The variablility of skills

Gareth writes such beautiful poetry.

I like admiring the skills he has that i don't possess. I admire the skills he has immeasurably more than the skills of my friends. He is my partner, my 'other half', the future father of our children; therefore the skills of manipulating language, musical ability and quiet patience are all things which will be passed onto our children.

I find it puzzling that some things come so natuarally to some and not to others, how the world can be viewed in completely different ways by different people. Puzzled even though i can try to explain the reasons why with science.

I suppose our brains are complicated, that the positions of the billions of neurons are really important, that as soon as they are out of place we are essentially a different person. But there are lots of really complicated things that man has created, can't they just figure the brain out, it can't be that difficult?
I've seen programmes that look into how the chemicals, the hormaones, which your brain sits in can also affect how you think and feel, this can explain how man and women tend to think in different ways, and also why i don't seem to be in control of my thoughts for a few days every month. So it's not just the position of neurons, its the chemical composition of the soup they swim in.

Too many variables, too complicated.

This is why i admire Gareth, he has a mix of variables which i don't, and i like this fact.

By Losing Thee Awhile

Without attempting to justify the hell within him, for within him hell he brings, I nevertheless have to ask myself 'are you any better?' Only on two or three occasions in my life have I come face-to-face with such bare truths, and on each I've swallowed, accepted, denied and ignored. Principle increasingly seems an absurd notion: an assumption upon which I appear to base everything; and yet when called upon, my so-called morals cower behind convenience, shudder beneath shame. Thee father first they sung omnipotent, immutable, immortal, infinite, now your tawdry mortality reveals itself in the sweatstale certainty of blokish secrecy. And again I ask 'are you any better?' I am now discovering that reason, unable in the first place to prevent our misfortunes, is even less equal to consoling us for them.

Milton - Paradise Lost
Laclos - Les Liaisons Dangereuses

The Ceremony goes as usual

'History always emphasises terminal events' Speer said to his Yank interrogators. History always written by the victors, of course. Your body is a machine. I lie on my back, fully clothed except for the cotton white underdrawers. Dirty words strolling on a Sunday to find a fightfightfight with lunchtime drinkers in beer gardens. Defending the nakedAryan bathers in the Tiergarten. Defending from nuance and difference. Serena Joy grips my hands as if it is she, not I, who's being fucked, as if she finds it either pleasurable or painful. This is not recreation, even for the Commander. This is serious business. the Commander, too is doing his duty.

Leyton Buzzard
Atwood - Handmaid's Tale
Beevor - Berlin

Etherised Upon a Table

In what may be the most self-indulgent act of all time... I've been inspired to return to blogging by the coursework moderation I'm currently doing in order to pay off my overdrafts and bolster the old CV. A few of the projects I've moderated have examined modernism and the 'stream of consciousness' style of James Joyce and the similarly fragmentary approach of TS Eliot. This got me thinking, as I stare longingly at my collection of novels, plays and poems, that I'd love to plunge into my collection, steal, borrow and adapt some of my favourite lines and use them as a way of re-connecting both with blogging and with my book collection. Also, 6Music and Xfm have been providing the soundtrack to my moderation, so it's quite possible that the odd song lyric makes its way in too. I'll try to attribute where possible. This will be self-indulgent and messy. You have been warned:

Back to life, back to reality. Let us go then, you and I.
'Satan, King Satan - What the hell?' she said.
The train had derailed but the pun wasn't dead.
'Quiet you bloody wolf. Boil your guts in your own anger.'
'That's easy for you to say. Down in THAT London, of course.'
I don't wanna know if you're lonely. It's too easy to assume everything's fine and it isn't of course, but who's going to feel comfortable if you ride in on your bloody high horse. Exactly halfway through my trek in life, but it's more a roundabout than a crossroads. The days of Ibiza Uncovered are dead and gone but those days were never yours anyway. Welcome to Hell. A man on a mission to the sinners who sowed division, the sinners in Manumission.


Eliot - Prufrock
Dante - Inferno
Husker Du

The Sun Wot Won It

I think Russell Brand summed it up best. To paraphrase the great swordsman:

"To me, The Sun is like a happy-go-lucky, yet ever-so-slightly-racist friend:

"Wahey! £7.50 holidays! Bingo! Dolly Birds! Too many immigrants!"

"What was that last one?"

"Dolly birds!"

Today's news that The Sun is no longer backing Labour comes as something of a relief. I've always had a strange relationship with The Sun; it was the paper of choice in our house growing up - I distinctly remember the 'Turn Out The Lights' Kinnock headline - and therefore I have some affection for it despite the fact that I'm repulsed by pretty much everything it represents.

I'm about to teach a night class so don't have time now to really explore this love/hate quandry. I can however recall my thoughts on the matter during my lyric writing days for the fondly remembered sham-rock outfit, The New Pirates:

The Sun and Sky
Brings us down
Invisible empires to which we bow
You're our Stalin now

Take away
My hopes and dreams
Fox and Times teach you what to see
Well you ain't gonna fool me

AOL say all is well
We say "Fuck You! How can you tell?
Your president can't spell"

Victory at Wapping
Gotcha bigger than Charles Foster Kane
There's murder in your name...

And we say Murder Rupert
Murder Rupert
Murder Rupert
Murder Rupert

Rhetorical Tear Gas

We didn't cause the credit crunch. The people who did were handed billions from the government. Those billions will be recouped somehow.

For those who have felt the effects of the global economic downturn directly, i.e. those who lost their jobs in the financial sector or those duped into extortionate loans or mortgages, it is, obviously, a tremendously difficult and frustrating turn of events. For the rest of us, the 'credit crunch' can appear to be a blessing: lower mortgage rates, reduced VAT, cheaper goods and a smug satisfaction that we were never greedy/stupid/unfortunate enough to get involved in any high-risk or highly dubious practices. If the bank is closed, we joke, just use the ATM.

The truth is, we have little reason for schadenfreude.

The truth is, the dubiousness hasn't stopped and the opportunism afforded by the current situation stretches way beyond popping into the Halifax in a cheeky attempt to track the base rate. Indeed, other opportunities present themselves, such as the opportunity to reduce pay and working conditions, the opportunity to 'balance the books' regardless of the long-term well-being of your work force and community and even the opportunity to cut jobs.

It stands to reason. Imagine that for years you had been irritated by an employee, a certain way of doing things or even an entire department under your control. Every day you were irked by petty squabbling or apparently unreasonable demands. The people above you want changes, the people below you want continuity. You become seen as indecisive and ineffectual by everyone around you - hamstrung by employment law and lively unions. The credit crunch arrives like a gift: a brilliantly vague term, like rhetorical tear gas, working on subconscious fears and miraculously rendering even the most ludicrous decisions 'justifiable'.

Sure, the direct impact of the credit crunch was devastating. But the indirect impact is somehow more sinister, slimy and destructive.

As a college lecturer I naively felt immune from the effects of the crunch, until this news:

On 5 June the Principal of Tower Hamlets College, Michael Farley, emailed staff a document called “Securing the Future” that hit like a shockwave. The ensuing 30 day “consultation process” left staff with the following:

Redundancies (voluntary and compulsory) in the region of 30 “full-time equivalents” (i. e. about 50 people) across teaching and support staff
The loss of 1, 000 of our 3, 000 ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) students. The need for ESOL at Tower Hamlets is huge: last year there were 800 on our waiting lists.
Withdrawal of college ESOL classes from up to 11 Outreach centres on estates and in the community. Outreach students are almost all women, most of whom are only able to attend classes because they are near home. The plan is that the provision at the low levels will be provided by charities, mosques and churches, who can bid for government money to hire their own, (isolated and low paid) teachers.
Attack on our working conditions and working culture - in the weeks before the cuts were announced, a leaked email from Senior Management referred to the need for a “culture change” at the THC. Clearly this just the beginning of the attacks to come, with the recession used as an excuse to force the business and skills agenda further into a place with a tradition of creative and critical education.


There will be people like the management at Tower Hamlets at YOUR work place, and the credit crunch is their window of opportunity. Now is the time to fight back. Join your Union. Write to your MP. Donate to the strikers at Tower Hamlets. Join their Facebook group. Join their march on Saturday 12th September. Be vigilant and don't take anything for granted.

Reason to be cheerful

Despite a Summer of scrutiny for the Tories commitment (or otherwise) to the NHS, today's Guardian poll suggests that support for the Conservatives has actually increased. A Tory PM in 2010 looks more and more likely and the outlook bleak for traditional Labour supporters like yours truly.

Admittedly, there is very little to 'support' in the Labour party right now: Iraq enquiries continue to be fudged and covert and the expenses scandal attacked the very core of the party - many suggested that it was behaviour they expected from Conservatives, but deplored in so-called socialists. Indeed, this past year could be seen as a woeful failure of the Left in all its guises: the economy crashed and capitalism was exposed as being a fragile system, based on greed, exploitation and virtual accounting. This was the time for a radical change - what we got was slapped wrists and empty gestures.

Personally, I was cheered by Alastair Darling's increased taxation on those earning £100,000 or more (which, don't forget, includes pretty much everyone in the media and was therefore never going to be met with a fanfare) but still couldn't help feeling it was too little, too late.

So, is there a reason to be cheerful?

If there is, his name is Jon Cruddas. The war in Iraq aside (which he now openly admits was a mistake) Cruddas has an admirable voting record - opposing all Blairite evils from tuition fees to trust schools and nuclear weapons. If Labour are crushed next May, he's precisely the sort of person they need to elect. MP for working-class, industrial heartland of Dagenham, Cruddas seems refreshingly reluctant to maintain the status quo and his political record reflects firmly held principles.

In terms of presentation too, Cruddas doesn't seem as slimy as the Millibands or as smug as Harmen. Like Alan Johnstone, he has the appearance of a bloke trying to do a good job - the perfect antidote to Cameron's fadish, vapid style.

Of course, this could well be the kiss of death for Cruddas. Ironically, rather than voting for Cruddas in the Deputy PM election, I opted for Peter Hain, who a few weeks later was being investigated for financial irregularities. So, if he can survive my poisoned 'thumbs-up', Cruddas may well be the man for the future.