(based on BBC Parliament piece this afternoon, as well as lots of others)

1. Repeat allegations of corruption made rather vaguely by the US. Galloway says they’re all irrelevant rubbish and invites attempted prosecution. Don’t push this too hard as on shaky ground, since interviewer hasn’t really investigated the issue anyway and is going on “ooh naughty George” reports in press so won’t be able to construct proper attack.

2. Mention links to Iraq in build-up to next question.

3. INTERVIEW IS POINTLESS FROM HERE ON: “I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability”.

4. “When you said you supported the resistance in Iraq you were advocating the bombing of children, weren’t you?”

5. Imply that opposing the occupation is supporting Saddam Hussein.

6. That’s all we have time for, thank you, George Galloway.

Honestly. I’m aware that there are people firmly against the war who are also critics of Mr Galloway, and some of them don’t have pathetic leftie-sectarian motives, either. Can’t we get one of those to interview him or something, rather than this Millbank press release bollocks? Even if you hate the man and all he stands for, throwing him the same old questions is just going to result in him fielding them without bother, and you’re not going to get him riled enough to make a mistake – he’ll get annoyed but his response to that is to wind up the interviewer, who always loses it before he does.

The same goes for the appalling Chomsky interview in the Guardian recently by Emma Brockes, where she throws him the same old boring accusations that have been dealt with time and time again, also using the narrator’s voice extensively to criticise – which is understandable given that she’s unable to actually skewer him in the interview. (See Alexander Cockburn response in Counterpunch.) I’ve seen people saying that this is a sign of the Guardian‘s political dumbing down but I’m not convinced; it’s always published stuff like this, it’s never been the hardcore radical paper that some people amazingly seem to think it is. Its value is that it has a few people who are very incisive, and it’s not particularly afraid to publish them. Oh, and the international news section is solid, though I think there’s been a downturn there.

The most interesting thing related to said interview is the parody piece written by “Norman Johnson” taking the piss out of it. I’d not come across Norman Johnson before and at first I took it at face value. There’s no shortage of real ex-commies boasting about how radical they were in their youth and slamming the modern left for giving in to Islamofascism by not supporting the war and Tony Blair. Nothing unusual about sell-outs; we’ve had the old hippies doing it, these days we have the old commies. That particular piece is just a little overplayed, though, and when you look up a few more of “his” pieces like this one about Thatcher, or this one about the Labour party conference there’s really no doubt.

So somebody in the Guardian is quite happy to take the piss out of Emma Brockes’ vapid prose, and more importantly somebody else is quite happy to publish it. Not all is cashmere hugs in Rusbridger‘s paper of record. Okay, in the grand scheme of things it’s completely irrelevant but it’s always fun to see a good fight, particularly one that’s carried out in public.

At Ravenscourt Park. Some observations:

1. Five pounds to get in through narrow entrances, with signs saying no alcohol, sparklers, other fireworks (understandable) or dogs (also understandable, though what sane person takes a dog to the fireworks anyway?) No sparklers, though?

2. Inside, resembles a small funfair with the usual rides, burger stalls, candyfloss, appalling music played very loud etc. Twats dancing to Grease Megamix noted. Idiot DJ on the same very loud PA alternating “make some NOISE! are you READY FOR THE FIREWORKS? well they’ll be about half an hour” with endless “we’ve got Darren here who’s lost his mum, can his mum please come to the lost children’s tent, it’s on the right hand side as you’re looking at the bonfire”, “if there’s a little girl called Vanessa out there can she please come to the lost children’s tent, it’s on the far right hand side” until you began to think all children should be on leads, or replaced by dogs, or sparklers, or booze, or all three.

3. Illicit consumption of sparklers and alcohol noted, though no illicit dogs.

4. Lighting of bonfire carried out with explosives, though this was not quite as good as it sounds.

5. The Mayor of Hammersmith & Fulham was there to count down to the lighting of the bonfire and the start of the fireworks. Nobody cared. The first time there was two-stage local councillor action: some even less important council person was given a lead in by the DJ, and then proceeded to introduce the mayor, which annoyed the crowd. The second time the mayor was brought in, to count down to the fireworks, he was booed – and the countdown was screwed up anyway, leading to shouts of “get on with it!” I found all this quite funny. Some MP3s:

   • The mayor being booed
   • The mayor screwing up the countdown (the person saying “well, where are they?” and “they’ve bloody gone wrong” is me)

6. Fireworks reasonable, though accompanying music cheesy and obvious – Also Sprach Zarathustra, Jeff Waynes War Of The Worlds, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, and Bond. Live And Let Die music used for finale to decent effect however.

7. Ironic chanting of “Oooh! Aaah!” followed by giggles noted.

8. Too-narrow exits to park clogged on way out, not helped by people trying to get back in. What? Did you lose Darren or Vanessa again?

9. All my photos turned out to be crap.

lying bullshit hate-merchants

The usual “taking the Christ out of Christmas” / “PC Gone Mad” protests at this non-story, with the usual Tory nonsense:

A decision to call Christmas lights “Winter Lights” in south London has been condemned as showing a “total lack of respect” for Christians.

Advertisements for the switch-on of the lights in multi-cultural Lambeth have renamed them, apparently for fear of offending other faiths.

Tory councillor Bernard Gentry told the BBC: “Christmas appears to have been cancelled in our borough”.

A spokesman said it was an error by a junior official and not council policy.

In three of Lambeth’s main town centres, the lights were referred to as “Winter Lights”, while in a fourth they were called “Celebrity Lights”.

Actually, “apparently for fear of offending other faiths” does not appear to be true according to the South London Press:

A Lambeth spokesman said: “The term winter lights simply reflects the fact that a number of religious festivals take place over the winter period when the lights are switched on.”

i.e. they’re economising on lights, though who knows what their motivations are, frankly.

All the stories miss the point of course. I don’t give a monkey’s whether they are called Christmas Lights, Winter Lights, Diwali Lights, but what I do not like is Celebrity Lights – just a tiny detail mentioned in passing. “Celebrity lights”? What were they, in the shape of Jimmy Carr? Last year the lights on Oxford Street and Regent Street were characters from The Incredibles, highly Christian that. Did I see protests in the papers? No, they’d rather have a go at the Fearsome Scourge of Political Correctness, attacking something that, at the very worst, was somebody trying not to offend people in a rather naive way. Such a threat to the British Way Of Life!

And the less said about the fucking Express the better. Here we go with the token refutation, as if it was ever worth bothering refuting this crap and as if they’d care: Christmas is clearly not banned regardless of what some idiot Tory says, no mention of terrorists Muslims by anyone involved in the matter at all, ‘ashamed’ to be Christian? councils are religious bodies now are they? I can’t read the smaller print and I’m not going to buy the rag but I’m sure the rest is just as bad. No, I haven’t forgotten

or

either.

Responding to this stuff is feeding the troll unfortunately; it’s not like they’re doing anything else but trying to sell the attention of a particular subset of the country to advertisers, one which apparently is fond of reactionary racism. You can’t argue with the paper because it’s not actually putting forward an argument and it doesn’t care – try and you’re missing the point.

Oh go on though, give me five minute’s hate.

That’s better.

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November 2, 2005 · Filed under Uncategorized