Guns!!!

There has been another mass-shooting in America. A 24 year old man got up half way through a screening of the new Batman film and opened fire on the other people in the theatre. At the time of writing this the current death toll is 14 with at least 50 others injured. I feel so sorry for the people caught up in the incident. It’s come to something when a night at the movies can end in such horrific circumstances.

How does a 24 year old man in the richest country on Earth become so fucked up that he decides to shoot a cinema full of young people just out for a good time? I’m not excusing what he has done and he should be locked up for life but people aren’t born evil. They usually end up that way because of years of systematic abuse or some other kind of serious childhood trauma. This might have been in the home or it could have been at school. I can’t believe movies, video games or rap music are the cause. Maybe he just had a chemical imbalance in his brain that led him into this tragedy.

Incidents like this do happen in other parts of the Western world but seem particularly prevalent in the US. So what is it about America that results in this type of incident occurring on a fairly regular basis? In the UK we do have a problem with violent crime and violent behaviour but guns are very hard to obtain and are generally only found in the hands of gang members and serious criminals. If someone with no criminal connections suddenly goes mental it doesn’t usually result in mass-murder. Even if the person wanted to shoot people it is unlikely they would be able to obtain a gun. A UK citizen who is not involved in gangs or serious criminality is very unlikely to be involved in a shooting incident.

Guns seem to be an integral part of American culture. It’s like a hangover from the Wild West. Combine that with the crazy US gun laws and you have a recipe for disaster. Guns are easy to obtain and many people keep a gun at their home. The right to bear arms is in the US constitution but surely the time has come re-evaluate the law and introduce much stricter gun controls. Sadly, I don’t think it will happen in an election year because Obama wouldn’t dare face the backlash from the powerful gun lobby and the right wing media. If the gun laws can’t be changed maybe a period of national self-reflection is needed to try and bring an end to the misery guns bring to thousands of Americans every year.

I'm Still Here....

I’ve not updated my BLOG for ages. I would say I’ve been busy but that would be bollocks. I just got out of the habit of updating it.

It’s been another year of highs and lows and peaks and troughs. I just count my blessings and keep on plodding along. In many ways I’m lucky. Despite redundancy offers I’m still in work and I’ve still got a roof over my head (mainly thanks to the roofer who sorted out my damaged slates this morning). I know a lot of people haven’t been so lucky and my thoughts are with them.

I’ve not been to many gigs so far this year as there haven’t been many I wanted to see. I went to Noel Gallagher a couple of months back where he proved beyond doubt that he is far more talented than his knob-head brother. I also went to the Stone Roses reunion gig at Heaton Park. I loved the Stone Roses when I was a teen so it was a very special night that brought back some great memories. It was dry the night we went so my specially purchased cool as fuck US Army surplus Poncho wasn’t needed!

There has been a lot of bad publicity in relation to the London Olympics over the last couple of weeks. The G4S security cock up, the thousands of tickets that have suddenly come on sale for the “sold out” events and the traffic / public transport problems in London are all genuine areas of concern. Despite all this I’m really looking forward to the Olympics. I admit I’m biased as I managed to get a ticket for the athletics but even if I wasn’t going I would still be excited about the games starting. I’ve loved watching the Olympics on the television since being a child. I think it’s great they are being held in Britain. I’m sure once it all gets going the media and public will be much more enthusiastic.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that at some point we will get something resembling a summer but I’m not holding my breath. They do say the Jet Stream is slowly starting to move north so we might get a bit of sunshine. I don’t know if it’s because of climate change or just part of the normal cycle of weather patterns but either way the seasons just seem to be totally screwed up.

That’s all for now but I will try and get back in the habit of updating regularly.

Music and Mayhem

A couple of weeks back I went to see Blondie at the O2 Academy in Liverpool. It was the second time I’ve seen Blondie live and they were great. They belted out all the classics interspersed with tracks from the new album. It was the last gig of their UK tour and you could tell from the start they were going to make it a night to remember.

Blondie have been together for 37 years now and still know how to throw a party. Debbie Harry still has an amazing stage presence and she was clearly enjoying herself in Liverpool. The songs from the new Album, “Panic of Girls” were very well received but the old favourites including Union City Blue, Atomic, One Way or Another and Rapture drove the crowd wild. The set also included an excellent cover of The Beastie Boys’ You’ve Gotta Fight for your Right to Party. I think it’s obligatory when playing in Liverpool to do a cover of a Beatles classic and they belted out a cracking version of Please Please Me. My only complaint about the gig was the ridiculous temperature in the venue. It was hotter than Hell in there and the sweat was literally dripping from the ceiling. Debbie even commented on it saying it felt like a hot summer in New York City.

We stayed the night in Liverpool at the Premier Inn at the Albert Dock and the next day we went to Tate Liverpool and The Beatles Experience. We had a cracking couple of days.

Blondie set list (I think it's right):
Union City Blue
Dreaming
Atomic
D-Day
Hanging On The Telephone
Call Me
Love Doesn’t Frighten Me
Maria
Girlie Girlie
What I Heard
Sunday Girl
China Shoes
Wipe Off My Sweat
Horizontal Twist
Mother
Rapture/Fight For Your Right To Party
One Way Or Another

Please Please Me
Rip Her To Shreds
Heart Of Glass

On an entirely different note a lot of people thought I would have been on here blogging about the riots but I just didn’t know what to say. The whole sorry affair was and is very depressing. I could rant about the evils of the corrupt capitalist system and the root causes of crime and antisocial behaviour. I could cry about the members of society who have been left behind and abandoned. The only thing I’m certain of is the clear evidence that poverty and crime go hand in hand. I know that some of the looters were employed and educated but the vast majority come from some of the most economically deprived areas of our country.

We are now in a situation where in many ways we aren’t really citizens of a nation state anymore we are just consumers in a global market. Those who don’t have enough money to play a role in the market are either ignored or ridiculed.

If any good can come from these inexcusable riots it’ll be that society opens its eyes and realises it can no longer ignore the consequences of inter-generational unemployment and benefit reliance. We need to invest huge sums of money to fix the problems but there isn’t any money to spend. Maybe if we made the huge corporations who make Billions of pounds in the UK but don’t pay full taxes cough up some cash we could at least take some steps in the right direction.

Bad News

When the pictures from Oslo first started appearing on the news nobody was sure what had happened. It was unclear if this was a terrorist attack or an accident like a gas explosion. As soon as it became clear that it wasn’t an accident but a terrorist attack the finger pointing began. Most of the fingers were pointing towards radical Islam and the Jihadist movement. I suppose in the current geopolitical climate it was inevitable that this would be the case.

Not long after the news from Oslo broke we started getting the reports of a shooting incident on an island called Utoeya several miles north of the city. Again there was confusion as it wasn’t known if the two incidents were related. As we now know the two incidents were related and the news broke that the culprit had pale skin and blonde hair. This didn’t seem to fit with our image of an Islamic extremist but many extremists are converts so the fingers were still pointing towards Jihadists. Eventually, we got the news that this attack was carried out in the name of neo-conservative far-right politics.

Anders Behring Breivik, who carried out the attacks, is now known to be a racist obsessed with far-right politics and linked to far-right organisations, websites and parties like the EDL, Nordisk and the FrP. He believes he is fighting a war against the “Islamisation” of Europe and the introduction of sharia. He wrote a 1,500 page manifesto about his preparation for the attack and his anti-Islamic beliefs. He described himself on Facebook as being a conservative Christian. Breivik believes Norway’s governing Labour party has to be punished for encouraging multiculturalism, allowing immigration and funding Islamic organisations. The young people on Utoeya Island were members of the Labour party’s youth wing and the car bomb in Oslo was aimed at government buildings. In reality this wasn’t an attack on the Norwegian Labour party it was an attack on democracy and freedom. It was an attack on moderate politics and tolerance.

Over the last 10 years our security services have concentrated almost exclusively on Islamic extremist groups and this has allowed other non-Islamic extremist groups to grow and operate undetected. Many of these groups are from the radical far-right movement that has grown steadily in Europe since the fall of Communism. The growth of internet use and social networking has given the far-right a new unregulated platform to spread its lies and deceit. They attract young people who feel disaffected and ignored by the political classes. We can’t ignore this situation any longer.

The EDL marches in England attract large numbers of young people who aren’t genuinely part of the far-right. They are people who are frightened, misinformed and confused about immigration and their national identity. The far-right scum who lead the EDL recognise this and seduce them with lies while hiding the full extent of their fascist ideology. The liberal left here in the UK has been far too quick to shout “racist” at anyone who has taken an anti-immigration line. That is the wrong way to deal with the situation and it has led to a growth in support for the likes of the EDL and the BNP. We need to embark on a new open discourse where confused moderate people can raise their concerns about immigration and multiculturalism without the fear of being shouted down as a racist. If you stifle debate people feel they have no voice and when people feel they have no voice they tend to start using their fists instead.

The other big news this week was the tragic death of Amy Winehouse. She has joined the forever 27 club. I always felt sorry for Amy and I think some questions need to be asked of her record company, promoters and management. Why would they let her go out on stage in Serbia when she was so out of it she couldn’t walk let alone sing? Some people are also saying her record company was putting too much pressure on her to produce a third album when she should have been concentrating on her health.

Amy really was an amazing talent who more than lived up to the hype. Her two albums were superb examples of smokey melancholic Jazz and soul. I know she was her own worst enemy but addiction is a cruel master. The poor girl just couldn’t break out of the cycle of drink and drugs that eventually killed her. RIP Amy Winehouse

News of the World

It’s been an exciting few days for those of us who are sad enough to devour news and current affairs. I’ve never known anything like it. The News of the World phone hacking scandal may well have changed the British media forever.

The relationship between the political parties and the newspaper editors has always been something I have been very uncomfortable with. A healthy democracy needs a strong Fourth Estate but our bloated newspaper media has got completely out of control. The media is not above the law but recent events at the News of the World give the impression that they thought otherwise. It is also becoming clear that it’s not just the News of the World as other newspapers are now believed to have acted illegally.

We all know that Rupert Murdoch’s New International and the other powerful newspaper groups have been polluting British politics for far too long. The influence they have held over our political leaders has been damaging to our democracy. The media must be able to practice freedom of speech but they must remain within the law and show real political neutrality. Can anyone honestly say that The Daily Mail, The Sun or The Daily Mirror are politically neutral?

The reaction of the Metropolitan Police (MET) in regards to phone hacking and other issues in relation to the activities of newspapers is one of the most shocking aspects of the whole affair. The MET have been reluctant to investigate the accusations of illegal activity being carried out by newspapers. James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks have admitted that payments (bribes) were paid to members of the Met. I think it is clear that this is the reason the MET have been so frightened of digging too deeply. I also believe there has been political pressure on them to turn a blind eye to much of what’s gone on. If it’s proved that senior members of the MET were in the pockets of News International it would simply prove what many of us have believed for years. The rich are indeed powerful and hold influence over the people who should be protecting us.

It is a shame that a Newspaper that has been on the market since 1843 has been ruined by the crooks at News International. The News of the World brand may well return under new owners but under Murdoch it was doomed. I’m not shedding any tears for the type of right wing hack that worked on the paper but it doesn’t seem fair that they all lose their jobs but James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks carry on regardless. The people losing their jobs will be ok because it’s easy to claim at least £250,000 a year in benefits and get a big house from the Council. Isn’t that what they used to tell us in the News of the World and The Sun? I also had to laugh at the idea of journalists at The Sun threatening industrial action! Or as they would usually describe it, “Union Neanderthals threaten to drag Britain back to the 1970’s”.

So what will the future be for our newspaper media? Will anything actually change? I think things can change this time because for the first time in years our politicians are in a position of strength. The fear of upsetting the Murdochs has always meant politicians had to keep them sweet and suck up to them. Now the public have turned against the Tabloids, especially Murdoch, the politicians can make a stand. The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has been a complete failure as it has no power and self regulation has been an unmitigated disaster. So we need a new independent PCC that has genuine powers of investigation and regulation.

This is an opportunity we can’t miss. The bent MET police, James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks and any other newspaper owner, editor or journalist who is charged with breaking the law should face trial and if found guilty sent to prison. This will make all current and future editors and journalists think twice before lying about people, phone hacking and forcing political agendas. It will also make bent Police officers think twice before accepting bribes. This has been a dark week for our newspapers but it could also be bright new dawn and a return to the glory days of the past. It would be nice to have a media that reports the facts and uncovers injustice. A media that is constructive rather than destructive would be a like a breath of fresh air. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Sinead O'Connor @ Manchester International Festival 2011

Ireland's Sinead O’Connor did 3 nights in the intimate pavilion theatre at the MIF (Manchester International Festival) performing material from her forthcoming new album and classic tracks crossing the span of her now lengthy and controversial career.

The first thing that struck me was her appearance. This wasn’t the pale faced young skinhead of the Nothing Compares 2 U video from 1990. Sinead is now a chubby 44 year old with hair cut into a kind of scruffy bob. She looks pleasantly like a middle aged mother of 4 who has had a hard life but is now comfortable in herself and that's what she is. She looks different but as soon as she started singing it couldn’t have been anyone else. There is a strong but vulnerable beauty and purity in her voice that's impossible to define.

The Protest songs are great but a night of nothing but anger can be a drag. Thankfully there is much in the new material that speaks of motherhood and relationships and this balances out some of the more political elements of the older songs. Sinead is still however, an inspiring independent and opinionated woman. The opening song called Take off your Shoes is an unapologetic protest against the Vatican and the child abuse scandal but at other points Sinead filled the room with a poignant Christian spirituality.

Nothing Compares 2 U is still a highlight and sounds as fresh and moving as it did all those years ago. It really is one of the greats. It was a hair standing on the back of the neck moment that will stay with me for a long time.

Sinead genuinely seemed to enjoy herself. She chatted between songs (some of which was outrageously funny) in a relaxed manner that hinted at a new confidence, and she has every reason to be confident. The new songs are excellent and her voice is as enchanting as ever.

Set List:
1. Take off your shoes
2. I had a baby
3. The Emperor's New Clothes
4. Never Get Old
5. The Wolf Is Getting Married
6. Jealous
7. No Man's Woman
8. Reason with Me
9. I Am Stretched on Your Grave
10. Something Beautiful
11. Three Babies
12. Black Boys on Mopeds
13. Untold Stories
14. V.I.P.
15. The Healing Room
16. Petit Poulet
17. 4th&vine
18. The Lamb's Book Of Life
19. Nothing compares 2 U
Encore:
20. The Last Day of Our Acquaintance
21. Thank You for Hearing Me