It's Not a Runner Bean...: Confessions of a Slightly Successful Comedian by Mark Steel (The Do-Not Press 1996)

Geordie

'This is Mark, he's a comedian,' the man who'd set up the comedy night in Newcastle told his four mates. They looked like the four people you would choose from thousands if you wanted extras for a film set in a Newcastle pub.

'Ar, so yoor the comedian, well ah hoop yoor funna mairt,' they chipped in. We all went to the bar and ordered a round of drinks, and the stockiest among them decided to tell me a joke.

Ay, what do yer chuck a Paki when he's drooning? His wife and kids.' The others laughed.

What to do? Walk away and they'd have just thought I was weird, whereas anything that might have ended in violence was hardly an option.

The tough part of these situations is that when bigotry hides behind a joke, it's so much trickier to deal with. Launching into a tirade about racism would have only made them think, 'What a stuck-up, miserable bastard’. 'All right, it's only a joke,' they'd have said. And gone off muttering, 'He's not much of a comedian.' Besides it was quite possible that he wasn't a serious racist but had never come across the idea that jokes like that are just appalling.

The one thing I decided in the two seconds after he'd finished was that I'd say something. 'What's the matter?' he said, perturbed that I wasn't laughing. 'Doon't yer get it?’

’Na.he's a comadian,' said his mate. 'He's hewered it before.'

There's probably one time in most people's lives when, instead of thinking of the perfect answer the day after the event, it comes out at the time. I don’t remember thinking it but from somewhere came, 'Yeah, I have heard it before. But I heard the funnier version. What do you chuck a Geordie when he's drowning?'

There was another silence and for a moment I was expecting to end up lying on the floor, clutching my ribs, with blood pouring from my nose, mumbling, 'I was only making a point.'

But at the end of this tense three seconds he burst out laughing and said, 'Ya can see wha he's a comadian.'

With any luck he'll now be the Equal Opportunities Officer for the Anglo-Asian Community Relations Department on Tyneside Council.

Splits and giggles

Via Facebook

It nearly pains menshevik to write it but a nice line in self-deprecating humour from the SWuppies in response to Laurie 'Chuckles' Penny's recent comment about how, " . . . It is highly likely that even after a nuclear attack, the only remaining life-forms will be cockroaches and sour-faced vendors of the Socialist Worker . . . "

More please.

Whatever happened to the dislikely lads?

They must have finally remembered their password. It's back up and gurning:

https://www.counterfire.org/

Counterfire? That was the website that was set up by the dissidents in the SWP late last year when Rees, German and co were fighting a rearguard action for the life, soul and a seat on the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party.

The website was taken down under instruction from the SWP CC because it was viewed as factional activity by the Left Platform. (Turns out they were right.)

Now that the 60 or so members of the LP have either decamped or been expelled from the SWP, the website's out the blocks and picking up speed. With 60 plus members - amongst that number there's some very talented individuals - they're already bigger than the likes of the Weekly Worker; Workers Power and Permanent Revolution and not much smaller than the likes of AWL or Socialist Resistance, so they (and their snazzy website) are definitely ones to watch in the British Left Blogosphere.

If I was going to use a football analogy, I'd say that they probably see themselves as the FC United of the Trotskyist Left at the moment. For their sake, I wouldn't want to stretch that analogy too far, though, because after a strong start FC United are currently stalled in mid-table mediocrity in the Northern Premier League Premier Division. (Aren't I being overly generous on a Monday morning for the latest rehash of Generals Without Armies? I must be on a sugar rush.)

Amongst other things, they're offering the rest of us 'Leninism in the 21st century' as part of their introduction to Counterfire. I suggest they handpick their four burliest members and install them on the door of the blog. The comments looking to push their way in uninvited won't be pretty and will be looking to cause trouble.

Hat tip to MP over at Leftist Trainspotters.

How the mighty have fallen

Further to this little matter:

How the mighty have fallen.

No, not Lindsay German’s resigning; Lenny having to pen a piece on his blog about a little local difficulty concerning the SWP so soon after it happening. (48 hours? Lenny would usually sooner wait about 48 months before coughing up a response on his blog.)

Funny times. That leading SWPer all those years ago who bemoaned the internet and its nefarious effect on the organisation really was onto something.

Lenny having to comment reminded me of this old joke concerning the SWP and the internet. It's sectarian and it's silly but it still makes me laugh two years after the fact.

Addendum

Madam Miaow provides the video response to German resigning, whilst someone in a darkened room somewhere works on the Downfall video to mark this momentous occasion concerning the British Vanguard.

Democratic Martinism*

OK, it's patently obvious that neither my heart nor my head are in blogging mode at the moment, and me merely using the blog as a data entry site for films and books I've watched and read this year is a poor substitute, but I would be doing the (past) spirit of the blog a disservice if I didn't at least mention the hot news on the left blogging front back in Britain: Lindsay German has resigned from the Socialist Workers Party after 37 years of membership!

In the (present) spirit of the blog, I can't be arsed going into the whys and the wherewithals of how someone went from being one of the leading members of the SWP and the Stop the War Coalition to being part of the opposition rump Left Platform in the SWP that was routed by the spectacularly unimpressive Martin Smith in the little matter of a couple of years but if you follow the links below (or ask me kindly in the comments box), I'm sure it will all become clear:

AVPS Phil had the scoop of Lindsay German's resignation.

The ferocious commenting (and cries of schadenfreude) is naturally enough taking place over at Socialist Unity blog. (228 comments at the last count.)

Splintered Sunrise provides the kremlinology.

Ian Bone provides the best visual gag about the strained correspondence between Lindsay German and the SWP's National Secretary, Martin Smith, which led to her resignation.

Breaking news on a late Wednesday night affecting the British Far Left means that once again the former king's of the hill, the Weekly Worker, have been out-scooped by a lowly blog. Through gritted teeth, they insert one line into this week's online version of the Weekly Worker to try and give the impression that they've got it covered. They're fooling no one.

A sitemeter sighting lets me know that an old post of mine, concerning Martin Smith, has a broken link and I'm able to correct it accordingly. If you want to get the full sense of comic dread of an SWP now led by Mr Smith, have a peep at this old article from the aforementioned Weekly Worker, which concerns his actions in expelling a dissident member of the SWP in Bedfordshire. We're in Dario Fo land.

Now, back to 365Watch and rereading old books.

*Kudos to Robert in Splintered Sunrise's comments box for 'Democratic Martinism'

Make Over

It appears we are in a period of website revamps, make overs and general over haulage so it would be remiss of me if I didn't mention on the blog that the World Socialist Party of the United States website has recently gone through all of the above.

Front page articles include:

Marx's Conception of Socialism

The Latest from “Comrade Žižek”

Climate Change?

The Economic Crisis: Will Capitalism Fail?

Click on and on and on . . . .

What's Going On? by Mark Steel (2008)

There's a layer of society brought up with the expectation that it will rule. At their schools, when they do subjects like the First World War, instead of being asked to write about what life must have been like shivering in a trench, they're asked to construct a battle plan for capturing Verdun. They consider, like Tony Blair, that to end up as a Headmaster would be a failure. Instead of being taught to respect authority they're taught to BE authority. They ooze confidence that it's hard not to be intimidated by. For example, I was contacted by an Eton student who wanted me to speak at his debating society. I was doing a national tour at the time, so I called him back to say it would have to be after that finished. He rang me back and left a message that went, 'Right. Now I've looked on your website and seen the dates of your shows, and you've got two days off one week so I'm booking you in to come down on the Tuesday. It's quite simple.' And the words 'quite simple' were imbued with a slight exasperation, as if he was having to take time out from an important meeting with an admiral to explain to the servants how to serve the pâté.
On the other hand, whenever starts a request, as most of us do, with 'Oh, eer hello, um sorry to bother you but I was just wondering' you know they didn't go to Eton.

Gallows humour

Despite it being unavailable stateside, I've finally been able to snaffle a copy of Mark Steel's 'What's Going On?'

Only seventy pages in, I'm enjoying it as I have all of his books that I've previously read but I am once again struck by the thought that I wish that I had a dollar for every time he starts a sentence with, "It's a bit like . . . .".

I wouldn't be rich but I would be able to afford a jar of marmite from the Chip Shop.

Of course, as with the wonderful 'Reasons To Be Cheerful', waves of recognition pour over you as you read Steel. He may have been thirty years man and petition peddler in the SWP but, whether you have SPGB, SWP, CWO, CPB, SPEW, ICC, L & S or RWP-UNB sewn into your lapel, there is a reason why we all pretend to be in on the Life of Brian joke.

Irrespective of the groupscule you're currently hiding from the real world in, the experience is pretty much a muchness of a muchness. On average, the groan of recognition hits you every two pages by my reckoning.

The excerpted passage below about the break in relations between the SWP and ISO a few years back had me shouting at the walls, 'that's us, that is':

The result of all this was the British and American wings of the organisation formally parted, so the British attempted to start up a new American party. After a few months someone told me excitedly, 'There's good news from America - we're up to eight.' Eight - in the whole of America - good news. When I relayed this conversation to someone else they said, 'And what he didn't tell you is that six of them are on Death Row.'

In my darker moments, I realise I only stay in obscurantist politics because of the one-liners.

There will be blood

Not the YouTube downfall I was looking for, but a witty wee video take on the current fallout in the upper echelons of the SWP.

Hat tip to the tubes over at HP Sauce for the heads up on the blogger video.

Murder of the English Language in the Central Committee

With regards to that ongoing crisis within the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party. (IMHO, no, the SWP is not going to implode and it's not going to go away however much it's on my Amazon wishlist.)

There are thousands of comments littering the blogosphere over the documents issued by John, Portsmouth John whose ate too many slices of Papa Johns, Neil, Dozy, Mick and Tich and I've not mentioned a sniff of any of them on the blog. Well, I can hold back no longer.

Why has nobody addressed the real concrete question that is truly preoccupying the collective mind of the working class when it comes to matters relating to John Rees and his fight for the Cliffite soul of the Socialist Workers Party.

'Where is the John Rees YouTube Downfall video?'

Until that question is properly addressed, I'm tempted to do a Lenny and say sod all on the matter.

Rees's in Pieces

I laughed.

Abraham, Mark and (no mention of) John

"Mark strikes up an unlikely friendship with Bob Monkhouse, started surreally by Bob approaching Mark in the Television Centre car park and saying how much he loved Reasons to be Cheerful, which he’d got as a 75th birthday present from Jeremy Beadle."

Hop on over to Splintered Sunrise for his must-read review of Mark Steel's 'What’s Going On?' (Previously mentioned on the blog here.)

Very funny, very informative and the only reason I can think why Splintered Sunrise didn't make Iain Dale's recent Top 10 Northern Irish blogs is because Splintered rises in the South. (It can be confusing sometimes working out if he's working out of Belfast or out of Dublin when he's working over the SWP.)

And as much as I like Mark Steel, kudos to Splinty for taking Steel to task with this wee barb at the end of the review which is, in the main, largely positive:

". . . But, and I have to make this point as a small criticism, Mark may be a good bloke but he’s also a little bit of an asshole. What I mean by that is, the history of the SWP, and other left organisations, is full of people in privileged positions who have known all about the organisational skulduggery that goes on, and haven’t said a word until they have been targeted themselves. I think there is a particular responsibility on people like Mark Steel or Paul Foot or Eamonn McCann, who function as a human face of their organisation and make people feel good about being in it, and who could function as a sort of conscience of the organisation. But normally they don’t. Paul Foot, who I miss a lot, was a lovely man, a brilliant journalist and one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. But it must be said that, when confronted with the SWP leadership and with Cliff in particular, Paul could be the most awful creep. Eamonn has gone along with all sorts of hair-raising stuff, as long as he’s been allowed to plough his own furrow in Derry. And so on."

There's a hell of a lot of truth in that. Of course, it's now much too late for Steel to take on any sort of constructively critical role with regards to his old organisation because if he so much as coughs in the direction of the SWP his former comrades will be quickly on hand to dismiss him as nothing more than a political apostate. Such is life in (and out) of a political organisation.

PS - You got that Abraham is Tony Cliff, right? I posted one of Phil Evans's excellent cartoons to make the point and everything. I was originally going to go with 'Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide' as the post title, but who but the most avid Marvin Gaye fanatic will know that that was his first single on Motown back in '61?

'Your name's not on the guestlist, your book is not getting in'

Funny incident recounted by 'PaulOK' over at Urban 75's UK politics, current affairs and news forum:

Anybody read Steel's new book, "What's Going On?"

Supposedly he gives a real literary kicking to his former comrades in the SWP?

I popped into Bookmarks near Tottenham Court Road yesterday and asked the assistant if she had it in stock. She looked at me as if I was something stuck to her shoe before answering "No, We haven't nor will we be getting it"!.

Looks like Steel is now an "un-person"

Guess it's Amazon.

There's an extract of the book over here at The Independent. I loved Reasons To Be Cheerful but, if the extract is anything to go by, his new book looks a bit more sombre. Maybe it's just extract selected. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of the book itself.

Moment of Truth?

The Glasgow Herald editorial calls it a 'Moment of Truth', but the victor in the Glasgow East By-Election tonight will be the 'Don't care, who gives a toss, how did Celtic do against Cardiff tonight?' Party'.

I can't be too cheeky about such matters. I was meaning to do a regular blogsearch of Glasgow East stories between the calling of the election and the result itself but life, music, books, Brooklyn heat and more music intervened. The one time that Shettleston gets its moment in the political sun, and I'm too busy suffering from the New York sun to fully follow it up.

The pundits suggest that the Labour Party candidate will squeak by the SNP candidate but it won't matter a jot. Like I mentioned before on the blog, it will be Garscadden all over again.

Being the Left Trainspotter that I am, I'll put my hand up to the fact that I'll be fascinated to know who will win out between the SSP and the Solidarity candidates in tonight's by-election. Sheridan's celebrity cache means that Solidarity will in all likelihood win that particular contest, and once again the SSP activists will have to rue the day that they bought into the tribune of the people celebrity socialism bollocks, which meant that for so many people that not only was Sheridan the SSP but he was the personifaction of socialism itself.

Political heroes should be long since dead . . . old black and white photographs with their myth and reputations intact, and political celebrities should only be found in old episodes of the West Wing.

It will be a bit of shame with the SSP's candidate, Francis Curran, losing out to Solidarity's Trish Mcleish, 'cos I've always liked this clip of her that I found on YouTube.

She was speaking at a Socialist Resistance meeting in London back in 2006 in the aftermath of the SSP implosion, and I just love the way she calls the 'Generals without an Army', that is the SWP, for what it is.

Why wait for an alibi?

AKA 'Recycling comments from other blogs'.

The Recruitathon has passed for another year, and I have to be honest that I continue to have a tinge of sadness that I no longer have the opportunity to set up an SPGB stall outside the event and experience a two day thousand yard stare parading past our lit table.

I miss the old days of seeing Tony Benn give a variation on the same speech (and the same anecdotes) year after year. The CPGB and the AWL drawing lots to see whose turn it is to have this year’s ‘incident’ with a middle-ranking apparatchik from the SWP, and, having a pulse and a bank account, being asked to join the SWP about 141 times during the course of the event. (More often than not by the same people who blank you when you're doing the stall.)

Throw in a smattering of American accented Sparts lovebombing any passing politico who happens to glance at their stall for a nanosecond; the Class War stall doing a roaring trade to Baby Trots with their Class War T Shirts and Class War lighters and a Big Issue seller who’s lucky to sell three magazines all weekend and I could be transported back to any year between 1996 and 2004.

Yeah, I know that sounds like I'm suggesting that one year sounds like any other but, via this comment from 'Thin Lizzy' over at Socialist Unity blog, it appears that I'm not the only one who suffered from Groundhog Weekend Syndrome:

"I am delighted that the SWP apparently had another successful Marxism event. However, I don’t believe that we can have total confidence that the SWP leaders are telling the truth about the size of Marxism every year.

Back on July 15, 2006, Socialist Worker reported that, ‘Some 4,100 activists gathered to discuss and debate a huge range of political issues‘ at that year’s Marxism. However, SWP party notes in July 2007, according to their internal bulletin last Autumn, stated: ’Marxism 2007 was a great success. Over 4,100 people attended the event, up over 400 on last year’. This week’s Socialist Worker proudly reports: ‘Around 4,100 people from across Britain and the world came to this year’s Marxism festival held in central London last weekend.’

What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Did I mention that the highlight of 'Marxism' every year was the kick arse secondhand bookstalls?

The Spector of Left-Wing Reformism

Sounds as depressing as f*&% to me, but someone reading the blog might want to pencil the date in their diary:

"Stop the War Coalition is asking as many people as possible to help create a wall of sound to accompany Tony Blair as he gives a lecture on Faith and Globalisation at Westminster Cathedral in London on Thursday 3 April."

AKA as the long and winding road.

I think some people have taken the '68 fortieth anniversary zeitgeist thing in the wrong direction.

Hat tip to Rob S in Norway.

Taking the Cliffite Pledge

Via the ongoing feuding between the Socialist Unity Blog and Lenny comes the petty, sectarian but very funny quip of my day:

#307 I imagine that Seymour’s relationship to Rees is similar to his “The Simpsons” namesake’s relationship to his mother, Agnes.

“Seymour, are you reading those anti-SWP blogs again?”

“No mother!”

Comment by Anon — 25 February, 2008 @ 6:04 pm

[Via Here.]

Reasons To Be Cheerful

Neil Williams commenting over at the Socialist Unity Blog is right; this is a bit of a nugget of left trainspotting information, if true:

"“Mark Steele [sp] spoke to a packed Green Left fringe on saturday and was very funny and radical, good on how socialist need to rethink strategy, good on climate change and good on the media. He said he had left the SWP which surprised me”. [The exclusive is buried in amongst Derek Wall's post, A Good Conference - Green Party of England and Wales.]

Begs the question, though: will the Harry's Place mob finally admit that the bloke is funny now that he's apparently left the SWP after nearly thirty years of membership? Thought not.

Club Apostate

Gary Bushell; Peter Hitchens; Wendy Henry; Will Rubbish's mate; Jim Fitzpatrick; Gus MacDonald; Roger Rosewall . . . Ahmed Hussain?

Andy N over at the Socialist Unity Blog is the cat that got the cream with the news that SWP member and Tower Hamlets councillor, Ahmed Hussain, has been in talks with the Tories over the little matter of him probably possibly defecting to the party of Margaret Thatcher. Things haven't been finalised yet as Councillor Hussain has also been having chats with the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, apparently.

I guess this means that the right/left split that was cited by the SWP as the core reason for the fallout between Team Galloway and themselves has to be re-examined in light of one of their Party members leaving by the blue door. No jokes about the much vaunted "Popular Front of a Special Kind" are necessary at this point.

Poor old SWP. Gotta feel a wee bit sorry for them in their current predicament. As the bonafide vanguard© of the working class, they have got that far ahead of the rest of us, that on looking over their shoulder they've suddenly realised that there's nobody behind them. We're such ungrateful bastards.

If they're open to a wee bit of helpful advice from a concerned abstract propagandist, could I suggest that the next time they consider participating in the democratic process - bourgeois or otherwise - perhaps they could apply some democratic practice to their own organisation. That way, maybe next time they won't be played like a cheap fiddle.

Remember kids. Vanguardists are better than us . . . and they know what they're doing.

The Vanguard Speaks . . .

It's still early in Brooklyn, but no one will top this as the (unintentional) funniest comment of the day:

". . . But no matter who he manages to hook up with (The CPGB perhaps?) the question will remain: Who's gonna hand out the leaflets?" (My emphasis.) [From here.]

So that's what they meant by a 'Popular Front of a Special Kind'. I always wondered.