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 The lazy buy-in to outdated, outmoded metaphors that only have meaning to idiots whose view of Britain is trapped in some fake, bromide stained stasis chamber of pre-war empire-fed glory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.

The Black and White Minstrel Show

The wife and I watched Snow White And The Huntsman over the weekend… but this isn’t going to be a film review.

I’m writing because I was bugged by the dwarves.

Initially I was impressed by them. Amused. 7 dwarves running around offering various scatological jokes. As Hollywood dwarf effects go these celluloid dwarves did the business. I’d even go as far as to say that they out-dwarved Peter Jackson’s dwarves in Lord of the Rings and, as dwarf benchmarking goes, that’s setting the dwarf bar pretty darn high (for a dwarf).

Most amusing of all, these dwarves were played by some of the UK’s biggest and finest acting names: Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins and Ian McShane to name but 3.

In short (ahem), as with Peter Jackson’s Gimli [Son of Gloin], these dwarves were all played by non-dwarf actors of high acting stature. Dwarfdom was temporarily bestowed upon them by the CGI gods of whatever studio produced the movie and Warwick Davis didn’t even receive a text let alone a telephone call*.

And that’s my problem with it.

Don’t get me wrong, our Ray and our Bob made excellent dwarves. There was comedic value in seeing their heads on dwarf’s shoulders. But I couldn’t help thinking: what about all those dwarf actors out there? Lord knows some of them are superb actors (Peter Dinklage springs readily to mind) and are wasted as it is, being typecast merely as dwarves in productions that just happen to need a dwarf as opposed to being accepted as fine actors who just happen to be dwarves in real life. But if they now can’t even get work as “dwarves” in fairy-tale and fantasy films what hope have they got to get work at all?

It’s finally happening: computers are putting people out of work.

OK.

I realize I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek about this but there is a serious point to be made here. Imagine if, for example, white actors were being blacked up via CGI and were then taking roles that legitimately should have gone to black actors… Imagine the outcry! Imagine the uproar! Or what about if male actors were being CGI'd into women and taking all the leading actress roles? I think Helen Mirren might drop a few F bombs at that turn of events. And quite rightly so.

So why is it OK to do it with dwarfs? Because they’re funny? Because their entire movie raison d'etre is merely to provide light relief and a bit of carnivaleqsue exotique?

Anyone who’s seen Peter Dinklage’s performances in Game Of Thrones knows how ultimately short-sighted and short-change-giving that view now is.

It makes intellectual pigmies of us all.

And, at the end of the day, aren’t we all supposed to be a bit bigger than that?

* I'm quite willing to accept that Warwick Davis and Peter Dinklage were both approached to appear in the film but refused, perhaps feeling that the role was beneath them.

Dirty Poles

In an ideal world this post would be about my misadventures in a lap dancing club.

Instead it is about a misadventure with a broken washing machine. Misadventure. That makes it sound like the final verdict is a cop out from an inconclusive police investigation when in fact the verdict is far from inconclusive. It was, ladies and gentlemen, theft pure and simple.

Yes, the washing machine - condemned to death due to a clapped out motor - had been left in my front garden in full view of the street. Yes, my intention was to offload it onto the first rag and bone man that blew his trumpet my way. Yes, I had no intention of making any money from the transaction. I affirm all of the above.

But I put it to you that, lying in situ on my front lawn as it was, and all other intentions aside, that washing machine was still my property and legally mine. To remove it without my permission was theft plain and simple.

So. The local rag and bone man finally appears on his appointed day and I dash outside to hail him over. He grinds his flatbed truck to a halt, leaps out with the look of a martyr doing me a favour and finds me scratching my head at the huge washing machine shaped hole that has suddenly appeared in the reality that surrounds us.

It was literally there the last time I looked and now suddenly it wasn't.

Some bugger had half-inched it in the night. Probably while Karen and I had taken the car off the drive and gone into town to see Star Trek.

Unbelievable. Do these people offer a refuse collection service as well?

I had to apologize for wasting Mr Rag & Bone Man's time. He gave a pained shrug like he was used to this sort of thing and uttered the words, "probably them dirty Poles" before driving off in a squeal of copper piping and freshly fenced drain covers.

Great. Theft and casual, lazy racism all in one day.

To be honest, it's possible he wasn't slagging off all Poles in one foul breath but merely slighting the rival gang of Polish rag and bone men who also ply their trade along our street and, as he sees it, steal his business.

As it was I know for a fact that the washing machine was taken late in the evening when no rag and bone man would even think about stirring from the pub no matter how much free "any any old iron" was waiting to be had. Somebody else had nicked it, ethnic extraction as yet unknown.

And I am mightily pissed off about it but I find all avenues of recompense currently closed to me. The thing was broken and I wanted rid of it. So what does it matter?

It matters because whoever took it had made huge assumptions about the situation. That washing machine could have been specifically promised to someone. That machine could have been in full working order and only outside temporarily while we overhauled the kitchen. That washing machine could have been a novelty dog house.

They didn't ask to find out. They just took it. If they'd knocked on my door and asked me if they could take it I would probably have said yes and good riddance to it. But they didn't even pay me that smallest of respects.

It is the arrogant assumption that they had the right to take it without any kind of legal impediment that really grates with me.

An Englishman's castle is no longer sacred.

These days, unless you can nail it down, the natives are likely to steal the moat.

No Place Of Safety

Domestic violence is an issue that we all, I’m sure, like to keep at arm’s length. It’s something that most of us don’t like to think about. I mean, hey, we know what it’s about anyway, right? We don’t want to be brought down about it. It happens but not that often and it happens to other people; people we don’t know.

Wrong.

I can guarantee that in your surprisingly wide circle of friends and acquaintances you will know several people who have experienced domestic violence in some shape or form. Several; not just one, several. Some will have been affected directly, some indirectly. Either way it leaves you feeling messed up.

My first encounter with domestic violence was when I was 18. I was young and naïve. I’m glad therefore that I was not directly involved because I would not have known what the hell to do about it. I was working at British Telecom at the time and had a friend that I shall only refer to as R. R was sparky, vivacious, funny and totally madcap. She was a couple of years older than me but seemed a lot older than that. She had an Asian boyfriend and both were heavily involved in the local band scene at the time.

One day she came into work sporting a split lip. She talked about it quite freely during a tea break. They’d been set upon, her and her boyfriend, by some white guys. If we thought she looked bad we ought to see her poor boyfriend. It had been a horrible attack. Undoubtedly racially motivated.

We all made the right sympathetic and outraged noises.

All apart from one of the older women among our colleagues who sat very quietly and said nothing.

I only know what happened next because R told me years later. While the rest of us had returned to our duties, this older colleague – let’s call her P – had sat still and asked R to wait. Once they were alone P had simply said, “You need to get out of the relationship now. He won’t change. This will not be a one-off. He will cry and he will apologize and he will swear that it will never happen again but he won’t change.”

When R finally told me the truth of what happened many years later – that her boyfriend had habitually hit her – the relationship was long dead. She’d finally left him after a couple of years. And P had been right. He had hit her again. And again. And again. Each time afterwards he had been sorry. Heart wrenchingly, heartbreakingly, genuinely (I’m sure) sorry. He had cried. He had sobbed. But he had not changed. He had not admitted that he himself needed help.

In the end he had exhausted R’s capacity for forgiveness. Thank God for that (despite the irony).

R had been lucky. She had found the courage to leave him. She had found the courage to admit to herself that it was a bad situation that could not be fixed. Found the courage to admit to me that she had lied about the racist attack to protect not just herself but also her boyfriend.

Because when you are the victim of violence you are hit with a double-whammy. Fear and guilt. And those are pretty effective weapons to keep someone silent. To keep someone complicit.

I often wonder now about P. How did she know? I was too innocent to pick up on the signs that R was undoubtedly giving out but not P. She saw the whole situation in an instant. From experience maybe? It’s hard to speculate. P was a strong character. I can’t imagine her being caught up in a relationship like that.

But why not?

It only takes falling in love with the wrong person. Nobody is born is a victim. Nobody chooses it.

But our most intimate relationships can bind us to the wrong people in ways that are very difficult to break.

And you can’t tell what someone is like just by looking at them.

You have to listen too. And even then, sometimes, that is not enough.

Today I and many other bloggers are Speaking Out about Domestic Violence. I was asked to participate in this campaign by Wanderlust and have been proud to do so. If you also wish to join the campaign or just to show your support it is not too late. Simply visit Wanderlust’s blog and sign yourself up.

Thank you for listening.

Racist? Or Just Minority Interest?

We have a long running detective drama show in the UK called Midsomer Murders. It’s been running for donkey’s years and the format never changes. And neither does the plot. Basically each episode runs like this: a quaint, idiosyncratic, stereotypical English personage of a certain age who on the surface has their roiling emotions constrained by their stiff upper lip suddenly goes on the rampage and murders another quaint, idiosyncratic, stereotypical English personage of a certain age with something profoundly incongruous like a Black & Decker hedge trimmer or a Moulinex hand blender. Cue police investigation led by grumpy, cranky genius detective who solves the crime just in time to enjoy a cream tea at the local cricket club with his bridge playing wife and university graduate daughter. Cue titles.

Do feel free to take me to task (those of you who are fans of the show) if I have missed out any important plot points; I don’t think that I have.

The show’s creator, Brian True-May has, this week, got himself suspended by ITV chiefs for comments he made along the lines of “Midsomer Murders is the last bastion of Englishness” and he’d like to keep the cast all white as he feels to bring ethnicity issues into the show would change what the show is about. Basically he sees the show as being a fictional representation of an England that, if we’re honest, has never really existed. It is a stereotypical view of what we (the English) and more likely what others (the Americans) would imagine is a traditional English village. Cricketing whites, tea and scones, old boys clubs, war veterans with walking sticks, toffs with chips on their shoulders and Mellors the gardener nobbing one of the posh ladies of the amateur dramatics society behind the back of her boorish husband.

It ain’t real, folks, and it’s never been real. But this is the show’s very successful shtick. It has after all been running for over 14 years and been sold to 231 territories around the world (I wonder if any of those are Indian or African?).

The question is: is Mr True-May being racist in his adherence to a formula that has earned those very same ITV chiefs an awful lot of revenue over the last decade and a half. Is Midsomer Murders as a concept, racist?

‘Cos the backstabbers are coming out of the ITV executive director’s office with their knives of righteousness gleaming and freshly polished. They are “appalled” by his comments. An “investigation” has been launched. The story has even made the papers and the internet – no mean thing when it’s hardly been what you’d call a slow news week.

I’m going to stick my head out here and say that, in my opinion, neither the show nor Mr True-May are racist. Not on your nelly. What he and the show are being, however, in non-representational. But that is very different from being racist. But – and here’s the rub – the show isn’t meant to be representational. It’s a work of fiction. It taps into a stereotype of middle class Englishness and runs with it. Metaphorically the show is like drinking a cup of tea with your pinky sticking out. Chin-chin. Fancy a game of croquet?

I feel quite annoyed at the unspoken suggestion that the show should suddenly acquire itself an ethnic family just to tick that particular demographic box. I can’t think of a more cheap, shallow and cynical reason to get a black actor onto the cast. And I’m at pains to point out here that I’m not a fan of the show. What I am a fan of though, is the freedom of writer’s to be able to write what they like without having to jump through hoops just to appease the politically correct brigade who are so scared of offending anyone that they feel the imperative to impose the same restraints on every single show until all shows tick the same tick boxes and everyone is happy but no-one is watching the bloody show in the first place because it lacks character or individual personality.

Maybe I’m wrong. Christ, maybe I’m being racist. Am I? If the show was about an Asian village and about Asian life and values would someone be demanding a white family move in? Would that argument even get aired? Maybe that’s over simplifying it – which is a bad idea as this topic is a bloody minefield as it is.

As far as I can see, the show is a cultural backwater. Literally. What sells the show is this fake, incestuous, closed-off Englishness that inevitably leaves little room for an ethnic dialogue. The show is not real and makes no attempt to engage with real life and the real culture of England which – thankfully – is wonderfully diverse and culturally rich. But that is this particular show’s selling point. I think True-May is right. To meddle with that formula – for all it does little to appeal to me – would kill it off and ruin it for those fans who wish to suspend their disbelief and wallow for a couple of hours in a dream of England that didn’t even exist in E. M Forster’s time.

Ethnic issues are well represented on other shows and in other dramas. Nobody is being hard done by. What is happening is that the fear of racism and the fear of being perceived as being racist is resulting in a good many Union Jack bloomers getting themselves tied up into a right royal twist.

Chill out, people! It’s a minority interest show! Doesn’t that tick a tick box too?

For those of you that are interested here is the opinion of a Midsomer Murders viewer from India: Ramana's Musings...

P.S. Thank you for all reading my 700th post.

We Need A Hart To Hart

There is a long tradition in this country (in any country in fact that sports a Royal family) to take the p out of them, make snidey comments and satirize their many foibles. It is a healthy tradition and one that should be defended to the hilt regardless of whether you are a Royalist or an anti establishment Royalist hating Emo.

So it was with some dismay that I read that dear Miranda Hart – surely the world’s most likeable comedienne – has flown into some flak for a gag she made on Have I Got News For You last week. I actually watched the show but my recall of the offending joke is a little hazy because, to be honest, it was a pretty innocuous joke. Basically, whilst talking about the well-known and widely accepted racism of Prince Philip, Miranda made the gag that the world should move past making racist jokes and someone ought to tell that Greek twit and his Kraut wife about it.

Now, let’s be honest, it was a pretty obvious joke to make. It’s almost a given. Even me in my secret desire to be a stand-up comedian would have jumped on that kind of feed and responded with a similar line. It is a joke about the racist stereotyping used in racist jokes. I don’t think it was meant to be a racist joke about the Queen per se. Or am I the only one splitting that particular hair?

I should point out at this point that I am not a raving anti monarchist and am quite content with the Royal family’s continued existence in this country’s status quo.

Apparently 5 people complained to the BBC and a few more managed to fart themselves out of their armchairs and put finger to keyboard to offer their cholesterol marinated opinions on various internet forums.

They didn’t get the joke. They didn’t think it was funny. They thought it in poor taste, racist and that the Queen should be mollified with a strap-on wielded by Miranda Hart herself. Actually that last bit is a lie and a bit of a fantasy.

Personally I can’t see what the fuss is about. I don’t think Miranda Hart is racist and I don’t think the joke was racist. It was satirical. In truth the joke wasn’t even that funny – but only because it was so obvious. But it had to be made. It was the cymbal crash after the drum roll. The digestive after the cup of tea – ‘cos a drink is too wet without one.

Poor Miranda. There’s something quite harmless and inoffensive about her – the poor woman must be mystified by all the hoo-ha. I have to say I like Miranda Hart and my family is greatly enjoying her eponymously named sitcom, Miranda. It makes us all laugh including our 9 year old who nearly split an intercostal muscle at this week’s show despite being surely too young to get most of the jokes. She has somehow revived the sitcom ethos of the 70’s, made it cool again and exhumed the much missed ghosts of Frankie Howerd and Eric Morecambe with her asides and to-the-camera gurning.

She is a striking looking lady – easily over 6ft, and solid. A veritable shire horse of a woman. But you know what? Strangely attractive. And in an attempt to subvert a minor tradition of this blog, stick two fingers up at those poker-faced, Hitler-youth loving Royalists who can’t get their malformed senses of humour around a simple joke and strike a blow for big beautiful women everywhere I am going to make her my TV Totty Of The Week.

Miranda, you can dress up as a Nazi and pratt-fall into my lap anytime. I think you’re lovely.

Manners Maketh

None of you will be aware of this because I haven’t seen fit to tell you (don’t be offended, we all have our little secrets) but I started a British Sign Language course four weeks ago. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and, to cut a long story short, I’m doing it now because (by a weird confluence of events) my current novel features a Deaf character and my employers thought it would be jolly useful to have a member of staff trained in sign language and are thus paying for me to do it.

None of this is important (well, it is and I may blog about it all separately later). What is important is that the class runs from 7 – 9pm on a Tuesday. I simply don’t have time to eat a meal before the class so I’m usually famished when I come out.

And this is why, on the long walk home, I find myself frequenting the type of fast food establishment that normally in the cold light of day I wouldn’t touch with an 8ft baguette.

We’re talking greasy joes, truck driver cafes and kebaberies whose window lit meat racks seem to house the carcasses of household pets and the odd horse nicked from a Home County show ground.

I am ill at ease in these places. I’m used to fine wining and dining. Or at least a free plastic toy with my meal.

Take last Tuesday. It was a cold night and I felt like a short sharp unhealthy hit of cholesterol. So I nipped into one of Leamington’s more infamous chip-joints. The Sakarya (pronounced by the hoodies as Zachariah).

I ordered something suitable “street” and “down with the kids”. Cheesy chips.

Yes, I know. Not exactly overflowing with Nigella-esque nutrition or red blooded Gordon Ramsay protein. But, you know, it’s fuel for the fire. A naughty treat.

I order and I wait. The Turkish looking guy behind the counter is monosyllabic and seems to singularize absolutely everything. Cheesy chips becomes cheesy chip. This amuses me greatly but I don’t let this show on my face as his Turkish colleague, shaving great strips of flesh off the kebab spit, is giving me the evil eye. Actually, I say Turkish looking merely because of the kebab. In actual fact I could have easily said Greek looking, Portuguese looking or Eastern bloc looking. The typical unthinking Englishman’s casual racism. I haven’t a clue where they were from.

Could have been Peckham for all I know.

The guy who got served before me has his burger carton open on the counter in front of him and is troughing down his food with one hand and waving the other around as he demands more mayonnaise. Demands, mind, not asks. He makes to hold the mayonnaise bottle himself but the burly Turk / Greek / Yorkshire man behind the counter refuses to relinquish it. He squeezes the mayonnaise out until the chomping pig tells him to stop. “That’s enough, mate.” And off he trots into the cold night air.

When it’s my turn to get served I get offered all the usual relishes – salt, vinegar, ketchup and the ubiquitous mayonnaise. I answer to each “yes, please” or “no, thanks” as I see fit. Stavros hands my food over. I take it and offer one last thank you to the grease filled air.

Both Mr Turk and henchman Turk give me long evil stares.

I leave the building and continue walking home wondering what the hell I’ve done to offend them.

And then it hits me. I was polite. I was quite possibly too polite. In an industry where these guys must see the worst scum of the earth pass through their doors at all hours of the night in various states of advanced inebriation, to have someone – out of the blue and with no apparent reason – say please and thank you must seem like the biggest piss-take the world has ever seen.

They thought I was being sarcastic. They thought I was being patronizing. They thought I was taking the Michael.

Good grief. Is this what the world is coming too?

Well it was either that or the fact I told them that their fathers like to do goats up the arse in sign language... but I doubt it.

Achtung! Don’t Mention Ze Election!

God knows I’ve done my best to make this blog an election free zone. I’ve resisted commenting on the televised debates (mainly because I’ve very easily resisted watching them). I’ve resisted making derogatory comments about the Tory poster campaign featuring David Cameron, tie off, sleeves rolled up, man of the people getting ready to “muck in” with the rest of us. I’ve even resisted posting a photograph on this blog of the papier-mâché butt I have fashioned out of all the political fliers that have been posted through my letterbox over the last two weeks – enough to account for a large denuded hillside in Scotland, I shouldn’t wonder.

I didn’t want to get political, you see. Not because you’re not interested (though possibly most of you aren’t) but because it has reached saturation point here in the UK and I’m sick of it. It’s being overdone and it’s being overdone badly. We don’t overdo things here in the UK as professionally as the Americans do. When we overdo things it just looks excessively shoddy instead of just shoddy.

But Monday night I accidentally caught a little bit of the televised Party Political Broadcast by the British National Party.

And it riled me. It offended me.

I felt affronted.

Not by anything that was said because when I saw it was the BNP I immediately switched off mentally.

But I was offended by the imagery.

It opened with air raid sirens wailing over a black and white archive footage shot of an anti aircraft searchlight.

Trying to tap into that war time spirit, you see. Trying to tap into the received stereotype of the good old honest-to-God white faced blue collar worker standing at arms with his neighbour in the face of adversity; in the face of overwhelming odds.

And then the icing on the cake: Nick Griffin squatting behind his desk like Jabba The Hut in a Burton’s suit talking reasonably and calmly about whatever it is the BNP would like us to believe that they believe. And in the background, deliberately in shot, the ultimate in product placement. A nice little framed portrait of Sir Winston Churchill.

Plainly the BNP do not do subtle.

And that is what annoyed me.

Do they really think people are that dumb? Do they really think that people who weren’t even around to experience the actual real war will buy into the BNP on the back of some pseudo contrived fake mishmash of Britain’s old war time 1940’s spirit?

Do they really think that people’s knees can be jerked so easily?

Plainly they do. Plainly they think that the British people really are that dumb (and dumberer).

Plainly the BNP think that their party embodies the spirit of Winston Churchill, Boudicca and The Ghost of Christmas Future all rolled into one fat red, white and blue stick of Blackpool rock.

Roy Chubby Brown is the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse: stupidity.

It is this assumption of the nation’s gullibility that makes me angry.

And it is the BNP’s willingness to manipulate the truly gullible among the population with this trite 6th form pub lounge campaign that makes me angry most of all.

Because there will be people, alas, who will fall for it. Who will buy into it. Who will give themselves over to it and think they are doing the patriotic thing. The right thing. The war time spirit and all that. Fighting the good fight.

For all I loathe the concept wars, the semantic duelling and the psychological fencing of both the Conservative’s and Labour’s political campaigns they do at least credit the nation with some intelligence with all their subliminal posturing. They at least assume that the average man on the street is in some way media savvy.

But Winston bloody Churchill and WWII?

Oh come on!

All it did for me is make me mentally replace the portrait of Churchill with one of Hitler and hang a swastika behind Nick Griffin’s head. I mean one stereotype is as good as another, right? If we’re going to deal in knee-jerk broad strokes and buy into old propaganda let’s do it properly.

*Sigh*

On the positive side, I at least know [if I didn’t already] who I’m not voting for.

On The Run

Regular readers of this blog will have “heard” me speak about my Polish (ex)neighbours before. Particularly daddy Pole who liked to wear shorts so tight it was like looking at a couple of vacuum packed faggots stapled to an all-in wrestler’s crotch.

Well, there have been developments.

They disappeared a couple of months ago amidst loud telephone conversations in their native tongue that we could hear quite plainly by standing on top of the kitchen counter and pressing a stethoscope to the wall. The conversations sounded stressed and urgent. They were obviously trying to book last minute flights at the nearest international airport. We assumed they’d decided to cut their losses in recession hit Britain and were heading back to their motherland.

Once they were gone we thought no more of them except to occasionally reminisce whimsically about the stressed faggots.

And then we received a letter from a debt collecting agency last week enquiring very stiffly if we knew of their exact whereabouts (the family and the faggots).

It seems they’d racked up quite a bit of debt and had decided to jump ship before the bailiffs arrived to confiscate their Nintendo Wii.

Not sure how I feel about it really. Part of me – possibly the slightly xenophobic part of me – feels a little put out that they came to this country, made good with our products and services and then left without paying their dues.

But the biggest part of me, if I’m honest, thinks good luck to them. Keep your heads down and keep running!

I’d like to think of them growing ridiculous moustaches and wearing incongruous sunglasses on the Costa del Sol somewhere. Possibly having dealings with the European underworld or local mafia. Obtaining new identities, false passports, new dental records. Maybe even having eye transplants like Tom Cruise in Minority Report – though I admit this might be taking things a little bit too far.

I also find it amusing (though it’s an awful joke) that this dear Polish family have absconded without paying council (poll) tax... even though it’s effectively cocking-a-snook at the local authority that pays my wages.

Anyway, I’m checking the Interpol web site regularly now.

Keeping an eye out, keeping ‘em peeled. Scanning the Most Wanted lists.

I’d recognize those freshly pressed faggots anywhere...

The Shame

America elects its first black president...

For the last 7 days Europe and America has been commemorating the anniversary of the D-Day landings, a time when nations pulled together to stand against bigotry and racism. ..

And yesterday Great Britain awarded the BNP two seats in the European Parliamentary elections.

The entire nation should hang its head in shame.

I mean, who in their right mind voted for these BNP idiots? Anybody care to own up?

No. I didn’t think so. Which makes their election all the more puzzling.

How has it happened?

Is an economic downturn all it takes for people to lose their thin veneer of humanity and jump on the bandwagon of bigotry?

Can people not see the appalling danger in any ethos that has at its heart the xenophobic desire to “save [insert the name of any country here] only for me and mine and people who look like me and mine”?

Plainly not.

History is evidently an ineffectual teacher.

Worse.

History is an appallingly ineffectual supply teacher. It means well. It wants to teach us really important stuff but its authority is completely lost on us. We just want to muck about at the back of the class, go out to break early, bunk the day off and then moan and blame other people when everything eventually goes tits up.

My wife’s reaction to the news was to wonder aloud if maybe it was time we got out of this country.

Mine was to opine that if the BNP got any more toe-holds people like us – proud liberals – might not have any choice in the matter.

From now on I’m going to be keeping one eye on the political landscape and one on the cheap suitcase shop at the top of town.

The reputation of the UK is currently staggering beneath the weight of a long knife in the back. I’d hate to be there if it ever topples over.

Engerland?

So it was St George’s Day yesterday and the whole occasion hit me as a bit of a paradox.

Firstly – unless I went around in a zombiefied state yesterday (perfectly possible) – I seem to have totally missed any notification that it was St George’s day from the news media. This seems to me to be entirely wrong. I think a little bit of national pride can be a good thing and we should justly celebrate our Englishness one day a year just as the Irish quite rightly enjoy a good rave up on St Patrick’s Day. It’s about time the English stopped mooching around in their hoodies and behaving like the cross of St George is some kind of criminal brand.

OK. Soapbox dispensed with.

And then on the way home from work last night I came across a huge bunch of people obviously doing the above with unrestrained gusto outside a town centre pub. And I promptly went back to wishing my fellow countrymen would spend the entire day mooching around in their hoodies and trying not to be picked up on the local CCTV cameras.

It was ugly. It was bullish. And it made me feel ashamed.

Can we English not exhibit national pride without making it look xenophobic, aggressive and something akin to football thuggery?

And what or where is this “Eng-er-land” of which they so raucously chant?

I don’t want to live in Eng-er-land!

It sounds, well to be honest, unappetizingly Neanderthal. A bit backwards and inbred. A land of beer gutted, ruddy faced pie eating brutes who discordantly sing “God Save The Queen” while at the same time giving anyone with a home counties accent a good kicking for being “a bit of a sneering toff”.

I know, I know. I’m being a snob.

Why shouldn’t the common people (of which I am one) celebrate St George’s Day the common way (10 pints of ale and a gristle pie)? After all England isn’t just about Ascot, the Boat Race and Vaughan Williams, is it? It’s also about football and darts and fish & chips. And chavs. And underage pregnancy. And Big Brother. And men who walk around shirtless at the first sign of sunshine in April in a desperate attempt to get a fast-track tan only to succeed in making themselves look like pigeon-toed irradiated sides of beef.

But for Lord’s sake, where is the sense of pride in our pride? Where is the sense of self respect? Where is the noble aspect, the aspiration? The inspiration?

Surely celebrating our national identity should be a chance to hold our heads up high – not merely to lift our beer bellies up out of the gutter while we spew several cans of Special Brew and a hastily masticated kebab down the drain?

When on earth did St George become synonymous with Bacchus? Or worse still, the BNP?