Dark days

[alexsarll]

That Kinks book I read sent me to Spotify in search of Preservation, mentioned in hushed tones as a grand folly of Ray Davies' wilderness years. And yes, musically it's dreadful. But the lyrics of the title track are timely:
The people were scared
They didn't know where to turn
They couldn't see any salvation
From the hoods and the spivs
And the crooked politicians
Who were cheating and lying to the nation
Crucial detail - they didn't know where to turn. I'm seeing a lot of people retreating into cosy tribalism over the Spending Review, choosing to believe that if Brown had somehow survived then things would be very different. Which may be a nice dream, but ignores his pre-election rhetoric and New Labour's record. Demonisation and squeezing of welfare claimants, Murdoch-approved bullying of the BBC, cossetting wealthy tax evaders - all straight from the New Labour playbook. The tuition fees now ballooning so obscenely were an introduction of New Labour's first term, their supposed golden age. Hell, even Ed Miliband's new non-New Labour are still holding disappointingly close to the idiotic consensus of toughness on the deficit, failing to distance themselves from their predecessors, failing to see that some economists a little more substantial than George and Gordon, people like Keynes and Krugman, offer a way at once kinder and more effective.

What else? Watched Mark Gatiss' intriguing adaptation of HG Wells' First Men in the Moon, which looked like it had made a little money go a long way. I expect we'll be seeing a lot more of that sort of make-do attitude given the BBC cuts snuck through in the Review. Had a first game of occult Nazis vs GI Joe killfest Tannhauser, which I suspect will be even better once we know the rules but was great fun even when played at retard level (at one stage I said "I'm going to move this man here and do shooty at that man." I hadn't even been drinking). Oh, and I picked up the first comic in a while which I've felt the need to post about. It's not that there haven't been any good comics lately, it's just that most of them have been in series which have been good for 30, 60, 120 issues now and are continuing to be good in much the same way - hardly worth posting about. And complaining about the disappointments always risks turning one into this guy (though it has to be said that hardcore Spider-Man fans are the comics fan's comics fans - who but the geekiest would look at all the heroes available, and choose as their avatar that schmuck Peter Parker?). Paul Cornell, whom some of you will know from his mostly excellent Doctor Who work, also writes some very good comics. Probably the best of which was his Captain Britain and MI:13, tragically cancelled in large part because nobody outside Britain was reading the thing. So he's gone over to DC and somehow persuaded them to let him do a miniseries with Knight & Squire, the British Batman & Robin, which is even more British. Here's the first page, with the opening line "Tch! What a palaver about a bit of how's-your-father!" Which I suppose means I can end on a certain note of "there'll always be an England" consolation. Heavens know I need it.

Comments

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

If all the people who apparently wanted to vote Lib Dem had actually done so, rather than listening to hysterical 'you'll let the Tories in!' type rhetoric it might have actually, you know, kept the Tories out.

That comic sounds good.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

In fairness, there was (in the mainstream press, if not in our online circles) at least as much 'If you vote Lib Dem you'll keep Brown in' wittering.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

True, but I doubt any of those people are complaining about the Tories being in charge, you know?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The newspaper barons won't be. The poor idiot readers who will shortly be realising how badly that nice smiling Mr Cameron has fucked them over may feel differently.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Without wishing to sound tribalist, I find it hard to have much sympathy for anyone who votes Tory and is then surprised to find himself worse off.

[angelv.livejournal.com]

Oh man, the Knight and Squire glossary is amazing. I'd be interested (note: not *that* interested) to see the whole comic given the glossary has contemporary yoof terms like "blud" but also where's-me-washboard style anachronisms.

But I didn't realise "plonker" mean willy.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Hardly anyone uses it to mean that anymore, but yes. Your gentleman friend should end up getting it, I would imagine, given it connects to Morrison's Batman run, but if not you can have a lend when it's done.

"You is jarring me, blud" is the response on the second page to what you've just seen. Which is even better than that page by itself.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

I knew that because my stepdad was once most offended when I called him a plonker.

[augstone.livejournal.com]

tis a shame about 'preservation act', but "sweet lady genevieve" is one of my favourite kinks songs.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That was as far as I made it, and it was better than the rest but I still wouldn't rate it that highly!
Is it Preservation Act, then? I assumed it was Preservation, Acts I and II.

[augstone.livejournal.com]

i was just rushing back to the computer to apologize for offending your editorial sensibilities, i meant to write either 'preservation' or the preservation acts and both sort of came out. i love that song but the rest i just can't listen to.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

As a Lib Dem who's firmly on the other wing of the party to Clegg and Beaker, I can't pretend for a moment that I'm happy about the cuts, much less at Clegg's attitude where he dismisses the Institute for Fiscal Studies' report as "rubbish" (and by extension, the conclusions that Krugman and Stiglitz and Blanchflower have reached). The fact is that I support the Lib Dems, not the Coalition; but I realise that had we gone for "confidence and supply", the government would have probably fallen by now and the Murdoch/Rothermere muckracking machines and the Ashcroft war chest would have delivered a thumping Tory landslide a la 1931 against two parties with no resources left for campaigning.

But does it leave me wanting to jump ship and join Labour? The answer is no. The real witch-hunt against claimants and immigrants in particular came on their watch, and as you point out correctly it was New Labour in the form of that odious man Blunkett who introduced tuition fees. Not even Thatcher dared to try that. As I look at Not Very Red Ed, I don't see a man who's likely to be inviting Bob Crow up to Dartmouth Park for beer and sandwiches in a hurry. I fear they'll still be godawful on civil liberties no matter what Ed says, what with the likes of Woolas elected as a shadow minister and Luke "The Nuke" Akehurst now on the NEC.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

In fairness, the IFS report does sound seriously flawed. But yes, our leaders should be paying an awful lot more attention to Krugman especially.

It may just be living in London, but my generally pro-union sensibilities have a large gap where that ridiculous man Crow is concerned. Not least because he plays into every Murdoch stereotype of what all union bosses are like. I'm not planning to join Ed's Labour, certainly - not least because I'm not a joiner. But depending how the next five years pan out, I could consider voting for them. Especially since proposed boundary changes could mean the traitor Corbyn would no longer be my local candidate.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

Hopefully, Crow will be even more unpopular than he already is if he organises strikes for luxuries like e.g. pay rises whilst thousands of people are being made redundant, losing their benefits etc.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm pleased to see that Tube investment has largely been safeguarded, and remain hopeful that we will live to see the whole network automated and every single pointless, overpaid driver out of a job. Now that's a cutback I can get behind.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Walking now would be the worst of both worlds. What they're doing if they're smart is keeping note of every Tory breach of the spirit or letter of the coalition agreement. Then once the referendum has got through parliament, but before the public votes, they can produce plenty of evidence for breach of contract, walk, and fight the referendum campaign from opposition against a minority government. Of course, it would still rely on Labour not getting too cretinously tribalist, so that's far from a sure thing, but it's a hope.