Team Mitchell or Team Linehan

There was an interesting debate yesterday on Twitter regarding the burqa. David Mitchell’s piece is here. I tend to agree with him. He says that its fine for us to disagree with everything that the burqa stands for but agree that people have the right to make stupid choices. And we can tell people so providing we don’t become rude or abusive.

Graham Linehan’s response was to argue from the alternative viewpoint that the burqa subjugates women and places them as second class citizens. I also agree with this viewpoint. My understanding is that Islam claims the burqa is connected with modesty. This seems pretty slim to me. Why was it that women had to be modest. Why not, as I heard on the Danny Baker show once, make ugly men wear burqas to? Graham’s argument seems to be that if you do ban the burqa then you free up a lot of Muslim women to break free from this oppressive tenet of their religion.

What is striking about this discussion is that it contains two genuine arguments which both come from a liberal or left of centre standpoint. David argues that it is illiberal to tell people what they can and cannot wear. Graham’s argument counters that women do not always have a choice to wear a burqa. They feel obligated to. My dilemma is that I find myself in agreement with both arguments. But eventually I have to side with David.

I don’t like the idea of the government telling people what they can and cannot wear. Furthermore I find the argument from the female emancipation viewpoint a touch paternalistic. There is a mention in the article about a 62% majority being in favour of the ban. If I could feel that this was because people felt that women were oppressed by it I would be encouraged. However I don’t think that it is. I think it’s based on Islamophobia.

I also think that banning the burqa is only going to exacerbate the problem of Muslim disaffection that we have in this country. However there is a lot to be said for the argument that this ship has really sailed since we illegally invaded Iraq. I am aware that this post is a touch rambling but I think this a subject that provokes just that reaction as the different liberal arguments collide in my head.

Spitting mad

I am currently fuming that a bunch of people on a TV show did not pick someone I like, to go and join them on that TV show. My life couldn't get any more trivial.

Oh and my mouse is playing up. if there's a better reason to get angry I'd like to know it.

I will write something more substantial next week but am in the middle of moving. In the meantime here is one of my favourite Onion links

I wrote something I did

I have for the past six weeks been busy writing a panto for the theatre company I work with. It has been very hard work. But it has been good to have a deadline otherwise I would have spent an extra six months or possibly eternity finishing the bloody thing. I was reminded of a couple of quotes while completing the writing.

The first one concerned the editing process. I had feared that when the script was subjected to the scrutiny of the small group responsible for helping me make it presentable that I would be excessively sensitive and sulk about their suggestions.

Bill Bryson wrote about this in relation to Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence. He said that 'Like most writers Jefferson sulked about the editing process and thought what congress presented back to him was inferior, and like all writers he was wrong.' Now before we get to my grandiosity I can accept that perhaps my panto is not quite the same work of literature as the Declaration of Independence (although my jokes are funnier). The point is I need not have worried about the jokes being diluted because in every case where a change was made I can see the script has improved with the advice of my colleagues.

The second quote I saw on a Charlie Brooker special about writers (look it up on Youtube, its fantastic). On the programme Tony Jordan says 'I love having wrote something, I hate fucking writing'.That's about the way I feel about writing. I had really had to drag myself to my computer to finish this piece of work. The last scene was such a phenominal pain in the arse I signed off typing 'Thank Fuck That's finished'. Then on Thursday we had a reading. And hearing a cast reading it and laughing as they did so (both edited and unedited bits) it reminded me that the first part of Tony Jordan's quote always trumps the second part of it.

Eclipse

Saw the third film in the Twilight series. I have to say that it is getting better. I am still team Edward but Jacob grew on me a bit in this instalment. I am not going to enter into any analysis of the film. Just to say that below is possibly the best Onion clip ever which is saying something. The moment where the Al-Quaida spokes man says 'wow!' is simply as perfect as comedy gets, anywhere ever.

Topical !

So I am trying to right this blog weekly. And therefore if it is weekly it should be topical. And if it is topical then there is really only one story. Raoul Moat. To those of you reading in the future Raoul Moat is an ex nightclub bouncer who became a bit unhinged after coming out of prison, shot and wounded his ex partner and killed her current partner and the following day shot a policeman who was sat by the side of the road.

He then went missing for about a week. Rather helpfully he left a couple of notes to help the media ramp up their hysteria levels from ‘Crikey’ to ‘Armageddon’. It eventually all finished last night when Moat killed himself, infuriatingly just off camera for the news outlets.

I didn’t need to watch a great deal of the coverage but enough to gather the tone of it. Lots of interviews from handwriting experts and forensic psychologists and ex-firearms officers. All of them doing the same thing. Speculating and therefore filling valuable airtime.

In the good old days before 24 hours news coverage when there were sieges we had to dutifully wait for the allotted hours that our news was delivered. This freed us up to actually get on with the business of living our lives. The news bulletins because they were only half an hour stuck to reporting what was actually happening.

Media experts will tell you that this was highbound and moribund and an affront to democratic right of us to consume our news when we like. Well I don’t need to point out to you what snake oil selling cocks Media experts are. They spend their lives studying trends in media, as if that isn’t what we all do. Get a real fucking job.

If anything serious really happened we used to have the news interrupting the main programmes. And what a thrill it was when that happened, wondering in the feverish few seconds between ‘we interrupt this programme to go over to the BBC Newsdesk’ and being told what actually had happened.

Compare that with ridiculous BREAKING NEWS tickertape that runs across both Sky and BBC News channels. This can be used from everything from ‘David Cameron to meet the Queen to Become Prime Minister’ to ‘BA and Unite talks break down’



I realise how hopelessly luddite all this sounds. 24 hours news cannot be put back in the box. And I would also point out that the true joy of 24 hours news is that it gives them more time to screw things up, get caught out by members of the public as beautifully demonstrated in the above clip. Also with out 24 hours news we probably wouldn’t have Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe. I am just lamenting that the crowning achievement of 24 hours news is not an increase in democracy in the way people receive their news, but an increase of the amount of bullshit in the world.

Since I started to write this the media is doing its best to elevate Raoul Moat to the status of folk hero. Which reminded me of the below clip. No lessons ever learned.



Raoul Moat happened about a month after Derek Bird's rampage.

Thugs

I seem to be the only football fan in the world who thinks The Netherlands were ok in the way they played the world cup final last night. They were playing a team everybody agreed were the best passing team in the world. So rather than ry to play the same game and inevitably get thrashed they decided to rough Spain up. And it worked. They were punished when they went to far and were very lucky not to have one player sent off in the first half but that's the price you pay for playing that style.

In the end it all worked out when Spain scored and the best player on the park Iniesta scored it. But good God to hear the BBC commentators go on you would have thought Holland played no football at all.You would also have thought that Spain never ran up to the ref branding imaginary cards every time that a dutch player did a foul. That didn't fit with the narrative they wated to tell. Even in football we need a good guy and a bad guy.

The pundits seem to em to be completely out of touch. they don't understand that football is not a popularity contest or a beauty pageant. its a game in which both teams try to win and stop the other team winning the best they can. And if they win ugly big deal. its down to the better footballing team to show why they are the best. Oh and Alan Hansen's a wanker and seriously they could pick any bloke from a pub and he'd give more insight than Alan Shearer. The guy, well he just defies words. I just hope the Beeb can see sense and sweep away these complacent smug tossers and relaunch Match of the Day. It makes Question of Sport look current and cutting edge.

The Problem With Me

I have a problem. Well I have many problems but this is a major one. Is as much as it sums up in so many way why it ain’t easy being me. I’m a pretty gregarious person. I’m comfortable with my own company but I like being around people. Except people I don’t know that well. Once I know them I am fine.

I have what the psychologist I work with might call a mild anxiety disorder. I just think I am clumsy and socially inept. I have lost count of the amount of times I have inadvertently offended people, mainly women. I used to beat myself up about this but have come to accept it as just being who I am. I don’t blame myself for being no good at football. I’m just not. And its much the same for social niceties. I am crap at them.

My particular little problem at the minute is the problem of which parents to say hello to in the schoolyard when dropping my daughter off. There are three categories. Those who I ignore, not in an ignorant fashion you understand. Just I don’t know them and my daughter doesn’t know their child so we have nothing to say hello about. Then there are the group of about 15 who I always say hello to. These are people whose kids my daughter knows and I have met at parties.

Then there is the troublesome class. These are the parents who I sort of know. My daughter may occasionally mention them and we have had the odd conversation. Do I say hello to them. Sometimes their kid is playing up a bit and they don’t want to say hello and if I blunder in with my hello it’s the last thing they need. But if I don’t and we catch eyes at the last minute it looks like I’ve ignored them until they said hello.

Then there is the dad who I had one conversation with once and we are stuck in a constant daily nodding and helloing that quite frankly we both could do without. When I see him approaching my heart sinks and I can tell his does to. But we’re both English and well mannered and neither of us could bare the thought of not saying hello. Because what kind of sociopath does that.

So we keep saying hello and alright mate every morning and every day death comes a bit closer and I am stuck in this circular hell that I can’t get out of without moving my daughter to a new school.

Like I say. Not easy being me…or anybody I guess.

Team Edward

I am referring to the Twilight Movies of course. When the films came out I sent a text to the Simon Mayo show saying that they were something I had feared for a time. A phenomena which, to me, seems to spring from nowhere has a huge young following and I don't know the first thing about it.

Two years on I borrowed the DVDs from a friend and sat back to watch them and...they're very good. I can absolutely see why they are so big with teen girls but there was plenty there to amuse and entertain. The humour is particularly good. I laughed out loud several times. Looking forward to Eclipse now.

The Easiest Job In The World


One of the main themes of this world cup, until the weekend, has been the form of South American teams. They were represented in all four of the quarter finals. Yards of column space were devoted to why it is that South American teams were succeeding at the expense of their European counterparts. Was it the greater hunger, the fact that European children play more on their X-boxes than on the streets etc. etc. Two days and four games later the theme has changed. Only one of the South American teams came through and they only got through after some dubious goalkeeping by their centre forward.

All of a sudden the theme has changed. Now the column inches are being devoted to the reason European teams have succeeded. It is like the scene in 1984 where the mob suddenly switches from hating Eurasia to Eastasia. And this happens all the time. And we are not supposed to notice how consistently they get things 100% wrong or do massive u-turns.

This would not be so bad were it not for how hysterical they as journalists get when a player or coach states something with the merest whiff of inconsistency. When Fabio Capello hemmed and hawed a little after we had been thumped about whether he would still be in a job they chased him down like a hunted rabbit. And these were people, many of them I am sure, who were predicting an England win 48 hours earlier.

Sports Journalism ? Easiest job in the world.