No, the blog hasn't been hacked. That really is the headline. It's there because I'm going to have a bit of a moan. This did the rounds among fellow lefties on Twitter the other day:
Ho, ho, ho. What a hoot! Isn't Sarah Palin utterly stupid? No wonder the Republican Party is fucked, etc. Funny ha, ha, indeed. Except it's bullshit. An exemplar of the moronic degeneration of the American right to be sure, but she didn't say it. 30 seconds with your search engine of choice would have established that. As Snopes notes, this is from a "satirical" website that churns out wannabe memes of right wing blowhards mouthing lunacy about vaccines, guns, Obama's secret Muslim/communist conspiracy, etc. This stuff then gets picked up and circulated as good coin. After all, no one any more can be arsed to do basic fact checking, even if we risk getting it wrong. Then there is this one which circulates every time a #webackEd/#CameronMustGo-style Twitter storm takes off.
This, again, is utter bullshit. IBS is particularly loathsome because he dresses up his Dickensian social security policies in the garb of Christian concern for the poor. The quiet man is also a spiteful and mean-spirited little man. Yet he didn't punch the air when Dave announced a freeze on welfare payments, his fist hit the sky with the announcement of the raising of the 40p income tax threshold. Don't take my word for it, here's IBS doing just that at the 25:49 mark. I can understand why people would happily pass this meme off as good coin. It would be entirely within the Tory character, that thinks a princely dole handout of £71/week and not lack of jobs causes unemployment, to do so. Yet someone went to the trouble of going through Sky's footage of the speech, taking the cap, and giving it that lying spin. I suppose it's safe to assume that whoever did is not a Conservative, and chances are they're somewhere on the left. Just because the Tories are awful and have caused much suffering in their self-defeating class war doesn't mean we should be lying about out opponents. Lefties lying is a real bugbear of mine. Whether it's fibs bits of our movement tell ourselves, like Left Unity/TUSC are on the verge of doing a Syriza, that Blair won in 1997 because he was uniquely gifted, that Stalin was merely misunderstood; misrepresenting the positions and distorting the arguments of opponents ostensibly on the same side; lying about comrades and/or yourself to make you look good/advance yourself; or weaving great big fat ones about the words and deeds, personalities and policies of political enemies, it's irritating and counter-productive. Maybe I am naive. I expect the right to lie because their bottom line is defending the indefensible: entrenched privilege. The left, from the weakest pink to the deepest red, doesn't: it's about something else. Whether your perspective is limited to a few reforms that make life better or expansive enough to envisage the root and branch change of entire societies, your case cannot be built on falsehood. Whether a simple reform or something more ambitious, politics rooted in the labour movement are about building things. Prosecuting the interests of our people requires a politics constructed from sturdy materials. Anything less is a recipe for disillusion, or the path to you're-just-like-themism. Remember that next time you tweet a dodgy-sounding meme, or about to spin a lie for whatever political purpose.
We've been here before. That seldom-seen golden globe is beating down from a clear sky and baking Britain to a crisp. It is the time of Pimms, sunburn, knotted hankies and utterly superb music. In this summer is unique among the seasons for demanding a soundtrack. And never one to be backwards about coming forward with my cultivated and stylish taste in all things electronic, here are seven more songs for the summer. Be advised: best heard loud.
Sadly, no one does memes and tagging any more on blogs. *Sigh*, another casualty of social media. But to try and jumpstart this long-dead tradition, I hereby tag Andy and Tony, Anna, Louise, and Darren.
To write a novel is a desire common among pretentious pseudo-intellectual 30-somethings. And I'm no different. I have an idea, a vague notion of a plot, and a yearning to get trashed by Natalie Haynes on the Review Show. But writing fiction's a different kettle of fish to this blogging lark and academic writing, innit? This in mind I've recently read Stephen King's On Writing (2000), a book that deftly combines memoir and writing tips into one seamless whole. King doesn't draw character profiles or sketch out plot road maps. He has a couple of ideas and throws some characters into the situation. I have a similarish approach to blogging and found his advice very useful and suited to my way of doing things (especially on the evil that is passive voice, a monster I didn't eradicate entirely from the old PhD thesis). In short, I was very impressed so On Writing comes with a great huge AVPS recommendation.
At the back of the book, King provides a bibliography of best books he read during the composition of On Writing, From a Buick Eight, Hearts in Atlantis and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. This sounds like ideal meme fodder to me.
Of his list of 93 books how many have you read? Those in bold are books I've read. Those in italics are books I own. And if they're bold and italicised, well. I think you can work it out.
A Perfect Crime by Peter Abrahams
Lights Out by Peter Abrahams
Pressure Drop by Peter Abrahams
Revolution #9 by Peter Abrahams
A Death in the Family by James Agee
Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis Regeneration by Pat Barker
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
In the Night Season by Richard Bausch
The Intruder by Peter Blauner
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley
Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver
Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon
Latitude Zero by Windsor Chorlton
The Poet by Michael Connelly Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Family Values by KC Constatine Underworld by Don DeLillo
Cathedral by Nelson DeMille
The Gold Coast by Nelson Demille Oliver Twist by Charles Dicken
Common Carnage by Stephen Dobyns
The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns
The Woman Who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle
The Dick Gibson Show by Stanley Elkin As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner The Beach by Alex Garland
Deception on His Mind by Elizabeth George
Gravity by Tess Gerritsen Lord of the Flies by William Golding
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
The Fifties by David Halberstam
Why Sinatra Matters by Pete Hamill
Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
Dirty White Boys by Stephen Hunter
A Firing Offence by David Ignatius
A Widow for One Year by John Irving
The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce
The Devil's Own Work by Alan Judd
Good Enough to Dream by Roger Kahn
The Liars' Club by Mary Karr
Survivor by Tabitha King
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Into Thin Air by Jon Kraukauer To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Our Guys by Bernard Lefkowitz
The Ignored by Bentley Little
A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Ancient Shores by Jack McDevitt Enduring Love by Ian McEwan The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry
Zeke and Ned by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller
Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
The Speed Queen by Stewart O'Nan
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
No Safe Place by Richard North Patterson
Freedomland by Richard Price Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
One True Thing by Anna Quindlen
A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendall
Waiting by Frank M Robinson Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by JK Rowling
Mohawk by Richard Russo
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
The Crater by Richard Slotkin
The Illusionist by Dinitia Smith
Men in Black by Scott Spencer
Joe Hill by Wallace Stegner The Secret History by Donna Tartt
A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The Ax by Donald E Westlake
I say, only 13 books read and 16 owned is a jolly poor show, what? And I consider myself to be quite well-read! What's your tally?
Some time ago, I was tagged by Bob's political influences meme and now, finally, I've got the time to do it. While it's tempting to list super serious canonical figures from the world of activism and theory to boost one's credentials as an erudite thinker, I'm going to plump for a mix of the personal and political. Copying Bob's format of a seriesofposts, I begin with my introduction to politics. Josephine Barbara Carver, or, as she was known to my family, Nana Barbara, is probably more responsible for my developing an interest in politics than anyone else. My Nana spent most of her life in Normanton, an inner city working class district in Derby. She worked as a housewife and later in the canteen at the local nick. She was also a life-long Tory. During a mock election at school run to coincide with the 1987 general election, Nana gave me my basic course in politics. She admired Thatcher and fully subscribed to the view that Thatcher's policies would ultimately benefit everyone, despite the short term pain. Labour on the other hand wanted to get in everyone's way, and had "made a mess" last time they were in government. Thatcher was a woman of action who had sorted out the unions and empowered council tenants by giving them the right to buy their own homes. In short, my Nana was like millions of other working class Tory supporters. They aspired to better things for themselves and their families and it was Thatcher who was clearing the way for them. The state, the unions, Labour: they were the real conservatives holding Britain and British people back. Nana's conservatism was firmly in the bootstraps mould. It was not about doffing your cap or being latter day ragged trousered philanthropists. It was about accepting the way of the world and getting on with things. But also it was a conservatism that had little time for bigotry. As far as she was concerned what you did was always more important than your background. When I dilly-dallied with racism in my early teens she helped talk me out of it. When I brought my school yard homophobia home with me she always challenged it (she was much more critical years later after I returned from nine months at university with anarch-ish views and a copy each of Lenin's Selected Works and Marx's Capital in tow). Nevertheless despite her influence I could see what was going on around me. After Major's election victory in 1992 I quickly became very disillusioned. By the time I'd left school I no longer saw myself as a Tory but as a socialist (whatever one of them was). This was defined by an inchoate sense of being against certain things but being unsure what I was for. Because the Tories were against socialism, it seemed convenient to rebadge myself as such. Where that went next I'll leave for another post, but what has proved to be an abiding influence is the bootstraps aspects of my Nana's conservatism. This doesn't mean I'm for chopping up the welfare state and public services, or the removal of the many things performed under the aegis of the state that makes life, as well as British capitalism, tick. But I am sceptical of overly statist conceptions of socialism (whether reformist or revolutionary) and believe we should celebrate the self activity of our class. From voluntary work to community activism, from everyday trade unionism to political work, our class and our movement has been doing the Big Society from year dot. We don't need lectures from Dave or cadres of semi-detached BigSoc consultants. Socialism is, among other things, the unleashing and harnessing of the collective ingenuity each of us carry a particle of. This is our political DNA, and we should not allow the Tories to hijack it. (As this is a meme I hereby tag a few regulars: Splinty, Dave and Paul, Stroppy, Dave O, Madam Miaow, and Andy.)
Cheers to Louise for posting this. As Sundays are the day for memey posts I thought I'd have a go too. The objective, she writes, is to rustle up "a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you." Here goes ...
1. There was a member of the SWP in my sociology class at college. He never tried selling the paper and was more interested in talking about Nottingham Forest.
2. My nana and grandad's house were one of the few places around my ex-pit village you could see Tory literature on display at election time.
3. The first time I got drunk was in December 1993. I can remember it (fairly) clearly.
4. On firsts ... the first Labour meeting I went to was in 1996. The chair opened with the words "if we don't win the election, there's no point being in the Labour Party". He subsequently went on to become a party full timer.
5. Our cat is ridiculously vocal.
6. For a brief period in my early teens I was attracted to fascism. Watching a single interview with John Tyndall was enough to convince me the errors of my ways.
7. I used to hide my money box underneath my bottom drawer.
8. I'm joining the ranks of the aspiring petit bourgeoisie and going into business!
9. To my eternal shame, I really like watching Starcraft II matches.
10. I have never lived alone.
11. On a Thursday afternoon at college, 'Don' Andy, Ledge, and myself repaired to the library to flick through copies of Stern and read up on European and colonial history.
12. Well into my 20s my mum kept insisting on giving me £3/week pocket money.
13. We got married in Las Vegas at the Little White Wedding Chapel.
14. Sometimes wish I'd paid more attention to physics and maths and gone down the astrophysics/astronomy route.
15. For about a year I used to drink a three litre bottle of Old English before going out, followed by four or five pints of Scrumpy. Without fail I would spend a portion of the next few hours hunched over a toilet bowl.
16. When I was about eight I had an argument with a car parked on the pavement. It left me with a hole in my forehead big enough to stick your thumb in (or so my folks say).
17. From the age of about 15 I began seeing myself as some sort of socialist.
18. We held our engagement do at a local balti house.
19. In my four years as a Socialist Party member I never met Peter Taaffe.
20. There was a point when willfully stupid and mistaken criticisms of Marx used to massively wind me up.
21. When I was about 15 I passed up the chance of going to a 'cool kids' house party for a night at some weird Christian event with the class's token religious girl. I didn't even fancy her.
22. Spent an evening at a rave in Amsterdam in the company of Workers' Power.
23. Failed my driving test four times :(
24. If I could have my time blogging again, I'd call this place '... well grubbed old mole!'
25. My SO made me wear bunny ears for a set of arty photos.
Shall I tag? Why not. Here you go Jim, Anna, and Mod. And to help them out of their blogger's block, consider yourself so tagged Splinty and Glyn.
Last night's Eurovision has left me in a musical mood, which is a perfect excuse for yet another music-related meme. This one is pretty simple: what was number one in the week you were born? You can find a list of every single song to have scaled the heady heights of chart success here.
Tragically the Great British public were out buying this monstrosity when I appeared on the scene:
Bah, I missed Donna Summer's I Feel Love by a measly four months.
I can't believed I missed this meme which was knocking about a couple of weeks ago. The simple premise is find a theme tune that fits your blog. Tbh, this is much more difficult than it sounds. Originally I was tempted by this oft-overlooked camp classic, but AVPS has been there already. So, after much umming and ahhing I've managed to whittle it down to two: one old song, one new.
First up:
Second is number 20 in what was my hotly anticipated (yeah, right) Top 100 dance songs of the 00s. It's long, so if you can't be bothered to listen to it all whizz forward to 1:41 and stay patient for the piano at 2:40. Utter trancey brilliance:
So there you have two tracks. One that, erm ... is a protest against workplace drudgery, and another that evokes the sublime beauty of the socialist society to come. Yeah, yeah, I know - tenuous bordering on the arbitrary. So what theme tune should self-respecting bolshevist bloggers adopt? What would you have for your blog? Let's tag Darren, Louise, Jim, Dave, Paul and Family, Splinty, Stropps, Anna, and Red Maria.
I haven't got the time to blog properly today. And so I'm being frivolous with y'all again and try and get another pointless Sunday meme off the ground. This one is a bit of a toughie for me. Since leaving my teeny bopper past behind me my musical tastes have evolved in a shamelessly snobby direction - first electronica/dance, followed by indie, then a detour into heavy rock, and for the last seven years or so back to the bleepy beaty side of things. It's the sound of the future, man. At all times I've dismissed the mainstream with a derisive snort, and quite rightly so - most of it is pap. But now and then one song stands out among the dross and gets its hooks into you. You can't get the bloody thing out of your head and to your eternal shame, you really like it. This post is dedicated to three such songs from the 80s, 90s and 00s.
I'm ashamed to say it but I've always liked this
This
And this
Shocking and shameful.
Now it's over to you. What three songs from the 80s, 90s and 00s do you hate to love? Would admitting you penchant for a bit of Cliff, Kylie and Boyzone wreck your standing as an arbiter of quality culture? Let's tag the usual suspects - Jim, Dave and Paul, Louise, Splinty, Anna, Red Maria and Glyn.
The old brain isn't in tip top condition today and seeing as the blog's been super serious of late, I thought I'd try and brighten things up by getting a new meme off the ground. Unfortunately all I could think of this Valentine's Day are bloody miserable songs about bloody miserable things. If you want happy, go and listen to Kylie and Jason or something.
I've selected one each from the 80s, 90s and 00s. They are:
Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy (1984)
It doesn't get much grimmer than a song about suffering hassle for being gay (but it does look like Jimmy's going to crack up when his "dad" threatens to hit him).
There's no cheer to be found in my next choice. This one comes from 1999, which is probably the best year for electronic music in the history of ever. Mind you I can't see many going wild on the dance floor to this one. This is Portishead's Roads:
Fast forwarding to 2004, here's Dark Globe with Break My World:
Probably the most zeitgeisty video of the mid-00s.
Time to hop a ride on the prediction bandwagon. I've locked the science of perspectives under the stairs and gone with my gut. Here we go:
1) As unlikely as it seems now, Labour will scrape back in. The return to more traditional social democratic politics pays, much to the consternation of Blairites and Tom Harris MP.
2) The Greens will get Caroline Lucas elected in Brighton. Nigel Farage for UKIP eats into John Bercow's majority, but the speaker is safely re-elected. As for the BNP, the strong anti-fascist campaign sees Griffin's challenge to Margaret Hodge off by a comfortable margin.
3) It's a bitter sweet election for Respect. Salma Yaqoob is elected but George Galloway is not. As for the rest of the left, apart from a respectable showing for Dave Nellist in Coventry and one or two fair (by the far left's standards) results the son-of-No2EU barely registers on the electoral radar. Once again, lack of name recognition and campaigning profile makes its traditional negative contribution, though everyone will prefer to blame the squeeze the Labour vote puts on it.
4) The economy returns to weak growth, though from the perspective of the two and a half million unemployed it feels no different.
5) As companies and the public sector cut back, more workers are forced into industrial action to defend their jobs and/or existing working conditions. There will be no mass radicalisation resulting from this, but strike figures and trade union membership will be up by year's end.
6) The United Kingdom will still be united. A referendum on Scottish independence will not take place - with opinion tilting against independence this will be a (quiet) relief to many in the SNP.
7) The Afghan war will rumble on, though by year's end there will be more talk about talks. Neither will there be an attack on Iran by the US and UK, and despite more Israeli sabre rattling no threatened air strikes will be forthcoming - the perceived opposition of such moves by a global anti-war movement figures heavily in the decision-making.
8) All kinds of irrationalism and mumbo-jumbo will - depressingly - make more headway in 2010. Climate change denialism becomes more of an anti-establishment badge of honour among hard of thinking circles. This in turns provokes a more strident rationalism in liberal-left circles.
9) The Sheridan case finally comes to court. Whatever happens it will rub added venom into the festering sore that is the Scottish left.
10) In July, the Posadas position on UFOs is spectacularly confirmed as emissaries from the Galactic Soviet land in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. They immediately offer the crumbling Juche regime unconditional but critical support against US imperialism and its South Korean running dogs.
The attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the destruction of United Airlines flight 93 on a September morning eight years ago has become a defining moment of our age. Quite apart from those directly affected by the attacks, the globalisation of the media ensured they were experienced by everyone with access to a radio, a television and an internet connection. This has meant we all have our own experience of September 11th, our own stories to tell.
I had just finished an 8-2 shift and was taking a slow walk home when one of my regular customers pulled up. As she was heading in the direction of Hanley she asked me if I fancied a lift and never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted. As she was driving she told me a couple of jets had been hijacked in America. So I phoned forward to home to tell CBC to put News 24 on.
When I got in I wasn't at all prepared for what the telly was showing me. Vast plumes of smoke were streaming out of jagged holes punched in the sides of the Twin Towers. The clipped efficient tones of Jane Hill informed us what had happened, following it up with footage of the second plane striking the south tower of the World Trade Centre. I remember getting online and trying to access news websites on my rusty dial up connection - but there was no chance. BBC, ITN and even Ananova were impossible to load. Shortly after this the BBC broadcast footage of smoke billowing out of the side of the Pentagon.
I can remember we were both stunned. We watched as it all unfolded on TV - the collapse of the towers, Bush being informed, Blair's first statement, speculation about who was responsible. I was able to get onto the UK Left Network and wrote a brief post breaking the news to the list. Perversely, thanks to some of the more cracked elements of the far left having a presence, it was only three hours after my post that the first conspiracy theory did the rounds and some started lauding the attacks as an anti-imperialist action against the USA that should be welcomed. Nevertheless there was a list consensus the USA and UK would use September 11th as a pretext to erode existing civil liberties and to launch wars against troublesome Middle Eastern regimes. Predictions that have unfortunately come to pass.
As the day wore on into evening and night our TV remained on. I remember hearing unconfirmed reports a fourth jet had been destroyed, that coordinated truck bomb attacks against government targets were feared and lastly, before we headed to bed, news of missile strikes on unspecified positions in Afghanistan.
Over the next few days there were discussions at work and furious debates on the far left about who was responsible, why it was done and what would an appropriate response be. Anti-imperialism and building an anti-war movement were at the forefront.
Looking back at it now, personally speaking the tragedy did not affect me politically beyond bringing into sharp relief some of the arguments I'd been convinced of years previously. Politically and culturally as defining a moment it was, had the attacks not happened I doubt the early 21st century would have been much different. The erosion of civil liberties has been a long term tendency going right back to Thatcher in the 1980s. Afghanistan and Iraq were already in the crosshairs of the Bush presidency. The September 11th attacks acted as a catalyst, speeding up the implementation of existing domestic and foreign policy objectives.
It's been a long time since AVPS succumbed to meme fever, so when this one caught my eye I thought "why not?" This one is definitely for the politics anoraks.
First political experience During the 1987 general election my junior school hosted a mock election. As a 10 year old Tory boy I did Thatcher proud debating with the kids of local Labour luminaries and making sure no one gave the SDP/Liberal Alliance the time of day. I don't know if my efforts helped but the Tories romped home with a majority of 100+ votes!
First vote This will have been in 1995, by which time I'd left the cold dark heart of Conservatism far behind me and had become a Marxist thanks to life experience, A Level sociology and a year working in Derby Morrison's. In my village the local election was a straight up fight between the Tory stalwart and the dad of a girl at school I never particularly liked. But once I was in that booth the class consciousness kicked in and I duly put my cross next to Labour. (As an aside nearly everyone in my group of friends went and voted. The one who admitted to voting Tory was rightly branded a twat).
First demo I was a late comer to demonstrations but the first I went on was a bit of a monster. The summer of 1997 found me a very angry young Trot in the orbit of Workers' Power. I travelled with what must have been most of their membership to Amsterdam to take part in the People's March for Jobs (at least that's what I think it was called). I remember a turn out of around 50,000, Dutch coppers armed with some very big guns, stupid expensive beer prices and members of the proto-REVOLUTION group being assailed by the Sparts.
Last vote That would have been the European elections and council elections this year. I voted No2EU in the former and Labour in the latter - for want of anything better.
Last political activity Does booking a room for the last North Staffs TUC public meeting count? If not and discounting trade union and Stoke SP meetings, I suppose it has to be marching with the Shrewsbury 24.
The dispute at the Morning Star is getting increasingly unseemly. The NUJ chapel have threatened a strike ballot over wages, claiming the paper's management has reneged on promises made in previous years. What sticks in its craw is the £500 grand that is likely to be invested in the 'Star. It seems the money is to be ring-fenced to improve content, hire more staff, and increase circulation. None of it will be set aside to raise journalist salaries, which needless to say, is well below the industry standard.
The consortium behind the £500,000 is anonymous, but it doesn't take a seasoned left-watcher to realise the bulk of the monies will be coming from Anita Halpin, the NUJ and CPB stalwart. Readers will recall that sister Halpin was in receipt of £20.5 million after auctioning a painting her family were forced to give up by the Nazis. CPB comrades and 'Star supporters have had to wait until now before seeing a slice of her fortune (though the CPB did get a nine grand crumb last year).
Some comrades have been on their high horses, arguing that if she was any sort of communist she would make the monies available to the party she is a leading member of. This got me thinking. If any of us stumbled on £20 million cash in the attic, what would we do? Then I thought this might be a nice idea for a meme. So, what would you do if you came into a similarly-sized lump of dosh? I would
1) Make sure the Socialist Party and CWI get a hefty sum, no strings attached (well, maybe with the proviso that Stoke gets a full-timer :P).
2) Give my family a nice slice too.
3) Finish my PhD, but would probably pursue a career as an activist and blogger. Or maybe a bookshop owner - I've always fancied the idea of opening a radical bookshop in the centre of Hanley.
4) Draft in a professional web designer to make this blog really sparkle.
5) Set up a fund that would help finance strikes and other progressive causes.
6) Put aside a bit of cash to help cover Morning Star journalists' wage demands.
7) Buy a new house, new wardrobe, more bookcases, get a car - nothing too bourgeois!
Last year AVPS had a go at this meme. Always keen to fill some space, these are the nine things I would most like to see over the next 12 months, however fanciful or unlikely.
1) For the rumour that Tommy Sheridan's going to end up in Celebrity Big Brother turns out to be false. The left could do without another of its "personalities" making a fool of themselves, especially now when political space for a credible socialist alternative is opening up. If Sheridan does go on, AVPS will not be rushing to justify his actions.
2) While we're on a Sheridan tip, surely 2009 will be the year the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service will decide to drag the Sheridan Seven into court. Or not. In my opinion seeing these comrades in court, regardless of the side one took in Sheridan's case against News of the World, will do nothing but damage the left in Scotland all over again. The decision for the COPFS not to prosecute on grounds of insufficient evidence is the best outcome to this very sad affair.
3) For the RMT-sponsored conference on 10th January to take concrete steps toward setting up a new workers' party (I did say fanciful was okay!)
4) The situations in Bolivia, Venezuela, Greece and Pakistan remain heavily pregnant with possibilities for socialists. The economic crisis could add more countries to this list. I hope 2009 sees these processes play out in a positive direction, which in turn will impact on the formation of class consciousness in other areas of the globe. Let our class be much stronger by the time I write my year in review 12 months hence!
5) I asked for a doubling of the Socialist Party's and CWI's membership last year. It didn't happen, but the only globally-organised Marxist tendency ;) certainly put on weight in terms of members and influence. In 2009 I would still like to see the doubling, but also for other left organisations and the trade unions to grow well too.
6) 2008 was a mixed year for the right and far right. Let 2009 be a year when the Tories, the little englanders, the fash, and reaction of all kinds exit stage right.
7) Something has to be said about leftyblogland, I guess. Looking over our community, it's good to see none of the "stalwart" bloggers have come a cropper. New blogs, more connectivity and cohesion, a growing audience, and better relationships between the left and blogs about feminism, LGBT, anti-racism, disabilities activism would be very nice indeed. And essential too.
8) Every year for nearly the last 84 years, the comrades of Coventry SP have had to fight an election campaign of some kind or another. For their sanity, could Gordon Brown do them a favour and not call a general election in 2009?
9) And last but by no means least, it's high time I finished my PhD! I hope my efforts will prove sufficient enough to have the blighter completed, bound, and ready for examination by June time.
At the moment I'm caught between writing some PhD and mulling over the next post on History and Class Consciousness (previous here and here). Then Jim had to go and tempt me with the latest meme doing the rounds. After flapjacks, memes are probably the closest thing I have to a vice, so "where were you when ..."
Princess Diana Died - 31st August, 1997
Sleeping. I remember waking up at about quarter to nine and hearing the TV on downstairs, which was a rarity at my parents on a Sunday morning. I knew something was up. I went downstairs, watched the TV a bit and then went and did something more interesting, so overwhelmed with indifference was I. But as the days went by I got angrier and angrier as the media and government contrived to shut as much of Britain down to enforce North Korean-style mourning for our departed Queen of Hearts.
Margaret Thatcher's Resignation - 22nd November, 1990
I debated for days in the lead up to it with my Kinnockite sparring partner (hello Kirsty if you're reading!) about whether there should be an election or not. In those days I was a Tory you see, and quite fancied Heseltine over Thatcher. Anyway, the news came to us in my third year woodwork (sorry, Craft, Design and Technology) class. Mr. Needham produced a radio from somewhere so we could hear the historic occasion as we were sawing and hammering our planks of wood.
Attack on the Twin Towers - 11th September, 2001
I was walking home from my shift at a well-known supermarket in Newcastle-U-Lyme, when one of the regular visitors to my till pulled up and offered me a lift. She had the radio on and said there'd been some hijackings. I rang home and told Cat to put the TV on - something was afoot. I managed to get in just after the second plane hit, and spent the rest of the day glued simultaneously to News 24 and the internet. I remember you couldn't get on the BBC or Ananova (remember that?), but comrades near to computers managed to get a running commentary going on the UKLN. I think it's hard to convey the stunning effect it had.
England's World Cup Semi-Final - 4th July, 1990
I was at home with my family for this. We were never big footy fans, but we did always watch the World Cup. I can remember feeling a touch disappointed and not wanting to hear World in Motionagain :(
President Kennedy's Assassination - 22nd November, 1963
Conspiring with the lizards.
I can't be bothered to tag anyone, but feel free to fill the comments with your memories of these watershed moments.
There's a new meme on the block that should be up every blogger's street. Let's strip away all the right-on reasons for blogging and get down to brass tacks. It's all about vanity isn't it? We write so we can show off how brainy and knowledgeable we are. And we want other people to know it, don't we? Well, this meme is designed to show our best face. It's very simple. The Showcasin' Meme wants you to pick your ten best/favourite posts and list them for all to see. The only rules are the collection must be authored by you - not a guest poster or a repost from another blog/website/paper (but interviews are fine). They also have to be at least one month old. And you have to tag seven other bloggers with the meme.
I think something nice, calm and unpolitical was needed after the shenanigans I midwifed into the world at Socialist Unity. And what better way to relax than indulging a meme that shows off the literary capital you've accumulated through the ages. This came to me by way of Lib Dem blogger, Alix Mortimer and is apparently based on an updated version of Britain's 100 best books that saw the light of day in the BBC's 2003 Big Read (how the new list below was compiled is anyone's guess).
But anyway. This is the blurb that comes with the meme.
“The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed. 1) Look at the list and bold those you have read. 2) Italicize those you intend to read. 3) Underline the books you love. 4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated. 5) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them
I would add that 'read' means read, not flicked through or given up half way to the end. It's cover to cover or nothing.
Here goes:
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6 The Bible 7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 34 Emma - Jane Austen 35 Persuasion - Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis 37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 52 Dune - Frank Herbert 53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie 70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75 Ulysses - James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78 Germinal - Emile Zola 79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80 Possession - AS Byatt 81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Gone with the Wind (painful childhood nightmares of utter boredom) and Dune (aristocrats in space? Please) thoroughly deserve to be struck off this list, but more or less everything else can stay.
