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The Reading Festival took place last weekend, featuring some genuinely quality musicians such as Florence and the Machine, Foo Fighters, and The Vaccines. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys watching talented musicians / song-writers perform live (regardless of whether you were actually at the festival or just watched it on T.V.), then credit to you for taking an interest in what music should really be all about: originality and inspiration.
On the other hand, The X Factor has recently started showing its latest batch of ‘auditions’. The only musical talent that contestants need to have is a good singing voice; other than that, the show is all about looking / acting superficially, and having an interesting back-story. It is basically just a money-making machine for Simon Cowell and his cronies. The whole programme is so manufactured that it is offensive to legitimate music lovers.
So please people, regardless of how entertaining some of the screwed-up characters on the show might be, try to have a bit more passion for the intricacies of beautiful songs rather than just what’s on the glorified surface.
A few days ago, film director Tony Scott committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in America. Initial reports indicated his primary reason for doing so was that he had an inoperable brain tumour, but that story is currently being brought into doubt. Whatever the reason was, Scott made a decision that was his alone to make, regardless of how grim it must be to have those life-ending thoughts. It’s a decision that last week was again denied to Tony Nicklinson, a man in England who has locked-in syndrome (he is virtually unable to consciously perform any bodily movements by himself); the British courts decided that to issue a ruling allowing doctors to assist suicide for those who are unable to help themselves, and avoid prosecution for it, was not for judges to decide upon. So if a doctor attempted to help Mr Nicklinson - and it would be help - they could still be arrested for murder. How preposterous! Judges and politicians alike are continually afraid to make moral decisions for fear of a reactionary (and probably religious) backlash - shame on them! But they can still manage to make controversial decisions where international political prisoners / asylum-seekers are concerned. Yes, Julian Assange will be ingloriously deported by the British government if he dares to step outside of the Ecuadorian embassy. And rest assured this has very little to do with sexual allegations from Sweden; Ecuador was happy to release Assange into Swedish custody as soon as assurances were given that it would not be followed by deportation to America for a Wikileaks trial (where even the death penalty could be considered!), but no such assurances were ever even negotiated by the British Foreign Office. Nowadays I usually have great respect for the U.S. government under President Obama, but the witch-hunt for Assange has got way out of hand.
How is it that so many decisions seem to be going so badly wrong? Or should I simply not be surprised anymore?
The Olympics have finally drawn to a close … haven’t they? Well, if you watch the news channels, apparently not. Even now journalists are interviewing random people who are leaving the country via Heathrow airport to get their applauding opinions of London 2012; it is self-congratulation at its lamest. Anyone would think that the war in Syria (along with many other worthy news stories) had taken a fortnight’s holiday and it wasn’t quite ready to resume just yet, so time may as well be filled with bullshit! Reporters (and anybody else who has drooled too much over the last two weeks) need to take a deep breath and realise that sport is not the most important thing in the world; it’s just a form of entertainment that no longer requires being rammed down people’s throats!
Crows (or corvids, to give them their technical title) are one of the most intelligent species of bird. I will cite two examples:
1. On a bird table was placed two plastic transparent boxes. In one box was placed a piece of food, in the other box was placed a long stick, and on the bird table itself was placed a short stick. Through trial and error crows were able to figure out (using powers of deduction that most birds simply don’t have) that the short stick could be used to remove the long stick, and then the long stick could be used to remove the piece of food for consumption.
2. On a bird table was placed a cylinder half full with water, with a piece of unreachable food floating on the water; to the side of the cylinder were some stones. Crows deduced that by placing the stones into the cylinder, the water level would gradually rise until the piece of food was reachable.
Needless to say, I love crows.
But at the other end of the ornithological evolutionary scale are wood pigeons. I can only presume that these birds succeed through some kind of mass breeding programme; it certainly isn’t through intelligence. Wood pigeons can, at any given moment, commit suicide by flying full force into a window (perhaps believing it to be a tree!) or by standing still in front of a speeding vehicle. They will fight aimlessly with each other, in an ineffective and annoyingly flappy kind of way, even though there is plenty of food to go around. Needless to say, I hate wood pigeons.
If ornithology were anthropomorphised, I like to think that crows would be the kind of civilised human beings who have deduced that co-operation is more important than competition; wood pigeons would be the underclass!
Every week I read the Stourbridge Chronicle (for that is where I am from) and a local story has recently caught my attention. The annual Stourbridge Harvest Festival - enjoyment for all the family - has been cancelled because financial resources have instead been ploughed into Diamond Jubilee celebrations and Olympic fanfare. I imagine this type of cancellation is happening in other areas also. So it’s nice to know that the apparent ‘trickle-down’ effect from big events to local businesses is clearly in effect … or, in fact, not. The demonstrations of national grandeur have actually hindered more regional community enjoyment. It’s almost as if London takes priority! No surprise there.
And in a separate development, I’ve recently discovered that local housing authorities in England are only legally obliged to help homeless people if the destitute are in ‘priority need’, e.g. have dependent children, are victims of domestic violence or natural disasters, are disabled, etc. So if I (who would not fall into a ‘priority need’ category) were to become homeless, I would be left for muggers to gladly beat the shit out of me on the street! I’m not saying it would be easy in these austere times to find funding for everyone, but even a safe room to squat in would surely be better than a cold pavement. Good old right-wing Britain: don‘t bother to help everybody because a few of them might sort themselves out and the rest hopefully won‘t get noticed!
