Quarantine

Thanks to Inventor Spot for the image

It seems to have been a week of censorship related incidents. I was on CiF the other day and became increasingly enraged - whilst reading an article about school selection - by a commenter who goes by the name of CharleySays. This guy really is an offensive little toad; racist, snobbish and misogynistic, and he seems to pop up below the line on every article on the bloody website. Just the kind of person you would not want to have living anywhere near you. Anyway, he was saying that he would not wish his kids to attend a school where there were 'immigrants or rude and unruly' pupils. His initial comment was modded and removed, but quite a few others had already copied the offending words (which offence seemed to be caused by the 'immigrant' part) and - pasting them into their own responses - were calling him out. Many, including me, did not agree with the removal of the comment, because you don't fight this kind of mindless prejudice by shutting it up. A light has to be shone onto it.

And then, one of my emails to a friend from my work address was quarantined. I was explaining why I had introduced comment moderation on this blog (it was purely to fight spam, I assure you - I have recently fallen victim to some annoying ad spam in the comments section of really ancient posts, and it was beginning to piss me off) and told him why I had done it, saying something along the lines of:

'I'm getting a lot of ads about penis extension, free software... the usual stuff...'

And this was enough (I presume 'penis extension' was what did it in this case) for the net police at my office to consider the email offensive - though they did say the administrators had not received a copy of it. I only wish they had, so that I could have discussed with them the merits or otherwise of such actions. I was forced to re-write the message in order to get it through. I ask you! Anyway, in case you're interested, I have removed the moderation from here now. I screwed up somewhere and appeared to have blocked any commenting whatsoever. God knows there's little enough interaction on here or in the world in general.

Finally, I read recently on Metafilter about a list of the 25 most shocking films ever. Needless to say, the original post was snarked to death, but the stuff below this line - in contrast to a good deal of that on CiF - was as always very interesting, and I heard about a film - called A Serbian Film - which was described as truly (and I mean truly) shocking.

Of course, I pride myself on being able to watch pretty much anything, and would hesitate to censor almost any content ('almost' is a key word of course. There have to be lines, and for me they centre around exploitation, although thinking about this is a little more complex, and probably requires a post all of its own) so I read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Indeed it is shocking, as I'm sure you will agree if you read that Wikipedia link, but still I had not had enough, so I managed to find some streams of the film in sections and watched up to about 45 minutes in. When I had to switch off, vowing never to go there again. In actual fact, despite reading the director's apology, I could see little if any artistic merit in it. I disagree with some of the reviews I have read, praising the good acting performances, although I do think that the production values are surprisingly high. But this is really not enough.

Shut yer fucking mouth!

Returning (somewhat topically) to one of my favourite bugbears, which is censorship. I read today that there is further 'fury' over the recommended songs on the GCSE AQA list. This follows the earlier 'outrage' sparked by the inclusion of The Leader of The Gang by Gary Glitter, which has now been removed from the list. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an apologist for paedophilia, though I don't subscribe to the pitchfork wielding paediatrician lynching mentality that the boys in Fleet Street seem to so enjoy encouraging among the great unwashed. I've got to say though, that banning one of Glitter's songs because he is a convicted paedo doesn't really make any kind of sense to me. Would we ban Johnny Cash songs because the guy was a pill head jailbird or Jimi Hendrix music because he choked on his own vomit (allegedly)? What about the Rolling Stones (who are featured on the list - see below) given some of the band's proclivities for young girls, or for that matter Jerry Lee Lewis because he married his 13 year old cousin?

So this, to my mind, is bad enough. That the likes of the Sun and the Daily Mail can spew venom about political correctness gone mad when it suits them, whilst at the same time dictating to us on these matters of taste in the name of protecting the innocents makes me want to go out and do physical violence with wild abandon. The fact that Leader of the Gang was (I think) the first single I ever bought may also play a part in my feelings on the matter.

The current proposed ban is, however, far more egregious because it is against the mighty Kanye, whose song Gold Digger has come in for opprobrium from the pinched lip brigade due to the fact that it contains multiple uses of the 'n-word' and that this, along with the references to, er, gold digging (WTF?) will corrupt the little kiddies as they flick through their playlists. What's most annoying about this is the po-faced refusal of the mouth frothers to understand that the word 'nigger' (or is it 'nigga'?) is in the process of expropriation by the target group of the oppressed, though this won't work until Tarantino stops using it for fun. And no, having Samuel L Jackson in your movies does NOT excuse you, Quentin.

Below is the recommended (somewhat lame, I thought) list of songs, each with a suggested reason for non-inclusion on the grounds of outraging moral decency, in the Popular Music of the 20th and 21st Century section of the GCSE AQA paper:

Come On In My Kitchen, by Robert Johnson. Johnson sold his soul to the devil, FFS!

You Upset Me Baby, by BB King. This ain't easy. Err, he's a vegetarian. Does that count?

Sunshine of Your Love, by Cream. There are drug references in there kids. Tut tut!

She Loves You, by the Beatles. Well, as we're on the subject of drugs...

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, by The Rolling Stones. Mandy. Smith. Say no more. The song also contains references to sexual intercourse.

Stairway To Heaven, by Led Zeppelin. Apart from the references to Celtic magic in the song, there's also the small matter of the outrageously promiscuous behaviour of the band during their heyday.

Gold Digger, by Kanye West. Nothing wrong with that. No sir!

Take A Bow, by Rihanna (scrummy!) Well, all I can really say about this is that she also did Umbrella, which is surely reason enough to remove anyone from any list? Isn't it?

Anyhoo, I say it again. Get your filthy hands off the music (and everything else) and leave us alone to make up our own minds.

Driving me nuTsie

When I discovered nuTsie I was very happy (thanks MeFi!) What an excellent way (I thought) to be able to carry my iTunes library with me wherever I went.

Then today, something happened to irritate me. Let me explain.
I have a playlist of profanity related songs, which I call 'F Word'. OK, it's not that imaginative, but I like it, so there. Here are the tracks:

Bitches Ain't Shit - Ben Folds
Bastard - Mott the Hoople
Bodies - Sex Pistols
Fuck Forever - Babyshambles
Fuckin' Up - Neil Young (this version is with Pearl Jam, BTW)
Fucking Ada - Ian Dury & The Blockheads (sorry, can't find a YT link for that, you'll have to listen on nuTsie if you want to hear it)
I want a fucking car - excerpt from Planes, Trains & Automobiles with Steve Martin
It's A Motherfucker -Eels
Kill You - Eminem
Me & My Bitch - Notorious B.I.G
Oh Shit! - Buzzcocks (again, can't find a YT link, so I'm sending you to the Buzzcocks site)
Paul (skit) - Eminem (no link here - move along please)
Public Service Announcement - Eminem (see below)
Relaxing at Club F****n - Koop (the asterisks are not mine, but are in the original title)
Sit On My Face - Monty Python
Steve Berman - Eminem ('lyrics' only, sorry)
There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards - Ian Dury & The Blockheads
Three The Hard Way - Beastie Boys
Tits On The Radio - Scissor Sisters
Too Drunk To Fuck - Dead Kennedys

There are more to come as it is an evolving list. In particular, thanks to the Guardian Readers Recommend section, John Lennon's Working Class Hero and Marianne Faithfull's Why'd Ya Do It, which I had never heard of, but whose lyrics are simply gobsmacking.

Anyway, my issue is that some of the songs on the list are bowdlerised versions, particularly Notorious B.I.G and the Eminem snips. The second example is far more egregious in my opinion, as we are not simply talking bleeps as in the Me & My B*tch (yes, they really do list it that way) but a totally different version. Here are the original lyrics:

Announcer: This is another public service announcement brought to you, in part, by Slim Shady
Eminem: (whispered): Tell 'em I don't give a fuck
Announcer: Slim Shady does not give a FUCK...what you think!
Eminem: Tell 'em to suck it
Announcer: If you don't like it, you can suck his fucking cock!
Eminem: Tell 'em they kissed my ass
Announcer: Little did you know, upon purchasing this album, you have just kissed his ass!
Eminem: Tell 'em I'm fed up
Announcer: Slim Shady is fed up with your shit...and he's going to kill you!
Eminem: Yeah
Announcer: Uh...anything else?
Eminem: Yeah...SUE ME.

And here is the version nuTsie came up with:

Announcer: This is a public service announcement brought to you in part by Slim Shady. The views and events expressed here are totally fucked and are not necessarily the views of anyone. However, the events and suggestions that appear on this album are not to be taken lightly. Children should not partake in the listening in this album with laces in their shoes. Slim Shady is not responsible for your actions. Upon purchasing this album you have agreed not to try this at home [In the background]
Any thing else?
Eminem: Yeah. Don't do drugs.

How fucking lame is that? I ask you. I suppose I know that it's not really nuTsie's fault. After all, many of the other songs came through OK, and all nuTsie can do is find a track online which matches those I've put up. I do object, as I've said ad nauseam, that we are forced to put up with this bollocks. How can Eminem even have contemplated making that second version?

Deleted by moderator

Let me apologise right off the bat for the blessayishness of this post.

I have had a comment deleted from a CiF message board. Hooray for me. I think it must mean you get a few extra points on your Qdos score. But maybe you have to be banned to really make it, or even have to pick another Gmail address and register as someone else? Anyway, apart from feeling quite excited about it, I am also more than a little fucked off.

Here's the deal. I have posted on here before about the general issue of censorship on CiF, and how I feel about it, but it was interesting for me to experience - personally - being censored. Said comment was in response to a piece of garbage about sex education penned by Anne Atkins. Her argument in the piece (such as it is) goes something like this:

'There's too much sex education, and that's why there are so many unwanted pregnancies. There may be a decline in sexually transmitted diseases, but this has been bought at the expense of a serious lapse in the moral fabric of the family and society. If we wish to address these issues, we should aim to teach teenagers about the value of abstaining from sex outside marriage, be more like the US in that regard, and move away from the poisonous liberalism of sex education in such moral cesspools as Holland, for example.'

I paraphrase, but feel free to read the original article if you feel like winding yourself up. I think I've precised it reasonably well.

Now, to quote from a review of the Creationist Museum, recently posted by John Scalzi:

"Imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we’re not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we’re talking colossal load of horseshit..."

There is no need to imagine. First of all, there is not too much sex education (whatever the hell that would be in any case) in our schools. As Polly Toynbee (of whom I am no fan either, don't get me wrong) pointed out in an earlier article, sex education is actually in decline in our schools, partly - though not entirely - as a result of faith schools opting out. Secondly, the incidence of STDs is on the increase, and even syphilis is making an extremely unwelcome return. Third, the policy of encouraging abstinence from sex is an unmitigated failure when it comes to preventing unwanted pregnancies, as figures comparing the rates for it in the USA and other countries illustrate. One caveat, prompted by a look at Wikipedia on the matter, is that definitions of teenage pregnancy differ in the US and the UK, and that the whole issue is a socio-political one as much as it is simply about biology. My own position is (as in so many areas) that education holds the key. Real education, not some pointless homilies about being a good Christian.
Updated (7/12/07) Research shows that US policy on abstinence as a means of contraception is an abject failure.

So. Horseshit:

"An epic load of horseshit. The kind of load of horseshit that has accreted over decades and has developed its own sort of ecosystem, from the flyblown chunks at the perimeter, down into the heated and decomposing center..."

But there's no need to go into all that. If you have ever read a CiF piece, you will know that every point of view gets aired eventually, as long as there's sufficient mileage in the original article. Every point of view that is, except for those which are edited or deleted by the moderators, as mine was. Did I mention that?

I know of Anne Atkins, sad to say. I came across her (work, fnarr fnarr) whilst flicking through Metafilter one day. You may not believe what I write, so please do click on the links to substantiate the facts. Basically, some time ago, AA created a fake teenage girl cyber personality ('Cheshakitten' - actually quite a good name, isn't it?) on Bebo in order to lure her own teenage son Ben into what he would believe to be a romantic tryst. Her intention was to see what (implied negative) effect social networking sites were having on the youth of today. An interesting project perhaps, but what a sick way of conducting the experiment, I'm sure you'll agree. At the very least, I thought, revealing this would undermine her self-appointed position as arbiter of morality on this relatively complex issue, and I was minded to point it out to the CiF community. I posted the link to the story, along with my comment and a further link to the Metafilter thread which discussed it. The comment (I'm sorry I didn't keep a copy, and have now started to do so) went like this:

"Attention! This woman is dangerous. She pretended to be a teenage girl on Bebo to try and trap her own (also teenage) son into a romantic liaison. She has no right to pass as a moral arbiter on teenage sex."

One of the things which I enjoy about online forums (fora?) is the interaction with others, so I checked back this morning to see if my post had encouraged any debate on the issue, and there it was. Or rather wasn't. My user name on the left and 'comment deleted by moderator' on the right. I wondered why. Maybe the words 'this woman is dangerous' had caused the removal? As far as I could remember, there was nothing defamatory or personal in what I had said. It was not insulting or off-topic. I felt a sense of righteous anger that someone had decided that what I had written was unacceptable, according to some standard of which I could not be aware, and emailed the Comment Is Free people to express my feelings.

At the same time, I slightly rephrased what I originally said and then re-posted. So far, it has stayed on, and has even elicited a response or two. I hope it stays that way.

Comment is Free?

Once again, I'm fucking narked with the Grauniad's CiF section. Why?

Because I read an excellent Catherine Bennett piece about David Cameron, his wife and family, and their blatant marketing of the various products they sell when they're out on the stump. I felt the need to comment on this, as I thought there were parallels to be drawn with Gordon Brown's nauseating cosying up to the City and the arms industry, and ultimately a point to be made about personality politics and the paucity of choice facing the average voter. The article, and those comments which were published, can be found here.

I was one of the earliest posters, so was fully expecting to see my comment, and was hoping for some responses to it, but it didn't materialise. At all. It is possible to imagine all sorts of reasons why this happened. Perhaps a shadowy figure from MI5 or SIS was standing at the right elbow of the moderator and grumbled darkly when my comment arrived in the inbox:

"This one cannot go through, it is too dangerous." Before flipping open his mobile phone and getting on to GCHQ.

Maybe even now, my keystrokes are being monitored by Putin's boys as part of a plan to use me in their ongoing plans for world domination.


Perhaps Emily Bell is being held against her will in a backroom at Farringdon Road, being prevented from allowing publication of the truly subversive material she really wants to by a gang of organised criminals working on behalf of Downing Street.

Or, even less credible than the scenarios above, the temp appointed by the Grauniad to moderate comments forgot to hit the publish button.

Who knows? It just really gets on my tits that the Guardian, OR ANYONE ELSE, can decide whether or not what I say is published or not.

Anyway, I'm very happy for Doris Lessing.

The Decline of Horror

Picture from The Hollywood News

I read an article in today's Grauniad which really pissed me off. Don't worry, I don't intend to launch into the church again - there's quite enough discussion on that front at the moment - although in some ways those weirdos are again behind the whole thing.

What I'm really incensed about is the creep of censorship, the insidious ways in which those who deem themselves better than us are controlling what we can watch, what we can read or listen to, and even how we can celebrate.

Now, as reported in the article I link to above, two major supermarkets (Sainsbury's and Asda - neither of which I would be seen dead [hurr-hurr] in anyway) are no longer going to sell traditional, horror-based stuff for Halloween, focusing instead on 'alternative items' - such as hair braids for god's sake - following representations from the Church of England. These idiots apparently want to see Halloween as a celebration of the victory of good over evil, whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean.

I detect common cause with the ever-anodyne Disney corporation. There's something creepy, something that makes me uneasy about Disney versions of Halloween costumes - perhaps more than any other of the commercialised, sanitized dross marketed to kids these days. Princesses have nothing whatsoever to do with the tradition of Halloween, and should be banned from the event all together. Am I alone in wanting to pull out a .44 Magnum when I see Disney's (NOT AA Milne's) Piglet peeking out from behind a Jack-o'-Lantern? And as for that execrable Lumpy... well, don't get me started, that's all.

When I was young, we used to hear about American rituals through the imported kids stuff we'd get, but we did things differently ourselves. I read with interest that the custom of Trick or Treating started in the British Isles, thinking of it as very much a Stateside thing. For me, it was the Guy Fawkes Emmanuel Goldstein-fest. We saved up our money-raising/ begging/ menacing of the old folks for the run-up to bonfire night (which of course has a considerably longer pedigree for us inhabitants of these Northern Isles) stuffing newspaper into some old clothes and standing next to it on street corners, or - if you were moved on by some local Biffa Bacon - pushing the rubbish effigy from door to door in an effort to raise much-needed funds for Mojos, etc. Though bastardised, and somewhat to my chagrin, the Trick or Treat ritual - with a heavy American accent - is strongly re-asserting itself now, if slightly dampened as a result of the rampant fear of paedophilia that permeates everything these days.

All of this milquetoast shite is symptomatic of the censorship malaise we are currently suffering from. Sky Movies is not - quite - the most infuriating example, although their 'guidelines' or whatever bollocks they choose to call them, are not just handed down from the bbfc - they also apply their own ratings. So, the Dirty Digger and his orcs are presuming to tell me whether or not one of their programmes is suitable for me to watch. They even put pictures of guns or syringes and crap like that on screen to 'help me make an informed choice'. The bastards.

Far worse are the po-faced little warnings on film trailers - even on utterly harmless fare like Ice Age or some such - telling us that the film contains scenes of 'mild peril'. Will somebody please tell me, in the name of Astarte, WHY? What possible purpose can such a warning serve? The film-makers have already subjected themselves to censorship in the making of the film, with the legal might of the studio then checking it out before release. All of this in order not to risk offending that freak Michael Powell at the FCC. (It has always bugged me, BTW, that his father pronounces his name 'Coal-in'. What's wrong with good old-fashioned Colin?) I am an adult, quite a childish one admittedly, but an adult nonetheless. I can make up my own mind, thank you very much.

Death of a Princess

Picture from The Guardian (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theatre/2007/02/dead_overrated.html)



A lot of people seem to think that the inquest into the death of Princess Diana, Dodi Fayed and Henri Paul in Paris over 10 years ago is a waste of time and money.


There appears to be a very strong prevailing view amongst Grauniadists and Istas that even discussing the incident is a low-brow Daily Express style indulgence and that, clearly, the crash was nothing more than a tragic accident. They say that Henri Paul was 'high on a cocktail of alcohol (twice the legal limit, which is 2 pints, isn't it?) and prescription drugs' - which is an excellent tabloidese cliche. Diana was not wearing a seat belt and the Merc, pursued by the baying hounds of pap rats (the stenographer's interpretations are being beamed on to a big screen, and occasionally, he or she must mis-hear the words) slammed into a concrete pillar in a Parisian underpass. End of. Anyone who suggests any form of conspiracy theory should don their tin foil hats and join the ranks of the feeble-minded, the UFOlogists and the like.


Many of these sentiments are couched in anti-royalist terms, along the lines of: "I didn't care then, and I don't care now. Why should this woman take up so much of our time and so much of the public purse when she is dead? She took up more than her fair share when she was alive."





I disagree. I am not (as many of my friends will attest) by any stretch of the imagination a royalist. My feelings towards the blue bloods are similar to my feelings towards the Church (I make the distinction between Catholics and Protestants in my views mainly on the grounds of attitudes towards birth control. Protestants are simply slightly less evil in my opinion) and its bloated oligarchy. Namely, that there should be no place for either institution in an enlightened society (not that we live in anything approaching an enlightened society) and, though I would probably stop short of advocating public physical violence against those in the upper echelons of either, I do occasionally daydream about it.



My feelings specifically on the British Royal Family are as follows. They are anachronistic leeches. They are responsible for maintaining the status quo; for helping to widen the gap between rich and poor in this country; for the disproportionate representation of a minority pursuit within the political system; and for fostering the hateful concept that some babies are born better than others (from Wikipedia: "The king or queen of the United Kingdom is one of the last monarchs still to be crowned in the traditional Christian ceremonial, which in most other countries has been replaced by an inauguration or other declaration.") They are shown extraordinary deference by seemingly intelligent people, and they are just so personally objectionable. Who could imagine sharing a pint with Prince Charles, or trying to have a conversation with the Queen? The whole thing is little short of ludicrous.

When I heard about the death of Diana, I was in bed, woken by a phone call from a friend to tell me it had happened. Though initially disbelieving, and then mildly shocked, I became quickly bored by the wall-to-wall coverage and very soon resentful that TV programmes I wanted to watch were being cancelled to make way for more live shots and 'analysis' of the event. The day of the funeral was the nadir for me (not that it was probably a high point for Diana, though many people in this country seemed to wallow in it) in terms of what it did to TV programming. I felt as if I was going insane. Around this time (by accident) I also found myself at Kensington Gardens, and was stunned to see the sheer quantity of flowers, and the outpouring of emotion, on display there. I had seen the kind of mawkish patriotism so prevalent in this country before, with the Queen's Silver Jubilee and the Royal Wedding - you know, people from the Wirral who wave Union Jacks and camp out overnight in the rain just to get a glimpse of the Queen Mum ("Ooh, she's a marvel!") but this was something else. It had been taken to another level.

Since then, events have become more interesting. Watching Liz and the others squirm around in their efforts to come across as normal people in their grief for Di was great fun, but was as nothing compared to the fantastic circus of Paul Burrell. The fencing of baubles, the 'dark forces at work in this country' quote and the allegations of Prince Charles raping a manservant contain elements of farce and high drama of which Joe Orton himself would have been proud.

Mohammed al Fayed has been a supreme irritant to the Royals, his rant to Keith Allen on Channel 4 rating amongst the best TV you could ever hope to see.

And that is the reason why I think the inquest should go ahead. With every question, noses are pried a little further into the rat's nest that is Balmoral, Buck House, KP, Sandringham, Windsor and all the others. Another chink in the armour is slowly inched open.

Even better, if there really was a conspiracy, what an excellent story it would be. I have been mildly castigated for finding allegations that Prince Philip ordered the murder of his daughter-in-law amusing, but I'm afraid that I do. The idea of brake fluid traces being found on the livery of one of the royal footmen, of equerries slipping out of sight in the Parisian night, is simply too delicious. I am watching the inquest with interest.

channel 4

Vitriol

I post to Cif quite a bit these days.

Many of the articles are fascinating in their own right, and they are often given a new dimension by the comments made on them.

There are some which annoy me, so that I can't bring myself to comment on them. Occasionally, I am so incensed by the tone of the comments that a rage overtakes me.

This article did that for me yesterday. I am not naive. I know that not everyone shares my world view, and neither would I expect them to. But I feel angry, ashamed and depressed when I read the vicious xenophobic nonsense that some people spout - covered as they are by the cloak of anonymity provided by an internet login.

Don't misunderstand. I don't want these people not to express their opinions. In fact, I was very unhappy that the Guardian issued moderation rules for the site. Much has been said of late about the standard of debate on forums, and I am firmly in the camp of letting it all in. It's easy enough to ignore the puerile stuff, and if you don't hear the arguments, how can you refute them? More importantly, I have a concern about the moderators for these things. Who says that some Guardian employee has the right to edit or delete a comment I make? It's annoying enough that some bunch of idiots can censor film, music and television before I can have access to it. Who watches the Watchmen?

What I am worried about is the level of uneducated, prejudiced and evil bigotry that I read in relation to asylum seekers - bogus, failed or legitimate. It's as if the average person in the street could be a member of the Nazi party, and are fully prepared to dismiss the lives of other people due to the colour of their skin, or their country of origin.