Ban The Berk

I knew something was wrong the minute I got home.

My letterbox was grimacing. Like it had a horrible taste in its mouth.

Behind the door, laid out on the mat like cat vomit, was the item pictured below.

I felt sickened and shaky. I felt besmirched. Like my home had been violated. I had been on the receiving end of a BNP leafleting campaign. One of their hate-monkeys had actually walked up my path and touched my door. And then had slid something bilious and nasty into my inner sanctum.

My first reaction was to screw it up and bin it without looking at it. But then I thought, “No. Know your enemy.” So I read the leaflet. Every word. And my gut ran through a gamut of emotions. Everything from contempt, scorn and vituperative ridicule to the confirmed belief that these people are genuinely missing a chromosome; that the wiring in their brain is missing a couple of essential connectors, forever denying them the opportunity to reason and feel like normal, adult, articulate human beings.

What I hate most is the way this leaflet doesn’t pose any questions to the reader. It tells. It orders. It assumes. There is no facility here to interact mentally with this leaflet. It doesn’t care what you think. It doesn’t care what you feel. It doesn’t care for your life or the precious individuality of your particular existence. And that is nasty. That should be of concern to everyone who has any truck with this absurd political party.

And then there are the pictures, the images. The lazy buy-in to outdated, outmoded metaphors that only have meaning to idiots whose view of Britain is trapped in some fake, bromide stained stasis chamber of pre-war empire-fed glory full of working men wearing cloth caps, wives who stay at home to cook Beef Wellingtons and children who play solely with gender appropriate toys. And we all extol the Christian virtues of love thy neighbour as long as your neighbour is as British as you are. And don't worry of you have no idea of how to benchmark those Great British credentials because the BNP will do it for you.

Check out the picture of the Burka wearers:

They want to ban the burka because it is “offensive and threatening”. And to drive that singularly stupid and vapid point home they have pictured a couple of Burka wearers flicking their V’s at the camera – thus, in my opinion, totally proving their true blue British credentials forever. But that irony is lost on your average BNP member (and let’s be honest; they are all average). Is the picture mocked up? Is it real? Who cares. It’s like something out of Viz magazine. It is comic and laughable. But it is also tragic and lamentable because there will be some BNP mongrel somewhere, working himself up into an orgasmic fury of outraged indignation over this picture. It is akin to the fake Boer war footage that was played to English citizens centuries ago – shot in a London park but purporting to show Boer atrocities to galvanize the zeal of the average Englishman and give him fuel for the fight. It is nasty propaganda designed to spread hatred and xenophobia. And if that hatred and xenophobia already exist then it is designed to inflate it up into atomic mushroom cloud proportions.

And at the end of the day, is the Burka really, truly threatening and offensive?

Only if you are such a pussy you are scared of women’s clothing. It is no more threatening and offensive than a dog collar or a monk’s cassock and a good deal less threatening and offensive than a BNP rosette.

This entire leaflet does not seek to enlighten or educate. It does not seek to question. Because that would be dangerous and self-defeating. The BNP relies on the stupid misconceptions and inborn bigotry of its incestuous membership to continue its existence. The BNP more than any other party wants to halt upward mobility and free thinking and trap this country forever under a glass jar of anachronism and vile paranoia. This leaflet has but one purpose. To reaffirm the idiocy of those who are already tainted with stupidity and make them feel that they are right. Seductive. Comforting. And, sadly to some, a vote winner – those people whose innate cowardice prevent them from questioning and second-guessing their own assumptions and hatred of people who, if they got to know them despite their different languages and cultures, would be discovered to be just like them. More or less. Just without the silly haircuts. Possibly.

In all honesty, I would rather have had a urine stained tramp shove his cock through my letterbox than this leaflet. In fact, to piss Mr. Nick Griffin off even more I’d go as far as to say I would rather welcome a whole army of Polish / Arabic / Asian immigrants, each of them taking it in turns to make love to my door than to ever have one of these puerile leaflets land in my hallway ever again.

Ban the Burka?

No. Let’s keep Britain for the intelligent and the liberal and the fair minded and those with the guts and humanity to question and oppose hate-filled manifestoes and find a way forward that unites all cultures and all races.

Let’s ban the berk.

Death By Beaver

When beavers were introduced to Knapdale, Mid-Argyll in May 2009 I cheered.

Being part Scottish I could only celebrate with my far-Northern cousins that finally, at last, their beaver needs were being met. It is a little known fact that there has long been a shortage of beaver in Scotland. Some blame the Highland Clearances, some the proliferation of Buckfast and deep fried Mars bars, most put it down to the hordes of midge flies that are attracted to anything warm and moist. After all an itchy beaver is an unhappy beaver.

However, as the classic beaver spurns any kind of fashionable depilation, it was agreed that a good full musky pelt would be ample protection against even the most determined of hormonally driven irritants and therefore the whine and nip of insistent little pests would be “nay bother” to the eager beavers waiting to set up home in the west coast of Scotland.

The beavers were duly released and allowed to run free and to this day thrive and prosper in Knapdale, Mid-Argyll.

It is a story worthy of the BBC’s Springwatch. A conservation success story to be shouted from the rooftops although we are yet to see Chris Packham get to grips with a beaver live on telly despite Michaela Strachan’s best attempts to the contrary.

All should be well. Beavers and beaver jokes have been resurrected in the British Isles to the glory of all.

And then comes the disturbing news today that a man in Belarus has been killed by beaver. The beaver population in Belarus is an eye-watering 80,000. I’m not sure what ratio that is to the male human population but surely there is enough beaver to go around.

Details are currently sketchy but it seems the man had attempted to capture the beaver in order to have his photograph taken with it.

Well truly, what man has not savoured the adolescent dream of being photographed running his fingers through the quivering fur of a beautiful, perfectly formed beaver?

It seems this particular beaver was having none of it though. It didn’t want to be tied down. It didn’t want to be posed. It didn’t want to be stroked. It wanted to be left alone and photo-shoots be damned. It was plainly the wrong time of the month. The beaver was not in season. The beaver bit and bit hard.

The poor man consequently died of his injuries.

Although “death by beaver” may sound to some a glamorous way to go I suspect my Scottish brethren are now twitching nervously beneath their sporrans and analysing growing beaver numbers in the Knapdale area with a sense of gnawing trepidation. Prime air-time on Springwatch is all very well but with a beaver population explosion on the cards it is only a matter of time before there is bloodshed in the Scottish bush.

After all, an angry beaver with teeth is not something you want erecting a dam at close quarters in your kilt.

Sympathy For The Devil's Relatives

I loathe all that Thatcher stood for. I loathe all that she did from fucking over the Unions to dismantling the NHS. I'm old enough to have lived through her entire time in office from barely being politically aware when she first gained power to finding myself steeped in the very British cynicism with which we tend to view those we elect to govern over us.

Because of Thatcher I have an innate, unthinking distrust of the Conservative Party. This is not a good thing. A political choice should be a cerebral, logical, thinking process not a knee-jerk reaction whose root is in negative gut instinct. But it's there. I cannot, will not ever vote Tory.

Because of Thatcher.

She left an indelible stain on British society. Her legacies are still insinuating themselves within the contemporary political process and the very fabric of our society. None of it, in my opinion, in a good way.

But I am genuinely offended by the furore surrounding the "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" track which is - quite naturally perhaps - storming up the music chart.

I am disappointed that the BBC hasn't made a definite clear decision regarding the idea of playing it on its own chart show.

Either play it or completely ban it. But don't go all wishy-washy and say you'll "only play 5 seconds within a journalistic context". That's a cop out. That's not even an attempt to please everybody. It's an attempt not to offend anyone too much.

Show some balls for god's sake.

Don't get me wrong. I get the humour behind the record (is it even a record?). I get the desire to cock-a-snoop at the ludicrously patriotic outpouring of verbal laurels that various public figures are heaping onto Thatcher's memory. I get - feel part of - the sense of satisfaction that someone who was so largely reviled is no longer among us.

But to me that reaction should be a relatively private thing. It is my own private response. Great if other people feel the same but should it really be ramped up into some kind of public movement?

Because the simple fact is - regardless of how we feel about them - someone has died. They're not here anymore. All these outpourings of admiration and revulsion are not going to make a blind bit of difference to them.

But it is something that is going to deeply affect the relatives who are left behind and those who had a personal relationship with Thatcher. Are they to be held accountable for her actions? Do they deserve to have to wade through and deal with this public outpouring of hate when they are mourning someone close to them? When they are about as vulnerable as it is possible for a human being to be?

It seems to me to be a very un-British thing to spite someone who is grieving. It is not decent. It is not admirable. It is, I am sure, not something we want attributed to the traditional idea of what it means to be British. It does not sit well: stiff upper lip, nice cup of tea, head down and soldier on, make the best of a bad thing, oh and sneer and heap misery on those that are grieving.

Thatcher, in her political lifetime, dismantled much of what was great about being British. Let us not sell our souls on top of this just to revel in a victory that, when you think about it, is not even really ours.

There is much still to be angry about. Thatcher's / The Tory Party's on-going socio-political legacy. The stupidly lavish funeral arrangements and the inevitable cost to the Great British tax payer at a time of stringent national austerity. But the death itself?

There is no place for anger or prideful victory in death.

Let us make our snide jokes quietly amongst ourselves. Let's play the stupid "Ding Dong" record in private.

But for God's sake let us let those who have a genuine right to grieve, grieve in peace.

Their shoulders should not have to carry the weight of a modern democracy that is kicking itself in anger for making a bad choice three decades ago.

A Nerd’s Penance

In a move sure to alienate my remaining 9 readers I must here apologize to Red Dwarf.

I wronged you.

Back in your heyday I was proud to be a Red Dwarf geek. I watched religiously. I used the word “smeg”. And I wore your T-shorts with unironic pride. Smoke Me A Kipper I’ll Be Back For Breakfast was the one I was most proud of.

But during series 7 things went awry. The writing duo split due to artistic differences. Chris Barrie left meaning that Arnold Rimmer – always the lynchpin of the show for me – disappeared. I felt you lost your way. And because of that I never gave series 8 a chance. I was too quick to spot faults or take you to task over some comedic departure. And as for the 3-part special a couple of years ago... I got as far as recording Back To Earth but never watched it. I caught a glimpse of the middle episode and it all seemed too wrong. It all seemed too lazy and obvious. A storyline that treated the viewer with contempt. Like Bobby appearing in the shower in Dallas.  And the cast looked old and haggard. They looked like the residents of a nursing home dressed up in Dizzee Rascal’s cast-offs. Even Kryten had a paunch. I stopped recording and hit delete.

Red Dwarf was dead to me.

The nerd dream was over.

But this year, in an effort to teach our eldest boy about comedy and the joy of the classic British sitcom, we started working our way through the various boxed sets that I own. I had the complete Red Dwarf – minus the final 3-parter – and thought that the early ones at least exemplified all that was great and good about a classic British underdog sitcom.

To my surprise series 7, when we got to it, wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. And as for series 8... well spin my nipple nuts and ship me off to Alaska... series 8 was rather good. Considerably fine in places.

I’d misjudged the show. I can see now that, at the time, I’d become too precious about it. Too unyielding in my expectations. Sure Rimmer was a loss in series 7 but the Kochanski storylines added a bit of depth. And everybody’s return in series 8, although originally seen as a cop out, actually worked. Rimmer and Lister sharing a prison cell actually returned the show to what it had always been about. Banter. Dialogue. Not special effects and huge studio sets. Just the cut and thrust of insult and counter-insult.

Why did I not see this at the time?

I took a chance and bought the final 3-parter. We all watched it with baited breath.

Sure, the crew all looked old and haggard. But that kind of worked. They’d aged and mellowed. The script reflected this. And bugger me if Craig Charles, as Lister, didn’t even actually do some proper acting in a few of the scenes. Tears and wobbly upper lip and everything. And the Blade Runner pastiche worked too. The homage elevated the story and gave it some drive and purpose. A fitting final curtain call as curtain calls for sci-fi sitcoms go.

For those of you who are scorning this post... just take an honest look at yourselves. I bet a fair few of you were there in the early years. Watching. Laughing. Red Dwarf was our sitcom. It was our show. Sure we outgrew it, moved on, no longer thought it was nerd-cool enough. But for a time we had a bond.

All I’m saying is, it might be worth giving it a second go. A review.

If I still had my Smoke Me A Kipper T-shirt I’d be wearing it again today. And though the pride might be a bit self-conscious it would, nevertheless, still be there.

I want to lie shipwrecked and comatose, drinking fresh mango juice...