathedral started out as a super heavy, slow grinding doom machine, but over time the band had evolved, adapting a more groovy, seventies cheese vibe.

At some stages along the way, (eg. the album Carnival Bizarre,) they got the balance just about right for me. Beyond that a lot of people, myself included, thought they went a bit too far in that direction and over the last couple of albums the band has made a conscious shift back to a heavier style.

The only problem was that, after Electric Wizard had driven everyone's eyes back into their skulls Cathedral couldn't really help but seem slightly muted by comparison. Cathedral's singer, Lee Dorrian, was clearly a bit disappointed with the crowd's response but he persistently endeavoured to whip up some action down the front with his own trademark enthusiasm.

Despite the slightly embarrassing feeling that they'd been blown off stage by their support band, Cathedral played a great set and you can't really help but respect them. Not only did Lee Dorrian's involvement in Rise Above Records provide a huge platform for doom music.

As well as this however, I saw them do a gig at Bradford Rios some years back where Lee had the flu and looked dead on his feet, I mean the guy was grey. He did the whole set anyway, sang every word and you don't get that from a lot of bands.

They're good guys, doing great things, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they looked like they were trying to be something they weren't and that's what let them down. It does sometimes require a certain degree of bravery to just let yourself be yourself, especially when it looks like a more risky option.

Now that I'm earning a modest wage, (which feels like millions to me as the dole has left its grubby fingerprints on my soul,) I took my lovely lady out for nice, quiet and enormous meal. Now she spends her days running a department for a large highstreet book shop, and better than I ran mine when I worked for a rival firm too.

Over dinner she was telling me about her employer's latest shift in company policy. As some know, and few would be surprised to hear, the bookshop is a dying breed. There is a worryingly decreasing trend in our literary interests that makes a sufficient topic for posts of its own, but there is a much more immediate threat, lurking on the outskirts of town.

The supermarket.

Many of the highstreet chains, such as book shops and electrical stores for example, must have seen the greengrocers and the butchers and the bakers getting eaten alive and somehow convinced themselves that the supermarkets would stop at food. As if those guys are ever, ever, EVER going to turn round and say, "that's it, I've made enough,"!

Well now they're coming after the rest of the highstreet and with devastating consequences for us all. A supermarket cannot provide the range of product or expert guidance of a bookshop staffed by competent booksellers, it's just the latest best sellers stacked up and up.

As the supermarkets took an increasingly large bite out of the market share, my girlfriend's employers seemed to have panicked. They decided that in order to compete, their stores must become more commercial, more stacks of a narrow range of popular fiction arranged between the doors and the till.

This greedy snatching at custom simply deters browsing and is counter productive in the long run. Beyond this however, it was clearly ridiculous for these highstreet stores to try and compete with the supermarkets at their own game.

The new direction, so the word has come down from the man, is a return to expert bookseller knowledge and recommendations, specialist and more interesting products and a more relaxed atmosphere with less of the hard sell.

They've realised that they do have a niche. Sticking to what you are, instead of chasing the winner, can prove very beneficial. The problem with everyone chasing the same thing is that only one person can actually catch it, this can only ultimately lead to the monolithic monopolies we see rising about us today.

Diversity is the key, the answer to every problem. If something's too hard, find another way to do it, a better way. I heard about a report on the news the other night, apparently some desperate task force trying to address just why it is that our democracy is so fucked it's that it's fast approaching a point where it loses legitimacy all together.

I must admit, I'm approaching a point myself where I'm not sure the system we have can be nudged, bit by bit, into a better one any more, at least not quickly enough. To be fair it was refreshing to hear about parliamentarians actively trying to find out about young people's political opinions but the whole, "lowering the voting age to 16", thing annoyed me throughout.

It's not so much letting the sixteen year olds vote that bothers me, but more that it's just such a thinly veiled and pathetic attempt to boost the number of votes cast in future elections. It's the equivalent of putting a small sticking plaster over an amputation and the wide eyed desperation it betrays scares the shit out of me to be honest.

Anyway they said that young people didn't trust politicians, that they were wise to the culture of spin and really just saw the Westminster suits as whores bidding for their votes. It was strange to hear something that sounded sensible and true on the TV news.

It was ok as things went downhill from there. A further issue raised was that young people, and non voters, didn't understand how politics affected their lives and so didn't care about it. Now I quite agree with this in principle but I lay the blame for that firmly at the governments door, which is not the tone I heard when this was mentioned.

Finally, and what really pissed me off, I realised that when they were talking about getting people into politics, they just meant getting them interested in one of the three main parties. Does anybody see where this is going yet? Do I really need to spell it out?

Diversity! People aren't interesting in politics because they are not represented there! No three parties, whatever they may be, could possibly accurately and effectively represent an entire nation of people. We are too diverse and our political system should reflect that.

The only way in which the media, and most people apparently, seem to be able to look at this is in terms of 'who holds the power'. Oooh, 'the power' that magical authority, that all important thing that can't quite be defined... excuse me, haven't we got a country to run?

Uniformity leads to uniforms, it's that simple.

Diversity in all things, it's nature's secret, a blind but mighty tool that benefits everyone in the long run.

(WARNING: THIS POST MAY, AT FIRST, APPEAR TO JUST RAMBLE ON ABOUT AN OBSCURE MUSIC SCENE BUT THERE IS MORE BEYOND, SO READ IT, AND DON'T BITCH! )

Haven't listened to EW for a while but a mate and I went over to Manchester to see them on Sunday and I am well truly back in the mood. As it was a Sunday night I borrowed a car and we drove over, unfortunately Manchester is an absolute bastard to drive round. The dashboard lights weren't working and all we had with us was a lighter and a 20+ year old A-Z.

We found a pub we went to last time we were over there, quite by accident; then the venue; then the car park; then the entrance; then the right floor; then give in the ticket; past the bar and into the crowd just in time to hear Grand Magus play one note and say, "thank you Manchester".

Annoying, but they were only the first band of the night. Not too long later the house lights dimmed before the front end of the room descended into swathes of weird lighting amid gentle clouds of weed, all to an eerie sound effect track from, (I'm convinced,) "The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue".

Electric Wizard made their way on stage and proceeded to play only three songs, although to be fair that was about half an hour of music. After opening with the first track from the latest album they tore out two stalwart anthems in their own unique mind blowing way, at one point I could actually feel the bass vibrating through the air in my sinuses, which feels weird but actually pretty cool

Having enjoyed, what I consider, a transcendental gig experience we fell back a bit to watch the main act, namely the godfathers of UK doom, Cathedral. Now a long time ago Cathedral started out as a super heavy, slow grinding doom machine, but over time the band had evolved, adapting a more groovy, seventies cheese vibe.

At some stages along the way, (eg. the album Carnival Bizarre,) they got the balance just about right for me. Beyond that a lot of people, myself included, thought they went a bit too far in that direction and over the last couple of albums the band has made a conscious shift back to a heavier style.

The only problem was that, after Electric Wizard had driven everyone's eyes back into their skulls Cathedral couldn't really help but seem slightly muted by comparison. Cathedral's singer, Lee Dorrian, was clearly a bit disappointed with the crowd's response but he persistently endeavoured to whip up some action down the front with his own trademark enthusiasm.

Despite the slightly embarrassing feeling that they'd been blown off stage by their support band, Cathedral played a great set and you can't really help but respect them. Not only did Lee Dorrian's involvement in Rise Above Records provide a huge platform for doom music.

As well as this however, I saw them do a gig at Bradford Rios some years back where Lee had the flu and looked dead on his feet, I mean the guy was grey. He did the whole set anyway, sang every word and you don't get that from a lot of bands.

They're good guys, doing great things, but I couldn't shake the feeling that they looked like they were trying to be something they weren't and that's what let them down. It does sometimes require a certain degree of bravery to just let yourself be yourself, especially when it looks like a more risky option.

Now that I'm earning a modest wage, (which feels like millions to me as the dole has left its grubby fingerprints on my soul,) I took my lovely lady out for nice, quiet and enormous meal. Now she spends her days running a department for a large highstreet book shop, and better than I ran mine when I worked for a rival firm too.

Over dinner she was telling me about her employer's latest shift in company policy. As some know, and few would be surprised to hear, the bookshop is a dying breed. There is a worryingly decreasing trend in our literary interests that makes a sufficient topic for posts of its own, but there is a much more immediate threat, lurking on the outskirts of town.

The supermarket.

Many of the highstreet chains, such as book shops and electrical stores for example, must have seen the greengrocers and the butchers and the bakers getting eaten alive and somehow convinced themselves that the supermarkets would stop at food. As if those guys are ever, ever, EVER going to turn round and say, "that's it, I've made enough,"!

Well now they're coming after the rest of the highstreet and with devastating consequences for us all. A supermarket cannot provide the range of product or expert guidance of a bookshop staffed by competent booksellers, it's just the latest best sellers stacked up and up.

As the supermarkets took an increasingly large bite out of the market share, my girlfriend's employers seemed to have panicked. They decided that in order to compete, their stores must become more commercial, more stacks of a narrow range of popular fiction arranged between the doors and the till.

This greedy snatching at custom simply deters browsing and is counter productive in the long run. Beyond this however, it was clearly ridiculous for these highstreet stores to try and compete with the supermarkets at their own game.

The new direction, so the word has come down from the man, is a return to expert bookseller knowledge and recommendations, specialist and more interesting products and a more relaxed atmosphere with less of the hard sell.

They've realised that they do have a niche. Sticking to what you are, instead of chasing the winner, can prove very beneficial. The problem with everyone chasing the same thing is that only one person can actually catch it, this can only ultimately lead to the monolithic monopolies we see rising about us today.

Diversity is the key, the answer to every problem. If something's too hard, find another way to do it, a better way. I heard about a report on the news the other night, apparently some desperate task force trying to address just why it is that our democracy is so fucked it's that it's fast approaching a point where it loses legitimacy all together.

I must admit, I'm approaching a point myself where I'm not sure the system we have can be nudged, bit by bit, into a better one any more, at least not quickly enough. To be fair it was refreshing to hear about parliamentarians actively trying to find out about young people's political opinions but the whole, "lowering the voting age to 16", thing annoyed me throughout.

It's not so much letting the sixteen year olds vote that bothers me, but more that it's just such a thinly veiled and pathetic attempt to boost the number of votes cast in future elections. It's the equivalent of putting a small sticking plaster over an amputation and the wide eyed desperation it betrays scares the shit out of me to be honest.

Anyway they said that young people didn't trust politicians, that they were wise to the culture of spin and really just saw the Westminster suits as whores bidding for their votes. It was strange to hear something that sounded sensible and true on the TV news.

It was ok as things went downhill from there. A further issue raised was that young people, and non voters, didn't understand how politics affected their lives and so didn't care about it. Now I quite agree with this in principle but I lay the blame for that firmly at the governments door, which is not the tone I heard when this was mentioned.

Finally, and what really pissed me off, I realised that when they were talking about getting people into politics, they just meant getting them interested in one of the three main parties. Does anybody see where this is going yet? Do I really need to spell it out?

Diversity! People aren't interesting in politics because they are not represented there! No three parties, whatever they may be, could possibly accurately and effectively represent an entire nation of people. We are too diverse and our political system should reflect that.

The only way in which the media, and most people apparently, seem to be able to look at this is in terms of 'who holds the power'. Oooh, 'the power' that magical authority, that all important thing that can't quite be defined... excuse me, haven't we got a country to run?

Uniformity leads to uniforms, it's that simple.

Diversity in all things, it's nature's secret, a blind but mighty tool that benefits everyone in the long run.

Still feeling a bit rough and a lot tired but had this idea and just wanted to get it down. On my way home from work the other day I was listening to some Nebula, (whom I have recently rediscovered and are even more kick ass then I remembered) and I noticed for the first time a beautiful little guitar phrase in one particular song.

It was so cheeky and beautiful it made me laugh out loud before marvelling at how many times I must have listened to that track without noticing this particular part. It's funny how something can be a part of your everyday life for such a long time and yet still have unrecognised aspects to it.

So there's your intro, here's the tangent: last time I was in Elephant Books(1) I picked up a fantastic free magazine called 'No Quarter' which I've been reading at work and has actually made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion.

The bulk of this great new underground periodical is in a very witty spoof newspaper style, including great articles such as: "Shouting Evangelist Converts Entire Street Of Shoppers To Fundamentalist Beliefs", "Anarchist Convention Descends Into Order" or my own personal favourite: "Brewery Management Unable To Arrange Company Social Event"

Towards the back however, 'No Quarter', which describes itself as: "a tap on the shoulder not a pat on the back", becomes a bit more serious with some excellent articles and interviews. One in particular inspired this post and was entitled: "How To Live When The War Comes Home" by Paul Chatterton.

Among other things, the article caused me to think about the way in which recent incidents of mass murder such as those in New York, Madrid and London have been seen in retrospect. The accepted description of events is that the terrorist groups intentionally slaughtered innocent people, as opposed specifically military or governmental targets, in order to create fear that would further their own cause.

On the face of it this seems like a nice and complete answer however, looking a little closer, things don't quite sit right with me. Obviously part of the aim was to initially create fear and panic as well as long term disruption.

I do not believe however that the terrorists will have been at all surprised by the spontaneous and virulent 'I refuse to be scared so fuck you' attitude so nobly adopted by people in all three shaken cities. It's widely accepted that these terrorist groups both hate the US and the west and reject democracy, 'just because they do.' Such thinking is dangerously naive however.

Now we currently are in the process of exporting democracy all over the middle at the moment, via diplomacy in some cases and murder in others. Could it be that these mass murders, besides being utterly obscene acts of violence, were intended as some kind of critique of democracy?

This challenges the assumption that, in the eyes of the terrorists anyway, the people killed in the aforementioned attacks were 'innocent'. When talking about democracy we love to get ourselves off on 'rights'. Under our hallowed system everyone has the 'right' to have a say etc etc yawn.

What we don't talk about are the responsibilities that come with those rights. The idea of a democracy is that a country is run by its own ordinary people. This surely then means that those ordinary people each bear responsibility for the actions of their country.

Now, as is oft discussed on this blog, our democracy is far from the abstract concept we love to spout off about. Our country is not run by the people via elected representatives, instead we elect people to run the country for us. This is a subtle but important difference that becomes vital when our government starts sending our children overseas to kill other people's children in our name.

We walk about this great nation of ours every day, enjoying the many benefits of living in a free and technically democratic country. Just like suddenly discovering a great little guitar part in a song you've heard a million times however, there comes a point where the responsibilities of having the vote are suddenly made apparent.

Most of us would, I assume, consider ourselves to be peaceful, sensible and even good people. We base this on how we interact with one another day to day but the fact is that, while we sit about so pleased with ourselves for the 'good' lives we lead, children are being maimed and killed on our behalf.

The problems division and injustice across the globe are becoming increasingly acute and we are approaching a time of difficult decisions, wherein we will no longer be able to shrug our duty to humanity from our shoulders and say, 'it's the government's fault'.

The more we bang on about democracy to other parts of the world the more people are going to start, quite rightly, laying their grievances at our doors, and I mean our doors, yours and mine. I recognise however, that simply telling people they're a bunch of bastards is neither constructive nor productive.

We shouldn't feel too bad about everyday life distracting us from the wider world however, as it happens to the very best of us. Finishing Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia" this morning I came across the following:

"I did not make any of the correct political reflections. I never do when things are happening. It seems to be always the case when I get mixed up in war or politics - I am conscious of nothing save physical discomfort and a deep desire for this damned nonsense to be over. Afterwards I can see the significance of events, but while they are happening I merely want to be out of them - an ignoble trait perhaps."

There are no writers and few people I hold in as high regard, in terms of political integrity, as Orwell. If he struggled to be politically conscious and active 24/7 then of course we all should. Difficult is not impossible however and the stakes are getting increasingly high. It's time to take a painfully honest look at the world and just what we want our role in it to be. Violence anyone?

footnote

(1) for more info have a look http://underthecheapseats.blog.co.uk and hit the ELEPHANT BOOKS tag,

A short one today as I'm off sick. Turns out ignorance may well be bliss because wisdom teeth hurt like bastards, or at least this one does. Anyway I've written before of my belief that the skills of critical thinking must be considered as vital as those of literacy and numeracy in order for a society to be both free and peaceful.

In fact we currently find ourselves in a similar position to most European elites over the last however many centuries. Just as only the priests and aristocracy could read, and thereby wield literacy as a cosh against the masses, our current system ensures that generally it’s still only the privileged middle classes get the opportunity of academic training.

This is much bigger than the issue of access to university education however, this is about people not only not being encouraged but in fact actually being actively dissuaded from thinking for themselves. Now that was quite a sentence and it’s the way this issue shows up in our language that caught my imagination today.

I realised that while almost everyone around me uses the same words when they talk, we’re not all speaking the same language, for example:

someone tells me: “this is what I think,”

I respond with: “why do you think this?”

Now there are two possible scenarios here, A & B. In both the first line holds the same meaning, I understand that someone is giving me their opinion. It is my response however, that highlights an apparent split within the language.

When I say: “why do you think this?” I am asking to hear the reasoning behind what they have said and nothing more. I am not, so far, expressing any judgement on what I have heard. Some people would hear this meaning and reply accordingly.

Other people however, would not hear: “why do you think this?” but instead: “I disagree and question your abilities.” It is my suggestion that this difference in interpretation may have something to do with the individual’s familiarity with critical thinking.

‘Question everything’ is surely the most basic tenet of such thought practices but outside these tactics things are often only questioned if they are thought to be faulty as opposed to as a matter of course. This is also a further addition the comments made about non verbal communication a few posts back. Words cannot be solely relied upon when their meanings are so easily manipulated by the user’s own characteristics.

Another similarity between the literacy situation of yesterday and that of thought today can be found in the attitude of those being kept on the outside. Now I was watching some archaeology documentary the other day in which the approx 1500 year old but well preserved body of a man found in a bog was mentioned.

Detailed examination of the body, plus the positioning upon discovery, had apparently shown that this guys had been kneeling naked, smashed over the back of the head, then had his throat slit before being plunged face down into the bog and drowned.

According to the experts this was ‘proof’ that the guy had been part of a viscous ritual sacrifice aimed at saving the community from invasion. Based on the evidence presented to me in the show I agreed with the idea that it was a ritual sacrifice but strongly rejected the nature of the ceremony.

It seemed clear to me that ceremony had actually been as humane as possible. My assumption was that the slitting of the live throat was the focus of the piece but the victim was knocked out before hand, thereby sparing him the pain of the cut and the sight of his own life’s blood draining away.

Anyway, I could be completely wrong with that, it doesn’t matter, the point is that my thinking was based on the facts presented rather than the status of the source. Just like the literacy situation of yesterday, a lot of people either don’t appreciate the value of certain cerebral skills and so are happy without them, or are willing to ‘accept their place’ and cede responsibility to those in charge.

Let’s make no mistake here, employers may demand literacy and numeracy skills now but it wasn’t capitalist industry that drove our society towards compulsory education. History suggests that change for the better requires vision, passion and upheaval and of course, logically speaking, the next question is: where the hell’s that going to come from?

Up at a more reasonable hour today, having had a very long day yesterday. Despite being utterly knackered by about 9:30pm I managed to get myself out to the 11pm show at the Hyde Park Picture House which was a fantastic anime version of the silent classic Metropolis.

It was a struggle not to snooze at some points but well worth it as I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The first thing to pop into my head this morning, as usual on a Sunday, was the thought of work tomorrow, something I definitely do not enjoy.

But hey, that's the way of the world right? Since time immemorial we've miserably slogged our guts out the things that need to be done and saved fun and pleasure for our spare time, it's just how life works isn't it? Well no, actually, this is utter bullshit.

Where has this idea come from? This assumption that anything you enjoy is bad and that fun is a luxury, inherently non productive for society as a whole. I'm tempted to just say religion and have done with it but I suspect the root of this myth has far more complex roots than could be described by any single word.

Anyway this post was conceived to explore the truth not the lie so here are the three things that have led me here. First off some thoughts on the evolution of the orgasm: over the last few weeks, since I started this damn job I think, I've had cramp in my legs and feet more than the rest of my life put together.

Now, as I understand it, the massively painful experience of cramp results from muscles spasming out of control, usually if you're trying to make them work too hard, too long or without the required fuel. Well it occurred to me the other day that, again to the best of my knowledge, during an orgasm certain muscles spasm out of control only this time it feels good, really good.

I have to admit that this is pure speculation but unfounded wonderings are usually far more interesting than dry facts so here we go. There are two things about having sex that are relevant here, first it takes physical effort and second, it's essential to the survival of the species.

Maybe much earlier in our history this prolonged effort tended to cause cramps in those 'at it' but, after a mutation or two and plenty of time, natural selection turned this particular form of cramp from pain to pleasure. Why? To ensure that people had sex and thereby perpetuate the species.

Now unconscious systems such as natural selection have no personal drives or preferences, if it works it thrives, simple as. What millions of years of evolution tell us quite clearly is that the best way to get someone to do something is not to threaten or reward them, but make the thing itself fun so that people want to do it for it's own sake, regardless of the consequences.

The second inspirational thought I had on this topic concerned lovely, lovely cannabis and, in particular, a recently published report. This study found that cannabis use stimulates dopamine production, I think we all knew that, but the report goes on to specify that the increase in production is local to the frontal lobes of the brain.

Again this is idle speculation, (but then what kind would you expect? ) but my first thought upon hearing this was that using weed makes abstract thought more enjoyable. In fact, as my own dope addled mind raced ahead of itself, I began to wonder if the age old use of cannabis might have been a contributing factor in getting us to use the front parts of our brains and subsequently driving our evolution into the 'thinking ape' we find ourselves to be today.

Finally, an idea that's been kicking about the back end of my cerebellum for ages but now takes on a little more significance in the light of these first two thoughts. Recent comments left on this blog have discussed the 'work ethic' and the nature of grafting, or not, for a living. I've long thought that the best way to get the most out of someone is to give them something challenging to do that they enjoy.

It now seems that this is not only feasible, but actually the way the world really works, and has since life began on this little floating rock. On the face of it, I admit, it seems a little off the wall, but let's look at it with an open mind for a second.

People all over the world, including you and I, do grave damage to our planet, ourselves and our fellow humans every single day without a second thought simply for the sake of pleasure. I'm not getting down on us all here, the point is that if we could devise a different and less destructive system of living people would happily adopt it as long as it allowed them to feel good and have fun.

Makes us sound a little bit like a bunch of selfish scumbags doesn't it? Well before we get into full blown self flagellation let's just get some perspective. The rational and sensible are just one part of the human being, our older instincts and needs are still just as much a part of us and to ignore or deny them is dangerous folly. The role of the rational is not to override our 'animal desires' but rather to channel and facilitate them.

The other apparent flaw in the whole 'happy-in-their-work' theory is that jobs need to be done by someone regardless of what they are. Well, again, let's just think this through before accepting it on the basis of repetition alone.

In most professions in the world, there must be at least some people who are content with their lot, people who get something out of what they do and enjoy their lives. I don't think I'd particularly enjoy being a dustman for example, but it's an absolutely essential role to our society so someone has to do it. As it happens I used to live next door to a dustman and he quite liked what he did, (not least because he'd regularly get electrical equipment out of the rubbish, do it up and sell it on!)

So just because we don't fancy a job ourselves doesn't mean there isn't someone out there who could be happy doing it. Something else to consider is the nature of work done ion our society. I heard a statistic recently that I cannot confirm but suspect may be close to the truth despite its outlandish appearance. Apparently about 20% of people in work in this country work in some form of call centre.

Now many of my peers have worked in one these 'modern day mills' as one of them put it, and every single one them has hated every single second of it. Now selling stuff, or just being shouted at, over the phone for a living is surely not in the same league of importance to our society as refuse collection.

Many, many jobs serve only one purpose, namely moving money from the poor to the rich and this is in no-ones interests.(1) Surely there are enough problems awaiting solutions in this world that we could occupy ourselves as a society with more useful labours than these.

The main stumbling block here seems to be the myth mentioned at the start. We've accepted unhappiness and a lack of fulfilment as the standard in the workplace. It's not just considered stupid to want to enjoy yourself for most of your short time here, but actually selfish and even evil.

The fact is that happy people, enjoying themselves are healthier and more productive. Pleasure is a tool we've developed over millions of years to help drive ourselves to the peaks of mountains both real and imagined and it's just sat there waiting to be used.

We are the products of an inconceivably long and patient process; we have been painstakingly moulded into machines of progress driven by a beautiful and magical feeling; we are pleasure seekers pure and simple.

footnote

(1) well except the rich obviously but as they're possibly the smallest minority in the world they don't really count in the grand scheme of things,

Something is very wrong. It's my long awaited and pined for Saturday, and I'm up before 9 o'clock. Now if I were still up that'd be fine but no-one should ever have to see this time of this day from this side. So what's going on? Noisy neighbours? The builders up the road? Nope.

The root of this whole thing is that damn job which has messed up my body clock no end. Anyway, the cat woke me up this morning demanding to be fed. Now she can't speak, or write me a note, but she still manages to let me know what she wants in no uncertain terms.

She's also pretty good at judging body language, which way you're about to go, what kind of mood you're in etc. Now there's nothing particularly amazing about my little cat's skills, in fact this kind of non verbal communication is by far the most common form in the world.

From psychics to conmen or martial artists to sportsmen, trying to reclaim this evolutionary hangover is a life's work for many. Now I'd had these thoughts some time ago and, interesting as I found them to be, it wasn't until a couple of other things fell into place that I could develop them further.

The second piece of the puzzle was my most recent counselling session.(1) Despite the fact that I was talking about some uncomfortably personal stuff at the time, I couldn't help but smile when I had, via the skills of my excellent counsellor, a 'lightbulb moment'.(2)

The occasional nadirs of my depression, fits of sobbing, enraged violent outbursts or even full blown panic attacks are just forms of communication. If we're sad, or angry or scared we will communicate it to the world around us in one form or another. Even if we try to hold it in, the message forces its own way out in the end.

We're all involved in a process of communication, all the time, but of course this process is more than simply expressing your own information. The third and final dimension of this idea came from watching TV the other night.

Good and stoned I was vaguely watching an advert for a loan company when I suddenly saw it in a different light. Next time you see any kind of advert try to imagine you can't read or speak English, (or whatever language it's in.) The written symbols become abstract shapes and the spoken words just noise.

Looking at this particular advert in this way this was the message I received:

these people are miserable people, they're out in the rain and the world is a cold, dark and drab place,

contact us and we'll sell you some of this joymaking sunshine,

Now obviously the spoken and written words in the advert explain the specific intent of the advert, however, this entirely rational information can only supplement, not override, the abstract aural and visual messages.

The first two experiences mentioned above serve nicely to add meat to these bones. The second part suggested that we're all communicating all the time, sending and receiving, and on all levels. This is why we can't counter the impact of the abstract message with the specific, we can't choose which bits to notice.

The reason we're all communicating all the time comes from the first idea, namely that that's what life does and it's what we've always done. I'm tempting at this point to try and explain this by talking about how all living things are in fact parts of one great living thing and all this communication is in fact the bonding system that holds us all together.

Let's not get any further into that right now however, as I'm not quite done with this post's original topic yet. The notion is often espoused that we, as a race, do not communicate enough and that this lack of communication is the root cause of all our problems. I now completely disagree.

Every time you hold a door open for someone, or cut them up in traffic; every time you smile and make small talk with a stranger, or glare at them as you barge past; every time you offer someone a light or walk past a beggar with a pocket full of change, through all these things you scream at the world about who your are and how you feel.(3)

We don't need to communicate more regularly, but rather with more forethought and attention. Communication is as much a part of life as breathing and thinking.(4) We can choose the how, and to some extent the what, but when it comes down to it, communication is not a choice.

footnotes

(1) have to say counselling hasn't been easy but is definitely worth it, anyone trying to cope with mental health problems, especially if they're concerned about going on meds, should at least give it a go; that is of course if you're lucky enough to live in a postcode where it happens to be freely available,

(2) I feel slightly blasphemous saying this but there is some'thing' that I love more than music and even more than lovely, lovely cannabis, (sorry Mary ) and that's that lightbulb moment; during that counselling session I realised that clearlight flash, when a beautiful idea appears from nowhere, or melts perfectly out of a mess of confusion, is what I live for,

(3) as quite often happens, a religion has a really good idea but, over time, corrupts it into ritualised nonsense and I certainly have no interest in karma in the traditional sense of each person individual carrying around a personalised spiritual score card,

the slightly different idea, however, that good and bad moods can be spread between people, that treating people well encourages them to treat others well, sounds not just reasonable but obvious to me; of course the downside to this is that it lacks the guarantee of personal reward that is the cornerstone of all organised religion,

(4) in my own personal beliefs, thinking, breathing and communicating are the three fundamental pieces of life: the mind, the flesh an the metal respectively, each equally vital and inter dependent,

Just a quicky as I’m at work. Heard a lot recently about new fuels etc, in the aftermath of Bush’s ‘addiction speech’. While the existence of climate change, (ie. global warming, it just doesn’t sound quite as scary,) is being increasingly grudgingly accepted, the suggested responses are still of the old ostrich fashion.

Technology will save us, they say, new fuels are the answer, they insist. Well while I’ve spent a lot of time banging on about the wonders of hemp fuel, (the only way to reverse climate change and save global agriculture,) there is another issue currently being utterly ignored.

Regardless of what we use as fuel, where it comes from or how it’s made, the simple fact is we need to use less of it. Of course telling people to get of their arses and walk is a toughy for any popularist government and is tied into a variety of other issues, eg. quality of public transport or street safety.

It’s also worth remembering that we use fuel for a whole lot more than transport as well and in order to reduce our consumption we all need to make changes to most aspects of our lives.

Unfortunately we appear to have got ourselves into a situation where governments can only tell people things they want to hear and popularity has become the single concern.

Anyway, we could have dolphin powered undersea turbines and wind farms on every mountain, it wouldn’t matter. If our consumption continues to increase we’re only putting off the problem of climate change, not resolving it. This, as we all know, is the problem with cake.

Another new CD and another fine choice even if I do say so myself. Been meaning to listen to Grand Magus for a while having heard good things about them but finally did as they're supporting Cathedral and the almighty Electric Wizard on their 'doomed trinity tour'.

Most immediately obvious way to me of describing GM would be as the evil twin of Spiritual Beggars. They have the same shameless cheese and drama, seemingly shared by all Swedish bands of this loosest of genres, but with a much darker Nordic vibe and some killer riffs underneath.

I've found it therapeutic recently anyway, when dealing with this week's own particular brand of Swinery: Idiots in Charge. This may seem a little harsh and I would feel guilty about it, except that I know as soon as I'm subjected to that piggy flavour again I won't think it harsh at all, so I don't.

My motivations for this post are the various ill conceived projects that keep dropping onto my desk at work. They usually demand vast amounts of necessarily inefficient work that will, ultimately, be wasted and need to be done by the end of the day.

In this case the 'boss' in question is actually a pretty nice guy, but that just makes his behaviour even more frustrating. In most places I've worked, and in the workplaces of people I know, there seems to be a strangely recurrent pattern, in shops especially:

The workforce is made up of three layers:

the workers,
the people who do all the grunt work but get treated like crap, both for fuck all money,

the line managers,
the people who oversee the grunt work and do all the boring, essential stuff but get treated like crap, all for a little more money,

the manager,
the person who doesn't seem to do anything except occasionally throw themself into a front line task before getting bored and wandering off, leaving the workers and the line managers to follow through,

I do admit that reading Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' at the moment is putting me in a slightly more revolutionary frame of mind than usual, however I think there are many who will agree with me on this week's choice.

One shop I worked in, a big US chain(1) I actually saw first hand that no manager at all is infinitely better than a bad one. Now I'm sure there are a wide array of interesting theories as to the source of this strange competency imbalance, but whatever they are they don't change the reality of having to deal with this week's Swine.

If someone in your organisation is bad at an aspect of their job, every single person, beneath them will be held back from doing their own job to the best of their own abilities. Not only this but perpetual frustration in your job can only lead to apathy. If I can never get something quite right thanks to other people anyway, then what's the point of trying?

So this week it's people who just aren't quite up to their jobs, no matter whether they're class or an ass, for making life that little bit more difficult for the rest of us. Congratulations, you are this week's Swine Of The Week.

footnote

(1) yes, yes, I do feel dirty, but I only managed nine months there before having a ruck with the company about changing contracts and the introduction of drug testing; (NB bizarrely, though it was one of the worst places to work, most of the other people working there were absolutely brilliant,)

The benefits of having a soul eating office job are things like being able to buy CDs. bongzilla's latest, 'Amerijuanican' is another storming effort from this bitchin' outfit and their cover of Muddy Waters' 'Champagne & Reefer' is fucking amazing. I guess this is also the benefit of living in the wonderful freedom that the god given miracle of democracy bestows upon us in it's glorious beauty.

A bit much? Well I'm not alone in getting carried away about how great our society is, lately the media has been full of it, but then what's new. Sitting on the bus the other morning, on the way to my soul eating office job, I glanced about to see that most people were reading the 'Metro'.(1)

Now in my experience the Metro is an utter rag and even if I didn't get sick reading on the move I still wouldn't touch it. The headline this day was something about evil Muslims trying to destroy our way of life and featured a picture of protestors with banners demanding the execution of some poor Danish cartoonist.

Nearly everyone on the bus was reading this. Among the few that weren't were myself and a young girl wearing a hijab. Looking at the back of this girl's head I suddenly felt very uncomfortable for her. I tried to imagine how I would feel if the headline had been something about hippies being paedophiles for example. Not only is everyone around me wearing different clothes but they're all reading about people they're bound to associate with me being utter scumbags.

Following Murray's comment on last week's Swine Of The Week, and my subsequent response, I've been paying particular attention to the nature and volume of media coverage given to Islam. After a few days of this I was driven to beg the question, where am I?

Is this really the proudly free and tolerant nation I'm always told it is? Or is it an increasingly fascist state where the public are treated like morons and racism is ok as long as it's tastefully and professionally delivered?

Something I've always considered to be particularly sound advice is to 'never believe your own hype', it's fatal. Somehow we're all so convinced that we're not racists and that this country is totally free that we point blank ignore evidence to the contrary even when it's right in our faces.

It's very clever to try and make people take sides over something like the 'cartoon issue' and then subtly shift those allegiances to something else but that's not happening here. Let's lay it out on the line, as simple as can be:

Muslims are angered by some cartoons of their prophet?
Tough shit, fuck you, live with it.

Muslims are angered by a wide spread and persistent 'negative rebranding' of their religion and cultures? Damn right! I'm angered by it too and I'd be happy to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with them any day.

There is a lot we can be proud of in this country and I'm certainly not ashamed of my passport. There's also plenty worth changing however and it's important we recognise this. If we don't the slide will continue and before you know it this great place will have changed beyond all recognition and I won't be the only one wondering, 'where the hell am I?'

footnote

(1) a free paper available on buses, for those who don't know,

Trying to think of a post for today when I checked yesterdays comments, looks like there's a bit more mileage in this yet. So let's start at the start with some words inspired by my good friend CasaB:

CasaB [Member]
04/02/06 @ 07:55

Well thought out and presented post Stone. Self righteous is where it is all coming from...and with your permission I will create a link of this post to that of my own.
There is massive and I think implacable gap between the 'holier than thou' religious taboos in Islam that is wholly incompatible with the freedoms that we enjoy in the West. This, as you have correctly pointed out means the freedom to be an ass too.. like it or not. Islam would stifle that and impose uncritiical unquestioning repression on such freedoms. And Islamic inability to mature and bloody well grow up, reflects the success of the control exercised by their religious leaders. Old testament stuff and no mistake.
R

Firstly, please, everyone, link away to your heart's contents. Secondly, I think I'd agree with pretty much everything said here if we replaced the word 'Islam' with the word 'religion'. As I said in the post yesterday, when we talk about 'Islam' in this context what we really mean is a small batch of religious nutters who, in this case, happen to be Muslim flavour.

The most worrying thing about this story is it's place in the wider scheme of things. In of itself this is actually just another example of the age old clash between church and state, in context however, it's just the latest instalment in a bitter struggle that's been raging since at least the end of WWII.

manwithtwobrains [Member]
04/02/06 @ 09:56

Like your drawing, very good. It is time us non believers have a march and demand respect.

The drawing is clearly shit but thanks anyway Secularism is a very weird kind of movement as it’s ‘followers’ share a lack of something rather than any common ground. Now I actually see this as supporting my own view that it’s the way forward for us all, but an immediately obvious downside is that it’s so much harder to mobilise the ranks.

The whole ‘intelligent design’ argument in US schools is another example of religion starting to try and take back some of the ground it lost to secular science over the last few centuries and it’s a worrying trend. I suppose the problem we have is that, as secularists if you like, our only real representative vehicle at the moment is the state. Let’s not get into how fucked that is right now, needless to say it’s not meeting our needs is it?

Murray [Member]
04/02/06 @ 11:21

Sorry guys but I'm gonna have to come to the defense of Islam. There's been a very effective campaign in the media to demonise Islam as the backward religion of fanatics. The word terrorism is continually mentioned alongside Islam and as a result of this people begin to draw firm conclusions in their minds. If the teachings of Islam are corrupt because of a fringe of suicide death cults, does that mean that the teachings of Christ are corrupt because of US abortion clinic bombers? Why is it that links like this are never drawn? Who's agenda is being served with this continual black propaganda?
It is a well known (yet little publicised fact) that many known members of Al Quaida harbour no strong connections to Islam and consider their Jihad (true translation: struggle) as purely political. When Nick Griffin stands up in court and quotes the standard Islam is evil because the Koran say 'slay the pagans where you find them', he is falling back on an old lie continually wheeled out by supremacists looking to cite Islam as evil. For the record I'd like to point out that this Ayah was proclaimed at a time of war and great persecution during the battle of Badr and after the breaking of the treaty of Hudabiyah, during which many muslims were slain. Why is it that we never hear the Islamic rules of engagement which clearly state 'no killing of women and children and no destruction of vegetation' muslim or non-muslim. Shame the same can't be said for our rules of engagement regarding Iraq and Afghanistan (and soon Iran). Either way I can completely understand any islamic backlash against any perceived media slights as the media is an enemy to Islam at the moment. But, at the same time I fully agree with stoneleaf's views on organised religion.

Alright mate, first off I know we talked about you starting to write a blog and stuff but do it on your own page yeah? Just kidding, these are the kind of comments I love, plenty of stuff I didn’t know to get my teeth into.

I have to agree with my man Murray here. The wider context I mentioned above is described very well here, with many Muslims feeling, quite rightly, pissed off at the rap they’re getting. I can understand how this whole ruck with the cartoons could be seen as just yet another attack on Islam and to be honest it probably is.

It’s been done exceedingly well, but then the people churning this vicious shit out are hard boiled vets in their field. The story is presented as the values of the free West being challenged by this great spectre of Islam. We are then bombarded with images of rabid anger as proof of the ‘disproportionate response’ from ’Muslims’.

The effective aftertaste is, quite obviously, the impression that Muslims, or, let’s be honest here, Asian people, are violently irrational people who simply cannot be reasoned with. Now there’s no proof that this is intentional but if it isn’t the only other possible explanation is abject incompetence.

I mentioned another example of the whole context trick in a post some time ago. It was when certain Muslim clerics were under investigation for possible ‘terror crimes’. The story splashed across the media ran that one of these clerics had said that, had one of the London bombers confided in him, he would not have told the police.

Now while the tabloids were screaming, ‘BLOKE IN FUNNY HAT IS EVIL SCUMBAG’, vital information was being overlooked. While the guy said he wouldn’t tell the police he also said he would counsel the would-be bomber not to go through with his plans. ‘Not good enough!’ shout all the Daily Mail readers, and to be fair maybe they’re right. The point here is not whether he was right or wrong but the way in which the media treated the story.

Imagine if, after one of the many horrific bombings of the Northern Ireland conflict, it came out that the bomber had confided in his priest as to what he was planning to do. If a Catholic priest had not told the police but advised the guy not to kill how would the very same papers and programs have presented that? Would the tabloids be demanding that Father O’Reilly be thrown into Belmarsh for the rest of his natural? I doubt it.

I guess what this comes down to is that while we might bang on about how free and equal our grand society is, and how it must be protected from evil polluting influences, this great achievement of ours is still riddled with inherent racism and bigotry. The job is not done, there’s much further to go.

If you are a Muslim likely to be offended by a representation of the Prophet Mohammed please do not scroll down any further.

This feature can sometimes be a real pain in the arse, Friday comes round so quickly and I have to think of someone else to join the League. This week, however, it's been really easy with the old standard test of 'who gets me shouting at the TV' aced all over the place by the same bunch of wankers.

Regular readers will be familiar with my views towards organised religions and the various angles of criticism I have pursued in the past. This week however there's a pretty straightforward situation that highlights a typical behaviour trait of the 'imaginary friend club'.

For those who haven't guessed yet the issue that's been getting my back up most this week is the uproar over some Danish cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. As usual the story has become tangled and confused as the factions involved vie for maximum political capital, so let's try to cut through the shit and get right to the heart of this thing.

Talking about 'Muslims' being up in arms about these images is just like say 'Christians' were outraged by 'Jerry Springer: The Musical'. What we really mean is that a few of them were while the rest, despite their spiritual handicap, acted like sensible adults.

With this caveat in place let's do away with some more distraction, ie. the actual content of the cartoons. Regardless of whether the images were derogatory or not, the very act of representing the Muslim Prophet Mohammed in any kind of pictorial form is considered blasphemous by many of those Muslims currently up in arms.

I've seen various debates around this whole issue over the past few days and the same nonsense arguments seem to keep cropping up. Firstly there's the oh-so-very-reasonable 'decency argument'. This old chestnut runs like this: we do apply some restrictions to what can be published in this country, why can't these taste and decency limits be applied in this case?

'If we're going to publish these cartoons,' I heard one representative of a Muslim group say, 'we may as well just publish child pornography and have done with it.' He also pointed out that the British media does not show images of dead or maimed British troops in Iraq.

It is true that we do have some limits to what can be published but there are very specific reasons for those limits that come from a cost/benefit ratio. Child pornography is not illegal because it constitutes offensive imagery, it's illegal because the cost is the horrific sexual abuse of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. This cost is too high to be justified by some guy wanting to get his rocks off.

This is how it works, cost vs benefit. We do not see images of dead British troops because we don't consider the benefits of seeing such images worth the cost to t