Loosing My Religion

The System of Freedom

I believe in a non-interventionist God who set the world in motion (with the big bang), and left us to it. Thus evolution and science as we know it. This is not definitively an impersonal God, as some would have you believe, nor is it the very personal, and, in my opinion, flawed God of many major religious sects. This God prioritises, above all things, our independence, our ability to make conscious choices, essentially, our free will, which forms the foundation of our world. Assuming the philosophical conception of God as the greatest possible being, or supreme being etc., and putting aside, for the moment, the problems of the omnipotence paradox etc., we know that God could interfere. But I believe he will never choose to, as any interference would be an imbalance of the system he has created. Thus we are free to live our lives as we choose, to divorce ourselves from him, or to attempt (and inevitably fail) to understand him.

A Personal Relationship

Some would argue that this does leave us in the dark about an absolute morality, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. When people believe they have some kind of access to absolute morality, they tend to enforce it on other people, frequently at the other end of weapons. For thousands of years, organised religion has been a tool of mass social manipulation, arguably outweighing all the good it has done in that time, which is yet another reason that deists typically eschew it, and promote religion as a personal relationship between you and God, a relationship no one but God (and you) has the right to tell you how to conduct.

Derived Morality

For the very reason we have free will, we don't have access to absolute morality, which necessitates a certain course of action. Good is valueless without the capacity for evil. Right is meaningless with the possibility of wrong. If God had given us a scripture, a "how to" guide, would we genuinely be able to resist it? I think not. Which is one reason (of many) that deists typically reject the notion of scripture, not just because it signals intervention, but because true scripture would be undeniable, and thus negate free will. Much greater, I believe, is a system that allows us to use our evolved characteristics, of intelligence, rationality, compassion, social interaction etc. to derive moralities and ethics from the world we see around us, not least the capacity to tolerate moralities that diverge from our own.

An Afterlife

I'm not sure what happens after we die. No one can know until it actually happens. I believe in the possibility of a Heaven, that is closeness to or even oneness with God, and a Hell, separation from God, to know that you were wrong in life and so will be eternally apart from a source of infinite love (could there be a greater punishment?). I don't know whether they exist. They need not. A system where our lives are simply observed, without punishment or reward beyond this world is not inconceivable - how many scientists set up experiments just to see what happens? How many of them punish the people or things in those experiments for defying their expectations? It's not necessary. Just because you can't conceive of the alternative (which, by the way, is called the argument from ignorance, in logical terms), doesn't make such a conception necessarily true. Which feeds back in to the concept of us having a purpose. I think our purpose it so be the best us we can be, and part of that is figuring out what "best" is. Is that so hard to believe? Even with scripture, no one agrees on the perfect Christian or the perfect Muslim or even the perfect atheist.

Satan

I don't believe in Satan. I think it's ridiculous, a nonsense idea cooked up by children for children when mankind was younger, and needed a boogey man to keep people on their toes. There's no reason or substance, logical, metaphysical or otherwise, for a being whose sole purpose is to corrupt humanity. We're more than capable of doing that ourselves, without any outside help, precisely because of our free will. Satan was invented by people who can't face up to the depravity of man and his choices, especially their own. It's a way of shifting the blame, personally and from humanity as a whole. At least, that is my belief, and it is empirically explicable.

Problematic Premises

To keep referring to beliefs, to what literally cannot be proven, as fact, is the definition of self-righteousness, the inability to question the truth of your own beliefs. And on what basis do the self-righteous do so? Books written hundreds of years ago? People who died before most of modern technology was invented? Faith is not fact. All systems require faith, science included, even if only at the fundamental starting level. But any good system requires the awareness and maturity to accept that its basic beliefs and premises might be wrong, and to phrase them as such, and then, and only then, argue logically from premises to conclusions. There are many extremely problematic premises with traditional organised religions, such as the necessary validity of scripture, the validity and necessity of the any particular conception of a supreme being, the validity of Jesus, Muhahmmad and others as prophets, that our conception of what is reasonable or fair in any way corresponds to God's etc. There are problems too with conclusions that do not follow from their premises, such as the existence of evil necessitating the existence of Satan (a classic case of affirming the consequent), or that the lack of contradictions in the Qur'an would necessitate its truth.

Belief is Not Knowledge

Those who cannot step back from their conviction and the strength of their faith and realise that no one, not they, not I, no Imam, priest, rabbi, trappist, atheist, scientist or philosopher has all the answers, will be doomed to patronise, to speak from a position of unjustified and assumed authority, to make the same logical mistakes over and over. Belief is not knowledge. No one knows that a God exists. You literally can't, it is a physical, mental and logical impossibility, provable by recourse to basic principles. I have respect for those faithful who acknowledge their own ignorance, who hold that vestige of doubt somewhere in their minds which prevents them from seeing the world in absolutes, in black and white. Those who fail to do this assume an authority to which they have no right, and the good that might come from it will be far outweighed by the bad - they will be destined to bring a bad name upon not just their particular religion, but all believers.

Zealotry and its Dangers

To believe 100%, entirely, utterly, and without even the slightest element of doubt is not belief. That is zealotry. You should only believe something that you absolutely, 100% know to be true (something I believe applies only to the cogito), and, as stated above, it is categorically impossible to know the existence of God. To show you how highly I hold the importance of doubt, even as I typed that, I considered it, wondered whether there might be some future information or logical formulation which might disprove it. But I am 99.9% confident, on the basis of my (and generally accepted premises), that it is the case. The arrogance of such belief is breath-taking - to assume that you know something which is definitively unknowable. Even without all of the dangers that brings - suicide bombings, honour killings, the death penalty, persecution, exclusivity, social manipulation, war, the ends justifying the means etc. - there can be no reasoning with someone who is that convinced of their own superiority.

Interpretation

Who's to say that our capacity for reason, be it naturally evolved (as I believe) or God-given, is not the 'guidance' God intended for us, be it sufficient or not? If you answer "because people come to different conclusions", then I will point you in the direction of the thousands of interpretations of each of any scripture. How do you know which of them is right? Is there one, unchallenged view of any holy book? Can you even side with the majority opinion for probability's sake, given the countless number of times in the Abrahamic scriptures at least, that minorities and those chosen by God are persecuted and suffer, despite being right? Do you think language is a perfect tool, that scriptures and words are never ambiguous, or contradictory? How then can you so blindly trust in a scripture, so boldly assume your or any given interpretation to be correct? If you mess up and misinterpret, would you not find yourself standing before your God, at the end of the day, and saying "I did what I thought you wanted"?

A Nation of Thinkers

So that I not be accused of simply undermining a position without proffering one of my own, I believe that, as I said, we have the ability to come to terms with God. First is choosing whether to believe in the existence of a supreme being or not. Secondly, assuming we choose the former, is trying to divine what kind of being that is - personally, I have used an amalgam of logic and faith, attempting to combine science, religion and philosophy, which lands me in the camp of deism. But this is, again, an impossible task, since a supreme being is definitively unknowable (within my premises, at any rate, which are generally accepted). Thirdly, to try and work out how such a being as we believe to exist would like us to live, and to try to live that way. You might say it's wishy-washy, indecisive, egotistical even, as open to misuse and self-justification as organised religion or any other system. But better a nation of thinkers than a colony of fools. Absolutism is usually the recourse of those who cannot see shades of grey, only black and white. It's considered dangerous for a reason. Only God can be absolute, can have access to absolute knowledge. To doubt is human - I can brook no God who could not forgive even the slightest doubt, for then he would have set us up only for us to fall down.

Action and Contemplation

I am not espousing an entirely relativist position (for I believe the cogito absolutely), nor am I saying that every single action must be analysed before being taken. But absolute belief, absolute conviction and certainty, can only lead to action, and never contemplation. And aren't there times when a little more contemplation and a little slower action might have benefited us? Can anyone honestly say they've never made the mistake of rushing in, thinking, even "knowing" at the time that they were absolutely right, and only later realising how wrong they were? That is what absolutism brings. Except real absolutism does not even cover the possibility of later acknowledging your own mistakes, a problem clearly visible with Papal Infallibility.

Working it Out for Ourselves

In short, I believe that God might exist without giving us "warnings or messengers to convey the truth", because I believe he knows, firstly, that absolute truth is inaccessible to us anyway, or that, if we had access to it, it would be undeniable, which would negate free will, and, secondly, because I believe he thinks we can and should work it out for ourselves. You might disagree, and that's your right. But at least my system incorporates the intrinsic belief, perhaps even knowledge, that I might be wrong. And the worst my wishy washiness can do is so much less than what absolutism can do. At worst, I am slow to act, or even never address certain problems. Absolutism can literally end the world.

Motherly Love

There are two main conceptions, perhaps extremes, of motherly love. There are mothers who coddle and micromanage every aspect of their child's lives, fighting their battles for them, teaching them exactly how to live and what to believe in every situation. I hate those mothers. They think they are doing what's best for their children, which is creditable, but if they took time to think about it, they would probably realise that instead, they have suffocated their child, made them dependent, clones of themselves, or smothered them to the point of rebellion.

Free Will is Fundamental

The other kind of mother works in general principles and broad brushstrokes, covering the basics, but essentially giving the child the skills they need to allowing them to develop freely, to become what they want to be, relying on the world to teach them the harsher lessons and punish their transgressions, and to be there to pick up the pieces when it does. Of course, this too is open to debate – respect for independence can easily be rephrased as negligence or disinterest, and suffocation as a deeper, more time-consuming and selfless love, depending on your point of view. But I will gladly debate the point, for I genuinely believe that the best mothers also know how and when to let go. That is the kind of mother I had, for which I am most thankful. And that is the kind of mother I believe God to be, one who respects our independence enough to allow us to make our own mistakes, discover our own paths and moralities and restrictions and rights and wrongs. Does it hurt God to see us go wrong? Of course it does. Are we always punished for it? No, not in this life, at any rate. But that is the freedom and the joy of the system he designed for us. Free will is fundamental.

God is Not an Interfering Mother

Not eating pork and shellfish and all the other absurd dietary stuff like halal and kosher made sense in the desert 2000 years ago, when there were serious health risks. But it was clearly a cultural thing that was tacked on to a religious document to give it significance and authority, which over time has come to be imbued with religious significance. A God who's going to make something edible and then tell you not to eat it makes no sense. To interfere to such an absurdly detailed level is what the interfering mother does. In short, it's a nonsense.

A Little Insight

I still ask forgiveness. When I mess up, I apologise to the people around me. And I have a pretty regular dialogue going on with the big guy upstairs - one way, of course, which probably technically makes it not a dialogue, but, if nothing else, it can help me organise my thoughts. As for right and wrong, I don't claim to have access to any absolute morality, as I've said, and I don't think anyone who does should be believed or trusted. But I do believe I have a system which follows from premises to conclusions, which accepts philosophy, science and faith, prioritising none above the others, which avoids the self-righteous excesses of absolutism and the crippling uncertainty of total relativism. I have condensed these thoughts here, from a discussion, for any who are interested. I hope you found at least a little insight.

Maybe this time (I'll win)...

So. This year's Oscar nominees have been announced. You might have been expecting my yearly rant. You still might get it, depending on who does eventually win. But for the first time in a long time, I have hope. Sure I've only seen Toy Story 3, The King's Speech, Inception and The Social Network thus far, and there's a chance that my high levels of anticipation for Black Swan and True Grit might end in disappointment. Sure there's a Danny Boyle film sludging up the nominations - admittedly, I have yet to see 127 Hours, but I doubt even my love for James Franco could redeem the typical Boyle fare: the massively overrated Trainspotting, the mediocre Sunshine, the equally mediocre The Beach, and Slumdog Millionaire, undoubtedly one of the worst films ever to win an Oscar. Sure, there's a creeping dread that Toy Story 3 and Inception feel like honourary nods, ticking the boxes, films that deserve the recognition but can't win because of the Academy's apparent disregard recently for animated films (Up, Wall-E, The Incredibles), Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight), genre films (sci-fi or fantasy) or box office successes (Dark Knight again, Avatar). But... call it a feeling, an intuition, a conjecture, if you will - a deserving film will win the Oscar this year.

As I've argued before, the Academy's bad streak runs some way back. Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, No Country For Old Men, The Departed, Crash, Million Dollar Baby - it's been an unstoppable deluge of shit. Poorly acted, poorly written, unengaging, overhyped shit, each wholly short of meriting the highest accolade the Hollywood film industry, united under one banner, can bestow. You have to go back to 2003 for the last deserving winner - Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, which, both as a film itself, and as a proxy for the entire trilogy, stood head and shoulders above its competitors that year (Lost in Translation, Master and Commander, Mystic River and Seabiscuit). But this year, I could not begrudge any of the nominees I have seen the victory, nor could I pick between them. And I hold out further hope that those I have yet to see will live up to the same standards. My major excitement is reserved for Black Swan and True Grit, which would push the number of worthy winners to 6 of the 10 nominees (assuming they live up to my expectations), perhaps even 8 at a stretch, if I am surprised by the Fighter and The Kids Are Alright. I profess to know very little about Winter's Bone, which leaves only one remaining objection, in the form of 127 Hours, which, admittedly, I have yet to see. Unfair as that might sound, it is not random - my dislike of Danny Boyle as a filmmaker runs deep, and is based on not inconsiderable viewing experience, hence my joy that he is not included in the best director nods. Based on what I have seen so far, Tom Hooper or David Fincher have equal claim to that prize, just as their leading men (Colin Firth and Jesse Eisenberg respectively) do to the best actor gong. Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are both thoroughly deserving of their supporting nominations, though, having nothing to compare them to as of yet, I can't make a stronger claim than that.

If I had one gripe, it might be that Harry Potter doesn't appear in any of the major nominations. Now it could be that, like with Return of the King, they are simply waiting for the final installment to serve again as proxy, and award a massive and thoroughly well deserved nod to the franchise as a whole. Which would probably be fair enough, if this hadn't been far and away the best directed, acted and arguably written installment so far. I will admit to being slightly inebriated the first time I saw it, partly by the atmosphere of the midnight showing, and partly by some actual mojitos, but it lost absolutely nothing in the second viewing a few days later, and I dare say, perhaps even improved. One can only imagine the seismic force of the cultural event that will be the finale come July 15, an epic imprint of a generational zeitgeist, a moment of which people will later say "I was there". And obviously that anticipation holds some sway, which, again, as I reiterate, makes such reasoning, if that is their reasoning (rather than the dislikes of genre and box office success I listed above), entirely understandable. But it does seem a shame, and perhaps even a minor slap in the face, to not recognise Deathly Hallows Part 1 as an accomplishment on a grand scale, a maturation and change in tone that I hitherto did not credit anyone involved to be capable of achieving, despite my enjoyment of the franchise since the 3rd film.

Regardless, tonight, I am optimistic. I will endeavour to add True Grit and Black Swan at least to my consciousness by the time the night arrives. Perhaps, by then, a stronger contender may emerge from the murky pool of my sentiments and opinions. But, as it stands, there are 4 definitely worthy winners in the running. And that alone is cause for hope.

20 things you need to understand in order to love me

1. I love LOST

2. I am always open to discussion, but you may have to work hard to change my mind

3. I have no filter - I say what I think almost all the time, so honesty is part of the package. I try to be tactful about it, usually, but saying what needs to be said is more important than not hurting someone's feelings.

4. I find it very hard to be anyone but myself.

5. I think about everything... a lot... And I find it hard to switch that off. But I also have a childish side, especially in my sense of humour.

6. I am a spelling/grammar Nazi, and I abuse the ellipsis.

7. I hate not understanding things, or when things don't make sense to me. This includes people.

8. I am a deist - I believe religion is a personal relationship between you and God, and no one has the right to tell you how to conduct that relationship. Obviously, this means I disavow any kind of organised religion, or religious authority on earth. I also believe in a non-interventionist God, who set the ball rolling and left us to it. I don't mind what you believe as long as it doesn't make you act like a douche (racism, homophobia etc.). This does not apply to my friends - it bothers me if my friends believe things that don't make sense to me.

9. I believe philosophy, religion and science are all entirely compatible, and take great issue with any who says otherwise, or those who try and drive a wedge between them (Dawkins, Dennett, the Pope etc.)

10. If I love you, I'll love you totally. Life is too short to be anything but all or nothing. I will not moderate myself. I am intense and passionate, and I see that as a strength. If you try to tell me it's a weakness, you have not understood.

11. I enjoy public displays of affection.

12. I cannot separate the emotional and the physical. If I feel deeply for you emotionally, as friends or more, it will show physically.

13. I love Radio 4 comedy, and Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy in 5 parts. If you do not understand these things and why I love them, you will never understand me.

14. I am a perfectionist, and I will not settle. I have 4 equally important categories of compatibility I need from friends, and especially from relationships, that I will not and cannot compromise on - emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual. Heart, mind, body, soul. Being attracted to someone is not enough. Sometimes, even love is not enough.

15. I do not do things by halves, and am drawn to hyperbole. I usually love or hate things, especially in the aesthetic sense.

16. I do not care about some things most people find important, like cleanliness, or being accepted by the majority.

17. I believe that human beings are animals that have survived and prospered because of our ability and propensity to judge, and to deny this is foolish. So I will judge someone on their appearance. What makes someone judgemental is an unwillingness to revise such judgements on the basis of new information, or to act on them prematurely. In other words, I love a good bitch.

18. I swear. A lot. I also refer to people as dude or sweetheart most of the time. If either of these things offends you, live with it, or go fuck yourself, sweetheart :P

19. I don't believe in unconditional love. I think it is morally incoherent to love someone unconditionally, no matter how they behave. Love should have to be earnt, and should never be taken for granted. This is why I prefer cats to dogs.

20. I'm the sort of person who believes that you shouldn't knock something before you've tried it, for the most part - if I criticise something, I want to do it from a position of knowledge and strength, to be able to say I've tried it and it's not for me.

Closure

Everything ends

Someday, everything ends

The trees

The beach

The rocks your world is built on

Everything ends

...

All at once, or piece by piece

They break apart

And float...

Until the world runs out

Everything ends

...

Sometimes the pieces are loved anew

Part of another world, in turn rubbed out by time

We are all pencil on a page

Dust on the stage

...

Everything ends

Everything we love

Everything we touch

Fruit, cars, atom bombs

...

Memory

The swelling of strings

Petrol fumes

Tears, and joy

Everything

Meaning

Love

Lines in the sand

Everything

.

.

.

Ends

Mad Abbott The Girl

We’re all doomed if politicians can’t empathise with people from other backgrounds. One person can never cover all the bases, but only one person can hold any one seat at a time. We don't expect authors or songwriters to have lived every story they tell, or painters to have seen every scene they paint. And yet many people expect such identity of politicians. This is, perhaps, the biggest problem – the constant assumption by many, not least the electorate en masse, that only someone who has experienced what they have experienced is capable or qualified to represent or understand them, hence the illogical and unnecessary continuation of tribalistic vitriol against 'posh boys' and 'toffs' on the one hand and 'council house denizens' on the other. We are not automatic products of our backgrounds or our skin colours or our genders – of course they affect us, but they are not dominating, nor do they produce necessary and unavoidable results.

The reason I'm discussing this at all is because of the decision, or rather the manner of justification for the decision, of Diane Abbott to run for the Labour Party Leadership, as covered by the BBC and the Guardian (twice). What's at stake in this discussion is not her candidature - I welcome any and all people who genuinely believe they can be the best person for the job, although I do not think she would be anything like a competent or electable leader. What is worrying are some of her reasons for running and what they seem to imply about her opposition. Here is a sample:

"The other candidates are all nice and would make good leaders of the Labour Party but they all look the same... We cannot be offering a slate of candidates who all look the same. The Labour Party's much more diverse than that."

"We can't go forward with a leadership debate where there is no woman"

"If we are going to have a debate about immigration, I am the child of immigrants. Don't the millions of British people who are the children of immigrants have a voice in this debate also?"

Firstly, the children of immigrants already have two voices in the debate - the Miliband brothers are both (obviously) the product of fugitives of Nazi occupation in Ralph Miliband and his Polish wife. This is, of course, personal conjecture, but such a remarkable lack of knowledge in regards to her opposition for the role highlights a patronising arrogance and an ignorance which is too often and too easily on show for even casual viewers of This Week. Indeed, her willingness to put her foot in her mouth, notably in regard to the apparent impossibility of empathic Finnish nurses, is just one of the reasons I believe her to be a hypocrite (along with the well-known schools debacle), and unsuitable for anything beyond representing her constituency. The crux of her eventual apology on the matter - that her main priority was to ensure that her constituents received medical treatment from the very best people "irrespective of race" - is ironically the very point I am making.

But the real deal-breaker in her comments is the implication that only she, as a woman, can speak for or represent women voters, and that only she, as a black person, can do the same for black people. I’ve touched on similar issues before in talking about the black vote in relation to Obama, and the woman’s vote for Hillary. But it is always dangerous to talk about the black vote or the woman’s vote – it implies mass voting blocks, and just the sort of social, racial or gender determinism that I am refuting. No one is denying that different people are hard-wired differently - there is almost certainly a probabilistic trend for black candidates to understand black issues and female candidates women’s issues, and it is also probable (right or wrong, and I would definitely argue wrong) that people identify more with people who share their background or race or gender. But I know plenty of public school products who would rather have Gordon Brown than David Cameron any day. Anecdotal evidence it may be, but it is also empirically observable in the difficulty of marking any clear trends amongst general voter blocks (like the young vote, the black vote etc.).

We must, absolutely must, move towards the realisation that probability is not the issue. We must judge candidates on what they say and what they do – their propositions, their policies, their interactions. To assume that just because someone comes from a particular background – and this applies as much to the results of working class, comprehensive upbringings as silver-spoon, public school boys – that they will automatically hold a certain set of beliefs or be incapable of understanding people from other walks of life is exactly the sort of poisonous idiocy that fuels the tribalism that is miring British politics. This is especially obvious in light of the fact that MPs ultimately serve their constituents, and must come to understand and identify with problems that would never factor into their personal life or their personal politics. If this were impossible, or even improbable, MPs would rarely, if ever, be re-elected. In essence, we must listen to what candidates actually say, rather than what we expect them to say. Do not judge on what is likely, judge on what is.

One of the other problems I have already encountered with Abbott’s stand is how quickly valid criticisms are perceived, in the light of paranoia, as the thinly-veiled barbs of discrimination. Although it remains to be seen whether Abbott herself will do so, many of her supporters have already pulled the race or gender card in response to any suggestion that the Hackney MP is not all sweetness and light. This false expectation of bigotry and enemies all around is just as damaging to the cause of racial equality as those, like the BNP, who actually display it – we should be moving to a point where, insofar as possible, race and gender are irrelevant. Accusations to the contrary only serve to highlight the differences, and is exactly the sort of fuel on which xenophobia thrives. It should be hoped, therefore, that such idiocy is kept to a minimum, to allow the true flow of debate to continue unshackled by fear of unjust allegations.

It may be the case that, in the coming weeks, it becomes apparent from the nomination debates that all the current candidates other than Abbott (Ed and Dave Miliband, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and the intriguing John McDonnell) are entirely incapable of representing or understanding women or black people, in which case, her comments may be somewhat vindicated. And it may be that she is simply playing to the sad realities of the irrationality of people's existing prejudices in putting greater faith and expecting greater understanding from their own kind. But the former seems unlikely, certainly from what I have heard from the Milibands at any rate, and the latter, if true, I would call cynical in the extreme (though doubtless some would simply label it realistic). Either way, whatever positives may come out of Abbott's candidature (pushing the debate further to the left, apparently re-energising some of the supporter base), they are overshadowed, for me, by a rather inauspicious start. Like her vomit-inducing hypocrisy, it leaves rather a bad taste in the mouth...

List of the Month: April 2010

Song of the Month:

Yet another I've basically not been able to stop listening to, partly because it's a collaboration between two of my absolute favourite artists, and partly because it's just a great song. Alicia Keys and John Mayer's Lesson Learned is a beautiful synthesis of styles and instruments: as you would expect, it's Keys on the piano, providing sparse chords, a heart-rendingly simple riff in the verse and a beautiful soundscape, and Mayer on the guitar, bringing the rhythm, groove and the killer chorus hook, not to mention occasional and tasteful fills that make you realise how enviable his tone is. Vocally, John mostly sings the BVs to Alicia's passionate and honest assessment of a situation we've all been in, somehow managing never to spill into the sentimental.

A massive shout out actually has to go to the drummer (not sure which, but one of Steve Jordan, Trevor Lawrence Jr, or Mark Robohm) - because the song and instrumentation is so sparse and full of pauses and hangs, it really highlights the drums, which carry the momentum of the song, especially through the verses. A really simple drum pattern can sometimes be the hardest thing to play, especially with the precision and sensitivity required by this kind of track, but this is really a perfect performance. The song was rightfully nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with vocals at the 2009 Grammy awards, unjustly losing out to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's frankly baffling Rich Woman. In my opinion, a song of this rare quality deserves recognition beyond a single Grammy nomination, but for now, I can only add my recommendation to the pile.

Film of the Month:

Continuing in my drive to see all 10 of the Best Picture nominees this year, so I can know for certain just how overrated Hurt Locker has been (and believe me, it has been), I caught up with both The Blind Side and Up In The Air this month, leaving only An Education on the list. It was a close call, but I'm definitely going to have to go with The Blind Side. Up In The Air is a thought-provoking, engaging, and beautifully acted piece, and in another year could well have walked away with a deserved Oscar (over Slumdog Millionaire or No Country For Old Men, for example), but this year it was simply outshone by one of the best films I have seen in at least the last 5 years.

Part of the power of The Blind Side is that it's based on the true story of Michael Oher. Playing on my and many Americans' love for American Football, the story shows us the rise of Oher from essentially homeless dropout to NFL athlete. The film is not shot in a documentary way, but knowledge of the reality behind the film colours one's entire perception of events, bringing new meaning and life to what otherwise might be forgettable or dull moments and aiding the suspension of disbelief with what otherwise might be unbelievable or stretching the bounds of credibility. More than once I found myself choking back tears, not least as Sandra Bullock delivers what is undoubtedly the performance of a lifetime as Leigh Anne, for which she deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar. Her unexpectedly nuanced performance and pitch-perfect depiction of the go-getting, Southern Belle, ex-cheerleader-cum-soccer mom is surprisingly almost matched by Tim McGraw, whom I had known only as a country music artist and husband of Faith Hill. Perhaps that life experience prepared him well for taking the backseat to a somewhat domineering wife, but his performance is no less impressive for it.

Alongside Bullock, the true star of the show is of course Quinton Aaron, in the role of Michael, or Big Mike. Considering his relatively meagre acting experience up this point (this is his first lead role), Aaron delivers a credible and understated performance of such quality, I could scarcely believe he wasn't born in front of a director and a camera. Excellent supporting roles from little brother SJ (Jae Head) and Collins (the gorgeous Lily Collins), not to mention the various teachers, family members of both Michael's and the Tuohys', gang thugs and insufferable lunch friends add up to complete an utterly convincing and engaging world where the characters live and interact and where actions have true and proportionate consequences. For all this heavy subject matter, there is ample humour, much of it provided by SJ or, unwittingly, Michael himself, and again, this perfectly reflects the unpredictable and bittersweet capriciousness of life, where you can be laughing one minute and crying the next.

The lion's share of the character development is shared between him and Bullock, as the film fundamentally is the story of their relationship - the transformation from uneducated, lumbering quasi-mute to the man comfortable calling Bullock mama, standing up for himself under interrogation, and singing along to Bust-A-Move with his adopted brother is marked but entirely realistic, a stark contrast to many Hollywood films where people change overnight or even in the space of a few hours. In real life, people don't change, not really, not much and not often. When they do, the changes are more minor or subtle, mostly occurring during times of great stress and external change (puberty, adulthood, marriage etc.). This kind of realism is perfectly captured by writer Michael Lewis and screenplaywright and director John Lee Hancock over the 2 year timeframe of the film. They are, of course, helped by the truth behind the story, but rarely if ever do they overstep their remit and fall into the inviting but sugar-coated trappings of Hollywood melodrama.

Some friends of mine have commented that the film is patronising, both to its audience and to the black community portrayed within it. Personally, I never found this to be the case. The Blind Side never claims to show the entirety of black society, and actually the breadth of characters was quite subtly varied - without giving too much away, there is the janitor Michael is staying with at the beginning of the film who first gets him into the school; there is Michael's birth mother; there is the gangleader but also an obviously reluctant member; the NCAA investigator... I don't think there is an overwhelming stereotype of anyone, black or white: for every good Christian presented in the film, there's a casually racist redneck or a high-society bigot to balance the scales. What I think the film does show is the sense of being trapped felt by so many people from poor backgrounds - in this case black, but not by necessity - and how hard they have to work or lucky they have to be to escape it.

If the film falls down anywhere, it's in an arguably saccharin presentation of Christianity. On the one hand, The Blind Side is an excellent advert for what can be achieved through a strong, loving Christian faith. But such faith is not necessary to act as Leigh Anne did (or does in the film), even though, in her particular case, it was the obvious spur to her behaviour. Obviously long, drawn-out arguments can be had as to whether the good achieved by such Christian action is outweighed by the negatives of organised religion, but that is not the focus of the film, and therefore it should hopefully suffice that I have mentioned it. The Blind Side pretty strongly sets out its stall, blocking any accusations of "white guilt" in a particularly poignant lunch scene, although some might say that even bringing it up is defensive, that the film "doth protest too much".

Regardless, through a combination of superb acting, strong social conscience, faultless realism, humour and heartbreak in good store, and an inspiring message, The Blind Side stands as the best of the 9 Oscar nominees I have seen so far, a film that could, had it existed then, have won Best Picture in any of the last 6 years, with the possible exception of 2006 and Little Miss Sunshine. Avatar may have changed cinema, Up In The Air may have changed the way we look at our world, Inglourious Basterds may even have changed history (or at least rewritten it), but The Blind Side is that special breed of film that will stay with me, and hopefully you, for years to come.

List of the Month: March 2010

Song of the Month:

There have been a few contenders, but I'm going to have to plump for Andrew Gold's Lonely Boy. Not only is it absolutely one of the most impressive live recordings I've heard, but it's also just a cracking song. The syncopation gives it an irresistible groove, and the lyrics definitely have the ring of truth about how lonely it can be as the oldest child. The chorus progression is brilliantly original, and there's so much variation on the theme in the chorus/riff. If all else fails, the chorus is so satisfying to belt out, and the song is surprisingly modern and/or timeless (depending on your viewpoint) - you could definitely hear it on a FIFA soundtrack, or a Hoosiers or Scouting For Girls album.

Film of the Month:

I wasn't able to get out and see Shutter Island, the Wolfman, Legion, or any of the other good looking films around last month. I did catch Precious, which was unrelenting, credible, powerful and another in the list of worthier Oscar winners than the Hurt Locker. But it didn't blow me away as a film or as an experience. Nor did Green Zone, which didn't match its billing as The Kingdom meets Bourne - other than uncovering a conspiracy, there was nothing of Bourne, either the character, the style or the plot, to be found. Also, it is not nearly as thought-provoking or intellectually compelling as the Kingdom, which I have discussed before.

Instead, I'll say that, while not a film, LOST is having probably its best season ever. If either Michael Emerson for (Dr. Linus) or Josh Holloway for (Recon) doesn't win an Emmy, I will be flabbergasted. Perhaps it's just because the final season gives the writers freedom to tie up old mysteries (or not, as the choice may be), and who doesn't love a bit of closure? Perhaps it's because we know there's so little time left that we cherish each episode more, in a heightened sense of viewing. But even the episodes I wasn't blown away by (Ab Aeterno and Happily Ever After) have been loved by my fellow LOSTies, so perhaps this really is the season that has something for everyone.

If you, like me (initially) have only seen sporadic episodes of LOST, and dismissed it, I can promise you it is a show that needs to be watched from the beginning, in as many binges as you can manage. The episodic format is a necessary and obvious constraint of commercial and network television, but the joy of DVDs is that you can bypass it. Give the show its due: start from the top, and keep the faith if a couple of episodes lose your interest - I don't think LOST has ever let me down for more than 3 weeks at a time (though many people take issue with the start of Seasons 3). It truly is one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.

The Politics of Life

The views of ordinary American Tom Brown, Virginia, reveal a staggering short-sighted selfishness and stupidity which I cannot leave unanswered.

There is nothing in the US constitution which says the federal government can fine a citizen for not purchasing a health insurance policy.

Wow, brilliant insight. Just like there's nothing in the constitution about cars, or the internet, or any other progressive, modern, enlightened features of intelligence that exist today. Presumably, as long as there's nothing in the constitution which prohibits the federal government from doing so (and the constitution is usually described in terms of negative freedom, i.e. restraints on what the federal government can do), the founders thought it was probably a grey area that sensible people with more information could hammer out later. One could even argue that the Declaration of Independence mandates adequate healthcare for all Americans, as it requires the government to enforce the 'unalienable Right... [of] Life'.

It will decrease the quality of healthcare and we will end up like England where if you have anything that is the slightest bit postponable you can wait months and months for care.

Oh, God forbid that that hospitals and doctors might prioritise poor, dying people over rich hypochondriacs. Obviously an exaggeration, but there is nothing wrong with treating patients in order of severity. The NHS is not a perfect system, no one would say it is, but it saves lives, unlike the US system. Not to mention that private healthcare still exists in the UK and can get you your pathetic rotator cuff operation on time without having to sacrifice someone less privileged than you to do it.

All in all, this bill is a "Robin Hood" plan to rob the well-off to give to the have-nots, and this is what socialism really is. This may work well in England, but will not sit well with the American people

Brilliant. This is perhaps the biggest issue of American politics, that socialism is such a dirty word (much like those in the UK who use 'social worker' as some sort of insult). There is undoubtedly a base hypocrisy in the opposition of most Americans to this concept of socialism. Like myself, many Americans describe themselves as meritocrats, and, in fact, the country as a whole is founded on meritocratic principles. But a meritocracy can only truly function in a semblance of a fair environment. Obviously, some things are not and perhaps will never be fair (without levelling down), like your genetics. But a true meritocrat recognises that since illness is often, if not predominantly, random, or at least beyond the control of the sufferer, it would be wrong to penalise someone because of it.

Anyone can get sick at any time, and this will be true long after we've sussed out and 'cured' all the diseases that are the biggest threats to mankind today. Meritocracy relies on a fair starting point of equal opportunity, so far as is reasonable. And you simply cannot say that a sick child should die on the basis of chance - his chance of getting a disease, his chance of recovery, his chance of his parents being able to afford to pay for his care. If Republicans can look into the eyes of that hypothetical child (who is actualised and real across America) and tell him or her that they don't have the right to live because that's how they do things in America, then the war's already lost, and we might as well push the button now.

Which is all to ignore that there are serious ethical questions to be had about the entire existence of health insurance in the first place. In China, you pay a doctor when you are well, but not when you are sick, because they believe, since their job is to keep you healthy, that when you get sick they have failed at their job. But in the west, and particularly the US, you pay to get better, you pay when you are vulnerable, often when you can afford it the least, and this despite the fact that the US has some of the most expensive healthcare per capita in the world, but the quality of it is in no way reflected by the price. Insurance as a rule is a pretty necessary industry within a capitalist system - house, car, travel etc. Possessions come and go - life is something else altogether.

Obama might have been able to do more if the Republicans had ever been even remotely interested in bipartisanship. But in the end, he's done what he can, and, as the Democrats keep saying, it's a step in the right direction. Social security had a slow start too. Yes, we got a watered down bill, with significant caves on abortion rights and a public option. Yes, Tom Brown is probably right in proposing the abolition of state-restricted insurance, and including the pharmaceutical companies in the "profiting from life and death" shit-list. Yes, this is an issue which could, unjustly, cost Obama a second term and give the rampant fuck-wittery of the Tea Party movement a groundswell of support. But this step in the right direction, this legislation should outlast Obama, outlast all of us. It's perhaps optimistically been described as the Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century, but, whatever the propoganda and hyperbole by either side, let's hope this step is only the first, and not just a misstep on America's stumble into depravity.

First Locker? Not Even Close

So to follow up on my previous Oscars rants, I've decided to disentangle precisely why I think Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker were the wrong choices for their respective categories. Let me start by saying I totally reject arguments of redressive equality - that Kathryn Bigelow is a woman (indeed, the first woman to win a best director Oscar) is as irrelevant as Clinton's womanhood or Obama's race, and anyone who voted for her on that basis is an imbecile. It is, of course, another discussion entirely as to whether her sex/gender influences her directorial style, or permits her insight a man could not provide, but I don't think it's a necessary one to the focus of this post - we can, I think, debate the merits of directors and their styles without referencing the origins of either. Art stands alone, independent of the creator.

With that established, let me say that I enjoyed the Hurt Locker. It is a film which exhibits an extremely impressive grasp of cinematic tension and release, and hints at some interesting debates. But it is no less 'predictable' than Avatar - it was obvious to me that Lt Colonel Cambridge would die as soon as he asked to accompany the team on their mission, or that James, on returning home, would have difficulty adjusting to the 'real world' and end up going back to his comfort zone. In terms of America's role in Middle Eastern conflict, the effect on individual soldiers and all the other pertinent and engaging questions the Hurt Locker is purported to raise, most everything in it and more is covered better and in greater detail by The Kingdom, which is well worth your time and which I have discussed before.

The victory of the Hurt Locker is a result of both major categories being pitched as the battle of the sexes and the ex's - the underfunded, sexually and historically disadvantaged, flag-waving, underdog ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow, representing 'character-driven' and 'independent' cinema in the one corner, and the 'commercially driven', big budget, 'tecnhologically-reliant', anti-imperialist ex-husband, James Cameron, in the other. Awarding the gongs to Bigelow and the Hurt Locker is Hollywood patting itself on the back in a way which confirms many of the worst criticisms thrown its way - that it is elitist, self-serving, and self-congratulatory. While these may be sometimes true - after all, self-congratulation is often just a negative way of describing the recognition of achievements upon which awards ceremonies are based - it is often incidental to the Oscars, not the purpose of it, for the clique to pat itself on the back.

The Academy had no trouble awarding Cameron for his first record-breaking blockbuster endeavour, the billion dollar plus, financial powerhouse Titanic. But when he repeats, and in fact, outdoes his own success, not only with a superior movie, but also through advancing the cause of film (with undeniably inspiring advances in technology) and cinema (by giving punters a reason, in the shape of 3D, to turn from piracy and flock to movie screens) in the process, the same people who sang his praises and overwhelmingly voted him in for every category a little over a decade ago jump ship to avoid being caught up in the whirlwind of bullshit accusations about style over substance and hype over heart. I've already spoken about why I think Avatar is one of the best films you'll see this year, so I won't go into it again unless pressed, but even if you were not a fan, there are other films in the top 10 worthy of consideration.

Up is a film that has its problems, but surely even for the sublime opening 10 minutes, which I would rank as one of the finest pieces of cinema I have ever seen, it earned its place amongst those nominations. Though it drifts in and out, which is particularly clear in comparison to the Hurt Locker's consistent and quality pacing (barring the ending), its moments of genius are so far beyond anything Bigelow has to offer that they redeem Up as a whole, and push the film well beyond The Hurt Locker in terms of quality and Oscar-worthiness. Consider also Inglourious Basterds, without a doubt Tarantino's finest work to date: humour, intelligence, tension and suspense that easily rivals and almost certainly surpasses The Hurt Locker's, and the integrity to follow its characters and story to the end, regardless of history. Which is not even to mention the absolutely stunning and deservedly rewarded supporting actor performance from Christoph Waltz.

District 9 is a fun but ultimately overly flawed film, and ranks alongside Hurt Locker in terms of quality, whereas A Serious Man sits firmly at the bottom of the pile, being, as it seemed to me, humour about Jews, by Jews, for Jews (though I have similarly heard Jewish friends accuse it of anti-semitism, so burning bridges all round, really). I have not yet seen An Education, Previous or Up In The Air, which have all received high praise (and indeed more serious Oscar recognition for Precious), but the point still remains that there are at least 3 films and directors more deserving of their respective Oscars this year than Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker were.

It's been said before by many people about many things, often falsely, but I will make a bid to join the list of those whom history proved right: The Hurt Locker will not be remembered in 10 years time, certainly not as a classic, and certainly not if it hadn't won an Oscar. It is not especially new or clever, nor does it have anything remarkable to say or any remarkable way to say it. It does not, in short, either advance the cause of cinema, as Avatar has, or merit repeated viewings and fond remembrance, as Inglourious Basterds and Up do. For this reason, it does not deserve its successes. For yet another successive year, the Academy has got it oh so wrong.

List of the Month: February 2010

Song of the month:

By some considerable margin, it is Disappear. This song is truly product of that talent of Belmont University - written by my two good friends John Flanagan and Brett McLaughlin, arranged by Dan Pentecost and performed by John and the Performer's Showcase band. The recording, sadly, is a little rough, due to the low quality audio limits on youtube, and the difficulties of live recording without a desk input. The worst consequence of this is that the lyrics are somewhat hard to hear on the first few tries, but as someone who was there live, I can assure you this is in no way a product of John's perfect diction.

Obviously, I am not impartial in my analysis or recommendation of this song, but I can honestly say that there is no part of this song and performance that I do not consider perfect, or at least flawless. Lyrically, it is a top class example of writing on a theme, in this instance the parallels of love and magic, with various brilliant lyrics. Vocally, John is pitch-perfect , with the sort of vocal range I would happily kill for, and displays both power in the choruses and riffs and emotional tenderness in the breakdown. Musically, the verse uses a quirky but pleasing progression, while the chorus rests on the well-known but satisying 1-5-m6-4. Overall, the video goes some way to capturing the magic of the live performance, and for that alone is worth your time.

Film of the month:

Through the bounties of Sky Player, I discovered the indie gem that is Live! With most certainly the greatest performance of hers I have ever seen, Eva Mendes, as an ambitious but engaging TV executive, leads this documentary-style life-cycle of a reality TV show based on russian roulette, from its inception in a creative meeting to its impossibly gripping end. Rarely have I become so drawn into the illusion a film has created, so immersed in the lives at stake, as the final scene, where each character puts a loaded gun to their head and pulls the trigger for a shot at money and fame.

There are a lot of films which claim to investigate the reality TV genre, the blurring of fact and fiction, the limits of what people will watch - Gamer, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, The Condemned, even as far back as The Running Man. Many of them are shit, especially those that focus on violence, and most of them fail to do explore the questions in any great depth, or offer insight worth the 2 hours they require. But a precious few, like The Truman Show or the Extras Christmas Special, do have something worthwhile to say, and make no bones about saying it. Live! definitely falls into this category, both as an exploration into reality TV, and a commentary on contemporary audiences. There is one part of the final rundown where my suspension of disbelief was broken by the audience reaction to something, but otherwise, this is a film which stays true to its documentary style, even when it obviously moves to scenes directly from the show. Partly as a result of this, and partly because of some great performances and excellent direction, this is a film which stays human and real from start to finish. It is thought provoking, credible and 100% worth your time.

When you can't see the Woods for the Terrys

I am fed up of people talking about bringing down the 'rich and powerful'. There is a thinly veiled jealousy inherent in the knee-jerk reactions of those members of the public who say things like "Such and such a footballer gets paid so much, their private lives are public concern", or "I pay for the tickets, so I pay his wages". In today's world, basically everybody pays everybody else's wages - the ideology of 'the customer is always right' does have a natural limit which is frequently passed over. I can't walk into a Sainsbury's and shout abuse at a checkout worker just because I pay their wages. So why do people feel like they in some way have some claim or ownership of John Terry or Tiger Woods or whoever?

That someone gets paid a lot or has a lot of money doesn't make them a bad person. Bill Gates has done more for charity, humanitarianism and the general cause of philanthropy than entire EU countries. Obviously, one can argue that he could always stand to give more (the tale of the rich man comes to mind), but that is, at the least to belittle his achievements (in both the relative and the absolute). Furthermore, while it is clear that footballers' or golfers' salaries are grossly disproportionate to more obviously necessary jobs like doctors, policemen etc., the idea that because someone is well paid that they have no right to privacy is absurd, even when some of that money comes from sponsorship and a public image. There are inevitably people who will argue that you can't have it both ways - if you use the press to promote the good you do and to up your standing, you can't expect them not to publicise in turn when things are going wrong.

But imagine, for a moment, if we held each other to similar standards in day to day life. Do we expect normally happy couples to broadcast their marital problems at dinner parties? Should the newly fired talk with equal enthusiasm about their redundancy as they did about the joys of their job? No, and such an implication is absurd. So why do we expect it from so-called celebrities? Most footballers do not foster this ridiculous notion that famous people should automatically be role models, though they may sometimes take advantage of it. So where exactly do we draw the line in financial terms? How much do you have to be paid before you lose your right to privacy?

It is clearly not just a financial consideration. Up until the recession, little attention was paid to bankers and business executives on exorbitant salaries and bonuses. Perhaps it is because they don't get a lot of TV time, whereas the likes of John Terry, Tiger Woods and Vernon Kay obviously gain bargaining power within the market from their increased exposure. But Terry is a footballer. Woods is a golfer. Kay a presenter. To answer the earlier point about the press reporting the bad along with the good, no one is saying the press can't criticise as well as praise (and simply report). But the only thing that's relevant is if Terry doesn't perform on the pitch, Woods on the course, Kay on his shows. As Charlie Brooker rightly pointed out earlier this week, the only people they owe an apology to are those affected by what they did, namely their families and friends.

One of the frequent subjects of ethical and moral discussion is why we as humans have such an obsession with idea of equality and levelling. Communism, in a Marxist sense, is wrongly described as prioritising equality, or at least a Western idea of equality, when, in fact, it is barely a concern. Without problems of ownership or possessions, there is a communal store of anything that might be needed which is open to all. You can take as much or as little as you want or need from the store, the perfect formulation of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". But the issue that historically arises from actual Marxist communes and from general observation of human nature is this idea of keeping up with Joneses. It seems a natural, innate feature that we measure ourselves in comparison to others, and from such measurements, ideas of proportion and fairness arise. But such ideas are not logically or socially necessary - if all my needs are met and all my desires fulfilled, why should I care about how my neighbour is doing?

There are ongoing debates about whether privacy is a right or a privilege, with serious points to be made for both sides. But whichever it is, just as important is the question of who decides, and how, who gets it. The media's justification for their behaviour with regards to Terry and Woods is that they are reporting what people want to hear. If it's true, then the public at large obviously do not deserve to permit or withhold privacy, for reasons of hypocrisy and poor judgement. If it is not true, then the media is simply pandering to a lucrative minority. It is important here to distinguish between something which the public finds interesting and something which is genuinely in the public interest. I would assert that it is nigh on impossible to make a case that the adultery sagas discussed satisfy the latter. Either way, the point stands - just because, through either their own volition or passively, one part of someone's life is within the realm of the media, we cannot conclude that the whole of their life should be.

Top 20 Unknown/Underrated/Unexpected Riffs

Ok, so in an attempt to further lighten (read fluff) this blog up, I have decided to act upon the amazing feeling of empowerment and vitality I experienced this morning when listening to some of my favourite riffs. What follows is my top 20 list of great (mostly guitar based) riffs, but there are qualifiers. I have excluded any bands that are famous for their riffs - no Muse, no Darkness etc.So many of these riffs come from artists who generally do not use them, making their awesomeness even more enjoyable, like finding a fiver in your back pocket.

Some people will consider some of these 'classic' riffs or too well known to be considered, but it really is strange the difference in people's musical awareness who live in the same city, let alone the differences between the UK and the US, for example. You'll see only one artist gets double billing, no prizes for guessing who...

Anyway, I have not ranked them, so they appear here in alphabetical order.

Dammit - Blink 182
Dance The Night Away - Will Young
Deeper Underground - Jamiroquai
Each Time - E17
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Happiness - Orson
Just A Day - Feeder
Life In The Fast Lane - The Eagles
Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield
My Favourite Mistake - Sheryl Crow
My Own Summer (Shove It) - Deftones
Neon - John Mayer
On The Beach - Chris Rea
Run To You - Bryan Adams
Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
Slow Dancing In A Burning Room - John Mayer
So Sick - Ne-Yo
Summer Breeze - Isley Brothers
You Can't Stop The Beat - Hairspray
7 Days - Craig David

Enjoy :D

List of the Month: January 2010

OK, so since I didn't make any New Year's Resolutions this year, I'm making one now... 6 and 1/2 weeks late. Oh well...

Every month now, I will be posting my top recommendations of things I have experienced that month, be it articles I've read, songs I've heard, films I've watched, restaurants I've been to etc. You won't necessarily get one of everything each month (although I imagine songs and films will feature pretty heavily), but you'll always get an insight into what I've been doing, which might help make this blog a little more upbeat, lest you all thought I was some sort of life-hating, cynical, miserable bastardly curmudgeon.

Song of the month:

Without a doubt, Comfortable, by John Mayer. Ever since I heard this song, I have not been able to stop listening to it. It is a masterclass in storytelling - simple images powerfully conveying the most heart-rending of emotions. The arrangement is also wonderful, and I can't help but wonder if this is about Jennifer Aniston (although not sure who that makes the new girl, which of John's ex's/currents is that biblical?). In the space of a few days, it leapt to the top of my favourite songs list, and even now, 300 listens later, it still has that same power.

Film of the month:

Hardly a novel opinion, but it has to be Avatar. Snuck in to the running right on the last day of January, saw it with my dad at the IMAX in Nashville, and boy, was it worth the wait. I really don't understand why everyone is slagging off the story - yes, the visuals are incredible (barring a few issues I have with forced perspective and depth of field which apply to all '3d' films), but the story and acting is no slouch. It might be a classic theme of the culture clash and the conversion of the outsider, but that doesn't mean it isn't brilliantly done.

Only two characters felt one dimensional (if you'll forgive the pun), and they were the two main bad guys, which is hardly a unique fault - convincing villains are perhaps the hardest part of writing any story, which is why we so often cling to the great ones (Iago, Saruman, Anakin/Vader, Palpatine, Kathryn Merteuil). But Avatar is a film that has a great deal of rewatchability - the depth of the world both visually and intellectually invites further assessment. The alien culture is hardly a rush-job, but rich, intricate, detailed, or so it appeared on first viewing.

My main gripe would probably be that there is one major missed opportunity in the film, which is the rousing speech right at the end. To my mind, the bar on rousing speeches has been set by Return of the King, with Aragorn's speech at the Black Gate, which makes me want to ride into battle every time I hear it. The Avatar speech just does not live up to this, nor does it get anywhere close. But it's past quickly enough that you can ignore it, and get back to the business of enjoying a thoroughly awesome film.

Well, that's all for the moment. But rest assured, there'll be plenty a'comin at the end of February. And I'll doubtless be amused/pissed off enough about something to blog before then ;-)

Ready, Set, Discriminate!

It's clear to me from a brief glance at the BBC Have Your Say discussion on ethnic minorities that Britain is doomed. It is a possibility that the BBC just attracts the idiots and the nutjobs, and this is probably more consistent with my experience of actual people out in the world. But then I move in quite restricted circles, some might say, and the briefest glance at the Daily Mail, the Sun, BNP forums or any other place the British public can express itself seems to tip the scales towards the far more damaging possibility - that Britain is full of idiots, idiots who genuinely think that somehow single, middle class, British white men have become the most disadvantaged group in the UK.

The sheer lunacy of such a belief baffles me. Unless there has been a massive upheaval in the 9 years since the 2001 census, Britain is roughly 92% white. 92%. How can a group that is so overwhelmingly the majority be truly disadvantaged? If nothing else, a group that size would be capable of a serious and bloody revolution, or at least of voting out any government that so discriminated against them. That this probably will happen at the next election is not proof, however, of such discrimination - that would most definitely be a case of affirming the consequent.

As I said before, even in my limited experience, I have never heard any middle class white man say to me that they feel disadvantaged. Of course, some might say that me and my friends are precisely the problem, like the human batteries in the Matrix, happily swallowing down our spoon-fed lies as we float ignorant to the world around us, that we have bought into the myth of the hard-working immigrant. True, if you have 6 Polish mates living in a flat sending money back home, they can afford to undercut the wages of a British worker trying to support a family of 4. But this is a product (or problem) of globalisation, not directly the fault of the government, though they have, quite rightly, encouraged the UK to be a global market force.

Employers have the right to hire who they like - if they can get legal labour cheaper to do the same quality of job, then you cannot blame them for doing so without launching into a Marxist or Hegelian argument about the employer's responsibility to the employee. The harder a job is to do, or the more skill it requires, the more it should be paid. So if a lot of people in the UK became builders, and building is a relatively easy job, then competition is bound to be fierce. Obviously immigration of the level we have seen was broadly unexpected and unpredictable, so there is no doubt sympathy and understanding is due to these people who have now found themselves in a situation where they cannot compete. But using this to justify opposition to immigration totally, or the UK's membership of or interaction with the EU, is decrepit. Shutting Britain out of the EU is not the answer, and it will not help anyone in the long run.

If there is more global supply than demand for builders, the builders who demand the most will suffer. This is why the government offers extensive retraining programmes, for those who find themselves stuck in professions where their future is insecure. It happened with miners and ship-builders, and it can happen with construction workers too. The advantage to low-skill professions is that they are similarly easy to get on to - taxi drivers, shop assistants, waiters. The learning curve for these is pretty easy, and thus competition is high.

But people suffer from a kind of hysteresis, that is to say, a resistance to change. Marx pointed out that when people start to define themselves by their job, they lose control over themselves, because they become totally reliant on external forces for the determination of their self-worth. The fact is that most immigrants come over here because they can do some jobs better than us, or work harder than us. But the street goes both ways - there are plenty of UK ex-pats around the world enjoying the benefit of skills locals don't have and jobs locals can't get.

To bring it back more specifically to race let me state that I am absolutely no supporter of Affirmative Action. And amongst the spurious rhetoric and farcical self-justification for racist or xenophobic attitudes, a few sensible arguments rear their heads. One could argue that the labour government has, on occasion, coddled some minority interests and neglected their original core supporter group, the white working class. The UK is nominally a multi-cultural society, but there are a lot of ways to run such a system, and some of Labour's failings are in the desire to not offend, to over-protect, to placate those who do not need or deserve to be placated.

Obviously the Daily Mail's horror stories of "Sharia Law for the UK in 10 years" are beyond nonsense, but I do hold that people coming to this country should be of benefit to it. That means being able to speak English (or learn pretty quickly). It means abiding by our laws and, where appropriate, our customs - honour killings may be as statistically inconsequential as terrorism, but they are still symptomatic of a belief that religious or personal law somehow trumps the law of the land. Anyone holding that belief does not deserve to be here.

Such legitimate concerns, however, are easily twisted in the hands of the demagogues and, quite frankly, cunts who make up the shit-stirring elite. The Daily Mail, the BNP, Fox News, the neo-cons, the Islamic extremist recruiters - even in fighting one another, they share a methodology, that of preying on people's fears and blowing them out of proportion until they seem all-consuming. They are the single-issue parties, the ones who forsake debate for argument, logic for emotion, compassion for combat. They appeal to the greed of the individual, the desperation of survival, or, as Obama so eloquently put it, the politics of division - essentially, us and them.

And division is where they get their power: Osama, Griffin, Cheney, Limbaugh, and anyone else who picks a target and says "You are under attack here, you are the disadvantaged, the under-priveleged. They hate you, so hate them back, I'll show you how." What the BBC forum posters and the suicide bombers and the BNP members need to realise is that they are the ones in the Matrix, being spoon-fed the bullshit. And until they wake up, and start thinking for themselves, the politics of division will simply live on...

Quit wining, why don't you?

So apparently Sir Liam Donaldson is an idiot. Because despite all the evidence to the contrary - France, Italy, in fact, pretty much the whole of Europe - parents are being advised not to let their children drink alcohol before they're 18 (when they can get it themselves) as such behaviour will lead to binge drinking and alcoholism. The BBC paraphrases it as

letting children taste alcohol to ready them for adulthood was "misguided".

and goes on to say

Sir Liam described the idea of a glass of watered-down wine for a child as a "middle-class obsession"

before the real punchline of

"The science is clear - drinking, particularly at a young age, a lack of parental supervision, exposing children to drink-fuelled events and failing to engage with them as they grow up are the root causes from which our country's serious alcohol problem has developed."

Now if we are to believe this as reported, what Sir Liam is doing is taking clearly Britain-centric evidence and treating it in isolation, which is, quite frankly, idiocy. Of the four factors he identifies above, 2 are patently more serious than the other 2. Across Europe, certainly France, Italy, Spain and other sensible cultures, children are allowed to drink and 'exposed' to parties on a regular basis, with little to no ill effect. It is the lack of parental supervision or engagement and discussion which are the problems here, much as with our apparent sex epidemic (not that I'm saying parents should supervise their children's sex lives).

To put it in perhaps oversimplified logical terms, if you look at the global scale, most children who drink and are exposed to alcohol do not grow up to be alcoholics or binge drinkers. So you have to look at the other factors which make the UK different to sensible drinking societies, which are, as mentioned, mostly parental ones. Parents need to talk to their kids about alcohol, what it is and what it can do.

But kids won't listen to parents who they don't respect, parents who have no authority over them. So part of the problem is the parenting problem - many parents in the UK cannot reach their children. They cannot pass on all the blame for this, although there are mitigating circumstances in the case of alcohol - the UK has a binge drinking culture. But such reasoning leads to a chicken and egg argument: which came first, the binge drinking culture, or the lack of parental control?

By examining the apparent scientific evidence in isolation, Sir Donaldson is looking only at short term solutions and short term results. He makes no real effort to examine the cause or root of the problem, instead applying a band-aid to the still gaping wound. It is not enough to say "This is how Britain is, let's deal with it." Rather he should say "This is how Britain ought to be, let's make it happen." Idealistic perhaps, but reminiscent of a George Bernard Shaw quotation which inspired (and later eulogised) a great man:

Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream dreams that never were and ask why not?

After all, I drank from an early age, and I turned out all right... Now, where did I leave that Scotch...?

Rage Against What You Don't Understand

To follow up on my previous article, I want to talk about the anti-X-Factor campaigns this Christmas. The most prominent of these is probably the Rage For Christmas No. 1 Campaign, an attempt to propel what is, admittedly, an absolute 'choon' in Killing In The Name Of to the top spot on December 25. This campaign is a prime example of how a mostly mature and deeply political set of lyrics - "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" - can be easily co-opted for the most banal and childish purposes. Despite my general disdain for the NME, I will expand on some of the very good points made by Luke Lewis in his blog about the holes in this campaign , primarily these:

RATM are already a world famous band with their fair share of corporate affiliation. Anyone else remember their time with the WWF, now WWE? Furthermore, they are a Sony act so Simon Cowell, whose label Syco is a Sony subsidiary, probably benefits from their popularity anyway. Even if he doesn't, the idea that this is somehow a drive for independent music is firmly quashed by putting money in the coffers of a major label. Some people are attempting to get around this by claiming that Rage are donating the proceeds to charity, but I can find absolutely no record of this online. The closest I have found is that the Facebook group encourages people to also donate to Shelter, a worthy cause, but hardly cutting off the money supply chain to Sony.

As I and Luke both mentioned, Killing In The Name is a song about racism, murder, fear, hatred, authoritarian government and police brutality, all far more serious issues than X-Factor's dominance over the music industry. That this song was chosen for the campagin belies not just an ignorance of their Sony affiliations, the kind of band RATM are and how the music industry works, but also an unhealthy disrespect for the original subject matter.

The Christmas no. 1 is rarely a thing of much import. In his blog reply to Luke, the horrifically misguided Tim Chester, restoring my high disregard for the NME, can pluck only 5 examples from the last 60 odd years to support his counterclaim, one of which is the Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand, surely one of the worst lyrics ever written by any famous band, let alone one so influential. He also ignores 4 other good songs in that time frame - Moon River, Return To Sender, Green Green Grass Of Home and Hello Goodbye - and the many and various novelty records such as Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West, Bob The Builder, Renee and Renato and regular Cliff Richard entries. The point being that even if Joe's version of the Climb were not a good song in its own right, and far superior to Miley's version (which it thankfully is, so I can finally listen to that song without having to hear her pathetic whiny voice), there is no great Christmas tradition being broken here. Just like any week in the charts, sometimes there are good songs, sometimes not. Far more important is which songs stand the test of time: the list of Christmas no. 2s has many classic Christmas tunes - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End), All I Want For Christmas Is You, Last Christmas, Fairytale of New York - and general good tunes which have lasted.

Which brings me on to my next point. The charts are ephemeral. Consistent radio play over time is far more important. There have been a bunch of great songs released under the X-Factor banner - Bad Boys, Everbody In Love, Bleeding Love, Leona's cover of Run and this year's charity single (You Are Not Alone) to name a few. Bleeding Love is the only one of these even remotely old enough to make the case, but the fact that it is still played regularly on radio shows it to be a good, or at least popular song. In my opinion, only the good winners from X-Factor and other talent shows survive. When's the last time you heard from Leon Jackson, Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein or Michelle McManus? They were all shit, and so they've all fallen by the wayside. As a friend of mine pointed out, shows like this are a giant A&R meeting with a significant buying section of the British public. But it is only a portion, it is not the majority, and it does not wield ultimate control. Sadly, some people feel disenfranchised by the show, or feel they have better/different taste than than those people who do vote, but that doesn't invalidate what's being achieved. Saying you don't like something because it's from X-Factor is absurd - if it's a good song (which the Climb is), it's a good song, regardless of its source. Art and the artist are always linked, but never the same.

I think there is a problem with people misinterpreting what the X-Factor should be about, as I said in the previous post, but I genuinely think if there were a good Christmas song contender and the X-Factor song weren't very good, the better song would win. Last year, Alexandra's Hallelujah was up against Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah - both versions are bad, neither a patch on the original Leonard Cohen live take. 2007, Katie Melua raining on Eva Cassidy's parade with the Wonderful World duet lost out to the utterly awful Leon Jackson version of When You Believe. 2006, Leona's Moment Like This rightfully beat out the turgid piece of shit that is Take That's Patience (which marked their disastrous reformation). 2005, the lyrically suspect and morally reprehensible JCB song lost out to Shayne Ward's ghastly That's My Goal.

So recent form very much shows that X-Factor shit beats non X-Factor shit, and that good songs beat bad songs. But 2004 had 2 good songs - Ronan Keating's duet Yusuf Islam (previously Cat Stevens) on Father and Song vs. the Band Aid 20 cover of Do They Know It's Christmas - and charity won out. 2003 was again a good double header, and although I personally prefer the Darkness with Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End), I don't begrudge Michael Andrews and Gary Jules with Mad World. 2002, 2001 and so on - the results speak for themselves. The last time a great song was stuck in the number 2 spot by a shit song was over 20 years ago, in 1987, when the Pogues' Fairytale of New York lost out to the Pet Shop Boys' unabahsed mauling of the Elvis classic Always On My Mind.

In the end, opposing X-Factor on principle is ridiculous because, as I said in the previous post, there's nothing wrong with the principle of X-Factor, only, arguably, things wrong with its execution. I don't mind people paying money for Killing In The Name, because it's a great song. But they should do it for the right reasons.

An unexpected top 10

So I've been working on my application to study songwriting at Belmont, and one of the questions is about your favourite songwriters. I thought I'd poke through my iPod and see which songwriters crop up the most. The results were interesting:

Blink 182 – 106
George Michael – 46
Beatles – 33
Jack Johnson – 31
John Mayer – 31
Queen – 30
Craig David – 29
Will Smith – 27
Muse – 27
RHCP – 25

The presence of Blink 182, George Michael and John Mayer is no surprise to me. Chances are I will list them as my three primary influences. Queen and RHCP were a big part of my teenage years, and still influence my glam rock and funk rock leanings respectively. My love of RnB and rap is neatly surmised in Craig David and Will Smith, though Eminem, the Neptunes and various others almost made it on the list. Jack Johnson makes sense, even if I don't see him as a big influence stylistically, because there is some similarity of style with my acoustic stuff.

What I was surprised by was how high on the list the Beatles are. Many of you may know my opinions on the Beatles, but for those that don't, here's a quick summary: they're overrated, not in their impact, obviously, but in their quality. They were good songwriters, but were prone to awful lyrics, especially early on (I Wanna Hold Your Hand, for example). I don't like Lennon or McCartney's voice, or what I know of them as people. The only one who seems to have been a tolerable human being was George Harrison.

I especially dislike many of the arrangements, which are frequently twee or don't suit the song, for which George Martin is often to blame. Sometimes the arrangements are perfect - Back In The USSR is a simple surf rock song with a simple surf rock arrangement; there's an uncomplicated but majestic brilliance in the string quartet of Eleanor Rigby; the casual cool evoked by the stunning drum pattern of Come Together borders on the iconic. I don't think my reaction against them is based on their popularity, although some small part of it might be. Ultimately, I appreciate them as songwriters, if not as a band (interestingly, I recently came to the same conclusion about ABBA).

There were lots of bands who affect my writing I was surprised to see not on there. Oasis, for example, have had a massive influence on me, as well as a lot of 80s, funk and pop rock - Alanis Morisette, Bryan Adams, Crowded House, David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, Santana etc., not to mention modern stuff, obviously disadvantaged by fewer albums - Goo Goo Dolls, The Darkness, The Kooks, Orson, The Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Incubus, Keane, Lenny Kravitz, U2, Rooney. There's not a lot of old school stuff or a single musical theatre writer in there, like Cole Porter, Andrew Lloyd Webber or Stephen Schwarz (although he just misses out). Jazz is not represented, no Joe Sample, Jamie Cullum, Dave Koz... I deliberately left out neo-classical soundtrack music, otherwise Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer and John Williams would dominate.

I suppose it's the nature of a top 10 list, and obviously, I've only included songwriters, so there are other singers and performers missing. But still, my tastes are quite varied while the list is quite narrow, and if you'd ask me to guess beforehand, I'd have definitely got it wrong. Anyway, feel free to contribute your own top 10 lists.

Why I've Changed My Opinion On The X-Factor

Finally, finally, Lloyd is gone from the X-Factor. With the departure of Jedward, it means it's truly back to being the competition it was envisioned as being.

Ask me 4 years back about my opinion on Pop and American Idol, X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent and all their ilk, and you would have got a very different response. In an interview for my secondary's paper, as the frontman of one of the school's top bands, I was downright vitriolic. It remains true that I would never go on any of them (unless as a featured artist or a judge), but I have to admit to being drawn into the panto of reality based shows. Having since worked closely with the brilliant Andrew Muir (2008 Britain's Got Talent Finalist), I also realised that they are sometimes a great platform or stepping stone for talented people who otherwise would get no exposure. I don't even mind the incestuosness of the situation, the endless procession of Sony artists or show affiliates who perform, thus, apparently, securing their position at or near the top of the charts the following week. I'd argue that, as long as people are aware of what's going on, then it's good, healthy competition for the music industry, like this generation's Top Of The Pops (except, of course creating rather than reflecting the charts).

All of which is why I get so angry with the British public, most of whom don't seem to have a fucking clue what the show is. From the Xtra Factor's People's Panel and guest panel, to Facebook, to Twitter, to the papers, so many people have totally missed the point. I'll break it down, point by point:

This show is NOT a popularity contest. First and foremost, this is an important point. How much you like the person singing is irrelevant unless that affects your opinion of the music. It sometimes does mine - I have difficulties appreciating Radiohead because Thom Yorke's head is so far up his own arse, it's a wonder you can hear him sing. But we should all be adult enough to separate art from the artist. Does the fact that the Gallagher brothers are twats make their music worse? No. Does the fact that Lloyd and Jedward are nice enough blokes make them better singers or performers? Not by a long shot. This intangible thing people don't like about Danyl is either latent homophobia (on the case of Danny Dyer, for example), or some other irrelevant thing (he has cow eyes, he opens his mouth too wide). We're now finally at the point where we have 4 acts who are talented enough to produce a single worth buying. That's one thing this show is about.

It's NOT about making people's dreams come true. It's not some absurd extension of Jim'll Fix It or the Make A Wish Foundation. It's a talent contest. Yes, Stacey's obviously a lovely lass (although they have rather glossed over her extremely early pregnancy - she's only 20, for chrissakes), but she's still the weakest singer left in the competition. She's the only one who hasn't produced a wow moment for me - Danyl and Joe have had loads, and Olly really won me over last night. It's academic now, but Louis' endless crap about "two young boys living their dream" is irrelevant. We're not here to help them. They're here to help us.

It's NOT about who has improved the most. If you start crap, and get good, you're still not as good as someone who starts amazing and stays amazing. They don't have "most improved" medals in the Olympics. The music industry isn't very forgiving like that. So all this bull about Joe being "too good" or "too perfect" is just that, bull. You have to judge on an absolute scale, not by the individual goals and achievements of each act.

It's NOT about voting for people who come from the same place as you - I'm looking at you, Essex and Wales especially. This is not the fucking Eurovision song contest. Where someone comes from is broadly irrelevant as to what capacity they have to make good music. It might influence their style a little, but there's hardly an Essex style or a Welsh style or a Geordie style. There's just good music and not good music. Get over yourselves.

This show IS absolutely about having the best artists at the end, and the best of them getting a recording contract. Or at least, that's what it's supposed to be. But until the British public wake up, and start treating it as what it is, rather than a joke, or a popularity contest, its detractors will have genuine ammunition. Obviously, some of you undoubtedly think it's a joke by definition. Fine, don't participate. But for the rest of you, it's not about what you want from the show. There's entertainment enough already. The more you lose sight of what this kind of competition is, the more often we'll get served duds like Leon Jackson and Shayne Ward, and miss out on those genuinely talented people who don't have any other chances...