Lymelife (2008)

The Damned United (2009)

Filling You In

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (100)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 100th(!!) of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1508 friends!

Recent blogs:

Whose news?

Let's make a real socialist revolution

Global Warming: Is it (or will it soon be) too late?

Advanced notice:

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds its annual Summer School 26 - 28 June 2009 at Harbourne Hall, Birmingham. Members and friends from across Britain and beyond will gather to exchange ideas and experiences in all aspects of socialist activity and thought. The theme this year is "Revolution: The Theories, The Past, The Future".

Quote for the week:

"In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic." Marx, German Ideology (1845).

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (Penguin Books 1990)

I soon realized that Eleanor's main guardian and my main rival for her affection was man called Heater. He was the local roadsweeper, a grossly fat and ugly sixteen-stone Scot in a donkey jacket whom Eleanor had taken up three years ago as a cause. He came round every night he wasn't at the theatre, and sat in the flat reading Balzac in translation and giving his bitter and big-mouthed opinion on the latest production of Lear or the Ring. He knew dozens of actors, especially the left-wing ones, of whom there plenty at this political time. Heater was the only working-class person most of them had met, So he became a symbol of the masses, and consequently received tickets to first nights and to the parties afterwards, having a busier social life than Cecil Beaton. He even popped in to dress rehearsals to give his opinion as 'a man in the street'. If you didn't adore Heater - and I hated every repulsive inch of him - and listen to him as the authentic voice of the proletariat, it was easy, if you were middle class (which meant you were born a criminal, having fallen at birth), to be seen by the comrades and their sympathizers as a snob, an elitist, a hypocrite, a proto-Goebbels.

I found myself competing with Heater for Eleanor's love. If I sat too close to her he glared at me; if I touched her casually his eyes would dilate and flare like gas rings. His purpose in life was to ensure Eleanor's happiness, which was harder work than roadsweeping, since she disliked herself so intensely. Yes, Eleanor loathed herself and yet required praise, which she then never believed. But she reported it to me, saying, 'D'you know what so-and-so said this morning? He said, when he held me, that he loved the smell of me, he loved my skin and the way I made him laugh.'

When I discussed this aspect of Eleanor with my adviser, Jamilla, she didn't let me down. 'Christ, Creamy Fire Eater, you one hundred per cent total prat, that's exactly what they're like, these people, actresses and such-like vain fools. The world burns and they comb their eyebrows. Or they try and put the burning world on the stage. It never occurs to them to dowse the flames. What are you getting into?'

King Suckerman by George P. Pelecanos (A Dell Book 1997)

"Cooper watched him walk - strut, really - toward the cinder-block bunker. The kid's left hand was cupped at his side, and he kind of swung it on the down-step. As the kid passed below the light of the floodlamp, Cooper could see the four-inch heels in the boy's stacks. Those platforms, the Afro, and the kid's street-nigger strut: a white-boy, wanna-be-a-black-boy cracker. He had the walk down, a little too much with the hand action for Cooper's taste, but not bad. And the kid was cooler than a motherfucker, too, the way he went straight through the door without knocking, not even looking around before he did. Cooper wondered, What's going to happen next?"

The way they woz

Cracking post over at Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop music blog.

Shout-a-long tunes, canny pictures and musings that prompts a few thoughts:

How come 9/10 black and white photographs depicting kids from Britain of yesteryear make me think of Oscar Marzaroli? Doesn't matter if its 1967 or 1977, Thamesmead or Toryglen, I think of his wonderful black and white prints and I have to resist the urge to listen to a Deacon Blue album.

Reminds me once again that I have a hankering to see Stephen Frears's 'Bloody Kids' but I've got more chance of finding a copy of Alan Bleasdale's 'Scully and Mooey' at a stoop sale in Greenpoint. (i.e No bastard chance.)

Makes me think of Ian Walker and the New Society's 'The Other Side of Britain'. But then again, the current primaries in New Hampshire make me think of that book. It's on my mind 12/7.

The number 333 and the 1979 Panini sticker album. Barry Daines, you broke my heart.

Name That Tune?

Morphing Into A Music Blog (8)

Brilliant idea for a music quiz from the Any Major Dude With Half A Heart music blog. With a five second intro, name that song:

Intros quiz: '70s edition

Intros quiz: '80s edition

All the tracks were top ten hits in either the States or the UK, so there shouldn't be anything in the mix that is too obscure.

Naturally, suffering from '80s arrested development, I got 16/20 correct for that decade, but the '70s were a bit more of a mystery to me. AMD hasn't posted the answers to the '70s quiz yet, but I'm guessing that I got 9/19. I'm not complaining.

See if you can do better. No cheating now.