The BBC Agenda (Part 1)

More cheese with that whine you grumpy old sod?

What do you mean? I am the model of balanced & moderate thought. I listen to BBC Radio in copious amounts for Gods sake. Bucket loads of culture me and all thanks to the varied high quality output of this countries greatest institution.

But you seem really agitated and fractious at the moment?

Do I?

Well apart from the other week when for a couple of days you were back to your old self, much calmer, not a furrowed brow in sight.

Ah well I know the reason for that, no news you see or should I say no Today program or World at One or PM thanks to journos striking over less croissant provision in their pensions. The silence that replaced John Humphreys’` interruptions was bliss.

So John Humphrys is to blame?

Yes…..well no not entirely, actually now I come to think of it he is only following an editorial agenda isn’t he?

What do you mean an agenda?

You might be aware that there is a touch of Welfare Reform in the air?

I had heard something yes

Popular with the public apparently, even with Labour voters, I mean who could reasonably argue against it? The BBC however only appeared to be interested in one very specific aspect of these proposals.

Oh yes and what was that?

Well news programs throughout the day kept asking the same question to various government representatives? First time I heard it was on The Today program, it wasn’t Humphrys though as he was in China trying to interrupt and irritate the Communist Party regime.
I don’t know who it was but it made me spill my corn flakes when I heard.... “what about the children”?

Children, what children?

The children of the parents who get to Sanction 3 level and lose their unemployment benefit for 3 years. “Wasn’t it the responsibility of the government to protect these children from the consequences of their parent’s actions?”

Sorry I don’t understand? Parents have responsibility for their children not governments!

Bravo my friend, but evidently the news editors of the BBC tend to hold a different view and feel that it is worth pursuing this point vigorously. Maybe they think Milliband needs a helping hand?

Agenda you say?

Well I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy that would be going too far but how else do you explain so many BBC news programs asking the same question; Radio4, Radio5Live, somebody told me that even Newsnight had a go at it and I just heard a trailer for Analysis and guess what?

I see your point, but one question about the undeserving poor shouldn’t really raise your blood pressure that much. I mean you are just perpetuating the stereotype that the right wing like to peddle about the BBC, look they got loads of flack when Cleggy pitched up on Desert Island Discs, seems like a nice bloke by the way. They can’t win.

I’m only talking about news based output and if it was only one thing then……

Well I don’t want to hear anymore now, look my EMA money just came through so let’s go down the pub!

Twitter Doctrine

My father once told me that it is good to make a few enemies. This man now in his 8th decade has always held unequivocal views, a man who has blocked out what would be described today as a traumatic childhood and has lived his life based on a moral code, constructed solely with the tool of his own nature. He can look you in the eye with just the faintest of smiles and pronounce that “the worst thing that this country ever did was give women the vote”! He can tell his Grandson that a con man is someone that gives you confidence! He can say that we all have prejudice. He can tell me that it is better in life to slam the door shut and walk away than be reasonable and leave it slightly ajar. He has told me this many times in his matter of fact way, but I have never really listened, preferring to analyse and debate the pros and cons of such an act, striving to come to a conclusion that is fair, reasonable and balanced to all concerned, as this is my nature.
My father certainly woulds’t approve of Twitter, he generally grumbles that there is too much second rate opinion in traditional media as it is, so why would you want even more? The egos that frequent Twitterworld are huge of course and everyone is a sage and a prophet in their own mind but that is all understood and generally accepted so for every inane one word post of “meh” or vital information imparted as “I have a headache” there are numerous intelligent, witty nuggets to counter any accusation that my father might throw. Furthermore you can stumble into a recommendation that could change your life to a lesser or greater degree, you can witness random acts of kindness or take part in a debate that could further your understanding or make you see things in a whole new way and make new friends or you might just see a picture that makes you smile, all of this is possible so even if there is shameless self promotion there is also a lot to be said for Twitter. However my positivity has been somewhat tempered by a recent event.

My eyes were drawn to a tweet recently from a woman who was describing her domestic scene. She was listening to her baby crying and although she knew she was a “bad mummy” she would not go to her child but wait for it to fall asleep and low and behold 5 minutes later she pronounced with another triumphant tweet that the infant slept. Now maybe it was because of the bad day I was experiencing or maybe it was because of the small amount of alcohol coursing through my veins (always to be avoided on Twitter) but I took exception to this. I have two sons of my own, now both taller than myself but I vividly remember pacing up and down at 4am in the morning with a babe in arms, chanting made up American Indian songs as for some reason my interpretation of Apache seemed to have a soothing effect. Of course we all have our own way of bringing up our kids and we all learn as we go, hoping that our fumbling attempts at parenthood prepares our offspring for the adult world, (which I understand is now reached at the age of 9). So even though I disagreed with the fact that a baby was left to cry itself to sleep, this was of course the mothers choice, I just felt the need to ask this person in what I thought was a perfectly polite way why she had found it necessary to share the baby’s discomfort and her apparent guilt with the world. What was her purpose in putting this information in the public domain? A reasonable enough question I thought.
The response was that my message was “nasty and I didn’t have to follow her” and then some damage limitation followed through various tweets to her buddies saying how horribly she had been treated. We both then predictably hit the unfollow button, doors slammed and life continued, but does this mean that our little worlds of followed and followers are just there to perpetuate a shared set of beliefs and that any mildly dissenting voice is seen as the enemy within, a threat to be swiftly eradicated. If so then maybe the Internet is not so empowering after all. Does a critical opinion automatically attract a derogatory response, do we just want to talk to clones of ourselves?
Is another consequence of this circling of the wagons a growing trend for us to lose the ability to self regulate, have we lost the little voice inside that says “actually no I’m not going to write this down, I shall keep this thought to myself, as not everything is for public consumption and even though I have the right to say whatever I like, I will exercise constraint”. Perhaps I should have bitten my lip myself and left her in peace to play to her gallery, perhaps this is all a bit melodramatic, an over reaction to an isolated incident, but in the last few days I have noted a few other similar instances that would suggest that a new doctrine is being formed and perhaps this is just part of a potentially more sinister development because the question I cant help asking myself is; did this person let her baby cry to demonstrate to the world an example of tough love or was her sole motivation to manufacture a situation so she could write about it on Twitter?

Please read to the end

I swear, if you have ANY taste in music and you like these washed down cock-slides, you fail TOTALLY at life. First off, Oli Sykes needs to be impaled. Just because your music video has a clear drum set, doesn't change the fact that your music BLOWS MORE DICK than a 24 hour marathon of gay porn. Can these guys write one song without a breakdown? No. Can these guys write decent riffs? No. Can these guys get a good vocalist for once? No. Because this ENTIRE band sucks. Not ONE good thing about them. Everything sucks. Disagree and your dead to me.

THIS BAND SUCKS.

I'm keeping this short because they are totally talentless.




The above literary gem can be found on the NYC based music website Skull N Bones. The author, quite evidently is a troubled soul, possibly with learning difficulties and in possession of a latent homosexuality that he has yet to embrace, I bet you would like to impale Mr Sykes, nudge nudge, in your end o. The sexual orientation of Chris (I’m assuming the snarly one in the picture) is relevant to my first point only to highlight the reason so many…lets say…traditional metal fans have a problem with BMTH. You see these boys from Rotherham don’t look like a metal band and the fans that turn up to their gigs in the main don’t either, so the uniform is all wrong and that means they must all be gay and not metal at all right? So the music must be without merit right? Well no actually and with the fear of being “dead” to young Chris I have to disagree completely. If he can just open up his tiny little blinkered mind a little he might appreciate that they represent a new but equally justified part of the wider metal fraternity where many sub genres should but unfortunately rarely coexist happily together. They have talent and humour and despite the skinny jeans and plimsolls crushingly heavy riffs. They are not afraid to experiment, being open to other musical styles (dubstep remixes etc) and if Chris and his ilk were as well (open minded that is) the metal scene might not be so fractured and fragmented as it is at the moment.

Our angry friend finishes his article by stating that BMTH are “talentless” and this brings me on to my second point. Music critics and metal reviewers in particular are dancing on thin ice as soon as they start tapping away on the keyboard, who are these people anyway, are they retired musicians with a wealth of knowledge and experience or are they authors that have a string of best selling novels to their name?. No it would be closer to suggest that the average music reviewer is about the lowest of the low, not being able to play, sing or write well enough to do anything other than comment on other peoples efforts, therefore if this grubby profession is to have any standing within the music community at all the output should be of the highest order. How can Skull N Bones allow a piece like that to be published at all, either there are no standards applied at all or, and I think this is closer to the truth, the target audience are the same retarded souls that leave obscene comments below most Youtube videos. Surely music which is the highest art form of them all should have a literary movement that at least attempts to aim as high as possible in its chosen craft, and that means the writing should try to be good regardless of the quality of music being discussed. Catering for the lowest common denominator was a phenomenon of the previous decade with the internet allowing access to anyone to put content up. Music sites and blogs are everywhere now but the trick for the next ten years will be to match the quality of the writing with the wonderfully diverse music that is it`s subject. This will free up more time for Chris and allow him to concentrate on his own natural talent, that of dribbling.

More from Digbeth

As promised here are some more photos taken in Digbeth last month

Introducing

Let me introduce you to Joshua or Gent as he is prefers to be known when contemplating his work. He is a good citizen of the borough of Digbeth in the magical, uplifting city of Birmingham. Digbeth is a fascinating place, located within a stones throw of the shiny retail palaces of the Bull Ring and yet it could be a million miles away, standing within its confines; the oldest pub in Birmingham (The Old Crown, 1368), the regenerating Custard Factory, once the home of Birds and now a home to arts and media projects, the Old Wharf, a metal venue of distinction, Pauline’s Café that will do you an excellent Full English for £3.95, Victorian railway arches and old factories, some still employed in traditional heavy industries but others being adapted to more underground and inspirational pursuits.
Gent and his friends are the most visible manifestation of this vibrancy and much to his amusement even the local police seem to approve of his work. Here are a few of his latest pieces, some still not quite dry at the time the photos were taken. You can see that these works are mainly monotone as he likes how he can achieve shadowing effects. There are many other fine and much more colourful pieces and I will put some of these up at a later date.

RIP SLIPKNOT

To write about Paul Gray was a difficult decision. Numerous eulogies are already out there and it is with a growing sense of unease that I add to the list. The anaesthetic of quantity over quality which numbs the senses rendering us unable to raise more than a passing sigh to even the most calamitous of events devalues the worth of the written word and so when a faceless man dies a lonely death in a hotel room in Iowa why should I increase the dosage of morphine?
The justification came in the shape of a hastily arranged and possibly ill advised press conference where the spectacle of seeing the remaining band members exposed to grief and shock was unsettling to witness. My heart felt sympathies are therefore directed at the remaining band members of the phenomenon known as Slipknot rather than family or friends.
This was poignant as it brought into sharp focus my personal experience which has been to observe a group of young individuals start a metal band three years ago. In that time, whilst driving them to gigs, watching them practice, create and record their own music, argue, laugh, get drunk, sing Justin Timberlake songs after gigs, meet incredible musicians all culminating in live performances that show a bond that those of us non musicians can only look upon and envy. A telepathic understanding and a pure enjoyment of performing is something that those of us looking up from the pit crave but can rarely fulfil, so we consol ourselves with a secondary but important role of witness. Therefore if it is possible to detect this growing empathy in a young band with an uncertain future, what must it be like for a band that needs no retrospective analysis to confirm their greatness?
There are a few instances in life when the death of a person you have never met touches you deeply, for me the news that John Peel had past away affected me at a very personal level as he was with me via the airwaves spanning my formative years and on into adulthood, he never let me down, a constant reassuring voice. I have never heard Paul Gray speak, and I haven’t until recently known what he looked like, but nonetheless his death is genuinely sad and deserves more than a throwaway line that vanishes into the ether because no matter what the future holds, this band of brothers calling themselves Slipknot died on the 24th May 2010