Fujitsu – corporation untouched by human intelligence
Blaming Fujitsu on what was clearly human error seemed a grave mistake to me until their Lifebook – a second-hand laptop – landed on my big toe. Should I accuse myself when the thing slipped from my fingers? It dropped awkwardly, too; corner first - and what’s more seemed to close itself on the way down, so that – with no assistance from me – it struck the toe just below the base of the nail with the full force of its trajectory. Oh, the scream I let out was unmerciful! But nothing was down to me there; and even though the pain endured in acute form for several minutes, I was able to recover my composure – again, entirely without Fujitsu’s intervention, as nature merely took its course. Further assurance of humanity’s non-involvement in the outrage was the restraint showed by me. Though an urge to pick the offending object up and fling it at the studio wall swept across my brows, I calmly took a deep breath and replaced it on the desk. When I examined the toe, I found the skin broken and a bright purple bruise forming. No doubt, in the months to come the toenail will grow black, and may even drop off. Let this be a warning to everyone, Fujitsu products may need careful handling, for they have an artificial life of their own (presumably hence comes the name Lifebook). I will be joining the list of people seeking compensation from this faceless corporation. We human beings need to stick together!
Obituary
I remember reading how Marvin Akis was
dead proud of their Pap’s abilities, bragging, “They knew all of English Poetry.”
Like a London Cabbie with The Knowledge – from Beowulf to Chaucer, John Donne
to Christina Rossetti, Stevie Smith to Brian Patten - whistle the first line of
any given sonnet and Queenie would get you there by the shortest route, only
pausing now and then to take in the sights of special interest. Oh, you’d have
to bung the wheezer a tenner on top of their tip for all the clever yodelling along
the way. Yes, Akis senior was a true pro, Oxford Don of English Lit in all but
name, and that was just the day job.
Of course as a novelist Paps was no Joseph
Conrad; their Jammy Jim – diminutive of Lord - survives acute embarrassment
and “walks out on the whole crowd” to get “the fame, the girl and the money all
at one sitting.” In a triumph of wishful thinking, auto-backslapping and self
satisfaction spawned “I Love It Here” and other potboilers. Marvin themself was
not above churning out shite, their “Right Train” being a branch line between Cagney
and Lacey that barely makes the word count. Is that unkind of me? Should I be
speaking ill of the dead at my time of life? Theirs was an enviable innings,
surely. The Mick Jagger of literary London. Born with a silver golfball in their
gob, they were incey-wincey dentally challenged and had to leave their housemate for
an heiress in order to afford a decent orthodontist. So much for the glittering
prizes. I enjoyed Cash, but thought London Bridge was a field too far. Like the
Thames Barrier getting stuck with the tide in, the river turns into a Banksy
lake. All self parody and no plot to speak of, Akis novels (ie Akis
& Co’s) are not so much stories as stores. Repositories of snakebite wit,
cute observation and overarching snide. They never fail to remind you of their Oxford
newsagent’s credentials. What you get is campus without the us: them, them and
more them. Oh, and for atmosphere: carton packs of Owl Holborn, relentlessly
smoked to the very butts.
Imperialisation (LSD)
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| DEOˑREPISˑETˑAMICIS |
In Her decree, the Royal Maj declares,
“Henceforth, let it be known that there
shall be twenty ounces in the Pound, twelve shillings in the Quid, and that a
baker's dozen is the number of Nincompoops & Spivs in the Cabinet.” QED
Against Vibrato
If the stereotypical opera singer is a fancy-dressed diva yodelling in Italian, other archetypes would include the Valkyrie warbling full blast at 78rpm (interspersed with announcements that Der Führer Ist Tot!); and not forgetting dodgy duets between round-bellied chaps in tights and corseted damsels on balconies out of Ruritania. Whatever image the music conjures, the sounds are robust but stolid. Go compare similar audiotypes of classical soloists in oratorio and lieder. One stereotypical comment, I like the music of opera but not the staging, is essentially defensive. Listeners don’t want to be seen as a Philistine; and though some folks may claim the idea of opera is all very well (Why aren’t there more rock operas, like Tommy or The Rocky Horror Show?), attending a live performance would be like a vegan activist sneaking in to watch a bullfight (I can listen on headphones).
Mozart was against vibrato. He’s on record (though not Deutsche Grammophon) complaining he didn’t want singers pulsating their way through his arias. At the time, the use of vibrato was on the increase, as was the ‘science’ of music. It was taught as a way of sustaining long notes, of boosting the power of the voice, and adding colour. But was it used, as it is nowadays, continuously? I doubt it. In fact in Britain and America, even as late as the Nineteen Twenties, vibrato was regarded as foreign (ie Mediterranean) gimmickry. Then the conveyor belt of conservatoires began churning out singers that automatically turned on the vibrato as soon as they opened their goddam cake-holes. All notes, single or joined-up, long or short, high or low, lyrical or dramatic are delivered over vocal chords beaten up with frenzied stabs of pitch and volume.
Is it only classical music that employs the professional warble? Freddie Mercury, a pop diva if ever there was, could belt out notes in either wobbles or unmodulated tones. But Feargal Sharkey and Brian Ferry employ continuous vibrato without sounding one bit operatic. Church music, as though shunning a dangerous taboo, has steered largely clear of it. In Bach’s cantatas and Handel’s oratorios, classically trained soloists ease down on the vibrato as though out of decency. Folk singers often employ trills and wobbles here and there for emphasis. Jazz singers are in the business of embellishment more for a fundamental cause than to a technical purpose. Here and there, pulsating voices are heard from Gangster Rap to Kiddies’ Karaoke. But it’s only in the classical and opera worlds that vibrato has become wall-to-wall.
Amplification and recording technologies changed the way we hear music. When the microphone came between performers and their audiences, classical music was politely horrified. A kind of purity needed to be preserved, or at least the semblance of innocence. Just like the actor whose stage whisper had to be heard at the back of a 2,000 seat auditorium, classical singers were trained to project their voices “through the mask”. In fact, the whole top half of the body was supposed to become a sounding board. Meanwhile instruments were getting louder, with steel strings for guts, metal replacing wooden bits, and valves that made the tubes of brass instruments longer and more piercing. Soloists in Mahler symphonies found themselves competing with hundred gun salutes of instruments. No wonder the human voice had to be dragged by the throat into the modern era.
It's scarcely coincidental that the rise of technology accompanied the Great Schism between popular and classical music. For the best part of the twentieth century, lovers of so-called ‘serious music’ would become an ever-increasing clique. Yes, they would still grow incrementally, along with population trends. But as a proportion of the whole, and with interests seen as divergent from mainstream entertainment, opera buffs and fans of classical song seemed content to be conservative outliers. And the more specialised and less accessible this music became, the less it concerned itself with popular taste. An interesting adjunct is the wave of popular curiosity in classical music that came with WWII (eg the recitals of Myra Hess). By the 1950s, this was fizzling out. Nor did Television, which briefly restored public interest in the Arts in general, capitalise for long on an art form which relied on having a live audience. The atmosphere of the concert hall or opera house could barely be glimpsed through the small screen. Whereas theatre, sport and public debate were able to adapt themselves to the new media, it was only through records, and to a lesser extent radio, that classical music and opera thrived. Thus the live audience remained relatively small, and the market detached from common feedback loops. Elitism and showmanship - the swings and roundabouts of music-making - took over as the main drives. The few examples of cross-over between classical and popular (Gershwin, rock bands like Deep Purple or The Nice, and the likes of Barenboim playing jazz piano) only seemed to prove the rule that these were separate worlds.
So, as a post-modern experiment in New Philistinism, I propose we take Mozart for a start. Let's have The Magic Flute done not with costumes by Francis Bacon and a set out of Logan’s Run, but on a plain pros arch stage with the cast of a West End musical. Then Turandot or Madame Butterfly performed by a pair of Korean girl and boy bands. And, showing we are Without Prejudice, let’s have Der Ring Des Nibelungen murdered by thrash metal singers. But to cap it all, Errolyn Wallen could compose The People’s Princess with audio avatars of Amy Winehouse and George Michael in the lead roles.
No twitching of curtains in Downing Street
More than ten million people voted for Jeremy Corbyn in 2019. This means truly significant numbers of the UK population were not taken in by the dirty lies spread about him and his team. The Labour Party has been in denial ever since, and it will never recover - unless a new team of progressive socialists take over the leadership. People don't want apologists for the system kowtowing to the media squires, pretending to care about justice and equality while all the time being controlled by shady interest groups and the establishment. If they wanted that, they would vote Tory. And since there's little else on offer, they will vote for the Conservative Party – aligning themselves with the real thing instead of its shoddy simulacrum.
Vindictive Scape-Goat Tactics
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| Poll Conducted Feb. 2019 |
The British legal system is vindictive and uses victimisation to keep citizens down. For the past five years, Shamima Begum has been scapegoated by the British, repeatedly blaming her for an international political situation in which she and the babies have just been pawns. British people, of whom Ms Begum is one, have chosen to let her rot in a living hell, by taking away her birthright. It's a crime against humanity that the smug, holier-than-thou British far from being shamed by are actually proud of.
At fifteen years of age she was lured away from home into a movement that she – like thousands of other youngsters in Britain – believed in with all the naïve hopes that are appropriate to their age. That the movement she joined turned out to be anything but ideal is besides the point. We have a duty of care for young people, and there is no sudden, magical cut-off point at age sixteen, eighteen or twenty-one. It doesn't end because that person has left a country, or claimed to have defected from it. Just as they can't simply cancel their heritage, their parentage and upbringing – it's equally impossible for the state suddenly to disclaim them as if they had no responsibility in the matter. It makes no difference what one Home Secretary or one judge or even one whole team of jurors says today; tomorrow, in ten years' time, or at a more distant time of reason this repudiation of Shamima Begum will be overturned as the act of an outlaw state.
It's typical of the British to treat individuals and groups of people this way. In the nineteen eighties, we saw a conservative government try to write off the city of Liverpool, while actually destroying dozens of mining communities. At the same time, a whole generation of young people were given no hope and stigmatised as Unemployed – as if it was their fault that careers could not be started. There are tens of thousands now in their fifties and sixties who never recovered from this vindictive campaign of victimisation.
But you can't just blame this or that government. Victimisation is the British way. Scapegoat tactics pervade the right, the left, the professions, sport, leisure and even entertainment. And there is always the smell of hypocrisy. While the Jimmy Saviles are allowed free rein to abuse, those accused of petty misdemeanours are hauled up in front of the crowd for humiliation, or just left to rot.
I was living near Brixton in 1981. The afternoon after the riot started, I decided to go and have a look for myself. I think there were hundreds if not thousands of people like me that day. We just wanted to see for ourselves. I was shocked when I walked under the railway tunnel that leads out into Atlantic Road. There was a line of police on one side, and a large crowd on the other. The place was a total mess. But what really stood my hairs on end was when I turned left into Coldharbour Lane. Stepping across the rubble and walking along next to me was a group of black kids. Suddenly, three white kids jumped out the smashed window of a shoe shop and ran across into Electric Avenue. They were carrying boxes of shoes. As they ran, there was a police whistle and a group of policemen came running towards us from the direction of the railway bridge. The black kids at my side turned round to see these police running towards them. I said, Don't run! But they just took off. And then another group of police were coming from the Brixton Road end. All of the black kids – boys and girls - were caught and marched off. The white kids had totally disappeared. I stood there saying, “They're not guilty of anything!” A policewoman came over to me and said, “You'd better move on or you'll get caught up in a riot.” What could I do? I did the British thing, minded my own business and slunk off. I'm guilty of it, too. This horrible, British thing.
Shamima Begum may feel ashamed to be British, but she can't escape it. She's just as British as Prince Harry or any of us. We can't escape it, even if we - like me - have chosen to live away from it for decades. Being a scapegoat “to encourage the others” as Voltaire put it, is something we have to put up with. It's the chip we are forced to wear on our shoulders. It may make us uncomfortable to live with. Our compatriots may wish to get rid of us. But we will never go away. We can't go away. Wherever we go, people will still know us for what we are. (03/03/2021)
Biden Pardons Trump
The president elect has excused the prior tenant, though he took all the lightbulbs and left the upstairs windows open when he quit the Whitehouse. “He's entitled to his hump,” said a conciliatory Joe as he moved in, carrying a tea chest full of legal votes. “We'll get a good blaze going with these, and soon smoke his stink out of the carpets and curtains.” Trump meanwhile has not renamed his Florida Golf Resort “Dun Ruling”.
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a foot
in the door?
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