Cultural cringe

When looking for the world's worst pundit, it's so easy to be parochial and stick to all the obvious British candidates. But it's a salutary and sobering thought that Her Majesty's Press is often forced to look across the Atlantic should it wish to provide its readers with a truly magisterial dose of wrongness.

One newspaper even employs on a regular basis a barkingly mad American woman who somehow manages to out-crazy its stable of homegrown eccentrics and nutjobs. But the Guardian now surpasses itself with the latest offering by the Canadian Naomi Klein

In it she employs her remarkable talent for stating the bleeding obvious, affecting shock at it and then drawing precisely the wrong conclusions to observe that the presidency is a difficult job that often involves messy compromises and the current president will not, in fact, stick it to The Man.

Klein is one of the most valuable intellectual figures of age. I am not sure that she doesn't deserve to be regarded in the same light as figures like Noam Chomsky or Ayn Rand, with whom you know infallibly that you can disregard the opinions of anyone who cites them in support of their views.

At the risk of developing a cultural cringe, why is it that our own homegrown pundits don't achieve the same level of ineffable error?

Trollied Tuesday: notebook

Ever since I encountered a gentleman in a green shirt and jester's hat in the gold, white and green slumped pungently across a seat on the Tube on Sunday I remembered the best attitude towards St Patrick's Day: it's no big deal. If you are so inclined, you might wish to say a Mass. If you are in Ireland and have the day off, enjoy it. Not a day for proper drinkers, though. Too many amateurs about.

But excessive grumbling about it being a glorified marketing exercise aimed at plastic Paddies (which it is, outwith Ireland) is as foolish as going to Kilburn for the craic (an English word in origin, by the way). So when Eamon Forde writes in the Times (found via Harry's Place): "The celebration originally marked the arrival of the Catholic faith on Irish shores, but in an increasingly secular country, it now celebrates the futility of drunkenness" does make one wonder whether the bottle or the crozier has been a more harmful influence on Ireland. (Remember too that the Pope did sanction Henry II's conquest of Ireland from which a few, erm, difficulties sprang.)

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Worth remembering, too, on the day in which Guinness tries to turn Ireland into a marketing device, that there are other drinks. As I observed around this time last year:

There is a rather sentimental idea that Guinness tastes better in Ireland. It's not entirely true; for one thing the stuff you get in London is all brewed in Dublin these days. Besides, in Cork you should stick to Beamish or Murphy's… One's physical location, then, is less important than one's state of mind.

This theory might be tested by the news that the Beamish & Crawford brewery in Cork is to close this month. Production is be moved to the same place in which Murphy's is brewed (owned by Heineken). Apart from the sadness of an era ending, and the loss of 120 jobs, there is a vague unease about the loss of something else.

Rationally, there is no reason why changing the location in which the drink is brewed should affect quality. Guinness after all can be made in enormous quantities and, if kept properly, tastes superb. And yet this news creates a vague unease. The trend favoured by large brewers of consolidating production in ever larger plants has seen many fine beers lost, and many others have suffered an appreciable loss of quality.

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Worse is the latest affront: the minimum alcohol price. It seems that not even Labour is stupid enough to try and whack up the price of booze before an election in which it might struggle to win votes. I dolefully predict the idea will be dusted off after the election by whoever wins (okay, it'll be the Tories then).

It will not work, because people will find ways of getting drink if they must have it. Some other crude device will soon be found to bash the drinker over the head. If this blog has any purpose, and I try to avoid such fripperies, it is an implacable opposition to this sort of nonsense.

Leaving aside the shredding of the economy, which will probably see people drinking less (while wanting to drink more) the most curious aspects to this proposal are some of the unintended consequences. For instance, port and sherry - say at 20% alcohol - would most likely be among the drinks that would see the biggest price rises. (Someone at least has had a stab at the maths: a bottle of sherry could rise from £4.59 t0 £7.15 - roughly a third I make that.) Buckfast, of course, will not be affected: indeed its price might even fall. This isn't a way to tackle problem drinking.

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With nice circularity, then, a prediction. Tomorrow's Irish papers (north and south) will be full of hand-wringing about drink and violence. What does it mean? Simple, the press loves hand-wringing, lots of people in Ireland like drink and a significant minority can't handle it. Put them in a drunk tank, ignore them, or a combination thereof will be more effective in curbing their excesses than most other measures.

Except mockery. Remember The Simpsons: "All this drinking, violence, destruction of property... are these the things that we think of when we think of the Irish?"

Trollied Tuesday: In Case of Emergency

Britain may be led by hopeless incompetents, things may grind to halt with the advent of snow,the media might go over the top but the people still know what to do in the face of adversity.

Predictions of the cold snap last week prompted customers to stock up on warm clothing, while supermarkets said they were prepared for big runs on soups, pies, curries, whisky, brandy, thermos flasks, de-icers and scrapers.

Frankly you could throw it all out, even the brandy (though why would you want to do that?): whisky is the key for survival. Consider the example of Joe Galliot of Somerset, who survived two days trapped under a sofa with only a bottle of Scotch to sustain him.

"I took a sip of [the whisky] and thought, well this isn't too bad."

That's what whisky is designed to do. It's an Irish invention, of course, and I'll yield to no one in my admiration of proper whiskeys, but the Scotch version (spelled without an 'e') is what you need when things are getting really tough. As the Economist observed recently, sales of single malts are booming amidst the worst economic downturn for 60 years.

Perhaps its something about the harshness of winters in Scotland that gives it this extra edge, but whisky brings the warmth, the light the sense of purpose needed to survive bitter weather, dearth and darkness. It is the Highlander's consolation for dispossession, defeat, exile and death.

I have no intention of turning this into a whisky bores' parade in which the relative merits of Islays or Speysides, or the various glens are discussed; it's like arguing about the sort of woman you prefer. Preferences are one thing (if pushed, I should go for the peaty vitality of Laphroaig), but ultimately all types are good, as Don Giovanni realised.

In Strathisla seicento e quaranta;
In Glen Scotia duecento e trentuna;
Cento in Talisker, in Scapa novantuna;
Ma in Caol Ila son già mille e tre.

D'ogni forma, d'ogni età will do you should the worst happen and the lights go out and power supplies go off. (You won't be able to cook anyway, unless you are the sort of person who keeps a parafin stove). A good blended whisky will see you fine; but a fine malt will see you through everything bar the apocalypse. Even then, I'd keep a flask handy.

Bloody Labour

Even by Gordon Brown's admittedly high standards, his attempts to appear like an everyday person make him appear astonishingly strange, creepy and maladroit.

His latest such effort, talking about his supposed fondness for the robot superhero Optimus Prime (a Transformer – "Robots in Disguise" as I recall – has the usual effect). It's not such an unlikely role model for Brown though.

Behold his alter-ego: Optimus Subprime, a clunking robotic figure who transforms the British economy, motor vehicles and all, into a heap of smouldering junk.

Bloody Tories

Is anyone, bar Madeline McCann's immediate family that concerned that a bunch of young Tories make poor taste jokes and are idiotic enough to put the evidence online? Is it going to change anyone's vote at the next election? Does anyone really think Caroline "Nannygate" Spelman is the best person to decide what is and is not embarrassing to the Tory Party? Spare us the crocodile tears.

Admittedly the Young Conservatives themselves are a perpetual embarrassment - Conservative Future as I should call them after the Thatcher Youth were disbanded for being a bit too embarrassing and right-wing - but the really disturbing thing is that youthful pratishness should be seen as some sort of great political scandal.

The implication being that student politicians should always be on the alert to see how their antics affect their party in the wider world. The problem with this is that some of the most ghastly people one could possibly encounter at an institute of higher education are student politicians. The obnoxious, tribal, yobbish types - like young Lewis - are bad enough; but the very worst are the goody-goody careerists, hacks and toadies.

I can think of a few university contemporaries of mine who have risen through the ranks in their respective parties. Generally the less impressive they are, the better they do. The reaction to the Madeline McCann stunt will only encourage their like in student unions throughout the country.

Acting like a twat at university should not be a bar to high office in later life. But the mere fact of having been a student politician should.

Afterthough: It occurs to me now that the Tory boy's most grievous offence was the sheer lack of effort that went into his "bad taste" outfit. The oh-so predictable race to be "shocking" and "offensive" is rather stale. In my day, and I am aware this is making sound like even more of a choleric old git, the whole point of bad taste parties was to be imaginative or witty in a bid to see how badly dressed one could be.

Paul Dacre: a cunt but correct

In some cases doesn't pain me to say that I agree with the editor of the Daily Mail. In this instance Paul Dacre's argument that the Human Rights Act and its provisions about privacy allow judges to interpret the law in ways that can and will inhibit newspapers' freedom of speech and their ability to investigate what people get up to is perfectly correct.

The British press is having a privacy law imposed on it, which apart from allowing the corrupt and the crooked to sleep easily in their beds is, I would argue, undermining the ability of mass-circulation newspapers to sell newspapers in an ever more difficult market.

If you want to hear a lawyer's take on the matter, you can read one here. My concern is more practical. It's not that there is an overwhelming public interest in reports about Max Moseley's amusingly colourful leisure activities; but any law that starts off by making activities in the bedroom off-limits won't end there (what about a politician who gives public money to someone with whom they are sexually involved, for instance?). Really it's the nebulous concept of "privacy" that worries me: Dacre is a case in point.

It is thanks to the press freedoms he defends that Private Eye, and others, can report that he is a foul-mouthed bully; an obnoxious and hypocritical thug who addresses his underlings in terms he would never allow in his newspaper (amusingly these tirades are known as the vagina monologues). Is that private behaviour? Should it be private? His underlings consent to these verbal batterings in exchange for money, after all.

Anyway, abusing Dacre, though it is both a fun and proper way to exercise freedom of speech, is rather beside the point. The intolerable moralising with which he makes his arguments does tend to weaken his case somewhat. He believes that Max Moseley's spanking sessions should be exposed because they are "acts of unimaginable sexual depravity" and that society benefits from the moral condemnation of such acts.

What pitiful tosh. Apart from the fact that Dacre is obviously a man of staggering limited imagination (I can think of several more depraved acts than that), I have also been grateful to the freedom of the press for exposing several more depraved acts (it was thanks to the Guardian that I first heard the phrase Cincinnati Bow Tie, for instance).

Where he does weaken his case is the suggestion that the law should be there to protect us from the consequences of others' depravity: "the very abrogation of civilised behaviour of which the law is supposed to be the safeguard". Nope. Civility (which is really what he's talking about) is no concern of the law: its primary duty to civilisation is prevent us from harming each other.

By my moral standards the Daily Mail's relentless coarsening of public discourse, its promotion of ascientific ignorance (MMR being a good example of the dangers of this) and its utterly vile bullying of some of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society is something that should be utterly condenmed under all the values of civilisation. All of this yellow journalism does, I think, do real harm to people. Dacre should be an object of public odium, a pariah in all polite circles.

And yet to suggest that the law should be involved is an absurdity. It should be there to safeguard our liberties, including those of speech, actions and conscience. Occcasionally we might do harm to ourselves, so what?; we might abuse our rights and behave badly towards others, again so what? (With the caveat about outright incitement to violence against others: horrible as the Mail is with regard to immigrants it doesn't go that far).

So let's not cheapen the debate with this moralising guffe, it only weakens the defence of free speech. It would be as absurd to expect the law to uphold my moral standards as it would to expect it to uphold Paul Dacre's rather different set of values. We don't what an endless debate about which moral vaules the law should be protecting, after all. It's all about allowing us freedom of choice. A final Dacre-ism:

Now some revile a moralising media. Others, such as myself, believe it is the duty of the media to take an ethical stand. Either way, it is a choice but Eady has taken away our freedom of expression to make that choice.

So for all that I despise what he stands for. He's right. Damn him.

UPDATE: Lots of typical handwringing on this by Guardian writers. Polly Toynbee after condemning Dacre roundly for condemning people concludes that his paper abuses press freedom. I agree the Mail abuses that freedom, but is she willing to give up those freedoms on those grounds? It's not clear whether she would.

In other news... (why is this news?)

1. Gordon Brown finally finds someone more unpopular than him, and urges the media to get stuck in.

2. Conclusive proof Amanda Knox is innocent: her mother says so.

3. Tinfoil sales soar as the US election nears.* Could the Republicans steal the vote? Maybe says Peter Tatchell on the Indie's website; why aren't we more worried about it? and why don't people take the suggestion that Kerry threw the last election because he was a member of Skull and Bones seriously? asks Keith Mothersson.

You can't wholly scoff at this: US politics is a dirty, shambolic and often corrupt business (à la 2000 election in Florida); but good old incompetence is often the best explanation for things, as Brett Lock argues. You can't just say that cock-ups trump conspiracies, but note that the cock-ups and are generally what allow the "conspirators" to take advantage of them. Here's Time magazine on all the things that could go wrong, there's quite a few.

But in Ohio, the epicentre of claims of wrong-doing last time, I reckon a repeat is pretty unlikely. Unlike in 2004, the Democrats now control the state (perhaps the Republicans forgot to reset their voting machines in 2006) and I think it unlikely, to say the least, that they would be in on a grand conspiracy to rob their man (although they did, amusingly, misspell Joe the Plumber's name). Were a lot of Democrat voters to be turned away from the polls this time round, that really would be the cock-up to end all cock-ups.

* Obviously if Chuck Baldwin steals it in West Virginia I will look like a fool.

Trollied Tuesday II: what's in a name?

A couple of examples of the self-important foolishness to which this blog, and the Trollied Tuesday thing particularly, stand firmly in opposition.

The first is the suggestion that the Orcardian beer Skullsplitter be withdrawn from sale. The name was singled out in a study for the Portman Group.

It was highlighted in a report by management consultancy PIPC on the grounds its name could imply violence and also the impact the strength may have on the drinker.

Management consultants. Is there no field of life which they cannot make intolerable? Now if a well-known Belgian beer were to market itself as Wife Beater, PIPC might have a point. As it is, they can sod right off. You'll be fascinated to know that I have tried this beer– an entertaining taste, I thought, but it did not make me want to cleave anyone's skill in two – and I'd thought that the name was a warning of what would happen if you drank too many.

In reality, it's named after a Viking earl of Orkney – Thorfinn Hausakluif. There's a reason why there aren't many Viking chieftans with names like Ragnar the Responsible or Sigurd the Social Worker, but the ignorance aside, the logic of the Portman Group's recommendation is difficult to follow. There is a rather weaselly objection that is that if a name is "associated with" violence it should not be permitted: either they object on the grounds of taste (God knows what they'd make of the Dog's Bollocks beer) or they believe that the name might somehow inspire violence. To take this logic to an extreme, the beer should make drinkers want to rape and pillage along the east cost and maybe sack Newcastle on the way home. I don't think the sort of people who drink craft beers really do this very often, however.

The second suggestion comes from the government. It's part of a wider code of conduct for the drinks industry, including a ban on free drink being offered in bars, and contains the following suggestion:

It warns that drinks should not be promoted as a means of boosting one’s “social, sexual, physical, mental, financial or sporting performance”. The practice of selling cocktails called Sex on the Beach, or more sexually graphic names, will also be scrapped.

I don't particularly object to the main proposal. One could argue that getting a bunch of girls liquored up has a social benefit. I make no comment. However the banning of names that might associate alcohol with fun is plan silly. It so happens that I find drinks with names like Sex on the Beach to be garish, tasteless and vulgar and the type of person who drinks them to be of the same type. (Then again sex on the beach is a bit, well.. the sand is a problem) But it's really no business of government to be trying to stop any of this.

The idea that naming a drink is an absurd infantalising of people and suggests that no one can be trusted to make decisions about how they conduct themselves. I can see why the average drinker of Sex on the Beach might give you this idea, but using your prejudices as an excuse to interfere in people's lives is something always to be resisted.

As with Skullsplitter, there is a suggestion that, somehow, the name given to a drink dictates the way people will consume it and how they well act after drinking it. I've a nagging suspicion that there is a term from philosophy to describe this, but I'm damned if I can remember it. In any case, does anyone seriously think if the following gaudy, cloying concoctions were renamed along the lines I've suggested, that the people who enjoy them would turn into the sort of earnest puritan who ends up deciding policy.

• Sex on the Beach - Diversity Awareness Seminar
  
• Slippery Nipple - Empowering Women to Reject Objectification and Gender Stereotyping
  
• Screaming Orgasm - Speech by the Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP, Minister for Women
  
• Long, Slow, Comfortable Screw - Public Health Initiative
  

William is drinking: Famous Grouse. Doubtless if it changed his name he'd be finding fewer things to complain about.

History in the making, poor old history

It's as good a time as any to revisit my predictions on Sarah Palin; not so much a pitbull with lipstick, then, more one of those annoying little yappy dogs that keeps snapping at your ankles but which you cannot boot into touch for fear some misguided fool will think badly of you for so doing - with lipstick. Looking back she's not quite an Eagleton-esqe liability, but nor is she a Nixon-esqe master of turning attack into defence (this is 1952 I'm talking about, remember).

However, I did highlight the potential for Troopergate to embarrass her: though the report on the affair is a classic example of the political compromise that satisfies no one. It found, in essence, that she abused her powers but was legally entitled to do so. (Thanks for that chaps). I also failed to spot the full capacity of a religious extremist for pandering to the more ignorant and hate-filled elements of society. Anyway, let's put her somewhere between Dan Quayle and Spiro Agnew in the scale of foolish picks and be done with the matter. Certainly I think my prediction holds up better than Dominic's comment on my original post "Well, here's to her becoming next VP. She should prove well up to the task."

Anyway, it would seem that McCain is regretting his choice (or the fact that he agreed to her being foisted upon him), as this report from the Sunday Times suggests. (NB: British reports on US politics always carry a health warning, however, it sometimes suits American politicians to leak things they are unwilling to release to the British media to the Brits in the full knowledge it will be picked up back home).

McCain has become alarmed about the fury unleashed by Sarah Palin, the moose-hunting “pitbull in lipstick”, against Senator Barack Obama. Cries of “terrorist” and “kill him” have accompanied the tirades by the governor of Alaska against the Democratic nominee at Republican rallies.

I suspect that both think the election is lost and Palin is planning her run for the White House next time round (with the support of the most detestable elements of her own party). But while Palin with one hand waves the Bible, with the other releasing the rats from the sewer; McCain on the other hand appears to have chosen the path of decency and honour by taking on the more deranged and hateful elements of his own party – getting booed for telling them that no, actually, Obama isn't a Muslim terrorist and would you please shut up about it as it makes the rest of us look bad. I won't help him at the polls, but if he can take on the worse elements of his own party, he might ensure that he goes down in history as one of the great honourable losers (like Wendell Wilkie in 1940, perhaps) rather than a gambler who staked his reputation and lost.

Forward to disaster

Two leaders losing the plot and support. One is the Telegraph on Chavez, one is the Guardian on Brown.

Under [name] government has become a one-man show. He takes almost every decision himself, working into the early hours, scrawling his signature on official papers. His ministers are powerless...

Former admirers are increasingly concerned. [One former minister] said: "The person who's in charge of the destiny of our nation has become focused on one aim: to perpetuate himself in power even when this damages the country. Actually, damaging the country favours his aim, because each day we depend more upon the government."

Can you guess which is which?

Those close to him say that [his] response has been to bury himself in work, hunching over the detail: "[He]'s just keeping very busy." Will he go of his own volition? According to one person at the heart of the machine: "Never. He still believes the economy will turn round in time. He's been playing a long game all his life."

Although both have that aura of creeping disaster that surrounds a captain who insists on going full speed ahead towards the iceberg, I don't really mean to compare Brown to Chavez (cheap laughs aside, of course). Chavez has, after all, a base of genuinely loyal supporters, a couple of election wins under his belt and a genuine presence on the international stage.

EU drinking in the last chance salon

Recently I wrote about the curious Irish phenomenon of the found-ons, and noted that they captured a peculiar struggle between the desire for conformity and the desire to rebel in the Irish soul. You will find this same battle played out on a more trivial scale tomorrow in the referendum on the Lisbon I Can't Believe It's Not A Constitution Treaty.

Do they do the responsible, dutiful thing and allow the EU project to continue smoothly, or do they give two fingers to their rulers in Dublin and in Brussels?

Europe is not an issue on which too much heat should be generated, I think. Its enthusiasts tend to be the most over-eager bores, geeks and bureaucrats imaginable, while its opponents tend to be frothing lunatics (the Irish no-voter who has taken out advertisements denouncing it as ‘God-excluding foolish Freemason determined’ is a good example and provides a reminder of the dark days of John Charles McQuaid besides).

However, I think we can all agree that if the European Union was run by people who displayed greater empathy towards that corner of the human soul which understands the appeal of drinking illicitly in a bar in rural Ireland it would be much more popular.

PS: Here's a real irony for you. The Democratic Unionist Party betrays a fundamental element of the British constitution, by seeking to extend the state's power to detain people without charge.

Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of the Daily Mail

When you think of all the people that the Daily Mail has pissed off – make that anyone with any shred of decency in their souls, and many more besides – it's amazing that it's taken so long for protesters to gather outside the newspaper's offices to protest at its journalism.

This weekend, however, a group of Emo kids - fans of My Chemcial Romance, mainly – took umbrage at the paper's recent coverage of the "suicide cult" of Emo and protested outside the newspaper's offices. (Update: pics of this very unsinister bunch from the Guardian)

In a shameful development that will shock anyone who cares about standards in British journalism (sorry, I just lapsed into Mail-speak there) it seems the offending article did not give an entirely accurate representation of the facts, which were instead somewhat distorted to suit the newspaper's prejudices. As one of the protesters said:

"I've read a couple of the [Mail] articles and they've actually misquoted lyrics and the research was so badly done, it was unbelievable."

Perhaps inevitably for a youth culture based on self-pity for nice middle class kids, the protest seems to have been a rather feeble affair (most of the protesters stayed at Marble Arch to ensure that the protest didn't look like too much of a protest). The fact Saturday is the one day of the week no one from the daily paper will be in the offices didn't help, however. As one security guard told the Guardian: "It's a waste of time, there's no one here today. Look at them - they're eating their lunch and their mums are off shopping."

It would doubtless be very wrong of me to speculate about what a half-decent protest outside the Mail's offices would look like – perhaps a baying mob armed with flaming torches and pitchforks and scythes sealing the place off before storming the reception and dragging out several of the paper's senior editors, stringing them up by the heels and burning down the building before Paul Dacre is flayed alive on Kensington High Street - so I'll confine myself instead to the observation that the Mail deserves an infestation of Emos. The whining defensiveness, the boo-hooing at a big nasty, scary world which is unmoved by their anguish and the constant sense that things simply aren't fair characteries both the youth cult and the newspaper.

One shouldn't get too irate at the Mail, however. The most infuriating thing about it is that people buy it – oh and the fact that this success has driven most of the broadsheets to adopt some of their methods (without actually persuading people to buy their papers; I wonder how long it'll be before they twig that people who want to buy the Mail buy the Mail?). However, complaining about it seems pretty futile so long as people are willing to read it.

For the thing about the Mail is, no one likes it: not its hacks (many suffer twinges of conscience, poor loves) and certainly not its readers – it's the first choice for women who like nothing better than its general air of malovolence towards all women, the ideal read for people who affect morality but who enjoy victimising the weak and vulnerable and the very thing for nationalists who hate their country and their fellow citizens. This self-hatred is what drives it – remember hatred is stronger than love, combine that with narcissism and you've really got something there – but it is, as I said, rather Emo-ish.

Their twin misfortune is that their attention-seeking behaviour attracts ridicule, rather than pity.

If they'd asked me for my advice, the Emo kids would have been better off persuading their favourite band to cover that old Irish rebel song: The Man from the Daily Mail.*

* Just to remind us that belligerent stupidity is not just combined to little Englanders, here's a Provo version of the song (and others) from the an armalite in one hand, and an armalite in the other, wing of the republican movement.

Prediction time

In a few hours that minority of Londoners who can be arsed will be heading to the polls to decide which of two untrustworthy scoundrels will be entrusted with the stewardship of the city for the next four years. While I ponder the least humiliating combination of futile protest Xs I could make, let me make my prediction now so you can point and laugh if I'm wrong.

Boris Johnson to win by around 4%.

This is, as Peter Snow would say when waving his swingometer around, just for fun. I derive a certain anoraky amusement from politics and I do like a bit of a bet, so here are my reasons. If you don't share these interests, you will probably have stopped reading already; if you do, remember – this is what I think will happen, not necessarily what I want to happen.

1. Labour isn't too popular, which will drag Livingstone's support down just because he's the representative of the ruling party, no matter how much he downplays the fact.

2. Then think of all the people Ken has pissed off (too long to list here), his rather dodgy associates and the blind eye he's turned to their activities. Plus, and this always works against the incumbent, he's done things that people don't like (I mean doing things will always cost you some votes, irrespective of their merits). Now remember that for all those people who voted for him in the past and are now voting for someone else, he has to attract new voters. Where will they come from? There will be some who get off their backsides and vote because they can't abide Boris. But enough to win? Surely not.

My feeling is that whatever doubts people have about Boris, it's a suspicion. Whereas those who think Ken's actions have made him unsuited to the job are deciding on the basis of a certainty. When it comes to a suspicion vs a certainty, the latter is going to win out.

3. The bizarre way Ken and his supporters have been fighting their corner. Rather than focussing on experience and competence (his two strongest suits), they've been arguing about virtually everything but. Polly Toynbee's column from yesterday is a classic of the how-not-to-make your case genre, containing as it does virtually all the reasons why Livingstone will lose.

Complaints about Boris the ('effette and frivolous') toff and other things no one gives a toss about; arguments that all the money that's gone missing is scarely worth worrying your little heads about (what's a few million between taxpayers?) and even if it was knowingly misappropriated, Ken didn't benefit personally so don't blame him for the supporting the people responsible; claims that greedy idiots in the City like Ken (they should, given his indulgence of them) so hurrah for him.

4. Snarling and whinging. Then thereare the sneers and jibes at anyone who crosses the Lizard King, even pollsters whose reputation and long-term viability depends on being impartial are biased, you see. (Strangely, this reminds me of nothing so much as Lee Atwater and Karl Rove): the claim that if Boris wins it's only the wrong sort of Londoners who are voting - "Boris Johnson campaigns mainly in the rich white suburbs" - as opposed to inner city areas like Westminster and Notting Hill where oppressed, poor, minority types like Polly Toynbee live. And, in any case, even if the inner cities fail to vote in sufficient numbers for Ken, it's only because the Evening Standard has been running hostile stories.

The irony of complaining about a partisan campaign by a newspaper in a column in a newspaper which has been running a series of save the Newt articles is glaring enough to be rather annoying. But more annoying by far is the idea that if St Ken somehow loses it will be a martyrdom at the hands of the Evil Standard.

I've mentioned before that media types tend to vastly over-estimate their own importance. In this case Toynbee even tries to have it both ways (arguing that the Standard isn't that important but will still cause vulnerable and impressionable Londoners to make the wrong decision). Clearly the Standard is out to get Ken. Clearly it's for Johnson. (Clearly, it is also utter shite, though that's scarcely relevant here). However, I doubt very much that a paper which is losing sales massively to the freesheets is going to swing the election. Rather, if the Standard does for Ken, it's because it's picked up on things he should be held to account for and stuff that real voters - even the horrid middle-class, non-inner city-dwelling whites – care about. (Remember too that stuff about possible corruption has been widely picked up on, weak stuff like some bloke you've never heard of doesn't like Ken, stays firmly between the largely unread pages of the Standard). Newspapers are more likely to reflect public opinion than to shape it.

But this whinging that the debate is being conducted on terms you don't like has characterised the Livingstone camp from the off. And I think, ultimately, it will cost him. Ah well.

So, if I'm right, my dismay at this insufferable charlatan's victory will be matched only by my delight that this ghastly little man has been handed his cards. If I'm wrong, then vice versa.

More offensive music

Apologies if you've all heard this before; but ever since I reached the age of 25 I decided not to even try keeping up with popular music trends. I figured that things that would appeal to me would filter through eventually and that in the interim I could spend the time increasing my collection of classical music, music from other countries and so on.

It seems to be working as Harry's Place alerts me to something very fine indeed. The comment

I just watched the two videos. It's one thing for rational adults to have to endure that dirge, but there's something quite sinister about exposing those vulnerable children to his particular brand of miserablism. I don't know about myself, but I'm quite certain that Malcolm Middleton is going to die alone, and rightly so.

is an especial commendation.

We're All Going to Die by Malcolm Middleton.

Cliff Richard never sunk so low

I don't have anything to useful to add to the BBC's ridiculous publicity stunt of bowdlerising, then reinstating of the Fairytale of New York – if you're interested there are sensible comments on the Political Umpire's blog – bar to draw your attention towards Peter Tatchell's comments.

What concerns me is not so much the use of the word "faggot" as the hypocritical condemnations of Radio 1's original decision to bleep it out. They wouldn't endorse the use of the words "nigger", "paki", "yid" or "spastic". For the sake of consistency, either the f-word should be disallowed too or these other bigoted words should also be permitted. It's the inconsistency that grates.

Whatever else he may be, Tatchell is not a Pogues fan or else he would surely be aware that 'yids' and 'Paks' appear in the Sickbed of Cuchulainn.

However, at this time of goodwill to all it would be clearly wrong to focus on one artist's ability to offend when a quick trawl through YouTube reveals a wealth of songs which allude to frankly sickening attitudes about sex, race, power and class. The fact that this includes some of my favourite songs indicates more clearly than anything I might say that I am clearly a very bad person.

In that spirit, I offer you a choice of six supreme examples of musical and moral turpitude. (Feel free to suggest your own things we shouldn't be listening to in the comments box).

1. Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones.
A song about white slave owners having sex with their black slaves on the plantations. And they make it sound like such fun. The BBC clip linked to here clearly endorses such disgraceful attitudes and could quite easily have let to an epidemic of young plantation owners exploiting their labourers.

2. Kill the Poor by the Dead Kennedys.
Because if a song articulates offensive attitudes, it clearly endorses them. I think it a sad indictment of the Reagan era that punk musicians should have thought it acceptable to advocate the mass murder of people on low incomes, but what did you expect from a band with a name which makes such a tasteless attempt to exploit poor Ted Kennedy's narrow deliverance from a road traffic accident which could have happened to anyone. (Thanks to Quink for suggesting this).

3. Lady by Fela Kuti.
A political activist and scourge of colonialism, corruption and sectarianism he may have been, but Fela,'s attitude here is "women, learn your place and do what men tell you". His later polygamy and dying of Aids may not be entirely coincidental.

4. Handsome Devil by the Smiths.
Mozza's recent Daily Mail-esque comments about immigration upset the perpetual students who inhabit the music press. Twenty years ago the tabloids were getting worked up about his witty references to gay teacher-pupil sex ("a boy in the bush is worth two in the hand/ I think I can help you get through your exams".) I suspect it would have caused more trouble had he produced that gem today (and what a pity he no longer produces such lines).

5. Lemon Incest by Serge and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
You didn't think I'd do a list of this sort without mentioning Serge, did you? It is as well for you that my iron self discipline means I've restricted myself to just the one. His best-known song was banned in several countries. His finest work includes concept albums about deflowering teenage girls, murdering teenage girls with whom one is sexually obsessed, anal sex and the last days of Hitler (the buggery and Nazism are two different albums, by the way. A single long player about butt sex and the fall of Berlin would really be something to treasure). But this duet and video performed with his 13-year-old daughter set the bar pretty high if you are the sort of person to get worked about people exploring the more questionable recesses of the human soul. It is possible Serge was trying to provoke a reaction from that type of person.

6. They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore by Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys.
"And them Niggers, Jews and Sigma Nus all they ever do is breed. And Wops, and Micks, and Slopes and Spics and Spooks are on my list." It's just as well Radio One doesn't play much country music or this record would be beeping like an Italian motorist stuck in traffic on his way to the brothel. This is to say nothing of the potential for religious offence. If there's one thing I can't abide it's an ethnocentric racist.

You'll have to prise the cheap lager out of my cold, dead hands

I like work. It fascinates me. I could sit and look at it for hours - Jerome K Jerome.

How did that happen? I've been busy, constantly, these past few weeks. And it was most unpleasant: mainly a grind consisting of doing things for other people and all that sort of nonsense. So serious was it that I have neglected this blog.

Obviously, to return one needs an issue of real substance to write about. I had thought, briefly, about writing about some classic "oh really" headlines of recent days, such as Search for British Motto Turns Cynical (I vote for Mottos: Not Really Our Thing) or, even Smoke Caused by Large Fire.

But these didn't quite do it. Even the fact that the Daily Mail ran a story arguing (and I may be over-Malilifying the argument here) that Scare Stories Give You Cancer did little to inspire me. Only a topic close to my heart would do.

That topic is cheap booze. More specifically, the news that a coalition of tedious puritans thinks that cheap booze is a bad thing. The reason being, of course, that too many people drink too much so therefore we should make it harder for people to get hold of drink at all.

Leaving aside the tedious and hysterical nature of some of the scare stories (I suspect that some of the more tedious and hysterical parts of the press are as much to blame as anyone for this – especially if they get hysterical about supermarkets over-reacting to the great booze panic).

But the suggestion, by the Alcohol Health Alliance, that the tax on alcohol be raised to discourage people from drinking too much is the key thing here. There is a glib and easy point to be made about how effective this approach has been in Scandinavia and Finland (indeed, the Telegraph, the news desk of which seems to have a particular weakness for glib booze scare stories, recently depicted the latter as a land where "for men, drinking is now the number one cause of death, and as many women are killed by alcohol as by breast cancer"), so of course I'll make that glib and easy point.

What irritates me more is the mindset behind this engineering. It's fine to argue that something must be done to stop people drinking - education; a broader approach which actually looks at what causes people to drink too much and acting on that, even, I suppose, scare stories in the press; all that's fine. The mantra "please drink responsibly and in moderation" may be annoying, but it isn't the problem here. If health groups, or whoever, want to change the national culture, they're free to go ahead and try. If they succeed in curtailing drunken violence in the streets, I'll give them a round of applause.

The problem is the belief that if we, as a nation, are too stupid and blind to our own interests to mend our ways then we must be made to. Especially when, though I concede we have to pay taxes to the NHS and so on, it's essentially of question of individuals choosing to harm themselves.

This desire to enforce correct behaviour – the reflex instinct of the meddling puritan – is what I find so disagreeable here. To look at one aspect of the story, the attitude that something must be done about cheap supermarket booze.

The 22p can of lager is also singled out here. There are, goodness knows, enough things you can bash the supermarkets for. But it seems that selling alcohol cheaply isn't one of them. Corner shops, too, are pretty competitive in this regard; six cans of Grolsch or Becks, or eight of Fosters and Carlsberg, for a fiver is pretty standard round here. I bet it's easier for school kids to get served in these places and - moral panic alert, there is plenty of pornography on sale, and cigarettes too – yet these fellows don't get it in the neck.

My defense of discounted drinks is partly motivated by the fact that I like cheap booze, of course, but I would draw the line at the 22p drink in question. It's less than 3% alcohol and must – surely – taste pretty foul. If somebody is drinking copious amounts of that stuff , then I'm afraid that their life must have reached an unimaginable low and the availability of cheap booze is the last thing we should be worrying about. (Not least because Special Brew and the like are always going to be with us).

There is of course, another aspect to this: it might be bad for children. Even they, I imagine, would struggle to get drunk on own brand cheap lager, but it seems that the risk they might do so, or take advantage of another promotion, is enough to spur the legions of healthy decency into calls for action. It is not enough, clearly, that there are laws to stop children buying alcohol. Nor is the obvious point that making alcohol too expensive for school children would be every drug dealer's dream going to stick.

The danger is that if everything that might pose a threat to children were to be proscribed, or at least made more disagreeable, then life itself would soon become intolerable.

At the risk of repeating myself, this is at the heart my objection to this form of puritanism: the belief that some businesses should be forced to change their commercial strategies, that some adult drinkers should pay more tax because the authorities cannot enforce their own laws on under-age drinking, that we should, all of us, pay for the fact that some people make life style choices which health groups disapprove is not one we should encourage. Any attempt to coerce us because we can't be convinced is something to be resisted. I think that even a mind addled on Tesco Value lager should be able to work out why that is.

Still, the campaign isn't all bad. The constant reminders that supermarkets sell cheap drink prompted me to investigate what was on offer in my local Sainsbury's. I was delighted to see that the Taste the Difference Range includes a range of lagers by Greenwich's excellent Meantime brewery. I am delighted to see that a small business like this, which is dedicated to producing a quality product which will bring pleasure to discerning customers, has the chance to reach a wider audience. At less than £1 a bottle it was a real bargain and every sip was enhanced by the fancy that, somewhere, a joyless purtian's bloodless lips were being pursed ever more thinly in impotent disapproval and rage.

If you are concerned about this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing which will cause you concern

Some of you might not be too interested in the possible takeover of Arsenal FC. Some of you may not even be terribly interested in football, but here's something football related which should worry you: the heavy-handed application of Britain's unfair libel laws to silence criticism.

Since lots of more committed types have picked up the story: I'll keep it brief. Former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray wrote of his concerns about oligarch Alisher Usmanov, who's seeking to increase his stake in Arsenal. Usmanov objected to these comments and others from blogger Tim Ireland (no idea who he is, a fair few geeky politicos seem to do so, however) but rather than suing directly (and remember, even then Murray would have had to prove the truth of his comments – he says he's quite willing to attempt to do this) he leaned on the hosting company, which, not wanting to risk the courts, pulled the plug on Murray's blog, Ireland's blog, Arsenal sites and a whole host of others which had nothing to do with the Usmanov spat. (Boris Johnson's was one of them, as everyone who blogs about this is contractually obliged to note).

Now, clearly I don't know whether Murray's claims are true or not – you can easily find them via Google if you wish to know more – but let's see what Usmanov's lawyers said in a rather curious bit of pre-emptive threatening sent to all national media outlets.

Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.

Got that? He didn't do it. And even if he did, he has been officially cleared and there's no record of it. Which means it never happened. For some reason it reminds me of Marlowe's Jew of Malta. "Thou hast commited.." "Fornication. But that was in another country. And beside, the wench is dead."

There's so much that stinks about this. The unfair libel laws that, uniquely in English law put the burden of proof on the defendant, and which make it far too easy for people with money to silence their critics. The fact that this particular rich man is leaning on the weakest links – the blog hosts – to avoid a potentially trick court case with someone who, as our one-time man in Tashkent, presumably knows a few things about the topic.

Then there's the fact that because of this legal stuff a possibly questionable character might get the wealth and status that comes from owning a leading football club with few awkward questions asked because the media is too scared to ask questions. In fact, Usmanov's links to the deeply unsavoury Karimov regime should be enough to get the alarm bells ringing. (Although Thaksin Shinawatra's takeover of Man City, has already proved that the FA isn't too fussy about ethical concerns.)

But, as others have already noted, if bloggers can be shut down this easily, then we all are potentially the poorer for it. A final question, though, if Usmanov's takeover succeeds, would you eat the sushi in the Arsenal boardroom?

From the sublime to the banal

One often under-rated art is that of the parodyist. To get it right you need not just a good set of jokes, but an instinctive ability to get under the skin of the subject; to adopt the tones and mannerisms.

Music offers some exceptional examples – such as Dudley Moore doing Beethoven (via George Szirtes) or this parody of Serge Gainsbourg. I know nothing about the lot doing it (except they were apparently a popular comic troupe on French TV in the Seventies, which doesn't necessarily inspire much confidence). Still they've got the vocal mannerisms and musical style down to a tee (they're helped by the fact that this was the height of the dirty old man phase which saw Serge produce such classics as Vu de l'Extérieur and Variations sur Marilou, surely the finest song ever written about spying on a teenage girl masturbating in her bedroom before bursting in and beating here to death with a fire extinguisher).

At its finest, capturing the tone and essence of a subject can lead the unwary to miss the irony and mistake the parody for the real thing. I'm worried that I might have fallen into the trap myself and am misreading a particularly brilliant parody of the sort of humourless, fanatical Green activist who who gives buffoons like Jeremy Clarkson way too much consideration; who wishes to punish him and his ilk for their thought crimes and fails to realise that they are the sort of people who make oil companies rub their paws in glee at the prospect of more people who might otherwise be eager to save the planet getting pissed off and alienated by this peculiarly irritating brand of self righteousness.

A worse thought occurs: that the author was trying to be satirical (which is not the same as parody) and fails badly by being the sort of humourless, intolerant etc etc.

There are some things, after all, which should not be parodied. The truely banal, idiotic or facile defy attempts to extract any more comedic value than their own innate badness already confers and the danger is that you will simply replicate the clunking banality and idiocy of that which you are trying to mock. When confronted by something like William McGonagall the only sensible thing to do is to celebrate it for this innate badness.

Reasons why Gordon Brown is not as good as Tony Blair

The first in what may, or may become an occasional feature depending on whether I can be bothered and on boring stuff like running the country properly.

1. His contempt for sartorial matters.

2. The makers of the Simpsons don't want him.

3. Surely you've seen this by now? Another person who doesn't want him. (This too)

Other people are always the problem

Polly Toynbee, writing in her capacity as Harriet Harman's representative on earth, identifies the problem with society today: the rich. Not, of course, people who are well-off like Polly, but the "Babylonian excess" of people who are earning more than her.

Sweeping aside the urge to make some glib quip about Babylonian excess being more appealing than modern Puritanism, let's look at why this is such a bad thing for society.

It matters because improbable rewards at the top are fracturing pay scales. Senior managers are pulling away from middle managers who have increased their gap with the shop floor. The public sector has to pay more for top talent, so chief executives of small cities are paid more than the prime minister. Other public posts pay eye-watering sums to the profound discontent of those they manage. Yet down at the bottom the chancellor is trying to hold the line on a below-inflation 2% pay deal; unsurprisingly, he is threatened with a massive public sector strike as he moves next door. Meanwhile boardroom pay still rises by 20% to 30%, according to the annual Guardian survey.

Can you think of any other examples of this rising inequality? I can: in journalism - and the Guardian to boot. Editor Alan Rusbridger admits, reluctantly, to making more than half a million last year. Top columnists are very well paid (though we don't know exactly how much Toynbee earns as she refuses to discuss it when the issue of of this apparent hypocrisy over fat cats is raised. I also recall that Private Eye also asked her directly about this and she gave them some flannel about it being irrelevant). However, let's go with the reasonable assumption she gets more than £100,000 a year. Meanwhile, the discontented and poorly paid grunts threaten revolt.

Still, while it might be fun – and right – to mock this double standard, it merely weakens her credibility. It doesn't mean that what she's saying is necessarily wrong. So let's look at her suggestions as to what Gordon Brown should do about this problem. She has a range of solutions, including higher taxes on people earning more than £100,000 a year (to her credit, if we assume she'll be paying more); maybe more tax on the super-super rich; a wealth tax on "more expensive" homes; more public housing, help for house buyers and raising the minimum wage. Okay, nothing that screams "this is a bad idea" here, although a lot of it is pretty vague and full of it-would-be-nice-ifs.

But it's interesting for what she doesn't say. For one thing it seems to ignore the fact that Brown has been chancellor for ten years. But, as such, it's a fair assumption that he decided that the super-rich should be allowed to pay minimal tax; watched blithely as house prices sky-rocketed (unless I missed a lot of Brown speeches about how this madness can only end in a nasty crash]; relied heavily on regressive taxes to raise revenue, kept a tight reign on funds to build more public housing; imposed tuition fees on universities which, she tells us, are increasingly dominated by the middle classes; and the rest. Toynbee's is not a view that is universally held.

Yet, as Toynbee insists "a man can't talk like that [ie about helping the weak] for long and ignore the debauchery of riches at the top." In other words, ignore his record, let's look at what he told the Labour party in a bid to placate the left. She's either trying to shift the blame onto "the government" [ie Blair] – which is implausible given Brown's influence – or else she honestly believes that what a politician says is more important that what he does. If the latter, she really should not be paid for sharing her views on anything.

There's another interesting thing here. Whilst Toynbee is, naturally, concerned about how far the poorest are falling behind, now it's time to act because "as Madeleine Bunting wrote on these pages yesterday, there is change in the air now the middle classes are feeling the mortgage pinch, worried for their children, repelled by excess."

Well this is clearly why the Guardian's top commentators are paid much more than the ordinary reporters and subs – only they could possibly have set Brown right on this vitally important matter. It's curious, though, that it's only the super-rich (ie those richer than Toynbee) that are to blame.

They, according to her, are the only ones benefiting from buy to let. Those who are merely rich – say earning £100,000 a year – have apparently not benefited from rocketing house prices and generous pay rises. To believe this you'd have to believe none of them have cashed in on the house price boom, thereby perpetuating the gap between those who can't afford a place to live; none have second homes; none have bought or enjoyed expensive but non-essential consumer goods and none, good heavens no, have supported the government in creating this situation.

It would be political suicide, of course, for a politician to try and engineer a house price deflation (not least because the people most likely to benefit are the ones most likely to be too stupid and lazy to vote) rather than creating more homes which first time buyers will have to take on eye-watering levels of debt to buy. And hitting the middle classes to help the poor would lead to high fives and smug grins all round at the Tory Central Office. I'm not claiming there's an easy answer to all this (in this regard I'm at one with Toynbee – "none of this would much dent mega-wealth - it would just be a bit fairer") but I would suggest that the super-rich are not the only problem. Unless we're going to take a Toynbee-esque approach and apply that label to anyone who earns more than I do. Because I am pretty sure that Toynbee could look closer to home before blaming all the problems on the fact that the mega-rich have prospered under the party she supports.

There's another thing, too. Apart from a few sort of concrete suggestions, Guardian readers are getting a lot of hand-wringing, selective finger-pointing and partisan elision from one of the paper's most lucratively rewarded employees. And, as I've already noted, this might not be the best or – to take Toynbee's key concern – the fairest use of the Guardian's wage bill.