I care not for Sienna Miller, nor does Hugh Grant come across as anything other then disposable. The lives of past it actors as well as Premiership footballers ultimately don't matter to me, however i accept the point of view that one who lives in the public eye and greatly benefits from doing so cannot expect sympathy when those who help make their careers tilt over the edge of common decency.
The actions of The News of The World (And it would have been The News of The World, no private investigator would go to such lengths without an employer's direction or blessing) in regards to the Dowler family were simply deplorable and, in a rare moment of agreement between myself and Ed Milband, was a stain on British Journalism. I can see no moral or ethical reasoning behind it, the fact that the family of a (at the time) missing teenage girl, even in the moment of their deepest worry and what was soon to be grief, can be hounded and pulled along in delusion makes the individuals involved only a small step down from Bellfield himself. I have the utmost respect for the families of our dead servicemen and women, as well as those who perished in 7/7, however, with no offence intended, their fate was already known when it happened. It is awful I know but the torment Milly Dowler's parents and sister were put through in being allowed to believe she was still alive by the active deleting of voicemails from her mobile phone for me is the lowest level that this scandal has sunk to and nothing that comes out now will trump it.
However, this is not the most significant aspect of the saga, more the reaction to it. The day the Dowler family stood at the steps of The Old Bailey and spoke in such dignified terms of their pain, not only at losing Milly, but of what they went through during Bellfield's trial, caused a whirlpool of hatred and anger, which the press steered, right though they were, towards the painfully over liberal jucidial system. In the days after, when the allegations from the Dowler's solicitor came out they felt the wrath themselves and ultimately the News of The World was closed down. Hurrah! The will of the people was answered, put that on your barbecue and cook it Rupert old boy! Better yet, stuff your son's face with it, anything to silence his daft sounding voice. A victory in the name of common decency over the apparently unbeatable rubbish pit, the boidoir of the Murdoch gutter press; this was the reaction, but in doing so it showed in very clear terms that the press is nothing other than a mirror of society and not, like some would have you believe, the other way around. The press and the media, mass and conventional, do not inject ideas into people's brains, they are canvases for society to spew it's collective filth onto and be constantly avaliable for anyone and everyone to observe and wonder at.
There is no denying the atrocious nature of what the News of the World did (in the Milly Dowler case), however there is very little point in directing anger towards the paper itself or dare I say the Murdochs. What the did they did for a reason and the cold hard truth is that had they published a story about a member of the Dowler family which cast them in a bad light, people would have bought it to read, to gossip over like they do everything else. The News of the World was, and it's successor will be, very much part of Britain in the 21st Century. It was to to tabloid media what Lehman Brothers was to Wall Street and perhaps more. A gutter press for a gutter readership and a gutter society.
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Tuesday 17 May 2011
Get Going
I still can't quite believe it.
It started with the rain and then the sirens came from the television. It poured outside.
I remember sitting in my front room after school, watching, sitting on the sofa beneath the framed New Yorker drawing, engulfed by it all, fascinated, disturbed but not disgusted, no, that came later. That is how I feel now, these people are not misunderstood, they do not offer something different and that is why we hate them, no, they kill, they maim, they cause misery and spread terror, that is all. They are not us because we live by ourselves, ultimately their selfenforced pig sty lifestyle means nothing to us, in much the same way as the guilt ridden Catholics or the circumsised Jews have little relevance, yet they and the others are held captive by that most pointless of old age human characteristics, the desperate need to convert, to thrust their hairy selves once more onto the fields of the crusade. Oh how they live to be pitied as much as to be loathed! The cretins can think what they will, their yearning to have others think the same is ridiculous, that is unquestionable. What is it that makes them this way, how empty and worthless they must really feel about their daily routine, to try and make others swirl in the same shallow pool? Whatever it is, that is what made them do it. That is why close to 3,000 people died that day, that is why the world is in a permanent state of fear and why people are so angry. Muslims who live peacefully and exist by our way should look no further than the despicable coward who was killed close to a month ago for the (slight) prejudices they suffer. God believers to should blame the militant new age bible bashers for the "aggressive secularism"as a lap dog to the Pope said when describing Britain's attitude towards the world's biggest peadophile ring, sorry, Catholicism.
Ultimately this is what will cause their end, because you can't repress people and trying to brow beat them into believing in the same shit you do will always fail with someone with the slightest degree of independent thinking, history proves it as does the short history of the 21st century. Bin Laden's attempts to bring down the West and everything it believes in (Democracy, freedom of speech, multicultrialism etc) did not result in the implosion of the status quo and introduction of Sharia Law, instead the invasion and destruction of his own allies and the justified vendetta against himself and his henchman, just like Adolf Hitler trying to convert Europe into his way of thinking eventually did for him.
On the flip side, Israel, who guard their borders fiecerely and allow the world to move around them will probably last forever. I have confidence that my nation, the United Kingdom, will also go on for a little while yet despite difficult times looming. I sometimes lament my compatriot's apparent attitude to life, it is easy to assume the opinion that modern day Brits live in a different world to that of of previous generations and yes, that would be correct, but I choose to think not every person of British birth after 1990 believes the government has a bottomeless pit of money and that they are in some way owed a living, that they explode into a fit of anger at the slightest request of concession. If they were, then I can only come to the conclusion that David Cameron's Premiership wouldn't have lasted even this long and that his extremely resonable and common sense policies on the economy and immigration would have caused chaos. Though times will be hard, we will be ok. Maybe this generation will be a write off, I don't know, all I know is I don't want to be a fucking part of it, I feel little or no fellowship with the majority of my comrades, however that doesn't mean to say members of the 'Lost Generation' have the right to sit around moping and whining. Life is what you make it and people my age need to get a grip, take their thumbs out of their mouths and get their own. If they don't then I hope they happy with being statistic for the rest of their existence and I have hope that there will be enough like me who won't be happy with that, because as I began to point out before, people can't be repressed forever, not all people, just the ones who don't like it. If they could be then Bin Laden wouldn't have had anything to blow up in the first place.
That whole day is a blur to me with the exception of the event itself. Not unusual for a ten year old I suppose bored at school. In retrospect I am shocked at how little I understood, not about what it meant and the oppurtunities it opened up but even the event itself, even to the extent I had to have the word 'hijacked' explained to me. I knew about the World Trade Centre. I remember, years ago before the event, cereal companies running a promo where you would get cards about famous landmarks from across the world. Everything. From the pyramids of Giza to the Eiffel Tower, to Big Ben to the Sydney Opera House, they were there and needless to say so was the World Trade Centre, more important then the rest, the beacon of hope and the symbol of the victory achieved only a few years earler against Eastern Europe and their own brand of terror. Because of this I was fascinated by the events of that otherwise very ordinary day in early Autumn, seeing clip upon clip of this victorious symbol of freedom against political tyranny fall in less then two very short hours, felled by the fist of religious tyranny instead. I feel that it was at that point I began to feel conscious, though not all that bothered. People get attacked, killed in the street, so what? You can do it yourself on a playstation game for £20 or become immersed in 18 rated films and see if the sick basterds who made it are any sicker then the other sick basterds who made the prequal, it doesn't matter, my generation has already seen the worst act of violence ever captured on live television and who is anyone to judge the sick film makers when the BBC were showing burning corpses falling from the world's highest building on the six o'clock news?
It started with the rain and then the sirens came from the television. It poured outside.
I remember sitting in my front room after school, watching, sitting on the sofa beneath the framed New Yorker drawing, engulfed by it all, fascinated, disturbed but not disgusted, no, that came later. That is how I feel now, these people are not misunderstood, they do not offer something different and that is why we hate them, no, they kill, they maim, they cause misery and spread terror, that is all. They are not us because we live by ourselves, ultimately their selfenforced pig sty lifestyle means nothing to us, in much the same way as the guilt ridden Catholics or the circumsised Jews have little relevance, yet they and the others are held captive by that most pointless of old age human characteristics, the desperate need to convert, to thrust their hairy selves once more onto the fields of the crusade. Oh how they live to be pitied as much as to be loathed! The cretins can think what they will, their yearning to have others think the same is ridiculous, that is unquestionable. What is it that makes them this way, how empty and worthless they must really feel about their daily routine, to try and make others swirl in the same shallow pool? Whatever it is, that is what made them do it. That is why close to 3,000 people died that day, that is why the world is in a permanent state of fear and why people are so angry. Muslims who live peacefully and exist by our way should look no further than the despicable coward who was killed close to a month ago for the (slight) prejudices they suffer. God believers to should blame the militant new age bible bashers for the "aggressive secularism"as a lap dog to the Pope said when describing Britain's attitude towards the world's biggest peadophile ring, sorry, Catholicism.
Ultimately this is what will cause their end, because you can't repress people and trying to brow beat them into believing in the same shit you do will always fail with someone with the slightest degree of independent thinking, history proves it as does the short history of the 21st century. Bin Laden's attempts to bring down the West and everything it believes in (Democracy, freedom of speech, multicultrialism etc) did not result in the implosion of the status quo and introduction of Sharia Law, instead the invasion and destruction of his own allies and the justified vendetta against himself and his henchman, just like Adolf Hitler trying to convert Europe into his way of thinking eventually did for him.
On the flip side, Israel, who guard their borders fiecerely and allow the world to move around them will probably last forever. I have confidence that my nation, the United Kingdom, will also go on for a little while yet despite difficult times looming. I sometimes lament my compatriot's apparent attitude to life, it is easy to assume the opinion that modern day Brits live in a different world to that of of previous generations and yes, that would be correct, but I choose to think not every person of British birth after 1990 believes the government has a bottomeless pit of money and that they are in some way owed a living, that they explode into a fit of anger at the slightest request of concession. If they were, then I can only come to the conclusion that David Cameron's Premiership wouldn't have lasted even this long and that his extremely resonable and common sense policies on the economy and immigration would have caused chaos. Though times will be hard, we will be ok. Maybe this generation will be a write off, I don't know, all I know is I don't want to be a fucking part of it, I feel little or no fellowship with the majority of my comrades, however that doesn't mean to say members of the 'Lost Generation' have the right to sit around moping and whining. Life is what you make it and people my age need to get a grip, take their thumbs out of their mouths and get their own. If they don't then I hope they happy with being statistic for the rest of their existence and I have hope that there will be enough like me who won't be happy with that, because as I began to point out before, people can't be repressed forever, not all people, just the ones who don't like it. If they could be then Bin Laden wouldn't have had anything to blow up in the first place.
That whole day is a blur to me with the exception of the event itself. Not unusual for a ten year old I suppose bored at school. In retrospect I am shocked at how little I understood, not about what it meant and the oppurtunities it opened up but even the event itself, even to the extent I had to have the word 'hijacked' explained to me. I knew about the World Trade Centre. I remember, years ago before the event, cereal companies running a promo where you would get cards about famous landmarks from across the world. Everything. From the pyramids of Giza to the Eiffel Tower, to Big Ben to the Sydney Opera House, they were there and needless to say so was the World Trade Centre, more important then the rest, the beacon of hope and the symbol of the victory achieved only a few years earler against Eastern Europe and their own brand of terror. Because of this I was fascinated by the events of that otherwise very ordinary day in early Autumn, seeing clip upon clip of this victorious symbol of freedom against political tyranny fall in less then two very short hours, felled by the fist of religious tyranny instead. I feel that it was at that point I began to feel conscious, though not all that bothered. People get attacked, killed in the street, so what? You can do it yourself on a playstation game for £20 or become immersed in 18 rated films and see if the sick basterds who made it are any sicker then the other sick basterds who made the prequal, it doesn't matter, my generation has already seen the worst act of violence ever captured on live television and who is anyone to judge the sick film makers when the BBC were showing burning corpses falling from the world's highest building on the six o'clock news?
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Germany
I wish to write my first piece about something close to me. Post it notes, about ten inches to my right, in green and orange, the pack I would say two thirds of the way to being done.
Now for something that really should be a long way away and in a way sort of is, hundreds of miles in fact, across wild sea and flat terraine, but in fact getting there is extremely easy and I was, not so long ago at a time when the majority were otherwise engaged.
Let me begin by stating my position. I am 'half' German, not to say I speak the language or have ever lived in Germany, but because of father, I am 'half' of him, who is German.
For people outside Germany and who have no real experience of the country it is difficult to explain to the significance last summer, nothing overtly extraordinary took place, nothing for the rest of the world to gawp at through 24 hour news and nothing that would need a NATO or UN intervention, but something that for me at least made me for the first time in my life feel not so stigmatised regarding my admittedly mirky German ancestry. It is easy to do so, living in the country itself it certainly is, where the mention of history is met with shuffling of feet and enjoying the undoubtedly beutiful tune of Deutschland Uber Alles is frowned upon. For someone like myself who has lived in England all his life, I often used to meet the coming of Armistace Day for example with mixed feelings. Please do not think for one second that I had any divided loyalty on the matter, it cannot be argued that it was not ultimately good that Britain and her allies succeeded and with my English Grandfather a Battle of Britain war hero I do feel and always will feel an unkillable level of pride whenever the 11th November arrives. It was the German in me, that unmistakeble 'half' that groaned and wanted to pretend the whole thing had never happend and perhaps envied the Bavarian bourgeoise professionals and their housewives, permanently grinning and not thinking of anything beyond the Alps.
If you have read this far then I am sure you are thinking something along the lines that everything, all this throughly deserved and perhaps you are correct. It was the German middle classes, people like my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, who allowed this to happen, who were mainly if not solely at fault for the beginning of the War, that paved the way for entire families to be wiped from the Earth in the genocide of 11 and half million people and who ultimately stigmatised any patriotic politics within Europe's boundaries for the past 60 years and maybe even indefinately. But hey, it's not my generations fault. Nor is it of my many German friends, all of whom I met with during my annual holiday and fortnight long piss up in Munich last year, with whom I revelled and celebrated with whilst watching the World Cup and have visibly expressed to me the vast change in the way Germans look at themselves and perhaps even what it means to be German itself in the 21st Century.
I spent almost the whole tournement in Germany. I flew out only a couple of days after England's crap performance against the yanks and one following the German trouncing of that other Auld Enemy of England, Australia, those two results obviously meaning the papers were full from headline to backpage of how the English must immdietely adopt whatever it was, the system, the secret formula that Germany possesed that enabled them to create winning and productive teams from what is lazily seen as an average group of individuals.
I watched England draw with Algeria with some friends in a Munich bar, downing a bottle of Desperados in frustration at every loose pass so that by the time I was put out of my misery by the full time whistle I proclaimed to the table that I would be burning my passport imminently. Of course I didn't and in truth I forgot the result within moments.
Despite my annoyance at England's woeful effort at ending the 44 year drought I couldn't help notice the excitement surrounding me wherever I was. Every new match was met by the sounds of Vuvuzelas filling the air, the side of every road packed with pieces of German engineering draped with the Black Red and Yellow and every other balcony likewise, in the avenue of flats in the small town where I was staying on the outskirts of Munich. I had experienced the aftermath of the previous World Cup held in Germany but for me this was something else. It is truly incredible to be caught in the middle of a nation in the process of discovering itself. As I have said before, this isn't to be compared with the joyous events in Eqypt or hopefully soon to be in Libya and the rest of the Arab world, however this was still a victory of belief in one's self over the scars of history. It is my opnion that Germany has changed fundamentally in previous years, football, sport and the World Cup didn't make it happen, it was merely all a platform for the people to show that a generation after the fall of the wall Germany is indeed united and harbours a self belief which helped the West overcome the physical and mental damage of the War to become the third most prosperous nation on Earth and the demanding challenges and responsibilities that came with re-unification, the result of which now sees this united Germany as the centre of modern day Europe. As we have been forced to start saying in Britain, the Germans may have lost the War but they won the Peace.
Now for something that really should be a long way away and in a way sort of is, hundreds of miles in fact, across wild sea and flat terraine, but in fact getting there is extremely easy and I was, not so long ago at a time when the majority were otherwise engaged.
Let me begin by stating my position. I am 'half' German, not to say I speak the language or have ever lived in Germany, but because of father, I am 'half' of him, who is German.
For people outside Germany and who have no real experience of the country it is difficult to explain to the significance last summer, nothing overtly extraordinary took place, nothing for the rest of the world to gawp at through 24 hour news and nothing that would need a NATO or UN intervention, but something that for me at least made me for the first time in my life feel not so stigmatised regarding my admittedly mirky German ancestry. It is easy to do so, living in the country itself it certainly is, where the mention of history is met with shuffling of feet and enjoying the undoubtedly beutiful tune of Deutschland Uber Alles is frowned upon. For someone like myself who has lived in England all his life, I often used to meet the coming of Armistace Day for example with mixed feelings. Please do not think for one second that I had any divided loyalty on the matter, it cannot be argued that it was not ultimately good that Britain and her allies succeeded and with my English Grandfather a Battle of Britain war hero I do feel and always will feel an unkillable level of pride whenever the 11th November arrives. It was the German in me, that unmistakeble 'half' that groaned and wanted to pretend the whole thing had never happend and perhaps envied the Bavarian bourgeoise professionals and their housewives, permanently grinning and not thinking of anything beyond the Alps.
If you have read this far then I am sure you are thinking something along the lines that everything, all this throughly deserved and perhaps you are correct. It was the German middle classes, people like my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, who allowed this to happen, who were mainly if not solely at fault for the beginning of the War, that paved the way for entire families to be wiped from the Earth in the genocide of 11 and half million people and who ultimately stigmatised any patriotic politics within Europe's boundaries for the past 60 years and maybe even indefinately. But hey, it's not my generations fault. Nor is it of my many German friends, all of whom I met with during my annual holiday and fortnight long piss up in Munich last year, with whom I revelled and celebrated with whilst watching the World Cup and have visibly expressed to me the vast change in the way Germans look at themselves and perhaps even what it means to be German itself in the 21st Century.
I spent almost the whole tournement in Germany. I flew out only a couple of days after England's crap performance against the yanks and one following the German trouncing of that other Auld Enemy of England, Australia, those two results obviously meaning the papers were full from headline to backpage of how the English must immdietely adopt whatever it was, the system, the secret formula that Germany possesed that enabled them to create winning and productive teams from what is lazily seen as an average group of individuals.
I watched England draw with Algeria with some friends in a Munich bar, downing a bottle of Desperados in frustration at every loose pass so that by the time I was put out of my misery by the full time whistle I proclaimed to the table that I would be burning my passport imminently. Of course I didn't and in truth I forgot the result within moments.
Despite my annoyance at England's woeful effort at ending the 44 year drought I couldn't help notice the excitement surrounding me wherever I was. Every new match was met by the sounds of Vuvuzelas filling the air, the side of every road packed with pieces of German engineering draped with the Black Red and Yellow and every other balcony likewise, in the avenue of flats in the small town where I was staying on the outskirts of Munich. I had experienced the aftermath of the previous World Cup held in Germany but for me this was something else. It is truly incredible to be caught in the middle of a nation in the process of discovering itself. As I have said before, this isn't to be compared with the joyous events in Eqypt or hopefully soon to be in Libya and the rest of the Arab world, however this was still a victory of belief in one's self over the scars of history. It is my opnion that Germany has changed fundamentally in previous years, football, sport and the World Cup didn't make it happen, it was merely all a platform for the people to show that a generation after the fall of the wall Germany is indeed united and harbours a self belief which helped the West overcome the physical and mental damage of the War to become the third most prosperous nation on Earth and the demanding challenges and responsibilities that came with re-unification, the result of which now sees this united Germany as the centre of modern day Europe. As we have been forced to start saying in Britain, the Germans may have lost the War but they won the Peace.
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