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alexsarllIt is at once testament to the genius of PG Wodehouse, and slightly annoying, that even his golf stories are worth reading. I spend most of them baffled as to what is actually meant to be happening, and it would be so much easier if I could just skip that section of his work - but if I did, I would miss lines like: "Attila the Hun might have broken off his engagement to her, but nobody except Attila the Hun, and he only on one of his best mornings."
"One of our goals is to improve the atmosphere of the IWC, which has become one of confrontation, and to improve dialogue," says Japan, as part of its efforts to officially resume commercial whaling (the mendacious 'scientific' programme they already have is apparently insufficient). Of late the West has proven terribly susceptible to this sort of talk, as in the widespread and muddled belief that we must above all things be tolerant for its own sake, even when that involves tolerating poisonous intolerance from others. Compromise and communication are not intrinsic goods; certainly there are conflicts born of misunderstanding, where dialogue and compromise can help, but there are others born simply of an irreconcilable conflict of interests - see also Iran, which Ahmadinejad claims is "trying to find ways to love people" while it engages in Holocaust denial conferences and plays a game of nuclear brinkmanship. Whether he's being devious, or speaking sincerely from his own foul perspective, is pretty much academic; in any dealings with him, or with the whalers, compromise is the Devil talking.
The tragedy being, of course, that on the other hand we don't seem to have the capability (much less the will) to stop either of them by force.
I'm not especially bothered that no 'big names' are in the running for the Chair of the BBC Trust - it's a new job, so why shouldn't a new face rather than an established player be right for it? What does appal me is that "The list of 23 [candidates] is believed to include [...], improbably, John Beyer - the successor to Mary Whitehouse as head of broadcasting standards lobbyists Mediawatch."
The only context in which such a name should be associated with the job is within one of the questions on the entrance interview:
Q: One of the heirs to the accursed mantle of Mary Whitehouse, long may her shade be molested by jackals, bleats priggishly that you are showing programmes about something other than the wonders of the fifties and family values. Do you:
a) Keep it puerile, announcing at a press conference that he doesn't like programmes about sex because he is a sad, lonely virgin who can't get it up, and also smells, IDST?
b) Hire a private investigator to dig up any and all dirt on him?
c) Get one of the IT department to remotely download kiddyfiddling images onto his computer, then anonymously tip off the police?
d) Cut the subtlety and just have the prick taken out?
Billy the Sink's Stray Toasters is a Hell of a comic, in all senses of the word. He's always been a remarkable artist with a particular gift for capturing fractured minds, decaying cities and feverishly twisted sexuality, but when he's writing too this gets turned up to 11, because now the story is nothing but his strengths. Which could make for a lazy, comfort zone piece of work, except that he seems also to have delved even further into the dark, keen to explore every nuance of his specialties. Like his pupil and now peer Dave McKean's Cages, this is one of those happy examples of an artist turning writer and showing a gift for that too - but alas, like Cages it also seems to be a one-off.
"One of our goals is to improve the atmosphere of the IWC, which has become one of confrontation, and to improve dialogue," says Japan, as part of its efforts to officially resume commercial whaling (the mendacious 'scientific' programme they already have is apparently insufficient). Of late the West has proven terribly susceptible to this sort of talk, as in the widespread and muddled belief that we must above all things be tolerant for its own sake, even when that involves tolerating poisonous intolerance from others. Compromise and communication are not intrinsic goods; certainly there are conflicts born of misunderstanding, where dialogue and compromise can help, but there are others born simply of an irreconcilable conflict of interests - see also Iran, which Ahmadinejad claims is "trying to find ways to love people" while it engages in Holocaust denial conferences and plays a game of nuclear brinkmanship. Whether he's being devious, or speaking sincerely from his own foul perspective, is pretty much academic; in any dealings with him, or with the whalers, compromise is the Devil talking.
The tragedy being, of course, that on the other hand we don't seem to have the capability (much less the will) to stop either of them by force.
I'm not especially bothered that no 'big names' are in the running for the Chair of the BBC Trust - it's a new job, so why shouldn't a new face rather than an established player be right for it? What does appal me is that "The list of 23 [candidates] is believed to include [...], improbably, John Beyer - the successor to Mary Whitehouse as head of broadcasting standards lobbyists Mediawatch."
The only context in which such a name should be associated with the job is within one of the questions on the entrance interview:
Q: One of the heirs to the accursed mantle of Mary Whitehouse, long may her shade be molested by jackals, bleats priggishly that you are showing programmes about something other than the wonders of the fifties and family values. Do you:
a) Keep it puerile, announcing at a press conference that he doesn't like programmes about sex because he is a sad, lonely virgin who can't get it up, and also smells, IDST?
b) Hire a private investigator to dig up any and all dirt on him?
c) Get one of the IT department to remotely download kiddyfiddling images onto his computer, then anonymously tip off the police?
d) Cut the subtlety and just have the prick taken out?
Billy the Sink's Stray Toasters is a Hell of a comic, in all senses of the word. He's always been a remarkable artist with a particular gift for capturing fractured minds, decaying cities and feverishly twisted sexuality, but when he's writing too this gets turned up to 11, because now the story is nothing but his strengths. Which could make for a lazy, comfort zone piece of work, except that he seems also to have delved even further into the dark, keen to explore every nuance of his specialties. Like his pupil and now peer Dave McKean's Cages, this is one of those happy examples of an artist turning writer and showing a gift for that too - but alas, like Cages it also seems to be a one-off.
