The Rutles - Lunch - inspiration for The Beatles

You can see where The Beatles stole all their ideas, concepts and hair-cuts. I given you, The Rutles:

The Rutles - Lunch - inspiration for The Beatles

Study: The Full Measure of Republican Neuroses

For those of you who read this blog, you'll perhaps know that two of the things I struggle with most are entrenched dogma, and certain people's inability to deal with the myriad grey areas in politics (nuance, in other words), and any corresponding, yet apparently contradictory, principles which claim to underpin those politics (bizarrely, those who claim to be 'principled', in reality, turn out to be some of the most flagrantly unprincipled people you're likely to come across) - and notably, these being two aspects for which the Right, in both the UK and US, can invariably be relied upon to display a supreme comfort.

And whilst perhaps they don't see it in those specific terms, the reason why these personal traits irritate other people is simple: unbeknownst to them, dogma, intolerance and inflexibility were created to confuse and confound their proponents and practitioners - and hence catch them in the web of their own self-donning contradictions. And, frankly, that's where the fun starts as, let's face it, if you ever get the opportunity to de-bag a blinkered-by-choice merchant, it takes a strong person not to want to go for gold!

So, imagine my feelings of manna from heaven when I was sent, via Twitter, the Guardian article, below, from an ex-pat Austrian lady who's been living and settled in the US since 1987 (thank you Irene!)

And as you'll see in just a second: there is a delicious irony here...

This study - by Stanford and UC Berkeley researchers - was conducted in 2003, when president Gump Bush jnr was poste restante in the White House; so it's not like it can simply be tossed-off or dismissed in one of their rote claims of it being a 'leftist trick', or propaganda. Although, true to form, they do manage to carp about the source of funding for the research.

So, whilst no doubt a number of us have had our suspicions over the years, and schoolboy smirks aside, it's somehow reaffirming to have those suspicions confirmed once in a while; and to find that being a conservative/Republican is actually a known condition: and that condition a suitable case for treatment.

Now, one final test: when you read what follows, try and avoid picturing any of those toxic individuals in the above picture. I'll be honest: I couldn't.

Enjoy!

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve

* Julian Borger in Washington
* The Guardian, Wednesday 13 August 2003 02.33 BST


A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.

"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic clichés and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.

One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".

Another author, Arie Kruglanski, of the University of Maryland, said he had received hate mail since the article was published, but he insisted that the study "is not critical of conservatives at all". "The variables we talk about are general human dimensions," he said. "These are the same dimensions that contribute to loyalty and commitment to the group. Liberals might be less intolerant of ambiguity, but they may be less decisive, less committed, less loyal."

But what drives the psychologists? George Will, a Washington Post columnist who has long suffered from ingrained conservatism, noted, tartly: "The professors have ideas; the rest of us have emanations of our psychological needs and neuroses."

Further reading:

Psychology Today: Is Political Conservatism a Mild Form of Insanity? 

Study: The Full Measure of Republican Neuroses

The changing face of words

Just culled this from a collection of TV comic memorabilia, dating back to 1951, which is going under the hammer in the UK - estimates place the collection raising in excess of £1,000.00 - although the comedy factor of some of the thoroughly non-PC pieces is priceless.

The changing face of words

Twat of the Week oblivious to own Irony

Photo: STIAN ALEXANDER

NB: For the benefit of our US readers, in the UK, what you call 'chips', we call 'crisps'.

On spotting the headline to what could have been just another shaggy-dog tale, I nearly had a coffee-meets-screen moment; and perhaps understood why he did what he did, on reading the guy's name: Crisp lover changes name to Mr Monster Munch

Alas, and apart from the guy being a complete tool, the report doesn't say whether C. Hunt has any brothers named 'Mike'.

Twat of the Week oblivious to own Irony

UK 'X Files' now closed

UFOs no longer investigated in the UK.

Now if I'm being completely honest, I can't say that this news troubles me unduly - in fact I always considered the species of UFO-devotees to be far more of a national threat to the country's sanity and security than I ever did aliens.

And the bonus is, even though the files are now closed, the hunters are still there (and very much real), and so still available for parody.

"Klaatu barada nikto!"

UK 'X Files' now closed

America & Great Britain: "Two nations separated by a common language..."

Where to begin?

The aphorism, "two nations separated by a common language", has been attributed to various notables: the toss usually being between George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill; although Oscar Wilde, Bertrand Russell and even Dylan Thomas also get a look in on its provenance. The common literary consent, although it can be found nowhere in his written works, is that the nod goes to Shaw. And whilst some of the perennial old chestnuts (fanny-pack/bum-bag, cigarette/fag etc.) are widely known, to say nothing of still smirked at, there has, of late, been a fresh batch to add to the canon.

In either case, as to appropriate usage, it is still very much the advised rule of thumb of 'when in Rome'; it's all very well waltzing into an American hairdresser's and asking for 'a shag' (to them a hair style), however the response from its UK equivalent may well see you leaving the salon with the fat lip or uncut hair - or probably both.

In the US, a 'Town Hall' is now a meeting (although, for some reason not immediately apparent, the 'meeting' qualifier has become redundant and superfluous to requirements - a 'town hall' in the UK still being, well, a town hall) - worth noting, too, that in the UK, to make a 'town halls' of something is rhyming slang for making a 'balls' of it.

In fact one of the things which has lent English (be it Am.Eng. or Brit.Eng.) such longevity, apart from its magpie ability to loot, pilfer and steal from whichever language it chooses, is its unrelenting practice of adapting to accommodate new words, uses and constructions; a comparatively recent case in point - and, to some, a somewhat hastily thrown-together hyphenation - being the new American verb, 'to man-up': meaning to be in possession of sufficient quantities of testosterone as to enable one to face up to, and accept, one's responsibilities (cf. 'have the balls to do'), as in "Sarah Palin has yet to man-up and announce her candidacy for the 2012 presidential election".

And, whilst we're on the topic of testicles and places of civic meeting, habitués of US 'Town Halls' may also be referred to as "Teabaggers" - to some, an otherwise perfectly respectable act of gross indecency, requiring a chap to dangle his undercarriage in the mouth and across the face and forehead of his beloved (or at least one for which he may have paid for the privilege of being allowed to do same).

Any way, given the apparent duality of the language, perhaps it's fitting that cross-dressing stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard have the last word on the subject. Enjoy!

America & Great Britain: "Two nations separated by a common language..."

Much a bow about bowing

After his recent Asia trip, there's been a lot made and much brouhaha (at least in the US) about this display of Obama simply following international protocol and offering a formal bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito. Critics claimed the sign of deference went against US State Department protocol, which decrees, somewhat arrogantly, that presidents bow to no one.

I just see it as Obama acknowledging a man wearing a superiorly tailored suit - no doubt Saville Row of London.

Much a bow about bowing

Gotta love local newspapers!

This, from the Kentish Express (UK)

For anyone not au fait with the term, here's an explanation of "cottaging".

Gotta love local newspapers!

The Etiquette of Tipping

A pal of mine in the US, Chuck, has just fired this across the ether to me; and I have to confess to a sense of pique after reading this news Couple arrested after refusing to pay tip at Pennsylvania pub.

The irony? America: the only country where gratuities can be gratuitously demanded.

[affects tone of unbridled indignation] The damned cheek of it!  A pox o'their house, Sir! In civilised countries, tipping is a social custom, not a requirement!

One of the things I love about travelling is the presented range of different experiences on offer in the far-flung. And if your levels of expectation are reasonably flexible and not pre-set, then you're more likely than not to survive (if not enjoy) most of these differences.

Having lived, worked and travelled extensively in the US, I can say that you become accustomed to their custom of the all-but-mandatory tip, when paying for most meals (regardless of how light the repast may be) - and mandatory in the sense that waiters and waitresses, there, allegedly get paid so poorly that the only way they can 'make-ends-meet' is to receive tips and gratuities from willing patrons - even if the service is utterly below par, and sometimes so flagrantly unacceptable that you wouldn't consider kennelling your dog there.

So whilst 'tips' are expected, good service can be an utter lottery. And whereas poorly prepared food may be sent back, in the reasonably safe knowledge of a corrective and freshly prepared dish replacing it, serving staff with bad manners, and an attitude towards customers of which the Gestapo might have been envious, is another matter entirely. Alas, these people have yet to understand that customers are not merely an embuggerance - and notwithstanding that the withholding of tips can result in a little more that just an awkward silence, as the above article points out. Nevertheless, poor service is one of my pet-hates, and I have, before now, on being kept waiting for nearly an hour after placing an order, informed the house "Hey! My money's good anywhere!" before walking out the door, followed in hotfoot apologetic persuit by the manager. However, I digress...

But what of elsewhere? With just under 20% of Americans owning a passport (and fewer still having travelled outside the US), what might they expect to see and experience in terms of the habits and tipping etiquette of other nations?

Well, by contrast, here in the UK, the tables are turned and the reverse is true: the working norm here is that we only tip if we feel that the food and service has been worthy of us being generous with our cash - if not, then we don't. Simple as that. There are no laurels for simply taking food from a kitchen where it's prepared and then placing it on a customer's table. After all, it's hardly a Herculean task, is it?

And there is one set of circumstances to which I will always take umbrage: the like-it-or-not "service charge".

As a working rule, any eatery, anywhere, which on the menu stipulates that a mandatory "service charge" is payable, regardless of how small the portion and underwhelming your Lobster Kebab might have been, gets no tip, as they've already shown temerity and fleeced me of it with this additional charge. The staff can then sort out who gets paid what with the owner. Harsh, but fair I feel.

Mind you, the tipping etiquette in Iceland and Norway border on zero-tolerance!

A couple of years ago my wife and I were eating with friends at one of the finest restaurants in Reykjavik, Iceland, The Pearl, where, on getting out my wallet to pay the bill, I was informed by our friends, in a mock-brusque manner, that tipping simply isn't done in Iceland - full stop! Same thing in Norway. Come to think of it, I have garnered one or two feigned-polite ah,-you're-a-foreigner-,aren't-you? looks from waiters in Oslo, when unthinkingly trying to pay a bill there.

Australia's more of a mix between the UK and its adopted habits of the US, as is South Africa - where the preference (of the waiting staff) is that, more often than not, you leave a tip; but you're not obliged to do so. In France, Italy, Belgium and The Netherlands, you just toss some change on the table with your bill, and no one seems to care what percentage you've coughed-up as a gratuity.

But come on!? Getting pinched by the law for refusing to pay a tip after having received woeful service? Talk about a disproportionate response and a gross overreaction!

What next: being sent to Guantánamo Bay for jaywalking?

Actually, if Bush and Cheney were still in power...?

The Etiquette of Tipping

Recent ourbreaks of unintentional comedy

And in one of his now bi-annual trips abroad, where he's permitted to wear long pants, mingle with proper adults, and those who practise actual forms of democracy, Robert Mugabe, president of the now bankrupt and benighted state of Zimbabwe, today attended The UN World Food Summit in Rome.

Although snoring quite loudly, as he slept through the keynote speeches of the delegates from the UK, US, France and Germany,  in his own opening harangue to the assembly of world leaders and other UN dignitaries (or, "you bastards", as he phrased it), Mr Mugabe insisted that there was no link, whatsoever, between his policy of forcibly evicting all white farmers from their formerly profitable and economically-viable farmland, and it going to seed as a result of handing it over to teams of marauding machete-wielding 14 year old drunks - all of whom he alleges are "worthy war veterans from the battle for independence", which ended in 1980... Mr Mugabe further declined to answer questions as to the latter's suitability and qualification as farmers; and denied that there was any correlation between Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) once being acknowledged as being 'The Bread Basket of Africa', to nowadays being viewed as merely a basket-case in Africa.

Blaming everyone in the room, including the somewhat bemused catering staff, for the now ruinous state into which Zimbabwe has been allowed to slide, in the 29 years since independence (during which he's been the country's sole dictator leader), Mr Mugabe demanded that the world "owed him a living" and, further, that he would not leave Rome without a signed promissory note for $900,000,000,000,000,000.00

At this point, the other nations' delegates duly convened for a quick confab; before asking for a short adjournment, over lunch, to allow them a chance to discuss the matter in more depth, and to decide how best to proceed.

On returning to the summit after lunch, the delegates were happy to announce that they had indeed reached an agreement; and on the precise figure which Mr Mugabe had demanded requested; and that they would be happy to see him leave the summit with the promissory note in his possession.

And so, on hearing that Mr Mugabe's Ryanair flight had safely departed for home, the sum of $900,000,000,000,000,000.00 Zimbabwean dollars was duly transferred into his personal bank account.

At time of going to press, Mr Mugabe's spokesman had yet to respond to media requests as to how he intends to spend the $6.98.

Recent ourbreaks of unintentional comedy

OUP America's 2009 word of the year: 'Unfriend'.

So, without drum-roll, fireworks or further-a-fanfare, here it is! The Oxford University Press America's 2009 Word of the Year: 'unfriend'.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.

As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.”

Whilst at first glance a lazy construction, simply just gluing the prefix 'un' onto the noun - when to convey the meaning properly one would write "to remove from one's 'friends' list" -, no doubt it shall escape in the wider lexicon with as greater ease as it has assumed itself into the vernacular of the 'Yoot' and all Web2.0 applications, like Facebook, Twitter et al.

Mind you, no doubt someone in Dr Johnson's time wrote precisely the same sentiment when the word 'deflower' first violated the dictionaries of English. Speaking of which, in his time, perhaps this new word would have then been rendered 'unbefriend'.

OUP America's 2009 word of the year: 'Unfriend'.

The Ballad of Paul Clarke's Shotgun...

In the last few days, places like Twitter and other blogging sites have been jumping with the news of, and subsequent discussion about, the treatment of one Paul Clarke: a former soldier in the British Army, who, apparently, found a discarded shotgun and handed it in to police. Sadly for him, neither the police to whom he took the gun, nor the Crown Prosecution Service*, believed his 'just found it' story at face value, and consequently arrested and prosecuted him for possession of an illegal (i.e. unlicensed) firearm.

[*the CPS, the body responsible for recommending whether a case is in the public interest to warrant any prosecution or not - the US equivalent would be the District Attorney's Office].

Not that I want to turn this into some for-or-against gun lobby affair, but some readers will already be aware of the (certainly by international comparison) draconian gun-ownership laws under which we operate here in the UK.

In short, what this means is that, in applying for a firearms license, unless you can meet a long list of stringent safety and psychological interview & evaluation criteria - you aint getting a firearms licence; and being found to be in possession of one without a license renders said possession a criminal offence. These laws were introduced by successive UK governments after tragedies like the Hungerford Massacre, and that at Dunblane.

No doubt, after reading the above local newspaper coverage of the case, you may feel Mr Clarke was harshly treated - opinions, certainly legal opinions, differ on this point; and so it's at times like this that I've found no better source of sifting through the voodoo and blather to cut the chase on a given case than Jack of Kent's blog on UK legal matters: an oasis of calm in the heat of "but what about...!" type debates and contentions.

Finally, and pulled straight from Jack's blog on this very case, is the tale, as retold by 'Ivan', which perhaps more than anything gives a clear indication as to the straits faced by someone entering the UK whilst already being in possession of firearms, say from a country where obtaining a firearms license is a less taxing affair.

Enjoy!

['Ivan' wrote]: A friend of mine once had approximately the following conversation with a work colleague who had just come to Britain from South Africa. This took place before the latest change in the law which brought in such draconian penalties for possession.

(South African): "I hear on the grapevine you are quite a crack shot at clay pigeon. I wouldn't mind having a go at that."

(My Friend): "Of course. I'll introduce you at the club, and you can hire a gun and have a go."

"Well I could just bring my own. I've got a nice shotgun."

"You've got a gun? How did you get that? It took me ages to get a licence."

"I just put it in the container of furniture and other stuff I sent over from South Africa. How do I get a licence?"

"I think what you should do is take the shotgun around to the police station, explain the situation, and they'll probably look after it for you while you install a gunsafe, apply for a licence, and all that."

"Does that go for my handgun too?"

"No. You aren't allowed to keep a handgun at home, but you can keep one at a gun club. Change my first idea. Don't take them to the police station. Call the police, and ask them to come round to you."

"And my sub-machinegun?"

"Oh dear. Better idea. Don't call the police at all. I'd go out after dark and drop them all into the canal if I were you."

The Ballad of Paul Clarke's Shotgun...

Z-list "slebs" on 'Reality TV': a rant

Now how on earth did I missed this...?

Jordan: apparently every inch the equal of Neil Armstrong and Amelia Earhart...

For those of you reading who may not have heard of her, Jordan is a pneumatically-titted UK 'glamour model' with [purely ghost-written] literary pretensions - think Anna Nicole Smith, but without the MENSA credentials, talent or social grace, and you'll be in right neighbourhood.

There are other differences, of course.

Whereas you or I might have our car serviced every 10,000 miles or so, instead, she has another breast augmentation done, to her existing G-cup, at one of the many drive-thru von Zeppelin Maintenance Depots in LA - a habit now second only to her penchant for Botox touch-ups, collagen abuse and cosmetic surgery on those finicky bits behind the ears which no one else sees any way. They've even invented a genre and styling for her: 'Chav Chic'; and one to which Julie Burchill has duly managed to rattle-off a dozen tomes in praise. Mind you, our Julie knows about these things; what with her living in the tortured ghettos and mean streets of leafy Brighton & Hove...

So what's wrong with Jordan?

To the extent that she's made her entire reputation by selling her near-dirigible breasts as the sole reason to notice her, I guess nothing. It's hardly a new method of self-promotion, is it?

No. The reason I mention her is that she's emblematic of all that is tragically samey and predictably uninspiring about the cheap populist, mass-produced and celeb-obsessed dross which has become the mainstay, and chief output, of UK commercial television; with it's stockpile of otherwise arresting titles like 'Celebrity Wife Re-grouting', 'Celebrity Goat Husbandry', 'Dancing with Celebrity G-Spots on Ice', 'Celebrity My Left Testicle Plays a Gershwin Medley Whilst Doing The Ironing' (actually, that would be one for which I'd stay in and watch), and other, seemingly endless talent-free fare.

The depressing thing is, it is precisely that: endless; cheap to make and easy to sell to advertisers; with a ready and ever eager slew of viewers who've an apparently bottomless appetite for just about any old tat to which a 'reality' claim can be slapped. Couple that with a herd of 'slebs' so unassumingly famous that they've managed to remain under my radar for the duration of their entire careers and you've apparently the recipe for a 13 week fan-doting TV series. Or is that just a long-winded way of saying 'lowest common denominator TV'?

But let's be honest for a minute - just how 'real' is so-called 'Reality TV', anyway - when, in reality, hardly any of it so much as skirts the circumference of being real. Should we have a quick think...? Hmmmm...?

Well, unless you've either undergone SAS selection, or unfortunate enough to have been captured by the Khmer Rouge during the murderous reign of Pol Pot, when was the last time your life got so 'real' that you were gagged and bound, like some willing dominatrix fodder, before being nailed to a board, suspended beneath a helicopter, and then dragged upside-down through a crocodile-infested swamp in a jungle, whilst being force-fed worms and other items not normally found on a Michelin-starred menu? In all likelihood, probably never, right? In which case, surely there's a potential breach of the Trades Descriptions Act in that 'reality' claim somewhere?

Are there exceptions to the rule? I'd be lying if I said no.

I'll confess I'm one of those folks who enjoys watching annoying Z-list "slebs" make utter arses of themselves for the viewing masses; and all for the chance to reboot their all-but-moribund (otherwise they wouldn't be on the show in the first place) careers. If forced, I can watch it for, ooh... minutes, as this is the only time in their fleeting careers when we're ever, in all seriousness, going to get the chance to see them as they really are: warts and all, sans make-up, and without their standing coterie of fawning Green Room-gofers.

Do I love seeing the expression on their faces change after being told that they can't have their own way? That they're not going to get any hot food for the next two days as a result of making a complete jakes of the tasks needed to win food-stuffs? Seeing them so paranoid because - heaven forfend - someone else in camp was "talking about me!"? And then, after only 20 minutes of being 'on set', on the first day, sat round a log fire, treating each other to their back-of-a-cereal-box cod-psychology & rhetorical mantras about "we've just got to remain positive, innit?", whilst giving each other pep-talks on the only jungle survival techniques their brains have managed to retain from the rushed briefing given to them by the programme's Production Assistant, only 15 minutes before being cast to nature's elements?


Do I love it? Hell yeah!

And now, after having already completed one tour-of-booty on the show in 2004, Jordan, whose breasts are so large they've been allowed their own post (zip) code and require their own seat when flying, embarks on her second course of "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" in the Australian jungle; the same place she met her now former husband, Peter Andre.

So I'm wondering, in signing the contracts for appearing, whether she'll insist on a pre-emptive prenuptial divorce clause, prior to meeting any of the male members of the cast? Let's face it, it'll save time. Mind you, she's not really looking her best these days, after all 'the work' she's had done - no doubt it's a different kettle of fish for any potential jungle husband to see his bride-to-be without any of her usual caked-on warpaint and looking like a sulking Ethel Merman most of the day. I reckon it may just dampen their ardour a touch and see her leaving the show without a husband! What will Hello! magazine spend its budget on?! They've nothing in the diary, wedding-wise, until one of David and Victoria Beckham's kids ties the knot!

There is an upside, though. The prospect of seeing another series of this starve-a-sleb on commercial TV makes me eternally grateful that I can now Sky+* the entire thing (is that a bona fide verb yet?): record it and then fast-forward through as much of this full-contact adult-crèche thing as I like, missing all those damned adverts (*for North American readers, think TiVo)! Happy days!

Things are looking up already!

Now, about that show where a left testicle plays Gershwin whilst doing the ironing...?

Z-list "slebs" on 'Reality TV': a rant

Guy Fawkes' Night - 05th November

Every year, on 05th November, here in the UK, and maybe a handful of other still-participating countries in the Commonwealth, we celebrate (if that's the right word) the gruesome execution of one Guy 'Guido' Fawkes, an Elizabethan nobleman, soldier, adventurer, and politician.

Mr Fawkes' crime was that he did, along with certain notable accomplices, get caught up in The Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

The Plot's central aim was to overthrow the government and assassinate the monarch by blowing up the Houses of Parliament, using a cache of gunpowder they'd manage to secrete in the labyrinthine cellars below the Palace of Westminster.

As events unfolded, the plot failed and, although he was by no means the biggest fish on the plotters' list by reputation, it was Fawkes who was to have lit the fuse, but was instead caught in the act. He therefore achieved notoriety and became, by association, the principal character of the Plot.

Fawkes was part of a Catholic uprising in England which, after Elizabeth I's death, had taken umbrage at the prospect of the Protestant King James I of Scotland ascending the English thrown (just for a change, by invitation of the English Parliament, not by force). James made no efforts whatsoever to ingratiate himself, or his court, to England's Catholics, and had a habit of imposing heavy fines on anyone who did not attend Protestant church services of a Sunday - thus Catholics saw any hope of their chief cause (that of 'toleration') slipping away with the arrival of the new monarch.

Duly pissed off, they chose the date of 05th November, 1605, for their Gunpowder Plot - the date the new King was to open Parliament, at Westminster (a role the British monarch still performs to this day, every year) - leaving the UK with the date, 05th November, forever tattooed on its collective psyche as one to remember for treason and retribution. Or at any rate, an excuse for a bonfire and knees-up.

Now it has to be said that the treatment Fawkes received at the hands of his gaolers - he was, after all, caught red-handed in the act of trying to light the bomb's fuse - was neither courteous nor subtle - John Webster would have definitely approved; indeed to suggest that it in any way took into account his considerations or comfort would be nothing short of gross exaggeration. Standard practice at the time for apprehended 'traitors' was to torture them mercilessly; thumbscrews and being stretched repeatedly on 'The Rack', until bones broke and tendons snapped, were merely an introductory aperitif to the main event of a traitor's death: to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Click HERE to see the picture of Fawkes' route to execution - this is The execution of Guy Fawkes' (Guy Fawkes) by Claes (Nicolaes) Jansz Visscher.

However, even with the prospect of such a gruesome end in mind, there is still a slight and comically amateur-meets-Heath Robinson aspect to Fawkes' failure to complete his one task in this entire endeavour, viz, to light the bloody fuse and get gone. He had, after all, spent 10 years as a soldier fighting for the Spanish against the Dutch, and acquired a good deal of experience with explosives, by all accounts, and yet when it came to the one thing he was asked to complete - to whole point of the assault - he made an unmitigated balls of it, and got caught.

It is, then, little surprise that the nation as a whole was encouraged to mock and make little of Fawkes, for his failure to perform his one assigned task; hence the rhyme has been passed down from generation-to-generation of British children:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Fawkes did, though, have the last laugh (if you can call it that): he leapt from the scaffold before the executioners could perform even the first part of his sentence (the hanging) and broke his neck; thus it was that Fawkes denied the hangman, and obviated a procedure which would, by all accounts, have smarted just more than a tad.

And so, having cheated his punishment, instead his likeness has been burned in effigy from that day to this - on Guy Fawkes' Night, or Bonfire Night, as it's latterly become known.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-kilkenny/guy-fawkes-protesters-fin_b_346720.html&cp

Not that most people in today's insistently secular UK have a tu'penny clue as to why Fawkes was considered a traitor; or why he and his cohorts tried to commit regicide: but they do remember that every 05th November they have carte blanche to build a bonfire and burn Fawkes' effigy on it - but in place of gunpowder, they buy as many fireworks as they can, the louder and more brilliant the better, and neighbours try and out-do each other as they re-enact what sounds like the artillery bombardment and cannonade from Battle of the Somme in their back gardens.

Still, it keeps them off the streets and out of plotting's way...

Post Scriptum: Ironically, 400+ years later, Fawkes has become something of a folk hero and came 30th in a BBC public vote for 100 Greatest Britons in 2002.

Guy Fawkes' Night - 05th November

OED bring out defintive English Language Thesaurus

Was happy to see and hear that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has now produced the definitive Historical Thesaurus of the English Language - and a sumptuous production it looks too.

Forty-four years in the making - well done the OED!

Apparently, when asked his opinion of the new Thesaurus, former president, GW Gump Bush, asked whether it was larger or smaller than a the T-Rex?

OED bring out defintive English Language Thesaurus

Gordon Brown's Paedophile Fetish

Most UK readers will now be more than just a little au fait with Gordon Brown's apparent fetish - and that of his wretchedly Orwellian, one-trick-pony government - for getting every living species in the UK tested and scrutinised for any suggestion of paedophile proclivity, regardless of how tangential their contact with school children may be.

I think it's fair to say that most reasonable people understand that children are parents' most prized and precious possession, and have no problem at all with society needing to ensure their overall safety - and it's for this reason that the public broadly support some form of straightforward and standard background checks for adults whose day-to-day job entails them spending a large proportion of it acting in loco parentis when supervising young children in some way.

That much is reasonable, responsible and proportionate: what is none of these  things is what follows - as it now begins to transcend reasonable necessity and, like a grubby 'Mac-Man' hanging round a school gate at home time, begins to resemble an unsavoury desire on Brown's part which now risks becoming a general preoccupation.

Given the nature of the man, just as he cannot bear to stand idly by when he sees any open opportunity that me might pick the scab further, and as if prove were needed, he then goes and introduces this new demand: Paedophile checks even for those not working with children.

This then begs the question: at what point do we say "No! Enough is enough!" Where' precisely do we draw the line which ceases civil liberties being eroded more than they have been already under this preternatural shower of shambolic shysters?

The security of the nation's children is paramount, but this kind of government-sponsored paranoia cannot be healthy for children either; ingraining within them, as it does, at such an early age the instruction that every adult is to be, by default, viewed with suspicion; and the expectation set that adults cannot be trusted without having gone through the rigmarole of a series of tests set by some foetid mind in a government-ordained public servant's office. How can this be emblematic of a healthy society?

But, and just like the Tories before them in 1997, Labour have now outlived their current worth and been in power too long; they have got to the stage where they are flat out of fresh ideas and any political or policy inspiration (as if killing the UK economy and saddling the nation with a debt so large it will take a generation to pay off weren't enough); they've now begun to tinker with everything and change nothing - and when a government gets to the stage where it's beginning to reinterpret policies it introduced in the first place - and not for the better - it's time to go.

But just how far will this man's baleful ineptitude and abuse of our collective civil liberties go? Ignoring for the minute that we, the UK, are the most closely watched - via our nationwide network of nation CCTV cameras - nation on earth.

Not content with making suspects of us all, for things we haven't done, Brown's now gone one step further: not only will anyone whose life brings them within so much as a country mile of anyone under the age 16 need to be background-checked, but anyone seeking to pick up their neighbours' children from school will now face being subject to the same background checks - and potentially those friends wishing to babysit for their neighbour's kids too.

The man displays an epoch-redefining paranoia whilst trying to lend it an air of urgent respectability in claiming the excuse "it's for the kids' safety!" 

It's a discouraging irony, then, that Brown is often - although only half-jokingly - referred to as 'Stalin'': but the joke begins to wear thin when you consider that Stalin's henchman-in-chief, Lavrentiy Beria, mixed the equally loathsome penchants of being a pederast, a child rapist and killer and all-round deranged monster, with amassing a huge database (or simply 'files' as they were then called) on just about every target of Stalin's deranged and paranoid mind - and then some... indeed it ran into the millions. It makes for an uncomfortable parallel.

And where and whom is to be the next 'target' to come under Brown's myopic glare?

For instance, will your IP address be logged if a friend on Facebook posts an altogether innocent picture of their child in Halloween garb, and then asks you what you what you think of it, and you then hit the 'Like' tab - ordinarily understood to be a sign of approving encouragement to said parent? More importantly, who's the arbiter who says where that line is to be drawn?

In truth, I doubt even Brown has thought about the list of possibilities his paranoid policies-made-on-the-hoof might take under their objectionable ordinance. And that being the case, we can only be happy that he has only until May 2010 - at the latest - to do his worst (if that's in any way possible, given what we've already suffered at the man's incompetent hands), until he and his sorry cabal of sixth-form-minded ideologues are booted soundly from office and into, it is to be hoped, a generation in Opposition.

Gordon Brown's Paedophile Fetish