Not the bloody pinball again

[alexsarll]

Jason Webley fans! Are people planning to see him at Favela Chic in Shoreditch this Sunday, at the Green Note in Camden on Wednesday, or both? Not-yet-Jason-Webley-fans! Fancy seeing the best solo performer since Hawksley Workman, a sort of Tom Waits with an accordion and a closer connection to the human race?

Arguing with 9/11 conspiracy theorists is a self-defeating endeavour; if you refuse to accept what they see as the self-evident truth that an American cabal destroyed the World Trade Centre, then you're obviously part of the conspiracy yourself. The BBC recently showed a documentary debunking the lunacy; inevitably, this has now seen them named as another conspirator*. Not yet realising that the only sane response is to stick your fingers in your ears and start singing 'La La La La I Can't Hear You', the BBC has now defended itself. One item of the defence: "We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy)."
If you look at the comments on that piece, you'll get a fairly good impression of the sort of frothing insanity which characterises the conspiracy mob; you'll also note that not one of them finds this excuse remotely plausible.
Which means that they don't know anything of the history of how much classic BBC programming is missing from the archives.
Which means that not one of them can be a fan either of Peter Cook or Doctor Who.
Which is yet further proof of their general failure as human beings.

The 30th anniversary prog of 2000AD came out today. It's an incredible achievement, but they've taken the nostalgic side of this too far by including an utterly rubbish prequel to dinosaur-farming romp Flesh - and the whole thing would have been so much more resonant if Judge Dredd: Origins hadn't gone MIA mid-story.

The flu epidemic which followed the Great War killed something like 5% of the world's population - but without being followed by social breakdown or general chaos. So if bird flu gets its socks on, and accomplishes something similar - well, that's got to do a lot of good for the human carbon footprint, hasn't it? Which must be vastly preferable to the likely apocalyptic consequences of climate change. Help Us, H5N1 - You're Our Only Hope.

Have just been tooling around Hell as Beta Ray Bill, nicking enormous flaming swords off giant demons and using them to do over their mates. This entirely made up for the upsetting stuff with the clowns and the dodgems earlier, and has left me in an extremely good mood.

*At the last count the number of conspirators required would practically put them in the majority across the US and UK; added to the normal psychological flaws of the conspiracy obsessive, that desperate, childish need to believe that *someone* is in control of the world, the 9/11 mob must now be feeling terribly left out.

Comments

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks, Alex. I just read all of the comments. Now I want to curl up in a corner somewhere and have a little cry for the human race.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I was assuming that one or two would be the most anyone required to get a flavour of it - as a libertarian, I could hardly suggest a maximum safe dose!

Anyway, you're only saying that because as another tentacle of the Conspiracy, you had thought the human race cowed and foolish, and now you sense your control slipping...

[azureskies.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm lying when I say "all", since that would have taken all night. But I certainly read more than the requisite safe number (which is probably zero, in all truth, but let's call it "a couple" for the sake of argument).

You can tell that they're almost all American, though, because they don't seem to have the slightest inkling of what the BBC actually is, or how it works. If they did, they'd realise that part of their charm is that they cock up and make mistakes all the bleeding time. That's probably the saddest truth about the whole thing - it's not an inherent nobility on the Beeb's part that makes the conspiracy accusations so laughable, it's the fact that making silly errors on the news is simply the British way.

Oh, but it's not even worth sitting here and discussing it, is it? I say anything here, the words "converted" and "preaching" come to mind. I say anything there, I might as well be speaking Martian. I'm going to put my head back in the sand and pretend they don't exist...

(incidentally, you can also tell that they're almost all American when they describe September 11th as "the most significant moment in modern history", and suchlike)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Even aside from the charming bumbling of the BBC, the crucial flaw in all these theories is that they assume anyone is in control, that some government (secret or otherwise) could ever have its plans go off without a hitch. They think that government is evil - but they still have to believe that somebody is in control. They think the rest of us can't handle the terrifying truth of covert agendas and secret death squads, when in reality they're the ones who can't handle the far more terrifying truth that nobody is driving.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

That and, come on, humans are nto generally good secret-keepers, and yet to the best of my knowledge the conspiracy nutters have not found ONE person (even a loony) who can reliably claim to have been involved in any of the conspiracy and is prepared to say so...

There's likely to be more of a problem with any pandemic type thingyo now than after WWI, in that people travel around so much more, and so much more quickly, now. Still, what with peak oil and everything, we're going to need a bit of a cut in population soon, and it will be a lot messier if it doesn't happen soonish through disease.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Exactly; even if the technical side of thing had gone off without a hitch, this requires that so did the recruitment screening - or else that they're merciless about bumping off anyone who wants to leave, but totally indifferent to all the outsiders who have 'exposed' them in public.

There is a lot more travel in general now than 90 years ago, but when you take into account all the displacement caused by the War, I think a lot of that gap disappears.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure what you mean in the second paragraph? What I was referring to was the X-files type problem of Man With Dreadful Disease Getting On Plane And Coughing On Someone (sorry, I'll stop the capitalisation...) and then they get off that plane and catch another plane somewhere else, and cough on lots of people there while he's coughing on people at his destination and coughing all over people in the airport who are all going somewhere different and that. (Actually, I think in the X Files it was exploding boils or something).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I know; I mean that, while in the general course of events there are more people getting on and off 'planes now than used to be the case, in the specific period 1918-19 there was much larger scale population movement than was typical of the era, as whole areas were being displaced by the Great War.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

It really irks me that the BBC has destroyed so much of its old stuff, particularly as some of it is, as you, say, pretty good. I'm just a hoarder at heart, and keep anything I deem could possibly be useful at some point in the future.

I'd be well up for a bird flu epidemic, so long as it didn't affect anyone I know or any countries/areas/people I particularly like. This place is simply too overcrowded. And the idler in me kind of likes the idea that a bird flu epidemic will have serious consequences for fun-hating big commerce's relentless desire for work, work and work, for work's sake.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

See, you should be dead keen on peak oil, then, cos that's going to result in a massive reduction in population, probably, unless everyone's wrong!

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

Nah, when the oil runs out people will just use electricity instead.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

You can't fly a plain with electricity!

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

ARGH! PLANE! It's that Marc, he's confusing me with BAD SCEINCE!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes but if peak oil hits, as with climate change, then the infrastructure goes down and that causes the population collapse. Whereas what I want, given a cull is inevitable, is one which doesn't take our culture and technology down with it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh, agreed wholeheartedly on the BBC stuff; they may not have realised it at the time (another penalty of the pernicious false high art/low art dichotomy) but burning old tape is morally no better than burning books. But they have learned their lesson, I think, and now when stuff is 'lost' it is through genuine accident, rather than short-sightedness.

Sadly, I fear we would all have to take our chances in an epidemic, but those are odds I'm willing to risk compared to the other alternatives (if I could choose who was going to be struck down by a plague...well, I'd want a considerably higher mortality rate than 5%, that's for sure).
Still, be a laugh if halal butchering turned out to be an especially effective vector, wouldn't it?

The effect on work would, I fear, be cancelled out by the equal if not greater impact on social gatherings; clubs and pubs would probably be the first places shut. Though so long as workplaces followed, it would at least give me a chance to catch up on some reading.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd be alright. I can survive for months on end without alcohol, dancing and physical human interaction. We'd still have the internet, of course (although I've managed without that at times and before it existed), and as long as I could listen to music, read books, watch TV and films and play computer games, I'd be very happy.

I suppose one consequence of a bird flu epidemic, or something companies might well be planning for anyway, is the ability for them to function if staff can't come in, by increasing the use of remote working. Working from home full time is not always great for productivity and output given the high number of distractions, but it's a small price to pay if the actual tasks do get done, on time, and you can get a lie in, listen to music whilst doing them, and save loads of carbon though lack of travel in the process.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Broadly agreed, but the problem with home-working is that, unless handled with wisdom and firmness, it can lead to employees being permanently on call.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they'd just blame the Jews for influencing them to kill their meat that way...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

They can think what they like so long as they stay dead.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, my concern is that they would be extra determined to bring those of us who didn't already die from eating similarly-slaughtered meat with them...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing it's hard to run into a crowd with a bomb harness on when your lungs are full of fluid...

[tiny-tear.livejournal.com]

Tempting to add some comment referring to the lost Doctor Who episodes... it it all also part of the conspiracy?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Well, the only story which remains lost from the second series is The Crusades, there's sure to be some mileage in that!
(This is actually because a lot of the others were recovered from the Middle East, whereas they either didn't buy that one or weren't offered it, for obvious but superficial reasons - it was actually rather a subtle piece about how much both sides had in common and how pointless the war was)

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

The beeb also wiped their moon landing tapes in 1975. Its not like they haven't got form for this behaviour.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Don't you see? Proof that they always wipe their tapes of fake news events staged by the shadow government of Amerikkka!

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I'd support the shadow government if they weren't obviously more incompetent than the public one.