A surprise Eurovision post

I take little interest in the Eurovision song contest so it's a tiny bit surprising to find myself writing a quick piece on the thing. Apparently the UK came last, for the third time in a decade, with some dismal sub-pop tripe. It constantly bemuses me why we enter tunes that patently have no artistic merit.

I suppose it's worth noting that the UK have only started coming last after we began deciding our entries on a public vote. If you're going to let the public decide I suppose you will get Stock, Aitkin and Waterman - without the Aitkin even.

Of course the nay sayers have two essential arguments about why the world is so unfair. Firstly that, yes, our song was shit - but it's Eurovision for heavens sake - it's meant to be shit. Au contraire mon frere, it's music and therefore meant to be tolerable at the very least. It's a general rule that the winners of the contest tend to be better than the losers. Next year why not maximise the UK's chances of wining by entering a song that it's possible to listen to without retching.

The second point they make is that all the voting is political so we just don't have a chance. Well, it's nice that these people admit that a decade of international belligerence has made us a pariah state, but sadly it's just not true. Last year we came in the top five by using the sneaky technique of getting people who know what they're doing to put our entry together. It's possible to do well, but not if we enter the musical equivalent of scabies, but without the glamour.

This year we had possibly the classyest entry from Armenia, if by classy you mean cheap where the camera wuld literally have had to climb into the lead singers cleavage to get a more obvious breast shot at the beginning of the piece and there was also a well meaning stage invasion during the Spanish entry which I found rather charming.

Anyway, this is the second time that Germany have won the competition, the first time being in sunny Harrogate in 1982, a Eurovision that was wracked with controversy as the French refused to enter saying that "The absence of talent and the mediocrity of the songs were where annoyance set in. [Eurovision is] a monument to inanity."

How things have changed.

Anyway, 1982 was the year that my very favourite Eurovision song was entered, by Finland it was entitled "Bomb out" a piece dedicated to international brotherhood and the simple plea that nobody was to drop a nuclear weapon on the band, a Eurovision practice that has certainly had it's worthy advocates over the years.

Kojo's cold war anthem Nuku Pomiin had a great deal to merit it, even if it were not exactly a cultural masterpiece. You can find the lyrics here, but I think if I tell you that the opening lines pose the rarely asked question "If someone soon throws some nuclear poo here on our Europe, What will you say when we get all the filth on our faces?"

Enjoy.



Who could believe that it received just nul points? A scandal Eurovision has yet to recover from.

Internet bashing

Just listening to the radio wheel out old, lazy cliches about the internet making people more isolated and lonely. Personally I think this is rubbish, people have never communicated with each other more, just because we do it in new ways does not make it a social problem.

I'd like to remind these people that isolation and loneliness is not new. Exhibit one, The Members wrote and performed this song long before anyone knew they'd be such a thing as the world wide web.



The idea that making it easier to keep in touch with those you know and create social networks of people you'd never normally get to meet is an isolating experience just seems strange to me.

It's far too easy to look at the past through rose tinted glasses and underplay the impact of poverty, rural isolation or what people with sociology degrees call 'social deviation' (not as fun as it sounds) could have upon people. All problems that are mitigated through the rise of social media, although obviously not eradicated.

I think it's true that today we have communities with little sense of community, but this is a process that began long before the internet came about and while there were lots of upsides to strogner community cohesion this came at a price where people were expected to conform to social standards far more tightly than they are today.

I suspect being trapped in a marriage because it's the thing you are meant to do was a far more depressing experience than anything Bebo has managed to conjure up.

Review: Henry Moore

Yesterday I went to see the Henry Moore exhibition at the Tate (which continues until August 8th). This is a fantastic collection of the artist's sculptures and drawings that takes us through a journey from his early luxurious works through his development into a harder edged style which seems to be heavily influenced by his experiences during the war.

Moore's voluptuous works beg to be fondled and licked. Their curves seem perfectly molded for the hand as well as the eye.

Indeed you might be fooled by the galleries constant signs saying that we were not to touch the objects that Moore thought his work should be regarded from afar as some sort of aesthetic wonders. In fact he felt it was essential to touch his work and he'd hoped that people would sit on and lounge across his work.

I've not been to Harlow for a while but certainly it used to be the case that his priceless art works were open to all in the public squares where young people were frequently seen perched atop these multi-million pound objects. I've heard the council has moved them out of sight which, if true, is a real shame as Moore saw his art as something that should physically interact with the community, not stand aloof from it.

Moore's easy abstract style feels like it has welled out of his subconscious conjuring up images both dark, erotic and strong. He once said that he'd refused all psychoanalysis because he'd feared it might disarm his artistic urges rooted as they were below the surface of his mind.

What I hadn't realised is that how clearly influenced by the war his development was. His drawings in the bomb shelters are deeply moving and quite unexpected. After delving into the depths of fear of those days his work moves away from obsessions of maternal and onto darker and more violent themes.

This is certainly an exhibition that's well worth visiting if you're in London over the next few months. Moore's place as one of the UK's most highly regarded British artists is well earned and here we see a wonderful snap shot of his work.

John Hicklenton: Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!

I was sad to see that John Hicklenton (wikipedia) the creator of the likes of Judge Dredd has taken his own life after a long battle with illness.

Hicklenton was part of a team that helped create a bleak, if artistic, form of social criticism.


As a teenager I was particularly fond of the Nemisis / Torquemada episodes where an alien freedom fighter battles the religious zealotry of a human militaristic empire that sought to exterminate everything not like itself.

It played into my growing awareness of racism, religious dogma and political violence - although whether it really helped my understanding is another matter. Whatever its utilitarian value the stories were glorious.

By placing the focus on the psychology of discipline and order Hicklenton and others teased out how the desire for perfection was intrinsically linked to the desire for death.

Where change and chaos occur it is the product of life, which is naturally ambiguous, complex and difficult. By attempting to wipe out those ambiguities the forces of law and order become forces for death itself.

Makes sense to me anyway.

Torquemada in particular relied upon the artificiality of 'the other'. Those elements that seem alien are often only different because of the conditions we have placed upon them because of their alienness.

Years before I started thinking about these things possible I began to understand how creating enemies can serve a purpose quite at odds with the propaganda that supports conflict and hate. I'd like to thank John Hicklenton - he'll be missed.

Sectarian bunfight!

It can be strange to watch the in-fighting between groups that you assumed were all on the same side. As they denounce each other for letting the world go to hell in a handcart it's possible to see that the issues are really, really important to them but it's just not possible to work out why.

Such was my reaction when listening to the news tonight where a Scottish bishop was denouncing Devonshire monks for 'leading people into sin'. This is not within the remit of being a monk and is, therefore, a serious charge.

It seems the monks produce Buckfast, a potent mixture of caffeine and booze. Bishop Bob Gillies (pictured) has had enough of the licentious and criminal behaviour conducted under the influence of Buckfast and has called in the big guns in the form of an old white man in a beard saying “St Benedict, I would have thought, would have been very, very unhappy with what his monks are doing nowadays.”

That's not really him in the picture, obviously. This is him.

On PM the good Bishop went even further than the claim that someone most people know little to nothing about would not have approved by claiming that Christians should not be involved in producing harmful substances at all. That's quite a strong claim and I look forward to his coming denunciations of the cigarette industry, bacon sandwiches and channel five. Let no one put this man in charge of the economy, we'd all be on the dole.

You don't get Buckfast round my way much but apparently it's a popular tipple in Scotland where it is affectionately known as "commotion lotion", “liquid speed” and “wreck the hoose juice”, at least it's known as these things according to The Times, and they move in those circles I'm sure.

Part of the problem is that this is no ordinary wine but a rocket powered 15% brew injected with an impressive dose of caffeine, presumably to ensure you don't fall asleep in a bush on your way home. A bush you are almost guaranteed to have ventured into if you've had a few glasses.

The local police certainly seem to think it's the devil's lubricant, linking it to a large number of crimes - including with the bottle. It may well be that this is the mischief makers booze juice of choice but can we really lay the blame for Scotland's woes at the door of the wrong kind of monk?

Come on guys, Bishops and Monks shouldn't be fighting each other, you should be picking on the Jews, Muslims and Buddhists surely.

Walter Mosley on Afghanistan

I was pleasantly surprised when listening to Radio Four last night to discover Walter Mosley was being interviewed on Front Row (16 mins in). Whilst I've not read everything he's ever written that's largely because he writes faster than I read and so it will take longer than forever for me to catch up.

Anyway, during the interview he mentioned that he was for the Afghan war. He thought that since Obama was elected "Now we're trying to change, we're trying to do the right thing." He conceded that Obama was upping the troops presence but he said he'd be willing to "go along with him" on that one.

I have to say I was shocked. Not that someone could say that, of course there are plenty of people in favour of an Afghan surge, but that this passionate critic of capitalism and imperialism was willing to "go along" with the war.

However, he introduced a condition. He'd only support it if "he institutes the draft." The draft would mean that "all Americans would have to go off to fight, not just the poor ones who have to join the Army."

The interviewer, knowing Mosley, was surprised and so Mosley explained;

"Look, if a country's going to go to war, a country should believe in that war... If [all the 18-27 year olds] are drafted and their parents are still okay with it and want them to go to war, you know the voters, then fine!...

I think that if middle class men and women have their daughters about to be trundled off the Afghanistan they're going to think two, three, four, five times, but they're not going to worry when some poor black, Mexican or white kid gets sent over."

I guess that's one way of getting your point across, although I still wish he'd warned, at my age any sudden surprises could be my last.

The Vacuity Of Labour

When Ben Bradshaw was appointed the guardian of this country's culture and tourism he was seen as the man for the job. Undistracted by taste, passion or the bitter mote of a soul he was able to crack on with the job of counting the cash.

Little surprise then that he was to be found in the X-Factor final audience just before jetting off to Sri Lanka for Christmas - no doubt to promote British tourism over there whilst picking up a few human rights tips.

Ben obviously enjoyed his time in the X-Factor crowd though because he went on to hail the X-Factor as a cultural icon we should all emulate. Earlier today I received this press release;

The Culture Secretary Rt Hon. Ben Bradshaw MP spoke last week at the Annual Dinner of the Labour Finance & Industry Group at the Reform Club.

Ben Bradshaw MP said that the X-Factor was “Britain’s single greatest export in terms of the Creative Industries,“ which are increasingly playing a dominant role in our economy.

Chair of the Labour Finance and Industry Group Dr. Peter Slowe has called on Simon Cowell to speak with a group of young Labour supporters to enthuse and inspire them about careers in the media.

Dr. Slowe says “Simon Cowell is the greatest example of a British Entrepreneur who has made his mark in the Creative Industries, which to my mind is the future for our economy.

“No one has proven the influence of the media and the creative industries in our lives more than Simon Cowell. He has shown admirable drive and ambition, and we welcome him to motivate our young people, who are thirsty to take up the mantle."

What was the Oscar Wilde quote again? Something about knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing wasn't it? Someone phone the culture secretary, he's bound to know.

Get in - we win!

Little things can still make you smile. Rage Against the Machine are the Christmas Number One.

This means that every Christmas office party from this year on will suddenly burst into life as the DJ with *full force of Christmas song rights* will start pumping out "Fuck you I wont do what you tell me." For decades to come it will *still* be a Christmas song. Sweet.

If you are as yet unaware of RATM's opus, I'd recommend you check them out more thoroughly. What better way to celebrate Billy Bragg's birthday could there be?

Take the music back

Sick of the way the charts are dictated by those with the financial clout to shove anemic crap down our throats? Tired of how the race for Christmas Number One is just another way of advancing consumerism without content? Want to see a world where music isn't simply about 'units sold' but represents something deeper.

Well here is the grassroots campaign for you - thwart Simon Cowell's army of evil robots and give Rage Against the Machine the top spot this Winterval. I was initially unsure about this campaign but the more arguments I heard against it the more convinced I became that this was something worth backing, particularly as it led me to digging out my RATM CD's and leaping round the room in a most unladylike fashion.

This Radio Five interview with the band is interesting, not least because they cut the band off half way through the song because it contained the words "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" - well, duh!

When asked about Cowell the band responded that "Simon is an interesting character who seems to have profited greatly from humiliating people on television. We see this [campaign] as a necessary break with his control."

After expressing how privileged they felt about being chosen as the anti-corporate anthem by the grass roots they rounded off the discussion by saying that it shows that whether it's a "small matter like who's the top of the charts, or bigger matters like war and peace and economic inequality, when people band together and make their voices heard they can completely overturn the system as it is."

Good stuff. You have until the end of Saturday 19th December (at 23:59pm) to buy your copy, which you can do for 69 pence here. Don't bulk buy - it wont count! The organisers of the campaign have also asked people to make a donation of a pound to Sony, sorry I mean Shelter, when you buy your RATM which you can do by clicking here.

Daily Mail Fat Heads

I was just browsing through the news and alighted on this charming little story from the Daily Mail. I know, I know. I shouldn't have. Anyway...

Dawn French is a bad girl according to a "nutritionist", Mary Strugar, who has spotted a way of raising her profile by shitting on someone famous.

You see French has not shown the necessary shame and self loathing that is required of someone who deviates too far from the socially proscribed weight. French has even had the temerity to say that we should not judge people by how they look and that she is very happy with her size. Horror!

The Mail reports "her stance has now incurred the wrath of a Harley Street nutritionist for "encouraging people to accept their obesity".

"Dawn French is one our most loved comediennes but she has also, perhaps unwittingly become a role model for the overweight and obese. Her constant ‘big is beautiful’ statements, arguably are sending the wrong signals and are perhaps encouraging people to accept their obesity and ignore the health implications of being overweight."

"I only wish she could use her profile to raise awareness of how to go about the process of change as well as giving clear information about the serious health risks associated with obesity, such as diabetes, stroke and heart disease".

Excuse me but who's body is it? I'm not aware of any law obliging French, or any other person in the public eye, to issue mea culpas any time they do not conform to an optimum healthy lifestyle. Feeling good about yourself is neither a crime nor is it to be frowned upon. Unless French is employed as a health professional I see no reason for her to issue health advice, nor does she appear to be someone from whom many people might take such advice.

Anyway, to encourage people to feel bad about themselves is a pretty bad signal in itself - no? Is it really better to take a pot shot at fatty for daring to show herself in public without a sandwich board declaring herself "UNCLEAN".

I think it's fascinating that someone can be offended by the idea that some people think ‘big is beautiful’. It looks like an emotionally stunted position to me when you cannot tolerate other people's right to be themselves without shame.

Swiss architecture foolishness

Today the Swiss people have decided in a referendum to ban minarets, an architectural feature found on some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, because of their association with Muslims.

A worrying 57.5% people voted against new minarets being built, with opposition particularly concentrated in the French speaking West. What's even more disturbing is the way that the creators of the motion are clearly barking mad.

"The initiators of the measure, the right-wing ”Erkingen Committee,”... claimed minarets were an attempt to spread radical Islam in Switzerland, said the vote would bar any attempt to introduce elements of Sharia law in Switzerland."

What? I mean... what? People actually voted with these morons? There's no movement to introduce Sharia law in Switzerland and what the hell have minarets got to do with anything? Since when did the shape of a building threaten liberal democracy? They can't all be simpletons can they?

The Swiss Green Party is investigating whether they can challenge this result legally. Before the vote they issued the following statement (apologies for the rough and ready translation where I've strived for meaning rather than literal meaning).

NO to the minaret prohibition

Switzerland is a liberal and democratic constitutional state. A country, which retains internal cohesion with its linguistic, cultural and religious variety. The freedom of religion is embodied in the Swiss condition.

The referendum, which seeks to create a general prohibition on the building of minarets, shakes the foundations of our constitution. It is discriminating because it wants to forbid Muslims from using one of their religious symbols. It thereby wants to refuse them a right, which the other religious communities have.

The initiative endangers the constitutional state and the internal cohesion of Switzerland. It polarizes opinion and hinders the factual correction of prejudices and wrongly reduces our enemies to Islam.

The freedom of religion may not be abolished. That would be a dishonor for our country and an abuse of direct democracy. Therefore the Greens call on all voters on 29th November to place a clear, convinced no to a deeply un-Swiss project into the ballot box.

The irrational fear of Islam as a whole is an extremely poor way of preventing Muslims from hating you. Come to that I've taken the Swiss off my Christmas card list myself.

We Wee Where We Want

The student who had the poor judgement to get drunk and wee on a war memorial has been sentenced to 250 hours of community service - which is a lot.

If he'd had the good sense to go in a graveyard and pee on the gravestones out of sight like everyone else he'd have had no bother. However, is it just me or is this new?

I don't advocate the application of fresh urine to war memorials under any circumstances, my preference is for people to keep their bits and pieces tucked away in their pants, but in England I think it's fair to say it's common practice for drunk people to piss in public.

It's horrible and I don't like it, but it is pretty common place and you don't have the courts filled with these weak bladdered drunkards.

It feels like he's being made an example of, not least because he's being pilloried in the press, and I'm not sure I like it.

Drugs education

I don't know why but I just assumed drugs education would be better now than in 'my day' when it was a series of obvious lies interweaved with a smattering of moral panics and worst case scenario hyperbole. It looks like I might have been wrong.

I've just taken a look at 'ask frank' the government sponsored drugs awareness campaign that is supposed to help young people understand drugs without any of the scare stories or moralistic bullshit that characterised the campaigns in the past. When it was set up the idea was that it would be 'frank' about the fact that people take drugs because they enjoy them and, because they were truthful about that they'd also be able to raise awareness of the risks associated with drug taking.

Here's what they say taking cannabis is like;



I'm not impressed by this one little bit I'm afraid. Literally millions of people in this country smoke cannabis, even if just occasionally. This is not their experience. Anyone who has encountered the drug will know immediately that this video is a ridiculous caricature that sets out to scare people away from drugs rather than inform us about them.

Does this matter? I think so, yes.

Despite my hippy liberal leanings I'm not a great fan of most illegal drugs and don't take any myself. I do want people to be able to make informed choices about what they are doing to their bodies. The moment a government 'information' film goes out of its way to talk utter bollocks to further a different agenda it means that any meaningful or useful information they might also have to tell us is immediately tainted.

If you meet someone who's been smoking dope and they aren't the giggling, forgetful clown munching their way through the larder this film tells you about you understand you've been lied to. Then you meet more smokers and none of them are having panic attacks or behaving like a dancing buffoon and you think; "Actually this stuff is fine. They just don't like people having fun."

It seems to me that the government has two choices. It can tell the truth about drugs, informing the electorate of the benefits and risks of their behaviour in a measured and truthful way - or they can run a down the line anti-drugs campaign that involves ignoring the evidence and telling lies. Only one of these options is in the best interests of the people, and it isn't Frank.

Serial Killers

I've just been listening to the radio where David Wilson, a prison governor who'd worked with serial killers, was on plugging his book, A History of British Serial Killing. Very interesting he was too, particularly when eviscerating Jack Straw (who, for clarity, I should point out is probably not dealt with in the serial killer book). He had a quite different approach to those normally write books on this subject.

His first point was that serial killers are boring, self obsessed and banal so when he set out to write a book about them his focus was on those they'd killed, giving them a voice. I think that's great.

Whilst Silence of the Lambs was a great film the idea that serial killers are some sort of semi-mystical geniuses superior to the rest of us clearly isn't true and may actually not be a very useful approach if we want to stop people killing each other.

His second point was that when you look at the victims of the serial killers, in the UK at least, they fall into five distinct categories. Children, old people, prostitutes, runaways and gay men. Which means, he claims, that if we're really interested in serial killers and want to protect society the best thing we can do is actually combat homophobia and protect vulnerable, ostracised groups.

He states that "No Dutch serial killer has ever targeted prostitutes in Holland" because "every serial killer needs access to a suitable victim" who is not economically productive or does not have the protection of the state. "The victims of serial killers are those who live on the margins of our society, who are voiceless, who are powerless."

The fact that serial killers are able to kill numerous times is because they pick on groups that are less integrated into mainstream society. The fact they choose the most vulnerable does not speak to how we deal with the killers but how we need to address the way we marginalise certain groups. I was extremely impressed with this approach.

Child Care: Verboten!

I see Mr Brown has announced he's going to roll out some "free child care for poorer families". That might look good if it didn't come hot off the heels of the case of two women who've been forbidden from looking after each other's kids. So New Labour has criminalised normal activity on the one hand and then makes a promise for a crumb on the other, not a great bargain.

Why's the government got to be in charge of everything? These informal arrangements are the life blood of communities. When you have two working women (police officers in this case) who are helping each other out so they can do their shifts this should be seen as a sign of a healthy society where we look out for each other - but no - it's not just a problem it's illegal and has to stop.

It seems that to perform even these normal everyday tasks we're going to have to be government registered and approved. Ludicrous! We should be trying to improve the level of child care in this country not creating a crisis where no one is able to look after their friend's kids unless they've been rubber stamped by the state.

I don't just think this is stupid, it is the kind of thing that actively undermines community cohesion and is part of the philosophy that everything has a commercial value which must be subject to regulation and control. We should not need a legal document to be good to each other and a few more nursery places are not a substitute for living in decent, caring neighbourhoods.

Interview: Anna Minton

I recently wrote a piece for the Morning Star on 'Whose land is it anyway' on the privatisation of public space. During the course of researching the article I came across Ground Control author Anna Minton. I put some questions to her on how the places we live effect the lives we lead.

Who wouldn't want their neighbourhood regenerated? It sounds like a very positive thing to happen!

It's a question of how it's done. Transferring the ownership and control of streets and public spaces from the local authority to private developers is not at all necessary for regeneration. This is a new model which has only crept in over the last decade.

Is this a privatisation of public space?

This model transfers public places into private ownership, ensuring that they become private property in the same way that someone's house is private property.

The consequences of that is that it is up to the owner, rather than the government, to decide who is or is not allowed in and what they are allowed to do there. Hence, what we are seeing is the proliferation of rules and regulations in the new private estates, banning all types of behaviour from skateboarding and rollerblading to political demonstrations and handing out leaflets.

Do you think the recession will impact this tendency?

I see the recession as an opportunity to take stock and question whether or not this property led model of regeneration is the best way of changing our towns and cities. It's a model based on property price speculation and debt, which was one of the main drivers of the financial collapse.

One of the things I like about what you're saying is this intersection between physical space and our social psychology. How important do you think the shape of our towns and cities are in forming social cohesion and even democratic involvement?

Critical. When large parts of the city prohibit people going about their spontaneous business, let alone engaging in political activity, it goes without saying that inhibits the democratic process. It also violates the principle that places should be governed by democratically elected representatives rather than private developers whom nobody elected.

As to the relationship between our physical surroundings and our psychology, that is one of the main themes of the book. My argument is that the increasing emphasis on private security - guards, gates, CCTV - that comes with the new private places do not create safer environments but actually increase fear and paranoia.

What can we do to resist and then take back our cities?

We need to realise how important it is that streets and public spaces remain in public hands. This is very much a new trend, following American policies. It is very uncommon in the rest of continental Europe.

Politeness in politics

On a personal level manners are something I value pretty highly and it's doubly useful in politics to be able to work with others without generating needless feuds over some sideshow about so and so being rude to such and such. It's difficult to avoid entirely but bullies, bores and braggarts are rarely successful politically.

Trotsky went so far as to argue that politeness wasn't just about keeping an organisation ticking over smoothly without problems, it was actually a political virtue in itself when he said; "Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people."

I'm inclined to agree, although we're all human - naturally - so I wouldn't want to suggest I insist on the highest standards, I just prefer them.

Manners come into their own when you're talking to the general public about politics because whilst they are bound by no particular code the activist has to remain true to their task and put aside their desire to huff and puff if they feel offended.

I was collecting money for the firefighters during one of the Essex FBU disputes once when an older couple came up to me. The guy wanted to have a go at me and strikes in general and we had a little discussion in which he described striking firefighters as cowards. I replied that they weren't cowards "They're fucking heroes."

His eyes popped and then in horror he boomed "Don't you swear in front of my wife!" and they were gone. I don't take back the sentiment, obviously, but by swearing I lost any chance of persuading that guy that the strike was worth supporting. A little slip lost me my chance with him, oh well.

When knocking on doors today I had two contrasting experiences that made me wonder on the significance of manners in politics, if any.

The first was an older gentleman who told me flat out that he'd have nothing to do with the Greens. We got into a conversation where he told me what's the point of fighting in Afghanistan when we can't win and we're just killing "them poor buggers", and then there's the immigrants (pause while I waited for whatever was on his mind, which never came) and then those thieving bastards... those bloody MPs.

You could say it was a wide ranging conversation which was all very pleasant, included not a little laughter and ended with a hand shake and fond fair well. No political joy, but personally very pleasant.

The story round the corner was quite different, a woman came to the door already cross before she'd even seen me. Pre-cross if you like, her inner hive of wasps had already been poked with the sharp stick of life and I was the first passer-by.

She opened the door with a cheery "What the bloody hell!" and I prepared to have my buttocks handed to me with speed and force as I explained who I was and that I was canvassing the area. "I've got no time now," she barked and I prepared my retreat "but you can put me down as a definite, oh, and how do I join the party?"

She was obviously having a busy day and I don't begrudge her the fact she was having a strop but she was the rudest person I've encountered door knocking for a while by miles even though by my canvassing sheet she was a bit of a success. The general culture, at least in the places I go, is that you're polite to canvassers even when you despise their party - something I like to encourage out of self interest.

It was a good reminder, for me anyway, that whilst I respect manners more than possibly any other virtue in a person they don't necessarily go hand in hand with any sort of political affinity. Of course I knew this already, there's plenty of lefties I don't like and Tories that I do, but it's nice to be reminded of it now and then.

Derelict ideas

I spotted this little news story on the Scottish section of the BBC site about how a group of people decided to improve their local community and Glasgow council has decided to take them to court for the pleasure.

It seems a patch of land had lain fallow and unused for more than 25 years, so all credit to the locals who had the get up and go to turn it to good use, growing vegetables, planting flowers and essentially empowering the community without doing a single person in the world the least bit of harm.

Glasgow council has seen things differently and issued a 'get off my land' notice to the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign which has been operating for some months improving the area.

According to the Beeb; "Douglas Peacock, who chairs the group, said the idea was to transform a derelict piece of land into community use. The campaign began with a few people volunteering to plant flowers and clean up the site".

"It's now a wild flower meadow and on the back of this some local people wanted to grow vegetables - hence the raised beds which we have installed. We now want to do something bigger and install a raised bed which will grow herbs and lettuce for the whole community".

It sounds bloody marvellous to me. People who care about where they live are the backbone of the community. They should be supported by the council not taken to bloody court.

It's also good to see that MSP Patrick Harvie is supporting the cause saying "The city council has seriously misjudged popular feeling about the North Kelvin Meadow, and it will regret this absurd legal action... Local people are being taken to court for improving their public space, for working together and for growing their own fruit and veg, something which Glasgow needs to do much more of.

"The North Kelvin Meadow Campaign is Glasgow at its finest, and the council should be listening to it, not prosecuting it."

Which is exactly what I just said. Bloody plagiarist.

Whilst the council may say that if you transgress the letter of the law you have to be punished, I'd say that natural justice dictates that if the council left the land to go derelict when others have a use for it - why should we leave it in the hands of those who'd squander an ideal opportunity to grow something with roots?

Twitter is froth - so what?

Much excitement in the BBC news room as they announce that twitter is "40% babble". Babble being the technical term for 'tweets' that the 'researcher' didn't care for. All I can say is, so what?

So the research company has labelled 40% of what people say as "pointless babble". Alright, what percentage of what people say to each other face to face is "pointless babble"? More or less? Because if it's more (and it might be if we used the same guidelines) would that make Twitter more highbrow than everyday conversation?

Also I'm rather intrigued as to what criteria they used. At what point do we cross the line from chit chat to babble? In my case it's normally after the fifth sherry, but obviously everyone has a different tipping point.

"Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system. The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest."

So conversation is not of "value" and linking to something is automatically worthwhile? Are we sure about this?

Yet more bullshit social media bashing by people who don't understand it's just people talking to each other using a new means. That new means has its own unique contours, strengths and weaknesses. You don't have to like it and I certainly don't think we should buy the hype that the revolution will be twitterised, or that now is the age of the Twitter Tsar but we shouldn't just go along with stories who discard sites like twitter because people use them to talk to each other, which is what they were designed for.

Surely the point is that if people find it has value for them they will use it, if not they will go elsewhere. Telling people that their conversation bores you isn't research and it doesn't tell us anything of value. If you've monitored our conversations and found them inadequate it's time for you to get a new hobby, not us.

Who put Fitzpatrick on the guest list?

What's minister Jim Fitzpatrick up to? He's invited to a wedding of Muslim friends and when he gets there he doesn't like the seating arrangements so he storms out. Well, he says that he and his wife "left so as not to cause offence." Whereas going to all the papers to denounce the wedding he was invited to is the kind of wedding gift we'd all love to receive, don't you think?

The Labour MP arrived at the wedding to find that men and women were to be seated in separate areas, which is the custom in some Muslim ceremonies and not in others. He then decided that the wedding arrangements were not to his satisfaction and left, no doubt ringing his press officer as he stalked away.

He's quoted everywhere as saying "We are trying to build social cohesion - this is not the way forward." I agree. Insulting your hosts is not the way to build community cohesion.

It's their wedding and the arrangements are theirs to make. Who hasn't been to a wedding where they've had to contend with sitting through drunken embarrassing speeches, being seated next to a boorish relative or some other less than ideal arrangement?

When you're a grown up you recognise that you've been given the privilege of attending a ceremony that's very special to the bride and groom and you take it all in your stride. You don't spit your dummy out.

The minister has a different opinion and says that "I’m not pandering to any minority opinion." Why not? He panders to Rupert Murdoch. He pandered to Blair. More importantly complying with the family's wedding arrangements isn't "pandering" it's more commonly called manners.

Why Fitzpatrick has chosen to demonstrate to his constituents that he has the manners of slug is his own business I suppose, but I would not expect the episode to be what we call in the trade "a vote winner".