A small act of heroism redeems the day
Jan. 24th, 2007 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexsarllThe problem with snow in London is that, as wonderful a dusting as it gives the Capital, it so seldom lasts. I thought the total SNAFU on the Underground would at least mean I could walk across Green Park before it melted, but even before 10 it was mostly gone - though there was just enough left outside the Palace for one enterprising tourist youth to attempt to snowball a bobby's helmet off, Woosterishly.
I enjoyed Mark Radcliffe's Sparks documentary a great deal, and would recommend all those with the facilities Listen Again. Interesting that they nearly ended each verse of 'This Town Ain't Big Enough' with a different movie cliche, but decided this would be "taking lack of repetition too far", especially given the way their recent work has often been so fascinated with the artistic possibilities of repetition. And Ron sounded strangely normal, even when claiming with apparent sincerity that he was surprised people found a "German political dimension" in his facial hair.
The threat that, if anti-homophobia laws are imposed, then top international p@edophile conspiracy the Catholic Church will voluntarily reduce its contact with young children, has to be a contender for Worst Blackmail Ever. I would hope by now we're all aware that every justification the Church has attempted to claim would also, applied consistently, allow them exemption from race- and sex-discrimination laws too - but matters wax ever more absurd now the C of E have taken the Roman cause. "Rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well-meaning", you see.
Applied logically this means that when Bloody Mary was burning Protestants, as her conscience dictated, the Archbishops of the Church of England are now saying she was right to do so. And when her successors were doing likewise to the Catholics, as their consciences dictated, the current Catholic church is likewise saying they were right to do so. So either they are now applauding prior attempts to extinguish their faiths, or they are worthless hypocrites claiming "rights of conscience" when in fact they will forge any desperate and once-anathema alliance in the cause of remaining above a law which offends their ancient bigotry.
I'm not sure if Damon Albarn ever actually said The Good, The Bad & The Queen was a companion piece to Parklife, or whether it's just one of those pieces of press release 'information', but either way it's true. Not that Blur were ever as one-dimensionally jaunty as some accounts of them would have it (this album has a lot in common with 'He Thought Of Cars' and 'Essex Dogs' in particular, not to mention the distress lurking just beneath the surface even of their cheerier numbers), but nor did they ever make anything quite this consistently drenched in doom. Near the start, the title 'Eighties Life' makes some of this clear - comparing current anxieties to Cold War fears, it paints the nineties whose bright and brittle optimism Blur did so much to define as a blip, albeit a much missed one - the album keeps looking back on a time "before the war and the tidal wave" and, while Blur always had their apocalyptic twinges they used to be more about a sated, meaningless future; now that "oceanographers are charting the rise of the seas", such a Brave New World seems quite cosy. There are some lines I'm not so sure about ("don't kick the crackheads on the green, they are a political party" is either satirical genius or utter Barleyism) but the abiding mood is such a powerful sense of national melancholy: "wouldn't leave until all England's tears are done"; "a ship across the estuary, Sundays lost in melancholy" and above all, "I don't want to live a war that's got no end in our time". And coming so soon after Phonogram issue 4, where Albarn was King under the Hill of Britpop's fallen Camelot, this shambling revenant of an album seems terribly apt.
(The grammar and spelling in the lyrics booklet, incidentally, is atrocious; I've corrected it in the quotes above. Part of me wondered whether that was a deliberate part of the album's picture of national decline, but I suspect I was being over-charitable)
This is the last weekend of January coming, and I've hibernated too long. I am going OUT, dammit. Tomorrow, to The Beautiful & Damned, on Friday to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
martylog's Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra (sorry, Lewisham pirates) and on Saturday to the New Royal Family show before heading on to Picturebox at Gloomy. And this time I'm not talking maybes or 'is anyone else going?', I'm just going.
(Though it's a shame that none of these events really has music policies where marking the sad passing of Disco D would be appropriate. The first track I ever heard from him was the excellent Princess Superstar collaboration 'Fvck Me On The Dancefloor', but it was 'Peon' which cemented his place in my heart)
I enjoyed Mark Radcliffe's Sparks documentary a great deal, and would recommend all those with the facilities Listen Again. Interesting that they nearly ended each verse of 'This Town Ain't Big Enough' with a different movie cliche, but decided this would be "taking lack of repetition too far", especially given the way their recent work has often been so fascinated with the artistic possibilities of repetition. And Ron sounded strangely normal, even when claiming with apparent sincerity that he was surprised people found a "German political dimension" in his facial hair.
The threat that, if anti-homophobia laws are imposed, then top international p@edophile conspiracy the Catholic Church will voluntarily reduce its contact with young children, has to be a contender for Worst Blackmail Ever. I would hope by now we're all aware that every justification the Church has attempted to claim would also, applied consistently, allow them exemption from race- and sex-discrimination laws too - but matters wax ever more absurd now the C of E have taken the Roman cause. "Rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well-meaning", you see.
Applied logically this means that when Bloody Mary was burning Protestants, as her conscience dictated, the Archbishops of the Church of England are now saying she was right to do so. And when her successors were doing likewise to the Catholics, as their consciences dictated, the current Catholic church is likewise saying they were right to do so. So either they are now applauding prior attempts to extinguish their faiths, or they are worthless hypocrites claiming "rights of conscience" when in fact they will forge any desperate and once-anathema alliance in the cause of remaining above a law which offends their ancient bigotry.
I'm not sure if Damon Albarn ever actually said The Good, The Bad & The Queen was a companion piece to Parklife, or whether it's just one of those pieces of press release 'information', but either way it's true. Not that Blur were ever as one-dimensionally jaunty as some accounts of them would have it (this album has a lot in common with 'He Thought Of Cars' and 'Essex Dogs' in particular, not to mention the distress lurking just beneath the surface even of their cheerier numbers), but nor did they ever make anything quite this consistently drenched in doom. Near the start, the title 'Eighties Life' makes some of this clear - comparing current anxieties to Cold War fears, it paints the nineties whose bright and brittle optimism Blur did so much to define as a blip, albeit a much missed one - the album keeps looking back on a time "before the war and the tidal wave" and, while Blur always had their apocalyptic twinges they used to be more about a sated, meaningless future; now that "oceanographers are charting the rise of the seas", such a Brave New World seems quite cosy. There are some lines I'm not so sure about ("don't kick the crackheads on the green, they are a political party" is either satirical genius or utter Barleyism) but the abiding mood is such a powerful sense of national melancholy: "wouldn't leave until all England's tears are done"; "a ship across the estuary, Sundays lost in melancholy" and above all, "I don't want to live a war that's got no end in our time". And coming so soon after Phonogram issue 4, where Albarn was King under the Hill of Britpop's fallen Camelot, this shambling revenant of an album seems terribly apt.
(The grammar and spelling in the lyrics booklet, incidentally, is atrocious; I've corrected it in the quotes above. Part of me wondered whether that was a deliberate part of the album's picture of national decline, but I suspect I was being over-charitable)
This is the last weekend of January coming, and I've hibernated too long. I am going OUT, dammit. Tomorrow, to The Beautiful & Damned, on Friday to
martylog's Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra (sorry, Lewisham pirates) and on Saturday to the New Royal Family show before heading on to Picturebox at Gloomy. And this time I'm not talking maybes or 'is anyone else going?', I'm just going. (Though it's a shame that none of these events really has music policies where marking the sad passing of Disco D would be appropriate. The first track I ever heard from him was the excellent Princess Superstar collaboration 'Fvck Me On The Dancefloor', but it was 'Peon' which cemented his place in my heart)
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 07:49 pm (UTC)Oh, Martin!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:28 pm (UTC)Friday sounds interesting but plans have already been made. You going to the Rowland HDIF btw? Or is it a smidgon too smindie for your tastes?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:46 pm (UTC)Making great music != selecting great music
Date: 2007-01-25 12:59 am (UTC)See also: Arguing with shopkeepers over the price of crisps. 49p? Having a larf innit guv?
Re: Making great music != selecting great music
Date: 2007-01-25 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-24 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 09:50 am (UTC)I wanna see NRF but I dunno if I can be bothered to go out whilst it is so cold! God I am a wuss.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 10:37 am (UTC)xx
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 01:00 pm (UTC)I think it just might be the latter.
-x-
no subject
Date: 2007-01-25 07:35 pm (UTC)Petition pointing out the absurdity of having an Opus Dei Equality Minister here (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/kellyweu/).