Power

Well that'll teach me, eh? Depressing night against fucking Villa, and we got no more than we deserved out of it. The struggle goes on, and I will never again be tempted to tempt fate.

Reading the endless screeds of print about David Mitchell and (may god forgive me) Plebgate, I am intrigued by the concepts of leadership as revealed in the details of this latest pathetic little story. Mr Mitchell is, we are told, the enforcer for the government (or at least the Tories - as if there's any difference) and ensures that MPs toe the party line. This may include - wait for it - losing his temper with them.
This concept of leadership is all too familiar in the football world of course, its greatest contemporary exponent being old Bacon Face himself, with his tea cups and flying boots and legendary Pifco treatments for those who dare to cross him. Unless you actually think about it, it could be seen as quite surprising that such tactics are used in the environment of the Houses of Parliament or Portcullis House. Verbal and psychological abuse is only to be expected, but actual physical violence - or at least the threat of it - seems a little beyond the pail. Yet, dipping guiltily as always into the Daily Mail over the weekend, I read a précis of some of Jack Straw's memoirs. Our Jack was talking quite candidly about a formidable Labour Deputy Chief Whip named Walter Harrison, around the time that he started out, and I was quite surprised to hear that Jack actually had his bollocks squeezed by this chap while standing in a corridor at the Palace of Westminster. Squeezed that is until the pips squeaked and Jack backed down (no sign of Jill) and changed his mind on the subjet du jour.

Grabbing someone's nuts and giving them a good squeeze is hardly the apogee of the art of rhetoric, I know, but is I'm sure quite an effective means of persuasion. Does it happen now, and are the (admittedly quite small number of) women treated in the same way? Doubtful, I would guess, in terms of the latter question, though perhaps not the first, which might be one of the reasons for there being so few women in Parliament. If you can't crush their knackers, what can you do to keep 'em in line, eh?

C10H5ClN2

Continuing the theme of the modern fascist state (while also - at the end - providing the long-awaited answers to my capital cities teaser) I must report that I witnessed a terrible thing today.

The title of this post (reliably as ever ripped straight out of Wikipedia) is the chemical formula for the substance commonly known as CS gas. It will be instructive, I think, to rip (from the link above) in a bit more detail the effects of this chemical on a human being:

"The chemical reacts with moisture on the skin and in the eyes, causing a burning sensation and the immediate forceful and uncontrollable shutting of the eyes. Effects usually include tears streaming from the eyes, coughing, running nose full of mucus, burning in the nose and throat areas, disorientation, dizziness and restricted breathing.It will also burn the skin where sweaty and or sunburned. In highly concentrated doses it can also induce severe coughing and vomiting. Almost all of the immediate effects wear off in a matter of minutes."

I saw this stuff deployed straight into the eyes of a guy today by an undercover policeman, who was part of a group of initially 3 police, which rapidly became 5 and quite soon as many as 10. I was waiting for a bus, carrying three bags of shopping, and listening to AIOTM (AIOTM...) on my iPod, and at first I thought I was watching an argument between some guys take that sudden turn towards physical violence. And sudden it was. In just a few moments, as I walked along, a little bit of a scuffle just erupted before me into a flurry of flailing arms and legs. One of the men turned as if to run away, and then suddenly turned back and squirted a good quantity of liquid into the eyes of one of the others, while what I later knew to be his colleagues, took advantage of his reflexive grasp at his eyes to grapple him to the ground. He struggled quite ferociously, but at last cuffs were applied and his legs were twisted and sat on.

The reinforcements in the squad car had pulled right in front of my bus, and the driver could go nowhere, and everyone in the vicinity was watching what was going on. The police were going through the guy's pockets, telling him to calm down (I had by now switched off the iPod) and then I noticed one of them walk towards an old lady and ask her if she had seen what had happened. She simply shook her head. The policeman then came towards me.

"Did you see what happened?" He asked me. I studied him carefully. He could have been Greek or Turkish, mid 30s with cropped hair, acne pocks on his face, and an amount of stubble. He was wearing track suit bottoms and a hooded jumper, but there were phones, radios and all kinds of technology stuffed into every pocket.
"I only saw the last bit," I said, "When you... brought him down."
"What? You saw the CS and all that, yeah?"
"Yeah... Kind of... It all happened really quick."
"Would you mind if I took some details, then?"

Oh fuck...

"Sure..." I hesitated. At the very least, I didn't want to have to deal with my shopping at the police station, and at the very worst I definitely did not want to get involved in any sort of dispute over police brutality.

"Did you think we treated him fairly? Used a bit too much force. Or was he having a go at us - putting up a struggle?" he went on.

"I really couldn't say. At first, I didn't even realise you were, er, police. Just thought it was a bit of aggro, and I was waiting for my bus (which was pulling away even as I spoke, thanks to the squad car being moved out of the way by one of the now many officers now on the scene) which I've just missed..."

He seemed to change his mind, and nodded at me before moving away. Another bus pulled up and I lugged my shopping bags to the door.

All very grim, so I will now share the current rundown of the capital cities playlist as mentioned in a previous post.

It's too long to write out here, so please visit this link for a spreadsheet.

I thank yew.

Bang!

I would like to point out that this post was published without knowledge of the Cumbria killings.

'Gun Salute at 12' the sign said, with the Royal Parks crown logo displayed beneath it. I thought: 'Fuck that!' and carried on cycling. But then a further sign appeared ahead of me, and a Bobby stood next to it in his short sleeved shirt. For a brief moment I contemplated an act of rebellion by zooming past the copper and pretending I could not hear his shouts. But then I thought: 'Fuck that,' again, though without the exclamation mark this time. A few sad people had started gathering, and I could see some boxes or some such laid out on the grass in front of a roped-off area, so I slowed the bike and rolled to a stop, laying it on the ground and easing myself off.

It was 11.52, and a few more people began to gather and watch the nothing that was going on in the park. I could see some 'soldiers' (you know the ones, all fancy costumes, bugles and horses, as opposed to the sandy types with built in video cameras that we've now grown used to) standing away to the left and was startled slightly when a large contingent of cavalry suddenly thundered across the grass, lugging six field guns, which they swiftly deposited before racing back to whence they had come.

The six guns (not 'six guns', if you see what I mean. They were a bit large to be pulled out of a holster) were laid out in some sort of Charge of the Light Brigade formation, with a group of cockaded troopers kneeling in perfect toy soldier stances next to each one. Bugles and drums sounded, and on the stroke of 12.00 a man, who was undoubtedly at least a colour sergeant, shouted:

'NUMBER 1... FIRE!!!'

A plume of smoke appeared from the muzzle of the gun, and - though there had been plenty of time to prepare - a split second later when the sound of the 'shell' came, it was absolutely immense. It resounded across the walls of Kensington and Knightsbridge and any bird nearby immediately took flight.

'NUMBER 2... FIRE!'

The blast was repeated, each time bringing the sound closer to where I was standing. After 6 volleys (I assumed this was to be a 21 gun salute, because that's the only kind of gun salute I know) children were beginning to cry and run away, holding their hands over their ears. I myself was already tiring of the show (it was rather repetitive) and started to wheel my bike away along the closed cycle path.

NUMBER 5... FIRE!'

To my left, I noticed a man (probably in his fifties, I would guess) who seemed to be fooling around, staggering theatrically and falling to the ground in the aftermath of the explosion in a pretend 'You got me!' kind of way. But I looked around, and couldn't see an audience for this amusing bit of mime. Then I noticed a worried look on the man's face, his brow furrowing as he struggled to stand up.

'Are you all right?' I asked him, pushing my bike towards him. He didn't answer, but continued to loll at the foot of the tree. I was by now convinced he was having a heart attack or a stroke and began to move a little more urgently, trying desperately to remember my first aid at work training.

'Are you OK?' I asked again. At last, he regained his feet and - looking half sheepish and half angry - replied:

'Yes... Fine... Thank you.' before scuttling away.

PC Plod suddenly appeared and flashed a beatific - almost bovine - smile. I asked him if he thought the man was all right, and he gave me the quite ridiculous response that it was 'probably the vibration' of the guns which had knocked him over.

'I don't think he's very well.' I said, as I watched the man walk off, glancing furtively around him the whole time.

'I'll keep an eye on him,' said the copper none too convincingly.

Where do they all come from?

Something struck me the other day. I wasn't as unfortunate as that poor sod who took a fatal blow at the G20, as my own suffering was more meta than physical. But here's what it is. I wanna tell ya a story. And all that f'shizzle.

Walking to work the other day (nice weather btw. Only a blown-out inner tube had prevented me from pushing the pedals, and - amazingly - I was passed by a cycling friend as I started my walk up the road. I saw him, but am uncertain as to whether he saw me as he flashed past) I approached Parliament Square and the now-normal gaggle of Tamils cavorting away in the morning sun.

The expected droves of Old Bill were of course standing around, nudging each other, reading texts, pointing at things and grinning, etc. But I noticed that there were crash barriers set up all along Millbank, and as I approached, I could see that there were lots and lots of police officers spaced out at fairly regular intervals down the street. Every ten yards or so there was a group of two or three of them, and parked on every side street as far as Horseferry Road were vans, each one packed to the gills with bored rozzers, leaning back on the windows with their eyes closed, fiddling with their equipment, that sort of thing.



I was amazed that such a force had been deployed, and mystified as to why it had been felt necessary. Of course, it could not be that these pigs were acting on 'intelligence', because that particular flu carrying porcine took wing sometime around the invasion of Iraq. Maybe it was the Tamils? Or the Marathon? But that didn't make any sense either. I arrived at work, and found out that the whole thing was in aid of - wait for it - the Budget!

The fucking Budget. I know times are hard and all that, but for crying out loud! The Budget. It all set me thinking about where these valiant boys in blue come from. And for that matter, where they go back to when the shouting's over. People have said to me:

"Oh, they bring them in from Surrey, Hertfordshire, blah blah blah..."

But it doesn't wash. It must cost a bloody fortune to keep all of these unnumbered thugs in kevlar for the duration of whatever 'kick-off' is going on, and even more to barrack them in times of peace. Sort it out.

Turtle doves

Doves symbolise peace, I believe.

I'm going to try and tell it as I saw it.

I was returning from Christmas shopping, and had just got off the 73 bus at Kings Cross, planning to walk to the stop in York Way and catch a further bus home. It had been a successful shopping trip, taking in 3 replays (and a match) on Lord of The Rings pinball, and a surprise result at Heal's, which appears to have gone downhill quicker than Tony Hawks with an afterburner, so I was in a good mood.

As I rounded the corner past WH Smith, I could see a little flurry of activity ahead of me, and could hear raised voices. I continued to walk, though a little more cautiously, and caught sight of a tall slim Arab looking man in a brown trench coat, seemingly throwing punches at a white police officer. Things happen quickly in these situations, and I stopped in my tracks to see the Arab man attempt to break away from the policeman. He ran only one or two steps, however, and then turned to confront the copper again. I could now see that this was a BT policeman, part of the institution once described by an ex-boss of mine as for nothing more than glorified security guards, and could also clearly see that he was - to put it mildly - losing control of the situation. There was a taxi waiting for the Arab man, a pile of luggage next to it, and two women - one young and one middle aged - who were starting to panic, standing to one side. A further hi-viz person, who was black, and whose jacket was marked with 'Events Planning' moved towards the situation, seemingly seeking to play the role of mediator.

The BT policeman had by this time reverted to a feral state. He crouched, Bruce Lee style, and drew some kind of telescopic baton from his belt, holding it next to his ear and screaming at the Arab man to get on the floor. NOW! The mediator was doing quite a good job of trying to calm the situation down, and was asking the Arab man what had happened.

"He was swearing at me!" the man was saying repeatedly, "In front of my wife!"

All the while, the policeman was screaming at him to get on the floor, and the Events guy was trying to keep a lid on things. The man's wife (I deduced this because I could hear her saying: "Hamed!") and (I guess) his daughter, were becoming increasingly freaked out by the events unfolding before them.

I could tell from the tone of the copper's voice and his agitated state that things were going to get ugly, and I must admit that my first thought was not to get involved in any trouble - not so close to Christmas. I thought of the effect of all this on the Arab man, wondering whether he had just arrived in London, or was just about to leave. No good would come of it all, I could tell. So I gingerly walked past the scene and headed towards my bus stop with something of a heavy heart. Once there, I was too far away to see further detail of what was happening, but I could hear the pitch of the shouting increase, and then heard the inevitable wail of sirens. A BT police car pulled up within 5 minutes, and another a minute after that one, which seemed to me overkill. It was also interesting that no real police seemed interested in getting involved.

Overall, the incident, or the little I saw of it, was handled incredibly badly by the authority figure, though I obviously don't know what had happened to kick it off. I assume, and this is probably a reasonable assumption, that it was something utterly pathetic.