OK Commuter

Writing for this blog way back in 2005 I criticised Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke for not making much of an impact whilst appearing on a TV News discussion about Climate change and the British governments’ inaction up until that point.

Thom Yorke had been invited onto the programme as a representative of Friends of the Earth, an organisation he has had an association with since 2003. During the discussion he was clearly ill-at-ease and made little effort to hold the then British Secretary of State for the Environment, Margaret Beckett, to account for the government missing its own climate targets. At the time I saw this as a missed opportunity and declared myself not impressed with Thom's muddled responses. However, I've since realised that his confusion about the issues at the time was shared by many. Knowing how best to lobby to make a positive impact in the battle against Climate Change is not always as straight forward and as clear cut as it may seem.

Since that appearance Thom Yorke has been as much in the public eye (in the UK at least) for his Climate Change campaigning as for his band Radiohead. His advocacy for Friends of the Earth and more specifically their 'Big Ask' campaign has lead him to guest edit the highly influential 'Today' programme on BBC Radio 4 and make efforts at improving the green credentials of his band, including ruling them out of attending this years Glastonbury festival due to concerns over the availability of public transport to the site.

The latest stage of Mr Yorke's assault on Climate Change has involved him being asked by the Observer Newspaper in the UK to 'guest edit' it's Sunday magazine. Under his editorial control Yorke requests an interview with the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, asks for a feature on the German town of Freiburg (which has been labelled 'the worlds' greenest') and oversees several other green features culminating in it being called the 'Climate Change Issue'.

His interview with the London Mayor hardly turns out to be a grilling, more an amicable chat, but then Yorke's no journalist and his candid manner is perhaps more successful in getting a response from Livingstone, that others would struggle to illicit. They talk on the Velib cycle system and the chances of a similar scheme implemented in London. Yorke wonders aloud at the level of resistance to change by big business and finance institutions in London and their attitude to helping the environment. He even wants to know if the UK is pressing ahead with Nuclear Power because the Prime Ministers' brother works for EDF, a major French power company which is behind many Nuclear new builds. Does he expect the Mayor to answer this following Gordon Brown's recent show of support for Mr Livingstone bid for another term in office? It is this style of questioning that allows us to hear (qualified) support for Tory leader David Cameron from the mayor and an insight into the complexities of working with people and organisations who in the past you may have criticised but whose partnership is now crucial in order to take action on the environment.

In his candid editor's letter Thom reveals that although he was pleased to support Friends of the Earth he did have reservations because, as he puts it, "I’ve based my life on touring and the rock industry is a high energy consuming industry". This might be in anticipation of criticism when groups like Friends of the Earth use high profile spokespeople whose lifestyles it may seem at first run contrary to the organisation's aims. However it seems that it was the unwillingness of FotE to be "holier than thou" and not wanting to preach, which led them to ask this otherwise high-carbon-emitting rock star to join their ranks.

This surely should be the point. Thom Yorke doesn't have to have the answers and can be as unsure and as confused with many of the often conflicting points about Climate Change as the rest of us. The article he requests on the green town of Freiburg, for example, turns up as many complications and questions as it does answers.

By his own admission he doesn't know what is always the best route to take, hasn't made much of an effort to speak to many politicians and is only latterly realising how his lifestyle and work contribute to changes in the Earth's climate. He is, then, just like all of us, and full of the questions and uncertainties that many of us hold when faced with a problem as big as Climate Change.

The battle to curb Climate Change is one primarily of education, awareness raising and activism. To this end, Civil Society - including Friends of the Earth with Thom Yorke - has played an enormous role in the lobbying of Governments and big business, in rasing awareness, and provoking action.

Thom Yorke's position, it seems, is that of a man without all the answers but who has a clear passion and commitment. He has made affirmative action in relation to his own profession and lifestyle, all solid and commendable commitments to lowering his personal impact on the environment.

Let us hope that it is because of his activism that Yorke is an optimist on the subject of climate change - "unlike pessimists such as James Lovelock, I don’t believe we are all doomed” he says. It is his belief in human behaviour - being able to be the the solution to climate change as well as the instigator - that is both endearing and commendable about Yorke. As he writes;

“...isn’t it funny how in the space of a year we went from listening to sceptics who denied this was happening to suddenly say we’re all doomed – how interesting that both scenarios demand that we do nothing. That can’t be right. You should never give up hope”.

Right on Thom!

[Blogging by Dan]

leaping not looking

I experience the disorientating and exhilarating feeling of levitation for the first time.

Beforehand, I’m on the return leg of a longish walk through a wet field in Cambridgeshire, blossom and chlorophyll in the air . A man-made lake has burst its banks and is seeping into the grass, which is already lank hay like old hair because of an earlier flood. Twists of translucent plastic, weather-beaten, snake round tree saplings and bamboo shoots in dense rank and file along the meadow-edge, half of them already frostbitten, dead, dying. A few tendrils spiral keenly upward, searching for light. It’s a rare warm day.

The field is muddy in places, so I skip over puddles and bogs and use a broken tree branch as my walking stick. Along the river bank I note a young swan, its feathers not yet fully white, dipping repeatedly under the water for reed saplings. The river is high, and previous storms have brought beer cans and crisp packets up from the depths, filled with silt and stagnant water, and deposited them amongst the bracken and sedge.

Clambering over a stile, heading back, I note there are two routes available; up over the knoll and around or through a short sharp ravine with a metre of sopping mud cut through at the lowest point of the decline. I opt for the latter and begin to run half-pelt down towards it and leap at the last minute, sailing over the bog. My momentum is such that I realise I’ll bounce up again for another, involuntary leap when I hit the other side of the mud, so put my trainer down to cushion the landing.

It’s at this point that I realise I haven’t cleared the mud at all. My foot comes down bang in the middle of it and I feel the heavy squelch as my ankle is enveloped. I pull my foot out instantly and – it seems as if through sheer force of will – extend the jump to take me over to the dry bank. This second jump is wonderful, utterly weightless, freeing, and I hear my laughter ring through the field. I land and slow down, spinning round, looking for my trainer, which is submerged – but still visible – in the cold sludge.

I retrieve it with my stick.

stalin's ghost, by martin cruz smith

In the years since Martin Cruz Smith's 1981 classic, 'Gorky Park', the Californian novelist has penned no less than five follow-ups starring Arkady Renko, the put-upon Russian investigator perpetually pitted against Moscow's underworld parade of crooks and gangsters, government-sponsored or otherwise. The fifth is 'Stalin's Ghost', an exemplary thriller set in a much-changed Russia led by Vladimir Putin.

Perhaps the changes are illusory, however? Both Renko and Cruz Smith's prose-Moscow are instantly recognisable, the former soulful and intense and the latter dark and ominous, thick with a layer of "knee deep snow ... that softened the city". It's Spring and the snow is gradually melting, and the prologue reminds us what we know already, that "when the snow melted, bodies would be discovered". Twenty seven years on, that extraordinary opening, those three corpses found in Gorky Park, seem as cold and fresh as ever.

As the book's title implies, "Stalin's Ghost" is a book much occupied with memory, eloquent on the vital stand-off between the dark secrets of the past and nostalgia. Renko, charged with investigating the return of Stalin, who has been reported stalking the depths of Moscow's Metro system, discovers a network of corruption, murder and propaganda which has its tangled roots in post-Soviet politics, atrocities in Chechnya, and the events of the Second World War.

Cruz Smith has is an innate ability to spin complex yet accessible plot-lines around vital contemporary events; in this case, the transformation of the Russian underworld into the Establishment. But Renko himself is the author's finest achievement, and his centrality provokes the book's finest passages, particularly a dazzling sixteen page-long twist which had me exclaiming and thrumming my fingers against the spine in excitement.

Cruz Smith's touch is immaculate, allowing the novel's first half time to breathe and be dictated by personal concerns. Atmosphere is incubated, then a furious, breathless denouement is unleashed. The author has the reach to bequeath his characters real emotional complexity, combined with a ruthless touch which is equally befitting a serious novelist and a Russian gangster. Renko takes some blows for his unstinting morality, and the reader is the winner. 'Stalin's Ghost' is a bruising, superb read.

tabloid shocker

‘Henry – homophobe from the Young Knives uses the word gay to mean bad’. Which, frankly, is not very left-wing or forward-thinking.

Nice interview with the Young Knives over at Drowned In Sound; I think the new album is very good, incidentally, without quite being VERY good, if you know what I mean.

trains are mint

When I'm travelling round the UK for work I always try to keep an eye out for small press comics, and, though there are always interesting new ones, wherever I am I usually note that no-one makes comics with quite the same attention to detail and love as Rolling Stock Press, whose 'Trains Are... Mint' comics are beautifully drawn and reproduced. The fifth book in the series is out now - you can read more about the comic, and buy a copy here. There's a quick example of the artist's style below:

do the test

This is really pretty good; via Gromblog.

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

jane austen book club

It's probably not cool to say so, but I've pinned my colours to the mast on this one before so I have no reservations about repeating it; I absolutely love Jane Austen's books (and most of the film/TV adaptations, too). Anyone who tells you that they're drippy/romantic/boring/dated hasn't read them properly.

Over at her Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax blog, Ayaan is a big fan too, and has decided to explain why she likes each book, and which book she likes best. I generally agree with her, so - without the detail - I thought I'd have a go at a top six.

1. Persuasion
2. Pride and Prejudice
3. Northanger Abbey
4. Sense and Sensibility
5. Emma
6. Mansfield Park

Anyone agree / disagree?

That Mitchell and Webb Conundrum

I can’t be the only person who, as a massive fan of Peep Show, tuned in eagerly to the second series of ‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’ only to find it utterly unfunny. Admittedly series one was no belter either, but it was at least stronger than most BBC comedy fare of late.

I like Mitchell and Webb. I first became aware of them on Radio 4 in ‘That Mitchell and Webb Sound’, which worked well on the older medium. It just doesn’t on TV. Much of the sketches are lifted from the radio show and they have already become tiresome. The lazy script writers sketch, for example, might’ve have seemed a good idea but in series two it's just too drawn out and badly written.

They were assisted in the writing of ‘Sound’, the radio show, by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, and, together, the four proved quite strong, although the list of writers at the end of ‘Sound’ was often very long. Later, with 'Peep Show', I have come to realise that they are more consistently at their strongest when they take a back seat with the writing duties. Perhaps Armstrong and Bain, who provide the majority of material for their C4 hit, have more of a talent for writing serialised comedy with strong established characters that the viewer cares for? I don’t know quite how much input Mitchell and Webb have in writing 'Peep Show', but it seems it's limited to the nuances that the characters of Mark and Jez add to each scene.

So why is 'Peep Show' brilliant, but 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' rubbish?

Here’s my suggestion (using a simple equation);

[surprisingly mathematical guest blogging by Dan]

rare music online

I've been using a lot of mp3 blogs recently, and concentrating less on the sort which provide the odd song and more on those which give full album downloads, so I thought I'd attempt a brief summing up of those I've found useful. My browsing has for the most part been confined to those blogs which offer not new records for free but rather obscure and out-of-print back catalogue stuff. In other words, for the most part, unless you're especially knowledgeable, you probably won't know many (if any) of the artists whose work is presented. I certainly didn't, but my grounding in folk, soul, funk and jazz is limited at best. The following blogs have just broadened my horizons - so perhaps you'll like them too.

Heavyweight Crates: beats and breaks and lots of library records.
My Favourite Sound 2: just 12" disco mixes, basically. Oh yes.
Raiders of The Lost Ark: amazing Philly Soul stuff.
Lost In Tyme: funk, soul, jazz and world; this Alice Clark record is an absolute stunner.
Lost In Tyme: this part of the blog concentrates on psych, folk, acid garage.
Lost In Tyme: more genres, another Tyme blog; here it's alternative, punk and new wave.
Pharaohsdance: great jazz stuff; look for the host of tribe records that are provided; they're ace.
Awesome Tapes From Africa: a long-time favourite, this - it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Hope some of that is useful.

jamming is for idiots

Me and James 'jamming' at my place late on a Friday night. I don't think Siobhan was much impressed.

currently listening

I’ve gone all 70s retro this week, sorry.

1. Carl Craig – Sessions LP (unbeatable)
2. Alice Clark – Alice Clark LP (amazing soul record from 1972)
3. The Wave Pictures – ‘Long Island’ (love that line, “And you should know I am the real Slim Shady / And lady you are my natural home”)
4. The Young Knives – Superabundence LP (OK, not as good as ‘Voices of Animals and Men’, then. But it’s got several crackers).
5. Phil Renelin and Wendel Harrison – A Message From the Tribe LP (any any other mid-70s jazz on Tribe records, in fact)
6. Doctors of Madness – Figments of Emancipation LP (strange Bowie/pre-punk hybrid from 1976 – amazing)
7. Donny Hathaway - Everything Is Everything LP (more bruised, classic soul – from 1970 this time)
8. Benga – Diaries of an Afro-Warrior LP (loving the raw, dirty vinyl version of this dubstep monster. The CD version is more measured, apparently).
9. Moondog – Madrigals Rounds LP (can’t describe this; avant-psychadelic-jazz-classical nuttiness from 1969. Wow)
10. Giant Drag – Hearts and Unicorns LP (specifically the bit in ‘Kevin Is Gay’ when Annie sings “miaow miaow miaow miaow, miaowmiaowmiaowmiaowmiaow miaowmiaowmiaowmiaowmiaow”. That bit kills me).

autechre, cross medium

I'm a big fan of what you might call 'conventional' music journalism, even though there's plenty of rubbish out there. I grew up on Smash Hits and the Melody Maker, and am a big fan of several current music writers, although I'm pretty sure that the quality control on, say, the NME, has dipped alarmingly in recent years. So despite my interest in the web and blogging in particular, I still get the vast majority of my muso-journalism from the inkies, despite the presence of some excellent music blogs.

All the same - the following two reviews highlight how much potential there is either medium. For those who don't know, the popular but extremely wilful Autechre are performing their latest tour in a pitch black environment, which can be rather hard to take. Of the two reviews, one is a traditional write-up from the Guardian (albeit one which is brave enough to go against orthodoxy), the other a short, unconventional review from Pete Ashton's perennially excellent blog. It may not be music journalism per se, but it tells me as much as the first review.

Here's an excerpt from Dave Simpson's Guardian piece:

Stomach contents stay where they are, but their biggest prank is to mess with people's heads, as their own music is scrambled and mashed-up beyond recognition. Vaguely danceable rhythms are suddenly destroyed by sonic screeches.

Some brave souls look po-faced as if this is something terribly important; others look baffled. One poor man is so disoriented that he walks into a door. When the duo start speeding everything up to comedy levels you start to wonder if this will be the first time "intelligent dance music" has given an entire audience black eyes. It seems less like a performance than a bizarre experiment in human behaviour.

And here's Pete's extremely short review - written via the medium of text message. He lists the 'value of this review' as 'Slim', but it's not.

• At a gig where the only thing to look at is a flashing green LED on the monitor speaker.
  Autechre on. Not convinced as to context of packed gig venue.


• Music v good but I'm not getting it. Wanna be experiencing this elsewhere. Others seem happy tho.


• Have moved to front. Makes a lot more sense now!


• I think I need drugs. Or lots of coffee.


• Well, that was out of my comfort zone. In a good way. Don't think I've been to a gig like that before.

I'm glad I read both, and I think I'd quite like to see the band live, so looks like Pete's done enough.

dajit nagra, look we have coming to dover review

I don't read very much poetry. When I do, I tend to either grind my teeth in concentration or whoop with pleasure; either is fine with me. Difficult poetry burns at my temple but gives me little head-spins of delight, semi-translated insights. When it's good, that is. Daljit Nagra's much praised collection Look We Have Coming to Dover! is certainly that – a rich and heady concoction of complex constructions and tangy, noun-heavy vocabulary.

I don't understand all of it, by any means, but I think I know what it's about and find it fascinating and funny; the drama of being Indian in England, good and bad, the contradictions, the triumphs and the shaming defeats, big or small. The language is plain exquisite (there's a contradiction), swelling with Nagra's "Punglish", which darts from evocation of sugary pomegranate to evocation of sugar-puff. There's lots of food. In 'Karela!' (lots of exclamation marks, too, this is not poetry for whispering), the narrator tries to cook a dish from his past and fails. "My body craves / taste of home but is scolded / by shame of blood-desertion".

In 'Parade's End' the narrator's Dad parks his newly-sprayed "Granada, champagne gold / by our superstore on Blackstock Road", and heads inside to find "council mums at our meat-display" decrying "darkies from down south" and their "flash caahs!". It's believable stuff. When the day is done they return to encounter the sight of "the car-skin pucker, bubbling smarts / of acid". Nagra writes:

In the unstoppable pub-roar
from the John O'Gaunt across the forecourt,
we returned to the shop, lifted a shutter,
queued at the sink, walked down again.
Three of us, each carrying pans of cold-water.
Then we swept away the bonnet-leaves
from gold to the brown of our former colour.

Nagra's writing is full of small humiliations suffered at the hands of the Daily Mail mentality. But his characters come out fighting, too, and then some. "Vy giv my boy dis freebie of a silky blue GCSE antology", one voice demands, with it's Part Two which consists of;

us as a bunch of Gunga Dins ju group, 'Poems
from Udder Cultures
and Traditions'. 'Udder' is all
vee are to yoo, to dis country –
'Udder?’ To my son's kabbadi posseee, alll
yor poets are 'Udder'!

Before one thinks of pigeonholing Nagra's extraordinary voice, he takes the time to pull off a series of varied literary tricks. 'Sajid Naqvi' is a sober, clear-eyed description of a funeral which fails to sum up the man, and 'On the Birth of a Daughter' a beautiful description of just that. The haunting, Pinter-esque 'X', meanwhile, is just a series of furious, semi-articulate punches:

u hook my arms
u hood my head
u lose my legs

& still u say
I say u harm

There are several poems in Look We Have Coming to Dover which I can't decipher, and plenty more which I need to re-read. Despite the unfamiliar language, however, it's really vibrant, addictive stuff, and makes me swear I'll follow contemporary poetry a bit more closely, if this is the kind of thing I'll find. The closing 'Singh Song!' - which is romantic, lustful, hilarious - might just be the greatest thing I've read all year, a bawdy tale set "in di worst Indian shop / On di whole Indian road", where the narrator keeps locking the door and nipping upstairs:

cos up di stairs is my newly bride
vee share in chapatti
vee share in di chutney
after vee hav made luv
like vee rowing through Putney.

Look We Have Coming to Dover is bursting with life – a magnificent celebration of language, multiculturism, sex and humanity. Here are the final lines of that poem.

Late in di midnight hour
ven yoo shoppers are wrap up quiet
ven di precinct is concrete-cool
vee cum down whispering stairs
and sit on my silver stool,
from behind di chocolate bars
vee stare past di half price window signs
at di beaches ov di UK in di brightey moon –

from di stool each night she say,
How much do yoo charge for dat moon baby?

from di stool each night I say,
Is half di cost ov yoo baby,

from di stool each night she say,
How much does dat come to baby?

from di stool each night I say,
Is priceless baby –

Here's the whole poem.

slow journey

On the train this morning, we got as far as Barnham when I observed the ticket inspector guiding three rather noisy women through the train.

"B27", they were yelling. Or "B26", or 8. "Is this coach B, or coach A?"

"Coach B", the inspector reassured them, obviously used to this. Then he cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, Madam", he said, "but I'm afraid you're sitting in this lady's seat". He looked down at a seated woman and then gestured towards one of the three women behind him.

"I've got a seat booked too", the woman cried, immediately affronted. "B48. But I couldn't find it. So I took this one".

"All the same", the inspector ruled, "you'll have to move, I'm afraid. Your seat is back there".

The lady's face hardened, yet her tone turned pleading. "I'm disabled. So if I move it'll take me some time. You'll have to hold the train for me".

"Very well".

She paused, weighing up making a further fuss. And then, suddenly, addressing the women, turned all sweetness and light, muttering and sighing sympathetically.

I wonder why the sudden change of tone. Craning my neck round, I realise that it'll take some time before the other women are settled happily in their seats. I watch them as the disabled woman slowly edges out and - she's more observant than me - carefully helps them into their seats. All three women are blind. There's a dog, too, which must be accommodated, and several large rucksacks.

We're not going to be moving for a while. The driver clearly won't pull away 'til the inspector has worked the doors, and for the moment he's fully occupied. Eventually, perhaps fifteen minutes after the initial confrontation, all four women are seated. The inspector, the slightest smile playing on his lips, begins walking back to the door.

"Oh, hang on", cries one of the blind woman.

He turns back.

"I think one of my apples has rolled off under someone's seat".

street clutter

Asia’s Time Wasters

Last year this blog published an article called Africa’s Time Wasters. It was an attempt to draw attention to the excesses and abuses of the current worst leaders on the continent of Africa and show how their mismagement and brutality were hindering the development of their respective countries. This article attempts do the same for Asia.

This not-too-serious article, in no particular order, attempts to draw attention to and rate out of 5 three of Asia’s present day worst leaders and highlight their policies, legacies and crimes, all of which add up to their inclusion, with Africa's worst leaders, in the list - the ‘Time Wasters of Development’.

Burma - Senior General Than Shwe

As head of the Burmese armed forces and effectively head of state in Burma since 1992, and as the head of several puzzlingly titled councils (including the ‘State Peace and Development Council’ and the ominous sounding ‘State law and Order Restoration Council’) Than Shwe has consolidated power in Burma to a degree not achieved by his predecessors.

This army man has overseen the addition of many ignoble suffixes to Burma’s recent history, including the continued detention of Noble Prize winning Democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, the relocation of the nation’s capital from Rangoon to the centre of the country (a decision Than Shwe made after consulting ‘expert astrologers’) and the overseeing of the suppression that followed the Monks' protest of 2007.

Than Shwe was central in introducing a law whereby any head of state of Burma cannot have a foreign-born spouse. This seemed an unlikely law to enforce, until it was pointed out in the foreign media that Aung San Suu Kyi had married a British man and - although he had died several years ago - she would still thus be considered forever unable to become head of state. Ms Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Yangon (Rangoon) where she has been for most of the last 18 years - separated from her family.

Foreign media is virtually all banned from Burma and the penalties for any Burmese seen talking to, or worse assisting foreigners are harsh. The organisation Reporters Without Borders ranked Burma as 164th out of 168 nations in its 2006 Press Freedom index. Outside news equally is hard to obtain, with CNN and the BBC World Service frequently jammed and made unavailable within the country.

Though coverage of the recent Monks' protests and subsequent crack-down was hard to obtain, one glimpse into the world that Than Shwe has created did leak out from Burma and can in fact be found in 24 parts on YouTube. It is a film made at his daughters wedding to one of his most senior Burmese ministers. The cost of the wedding, largely covered by the state, came to over three times the amount of Burma’s entire healthcare budget. The video of bride, groom and guests surrounded by lavish food and gifts has been widely distributed in Burma and has not surprisingly caused considerable anger. It is thought that, soon after, Than Shwe’s wife and children fled to Laos fearing a possible backlash.

Since the New Year the United States has announced that it has stepped up sanctions against Than Shwe and his junta, but existing sanctions have had little impact other than to make the life of ordinary Burmese virtually intolerable. Meanwhile the military are able to consolidate their power and prolong the wait for free elections. The educated people of Burma, who have known freedom and democracy in the past will, for the time being, it seems, have to wait for a return to a more enlightened leadership.

Time Wasting Score: (3)






Uzbekistan - President Islam Karimov

Like many other autocratic Central Asian leaders President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan rules his people with an iron fist. Head of the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan at the time of the collapse of the USSR, Karimov inherited leadership of the strategically placed Uzbekistan, its geography proving very useful to the United States for the establishment of airbases in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Karimov’s grasp of democracy is only nominal, however. He ‘won’ the first election (of sorts) held in Uzbekistan after independence - his political opponents, for some reason, chose to flee. Then in 1995 Karimov held a referendum to extend his term until the year 2000. This he won with ease. Then when 2000 arrived he announced that presidential terms of office would be extended from 5 years to 7. This he had backdated, so that his term would last until 2007. In 2007 and presumably running out of ways to manipulate the law in order to remain in power, Karimov simply broke it and announced that he would run for another term in office. His would-be opponents denounced this as an illegal move but their words were blunted by the fact that through fear every speech they gave started with praise for the incumbent President. Unsurprisingly Karimov won with a convincing-sounding 88.1% of the vote.

Islam Karimov’s terms in power have been characterised by corruption, and by detention and torture of political opponents, but his most notorious moment came in May 2005 when troops loyal to him opened fire on demonstrators in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan. According to human rights groups several hundred people were killed in the massacre and in the subsequent ‘clean up’ operation. International criticism followed with the EU barring Uzbek leaders from visiting and banning the sales of weapons to the country. Belated US criticism of the shootings led to America closing its airbases in the country and withdrawing its military.

Karimov looks as unlikely as ever to relinquish power. His forces frequently torture opponents including boiling them alive. He is amassing a vast personal wealth, as is his family. His daughter, despite having a US warrant out for her arrest, has first dibs on many state contracts and has grown extremely rich and powerful within the country as a result. In the meantime, it is difficult to see how ordinary Uzbeks have benefited at all from the rule of their ‘elected’ dictator.

Time Wasting Score: (4)






North Korea - Kim Jong-il

Kim Jong-il, the ‘Dear Leader’ of the locked-in people of North Korea, its armed forces (ranked as the fourth largest in the World though far from fourth best equipped) and of its rudimentary nuclear-weapons, assumed power upon the death of his father Kim il-Sung in 1994.

Kim Jong-il is an obvious candidate for one of Asia’s worst leaders. He has for a long while been much parodied around the world as a ‘Bond villain-esque’ leader, at home in his underground headquarters. This might not be so far from the truth as amongst his many palaces is a retreat reportedly equipped with bunkers, anti aircraft missiles and surrounded by multiple fences.

The news agency Reuters once reported that he keeps a 10,000 bottle wine cellar and that he spends an annually $700,000 on importing Cognac, whilst a report from the BBC suggested that in China, aboard his armoured train (he is terrified of flying), he ate with silver chopsticks as a precaution against being poisoned. The fact that he was eating lobster that had been flown in especially was also mentioned. His ex head-chef has recounted to the international media how he was sent on a mission to Beijing to go to McDonald's and to buy a beef burger for his boss.

The cult of personality attributed to Kim Jong-il began under the rule of his father. School textbooks recount how the ‘Dear Leader’ was born in a military camp in North Korea, his birth foretold by a swallow, a double rainbow and a new star appearing in the sky. Kim Jong-il was in fact born in a village in Russia and only moved to North Korea following World War 2. Many in the North know this and are almost certainly privately insulted by their children being taught about 'the appearance of a new star', but still they are forced to attend a pilgrimage to Jong-il’s supposed birthplace, which now resembles a theme park built in his honour.

The International Herald Tribune noted in 2004 that "if the North had competitive elections, Kim would have a tough record to campaign on. During his decade in power, fuel consumption has dropped by one-third, per capita income has dwindled to 8 percent of South Korea's, and during the famine years almost 10 percent of the population is believed to have starved to death".

That we have in South Korea a modern Asian liberal democracy exemplifies the ruinous path that Kim Jong-il and his father have taken the north. Their mixture of Marxist ideology mixed with Confucianism has done little for the impoverished masses and has only served to isolate the north in a world that has moved on. The fact that Kim Jong-il is breathtakingly corrupt, that he squanders vast sums on luxuries whilst portraying an image to the people of a comrade-in-arms and of the common struggle against capitalism (which he shamelessly indulges in) would be an utter betrayal to the people - were they ever to find out.

Time Wasting Score: (5)





Like the previous article the scores must not be taken seriously and this list of timewasters leaves several Asian leaders absent. The three leaders above were chosen largely on the basis of the helplessness of their people at being able to end their rule. China, Iran and Indonesia should probably also be listed here, though all three do have varying degrees of accountability and their leaders (generally) do not employ any cult of personality.

As was the case with Africa, it should be a cause of grave concern to the World that these leaders remain in power, although the way the world chooses to deal with them (as in the case of North Korea) can risk solidifying their grip on rule. However, they, like their African colleagues, are indisputedly ‘Time Wasters’ in the way of their countries' development.

Links & Resources:

The World's Top 20 Dictators - Parade.com's annual look at the World's worst misusers of power

The Burma Campaign - Homepage of a British based NGO which promotes Human Rights and Democracy in Burma

Antiwar.com - Article examining the mixed messages the US is giving to Uzbekistan

World Movement for Democracy - Report from inside North Korea

Korean Central News Agency - Bizarre site of 'official news' from North Korea


Blogging by Dan

currently listening...

1. The Field : The Sound of Light EP - four fifteen minute tracks of slow-burning genius
2. Les Amazones De Guinée : Wamato LP - glorious; see my review here
3. Foals : 'The French Open' (from the Antidotes LP) - it feels desperately calculated, but those afrobeat rhythms, I can't resist 'em.
4. Astroid Power-Up : 'Kanveh' - from the ace Twisted Nerve compilation A Kind of Awe and Reverence and Wonder
5. Hercules & Love Affair : 'Classique No. 2' - squelchy detroit techno with a pure pop heart - unbelievable
6. LCD Soundsytem : 'Freak Out / Starry Eyes' - lovely LCD newbie; get it here, quick
7. David Bowie : 'Ashes to Ashes' - blame Gene Hunt
8. Grupo Oba Ilu : Santeria LP - tremendous Soul Jazz collection of Afro-tinged Cuban music.
9. John Fahey : 'On the Sunny Side of the Ocean' - from his The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death LP
10. Shocking Pinks - 'Dressed To Please' (Deepchord Remix) - sorry for all the DFA stuff this week. I'm chasing cool, not cool.

the grand, brighton

My girlfriend's parents are down visiting in Brighton this weekend, and took us out for dinner last night. They're staying in a big hotel on the beachfront (there'll be no product placement on this site), but not the Grand, the city's most historic hotel. That said, we all walked past it last night and although Brighton folk generally much prefer cooler, down-at-heel but achingly tasteful boutique hotels, it's hard not to be impressed by the building, not least because it so successfully survived the IRA bomb which sought to kill Maggie Thatcher in the 80s.

My girlfriend is out with her parents tonight too, and will have walked past the hotel a second time. When she walks her parents back she'll find a quite different sight. Apparently the Grand, which has weathered all sorts of storms thus far, is on fire. Ten fire-engines are fighting the blaze. I hope they succeed.

one pub and its dog

Standing at the bar at my local the other day, I stopped to pat the head of Archie, the pub dog, who reacted, as usual, by going a bit mad and panting enthusiastically. Part of the reason I was paying him so much occasion, on that instance, is that I was aware that the woman standing to my left, drinking her umpteenth drink of the evening, was really sloshed, and putting them away with grim determination. By playing with Archie, perhaps I would avoid a conversation while I awaited my drinks.

Not so.

"He's a nice dog", my bar companion said.

I nodded. "He is".

"Is he yours?"

"No".

Something about the way she received this information made me understand her to have taken my clearly enunciated 'no' as a 'yes'.

She mulled it over. "How old is he?"

"I don't know", I said, as firmly and clearly as I could.

She looked surprised. She looked at me, and at the dog, then back at me again.

"Ten!?", she said, clearly perplexed that he did not look it.

les amazones de guinee, wamato review

A lot of the press for the outstanding new album by Les Amazones de Guinée has centred, perhaps understandably, on two facts; that the record, Wamato, is only the group's second in 46 years, and that the band are entirely made up of female members of the Guinean army. Those are rather extraordinary facts and too exciting to leave out of any review, but far more important is the exhilarating quality of Wamato.

The album, recorded in Mali 25 years after the band's last release, is a mesmerising demonstration of all the things that make West African dance music so pleasurable to listen to. The two guitars, first off, are wonderful, sounding as if they are perpertually engaged in a teasing dance, dipping in and out, spinning complimentary riffs and occasionally locking into a delightful, hypnotic groove. When one or the other breaks from the simple licks to revel in an impeccably-played flourish, my heart duly leaps.

The percussion is equally wonderful; crisp, driving Mande rhythms, awash with twinkling cymbals. The vocals, handled by at least three different singers, seem to touch all bases, sometimes light and mellifluous, sometimes deep, twinged with regret. But the overall mood is overpoweringly positive, and both the harmonies and the call and response lines resonate with the band's self-evident joy in music.

Perhaps most impressively, the music is punctuated by gloriously powerful brass arrangements, the two saxophones delivering jazzy runs and powerful soul riffs by turn. Their gleaming presence lifts an already wonderful music several notches closer to perfection. The record only falters when the band switch to the French language on the disappointing 'Meilleurs Voeux'. Even there, however, they only get through two minutes of a faintly grisly, mournful ballad before the horns arrive and switch the song's emphasis so successfully that one immediately forgets what came before.

This slip-up aside, the whole concoction is deeply hypnotic and extraordinarily warm; an engaging pop record with a thudding, affirming heart-beat. What a fantastic album.

nepotism is hilarious

"Hello. I'm Max Gogarty. I'm 19 and live on top of a hill in north London.

At the minute, I'm working in a restaurant with a bunch of lovely, funny people; writing a play; writing bits for Skins; spending any sort of money I earn on food and skinny jeans, and drinking my way to a financially blighted two-month trip to India and Thailand. Clichéd I know, but clichés are there for a reason."

Hello Max. Boy, you're gonna get a lot of stick in months to come. Oh dear.

Read the comments, you'll see what I mean.

I've read a bunch of really interesting reviews recently, so here are links to a few of them:

A downright mugging of Cat Power on the part of The Guardian's Maddy Costa makes for fascinating reading. Chan Marshall's live shows have been criticised (and celebrated) for many reasons, but this analysis is new to me. If it's right, it's very sad.

"In the past, Marshall has been diffident on stage, and she has been incompetent. She has been moving and exasperating. The keynote of this gig is an unpleasant aggression, a belligerence that taints even her repeated demands of the audience to "forgive me". She seems no less nervous than in her depressed, chaotic past, but in stamping out the weak parts of herself, Marshall has also destroyed everything that was aching and haunting and beautiful in her voice. The transformation is horribly disillusioning to witness."

Elsewhere, the boys (they're always boys) over at Pitchfork deliver a horrifically unfair verdict on British Sea Power's excellent 'Do You Like Rock Music'. Saying it's "an album that will either thrill or repel listeners depending on their taste for bombastic arena rock", the review makes a series of fatuous references to U2 and refuses to give the record a mark out of ten. Pathetic. Here's an extract:

"Curiously, these stadium-sized songs channel less passion, anger, or awe than their earlier work. Granted, emotion has never been the band's strong suit, but here, British Sea Power speak the language of big feelings with little to back it up. Do You Like Rock Music? sounds empty at its core, with a rock where its heart should be."

Rubbish, it's a really good record.

A happier review, now. I watched the Wave Pictures at the End of The Road festival last year and was blown away by their tuneful, well-honed Hefner-pop, and in particular by singer/guitarist David Tattersal's unbelievable playing. In Plan B this month they get several good notices, but this is the one that comes closest to summing up my thoughts. Courtesy of Meryl Trussler,

"and then the singer looks up at us....

He looks up, sways forward, and a sound begins to pour out of the guitar that is one of the least tedious solos I have ever heard. It is warm and unforced and earnest. It's like listening to a thoroughly drunk but beloved friend insisting over and over their love for you - No, honestly, really, no, no, I mean this."

Excellent stuff - you can read the review here.

Got a feeling there were more reviews yet I wanted to comment on, so there may be more to follow.

premier league goes global

This is extraordinary, and I'm almost disinclined to believe it - but then it's not April Fool's Day, is it? Hmm. Well, this is straight off the Guardian site:

"Guardian Unlimited understands there are serious reservations in the government about the Premier League's plan to take matches overseas for the first time from the 2011-12 season. Ministers will not at this stage oppose the audacious proposals to extend the season from 38 games to 39 to allow every club to play one extra match abroad, but they are not yet convinced that the move is in football's best interests and there are concerns around supporters, sporting integrity and the impact upon other national leagues and competitions.

The deal has not been agreed yet, but the league and the chairmen of its 20 clubs are known to be enthusiastic about the idea having agreed to explore the proposal in London today. If the deal goes ahead, the 10 overseas games are expected to take place in January providing there is space in the calendar, with points awarded for the extra match in the normal way. The top five sides are likely to be seeded so that they do not meet each other, but otherwise the fixtures will be drawn out of a hat and played in cities around the world.

New York, Beijing and Tokyo are among potential venues, and they will have to compete with other cities for the right to stage the games. Five cities would be chosen each year, with each venue hosting matches on consecutive days. A certain number of games are likely to be played in third world nations, with the Premier League keen to use football as a development tool."

What a bizarre, and terrible, idea.

africa express

Oh god, I really want to go to this...

It's hard to work out exactly who's playing, but I gather that some or all of the following will be collaborating:

Damon Albarn, Tony Allen, Reverend and the Makers, Amadou et Mariam, The Aliens, Rachid Taha, Souad Massi, Scratch from The Roots, Turin Brakes.

Wow. Wow wow wow.

life in cold blood

Richard Attenborough's 'Life In Cold Blood' started on BBC1 last night; exquisitely filmed and presented with extraordinary deftness, it was typically lovely.

Happily, it was Nancy Banks Smith's turn to do the TV write up in the paper today; her writing was typically lovely too.

"The most touching moment was at the very end when, after half a century in the job, Attenborough saw his first pygmy leaf chameleon. As the young presenter of Zoo Quest, shinning up trees like a schoolboy bird-nesting, he had filmed Madagascan chameleons before - entertainingly in black and white - but the pygmy leaf had always eluded him. Being elusive is the chameleon's speciality. It has medals for elusiveness (which it never wears as they make it feel conspicuous)."

All is well in the world.

ffffound.com

I'm totally addicted to Ffffound.com, a web service that allows people to save and share their favourite images from the web; it's full of utterly lovely visuals. Here are a few examples:

It's in closed beta at the moment, and I don't have an invite. Hmph. Probably cause they know the whole thing will work beautifully 'til they let the likes of me join in the fun...

fracturing alliances

Good article by Jonathan Raban on the US elections today in the Guardian:

"What's fascinating about this primary season in the US is how on both sides, Republican and Democrat, the campaigns are exposing all the underlying fault-lines in American society: in nearly 20 years of living in this country, I've never seen these fissures so clearly mapped before. First, Karl Rove's grand alliance of fundamentalist Christians, corporate CEOs, libertarians, neoconservatives and traditional small-government-big-defence types, which was designed to establish the Republicans as the reigning party of the 21st century, showed signs of breaking up into its original component parts in the mid-term elections of 2006. Now the fundamentalists have their own candidate (Mike Huckabee); the corporations theirs (Mitt Romney); the libertarians have Ron Paul; just hours ago, the neocons still had Rudy Giuliani, one of whose senior advisers was the altogether terrifying figure of Norman "World War Four" Podhoretz; and John McCain's old-soldier pitch is aimed at those surviving conservatives - a likely majority, it seems at present - for whom none of the above categories will serve."

All of which makes this a really fascinating election. Read the rest of the article, it's good.

online love

I've yet to play 'Second Life' or any of those big massively-multi-player online games, although I'm vaguely interested (and slightly appalled) by the concept. Last night BBC2 screened a program titled 'Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love', documenting the story of a mother of four who abandons her family for an online lover in another continent. Needless to say, it ends badly.

Thanks to the wonders of the BBC iPlayer, you can watch it for another six days ('til Weds 6th Feb). It's worth watching, and yet desperately sad; the concept of a second life preferable to your own is both dramatic and distressing.

It's all enough to put Guardian journalist Sam Wollaston off the idea of creating a character (he chose the monikor 'Rotting Albatross') and starting to play.

"I'll still do it, though. Rotting Albatross will have life breathed into him after all. But I've learned my lesson from Carolyn. He won't be a hunk at all; he'll be a shrivelled old hunchback, who lives in a hovel and goes around insulting people and killing dolphins. Everyone will hate him, and the sun will never shine. It will make my first life, in Dollis Hill, seem like paradise."

Very wise.

The show, incidentally, is part of the 'Wonderland' series which, so far, has been absolutely brilliant. Last week's show, 'The Man Who Eats Badgers' was even better. That's still available to watch, too, for another 4 days. The filming and editing are absolutely beautiful, so go see.

overdue: books in 2007

The best read of the year was, for me, the excellent ‘In The Country of Men’ by Hisham Matar, a brilliant fictional insight into the world of Gaddafi’s Libya; it was tender, direct and raw. Back in March I called it a "humane work of genius".

Also impressive this year was ‘Exit Wounds’, a beautifully rendered and moving graphic novel by Rutu Modan (reviewed by me here), Indra Sinha’s massively lively ‘Animal’s People’, and ‘The Lay of The Land’, an elegiac Richard Ford novel.

I loved dipping in to Nicola Barker’s huge ‘Darklands’ (but didn’t finish it) and Peter Ackroyd’s even-huger ‘Thames: Sacred River’.

I read a bunch of books on the Middle East and Islam in 2007, and the best were Ed Husain’s excellent ‘The Islamist’ and ‘Desperately Seeking Paradise’ by the brilliant Zia Sardar.

Of the other Booker novels, Anne Enright’s ‘The Gathering’ was good, as was Lloyd Jones’s ‘Mister Pip’. ‘On Chesil Beach’, a slight, clunky and much-praised novel by Ian McEwan, wasn’t.

Worst read of the year was Chuck Palahniuk’s awful ‘Rant’.

edwards stands down

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to see John Edwards drop out of the race to be the Democratic candidate in the US election today. The furore over Obama and Hillary has obscured the fact that Edwards consistently talks about poverty and social justice, and the dialogue he established on the subject dragged debate leftwards, which was an achievement we should thank him for. Unfortunately, however, he was never going to rival the big two for the nomination, and his repeated third placings were less than he deserved.

What worries me about the other candidates, meanwhile, is that I fear that we on the left are being much too complacent. In the US, hatred of Bush does not automatically equate as hatred of the Republicans, and whether Romney or McCain win their respective battle, the Democrats will have a battle on their hands. What worries me is that in both instances the Democrats face the prospect of having a candidate who certain people, no matter what, will never endorse.

I'm bewildered by the general animosity towards Clinton, who I think is the stronger candidate and an unlikely hate-figure. But it seems to be the case that a great many people in the US (and elsewhere) do hate her. I like Obama, and would be happy for him to win, but compared to McCain he's terribly green and I worry he'll be made a fool of on the stumps. I think the Democrats are a long way, alas, from having the election sewn up.

Edwards, weirdly, might just have been conventional enough (smooth, educated, white, a Southerner) to appeal to a broader electorate.

But it's not his time and, alas, it looks like it never will be. A shame.