Shine on you Crazy Diamond

There are rumblings coming from number 10 and 11 Downing street. The new threat comes not from the Middle East but from the north. The insurgents this time are threatening to go to the ballot box and bring down another oppressive and corrupt regime. Yes, in the spring of 2007 Scotland will have national elections to form its next devolved parliament. To the great chagrin of New Labour, Scots look like voting in the Scottish National Party - separatists bent on independence.

This is not new movement by any means (it was formed over 70 years ago), so you may well wonder what’s brought this change of public opinion in Scotland? The reason, I wager, is the failure, fatal to every politician: the failure to listen. Just ask President Bush about his recent thumpin’ in the mid-term elections. Could Scotland be reacting to Blair’s failure to listen too? I bloody hope so!

The threat is so real that both Blair and Brown have brought out their big guns to fight back. These being fear, doubt and uncertainty (FUD) and yet more failed Blair policies and lack of backbone on foreign policy. If I were a Labour MP I’d want Blair out before the election next Spring, just ask the Republicans if it was a good idea to wait to let Rumsfeld go until after the election. I dare you!

Having lived in England for many years, there’s one thing that consistently bugs me about the English-centric media - it the way they tag “and Scotland” onto news reports, see quote from BBC News below. At first glance, it doesn’t look like much but normally you would naturally group London with other world capitals like Paris, Rome or New York, not a whole other country! I’m assuming it’s because reporters are too lazy to look at a map, or perhaps they think that readers are too simple to understand that Scotland has “geography”. But the most likely reason is because readers just don’t care (What does that say about Scotland’s status within the UK? Roll on independence!)

And it’s not confined to just Scotland. For example, if you’re reading this from outside the UK ask yourself, “Besides London where else is there in the UK?” Can’t think of any where? What about in Russia besides Moscow, or any African capital? Well, I have to admit I’m struggling too! Now I come to think about it perhaps I was being far too unkind to those ‘British’ reporters after all.

The announcement follows reports that pirated DVDs of Casino Royale were on sale in London and Scotland last week.

I’ve not felt the urge to write for a while now, but I’m starting to feel inspired again. What I want to share is how much I enjoyed watching recently “The Long Way Round”. By now most people will know of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman’s motorbike trip around the world. When LWR was first broadcast I managed to catch a couple of episodes, however, I’m not a Sky subscriber so I could only watch if I was visiting a friend’s house and it was on. As they say, “What you don’t see, you don’t miss.” I forgot all about it. Then, some time later, I bought myself a new motorbike.

Yes, like a lot of men hitting their middle years I revisited an old passion of mine, convincing myself that my life would be so much better if I bought a motorbike. In fact, since my early twenties I’ve lusted over having a big bike with lots of torque - something mean looking hopefully. Ten years later, I scanned through a bike few magazines, read the reviews and decided on Honda’s CBF1000. The bikes an all rounder, the engine is as big as I hoped for, there loads of low-end torque, and it’s very easy to ride. This was a major selling point for me because it had been such a long time since I’d last ridden a bike.

Now, after a couple of months, which included a two-week holiday riding around France and Spain, I’ve managed to scrape most of the rust off my riding skills - To begin with it was nerve racking having to lean over as I went round bends. I’m getting better, but I’ve still got some way to go as I’m nowhere near getting my knee down on the corners! I suppose I’m more of a tourer than a racer.

Which brings me neatly back to my point. As I’m now back into biking, I thought it would be nice to travel up to Birmingham to see the NEC Motorbike Show; I’d never been before so it was a mini-adventure / nice day out. And lo, who was there - Charlie Boorman doing a book signing for his latest adventure. Having seen Charlie up close I decided it was about time to buy the DVD and watch their adventure; I was sure that now I had a bike of my own I’d really enjoy watching Ewan and Charlie travelling round the world (especially the falling off bits).

When the DVD turned up I sat all evening watching it. For me it was heaven! What could be better than i) a travel journal ii) by a couple of bikers, and iii) one of whom was a fellow Scot! As I live in England, it was especially enjoyable to see Ewan describing his adventure mixed in with some genuine Scottish patter: telling anyone who would listen how Scots invented the modern world and how this or that mountain range was almost as good as the ones in Scotland. Having toured Scotland several times myself I couldn’t help but agree.

I watched an interesting programme a few weeks ago, about water shortages in Detroit and La Paz, Bolivia. Before I’d travelled around South America, I probably wouldn’t have known where Bolivia was or indeed cared for more than two seconds what happened there. But I have, and now I do.

This TV programme highlighted essentially how underprivileged families in both the world’s richest and poorest country are being faced with expensive water bills that they just can’t afford to pay. In both cases, the water companies simply turned off each families’ water supply. If that wasn’t devastating enough, the black American family was faced with the real risk of having their children taken into care because her house was now deemed ‘uninhabitable’ due to no water supply. The real irony being that the Bolivian family benefited from living in a poorer, and apparently more free society.

On the domestic front this also ties in to what’s happening now in southern England, where I currently reside. One of the English ‘For Profit’ water companies has issued a drought order which bans the use of hose pipes. As a Scot I’m glad that Scotland chose not to privatise our water companies, as I support society as opposed to shareholders. However, I’m now lumped in with a few million English people trying to live with a finite supply of water in an ever more populated area of the country.

Already homes are being fitted, and being forced to fit water meters. In doing so we’re quickly trundling down the road towards the danger zone described in the TV programme: the rich can fill their swimming pools while the poor families are squeezed and squeezed until they have to break the law in order to literally survive.

The bottom line is whether water should be for profit or whether water is a right?

Perhaps, surprisingly, I strongly believe that neither case holds the answer. As in parts of England, the US and elsewhere water is increasingly become a finite resource. The idea, we seem to be pusuing, that water companies simply crank up the unit price at every turn hits the poorer families very hard, as already observed. At the same time, however, the situation can’t be a free for all. Thus, it seems to me that the only sensible solution is: every household receives a guaranteed quota, to cover reasonable usage, which can never be disconnected. Usage over and above this basic level would be paid for as always. This way children aren’t taken into care simply because of company shareholders’ demand for more profit.

Somewhere in a galaxy far, far way the time is …

Is it just me or does Yoda actually sound a wee bittie Scottish?

Recently, I’ve been exploring the online world of Wiki when I started to read some entries in this Dating Wiki. I laughed when I noticed the name of the first entry, entitled ‘How to Accept Your Boyfriends Interest in Pornography‘. Similarly, the ‘How to Get a Guy to Call You Back‘ was right on the money too.

I’ve recently moved house. Surprisingly, I’ve discovered a small corner of Dundee that is quietly well-to-do – certainly judging by the number of surrounding wi-fi networks I can detect. Also, if I strain a little I can see some of the silvery Tay flowing by. It’s a nice area with lots of students and young people about – I still feel like a student, but to them I must be beginning to look like their Dads. I like just about everything here bar the trouble I have trying to get parked.

This morning I noticed something odd as I left my flat on the way to my car. There was a man suspiciously poking about at the side of one of the many parked cars. I know that professional thieves sometimes use special tools, i.e. long thin strips of metal with a hook on the end which they slide down between the window and door frame to release lock (Honest, I saw something on TV once) and at a distance this stranger seemed to be holding something similar.

Being the concerned citizen (my car was parked not far away) I walked up behind the guy until I was just a couple of steps away. I watched for a few seconds as he slid his hand through a narrow gap in the back window (sounds Freudian doesn’t it) and in his hand was a long twig.

“Hello”, I said introducing myself. He turned around, looked flustered for a moment then smiled at me.
“I’ve locked myself out of my car”, he explained, “I’m not a car thief.” and went back to forcing the window down.
As he pushed and grunted I answered, “Yes, if you were a car thief you wouldn’t be using a branch.” He paused for a second and I took the opportunity to disengage myself from any come-back he might offer.

When I reached the relative safety of my own car I mulled over whether or not I should call the police. “No”, I decided. If he was a car thief I’d just humiliated him by suggesting a unqualified lack of professionalism on his part. As if to agree with my conclusion, when I looked round he’d finally given up the struggle and was wandering off … who-knows-where.

I recently went to see the film ‘Walk The Line’ which had received a number of very good reviews. I knew very little of the Johnny Cash story beforehand, and I could only vaguely remember one dark number where he sang about cutting himself to see if he could still feel any pain - the sort of image you don’t forget in a hurry.

I absolutely adored this film from start to finish. I could identify with “JR’s” relationship with his unforgiving and overbearing father. In one scene, which I doubt very much is based on reality, the now adult JR challenges his father to answer the same question he asked Johnny as a child, “Where were you?”, the day his older brother died in a saw-mill accident. To me the idea that this question haunted Johnny for most of his life is very profound. In fact, in the film Cash’s character during one dark moment wishes it was he that died instead of his brother because his brother would have brought so much goodness into the world whereas Johnny felt rotten to the core; it took June Carter’s love to turn him around.

As a fan of the blues myself I like to think this dark part of Cash’s psyche goes to explain some of his lyrics, their inherent power and imagery.

On a lighter note, Witherspoon impressed me with her performance of the 50’s country singer June Carter. (She also reminded me very much of an old girlfriend I used to have too). I was in a quandary as to whether Witherspoon was actually singing or not - her voice sounded so authentic. Well, when I say authentic she sounded very much like I imagined a 50’s country singer should sound (I later learned when I bought Cash’s back-catalogue the modern music production in the film was far superior to the original version). Moreover, Reese’s portrayal of Carter was far removed from the comedy roles I’m used to seeing her in. There was no hint of ‘I’m blond but I’m not stupid, stupid!”. I’d say she was the star of he film except for the fact that Pheonix’s performance was quite literally ‘awesome’.

What I particularly liked about the story was Cash messing things up, time and time again, but sticking to his guns and eventually getting the love of his life. I is one soppy SOB. *sniff*

TV sometimes can suck and suck bad. Yesterday was no exception, but I luckily came across “Don’t watch that, watch this“. It was on BBC2, I think.

The tele was on, as it sometimes is, because no-one had got the guts to switch it off and do something more entertaining - like going to bed. I was staring into the void, when Sir Cliff Richard came on - normally he’s spectacularly boring (to be fair he’s like a uncle who was cool when you were a kid but you now pray never comes round to visit), however someone decided to bleep out a number of the words as he was singing, e.g. “She’s a **** woman”. At first I thought someone was making a political point about free speech - a ‘hot political topic’ recently (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) . Slowly, as I continued to watch I learned the whole point of the programme was satirical. Several dull political speeches, as well as interviews had been reedited to make the speakers look like the pumped up egos they really are. What came as supremely twisted and cruel was bleeping Cliffs lyric, “Isn’t it funny how we don’t **** any more”. To get the joke you have to understand how insipid the lyric is normally while having a mind like a sewer. That’s me all over!

Update:
Here’s a site where you can download or stream the first series.