Not as a soldier, as a volunteer human shield. His name’s Stephen, he’s 31 and in certifed good mental and physical health. He says he’s going because he’s not prepared to live in a world where people stand by and let evil things happen. I said I thought he was crazy but it came out sounding more harsh than I intended. Benevolently Crazy beats Malevolently Sane in my book and it’s not him I’d rather see on a bridge under bombardment.

15th February is a Global Day of Action (and not just Europe and North America, either) against the coming war and, obligingly, Tony Blair will be here at the SECC in Glasgow. Do come along and say hello to him.

Yesterday, a colleague at work showed off his 13 week old son. He was so happy, his partner and he recently got a mortgage on their first house.

Today, that colleague had a visit from his boss who is based in London. I met him coming down the stairs as I arrived. He’d been fired before he’d taken his coat off.

The boss called us around and said “as of this morning [x] has left [the company]. I can’t discuss it for reasons of confidentiality. Any other questions?” No-one dared ask questions. Not even “do you mean you fired him?”

Later the boss went round us all individually, “listening to our concerns” and chatting more generally like she hadn’t just travelled up for one day to fire a man I have a lot of respect for.

When she came to me I chatted about how I had been slightly deaf in one ear since I caught a cold last month, “oh, so it must sound like I’m throwing my voice,” she replied.

I hate myself for having kept my head down. Every few months they come up and fire someone, pour encourager les autres-style. The only defence I can think of is to leave before it’s my turn. Way to build a successful company you callous bastards.

Sweet Sixteen. I went to see it last night and it’s excellent. Ken Loach is a supreme manipulator of emotion. If he wasn’t allergic to happy endings he’d be bigger than Spielberg. Him and his damned inconvenient integrity. The film is great and, according to the BBFC, it is as dangerous to children as the film I nearly went to see last night, Baise-Moi. The French film with the (allegedly) gleeful amounts of rape and murder. They both get 18 certificates but if you watch Sweet Sixteen you would be hard pressed to see why. There’s no nudity, the drug use is all off-screen and the small amount of violence is sensitively and inexplicitly handled. But it is as dangerous as Baise-Moi because it contains some words, one in particular, that the censors don’t like. Can you guess what it is? Yes, it’s the one for everyone’s favourite piece of anatomy. I have to say that as the film is set in Greenock, not far from diskant tower and as Ken Loach has used local actors, I know just how well he’s done at capturing his characters’ voices. And yes they are saying “cunt” a lot. Big Deal. The kids throwing fireworks outside my window are too. Why is it that films about growing up are always kept away from the age group they are about? I won’t get onto how I think this shows the BBFC to be suffering from geography- and class-based bias, just this: Why not use a combination of the new 12A rating and the consumer advice now on every poster (i.e. “contains strong language”) to let folk decide for themselves, rather than class a well-made and touching (hate that word) film alongside Zombie Flesh Eaters?

If nothing else, it devalues the 18 certificate as a guide to those seeking out morally reprehensible filth.

Get Your War On. The Guardian should syndicate it instead of that Doonesbury column I can never spot the punchline of. Haven’t laughed more at work for too long.

just read ross mcgivern’s column on iraq. very informative, and very important. i’d love to say that i was off down to the demo next saturday, and spend my time doing something i really believe in, rather than being my usual indifferent self. but i really don’t think i could bring myself to actually take part in something like that, and i blame it solely on where i live.

cambridge can be a great place to live, but, like many other things, political demonstrations have very little meaning to me any more. and it’s all the student’s fault. in years gone by i felt i could relate to the “alternative” crowd, the section of society (often students) with the messy hair and the torn clothes and “radical” ideas, but things have changed. maybe i’ve just seen one too many dreadlocked rich kids blowing whistles heckling police, thinking they’re the baddest thing since bob dylan (yeah, i blame the hippies too), but i cannot even begin to take any kind of demonstration seriously any more. this is a truly bad thing, because it’s just to easy for myself, and no doubt many others to assume that real beliefs and views are the last things on these people’s minds. maybe it’s a phase a lot of people go through when they reach a certain age. they suddenly realise that they can go around making a racket and disturbing the straights, therefore they must.

please don’t assume i’m saying that anyone who chooses to go out and voice their political beliefs are simply charlatans. i agree that there’s a great number of things in the world that must change. but there are too many people who just cannot grasp the responsibility they are undertaking by sitting in the road yelling about animal testing. i don’t like the idea of animals being hurt and killed any more than you, but if it was going to save my life, or the life of someone i care about, i wouldn’t give a second thought to what had happened to make this treatment available, and neither would you. these days too many people protest simply because they can, and all it does is undermines the work of those who really are devoted to their cause. there are people in the world dying every day for what they believe in, and you’re worried because you saw some pictures of little bunny rabbits, or because roads are the scurge of the earth. people go to protests as a social event in cambridge. who cares what it’s about, you can go and smoke a spliff and the police won’t care! not only do these people undermine those who really are protesting about the lives of the millions of opressed people in the world, they even undermine the people who fight for student grants to be reinstated. why should the government pay for you to develop a bloated sense of moral decency for four years? answer me that, you fuck.

christ, sorry. went a bit off track there. but to sum up, i deeply dislike people who manage to damage the hard work of others, so that they can feel like they have political beliefs.

any feedback is welcomed :)

Primary school kids running part of their school.

“There was some consternation at the SAC when they rang to speak to the managing director of Room 13 and were told by the school secretary that she would call back when she was out of PE”

Saw him at Sleazy’s on sunday. He’s good. Go see. No sitting at a laptop playing minesweeper. HipHop for folk who don’t own guns. Songs in praise of bikes. And funny. I liked it. Random Number, too, but his sound wasn’t as good – needed more punch on the beats. Maybe he needs a better soundcard. Computers, eh? Not rock and roll. “Love the songs guys but you need more, more ooomph…. here take this NoisyBastard 666 card.”

Back to fretting about the state of the world: Whither Glastonbury?, and there was an excellent report on suicide bombers in The Guardian this morning too. But I am smiling and care free because I got to use the word “whither”.

I tried to make the effort and be anti-Jubilee today by wandering over to Glasgow Green for the Citizens, Not Subjects event. It was a perfect day for the park and I was looking forward to seeing James Kelman and just sitting about in a sunny park scowling at policemen. But we arrived to a small group of people half-listening to some other people babbling on about Scotland and how great it is to be scottish and reading excerpts of god knows what written in auld scots. I am scottish, I’m a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and I’m a long time socialist. However, I don’t think Scotland is a wondrous place and I don’t feel any greater affinity with other scottish people over my english friends. So get over it already. We decided to duck into the Winter Gardens for a while and see how things were later. I can’t believe I haven’t been to the Winter Gardens before, they were ace! Loads of cacti and banana plants and other tropical big-leafed fantastic plants with a clunky board path, tropical temperatures and some interesting wee exhibitions hidden in the back all about the history of Glasgow Green and the city itself. I sat for a while and immersed myself in leaf patterns and warmth. Mmmmm. When we returned outside it was to discover more excerpt reading and even worse some acapella singing of heavy duty protest songs. As we left we pondered the thought that pro-Jubilee street parties were probably more fun since at least they’d have music and cake. I’m not saying they should have got Le Tigre style outfits and dance routines but a summer park event aimed at families should have music and fun above all else.

You might have noticed the new issue of the diskant ZINE isn’t up yet so if you’re lacking something to read then I recommend you stop by The Morning News. Not only have they been putting up some great articles recently but they’ve also been involved in a collection of writing called Manual. You can download the whole thing as a PDF and I second their suggestion that you print it out and read it away from your computer [especially if you can use the printer and paper at work hoho]. You get seventeen little pieces of writing with a How To theme. A few do this as a semi serious advice giving article such as How To Organize Your Record Collection (I order mine almost exactly by the ‘Conveniently’ method described) and How To Start A Dialogue With A Complete Stranger (pretend to get hit by a car, good call!) and others in the form of short fiction. Favourites of these include the touching and subtly detailed How To Perform A Card Trick and the cutely sadly funny How To Unsuccessfully Woo Your Roommate’s Future Husband. Most if it is damn good stuff though so go get it and go read it.

I like New Scientist:

Copy protection on Celine Dion’s new CD makes it harder to play. (A good news story).

And TV makes you violent. The best thing about this story is that no matter how conclusive the evidence (25 years worth, economics controlled for) folk are still trying to wriggle out of it by blaming the content. Uhuh. Don’t try and say that over 25 years these people only watched the violent stuff and that’s why they went bad. It’s the medium, it makes you a callous moron. And it’s brainwashing you. Seek help!

I’m having a great deal of trouble coping with this news story about how the police are having a demonstration outside parliament. Who’s going to police the protesters? If they get out of control will they send in some riot police to kick in the normal police? And some of these police think they should try and win industrial reforms like the right to strike! So will they have to employ cheap labour police scabs to beat up the police pickets? Will the police on the picket line be shouting abuse at the police? I don’t think they’ve thought this through…

This isn’t music related, BUT I’m posting it because I don’t whether to laugh or cry. An article at GNN links to websites called activistcash.com and consumerfreedom.com. I feel so much safer after learning that they are standing up for my rights against nannies funded by big businesses. Such shocking revelations as: Ben&Jerry’s gave some activists $100k to deface billboards! PETA are vegans! Some people are on the board of more than one group! Greenpeace have offices! And of course the ELF are the American al-Qaeda. (It stops getting funny there)

Also follow the link to the original article and see businesses described as “powerful” (her quotes not mine, like it’s only allegedly true).

I don’t really have to say who funds these websites, do I?