We are ornamental swords forged for the peace after the war

[alexsarll]

Every so often, I flick back through my Livejournal to see what I was doing on this day ago. So this weekend, I found that it was a year since I'd last been on a doomed expedition to find anything of artistic worth in the Hayward Gallery, before dawdling along the rest of the South Bank instead. This time, the things which actually gave me the shock to which modern art aspires were a robot wrapped in plastic in the BFI corridor, and seeing the huge doors on the side of the Turbine Hall open for the first time - though we did get some laughs from Joan Miro's muff obsession.
It's also a year since I saw the Indelicates launch the album of 2008, American Demo. And now they're back with some new stuff mixed in to the set - 'The Recession Song' has already been doing the rounds, ditto Simon's 'David Koresh Superstar' side-project (but what a perfect source for a song to spice up the Easter set). But the new song proper, 'Savages'...oh, it's lovely. More 'New Art For The People' or '...if Jeff Buckely had Lived' than 'We Hate The Kids', more beauty than bile (but with plenty of bitterness still because this is, after all, an Indelicates song).
Their Cargo show on Tuesday is a Club Attitude event, intended to encourage disabled people to attend gigs. Whether incapacity benefits would cover Cargo drinks prices is another question, but the photographer whizzing around in a pimped wheelchair is pretty swish, and the sign language guy...I'm used to sign language guys being expressionless berks in red sweaters who obscure a quarter of the screen when I'm trying to watch a late-night film, and who just make me think 'What's wrong with subtitles?' This man feels like part of the band from the start, getting into it, really conveying the spirit of the music as well as the words. He is an artist. Plus, he looks like Ming the Merciless crossed with moleintheground, so watching him sign "but for the come in your hair" was always going to be classic.
No signer on Saturday, but there is Mr Solo, in a more conventional gig format than I usually see him, and as such, with an audience who seemed less appreciative. I think they must have been the peons there en masse for the other band, whose name happily escapes me.

Between my own sluggish attempts at getting up after the Bank Holiday excesses, and the dearth of Uxbridge trains, it was apparent to me yesterday that I was going to be late enough for the Tubewalk that I couldn't in all conscience ask everyone to wait for me - I decided instead to trust to synchronicity, and set off on my own walk in the rough direction of Rayner's Lane. Which didn't bring me to the expeditionary force, but did find me a wonderful little streamside park, and a house so tumbledown and overgrown that rather than thinking 'slatterns' it makes you think 'Sleeping Beauty in Pinner', and a very confused mouse lost on a main road.

Dear Gordon - I know you're a bit busy at the moment on account of your aides being a shower of arses who can't even run a smear campaign without tripping over themselves, but you should still be aware that there is, by definition, no such thing as a 'compulsory volunteer'. Such work is not 'voluntary', it is simply 'unpaid'. And mandatory unpaid work is called 'slavery'.
(ETA: This article has been tidied up since it was first posted, and now uses 'voluntary' considerably less than it did. But it still uses it, so the point still stands)
Another great move by the party of labour there - getting back to the old socialist roots with work camps, while simultaneously depressing the job market by providing a free alternative!
Though arguably the whole issue is academic, given it hinges on Brown winning the next election.

Margaret Drabble, in a piece about coping with depression, wisely recommends walking. But more interestingly, she also mentions "I've met only one writer who frankly admits that if it hadn't been for the drink, he'd have committed suicide long ago. Nobody would publish his book on alcohol as life-saver, because everyone is keen to toe the safer party line that it's really a depressant." I'd like to read that book, if anyone fancies running the neo-Puritan blockade. Bet it would have been all over the place if Wee Charlie Kennedy were PM.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Whatever.
What about your not complusive voluntery matter.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

This one almost looks like a sensible response to my post! Almost.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I can only assume that yes, it's the unlocking. I do still get very occasional comments from non-LJ readers, so I'm loath to ban anonycomments. Though I do wish LJ would take note of all the times it's been told that certain IP addresses are spamtastic.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

It's not too far from something Cameron has proposed before:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6980830.stm

He said it wouldn't be strictly compulsory, yet "he would consider it a failure if all 16-year-olds did not eventually take part."

-x-

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I know it's really passe and obvious to note how little difference there is between New Labour and Tory, but really, what else is one to say? I maintain that the last valid political statement would be to enter the Commons and lamp Brown from the precise angle which would cause his glass eye to fly across the chamber and right into Cameron's open gob.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

hehehe, i've been talking about bringing back national service (non-military) for years! preferably tied to some sort of increased university grant...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I thought there were no grants left?

But yeah, bribery would be perfectly legitimate. Simple compulsion, or even complex compulsion (ie employers won't hire people without it) would be morally repugnant. And as such, exactly the sort of policy I expect from these twunts.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

there are means-tested maintenance grants for people with low income backgrounds, they're not very much, but they do exist...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Such generosity from our masters!

[charleston.livejournal.com]

Concurring. We have consensus. I will vote for you, when you stand.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Alas, I don't know how far I'd make it through the democratic system, even with my friends' support!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

As soon as I find the control codes for some terrifying robot legions. Or undead warriors, I'm not fussy.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh man, that question is a classic! But so is the answer - they asked one of the gayer Bloomsbury members, "What would you do if a German soldier were attempting to ravish your sister?" and he replied "I should try and come between them".

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Oh! I'm glad you went to Rayners Lane even without us, because we thought you'd really like the park!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Was this the winding streamside one, or did you find another?

I did contemplate texting when it was just my lateness, but after the Tube lent a hand, I figured y'all would likely be in the pub by the time I arrived, unless you were making a real epic of it (and from hoshuteki's post yesterday, you didn't).

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The animals are clearly sensing something. A duck walked past my flat yesterday, heading away from the park.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Earthquake? Big freeze? Or just some really tasty new sandwich crumbs?

minor pedantry alert

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

also, british sign language is a completely separate language from "english" so someone who has grown up communicating exclusively using bsl wouldn't *necessarily* be able to read subtitles, just saying like...

Re: minor pedantry alert

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I know, but I also think that raising someone to be able to read BSL but not English is identity politics of the most utterly idiotic stripe. If you live in a country, you should be able to read its language - if not (like most Brit expats, say) then that's your look-out, but you never, ever get to complain about the resulting inconvenience.

Re: minor pedantry alert

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I know literacy rates over here aren't what they should be, but am not specifically au fait with the situation among the deaf.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

That Margaret Drabble piece was very interesting, thank you. Also I finally listened to the Rowland S Howard album yesterday and enjoyed that too - can't remember which song in particular you thought I should hear though, can you?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The one, whose name escapes me, about trying to be 'just friends' - I was listening to the album around when you posted something similar, I think, rather than it being a sentiment I associate with you in general.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes.

[(Anonymous)]

NO.

[augstone.livejournal.com]

but doesn't the term 'depressant' refer to the immediate effects on the body, i.e. the opposite of 'stimulant', and not as in 'causes depression' as in melancholy?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I believe that strictly, yes it does, but the implied overlap of meaning is much seized upon by the enemies of fun.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

The exhibit in the Haywards was TOTALLY full of artistic worth! It had a lit up Tom Jones!

Did you save the mouse? I failed to save the headless pidgeon I found in the kitchen so I put it in the bin instead and then bleached my ENTIRE HOUSE!

Was the tumble down house unoccupied?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I couldn't tell, the garden was too overgrown! Exactly as it would be were everyone inside asleep for 100 years. Except the house didn't look quite that old, but still.

I suggested to the mouse that he maybe wanted to go back inside the derelict shop, but he ran off to look at some other shops instead.

The Hayward exhibit was very silly.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Clearly the word they were looking for is "nolunteer".

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Good work that man. Similarly, last night we came up with 'thanasia', for people where you're not that bothered about whether the experience is painful.