Occupy Movement is Right, Says Bank of England, Richard Hall, Independent

Strange days indeed. I don’t know whether we should be cheering from the rooftops or deeply suspicious in our bunkers when a senior executive of the Bank of England starts singing the praises of the Global Occupy Movement. It is one thing when a few principled souls in the Church of England come out in support of the anti-capitalist occupations but quite another when the BoE executive director of financial stability comes out publically in support of those very same occupations. What’s his game? What’s he up to? Are we really all singing from the same hymn-sheet? Just whose agenda is he really promoting, the ninety nine per-cent or the one per-cent? Read More…

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie is back in the news and on two accounts. Firstly, he has just published his memoir of living life under a barbaric, jihadist, ten year fatwa. Secondly, a movie of his award winning 1980’s masterpiece, Midnight’s Children is just about to be released. And now the confession: I had never read a single line of Rushdie’s work despite all the global attention his notorious Satanic Verses has attracted. It was time to make amends, but where to start? Obviously with his Midnight’s Children, and then work my way forward from there. And what a supreme treat that turned out to be.

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Occupy by Noam Chomsky

This is a useful pamphlet sized book that reproduces a couple of speeches and interviews made by Noam Chomsky regarding the world-wide Occupy movement. There probably isn’t anything in it that hasn’t been said or thought before but Chomsky does give the whole movement a sense of gravitas, a sense of historical perspective. For someone as pre-eminent as Professor Chomsky to give his philosophical and spiritual blessing to this ill-defined but nevertheless cutting edge movement is no small thing. To most established journalists and commentators the Occupy movement is little more than a rag-bag army of middle class discontents who are having a bloody good time until such time as a job and a mortgage come along.

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John Terry the History Teacher

We owe a great debt of thanks to John Terry. In his own inimitable style, in a clarity and eloquence far exceeding even the best of history teachers, Mr Terry has reminded us that Europe, with Britain as no exception, has a long, bloody five hundred year colonial history, and that that history has been singularly defined by a deep seated poisonous racism, a racism that persists at all levels of society to this very day. It’s in our police forces, in our media institutions, in all levels of government, left as well as right, and deeply ingrained throughout the entire social fabric of our imagined civilisation.

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Hillsborough and Ireland – Don’t Mention the War

In all the countless pages of commentary on the Hillsborough enquiry findings I could find just one fleeting mention of Britain’s colonial war against Ireland and that was from Simon Jenkins who deigned to mention Bloody Sunday in one of his pieces. Hooray for Mr Jenkins. For the rest of Britain’s rabid pro-imperialist media, Britain’s long running war against Ireland had absolutely no connection what-so-ever to the tragedy that befell those Liverpool football fans all those years ago. And yet, if we care to remind ourselves, Britain, at the time of the Hillsborough tragedy was at the height of its bloody campaign to crush the body and spirit of those brave Irish republicans who had the temerity to claim self-rule for not just 26 counties but for all 32 counties of Ireland. So what exactly is the connection between the two?

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The Social Conquest of Earth by Edward Wilson

I have long dreamed of a set of popular history books that could be used by every school child and for that matter, every parent, which would give a readable overview of the human story quite obviously, the greatest story there could ever be. Each book in the set would be aimed at an increasingly more detailed and complex level, but the narrative would be consistent and essentially the same. Starting at a level suitable for very young children (Key stage 1) and progressing in complexity until suitable for A Level, this set of books would equip every citizen with the basic human time-line, starting with the big bang some 14.7 billion years ago, progressing through to the formation of our own solar system 5 billion years ago, onto the emergence of single cell life 3.5 billion years ago, and then proceeding through the major steps of organic evolution, including of course, our own transition from ape to man. Read More…

The Paralympics – What it Means to be Human

Jackie Ashley, writing in The Guardian, tells part of the story of what the Paralympics means today. On the one hand it means a far greater acceptance that people with disabilities, both physical and learning disabilities, are just people with the very same complex natures and the very same aspirations as the non-disabled. They are people first and foremost, who just happen through birth or accident, to have a specific disability to contend with. Those that excel at sport are exactly like those Olympians we witnessed over the past few weeks – outstanding athletes who push themselves to the extremities of human possibilities and sometimes beyond.

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Julian Assange- Journalist extraordinaire

What is the purpose of journalism? Not, as the Murdoch press might suggest, to manufacture a taste for celebrity tittle-tattle. Not, as the BBC might suggest, to act as cheerleader for Team GB in all its various incarnations. Not, as capitalist governments across the world might suggest, to trumpet the national interest which just so happens to coincide with the corporate global interest. And certainly not as the Chinese government too often insists, to promote the party line, right or wrong. No, the purpose of journalism, in the past, in the here and now, and for all time, is to hold power to account, to make bureaucracy transparent, and to expose injustice and uphold the rights of the marginalised and alienated.

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The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker

Poor old Professor Pinker. He’s got himself in a right proper pickle. With one foot barely in the camp of historical materialism ie, the real world, and the other firmly in the camp of metaphysical pycho-babble, he has taken himself and his readers through seven hundred pages of meandering pseudo-science, meaningless anecdote and bar-room chat, all in an apparent effort to prove that we humans are becoming less violent and more civilised. And he furnishes us with mountains of graphs and statistics to prove it too. Well you know what they say about statistics. They and he prove nothing.

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The Circus is Coming to Town

Hurrah, the Circus is coming to town
And my heart is beginning to pound
With the runners and jumpers
And swimmers and punchers

And Ronald McDonald the clown
Yippee, the Circus will soon be in town
With its lights and its smells and its sound
With the food and the dips
And the burgers and chips Read More…

The Banks – What is to be Done?

To even be posing the question is quite exhilarating. Prior to the collapse of Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers only starry eyes young socialists and grisly old Marxists would have even contemplated the question. These days everybody has got something to say, right across the political spectrum including the bloke next door. No doubt about it, the times they are truly a changing. Even the very question itself is up for debate. Is it the banks that need something doing to or is it the bankers, or both? Everybody has got an opinion and everybody is getting hot under the collar. Great days. Read More…

The Real Chariots of Fire, ITV

Predictably it’s back. Who could forget it, with that memorable, stirring soundtrack that, once in your head, stays there for days, weeks, months, years. I wouldn’t bet against it being the number one soundtrack of the London 2012 Olympics, inspiring Team GB to run faster, jump higher, hit harder and swim stronger. So stirring is that one little piece of music that a whole new generation of British Olympians will be born simply by turning up for the re-release of the film. Who needs a well-coordinated, well-funded sporting legacy programme when you have Chariots of Fire burning away in your brain.

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The Shard – Monument to Moribund Finance Capital

If there is one thing that all of us can agree on, all that is except the grubby landlord class and their Old Etonian mates in Westminster, is that London is in urgent need of social housing. Not just social housing, but full social provision like local hospitals without chronic waiting lists, local schools that have enough places for London’s kids and are fit for purpose. And modern leisure and sports facilities, so London’s kids have somewhere safe to play and something constructive to do. Oh, and least I forget, an affordable public transport system that doesn’t treat Londoners like cattle.

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Wild Swans by Jung Chang

It is twenty years old now but it’s back in the news, this time as a theatre production. I’m rather keen to see the thing but I thought I ought to read the book first, especially since it’s been collecting dust, unread, at the bottom of the book case for far too many years. But, in fact it was not Wild Swans the play that prompted me to get reading, but rather the purchase of Martin Jacques, When China Rules The World. In order to get into Jacques book I needed to get into the whole China mood. Set the scene so to speak. Relive those old monumental battles. Rethink the meaning of the Cultural Revolution. Place the modern, dynamic, absurdly contradictory China in its historical setting.

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When China Rules the World by Martin Jacques

Martin Jacques has a simple and sobering thesis. The West is in terminal decline and the 21st century will belong to China. More significantly, it will not be simply a rerun of western democracy, with all its obvious positives and glaring limitations. No, this will be a competing modernity complete with eight distinct Chinese characteristics. It’s all change at the head of the table so we damn well better get used to it. Jacques is clearly a more than competent scholar of Asian and in particular, Chinese affairs, but it is this academic competency that may well be his undoing, for in concentrating as he does on the historical dimensions of China’s staggering rate of industrialisation and modernisation, he may well be in danger of blinding himself and his readers to what is really taking place on planet Earth.

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Simon Jenkins versus Polly Toynbee: A Tale of Two Editorials

Credit to The Guardian, 1/6/12 for publishing two diametrically opposed editorials on the meaning and significance of the Queen’s Jubilee circus. Simon Jenkins piece was as dispiriting as Polly Toynbee’s was uplifting. The guts of Jenkins article is that the monarchy is a rather harmless affair mercifully free of the grimy politicking associated with elected presidents. Don’t take the thing too seriously, just enjoy the pageantry and the nation bonding that it provides. He could not be more wrong. The monarchy is far from being a harmless, above-the-fray institution.

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Stadiums of Hate, Panorama

UEFA 2012 – to boycott or not to boycott that is the troublesome question. In fact, it is not so much a question as a murky swamp that once you dip your toe in, there seems no easy way out. Here is the problem. Everybody has their own list of who should face a sporting boycott. For me Israel should be high on the list for its arrogant, openly racist, neo-fascist treatment of its Palestinian neighbours. The United States of America and the UK, its willing lap dog, should definitely be on any boycott list for their wholly illegal war in Iraq, not to mention their 12 year collective punishment of the Afghan people in response to the criminal behaviour of a relatively small band of Islamic religious fanatics.

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The Olympic Torch Relay – A Symbol of Austerity

Make no mistake; there is much symbolism in the British Olympic touch relay but not the much hyped symbolism of human togetherness and good will to all. No, the current symbolism of London 2012 Olympic Relay can be more realistically be described as linking a growing wave of austerity and human misery that is spreading not just across the UK but the whole of Europe. As the Olympic torch passes from region to region, city to city, town to town, will the BBC and the rest of the cringing, servile media make reference to the boarded up shops in our high streets, the growing homelessness in our cities and the ever expanding ranks of unemployed and alienated youth?

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Jeremy Paxman: Imperialism – Your starter for ten

In one short piercing piece in The Guardian 24/4/12, George Monbiot has all but KO’d Niall Ferguson, Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr and all the other legions of self-satisfied, over-paid, pro-establishment apologists for British Imperialism that swan around the corridors of the BBC imagining they are presenting a fair, objective, balanced view of the British Empire. What all these learned gentlemen have in common is their inability to come to terms with the systematic and institutionalised brutality of the recently departed but little mourned planet-wide British Raj.

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Capital by John Lanchester

A point of clarification to begin with. Lanchester’s book has nothing directly to do with Das Capital, though indirectly it could be argued it has everything in common with that mighty nineteenth century tome. The Capital being referred to here by Lanchester is our very own capital city, dear old London Town, and despite reading some rather luke-warm reviews, I actually consider this a minor classic in its own right. Lanchester has conjured up a fictitious street in South London and then proceeds to follow the lives of its inhabitants through their various trials and tribulations, and by some clever plot devices links all the key characters together creating a compelling tension throughout.

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Ping London Goes National

So perhaps there is a God after all. At least someone up there or out there is starting to answer my daily prayers. It’s a simple prayer to the Almighty One: “Dear Creator of all things, please tell Lord Coe, Cameron, Boris and the rest of the self satisfied Old Etonians to stop fluffing about pretending there will be a sporting legacy from the London Olympics and instead spend a few quid on community sports and leisure, because there won’t be a sporting legacy from the Olympics – there never is. There wasn’t one in Sydney or Athens, Los Angeles or Moscow and I doubt if there will be much of one from Beijing. Just big ugly stadia that nobody wants and nobody needs.

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