Niggles, odds and sods

After a long hiatus, I'm back. Blogging takes up a surprising amount of time and energy, but now I'm no longer spending that energy elsewhere I can come back to this. And what a surprise, I'm going to start by ranting!



Use of language and the economy. Gordon Brown, cursed be he, started this during his failed election campaign by using words to the effect of "reducing tax take is taking money out of the economy". This is a very telling attitude from the hard-left statists; they appear to believe that the "economy" is purely whatever money the government controls. The private sector, which creates wealth, gets nary a mention. Predictably enough, the "less tax take = less money in the economy" mantra has been taken up by the left as their new stick to attack Conservative economic proposals.


The coalition government. It's an interesting development and one that neutralises the ability of Labour to attack it thanks to the Lib Dem involvement. There are still many at grassroots level who struggle with the idea that their "natural partners" are now in direct opposition. Cameron and Co are also dealing with the deficit practically and sensibly, including by asking the public for their suggestions. The BBC's carefully moderated Have Your Say forum is, in its usual anti-Tory stance, against the ridiculous notion that a government should actually listen to its people.

However, all is not well with the coalition: Cameron's attempts to limit the government to a five year fixed term and requiring a 55% vote of MPs in the Commons to pass a motion of no confidence is very worrying. Not only does it smack of power consolidation for its own sake, but it's also a dangerous attempt at tinkering with the very constitution of Britain. Even Lady Thatcher is disquieted by this.

The Cumbria massacre and the media response. Again the BBC come under fire, this time for raising the notion that Britain's ridiculously illiberal gun control laws (second only to China and North Korea in severity) should be tightened even further. Firearms and shooting are an integral part of British society - a century ago there were no prohibitions on private ownership of firearms whatsoever. Since the end of WW1, the Establishment has progressively banned more and more types of firearm as well as granting the police powers to ban any firearm they deem "especially dangerous".

The licensing system itself, when properly administered, is one of the safest of its kind in the world; but it does not eliminate risk altogether. Nothing can. In Cumbria, a man with no previous history of instability just snapped overnight. Neither the police nor the licensing system can be blamed for his decision to go on the rampage. The response once he had started shooting can be examined, yes, but the law has already been tightened way beyond that of any other Western country. Leave it alone.

So just who are these people?

Most, if not all, shooters who take an interest in their sport's future will have heard of the Gun Control Network. This shadowy organisation is chaired by Gill Marshall-Andrews (above), wife of the hard-left Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews. Up until the dissolution of the Firearms Consultative Committee in January 2004, Mrs Marshall-Andrews held a seat on the FCC, which was otherwise comprised of delegates representing the legal profession, the firearms trade, law enforcement and administration, and the national shooting bodies.

The Gun Control Network itself is diametrically opposed to any private ownership or use of 'guns' in all their guises. This opposition extends to airsofting, where players dress up in old military gear and shoot each other with BB guns in a similar manner to paintball. The GCN are frequently given column inches by the press where lawful and legitimate shooting comes under scrutiny, such as in this (admittedly old) Independent article. Note that Marshall-Andrews uses emotive and exaggerated language without bothering to mention examples; a tactic the group has consistently used in statements to the press since.

Googling the GCN comes up with their website, which I refuse to link to for reasons that will become plain. None of their articles are bylined. Their Education Pack, intended for use in schools, was the subject of a thorough fisking by an Israeli commentator who described its contents as "hate speech". You will also fail to find anything on the GCN site that allows you to join. They are a closed shop.

After a post on Tory Bear's blog which highlighted an attempt by Gill Marshall-Andrews to smear the Young Britons Foundation in her official capacity as chair of the GCN, I started researching the GCN's actual membership. Imagine my utter astonishment when I came across the GCN's Flickr page. On there, they admit that they have just four members.

Is there any group of comparable size that has such a voice in the media or at the highest levels of the legislative process? There are thousands of groups of individuals up and down the country but none of those are regularly asked for quotations to be published in the national media, or hold posts on Home Office committees, or agitate against a safe and legitimate sport.

Now is the time for this pathetically tiny and secretive organisation to be exposed for what it is: four bigots who can't justify themselves other than by manically repeating 'guns are evil'. They've even jumped on the fake charity bandwagon under a new name: the Infer Trust. This is a registered charity (No. 1080791) which seems to be nothing more than a rebranding of the GCN with a new website. Both groups quote the same London PO box number for postal contact, which should raise eyebrows.

Expose them for the minority of demagogues that they are, and their particular brand of hate speech shall wither and die on the vine. 

UPDATE: Just to re-emphasise, Gill Marshall-Andrews is the wife of Bob Marshall-Andrews MP. Perhaps this is the real reason behind the GCN receiving so much media publicity?

Some light relief

It's been a while, my loyal reader(s). This is in no small measure due to my overwhelming apathy in the face of lots of essential tasks, plus various health complications that still have yet to resolve themselves.

With the excuses for my bone idleness made, I might as well get on with the meat of this post: bawdy poetry.

Now, having spent my entire time at school forced to study poetry, and my entire undergraduate career avoiding poetry study like the plague, you can guess what my thoughts are on the subject of anything with greater literary merit than Betjeman's entirely accurate verses on Slough. Exceptions do exist, though, and the best one on this particular subject is the ballad of Eskimo Nell. This is a personal favourite of mine: being long, pointlessly filthy and eminently suitable for recitation in all forms of company (well ...).

As much as I'd like to reproduce the whole thing here, I shan't. Instead I'll let you click the link and read the epic story of the Canadian whore who defeats the oversized Yank and his dago mate. But do allow me to share one or two of the better verses...




Now, Dead-Eye Dick was breathing quick
With lecherous snorts and grunts,
So forty butts were bared to view,
And likewise forty cunts.

Now, forty butts and forty cunts,
If you can use your wits,
And if you're slick, at arithmetic,
Makes exactly eighty tits.

...

Back to the land where they understand
What it means to fornicate,
Where even the dead sleep two in a bed
And the babies masturbate.

"Back to the land of the grinding gland,
Where the walrus plays with his prong,
Where the polar bear wanks off in his lair,
That's where they'll sing this song.




If I was Canadian, I'd be proud of this virtuous contribution to the English poetic canon. Doesn't it swell your trousers and make your scrotum burst with pride, that people similarly blessed with the gift of being brought up speaking the language of Shakespeare, Milton and the bloke wot wrote Vindaloo, men who were truly Men and appreciated the delicate balance between metre and subject ....

No, who the fuck am I kidding. This is real life poetry, the sort you find in rugby clubs up and down the land. It's got the one essential feature of a real poem: it rhymes! Ask any primary schoolkid what the most important bit of a poem is and they'll tell you it's got to rhyme. From the mouths of babes, ladies and gentlemen. Also, it's nice'n'easy to read. None of these long words like I keep on using. No overlong sentences (lines, stanzas, whatever the technical term is) to keep stealing your breath. Just simple, honest, direct and above all, descriptive verse. Everyone likes listening to a story, after all.

Out of interest boredom, I tried running "Eskimo Nell" through JSTOR, which is like Google but terminally, infernally dull. In the words of Grant Naylor (the Red Dwarf scriptwriting duo), if you changed all the words in all the books in the British Library to the word "dull" and then read every single book out loud in a boring monotone, you begin to come close to how utterly shit JSTOR is. Anyway, search Eskimo Nell through it, and the first result is (I kid you not):

"Properties and Preservation of Ethnographical Semi-Tanned Leather" (link for anyone with JSTOR access ... not that I've read it, or intend to)

What? WHAT?! What does that even mean? Does it, indeed, have any discernible meaning? Could it actually be a randomly generated set of words designed to baffle the ordinary man? How do you "semi-tan" leather anyway - surely it is or it isn't? And above all, how the hell does this relate to a filthy ballad supposedly written by Noel Coward in 1919?

It's true. Academia really has vanished up its own arse. I was half-hoping to find some scholarly analysis of it that I could rip to shreds, but it seems that genteel professors across the world have scorned this fabulous piece of writing in favour of incomprehensible bullshit like No.6 on JSTOR's list of results for 'Eskimo Nell', gloriously titled "An Appreciation of the Pioneer of Post-Distanciationalist Politometrics". Honestly, you just can't make this up.

I'm a Photographer, Not A Terrorist!

On Sunday, the I'm a Photographer Not A Terrorist campaign organised a rally of photographers, both professional and amateur, who gathered in Trafalgar Square at midday.

The protest was against police abuse of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which the photographers claimed has become a blanket measure to harrass and intimidate photographers lawfully going about their business.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 people gathered in Trafalgar Square, almost all armed with a camera. As usual, some fringe groups including the Socialist Worker propaganda sheet and the blogger Old Holborn were present, but the majority seemed to be ordinary photographers, from all walks of life.

In contrast to the usual atmosphere at London-based protests, this was a very civilised and almost silent affair. This may or may not have been related to the near-total absence of the police, who were represented by one City of London constable and three PCSOs, who unwisely took it upon themselves to attempt an arrest in the middle of the crowd.

With the exception of that one incident, which was met by hundreds of cameras, nothing else of note could be said to have happened. The group began dispersing to the pub at 12.30pm, although a few hundred hung around to take pictures of each other. There was some light press coverage of the day.

 More: Independent, BBC

Happy New Year, and such

Having forgotten the password to this and spent yonks getting it reset (real life in the way, donchaknow!), there will be updates soon! Unfortunately university is getting rather busy at the moment, so they may not be the indepth stories (like the protests one below ....) that I want to be writing.