The Middle of the Road

Neil Young once spoke thoughtfully about the perils of the mainstream: “Heart of Gold put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch.” . It's a good album but the ditch has some good songs too and so I fear for the future of Steven Gerrard, hardworking footballer, not so much because of his arrest for assault but because of the rather fearful rumours about his tastes in music and the possibility that these may have led to argy bargy. Of greater concern may be the prevailing and continued influence of lounge music, also known as AOR, upon a new generation of the innocent and unsuspecting young wealthy...

Steven is one of those young men who see nothing wrong in wearing a blue cashmere jumper and white shirt after hours and this should surely have alerted fellow drinkers that worse was to follow. It's always been the smart ones who are trouble! Rumours are like chips, plentiful and needing a pinch of salt, but if it is true that he is a fan of Phil Collins, what tunes I wonder did he urge the stricken DJ to spin? Something from Buster perhaps or No Jacket Required. "Coming in the air tonight" would be too cruel even for such an obvious scally.

Don't look backlash

Once you have read something or written something or simply sucked in your teeth and whistled a song from the back-most corners of your mind, you can begin to count upon the backlash. The backlash does not come with any sense of clear vengeance or vendetta. The backlash does not come from a frenzy of jealous yearning or the most bitter retribution. Nor should the backlash be confused with an idiot quest for justice, where only the moon can be safely considered to be outside the realm of foolish questions and cast-iron theories (see the detruction of a "fourth tower" or the quiet careers of Elvis Preseley).

The backlash exists to complete a clear certain but slippery sequel, that is to say the stuff you were sold on Monday is proved to be poor and hollow on Friday and whose original existence serves only to demonstrate the need to be vigilant and sceptical, even as we cling to a new and breathtaking development. This is at work in the production of news, it is not a hunger it is a meal and it's timing is predictable. Two examples of the backlash, the first is the rather dismal reviews for the new film about Hunter S Thompson. His drug habits and his expanding ego are not pleasant prospects but for years he has been lionised for writing outside the loop and now the loop has closed mercilessly. The second would be the banking crisis. "No-one saw it coming" being the current cry but more accurate might be "no-one was looking" and in this case the backlash is based on a gathering mental momentum that says that only banks can avert further crises because only banks know how to invest money. Now which part of the word "bankrupt" did we not understand the first time?

I hate moving on....

About ten years ago, I began to develop an almost pathological aversion to people who used the word "overview". In truth part of this was based on the fact that my own analysis of the situation was very often garbled and long-winded and thus rejected. However there was also a profound suspicion that those who had signed up to this particular verbal tic were experimenting in a kind of professional shorthand serving towards the achievement of two clear and concise objectives. The first was to avoid any binding decisions regarding the matter at hand (the more urgent the requirement, the more keenly was it avoided). The second was to imply a sort of superiority upon proceedings, that is to say that the speaker was the only person seeing things clearly and glimpsing a possibly hidden but surely inevitable outcome. Along the lines of eggs being eggs. In a couple of cases these suspicions were confirmed horribly and irredeemably and the thought of those people still makes me shiver (and laugh when I get together with a former colleague of those times now a dear friend and we bitch pointlessly and cruelly).....

Now a similar dread is invested in me by the use of the words "moving on" except that now these woeful words are to be found not in the echelons of middle-management but in the political vocabulary, now showing signs of filtering down into the voluntary sector and at chief executive level. Our last Prime Minister made it something of a catchphrase, and I am reminded of someone like Jim Bowen frowning through his bi-focals and saying " aren't they a smashing couple ladies and gentlemen now step up have a listen to Tony" and why did we not listen to Tony because that "moving on" started with the house in Bristol and ended with a war. The plea to "move on" became another way of saying "can we please forget that this ever happened" and beneath such a fancy lies the tacit admission of error, blind ambition and the probable stain of blood on the hands.

War Crimes Exclusive

Police have decided that there will be no charges brought in the case of Mr Gordon Brown who was facing allegations of having taking part in the assisted deaths of almost a million Iraqi and Afghan nationals. Mr Brown had said that he was not there when these deaths took place, on many occasions he was to be found in the House of Commons. Though aware of the proceedings Mr Brown pointed out that he did not know any of the people concerned.

Inspector Hound of the Metropolitan Police said that the case was a difficult one. "In the end we were left without a leg to stand on" he said "as were many of the people involved - this was a case that should never have been bought" he continued "assistance never arose because most of these people had no wish to die". Mr Brown declared himself very relieved "It's not as if I held a gun to anyone's head" he said "I got Corporal Atkins to do that".

I love my Mum

Having a super time in the country. Oscar is helping his Grandma to make a mess and she bought me tea in bed this morning. What else would you want? The sunshine has been crisp and bright and a nice thick frost covered the ground this morning. Mum has bought herself a cat, Shadow, a very nervous creature and Oscar has been carefully approaching him. I only saw him last night when I was going to bed. I couldn't believe how big he was. We went to the Bell for lunchtime, delicious food and Oscar swept away a whole pile of mash and two sausages (adult portions - their children's portions like many places are not really enough). The two gorgeous girls who usually run the place were not there but the lady who was, chased after us and gave us his gloves which her younger peers might not have bothered to do...

Lunchtime soon and I've done a bit of manual, clearing all the leaves from the garden. Very nice too.

Police State - just you wait!

The business with the Conservative MP looks a little heavy handed. But then since when does the police do anything by halves? I can remember Mrs T. berating people (she meant liberal people) who "whine about how much they care" and she could so easily have been speaking about Cameron and Osbourne. This is not yet a Police state, although it shows many of the qualities of a one-party state but that's as much the fault of the opposition. Cameron has been wetting his knickers about the state of Britain for far too long and it's hard to feel much sympathy for his caring credentials when they are set against his "Broken Britain" campaign. Britain is not really broken, it has some bad habits that's for sure (an over-emphasis on consumer values is one of them and no sign that Dave intends to redress that). Zimbabwe is broken. Iraq is broken (and Dave would have carried on with that one too - he can't wait to get inside a tank and not a water-tank either). Playing the patriotic card means not trying to spook the nation for the sake of a few thousand votes in the middle ground.

Actually if there were signs of a Police state they might be found in the rather revolting fluorescent bibs about "Community Payback". Being forced to wear something is always a bad sign....

Death and the national identity - a shameful thing!

Played snooker with Paul on Wednesday and he told me about a text he had from his friend in Mumbai. "I know it's dangerous" the message read "but I've run out of cigarettes". Paul had replied "get two packs". I had to laugh if only because laughter will ease the pain and (perhaps more importantly) defy the odds. What has been almost as depressing as the actual carnage has been the recurring estimation about how many of the dead are British. Of course it will be the ordinary Indian people who have borne the brunt of the violence but the compulsion among most reports to identify the level of non-indian casualty provides an unpleasant echo of the gun-men's own desire to single out westerners in their initial onslaught.

This idea that some lives are of more value than others is what has prompted the invasion of countries and the leaving of bombs on buses. We should be careful what we wish for....