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The revolution is only a train stop away

admin — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:52:22 +0000

There is a revolutionary movement growing in this country. British people are defying those in authority and forcing the powerful to change their plans. At the moment the movement is small, but it is growing and the time when those in power will be forced to strike against the agitators or surrender to anarchy is fast approaching.

It started in St Albans.

The battlefields are the trains and platforms of First Capital Connects’ shambolic empire.

For months passengers have endured terrible services. Over Christmas and through January the service became unbearable – first a work to rule by the drivers saw services cut in half (how could a company be so reliant on overtime working? How many hours were those drivers actually doing?) and then a complete inability to cope with snow (which they were still blaming for delays three weeks after the snow had stopped falling) meant that journeys that should take half an hour were taking two and three hours. For six consecutive working days in January my combined commute time (which should be a little over an hour) was more than four hours.

On one particularly wretched day I spent seven and a half hours trying to get to and from work.

Even by their own figures (which they fiddled by launching a ludicrously cut back time table for much of the period) FCC reckons that one in four of its trains ran late in January and February. This was when they were running just 3 or 4 trains an hour on what should be one of the busiest commuter lines into London.

Trying to get to and from Central London for work was a depressing, distressing and infuriating trial – made worse by the knowledge that every single person on that train was paying handsomely for the privilege of being abused by a company utterly incapable of organising its services.

Now it seems that people are starting to crack.

There’s already a petition at Number 10’s website and a I Hate First Capital Connect group on Facebook passed 1,000 members in 48 hours and now has almost 2,500 members, but its direct action that’ll bring the buggers down.

On 11 February, Debra Schiman (I didn’t know her name but she’s a fairly familiar figure to travellers going in to London from St Albans because she’s generally carrying a teddy bear and promoting her book – Travels With My Teddy Bear – to more or less anyone who’ll listen) refused to get off a train when they announced that because of congestion they were cancelling her train and turning it around.

Just one woman saying no.

But that wasn’t the end of it. On Friday a train coming North broke down in central London just before 8AM causing 45 minute delays while they tried to move it. To try and get their timetable back on track FCC cancelled a train at Cricklewood but initially 20 passengers refused to get off, even when threatened by staff that the police would be called.

Eventually large number of other passengers got back on the train.

And, after a half hour stand off, FCC were forced to back down and the train ran on.

Now I’ve always believed that the English were congenitally incapable of revolution. It’s not that that they don’t get angry enough it’s just that their anger most commonly manifests itself in the stern “tut!” and a bit of a grumble.

But taking over trains? That’s just one step away from storming a palace.

I’m telling you folks, today it’s FCC management, tomorrow the Queen herself will tremble.

Otis Gibbs “Joe Hill’s Ashes”

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:43:39 +0000

Funny how things workout sometimes. No sooner had I finished rambling on about the PSA’s political songs than I got an email from singer Otis Gibbs saying that his new album Joe Hill’s Ashes was available for download.

I’d never heard of Otis Gibbs until I saw him support Billy Bragg just over a year ago – where he did a great job – and persuaded me to pick up all his albums in the bar after the show. Grandpa Walked the Picket Line, 49^th and Melancholy, Once I Dreamed of Christmas (not exactly an anti-Christmas album, but perhaps a realistic Christmas album – one where Santa stabs Lloyd the Reindeer in a bar fight and features the classic Crap for Christmas) and One Day our Whispers are all good examples of the blue-collar American singer songwriter’s art. There’s bits of folk and bits of rock and bits of blues and a dollop of country. Reading about his life (http://otisgibbs.com/) and listening to his lyrics you can see that Woody Guthrie was a big influence on the young Gibbs – and there’s some of Guthrie in the music, but the most obvious influence is Steve Earle (though, perhaps inevitably, there are threads from the likes Dylan, Springsteen and Willie Nelson on some of the tracks on some of the albums).

Gibbs palette tends towards the small town and rural which gives his music a distinct alt-country edge and his left-wing politics are never far from the surface. Perhaps his most memorable song – certainly when you hear it live, when it can set the spine a-tingling – is “The People’s Day” from One Day Our Whispers – with its “one day our whispers will be louder than your screams” sing-a-long chorus.

From a first listen, the thing that strikes you about this new release is the stronger production. Even listening via the live streaming option, Otis’s voice sounds richer and stronger and more in your face than earlier albums and there’s a lovely folky but restrained accompaniment to many of the songs. It’s a long way from the rough and tumble recording of 49^th and Melancholy.

On a first listen, the opening track “Joe Hill’s Ashes” is a keeper and “Twelve Men Dead in Sago”and “Outdated, Frustrated and Blue” share a sweet melancholy sound and a restrained bitterness at the decline of industrial America.

Track seven, “The Town That Killed Kennedy” leaps out of the headphones – with Gibbs straying towards Tom Waits territory to pretty good effect. The album really takes off from there, “The Ballad of Johnny Crooked Tree”, the almost spiritual “I Walked Out in the River”, the boppy “Cross Country” all make an impact but its the doleful duo “My New Mind” and “Something More” that wind up the album in somber but powerful one-two that leave the strongest impression – I especially like “Something More”.

You can listen to the whole album by Wannamaker, Indiana’s finest for free or download it for $9.99 (about £6 given the current PayPal exchange rate). The CD is released on May 4 in the US and May 24 everywhere else. I recommend it. Frankly you’ve got a love a guy who finishes his biography with the line: “Recently, he has been examining ways of using bird feeding as a form of civil disobedience.”

Political songs

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:55:56 +0000

So the Political Studies Association is holding a ballot to identify the top ten political songs as part of their 60^th Anniversary celebrations. Below the break is the list of the songs they’ve put forward – I’m listing them all because you can’t get to it unless you’re a member of the PSA (members can also nominate one song of their own…)

The songs are: “chosen to represent different times and places, but also to reflect the various ways in which music is allied to politics – in expressions of protest, but also of patriotism and propaganda.”

Annie Lennox & Aretha Franklin Sisters are doing it for themselves

Anon. Bella Ciao

Barry McGuire Eve of Destruction

Billie Holiday Strange Fruit

Billy Bragg Which side are you on?

Bob Dylan The Times They Are a changing

Bob Marley Redemption Song

Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA

Carl Bean I was born this way

Cecil A. Spring-Rice I vow to thee my country

Charles A. Tindley We Shall Overcome

Charly García Nos siguen pegando abajo

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle Le Marseillaise

Donovan Universal Soldier

Edwin Starr War

Elvis Costello Tramp The Dirt Down

Enoch Sontonga Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika

Eugène Pottier The Internationale

Fela Kuti Zombie

Gil Scott Heron The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Horst Wessel Die Fahne hoch

Jim Connell The Red Flag

John Lennon Imagine

Joni Mitchell Big Yellow Taxi

Leornard Cohen The Partisan

Li Youyuan The East is Red

Marvin Gaye What’s Going On?

Midnight Oil Beds are Burning

Nena 99 Luftaballons

Nina Simone Mississippi Goddam

Pete Seeger Where have all the flowers gone?

Peter Gabriel Biko

Plastic Ono Band Give Peace a Chance

Public Enemy Fight the Power

Randy Newman Political Science

RATM Killing in the name

Robert Wyatt Shipbuilding

Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter

Sex Pistols God Save The Queen

The Beatles Revolution

The Clash Know Your Rights

The Cranberries Zombie

The Jam Eton Rifles

The Police Invisible Sun

The Specials AKA Free Nelson Mandela

The Strawbs Part of the Union

Tracy Chapman Talkin’ ’bout a revolution

U2 Sunday Bloody Sunday

UB40 1 in 10

Verdi Chorus of Hebrew Slaves

Victor Jara Te Recuerdo Amanda

William Blake Jerusalem

Woody Guthrie This Land is Your Land

You can see they’ve tried, but this is one middle class playlist, isn’t it? One rap track? And, I might be wrong here, but I think the most recent song on the list is Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name Of (which is only 18 years old).

Some of the choices are just total head-scratchers. Barry McGuire’s Eve of Destruction (really?), Charly García’s Nos siguen pegando abajo (have they listened to it) and while the Horst Wessel Song (Die Fahne hoch) might be of interest as a piece of history, as a piece of music it’s a baleful dirge as hollow and empty as the rest of NAZI art.

I know a list like this will be trying to include more than a token number of women, but if Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves is the best they can manage then it isn’t a task worth undertaking. But then what sort of weird system includes that but not Aretha Franklin’s immeasurably superior Respect?

And it gets worse before it gets better…

UB40? Midnight Oil? Nena? The Cranberries?

Please god, no!

I have a soft spot for Tracy Chapman – I saw her at the Nelson Mandela concert in Wembley where she first came to people’s attention by literally stopping the show with an acoustic performance of tenderness amongst an awful lot of bluster – but if Talkin’ ‘bout a Revolution is one of the great political songs of all times, then I’m a Tory.

This is all political music for people who own a Bang and Olufsen stereo.

Some of the artists were inevitable but the song choices odd. Billy Bragg had to be there, but Which Side Are You On? might be strident but it’s not a patch on A World Turned Upside Down, Between the Wars or Waiting for the Great Leap Forward.

Born in the USA might be Bruce Springsteen’s most recognisable anthem, but as a song about the lives of the blue collar workers forgotten by Reagan’s America The River or anything on the Nebraska album knocks it into a cocked hat.

And, personally, I’d choose Who is the Leader? as Edwin Starr’s best political song over War, although that is funky song.

There are, to be fair, a number of songs I wouldn’t argue deserve their place…

Billie Holiday Strange Fruit

Bob Dylan The Times They Are a changing

(although Maggie’s Farm might be better)

Bob Marley Redemption Song

Marvin Gaye What’s Going On?

Jim Connell The Red Flag

Robert Wyatt Shipbuilding

The Specials AKA Free Nelson Mandela

William Blake Jerusalem

Woody Guthrie This Land is Your Land

…all, more or less, demand inclusion. But how can I vote on a list that doesn’t include (off the top of my iPod):

Outkast Bombs Over Baghdad

KRS 1 Sound of the Police

NWA Fuck tha Police

The Beat Stand Down Margaret

Desmond Dekker Israelites

Al Green A Change is Gonna Come

That Petrol Emotion Big Decision

James Brown Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud

Alabama 3 Mao Tse Tung Said

The Men They Couldn’t Hang The Ghost of Cable Street

Skunk Anansie Yes It’s Fucking Political

The The Mercy Beat

And then there are the specifically Irish songs…

Stiff Little Fingers Alternative Ulster

(I mean, I like Invisible Sun by The Police as much as the next man who has been forced to listen to it by someone holding an industrial nailgun to his head, but if you absolutely have to have a song about the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, this is the one)

The Wolftones James Connolly

The Chieftains The Foggy Dew

(Well there’d have to be a couple of rebel songs in there)

The Fureys The Green Fields of France

(best anti-war song ever)

The Pogues The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda

(the second best anti-war song ever)

And while I was writing that list, I thought of these…

Skinnyman Council Estate of the Mind

The Beastie Boys It Takes Time To Build

Kanye West Diamonds

(I know, he’s an asshole – this is a great song)

Everlast The Stone in My Hand

Faithless Mass Destruction

Hard-Fi Cash Machine

Dead Kennedys California Uber Alles

Dead Kennedys Holiday in Cambodia

The Who Won’t Get Fooled Again

Pete Seeger Casey Jones (The Union Scab)

Pete Seeger Guantanemera

The Chieftains & Sinead O’Connor The Foggy Dew

MC5 Motor City is Burning

The Housemartins Build

The The Heartland

All that being said, it’s a no-brainer as to what should win the greatest political song of all time. If Le Marseillaise doesn’t make you want to man a barricade in the name of some cause – even if it is sinking Greenpeace ships – then you’re probably already dead. It’s rousing, it’s brilliant when sung en masse and it’s stood the test of time.

Back again

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:19:07 +0000

So, long time no blog…

No excuses, just busy, but that’s probably going to change over the next few months so I thought I’d get back on the horse and see whether we cleared some hurdles (or something).

So, straight to business, having lost a lot of work to a computer malfunction recently I’ve been writing quite a lot.

I now have four new short stories at various stages of finished and an outline, research and four chapters of, of all things, a horror novel set in the trenches of World War One sitting on my (multi-multi-backed-up) hard drives. I’m not sure how I’ve ended up writing a horror novel – the story just jumped up at me and though I’ve had my doubts: I don’t really like horror novels, especially ones with monsters (which this one certainly does) and I’m terrified of doing that thing that genre outsiders do of repeating stuff that’s gone before. At the same time, however, it’s a story that seems to want to be told so I’m going to try to treat it seriously and finish it.

The next few weeks/months should see three short stories published, at last. Proper Little Soldier – in Conflicts a NewCon Press anthology being launched at Eastercon, Barcode Babes – in DayBreak, Jetse DeVries’s online companion to his much-anticipated Shine anthology and Eskeragh – in (I think, but I’m not certain) the next issue of Albedo One. Thinking about it, I suppose Eskeragh should be classified as a horror story as well… maybe I do have a darkside?

I’ve also been busy with BSFA stuff – the next issue of Focus is just about ready to go, I’ve been laying up a really fascinating book which members will receive soon that has been edited by Niall Harrison which surveys writers on their views about sf and f and their roles within it. And I’ve been administering the James White Award – the closing date for which is only a few days away.

Oh, and I’ve quit my job and am looking at alternative forms of gainful employment.

All ideas welcome.

And then there’s Eastercon. I’m on four or five panels of one hue or another – I’ll post details for those vaguely interested later. I hope Moira and Niamh might be able to come along to this one – which is exciting and a bit weird – they’ve never been to a Con before, who knows what they’ll make of it (actually Niamh won’t care because it’s in a hotel and she loves hotels, so she’ll be happy).

It will be nice to have them around (if we can sort out hotel accommodation – I’m waiting to hear back from the folk at Odyssey). I’m pretty hopeless at conventions at just going up and talking to strangers (or even, sometimes, people I know) – yet people never believe me when I say I’m shy, presumably because I overcompensate horribly when I finally do talk to people!

Plus, I can’t wait to see fandom through Niamh’s eyes. I think some of Eastercon could blow her mind.

That’s it for now, I’ve also been doing a lot of reading – which I’m going to get around to talking about here in the near future.

Back soon.

Dead dogs and weird children

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:15:14 +0000

Wil Wheaton’s dog died – losing a pet is horrible. I know the cynics will roll their eyes but if you’ve lived with an animal – especially a dog – it’s almost impossible not to imbue them with human characteristics. They become friends. And they’re more reliable than most humans. I can still be brought to sudden tears if the memories of my childhood dog’s (Rusty) death sneak up on me…

Wil’s post reminded me of the weirdest thing that happened over the weekend.

My parents had a dog that died about 18 months ago. Nipper was a Yorkshire terrier/Highland terrier cross and – as the mix of breeds implies – he was a hugely energetic, mentally unstable, tiny ball of fluff with an ego the size of Texas. He was old (thirteen) and hadn’t been particularly well for a long time. But he died when my parents were over here with us for my daughter’s birthday party and it was an unpleasant shock for them to come home to. Nipper had been staying with the neighbours – in whose house he probably spent almost as much time as he did with my parents – so it wasn’t as though he was being neglected or anything.

My daughter, like most children, would like a pet – I’d love to have a dog too – but circumstances don’t allow it, at least not in a way that I’d be happy enough. So Niamh kind of adopted Nipper as her pet – even though he was a grouchy old mutt who didn’t really like children and, by the time Niamh met him, was only intermittently interested of clambering out of his doggie bed to kill any small animal (or squeaky toy) that was foolish enough to come in range of his jaws or to sit around your feet until you stood on him.

Even so, Niamh can’t have actually met Nipper more than four or five times in her life (though she did “talk” to him on the phone a lot – don’t ask).

She was really upset when the dog died. And she kept mentioning him. Saying how much she missed Nipper. Fretting about what happened to him. Drawing him in her pictures. Frankly, it was a bit strange.

My parents have been over this week. Pitting Niamh and Grandparents in a mutual appreciation duel to the death. We said goodbye to them on Sunday night, came home, got Niamh ready for bed and then she burst into tears.

“What’s wrong?” Her mum asked – expecting a torrent about how she was missing her granny and granddad.

“I killed Nipper!”

“What?”

Through floods of tears on a scale only a six-year-old girl (and perhaps an Old Testament god) can manage she blurted: “I wanted granny and granddad to come over to my party and that made them leave Nipper behind on his own and he died. I thought they’d leave him enough food until they came back but he died. And it’s my fault!”

Three things that strike me about this…

How can a little girl who talks non-stop about everything and anything in one long stream of consciousness have kept feelings like that a secret for 18 months?
Can “catholic guilt” be a genetic thing? She certainly hasn’t been exposed to it in her environment.
Kids are weird. And complicated. And I don’t know half as much about mine as I thought I did.

To James Purnell and his cohort…

admin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 03:30:14 +0000

Very briefly.

You know what really pisses off ordinary members of the Labour Party? It’s having spent the best part of 20 years being told we mustn’t rock the boat, we mustn’t challenge the leadership, we must always be loyal, and we must never allow the press to allow us to appear split. Because divided parties are doomed. Aren’t they?

And then, after we made years of sacrifices waiting for you milksops to deliver, we get to spend the last three or four years watching one Blairite arsewipe after another publicly indulge their plotting, hissy-fits and whining.

Piss off, the lot of you, and don’t the door hit your arse on the way out.

Twitter Updates for 2009-03-26

admin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:00:00 +0000

@garethlpowell Oh, nasty. I don’t know about Orwell, you definitely look like Baldrick balancing a slug on his lip in Blackadder Goes Forth in reply to garethlpowell #

Twitter Updates for 2009-03-25

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Punishment for being rude to PGR? Immediately fell ill – again – oh dear. But I will make Eastercon! #
@bigdumbobject What? How did that happen? in reply to bigdumbobject #
@bigdumbobject I can do that. in reply to bigdumbobject #

Twitter Updates for 2009-03-24

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:00:00 +0000

@PaulGrahamRaven Easterconners say, don’t be such a wuss – if I can plan to make the whole thing, so can you you big baby! in reply to PaulGrahamRaven #

Twitter Updates for 2009-03-23

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Just discovered they’re planning a MacGyver remake – they better not recast… #