Game

Another day, another TV researcher asking

"Do you think we could pick your brains? Come film? Find out everything you know?"

"Sure. What's the fee?"

"Oh I'm afraid we don't have a budget."

Why the fuck not? They are getting paid aren't they? To send people like me, people who actually know what they are talking about, begging emails.

Or maybe not. One I spoke to today said, when I suggested that he book for the restaurant if he really wanted to know what it's like, said

"Oh I can't afford it"

You work in TV and you haven't got 25 quid to book a place? What's that about?

At least four TV companies are doing a show...all of them variations on the theme 'Home dining'."We get couples to open a restaurant in their living room" the researchers announce gleefully, reinventing the wheel.

'Come dine with me' is a huge success. They want a different but similar concept. Really similar. Nothing too different. It's like a scene from The Player.

Nobody has actually done a show on (newly) established home restaurants. You know why? Because authenticity is not the name of the game here.

"haha I'm not a documentary maker" said the impoverished young 'producer' "I make entertainment. In fact you probably wouldn't be very good for our show. You are too professional. It's all about the journey you see. We want viewers to engage with the journey. You are further along the journey. We want tears, frustration, panic. 24 hours to turn your home into a restaurant. That kind of thing".

The journey? I inwardly groan. Do none of these people have an original thought in their heads?

You want a journey? I'll give you journey. I'm a single mum. A real one. No hidden bloke. No training. No money. This recession? Don't make me laugh. I've spent years without money. I've also spent years making my flat nice by picking up furniture off the street, crockery from flea markets. I learnt to cook because I couldn't afford to go to restaurants. A year ago I took out an extra mortgage to fulfill a long held dream...an Aga. I thought, how old do I have to be before I can have what I want? Just do it.Find the money somehow.

In 2000, the year I moved into this flat, fleeing my Camden studio flat for a larger space in which to bring up my child, I turned on the TV one night. I'd been clearing the jungle-like garden all day. My hands were like claws, dirt ingrained in them.

Exhausted, I numbly flipped channels. On Channel 4 there was this weird programme. A bunch of young people, some in bikinis, sitting about in a house.

One of them was coming out with this story about his wife dying in a car crash or something. He was sweating.

Cut to another scene. The young people go to a little room, in turns, sit on a big chair, talk to the camera. They are unselfconscious, natural. And even when they are unnatural, they are natural. They talk about their problems with the others, about boredom. It's sunny outside.

At first I was tempted to turn over. The pace was slow. It was all a bit dull. But it grew on you. Watching it was a Zen experience. You were watching nothing, minutiae. It was rather soothing. One of the guys had a guitar. One of the girls flirted. One woman, who turned out to be a lesbian nun, came across as thoughtful and intelligent, a rare thing on TV. Another of the boys was Northern, with an impenetrable Newcastle accent.

I found myself watching it every night. I started to feel sorry for the Northern boy. He was 'nominated' to leave every week by the housemates but always kept in when it came to the viewer's vote. He seemed nice but was obviously irritating to live with.

The sweaty guy continued to lie. He got caught. There was a confrontation. He said to the camera in the diary room, memorably "if you live by the sword you die by the sword". It was a bravura display of 'Je ne regrette rien'.

Along with me, the rest of the country had also gradually become interested. In fact, bit by bit, we were all watching these young people. And what was so delicious about it is, they clearly had no idea. At one point helicopters, paid for, I believe, by The Sun newspaper, flew over the house, trying to get a glimpse into what was happening inside. The 'housemates' inside, remarked upon the circulating helicopters, oblivious to the fact that they were the story.

This was great TV. It was never as good afterwards. These contestants were virgins. Every following series included inmates that had had their TV cherry popped, with all the knowing and degrading complicity that goes with that.

I stopped watching.

Last week another series started. We are now post-Jade, the ignorant girl who made a million, ruined her reputation in public and resussitated it by dying.

But they cranked it up again. My daughter turned it on for the opening episode in which the chosen housemates enter the house. Once assembled, Big Brother called a male contestant into the diary room.

"If you want to become a housemate you must find someone who is willing to have their eyebrows shaved off and have glasses and a moustache drawn on them with an indelible pen. You have three minutes."

He ran out of the diary room, breathless, explained. One girl, an attractive black girl, volunteered. He shaved her eyebrows, drew on the funny glasses and moustache. Except it wasn't funny. It was Abu Ghraib. Degradation. Exploitation. Removal of identity. In this era of economic difficulty, when young people are most likely nervous about their future, the dreadful prospect of working very very hard for very very little money in boring jobs, Big Brother was laughing at them for aspiring to be something more. And encouraging us to do the same.

Hahaha. Aren't you ridiculous? We are supposed to think. How desperate are you?

I don't feel that way. I feel cringing embarrassment, shame. These young people, some of them little older than my daughter, exposed and ridiculed. Forever known as 'that Big Brother contestant'.

It's 'They shoot horses don't they?' the book by Horace McCoy in which depression era couples, starving, must dance for days on end, the rules preventing them from proper sleep.

And now every TV programme is like that. Competance, grace, talent is not enough. TV wants "the journey". Ask Susan Boyle.

First day at 'Work Experience'

My teen was a nervous wreck this weekend. She wanted to 'practice' the journey to the record shop where she will work this week. I'm quite proud of her actually. She got this work experience all by herself. Just went into the shop and asked. Her best mate is doing her work experience with Sir Paul McCartney but then the best mate's mum works for Stella.

Before going, my daughter was worried...

"They are going to expect me to know everything about music. Mum. Tell me everything you know about music."

"Of course they aren't going to expect that. They know you are only 15".

This morning though I gave her a lift. 

"You are NOT coming in" she commanded.

"Of course not".

I know the score. She's got to look grown up in front of them. 

At the end of the day...

"How was it?"

She looks tired. 

"It took me until 3pm to get up the courage to ask if I could go for lunch. I was told I could have an hour. Of course I was back in five minutes. I got a sandwich but my hands were so dirty I couldn't eat it. So I'm starving."

"Why were your hands so dirty?"

"The job they gave me, in the back room, was to sort out a huge pile of Cd's, match the case to the Cd. They'd been laying around for a year. And I really wanted to go to the toilet but I was too nervous to ask if they had one. When I found it, the sink had no soap". 

"How were the people?"

"Well I was expecting 'Hi-fidelity'. I got 'Hi-fidelity'.(1) They are all men and they are quite fat. One of them asked me who Ernest Hemingway was. I thought he was joking but said 'he's a writer isn't he?". Turned out he really didn't know. They only know about music."

"Today a customer came in and asked for a record by the Rolling Stones before they were the Rolling Stones. The assistant didn't know what they were called. The manager said he should be sacked. But I think it was a joke." She pauses "He was surprised I like Morrissey."

"What did they expect you to like? S Club 7?" I ask.

Then she sighed "I'm sick of listening to music. Had to listen to it for ten hours".

She continued:"Groups send in their Cd's hoping to get stocked. The manager spends every day listening to these Cd's. He is always screaming. All day. Saying stuff like 'These groups are shit. Why don't they give up?'. Then he chucks their Cd's in the bin after half a song. Then I hear him phone the group and say "I'm afraid your work isn't right for us'."

More..."but one group I liked, so he gave me the Cd and said he would stock them. That was the best bit of the day."

She thinks again "I bet my friend doesn't have to do this for Sir Paul McCartney".

(1) The book by Nick Hornby revolving around men working in a record shop.

tongue piercing

I haven't been spending much time with my daughter recently. I've been busy. One night, when I was going out, I'd been out several nights that week already, she said to me:

"I feel like I live alone".

Last night, I catered a gig. It was work. Badly paid. But work. I got home at midnight and, as usual, went into my daughter's bedroom. I saw her sleeping form, the soft pale skin, her little head of tumbled blonde hair, the slender hands ...I kissed her, breathing in her still child-like smell. I love her I thought. This is all that counts. I must spend more time with her. And more importantly, be present when I'm with her. Because even when I'm home, I'm not. My mind is elsewhere or I'm on the computer. Or I'm worrying. Or thinking. Or planning.

She asks me questions nowadays, interesting questions...

"Explain proportional representation."

We go through it. At first sight it looks like a good idea.

"Der" she announces, in her teenage way "of course it's better. Der. Why don't we just do it?"

And then I explain further. That with PR you also get the BNP...and the Greens and lots of little parties. They then have to form coalitions to be able to wield any power. So you end up with a big messy compromising party anyway.

Then, switching subjects rapidly she asks:

"Can I have my tongue pierced?"

I look at her. I feel stupidly anxious. I don't want her to have her tongue pierced. I want her to have brown long hair again, untouched by hair dye. I want to see her in her ballet outfit again. I want her to curl up in my arms at night. I want her to think I am the bestest most important fantastic loveable human being in the world again. Like she used to. I want to be called 'mummy' rather than 'muuuuum' or when she's annoyed, 'mother'. 

I say lightly, a little cruelly: "If you let your hair go back to it's natural colour, you can have your tongue pierced."

It was a joke. I then attempt a weak excuse like:

"Isn't it dangerous? Can't you get an infection?"

And even more weakly, grasping at straws...

"What if you get in a fight? They could, like, rip your tongue out".

She laughs:

"You said that about my pierced ears mum. And I've never been in a fight".

This morning she was leaving for school.

"Right Saturday afternoon my mate and I are dying my hair brown."

I'm still only half awake.

"Is it a good idea to keep dying it?" I ask gently "it will end up frizzy".

"Well I'm doing what you said."

I look non-plussed.

"I'm dying my hair brown so I can have my tongue pierced".

I gasp. "What? That was a joke".

Her expression changes. She mutters something. It sounds like 'bitch'. 

"What did you say?"

I'm thinking I've got to put a stop to this. The disrespectful way she talks to me. 

She explodes:

"You are TOTALLY evil. Oh my god you are a LIAR. You said I could have my tongue pierced. LIAR"

"It was a joke. You knew it was a joke!" 

She slams out of the front door, cursing, upset. She's got GSCE tests today. I'm worried. I don't want her to be upset. I'm also thinking, why do I want to control her appearance? You are only young once. Let her experiment. 

Brown bottom

In 1999, just as the solar eclipse was about to hit Britain, the first eclipse visible in this country for years, Gordon Brown, two years into being Chancellor of the Exchequer of the New Labour administration, decided to flog Britain's gold reserves. The announcement was made on 7/5/99. 

Nobody in the treasury could understand it. World leaders advised him not to do it. Still he pressed on.

This Times article, written in 2007, describes the efforts the journalist has made to have the details of this decision made public, with no result.

Brown sold the gold at public auctions, driving down the price of gold. Perhaps he wanted to buy euros. Some rumours say that he was bailing out friends at Goldman Sachs.

Astrologer Maggie Hyde, talking at The Company of Astrologers, puts up Gordon Brown's chart on the overhead projector. We also look at the chart of the Bank of England. 

Gordon Brown, I think it is now evident, is not leadership material. His chart backs this up. Nor, it emerges more and more plainly, was he Chancellor of the Exchequer material. His chart has no Earth in it. Earth is the element that rules material, earthly goods, such as money. Brown has most of his planets, a stellium, in the 12th house, the house of confinement, hospitals, prisons, spirituality and self-undoing. Brown's view of himself as a leader comes from his Moon in Leo. I am the king! His many years in waiting must have been very hurtful. His failure to cope with the leadership position must be even more so. Be careful of what you wish for...

Tony Blair actually would have made a better chancellor being a Taurus, the sign most associated with money. Coincidentally most of the major stock markets in the world were set up while the Sun was in Taurus.

The Bank of England chart is interesting. There are contacts between it, Gordon Brown's chart and the 1066 UK chart.

In one sense it's an ideal chart. Fit for purpose. On the other hand this institution is based on fiction and fantasy. It's worth remembering that usury is a sin in the bible and remains so in Islam.

Transits coming up to hit sensitive points in the Bank of England chart will bust this illusion wide open. Times they are a changin'

Our Madeleine

“We want a big event to raise awareness that she is still missing (...) It wouldn’t be a one-year anniversary, it will be sooner than that” (Gerry McCann on June 3, 2007, one month after Madeleine's disappearance.)

It is two years since Madeleine McCann went missing. From the very first interview with her parents, something struck me as peculiar about the official story. Generally I avoid news stories of missing and abused children. It's too painful. I don't want to know.

This time however, my antennae went up. Kate McCann did not act...sincerely... Some of her early comments regarding her 'missing' daughter were inappropriate "Whoever's got her, Madeleine will be giving them a piece of her mind". Asked to talk to Madeleine, after all, if abducted, she and the kidnapper could be watching TV, Kate looked down and said "she knows we love her". Not the behaviour of a mother seeking her child, more like the behaviour of a grieving frightened mother.

I have lots of theories about why the press have not properly reported on this 'abduction', why the McCanns have been treated with kid gloves. Several female TV presenters supported the McCanns. I believe this is down to working mother guilt; they saw themselves in Kate McCann, a professional woman who found it hard to cope with the loss of status entailed with becoming a stay-at-home mother. They wouldn't want to criticize another middle-class mother who relies heavily on nannies and paid help to bring up children. These exhausted mothers may also have had occasion to play fast and loose with the rules of wise parenting in the interests of having a break. It is little known but the McCanns left their children alone not just that fateful night, but every single night of their holiday. This is unheard of.

Two years ago I travelled around Mexico and Guatemala with my then 13 year old daughter. One night she had fallen asleep in the hotel room. I was hungry, I wanted to go out to find something to eat. But I didn't. There is no way that I would leave my 13 year old daughter alone in a hotel room in a foreign country. Some may call that over-protective.

I made mistakes when I was bringing up my daughter. I was alone. Unlike Kate McCann, I did not have a husband, several friends, the money to pay for creches when I went on holiday with my child. Once I fell asleep on a beach while my child, only three, played on the edge of the sea. She was wearing one of those swimming costumes stuffed with polystyrene, so she wouldn't have drowned. But I still feel guilty about that lapse to this day.

Bringing up children is a series of near-misses. Most of us get lucky.

I don't hate the McCanns. I feel sorry for them. I believe there was some kind of accident which they couldn't admit to, especially being abroad. I do wish they would put everybody out of their misery, themselves even, and especially the Portuguese, by telling the truth.

There are rumours of political pressure applied by Gordon Brown on the Portuguese government to drop the investigation into what happened to Madeleine McCann. Another black mark for Gordon.

Goncalo Amaral was the detective in charge of the case. He believes that Madeleine McCann died in the flat on the 3rd of May and her body was hidden. He was pulled off the case after he made the McCanns into 'arguidos', a Portuguese legal term which implies that they are not exactly suspects but hold sensitive information regarding the case. Here is the film he has made: he may be wrong, but it is certainly of interest:

>

A clearer case of child neglect, this time from the 'underclass', and this time gloves off from the press...The killer of baby P, it turns out, has also raped a two year old girl, most likely baby P's sister. Appalling though this is, I yearn to read a more nuanced report on the truth of this situation. Why did the mother, from some accounts a perfectly loving mother before she met her boyfriend, the killer, put up with his abuse of her children? What's the background of the killer? Was he abused as a child? Or is he just evil?

I came across a website in the last few days which talked about Baby P's mother in the most abusive terms. I've seen Facebook groups that want to form a lynch mob to kill Baby P's mother and the social workers. Do they think this is helpful?

I know social workers who will not work with children because of the pressure and the flak they will receive if they make a mistake. Social workers do not get enough funding. They are handling too many cases. Some of them are ham-strung by political correctness it seems. But whatever they do, they get criticized. In the Cleveland scandal of a few years back, social workers and hospital doctors were hounded for putting children into care, as suspected victims of sexual abuse. The young inexperienced social worker, Lisa Arthurworrey, from the Anna/Victoria Climbie case has been suicidal and house-bound for years since her mistake was exposed.

Now social workers are scorned for not removing children from families soon enough.

We feel frustrated and upset when we hear that young children are tortured and abused. We want to take it out on someone.

Bad things will always happen. Ultimately, if someone is determined to commit a crime, there's not much anybody can do about it.

Sohemians:Old Gay Soho

The Sohemian Society in its own words "exists to promote greater awareness of the characters and events associated with the history of Soho covering areas such as the arts, crime, sex, and politics.
A space free of kill-joy and culture-death pre-occupations such as anti-smoking campaigns, obsessive risk avoidance, concerns about diet, pubs with sofas and fear of 'offensive' statements."
The Sohemians regularly hold talks in the top room of the Wheatsheaf pub in Fitzrovia, or North Soho. Dylan Thomas and George Orwell used to hang out here in the 30s. In fact the Fitzrovia area was stuffed with bohemian types such as Aleister Crowley and Quentin Crisp.

Last night David Thompson gave a talk entitled 'Old gay Soho', one of the best delivered and most interesting talks I have ever attended.
The area in the 17th century: Oxford St. then known as Oxford Road was open land, full of highwaymen. Covent Garden, its arcaded piazza influenced by Roman architecture, perfect for cruising, was a well known red light district, full of brothels and mollyhouses.
Soho as a name was first used in the 17th century. It became a centre for Huguenots, French protestants. But it was never as rich as the surrounding areas. Soho was a destination for poor working class men from the East End going up for 'trade' and transvestitism. Straight prostitutes lived next to gay men, a strange coalition. Some of the famous streets are named after grand families: the Wardour family, the Frith family, the Comptons, all of whom were landowners of the area.
Michel Foucault in his 'History of Sexuality' noted that up until the 19th century people weren't defined by their sexuality. They weren't called homosexual, a term invented in the 19th century. Rather, you'd say he's a man who likes sex with other men. In semiotics and semantics words become things, concepts become a labels: common terms of the era included 'buggeranti', 'catamites', pederasts (still used today in the French 'pedé' for homosexual).
Thompson talked about how homosexuality was often blamed on foreign influences...in the 18th century gay men, dandified men, were called 'macaronis' part of The Macaroni Club (in Italian 'macaron' is slang for 'buffoon', in Spanish 'maricon' means 'queer'). Sodomy was seen as a crime imported from Italy.
In France, interestingly, homosexuality is known as 'the English disease'. Prime Minister Edith Cresson controversially suggested that English men were all homosexual for they barely looked at her when she visited.
Horace Walpole, the writer and art historian, wrote about the goings on of young men on the grand tour 'which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses'
There was a general fear of sensitivity, a quality regarded as feminine and Italian. The 'Penny dreadfuls', the tabloids of the day, said all homosexuality was all down to immigrants,
In 1772 Captain Jones was convicted of sodomy, penalty death, but he received a royal pardon. It's unproven but David Garrick, the theatre impressario, was having an affair with the dramatist Isaac Bickerstaff a 'powdered fop'.
Mrs Connelly from Vienna was a courtesan who rented Carlisle house, the scene of much cruising and bawdy behaviour. Entrance was a shilling and it was classless in that duchesses would be squashed next to paupers.
D'Eon de Beaumont, the chevalier d'Eon was a transsexual who at the same time achieved political importance; he/she was a spy for Louis XV, sent to Russia as an envoy to the Empress Elisabeth. When he/she arrived in London, there was a French edict that he must be addressed as 'Madame'. De Beaumont concocted a fanciful story that he was born as a girl but disguised as a boy by his parents in order to inherit some money, but on his death in 1810 doctors confirmed that his genital organs were masculine, at least on the outside.
Today the transsexual society of Britain is named the Beaumont Society.
Another man that managed to evade some of the predujice against homosexuals was William Beckford, one of the richest men in England. Stridently gay, he was extremely learned and cultured. He wrote a gothic novel 'Vathek' a thinly disguised autobiography.
It cannot be underestimated the danger of being homosexual. In 1533 Henry VIII introduced a sodomy law punishable by death. But proof was not easy: evidence was needed that the man had ejaculated into another man.
Beckford built Fonthill Abbey where it was rumoured that orgies took place. Few people got in, but Nelson and Lady Hamilton spent three days there (the 'Posh and Becks' of the day quipped David Thompson).
Richard Payne Knight who started the Society of Dilettantes, and wrote a book about ancient phallic cults 'The Worship of Priapus', had a house in Soho square. Ironically, his house is now the British Board of Censors.
In the Victorian period there were two characters: Frederick 'Fanny' Park and Ernest 'Stella' Boulton who used to cruise the Burlington Arcade and the Alhambra music hall dressed as women. 'Stella' even married Lord Arthur Pelham-Clinton MP (son of Lord Newcastle) and was known as Lady Clinton. These 'ladies' were arrested at the theatre. Full and amusing details of their trial are here. Their defence was that they were dressing as women for a laugh, but the report dryly notes: "if they were merely acting in this way for "a lark", it must be said that the lark was one of a very long duration".
Simeon Solomon was one of the greatest pre-raphaelite painters. One of his private works is entitled 'The bridegroom and sad love' which tells you everything you might need to know about a homosexual man being forced to marry. In 1873 he was arrested with a stable hand in a urinal off Oxford St. Simeon left, like Wilde, for Paris. He was arrested again in a Paris urinal. Returning to Britain, he spent 20 years in the St. Giles workhouse and died a penniless drug addict and alcoholic in 1903.
Probably the most famous homosexual of the era was Oscar Wilde. When he met Bosey, the young man that led to his downfall, who was in his 20s, Wilde was in his 40s. The Portrait of Dorian Grey had been published, and the gay sub-plot was the subject of debate. In 1895 Wilde dined with Bosey at Kettners in Soho, a private dining room. He was convicted after two trials, but sodomy was commuted to gross indecency.
Wilde was not an aristocrat and therefore did not have the protection of some of the other well known homosexuals. For instance in 1889, the police busted a male brothel in Cleveland St. and arrested the Prince of Wales. Charges were dropped.
The Criterion bar in Piccadilly by the evening was exclusively male. One can guess what went on...
The Victorian era also saw female to male drag artists such as Vesta Tilley whose most famous song was 'Burlington Bertie from Bow', a song which talks about the East End boy coming to cruise the West End.
Radclyffe Hall lived an open lesbian life, dressed in male attire. She called herself a 'congenital invert', a term coined by sexologist Havelock Ellis. Hall wrote the lesbian classic novel 'The Well of Loneliness'. Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West who were in a lesbian relationship disliked her. It has been suggested that this was because they lived behind the facade of marriage and objected to her upfront lesbianism. The Well of Loneliness was banned in England but sold very well at Calais. By the time of her death in 1957 Radclyffe Hall had sold nine million copies.
Hannah Gluckstein, the Lyons Corner House heiress, was a successful painter, living at Studio House in Hampstead. Lyons Corner House, now Planet Hollywood in Leicester square, was a gay cruising joint on Sunday afternoons, where 'nippies' the black and white attired waitresses would put gay men in adjacent tables.
Quentin Crisp was, in the 1930s, a Soho rent boy hanging out at the Black Cat café.
David Thompson actually got the opportunity to draw Quentin Crisp, who often worked as a life model, while he was at art college in 1973. It was still unusual in those days to have a male nude model. Thompson was taken aback by the sight of this nude man in his 70s with a violet bouffant hairdo wearing a monocle and carrying a copy of The Times.
The Caravan club in the 1930s attracted a huge gay clientele. Within six weeks it had 445 members, over 2000 visitors. It was raided by the police. Other clubs included the 'Careless Stalk' 'The Sphinx' 'The A&B', run by Jeffrey, who acted as a matchmaker and wore a bizarre selection of hats.
'Fag Hags' and lesbians: Talullah Bankhead was a member of the Gargoyle Club. Muriel Belcher ran the The Colony rooms. Elsa Lanchester was Charles Laughton's 'beard', that is a wife married to a gay man. Francis Bacon was kept on a retainer by Belcher at the Colony Rooms to attract drinkers. He was surrounded by young boys.
The word 'bohemian' was a euphemism for gay.
In the 1950s Kenneth Williams of Carry On fame used 'polari' the gay slang in mainstream comedy...it was very risqué.
In 1976 the Astoria opened the first gay disco 'Bang'.
Today Soho is still a refuge for gay men. It's a place where they can walk down the street hand-in-hand with no fear of reprisals.
The pub 'Admiral Duncan' is about to have the 10th anniversary of the bombing which killed three people, ironically none of whom were gay. There will be two minutes silence at 18.37 on the 30th of April at St. Anne's churchyard.
Thompson finished on a sad note. The serial killer Dennis Nilsen picked up young homeless homosexual men at The Golden Lion, Dean St., Soho. These vulnerable men, often runaways, must have felt they were coming to a place of safety, an area which accepted them, but met a horrible fate at Nilsen's hand. 
Talks and walks around Soho are given by David Thompson every Sunday at 2pm meeting outside the Admiral Duncan pub on Old Compton st. Highly recommended.

Less than zero

My teen delights in provoking her teachers with her unconventional views. On Thursday one of her teachers asked if she had been at the G20 protests. My teen couldn't come, partly because we had the French exchange student staying. Not sure what this student thought when I texted:

"Probably won't be home in time to make dinner, held in kettle by police, might be arrested".

Shockingly some of her classmates, many of whom are incredibly straight and have views straight out of the Daily Telegraph... straight out of their parents mouths...were against any protest. We call them 'Abercrombies' because they all wear the same Abercrombie & Fitch clothes. One said that

"protesting should be banned!"

How very democratic. My teen went mad.

My daughter tells me that she manages to slip anti-capitalism into almost every subject, even biology. 

"Biology?" I exclaim "how did you do that?"

"There was this test question on the necessary elements for plants to grow. I answered it correctly, sunlight, water, etc but then I put 'This is not scientifically proven but another component helping plants to grow is love'. The teacher gave me zero even though I had everything right."

"Zero!"

"I told him I thought it was unfair. He said that it irritated him so he gave me zero".

April Fools

 

No comment neccessary.

  

Vics telling 'em how it is.

The street kitchen.

 

Trying to reason with the riot cops. Things kicking off.  

A sea of tents.

The entrance to the Climate Camp

 

Tentage decorated with slogans. Bicycle powered sound systems.

  

 Workers above, looking down. 'Why do we have to pay' sign in front of line of riot cops.

Climbing on buildings. 

Trying to reason with the riot police.

This kid was hit by truncheons, has bloody face.

Good vibes at the Climate Camp early on.

Grime artist 'Riddum'.

Wheelchair protestors were everywhere.

Yesterday I went down late to the G20 protests, missing the action at the Royal Bank of Scotland, to the Climate Camp pitched on Bishopsgate street near Liverpool Street Station. I've done one of these before a few years ago, when we all pitched tents in Trafalgar Square, to protest against the Iraq invasion. I remember it being very cold and noisy with local drunks constantly harassing us.

Coming out of Liverpool St. station I noticed several very clean-cut looking men with suspiciously casual clothes. Bankers were advised to dress down for the day in case they got set upon by protestors. At the same time protestors were told to 'dress like a banker for a day'. All very Saturnalia, the Roman festival where the masters dressed as slaves and served them for a day.

Climate Camp had taken over a whole block, with maybe a hundred pop-up tents, each spray-painted with slogans. There was a kitchen, baked potatoes with baked beans for a suggested donation of £1.50p, and a compost toilet.

My friend Chris Knight, University of East London professor and Radical Anthropologists guru (see link in sidebar) had already left, hoping to galvanise people to descend upon the university campus to protest his suspension. He'd made a few inflammatory remarks on radio "hanging bankers from lamposts". I'm amazed that they suspended him. He's been fermenting revolution in his classes for years. It's not exactly news. An alternative summit was supposed to happen at UEL but the university was shut down for two days. I'm also surprised that Barking Bateria, the UEL samba band has not protested more strongly at this. 

Chris' colleague Steve, just back from studying chimps in the Congo, was at Climate Camp.

"What's going to happen about Chris?" I asked.

"I think the university will quietly drop the whole thing once this protest is over. Chris is a chapel leader. They won't want the hassle. But it must be said that anthropology (Chris' dept) has only nine students this year. There used to be a hundred. It's become too expensive to study any 'non-essential' subjects now. All the students want to study business."(1)

I found the samba band, RoR, decked in their usual colours of pink and silver. Ms Canal Explorer had been outside the Royal Bank of Scotland when it was smashed and admitted that the samba band was in some way a catalyst for the protestors at that point. Ms CE and myself are both Space Hijackers (myself less frequently). They'd all been arrested outside News International with their tank 'disguised' as a riot squad van. (Facebook group: Free the SPA)

They are now bailed away from the Westminster/City/Newham area for a week as they refused to take a caution. 

The camp was peaceful with a party atmosphere. Student types were sitting around drinking beer. Some workers were looking down from the tall buildings surrounding us. (There were reports of bankers waving tenners at protestors). A bicycle powered sound system was cranked up. Rythms of Resistance were backing a 'grime' vocalist called riddum when the call went out to strengthen the southern perimeter of the camp. Riot police vans were parked all down the side of the camp and they had been picking off protestors (probably ones they recognised from the earlier fracas at RBS) and arresting them. We stopped playing and moved down the other end. I could see hundreds of protestors with their hands up chanting

'shame on you, shame on you'. 

A young man had blood down his face.

 "What happened?" 

"I was just standing there when a policeman started hitting me with his baton".

 Film by Rikki Blue, friend of mine. Don't believe the mainstream press.

Suddenly a row of riot police were closing in all around the camp. Somebody texted that fires were being started around the City, that sporadic rioting was occurring elsewhere. Protestors were standing eye to eye with the riot police, hands up in a peaceful gesture, asking for explanations of their behaviour. The samba band started to play again. This strengthened the mood. I've said it before but I'll repeat it. The drumming is a powerful weapon. The samba band is key to controlling the crowd. We can push it forward, rile it up, calm it down. (I'm not always sure that the samba band are aware of their own power, that at times the fact that they keep playing can prolong a situation such as outside the Israeli embassy (link to story) which would have fizzled out naturally.)

Excellent video reportage by SuperSan, a member of Barking and RoR.

I twittered everything  best as I could. There was another twitterer@climatecamp, but whose tweets seemed to be all about how happy/organised the camp was. 

One guy started fitting on the ground. Later a man was reported to have died, stopped breathing in a police van. I wondered if it was the same guy. In a Guardian report police claimed that protestors prevented medics from helping him. There is no way this could be true. Who do people think protestors are? One twitterer whose husband works in the city was worried that he might get beaten up. Protestors are generally incredibly idealistic and peace-loving. Who else would spend hours of free time trying to make a statement, most likely with no result? 

Around 9pm I went to the North perimeter to try to get out. A line of riot police were resolute. Nobody was leaving. Which is odd because the police were happy to let people walk into the Climate Camp in the first place. I talked to a Scottish policeman who explained that it was kicking off elsewhere. So we were 'kettled' in a Section 41 because the police were afraid the protestors here would link up with other protests. Eventually I sweet talked him into letting me out. Ms CE tried to get out a little later by saying she had her period. It didn't work. As I walked towards the tube I saw tattered news stand posters moving in the breeze "Obama's big day ruined by violence". I spoke to the news stand guy.

"It's pointless all this. The MP's can claim 40 grand expenses for second homes. The government can do what they want. We can't. Nothing is going to change".

And there we have it. Frustration and impotence. Anger and disgust. One set of rules for them, another for us. 

(1) I have since heard that Chris Knight did go to UEL, with Tony Benn MP and continue the alternative summit.

NB: As we all know, the MP's expenses story blew up in their faces in May '09. This is a seismic change. I get the feeling that the British, for once, feel revolutionary. It won't take much more to spark them off.

Also Chris Knight is now fighting to keep his job at the University of East London. 

Exchange student

It's not going too well. She thinks we are weird. My teen saw on an entry on facebook that she wondered why there were so many tables and chairs in the living room.

The girl doesn't say anything, skulks in her bedroom. I have to force her out.

My teen took her shopping to Topshop on Saturday. She sat looking miserable.

"It's too expensive" she eventually pouted

"So let's go to Primark" says my teen helpfully. But she didn't want to go.

There was a party in Harlesden Saturday night. I was worried. Harlesden is murder mile. Another mum dropped them off and picked them up. I was doing the Underground Restaurant so this was really helpful. Although my teen was annoyed that they were picked up at a quarter to midnight.

"The party went on till two am" she complained "only losers leave before midnight".

Personally I think that midnight is fine for just 15. At the party the French exchange student sat in a corner the whole time. 

My friend 'Kurt Cubain' came over Sunday. Blonde, dreadlocked, he's just back from six months in India. He was lighting up joints and strumming the guitar. God knows what the French exchange student thought. When he left I tried to bring her out of herself.

"He's just back from India!" I announced cheerily

She nods.

"Would you like to travel?"

More nodding.

"Are you going to stay in Epinal?"

She shakes her head vigorously. A bit of animation there.

"Where would you like to go? "

A word, muffled "London?"

"Would you like to go to India?"

Enthusiastic nodding. That's the longest conversation I have managed with her.

(I think her mind is a little blown by us, London, the UK. It certainly has not been comfortable. But possibly she'll go home with her horizons broadened. This is real education, which is not always comfortable.)

Our lot are exchanging with the year above from Epinal. Have to. The Epinal kids are so unsophisticated.

We must speak English to her. But it's hard to estimate how much she understands. Because she won't ask. 

The school seem to have a policy of mismatching the kids. Therefore the 'year slut' from the French school was paired with the 'year geek' from the Lycée. This was such a disaster in France that the 'year slut' refused to stay with him on the London leg, and went to stay with our 'year slut'.

The French 'year slut' brought over £350 and spent every penny. At least she has a lust for life.

I guess my teen is the year outcast and they've matched her with the French year 'straight'. 

The Frontline Club

Last night my friend Marcus Berkmann, the Spectator columnist and quiz master from the Prince of Wales Highgate pub quiz (the toughest one in London), held a quiz at The Frontline Club in Paddington. I've been wanting to go to this journalist's private club for a while, for they have interesting events, talks and film showings. 

Opposite St. Mary's hospital, the club is upstairs from the restaurant. Entering a room with tall windows and red leather sofas, Marcus found a place for me on a team led by Jonathan Foreman, a literary PR. Jonathan immediately demanded £20. Taken aback, I asked why.

"for a bottle of wine" he replied jauntily

"but I will only drink a glass. I'm driving." I managed to respond, feeling wrong-footed. I'm old fashioned enough to expect to be bought a drink by a gentleman.

That was the right response.

He back-tracked "oh I suppose you can buy a glass then."

A glass of Chardonnay was £4 and very nice too.

I sat down with the team. Foreman demanded £5 for the quiz. Suspicious of him now I said "but I am Marcus' guest".

"Doesn't matter" he insisted and pocketed the fiver. 

The rest of the team 'The foremen' ( I quipped that we should be called 'The foreskin' but they didn't go for it. Maybe I'm a little rough for this club) consisted of a woman and 3 men. The woman, Helen Castor, was pretty and smart. She is writing a book on medieval queen's tentatively entitled 'She-wolves' which will include Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lady Jane Grey and Mary Tudor. Elizabeth 1st is technically an 'early Modern' era Queen and will not be in the book. I hope she finishes soon, this is exactly the sort of book that I love. I mentioned the historic British tolerance of female leadership and the 'salic law' in France, which did not allow a female to become Queen in her own right.

"Oh they just made that up, the French. They had a choice between a 4 year old girl, direct line to the throne, and an older man who was already running the country and they just made up this law, pretending it had been around forever" said Helen.

The men in the team were Jonathan and two of his stable of writers whose names I have unfortunately forgotten. They were older and one of them, very charming, looked just like Australian cultural attaché Sir Les Patterson.

Writing a quiz is an art.

"A good quiz" says Marcus "is when anybody feels they have a shot at answering the questions. At the Prince of Wales I aim for the lowest score to be about 40% and the highest 80%"

"Do you change the quiz depending on the audience?"

"Yes. I knew the teams here would be well-travelled and well read. The range of scores here is between 50% and 85%"

Our team won by one point. It was hard for me to be taken seriously at first by the rest of the team. They didn't know me, plus I look younger than my age, which can sometimes be a disadvantage. Older men assume I'm a young flippertygibbet! Helen was shit hot, particularly at the 'books of films and their authors' round. Sir Les Patterson also managed to pull a few great answers out of the bag. I excelled at the French 'text speak' round, a lucky one for me, as I have spent so many years in France. The perfect quiz team, one that can answer general knowledge, is gender balanced with a wide age range. You could say it's a practical exercise in democracy.

Our prize was a book on the Middle East and a drink each. I ordered a Baileys. When I went to collect it from our table it had been drunk. The team told me that Jonathan had handed it around to others. I asked him and he denied it.

Marcus bought me a replacement.

Bellaphon

The food blogger Bellaphon has a secret life. Despite going to Oxford university he, like Nick Hornby's protagonist in 'Hi Fidelity', has always wanted to be a shopkeeper, specifically of a hi-fi shop. Walrus is round the back of Marble Arch.

Upstairs you see cluttered and dusty 'record players'. (I got told off for calling them that. It's 'turntable' or 'hi-fi' stupid!). One of them looked just like the red leatherette mono record player I got from Woolworths on my 16th birthday. I think it cost about £7, all the money I'd saved up from my National Savings certificates. I was so proud. Drove my mum mad playing the same record over and over again. I'd get in from school, light a joss stick and play 'heroin' by Lou Reed on repeat. I'd close the curtains and feel vaguely dangerous.

Downstairs at Walrus is an adult version of that atmosphere. A sofa at one side, for lounging. Stacks of vinyl. 

Studded around the room, spotlit, monolithic, are 'turntables'. Each one is about 6 inches thick. You can't pick them up. They weigh 40 kilos. Bellaphon put on a classical record. I could have sworn the orchestra was actually in the room with me. Each turntable is driven by a belt, not a motor.

"Why?" I asked.

"So that there is no wobble, no tremor" 

A typical turntable costs £15,000. Yeah, just that bit. Annie Lennox and Jimmy Page are customers. Although musicians are not good customers says Bellaphon, they have strange tastes, funny ears. Best are gay men and Australians. 

Soul food

The Moot with No Name, Devereux pub, Strand. Subject: Sin-eaters by Shani Oates.

Intrigued by this subject I took a friend, saying the people at the Moot with No Name are some of the most interesting and knowledgeable people I have met in London. 

Unfortunately Shani read her 'talk' from a large wad of papers using complex and academic language. It was hard to follow. You could see the packed room's attention wandering. 

I only started to make head or tail of it when we were allowed to ask questions. Steve Wilson, the MC of these talks, announced that Shani was the first person from the Robert Cochrane tradition to speak at the moots. Steve Wilson ominously requested that people not ask about 'lineage'. The room, full of the usual assortment of tricoteuses, witches, Shakespearean speaking frog-like creatures, long haired tailors, beady-eyed astrologers and other marginals, grumbled in response.

Robert Cochrane, originally from a strict Methodist background, claimed to come from a line of hereditary witches. He practised from his council home in London and elsewhere. There seems to have been some inter-coven rivalry with Gerald Gardner another hereditary witch (who spent much of his life studying local traditions in Malaysia) before returning to England to work eventually with Aleister Crowley. He started an affair with one of his coven, in front of his wife Jean, and grew fond of 'witches potions' (psychedelic drugs to you and me). He eventually committed ritual suicide, drinking belladonna, at the summer solstice of 1966.

The celebrated witch Doreen Valiente(1) one of his followers, became disenchanted saying

"cease to have silly bickering between covens, because they happen to do things differently from the way we do them. This incidentally is the reason why I eventually parted from Robert Cochrane, because he wanted to declare a sort of Holy War against the followers of Gerald Gardner, in the name of traditional witchcraft."

One of the main problems for Gardner, and is no doubt still an issue, is that the OTO was gender imbalanced, 80% to 20% women. The women were frequently reluctant to participate in the 'Great Rite' (sexual intercourse) on the altar. Spoilsports!

So with a little post-lecture research I have managed to make some sense of the talk.

Shani talked about the relevance of Sin-eaters to 'the craft', how sin is ritually dealt with via confession, expiation and purification.

"Sin" states Shani "has long been recognised as undesirable. No one can be responsible for the sins of somebody else but this is exactly what Sin-eaters do". 

Traditionally each village would have a Sin-eater, often beggars, who, by eating food and drink placed on or over the body of a corpse, would consume/remove the sins of the corpse. They, along with other professions such as tanners, were pariahs, untouchables kept on the outskirts of society. 

Adam Dilwyn Vaughan was the last known Sin-eater, living in Hereford in the 1960s. Richard Munsloe, a Sin-eater in Shropshire, enjoyed as his payment warm cake and spiced ale.

Soul-caking(2), funeral biscuits in Shropshire, corpse-cakes in the Balkans, the Dutch dead-cakes, burial cakes (still made in Lincolnshire and Cumberland) all derive from Sin-eating. Similarly in Cornish custom, children were encouraged to kiss the corpse. In the Andes, we see Tlazolteotl, a purification goddess,"eat the filth" of a corpse.

Salt and smoke would be used in the ritual, denoting healing and absolution. Fire and candles feature heavily in funerals, and the word derives from the Latin 'funeralis' meaning torch. It is taboo to light anything from a corpse candle. All attendees must carry salt in their pockets.

Salt represents many things: 

• a symbol of Man's labour
• incorruptibility (it is extracted intact from nature)
• sterility (makes all living nature barren)
• friendship and wisdom. To eat another man's salt is to make a bond. To eat the salt of your King is to owe him fidelity.

Salt is used in all the higher magical orders. But it is rumoured that some witches reject salt.

Other techniques used include 'dry retching' into a cleared ground, to suck out energetic debris from places of congestion in the body, to get it out of the system. 'Corpse silver' is given over the body, silver being a powerful conductor. The face of the Sin-eater is covered in black ash.

At the end of the talk Shani rejected the idea that eating sins had any deleterious effect on the Sin-eaters health. 

"What is sin for you?" asked someone

"Sin is not following your purpose" replied Shani "Crowley said sin equals restriction".

(1)Doreen Valiente also believed that the future of paganism and the craft in "the age of Aquarius, lies in feminism and Green issues associated with the environment" (quote from http://www.controverscial.com/). It seems to me that Stawhawk et al, with their activities at the anti-G8 camp, are pursuing Valiente's legacy.

(2)"Soul-cakers would go to each house, singing either a begging song or a plea for prayers for the dead. They would put on a mummers play for the residents of the house, which would consist of a challenge, a battle, a death, and a magical revival. Specially-made cakes were given to the Soul-cakers at the conclusion of their performance. Soul-caking is still the custom at Antrobus, in Cheshire, but there has been a change or two. Instead of going house-to-house, the Soul-cakers go pub-to-pub, by car! Leaving cakes and wine out for visiting ancestors is also an old custom that has carried over into many British households, even today." From Cyberwitch.com

15

Some girls at my daughter's school are having sex before they have even started their periods.

Another girl, just 15, has been sleeping with a 28 year old illegal immigrant. When she was 13 years old, she had an abortion. Her mother, middle-class, well-off, is fine with it.

One girl never uses contraception, relying purely on the 'morning after' pill.

"These girls are trying to be adult. But they don't act like adults" I say to my teen.

She tells me that many pupils go through the school day high on coke or 'e'.

I'm restrictive. Over-protective. I ask to speak to the parents if she is going to a party. I want to know where she is, where she is going. Some of her friends can go out whenever they want. 

"This girl C. can just go out at midnight. Her parents say yeah, no problem, do you want cab fare? Everybody lies to their parents" my teen says. 

But she came home tonight complaining that she was being hassled by men on the street. 

"Twice this evening, on the way home from school. I told one to fuck off"

I look at her. "I know  I know" says my daughter. 

When I was her age, I got pestered all the time by men in the street. Once I told one who wouldn't leave me alone "hey baby baby baby" to fuck off and he punched me in the face. Hard. 

"Careful" I say "these men are not nice. One minute they want you they next they are hitting you. Nice men don't pester young girls in the street."

Manifesto for a New Great Britain

1. Stop all production of new cars unless they use alternative energy.Then we will look like Cuba in 20 years time, with lovely old cars everywhere.
2. Pull out of Iraq, Aghanistan and every other theatre of war. Keep our army for peace keeping duties only.
3. Retain the Queen as head of state. But she will be leader of the new Anarchist Britain. (I like to mix the old and the new. Vintage and modern). Once a week the Queen will have a meeting with the people via a lottery system.
4. Make all public transport free immediately. Start collective taxis 'collectivos'.
5. Ban all private and religious schools. Make university free again.
6. If people want to home educate, give them a subsidy, the amount it would cost the state to send them to school (about 4k a child). However they will not be allowed to indoctrinate their kids with extreme religion. Make sure they do a certain amount of sport/art/music.
7. Encourage the repair of old things. Give tax breaks to manufacturers who make products that can be fixed and maintained at a reasonable price. At the moment it is often cheaper to throw away a product and buy a new one.
8. Invest in alternative energy for every home/government/office building. Give subsidies and training for people to build wells in their gardens, keep chickens, grow their own vegetables.
9. Pay one parent in every family to stay home and look after their children. Do not fetishize the world of work. Encourage integration between family life and work life.Do everything possible to boost the status of home workers ( in which I include people who bring up children).
10. Legalise drugs.
11. Leave the European Union. We are not European. But stay mates with them.
12. Dismantle the freehold/leasehold system. It is medieval.
13. Ask each and every newcomer to Britain, whether they be individuals or businesses, what can they do for the community? What can they contribute to the New Great Britain? Concrete proposals.

14. Ban all farming methods that are cruel to animals. Encourage vegetarianism.

In fact I will be adding to this list as I go along. Then I'm going to start a political party and run for government. But I will be rubbish at diplomacy, will always tell the truth. I'm also quite shouty.

Good Hair Day

My teen had her hair done on Saturday. She now has a short blonde Pixie Geldof type coiffure. It looks great. £75. 

Why am I telling you this? Because she has cheered the fuck up.

The National Health Service could dispense with anti-depressants and therapy sessions if they just prescribed free hairdressing. Hair makes a tremendous difference to how you feel, especially if you are female. 

It makes sense doesn't it? Hair is the stuff that covers your head. Your head, your brain, your mind. If the 'covering' doesn't look good, then what's inside won't feel good. 

Old ladies used to go to the hairdressers every week. They knew a thing or two.

In my punk days in the 70s my hair progressed through every colour of the rainbow. The first time it was blue with a pink fringe. People screamed as I walked past. As buses went by, I would see all of the passengers heads whip round in shock.

Another time I had my hair dyed green and blue to match my WH Smith uniform where I worked on Saturdays. 

The first day at school after having my hair done blue, I arrived in break. Ever had 2000 kids simultaneously laugh, gasp and point at you? That, along with the day I wore a Union Jack plastic carrier bag as a mini-skirt to the Queen's Jubilee street party, was a highlight of my youth. An old lady went up to my mum who was hanging red, white and blue bunting and said:

"Have you seen that? Disgusting isn't it?"

My mum replied:"Yes."

Old lady: "I wonder if she even lives in this street. Any idea who she is?"

My mum: "She's my daughter."

I left early to go to see The Damned and The Ramones at the Roundhouse.