Andrew Reid: Curb Your Enthusiasm

The anti-Obama propaganda has started.

Some Americans are guaffing and laughing at the economic stimulus plan. Money towards new cars for scrapping old polluting cars. Cash for Clunkers! Madness! The anti-Obama crowd were saying things like “Yeahaar! Maybe we should have a cash for clucker’s programme and pay people to eat Chicken!”. Then one fat necked Republican news reporter spouted a complaint saying “car dealers can’t cope with demand… its craaaazy out there!!”

Jon Stewart’s Today ran this story with the caption:

Master
……Rebaters

They also ran a quote from a state senator in South Carolina joking that a Gorilla which escaped from a zoo was in fact an ansestor of Michelle Obama.

To lighten an atmosphere poluted by the backwardness of a red neck America which doesn’t believe in evolution but can happily compare a Barack’s wife to a gorillia, Jon Stewart decided to scribble some alternative stimulous plans on a piece of scrap paper on his desk.

“Money for people with really large asses… Cash for Badooka donka!”.

But among the sound of fat asses going badooka donka, the prevailing sound coming out of America post-Obama is the noise of people going about their business at the expense of the world. Change? Obama? Progress? Nah - we like it as it is, say the fat racist part of America.

The dream which Obama stood for… still stands for, is being ignored by the majority of horse fuckers in South Carolina, is being belittled by cowboy politicians and double glazing businessmen.

Of course that the underprivileged suddenly had ‘hope’ got White America worried. The White America which doesn’t speak for the kind of people I know.

None of my friends have ever fucked at horse.

Or sneered at TV ‘news’ reports of cats with their heads stuck in yoghurt pots. “Hahaha look at that stupid fucking animal!”

The only stupid fucking animal I know is human… a cheerleader who wears a tshirt with the slogan Cocks Rock. A prime example of closed minded idiocy. Although that sentence sounds like a prime example of intellectual snobbery. I guess the truth probably lies somewhere in between.

Between the white picket fence, the dodge truck and the beer belly White Trash America knows in it’s heart of hearts that it is wrong.

They rock back and forth, shifting over and over in their sleep (dreaming of horses to fuck), panicking religiously.

Illustration by Sam Griffiths (http://www.sg-illustration.co.uk)

“The only persons with the power to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe are the people of Zimbabwe”

During the last election the people of Zimbabwe who voted as a majority to remove the Giant Cunt had their heads beaten around like hockey pucks on the end steel rods. 200 killed, 5000 abducted and 200,000 forced from their burning homes.

“Only God could remove me from power”

Maybe what he meant to say the first time?

“People are free to campaign and they will be free to vote. There won’t be any soldiers, you know, at the queues.”

Ah, no I stand corrected. Sorry.

“Our votes must go together with our guns. After all, any vote we shall have, shall have been the product of the gun. The gun which produces the vote should remain its security officer - its guarantor. The people’s votes and the people’s guns are always inseparable twins.”

Does Dr Mugabe have an evil twin named Dr Jekyll? Certainly, it appears that neither Mugabe Jekyll or Mugabe Hyde have a very good grasp on the truth.

“There is no cholera in Zimbabwe.”

That’s not quite true though is it, Robert Cunt Mugabe. 1,123 people have died from over 25,000 infected. In fact its like a scene from 28 Days Later.

“It’s unnatural and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings…we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!”

That quote is from 1995 but it’s only 18 years later that the world is now catching on. Could the early warning signs, that Mugabe was another Hitler, have been picked up earlier?

“Hitler had only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources…If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold”

Okay, let’s be fair he didn’t mention the Jewish holocaust or the world war but let’s stick to what he did mention. Hmm. Justice, check. Sovereignty, check. Independence, check. Imprisonment of homosexuals… um, check. Although Mugabe’s idea of giving his people justice, sovereignty and independence is to plunge them into poverty and starvation, whilst letting them die from cholera.

Now, has anyone noticed the similarities with that other great dictator yet? No. Certainly not the Queen or the University of Edinburgh, it seems, who saw fit to bestow a honours on him. “Honoured not only for his extraordinary intellectual discipline and energy but for those qualities of statesmanship which made him one of the great figures of modern Africa”, said the University of Edinburgh.

“The only white man you can trust is a dead white man.”

Meanwhile The Queen gave him a Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Bath for ”significant contributions” to relations between Britain and Zimbabwe.

“We pride ourselves as being top, really, on the African ladder … We feel that we have actually been advancing rather than going backwards.”

In the 1960’s and 70’s Zimbabwe was once the jewel in Africa’s crown, able to feed itself, heal its sick and educate its people to the highest standards on the continent and then Mugabe came into power during the 1980s. Zimbabwe is now in a pitiful state. The main hospitals are now completely closed. The country’s economy is not just in free-fall, it has ceased to exist. In 1990 life expentancy was 64 years, and after Mugabe cut health services this now stands at 34 in 2008.

But after all, these quotes are only words, you see.

What does Mugabe do when he’s not talking bullshit, after all they say actions speak louder than words?

In 2000 Mugabe stopped talking the talk and commanded a self-styled Hitler fanatic named “Chenjerai ‘Hitler’ Hunzi” to invade farms owned by white people in a co-ordinated land-grab.

Mugabe’s parliament pushed through an amendment, taken word for word from the draft constitution that was rejected by voters, allowing the seizure of white-owned farmlands without due reimbursement or payment.

One farmer was forced to drink diesel fuel as a form of torture, some were killed.

Mugabe himself stole three posh farms to use for his own leisurely activities, like reclining in his deck chair in the warm African breeze whilst watching white bodies swinging from trees

The rest have fallen into ruin.

Since these actions, agricultural production has plummeted and the economy is crippled. Once the “bread basket” of southern Africa and a major agricultural exporter, Zimbabwe is now a “basket case”.

In order to avoid starvation, a third of Zimbabwean’s require aid from the World Food Programme.

It’s hard to think of an aspect of Zimbabwe that Mugabe hasn’t ruined, although his wife is nicknamed Gucci Grace by the Zimbabwean people, for her luxury shopping lifestyle. I suppose this however is a small consolation for having to sleep with a giant cunt.

 

A black president of America. It’s more than just skin deep.

And yet looking at the right wing Republican faithful during John McCain’s speech conceding victory to Obama, it shows that skin can tell you a lot.

Their grizzled faces, testosterone driven, hawkish, without kindness, without a glimmer of humility. The women were mostly classically beautiful, but share the harsh frown lines of the males. They laugh only to mock or bully. These people are probably right wing by birth, genetically fated to vote for a George Bush, or a John McCain. These are faces which love money, they love power, they want to hold onto what they’ve got and to hell with the have-nots.

And McCain told them thus: “Today I called Senator Obama to congratulate…” [the crowd boos loudly]

Okay - disappointed they may be but it’s in stark contrast to the victory podium crowds gathered for Obama in Chicago. 

Obama: “Today I received a gracious call from Senator John McCain, congratulating our victory” [crowd politely applauds McCain]

Obama ran a better campaign than McCain, for sure. But if McCain did nothing else right at least he was as gracious in defeat as the crowd at Obama’s speech were in victory.

Let’s get one thing straight - away from the political shenanigans and the disastrous effect his party has had on the world, John McCain is a decent man whom learnt about honour in the army, experienced hardship in Vietnam and has served his country to the full. This is a man, who is actually quite human, behind the terrible politics and an extreme following.

The best thing about McCain is that he respects and likes his formidable opponent. He recognises this moment for the occasion it is.

Against the backdrop of American history, to have an African American president is an astonishing result. A black F1 World Champion in Lewis Hamilton, and now President Obama. It’s been a good year for change.

Obama’s is a victory for good versus evil. It cannot be put more simply, or more truthfully than that. A victory over racism too. But do the disenfranchised, the poor, the naive, the young and those whom believe it to be a new dawn, have unrealistically high expectations of what Barack Obama can do?

He cannot walk on water. He’s a politician, and a human being, if a brilliant one at that - but being human means compromise. Nobody is perfect. Politics requires compromise. You cannot please all the people all the time or work miracles.

But it’s a good start. That Barack Obama is black, is more than skin deep. It will have a profound effect on the world. A glance at history tells you everything about why this is so important. The great surge of feeling towards this historic event, the feelings of great hope and change - maybe they will become self fulfilling?

But it’ll take more than just one man for it to come to pass.

There are untold dangers, even on a personal level for President Obama. I had an uneasy feeling whilst watching President Obama’s victory speech that he may be shot and assassinated at any moment. The bullet proof glass to left and right was not for nothing. 

And the hype is dangerous too. I hope people get their heads down, now. I hope they work through the world’s problems in an intelligent, constructive, diplomatic and straight forward way. I hope humans come out on top, and that the system doesn’t crush us under it’s economic problems, war, consumerism, greed, poverty and climate change.

I hope that the cult of celebrity and materialism has not won out over genuine substance (which President Obama appears to have in deluges), because many people have sincere hopes and dreams invested in President Obama, which must not be allowed to die in a smog of lies and power play.

Will President Obama’s government be as good for the world in practical terms as it is for our short term psychology and perception?

In the words of Obama himself:

“There is new energy to harness. A new spirit to summon”

It doesn’t sound much like right wing rhetoric, and some might say that rhetoric and words alone don’t make the world a better place.

But I think they’re wrong.

Words can make the world a better place at times like this. Even better I hope, will be President Obama’s actions… 

04.04

Barack Obama has been elected president.

The scenes on TV are wonderful. 

03.07

“Many stolen elections” says an actor at the Times Square studio in New York where Eddie Izzard is saying that “Obama will be great for the world”. I echo that but with a warning:

If President Obama disappoints, then many people’s faith in politics and in particular the Democrats and liberals, will be shattered for many many years.

02.42

In all certainty, Obama has won. The build up has been predictable and morose. I should be dancing naked in the streets at the joy of it all, but will instead go to bed relieved and happy. 

02.39

In the studio, a pundit calls his colleague a ‘wuss’ for not calling an overall Obama victory. The Republicans are clutching at straws. In about an hour we’ll know the good news.

Barack Obama is the next President of the United States. It feels good to say that. 

02.31

Rupert should indeed worry. Obama is walking it. All the important swing states have gone Obama’s way, and everybody is saying (with a distinct lack of drama) that Obama will go way beyond the target 270 electoral votes to win the election by a mile. 

02.29

Famously hateable but awesomely powerful right-wing media empire boss Rupert Murdoch (Fox, Sky, The Sun, shoddy MySpace) has criticised Barrack Obama over his lack of experience in business (Obama was a lawyer and has never run a company as an executive, let alone an entire country. Although Murdoch is not exactly Nobel prize material (or up to the standard of Richard Branson) he has doubts about Obama’s experience as an ‘executive’ as apposed to a very talented politician who can say the right things and come across the right way. He states that he likes him personally but feels that Obama will “take the country in a dangerous new direction” and bring back “protectionist laws”, which in English reads something like “Obama will stop me from making even more money and corrupting even more people with my shoddy media empire”. 

02.22

An astonishing argument erupts in the news room, which right now is dominated by men. During the all-night debate chaired by David Dimbleby a female reporter at the Republican party HQ, who was extremely poor, shouting into her mic with a shrill babble at warp speed, eyes darting and humourless face contorted as if stretched violently over a jagged, broken vase…incurs the wrath of a radical republican party ex-adviser in the studio, who attacked her with comments like ‘ignorant’ and interrupted her with a face of fury as if she was speaking nonsense. He was aggressive and unpleasant. Indeed she was mind-numbingly awful and over-stressed, mind racing on caffeine and running low on both knowledge and talent but the Republican is clearly in a unusually bad mood. I have no sympathy for either of them. Its awful to watch. Tonight should be about hope and change…

02.04

He may be losing the election but McCain has 50% of the popular vote so far. It goes to show how much blind faith some Americans have in right wing politics, even when it leads their country to economic ruin, a disastrous war, and a bumbling president who is universally disliked not just across the world but in the very states that are now voting in such great numbers for his right ring successor. 

01.10

Coverage otherwise excellent but what is the BBC feeding some of the female news reports in America? They babble like parrots on speed. Joey (first language: Taiwanese) has had to turn the subtitles on and I am getting a headache. 

01.04

It’s looking good for Obama. The swing states, closely contested, are turning in Obama’s favour according to early projections and Obama now leads McCain 84-34 in electoral votes. 270 are needed to win.

00.42

Nearly 1am already? Time is flying. But only two states have been projected by the TV networks so far. News is coming through much slower than expected, why are the people with their finger on the pulse of the voting being so cautious? Obama may be in for a nasty shock. But so far, so predictable: Kentucky has been projected as a win for John McCain. Yes, even though George Bush has fucked up the world and has a record-low 25% approval rating, an entire state can vote in great numbers for more of the same. It shows the power of culture, religion and upbringing over logic and intelligent judgement.

00.24

Barack Obama’s open podium in a city centre park, in contrast to the small private and secure podium for McCain, I hope is highly secure and that nothing untoward happens like an assassination attempt from a sniper. Unlikely I know, but always possible with such scenarios. JFK won’t be the last, and Obama is remarkably like a new JFK. A figure of hope and all that the gun touting repressive right ring factions hate.

23.31

Finally all the waffling is tailing off as we anticipate hard results. Obama’s victory podium is very grand indeed. With a backdrop of the Windy city of Chicago stretched out behind, majestic open spaces with a smattering of skyscrapers. John McCain meanwhile is in a small hotel conference room in Arizona. That’s hope for you, Republican style. 

21.00

BBC news are re-running a quote from Sarah Palin: “I can see Russia from my house!”

20.25 

American friends of Joey are updating their status on Facebook - all will vote for Obama. Who needs the poll tracker!?

20.10

McCain has delivered a rousing speech about ‘fighting’. George Bush was a fighter, also. As a result his legacy is so toxic that McCain has avoided being pictured with him since May, such is Bush’s unpopularity rating.

Apparently we’ll hear the verdict loud and clear by 1am tonight.

20.05

Sarah Palin has cast her vote in Alaska, but refused to reveal who she voted for. She screeched for a while and then went off to shoot some moose. The Republican’s aren’t a sharp shot, as Dick Cheney’s hunting accident proved, let’s hope nothing goes wrong. She is after all, easy enough to mistake for a moose.

20.00

First post of the evening. I am not worried. Obama is way ahead in the polls. There are 220 million Americans eligible to vote and turnout is expected to be record breaking. It’s estimated that 130 million will vote, but until the results come in you can only speculate. 

For all we know a hidden sect of 40 million swamp monsters might vote in their millions for McCain, plunging the world back on course to armageddon.

 

I have always been fascinated by Americans. First they voted for George W Bush. Then they voted for him again, because he reminded them of their bumbling idiots papas.

Now the next George Bush, John McCain has a crafty sidekick. She’s a woman, which quite frankly is the only trick she has up her sleeve. Apart from being a women she’s also a pillock of the highest order. It’s only to be expected you see, after all this is America, land of opportunity for all, even if you’re an idiot.

If John McCain wins the election next month, I will not only leave the planet in my rocket, I will leave the solar system.

From so far away the end of Planet Earth will just sound like a small pin prick piercing a plastic bag followed by the sound of a marble rolling down a wooden floor into the distance. However for those not planning, like I am, to leave the world behind in their rocket, be afraid - be very afraid. That is if you can be bothered to notice.

Sarah Palin reminds me of various things, most of all a giant steaming dog poo. But I won’t talk about her likeness to a big turding shit. Instead, I will talk about her likeness to a ‘Hockey Mom’.

A Hockey Mom, you see, is what the Americans have taken to calling jolly Mrs Palin. Not a pyschopath, not a ingoramous and not a bitch from hell. No, a Hockey Mom. This, from a nation that can’t even spell Mum properly.

I must admit I didn’t know what a Hockey Mom was at first. Was it a mum who played hockey? Was it special kind of hockey puck? Or was it a mother who forced her kids to play hockey from the moment they started school, in the vain hope that they’d be any good at it and be indoctrinated into a right wing community of jocks, tossers and cheerleaders who believe that evolution is something which only happens in the movies and think that God created the world in 50 minutes, when he woke up into existence one day about 2000 years ago and decided he’d have a go at creating life. If this is true, then I have a question for the Hockey Moms of America. What did God use to make the world. A giant Monty Python style hand? A wooden spoon with Adam & Eve selotaped to the handle? A plastic bag with a few primeordial trees and pot-plants in it and a bundle of topsoil?

Anyway, I am getting off the subject of my hatred. Let me continue…

In a live TV debate Barrack Obama’s candidate for vice president, Scary Dracular Man spoke truthully and knowledgably about the world around him while Sarah Palin cooed like a mum encoraging her Boy to wack that little puck right out of the field!

She resembled a demented school teacher from Donnie Darko with her hands and arms cut off, replaced by badly made cardboard replicas, which as it happens is also an apt description of her brain. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was lobotomised shortly after birth, her new-born slimy brain goo replaced by a cheap plastic figure of Jesus.

She spoke about the economic crisis like a parrot would speak about rocket science if given a smattering of the approrpriate terminology. She said she’s stop all that corruption on Wall Street. You go for it Hockey Mommy!

Whilst Scary Dracula Man actually had a plan, Hockey Mom simply had words of encouragement.

Sadly Scary Dracula Man was a bit toothless. On attacking the Republican administration’s foreign policy, I am surprised he did not choose to mention foreign countries. Unless I’m very much mistaken, Bush’s foreign policy has made him a hate figure outside America. If that isn’t a factual indictment of America’s foreign policy of the last 8 years, I don’t know what is. 

It annoyed me greatly, not least because I’d stayed up until 3am to watch the unfolding political soap opera, but because I was squirming around in front of my laptop like an expectant father in front of a hospital ward screen showing that his newborn child was about to come out a bit spaztic and mangled up. And mangled up will the world be, if McCain / Palin are voted for.

American Dad and Hockey Mom ruling the world? I feel victimised. I feel upset. I feel like a gorilla being forced to eat it’s own poo in front of a zoo crowd. I feel that I should accept the leader of the western world, even if they are corrupt deluded nonentities from planet Christ. But I just can’t do it. You would have to catch me 10 seconds after winning $10 million on a Las Vegas casino to ever see me genuinely not care about the US election.

When I stayed up late to watch the last one, I was a student and nearly failed my entire course I was so upset at the prospect of another 4 years of Dubya. When I watched the original one back in 2000 (you know, that one which was fixed), I turned to my mum and said “you know what - theres going to be a war now”.

But hey, what do I know?

 

Glasgow.

It looked pretty shiny last time I was there. It has certainly changed in the past 20 odd years, when there just so happened to be a Labour council there.

Now there isn’t because they lost to the Scottish Nationalist Party.

A poor person was interviewed on the news. She said she didn’t vote for Labour because nothing has changed in the past 20 years. She spoke as if she was expecting the government to cajole her out of poverty into celebrity stardom, despite the fact that her and other thick lazy arse holes like her have the genetic makeup of farmyard animals and the intelligence of a pitchfork. Unfortunately for her, the zoo for celebrities who are thick and worthless is ultra full.

So apparently, Gordon Brown is now a failure. A tipping point had been reached, they say. I say, the tipping point was reached about 3 weeks after he became prime minister but that went ignored because at the time, he was putting on a brave face due to some terrorist incident or other. But after that we all began to notice that our shiny new prime minister had nothing to offer but a general ‘uh’.

Gordon is less a Gordon and more a George. The George from Seinfeld. His credibility is as low as when George was caught masturbating by his mother, who as a result of the shock fell over and had to go to hospital.

Whilst visiting his mother in hospital, George is berated. “Imagine the shock! Imagine coming into your house, to see your only son using his body like an amuuusseement park!”

Put simply, we all view Gordon / George as an idiot. 

Now, much as it is inappropriate for me to point out the problems with the world from shiny Manchester city centre sat at my shiny laptop in a shiny flat with actual drinkable running water, I will however do so because it needs to be said that Gordon Brown’s dreadful aura of failure and general lack of personality is a very small fish in the sea of world problems. In reverse order of importance, here is my list of world problems:

5. Terrorists. They blow people up. That can’t be good. But in the long run, because they mostly kill themselves while doing it, they will die out.

4. Global warming. Our summers have turned into a tropical version of England in the 1920’s when it was covered in soot and smog. We still have the slate grey skies all year round but in the mix now are the occasional monsoon, sweltering muggy nights and flowers blooming in January. It has to stop. In other countries, like India, if it was allowed to go on it’d kill a lot more people than all the terrorist related incidents put together in the history of time. That’s why its higher on the list.

3. The media industry. Music is very important. But there are greedy bastards who want you to pay £9.99 for 10 songs. This has to stop. Also the papers are becoming too influential - which wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but for the fact they’re all liars. Lastly, the case with the tabloids seem to be that they ruin people’s lives in the most vile way possible in order to make money. If they were people they’d be locked up, because they would be peeping toms, hypocrites, moral preachers who murder in their spare time, psychopaths and sensationalistic drama queens. Basically a bunch of nutters. But at least if they were people they’d be weak and uninfluential. Together as journalists they’re a dangerous force.

2. Capitalism. It was good for a while but now it’s broken and past the point of no return. We have companies literally killing children to make a few more dollars. Witness the cigarette companies in Africa selling single sticks to kids. Meanwhile in England we are slaves to it. We can’t even eat without lining the pockets of some supermarket boss or another. It’s a soul destroying way to lead our lives, and even worse for the people who work for these companies. Have you ever seen a happy checkout assistant who wasn’t a mentalist? Eventually every last grain of individualism, of pioneering spirit and every last green field will be removed from the planet, in place of the giant robot called capitalism.

1.  Consumerism in young people. Cigarettes were fine until we found out they caused us to die. Consumerism is the next disease, but because its a disease of the mind nobody will notice until it’s too late. I see the effects though, all the time. The people who feel shit because they’re ugly. The people who spend a fortune on expensive stuff to make themselves feel better. The poorer families who feed their kids easy fatty food while indulging them on Playstations they can ill afford. The kids who believe the only things that matter are money, looks and material goods. Celebrities, glamour models. If you want the next generation to fix the 5 big problems here, then don’t motivate them with the ambition to become a glamour model. Soon we’ll be looking back on our scientists and boring politicians and saying “where are you when we need you? We’re stuck in a world full of brain washed cretins, and hell I know, because I’m one of them!”.

Above: Tony Blair in 2008, who says: “I have no regret. I look back with pride on the city-academy programme and elements of the health service, energy policy, nuclear power, Northern Ireland, inner-city regeneration. Though some of the big decisions like Iraq or Afghanistan were controversial, I know I was trying to do the right thing.”

What was the toughest time personally?

“Everything since September 11, because I was putting people in situations of real danger.” 

Time is an amazing thing. You can achieve a lot over the years. Some people can even single handledly ruin an entire country, or twelve.

But I am not going to critise Tony Blair for turning England into a dumbed down teen knife crime binge drinking capital sick child of Europe and I’m not going to say that George Bush was wrong to invade Iraq, which resulted in over a million deaths (a tenth of which were innocent civilians).

It is simply not possible to know if they were right or wrong, good or bad, until many years have passed. And I am being serious.

All this talk about how awful and injust the war is, or how England’s education system and violent streets are so shameful compared to the glory years of our Empire or whatever, is bollocks.

Can you imagine during the days of Hitler’s ascendancy, of Churchill being criticised for going to war. If we hadn’t have done so, who knows what England might be like today. We might even have a fully working train network and autobahns as wide as the Atlantic. Though I’d be seeing the road through blue eyes, not brown.

Now, if we hadn’t invaded Iraq, a leader like Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi army of millions may have acted as the glue for the haters of western civilisation to come together and bomb us together.

Christians will be Christians and Muslims will be Muslims, they will never see eye to eye. But had Iraq & friends been alowed to walk all other us due to our failed attempts at democracy with the devil, it would have meant big trouble for the world in general. With all due respect to the fanatical religious people in the middle east, at least the fanatical religious groups (which include the government) in the USA would rather go to a soft rock music festival than fly 747s into your skyscrapers.

Sometimes war is a necessary evil to prevent even greater evils. 

I am beginning to see sense in the approach of George Bush and Tony Blair. What we don’t hear about in the news, they say, is what to really worry about. Well, in England, we have so much bad news in the papers since the days of Tony Blair that there isn’t anything hidden to worry about. What is out in the open can be discussed and fixed. Admivily, I’d like a bit more focus on fixing consumerism in young people, big business brain washing and idiotic blonde glamour model wannabies (I refer to the latter as a gangster style ‘fix’ rather than a new strategy or something) but the stuff we do talk about almost every fucking day, teens with guns and knives, hospital waiting lists, rubbish schools - won’t be talked about for long because they’ll get fixed, right?

One thing bothering the back of my brain however is that we’re not paying much attention to the CERN experiment where they will attempt to create the conditions which existed at the Big Bang. For all we know, unforseen concequences may mean the end for the entire universe, the last words uttered on earth would be in German: “hey Gustav flick the red switch and make sure your goggles are on prope [bang]…” 

So providing we see out next Tuesday, history will be the judge of those who do the fixing. I suppose we should take a long term view, understand that there are people doing their best to fix the world’s problems, and in the mean time shut up and go to work.

---

Yesterday another one of my friends from abroad left Manchester, the time had come for them to go back home.   

Anna has gone back to Paris and I’ll miss our conversations about the world and everything, miss the fact that we had such close interests in art and politics, miss our joking and rubbish pool playing and most of all I’ll miss her.

Until I’m in Paris…so long!

I have made a film about the last woman alive. Hilary Clinton is beginning to resemble that character. Rambling to imaginary friends, she drags out the US presidential nominee contest with the more talented Barack Obama to breaking point. It’s a split in the Democrat party, a civil war. Which leads me to Max Mosley who has won his vote of confidence today.

Here is a decision based on common sense, a victory for humanity, a snub to the politically correct corporate machines which put profit before people. Yet the irony is the decision is wrong for the sport, wrong for safety and wrong for all kinds of political & business reasons despite being a victory for common sense over politics.

I refer of course to the world motorsport senate’s vote following their leader’s sex scandal involving 5 prostitutes, the wife of an MI5 agent, a bra-cam and lots of sexy Nazi role playing.

Any one of those ingredients would be enough to base a feature length film on it, but when you have all 4 together it’s no surprise that the sport takes a back-seat in the public imagination, especially considering that the sporting side of F1 2008 mostly revolves around whether or not a ‘flexible-bridge-wing’ counts as a ‘movable-aerodynamic-device’. That’s enough to make a narcoleptic go full circle and stay permanently awake, while everybody else looks on with the wide eyed demeanor of sheer bemusement etched across their faces.

Formula One motor racing used to be about the bravery of the drivers, overtaking on the track, magnificent skill in battle and a host of super fast heroic personalities smoking and drinking their way into the beds of even faster women. Now it’s about who optimises their race-day strategy and car setup best out of 3 drivers. The rest don’t even have a chance because their cars are slower. The end.

So back to the politics - it’s far more interesting. What will happen now that the world motorsport has a Nazi role playing pervert as their figure-head?

First of all, it will spin itself into civil war for no good reasons and lose sponsors. Fained disgust will gush out from the taps of political correctness. The money will drain out of the sport and the car manufacturers will follow. Bernie Ecclestone will have a coronary and the sport will return to a brutal he-who-dares-wins scenario out on primitive tracks. Off it, without the corporate sponsors to schmooze, the drivers will do and say what they like. It will be sheer bliss.

All credit to Max Mosley and his orgy.

In all seriousness, it is admirable that this man had the strength to fight his detractors for justice, common sense - and most of all - safety (not to be confused with political safety - that of saying nothing interesting while smoozing sponsors). Those who seek to undermine him have all ulterior motives for doing so. The American Automobile Association and especially the German motoring body, whom I forget the name of out of sheer disgust (ACDC or something), simply want more power. They see the scandal as a way to legitimately stab Caesar in the back. Their fumbling attempts with the knife having failed, they will now sulk off (the German body has already left the building), put people’s lives in danger (the FIA is responsible for car manufacturers, including those in Germany like BMW, participating in the NCAP road car safety tests) and then attempt to form a break-away group.

In F1’s recent chequered political past, which is more chequered than a chequered flag, it was first the car manufacturers from Japan, America, France and Germany who formed a break away group, threatening to withdraw their teams from F1 leaving just Ferrari competing against a team run by a mouse with technology borrowed from Matchbox cars. The FIA (made up of motoring groups) were on the other-side, persuading the teams to stay and work for the future of F1, because there can only be one F1.

Now that storm has blown over, it’s ironic that the car manufacturers have so many stooges installed within the FIA that they’ve split it in half. Maybe they have got their wish after all and will see their plans come together. Their plans which involve:

a) Turning the world into a giant metal robot where people are cogs in a giant corporate machine
b) Destroying the greatest sport in the world in the vain belief that they can do things better themselves while earning double the money from it (that is to say - ALL the money).

Money and power - will the world ever go back to being ruled by common sense and humanity?

I’m off to play cricket.

 

What kind of stakes are high enough to start the dark ruminations deep in the heart of the criminal underworld where those who are untouchable carry out the dark operations orchestrated by powerful unknowns, for unknown reasons?

Like a klaxon going off in the middle of the night, the situation has alerted me to it’s presence in the darkness and its impossible not to notice it, although the figure is shadowy and threatening. Who is so powerful that they can use the MI5 like puppets on strings, and why do they want to meddle with Formula One? Which one group is linked to governments and huge corporations around Europe as well as MI5?

Is it the car manufacturers? How much money is at stake? What don’t we know about?

Usually when you have a power struggle you don’t go to the extent of involving the MI5 and agents with call girl wives operating undercover with a bra-cam. (Must be an almighty power struggle).

It seems the F1 sex scandal has more layers to be peeled off it than a Siberian prostitute.

Yes the wife of an MI5 officer was one of the ‘nazi’ prostitutes. When it was revealed to the MI5 the agent was promptly sacked as such a choice of career by his wife would have exposed him to blackmail attempts, and compromised the security of the organisation. Having a wife who routinely shags high ranking members of the criminal fraternity is not a good idea for an MI5 agent.

Where Mosley is concerned it was the MI5 itself - the “high level sources” (sauces?) which tipped him off about the fact that the scandal was ’set up’ by “persons or groups unknown”. The wife was in on it. Now it turns out just 3 weeks before the meeting of the FIA senate which will decide Mosley’s future as the boss of world motorsport, Max himself has written to the members of the senate in a desperate attempt to save his job. In doing so he’s (unwittingly or not) revealed something else very interesting.

He says that negotiations are underway to decide the next Concorde Agreement which will govern the sport for the next 100 years, the document by which F1 is governed. Bernie Ecclestone along with the new business investment partners involved in F1 wanted to reduce their liability to tax. Is that all? Not very ambitious for Bernie is it?

Oh… along with a few other “things”. The commercial rights holders (comprising Bernie and a 3rd party investment group which also own MotoGP) told the FIA that “by the way” they also want control of the sporting and technical regulations and the ability to sell the sport to anyone we like.

Effectively they want full control and ownership of F1.

This is surprising because Bernie Ecclestone is still the main front man of the Formula One Commercial Rights holding body. A close friend and business partner of Max Mosley for over 25 years it’s hard to see why Bernie would be negotiating a ploy to oust his closest friend Max and the FIA from the sport altogether especially considering the good work on safety and the recent raft of technical regulations due to improve the sport in 2009. They’ve worked together ruling F1 hand in glove for the best part of 2 decades.

All this leaves open some tantalising possible truths. 

1) Is Bernie going mad or is he plotting? At a recent team principals meeting he urged the bosses of each F1 team to ask Mosley to step down. When they couldn’t reach an unanimous opinion Bernie stormed out and the incident was widely reported in the newspapers. Why would he do this? In short, it all seems a bit funny to me. And that’s not even the tip of the iceberg as far as I’m concerned.

Could this be the greatest Bernie plot of all? Fresh from manipulating the car manufacturers into ceding all control of F1 to the Ecclestone empire, his next act - the end game (for Bernie is in his 70’s) - is spectacular. This one is about 100 years of F1 control and ownership. Could the whole sex scandal have been staged by Bernie to get exactly what he wanted out of the ‘100 years’ negotiations currently going on? Max might even be in on it - maybe there is more than meets the eye to what kind of outcome to the negotiations Max and Bernie want. Maybe they are fighting on the same side for the same things.

 

2) Max maintains that the orgy was a set up - a trap. So who did the setting up part, and why? I don’t know. If Bernie had nothing to do with the set up, he could still be doing another kind of ploy. I think what is happening now is that Bernie is actually trying to help his friend - playing along with Max’s game, bluffing and double bluffing their way through negotiations at a time when Max faces a crucial vote on his job. He’s in on Max’s revelations about the “huge destabalizing effects on the FIA during sensitive negotiations” - he allows them to hold water against the backdrop of staged negotiations. He’s allowed Max to set the (false) stakes so high “that the whole future of the FIA’s involvement in F1 would be threatened”. It all echos of another delicious Max and Bernie ploy to get what they want - to have Max keep his job and to have Bernie rattle a few cages.

Bernie has come to the rescue after all.

3) The MI5’s role in this, I just don’t understand. It speaks of a darker plot. Surely the wife of a top MI5 official does not have the official job title of high class prostitute? It surely cannot be a coincidence that the prostitute just happened to be the wife of a MI5 agent, and that is how the MI5 found out about the reasons for the plot and that it were a big set up? The prostitute-cum-wife told them? Give me a break.

The MI5 are involved with fighting ‘terrorism’ and some of the most powerful criminals in the world. Why get involved in shaming the boss of motorsport unless a situation arose involving powerful corporations, powerful world figures or even the British government, billions of pounds or a cover-up of major proportions - maybe something which cannot be revealed such is the drama, figures and extent of what has happened below ground. It’s all the more strange - because Max was informed himself about the possibility that he was set up, by the MI5 themselves.

4) Another scenario: maybe the car manufacturers are secretly aligned with the 3rd party investment group who bought Bernie Ecclestone’s shares in the commercial rights holding body - and they have cocked up their plot. They wanted to destabilise the enemy - the FIA - at a crucial time in order to dramatically wrestle out of Bernie and Max’s hands full control over the sport’s commercial rights, even eventually ousting Bernie himself from the sport. But the plan is slowly unravelling like a the thread of a prostitute’s clothing, and like her naked nipples the truth is starting to peek through rudely.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmppVrK3H4A 

I’m not as good at plotting as Bernie Ecclestone. Sally came up with the idea of doing an American Beauty parody, and came up with the idea of doing the rose petal scene with doritos instead of petals. I wanted a skinny naked blonde girl to stretch seductivly on a bed while I dropped doritos on her. Alas in the end it turned out to be me naked on a bed having sharp edges tasty snacks lobbed at my eyes by two girls. Judging from the competition we could have entered a decaying toad and still won (why do people think they’re talented when they’re blatantly not?) but it will be a real ball ache if we do because the prize money is twenty grand thus a spectacular 3 way fight will ensure that we violently scratch each other’s eyes out until we get our hands on it. In fact, doing the video was so much fun I’d happily let Sally and Laura have the prize money they deserve. As long as I don’t need to have doritos thrown at my head again.

 

The last movie was a bit of a let down. The lead actor John Major was a bit grey and boring so we got rid of him.

The Tony Blair movie was much better and more successful at the box office with young people (although it did have a drawn out ending).

Unfortunately Gordon Brown: Labour The Movie has been panned by the public and critics alike, in particular the acting of the unfashionably grey Alistair Darling as being dangerously close to resembling a bumbling idiot.

But a new movie coming out in 2009 features a very strong cast: Blondie Boris and Crusader Cameron. People are flocking to the box offices for advance previews of this disaster film, which has many exciting twists and turns. Witness Blondie Boris at the controls of a London Crossrail train as it hurtles out of control. Swoon at Crusader Cameron as he fights chavs across the country with a good talking down to.

Yes the tories are back in power, and brighter than ever.

They may ruin the country but at least we’ll all be entertained by the personalities.

Horray for England (subtext: the country is drowning in celebrity politics and might as well be flushed down the toilet)