It's only pathetic if it doesn't work.

[alexsarll]

Genuine query: has anybody heard via a news story, online chum or any other channel of an emo kid with an ASBO? You see, saps often advance the theory that ASBOs are just being used as a new way for oldsters to disapprove of The Kidz, but we know from Mail articles and the like that some grown-ups do indeed disapprove of emo, and yet I have never once seen a picture of an ASBO kid who wasn't of the chav type. And I need to research this topic before deciding whether to advocate the summary execution of anyone breaching an ASBO for the third time, a policy which came to me the other day and is at least superficially appealing.

On Michael Grade's defection from BBC to ITV: "If they've got all that money to offer him, why don't they just use it to make better programmes?" - Jade Goody, Eight Out Of Ten Cats. If Jade Goody can identify the flaws in your business plan, you have truly serious problems.
(And when did Captain Jack become such a panel show whore? I know he was already every other sort of whore, but still...)

Confetti is not exactly a great film, but if you like recent British comedy, it's a pretty entertaining one. Jessica Stevenson, Martin Freeman, two of Peep Show (in the nude, terrifyingly enough), Guy from Green Wing, Jimmy Carr (in the small doses which serve him best) - and none of them are having to do their best with a dud script, because there wasn't a script, and they're all improvising. It's more an extended sketch show than anything else, but with this calibre of comic, that's hardly a problem. The main problem is, with whom are you meant to watch it? It's a little too slight to watch alone, and watching it with someone you're seeing would be pretty suicidal, one way or another. I would imagine it's pretty safe for those already married; otherwise, I'd recommend watching it with an ex.

Not words I thought I'd be saying any time soon, but: poor bloody Mel Gibson. Yes, I am inclined to think that he probably has anti-Semitic tendencies, and that his 'moment of drunken madness' was not the anomaly he'd like to claim; for that, I still believe he deserves a sound kicking at the very least. But so far as I can tell, Apocalypto is the most faithful depiction of Mayan culture we're ever likely to see on screen, which is apparently not good enough for some. Never mind that it shows the stature and achievements of Mayan civilisation - it also shows them with bones through their noses, so that must mean it's offensively portraying them as savages! Well, except that lots of people in the West have their septums (septa?) pierced these days, and that the Mayans did adorn themselves thus, you cretins. And it shows human sacrifice too! Well, so what? The Mayans sacrificed people. But these days, everyone seems very keen to disavow human sacrifice, don't they? Whether it be those pathetic modern so-called 'Druids' denouncing the one thing we know for sure about the real historical Druids; or Papua New Guinea, complaining when Boris Johnson associated the country with cannibalism even though it was going on there at least until the 1960s. How can they seriously complain about cultural imperialism when they're airbrushing their own history to make it more acceptable to the judaeo-christian-derived aspects of Western morality? Contemptible.

Festive Poptimism tonight, hurrah! And then Gloomy tomorrow, I think.

Comments

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that you can receive an ASBO for a non-illegal activity (such as being seen only in your underwear - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4319653.stm), meaning your policy would be wrong on every possible conceivable level.

-x-

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm aware of one or two daft ones being handed out, and clearly something needs to be done about those, but I'm still interested on the specific point of the emo kids, for the reasons outlined above.

And it's generally my feeling that the ideal system has its laws rationalised to exclude unjust intrusions on individual liberty - but that once those laws are so organised, they should be applied with a rigor verging on ruthlessness.

GYPSY ASBO ATE MY MORTGAGE.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The daft ones often aren't all that daft, once you find out the context. Making an ASBO look stupid by misrepresenting the circumstances surrounding it is just the liberal equivalent of writing a daily mail article.

Re: GYPSY ASBO ATE MY MORTGAGE.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

So are you saying there are *no* unfair ASBOs?

Re: GYPSY ASBO ATE MY MORTGAGE.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

"Unfair" is a subjective term, and you know how I feel about "disproportionate"... there are some I would personally, insofar as I know the details, not have been minded to grant. I will go that far.

Re: GYPSY ASBO ATE MY MORTGAGE.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like 'disproportionate'! As in the Israeli military's once-official doctrine of 'disproportionate retaliation'. Or, and I can't remember where I first heard this, 'Do unto others as they do unto you - but with larger calibre weaponry'.

Re: LESBI@N ASBO GAVE DIANA BIRD FLU

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Well exactly, that's what I mean, I like disproportionate, I don't like it as an insult word. Unfair is a similar word really, isn't it, in this context? What does it mean?

Re: LESBI@N ASBO GAVE DIANA BIRD FLU

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Shooting someone for persistent burglary = arguably disproportionate, but I'd approve.
Shooting someone who didn't actually do it = unfair.

Re: LESBI@N ASBO GAVE DIANA BIRD FLU

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I'd draw a fairly significant distinction between an ASBO given for something which doesn't merit an ASBO (which is what I assumed you meant by "daft") and an ASBO given for something which does merit it, but which is given to the wrong person.

That is an insurmountable problem of all legal systems (unless you have pervasive CCTV, DNA banks, etc. Bring that on).

Re: LESBI@N ASBO GAVE DIANA BIRD FLU

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, that seems to be only half the comment I wrote, presumably because the computer timed out. How annoying. Anyway, you have in the past, perhaps for effect, said that the punishment of the innocent (eg by profiteering traffic wardens) is OK because it increases fear of the law, with which I disagree in the strongest possible terms. But yes, there are also ASBOs for things which may well have been done but which hardly seem to merit sanction - the gardening in bikini example being as good as any.

Re: LESBI@N ASBO GAVE DIANA BIRD FLU

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I have never said that punishment of the innocent is OK because it increases fear of the law.

I have said that punishment of the innocent is an inevitable corollary of any system of punishment which is not administered by an omniscient being, and that I am morally at ease with that, rather than choosing to live in a state of liberal denial where the innocent always go free - and certainly prefer it to letting the guilty out to offend again on some sort of 'just in case' mentalist.

millie tant

[missfrost.livejournal.com]

(That word is neither p0rnographic or profane is it?)

Re: millie tant

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but remember the filters that didn't like peacockpunk's alias? There's some real wrongheadedness about.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Well yes, that's rather the point. They're Anti-Social Behaviour Orders. If they were only for illegal activities they'd be called Criminal Behaviour Orders or, more probably, Police Cautions.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

I believe it is fundamentally wrong that one can now be sent to jail despite having broken no law.

-x-

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 are laws, as in common use is an order issued by a court, which is what an ASBO is.

It's not much different in principle from interpretable common law offences, or detention for contempt of court. It seems much more wrong to me that we would have to ban everyone from engaging in a particular activity which, in and of itself, is not problematic, just to prevent a small number of people whose participation in that activity is damaging to others around them, from engaging in it, when we can have a much more tightly-drawn ban that doesn't affect the decent majority.

More importantly, they work.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

You think it is OK to send someone to prison for doing the gardening in their bikini?

But then, I don't know why I bother trying to engage in intelligent debate with someone who thinks digging up human remains and using them in a blackmail plot is a legitimate tactic in the campaign against animal testing.

-x-

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think it's OK to send someone to prison for doing the gardening in their bikini. I think that it's OK for the courts to have the option of choosing prison as the appropriate punishment for someone who deliberately disobeys a court order.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

"I loved Gibson's film Braveheart, I really did. But there is something very different about portraying a group of people, who are now recovering from 500 years of colonisation, as violent and brutal."

there's a joke about scotland in there somewhere, isn't there?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They might like to think so, forgetting it was their king who got England's throne, not vice versa.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

oh, so that made the highland clearances alright then ;)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Like most supposed English oppressions of the Scots, that was in fact largely a Scot-on-Scot business.

(Sorry, but being a hybrid myself I find all Scots vs English stuff deeply annoying)

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

You should have taken a cracker. They are v christmassy.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But it seems a bit soon!

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

You could have placed it about your person and let its christmassy vibes infuse you. or something.

hahahaha

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure where you're suggesting I put it...

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

What is an emo kid?

Bless!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Young folk, a bit goth of eye make-up, but generally with spiky hair, studded belts and My Chemical Romance hoodies.

Re: Bless!

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

Oh. In my day, we (I) used to call them skate-goths.

I suppose you could simply extend your argument to 'indie' kids, couldn't you?

Re: Bless!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but there's been scant ASBO-era Mail-ranting about them.

Re: Bless!

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

So has The Mail been ranting about emo kids in particular? Blimey. Can you get asylum-seeking emo kids? That would deffo make The Mail explode.

critical mass on defn of "emo kid" here

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

See We Hate Emo Kids on FT, put aside your afternoon.

They are so NOT skate goths :)