the brilliantly leaping gazelle

August 8, 2025

33:64 presents “Palestine Action.”

Much has been written about Palestine Action (PA) recently. And most of it has concerned the various this’s and that’s which caused the British government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group last month. Yet more has been focused on what wholly impartial onlookers perceive to be further evidence of something that their wholly impartial deductions have already deuced to be happening. Alas, what no-one seems to have given any thought to is the inherent contradiction in the name PA, which whilst it great for PA, also exposes the highly subjective and dangerously blinkered notion of morality upon which it claims to have been founded.

Ostensibly founded to disrupt the UK’s arms industry sales to Israel and nowhere else, because well…Israel, and because of it being complicit in what they describe as a the genocide in Gaza, their disruption amounts to little more than some vandalism, petty theft and performative criminality. Which essentially is little more drunken stag weekend in Croatia with some photo’s posted on social media

The high-minded morality which they loudly proclaim to possess – and to which their placard waving supporters are drawn – is nothing more than disingenuous grandstanding. It wilfully obfuscates the reality of war. Yes war is brutal, innocents will be killed and regrettably, atrocities will happen. These things are universal and apply to every war ever fought ever.

It is also disingenuous because by focusing on Gaza, other conflicts can continue out public view, and as such, easily ignored by the media. A good example of this Yemen, where a civil war has been happening since 2014. According to the UN, over 370,00 people have been killed.There is also an humanitarian aid crisis, as one might expect there to be in a war zone. 21 millions people, 11 millions of them children are at risk from starvation. Earlier this year there was a cholera outbreak.

In Sudan, the situation is depressingly similar. A civil war. Factions splintering off into more factions. Over 500,00 dead since 2023. Again, the need for humanitarian aid is urgent.

But do the streets of Central London reverberate to the sounds of protesters denouncing the war in Yemen or the genocide in Sudan? Do they demand that the UK suspend arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), because it has somehow involved itself in both civil wars? No, because the disingenuous grandstanding of PA offers an simplistic and easy to follow narrative of oppressed and oppressor, unlike to utterly confusing situations in Yemen and Sudan. They’re difficult.

Much easier then – and far more likely to garner approving comments from those whose approval the useful idiots crave – is to loudly declaim that whatever Israel is doing in Gaza is a genocide. Or else throw some paint, maybe steal some statues, even smash a window or two, anything that stops well short of actually helping the people of Gaza.

Because if the PA were serious about helping to alleviate the suffering help the people of Gaza, they’d bang on less about UK arms sales to Israel and more on the fact that there hasn’t been an election in Gaza since 2007. That its president, is in his 20th year of his 4 year term, or that, unlike in every other civil war civil wars Gaza’s neighbours haven’t opened their borders to allow for refugees to escape. And, for good measure, angrily demand to know why – according to the UN’s own figures – 85% of their food aid trucks into Gaza are hijacked by Hamas and other militia groups. And on the back of that, not only question why the UN continues to do something it knows doesn’t work, but also why that fact isn’t widely reported in the media.

They might also question where all the money that the US, the EU and the UN has given to Gaza has gone – at least $10 billions since Israel handed back control of Gaza in 2005. Possibly some of that is spent on Hamas’s military budget of $200 millions a year. Or maybe some of that money is spent by the Palestine Authorities Martyrs Fund, which pays the families of those who’ve killed Israelis a monthly amount. The more Israeli’s killed, the more the amount.

But then again, if the PA, like your friends, most of the posters on social media and politicians, aren’t asking those questions, why would you?

************************************************************

With perfect timing, the police have announced that for the next football season they will be equipping officers with a DNA misting spray. A DNA misting spray marks someones skin and clothing with an invisible solution that remains present for months and shows up under UV light. It provides forensic evidence to link individuals to a specific crime or event.

They could hasten its use and give a test at Saturdays march for something, but which a large amount of PA supporters are expected to turn up. The hope is that sufficient numbers them will be arrested – given how supporting PA is now a crime – and that this will both provide images of screaming protesters being dragged way in cuffs for the media and clog up police cells and the courts.

To my mind, why hand PA an easy win? That’s what they’d expect. Much better to arrest the supporters and then immediately let them go. Days later, announce that the police have indeed used the spray and that anyone who attended the march, regardless if they were arrested or not, can be identified.

And when they are, they’ll go on a database to which US, Australian and other countries immigration services will have access to when deciding whether or not to grant a visa.

A win-win. Less pressure on the UK justice system and a great way for virtue signallers to signal exactly how deep-seated their virtue is.

*************************************************************

Thinking about tomorrow’s performance in Central London, the one with the arrests, the screaming protesters and the utter impossibility of it stopping UK arms sales to Israel or something equally unlikely, puts me in mind of the Popular Front of Judea (PFJ)

A couple of years ago, an anniversary of the Grenfell fire was marked by occupation by three members of PA of a factory factory in Birmingham. The reason given was that the factory – which made the cladding used on Grenfell tower- also provided materials which were used by Israeli airplanes. Two people were arrested, one of whom went on hunger strike when he was sent to prison. Of course he did, although possibly this was due to the fact of there being no vegan food option in prison than anything else.

Regardless, he said they would end his hunger strike if any one of four conditions were met: the release of all PA protestors ; the eviction of Elbit (a UK/Israeli arms company) from its London headquarters, the closure of all Elbit Systems’ British operations and release by the government of all correspondence and documents relating to its dealings with Elbit and its subsidiaries.

In the magnificent ‘Life of Brian’, the PFJ plan to kidnap Pilates’ wife and demand that in return for her release, the entire Roman occupation and infrastructure in Judea be dismantled in two days or they’ll cut her head off. And tell him if they do cut her head off, it’ll be his fault.

1 Comment

July 9, 2025

33:64 presents “Sean Parker.”

I must confess myself to have been utterly bewildered by the seemingly universal praise that the news of an Oasis reunion and subsequent tour generated. My bewilderment then turned into incredulity as the press – the proper press, not the music press or social media influencers – fell over itself to find the superlatives needed for the glowing reviews for their tour. Had one just woken from a coma, one might be forgiven for thinking that Oasis were some kind of unmatched paragons of musical excellence, and that their return was a welcome corrective to the moribund musical wasteland that is 2025.

The thing is, Oasis were shit back in the mid ’90’s and they’re no less shit now. It didn’t much matter to anyone that the entirety of Oasis’s music seemed even then to sound like a ropey Beatles tribute act, and now sounds like a crap AI imitation of a ropey Beatles tribute act, because they appeared at just the right time for the music business.

Britpop and Cool Britannia rescued the music business – as it then understood itself to be – from its own contradictions. It proclaimed itself to be constantly seeking the new big thing, prizing innovation and originality above all, but the new big thing was always shockingly similar to the previous new thing. However, whilst Britpop and the whole Cool Britannia vibe was essentially a media confection, a PR stunt with a ruthlessly commercial goal – that of driving previously declining record up sales – something altogether more genuinely egalitarian, quietly industrious and uniquely British was happening in bedrooms throughout the land.

In August 1995, Blur and Oasis engaged in a highly publicized chart battle for the number one album spot in the UK, dubbed the “Battle of Britpop.” Blur’s “Country House” ultimately outsold Oasis’s “Roll With It,” securing the top position. It was big news. The supposed rivalry between the bands was pure Pop 101, the notion that what one didn’t like was just as important as what one did, and proof was a purchase of either one. As successful as it was lucrative, it was also one of the last throws of the dice for an industry soon to face the challenges posed by Napster, illegal downloads and digital content.

The bedroom underground was part of that, a new way of producing, releasing and accessing music that technology had not just made possible but affordable.

I am firmly of the belief that Acid House – I.e.not ‘proper music – was by turns ignored, belittled by the music press, demonised by the tabloid press as a moral panic and and then specifically legislated against by the government because it was essentially working class To anyone used to the idea of rock music and of a band consisting of a singer, two guitarists and a drummer, a strange hybrid of the ethos of early 1970’s hip-hop fused with a punk sensibility and given a modern twist was threatening. Threatening in the business sense and also socially.

Young people had always danced late into the night and taken drugs. It’s what young people are meant to do. But when they started doing it outside of nightclubs with licensing laws, closing times and a mini-cab queue, then it became something else. To me, dancing all night in the open air until dawn was an updated version of the ’Block party’ spirit of early hip-hop. Often taking place in outdoors and using a pirated electricity supply – normally from street lights – to power the music set up. The DJ was the ‘star’ and the variety of his record collection, together with his ability to mix genres seamlessly to create a good time party vibe, was all.

Fast forward to Britain nearly two decades later, and here’s where the punk mindset comes in, a truer distillation of the ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude than preached by motivational speakers, a DIY belligerence if you will. The modern twist – well in 1990 it was modern – was to meld these musically disparate yet creatively inventive attitudes with a scavengers eye for second-hand electronic music gear.

All of which, whilst fascinating, is but a preamble to my bold assertion. I believe that if the great classical composers who are so revered now, had had access to samplers, sound cards and other technological wizardry then, the resulting music would’ve been broadly similar. I cite as evidence for this Beethovens Symphony No.7 in A major op.92 – II, Allegretto and The Sabres of Paradise’ ‘Smokebelch II .

Annoying, I’m unable to provide a YouTube link to the Beethoven piece, because YouTube!So you’ll just have to trust me on this.

Despite being written over 200 years apart, they both share one striking similarity. And it isn’t that they were using the technology of time, but rather the repetition of the each pieces musical theme. And that’s one reason why I hate Oasis, Coldplay and other purveyors of guitar based music ear botheration. There’s nothing unique to now about any of it and whilst it might seem as if I’m contradicting myself, actually I’m not. The way people reacted to it on an instinctive level, the perfect combination of music, all night partying and the drugs, the explosion of creativity and enterprise, how it all fed off itself and and in turn, fostered new iterations of itself, that was new.

So we come back to Oasis. And the reasons for the unbridled sycophancy of the press. They didn’t understand it then, and they want to return to then, because the now in which they find themselves is so constantly disorientating. The then of Cool Britannia, of expense accounts and liggers, of a time of certainty, not just culturally but socially and politically.

One thing hasn’t changed though. Oasis were shit then and even shitter now.

Leave a comment

July 4, 2025

33:64 presents “Harold Wilson.”

For quite a while I used to feel almost sorry for Boris’s Johnson. Everything he’d ever done in his life was in the ruthless pursuit of one day becoming PM. The irony was so blatant it was absurd. For someone who loved dropping Latin phrases into conversation, his story was a tragedy worth of Seneca. When, after all the years of philandering, lying, resignations, treachery and backstabbings, he finally achieved his goal, it was at the worst time in post war British political history.

The Brexit deal was yet to be done and the EU were being all EU about it. The angry divisions in Parliament were matched only by those in the country. Everyone felt betrayed. The press was hostile. The Supreme Court got involved. And to cap it off, he lied to the Queen.

Yet somehow, he still managed to win the 2019 general election with an 80 seat majority. Brexit hadn’t been done yet but there was renewed vigour, a feeling of a corner having been turned. It was all going to be alright. Phew! It was getting all a bit squeaky-bum time there for, but onward and upwards towards those sunny uplands and….COVID?

What the fuck is COVID? Why has does some ‘flu in China mean we have to stay indoors? A year of this? Are you insane?And then when we think it’s all over, we’ll have to do it all over again? This time in the winter? And it’ll push us to near bankruptcy as well?

That why I almost felt sorry for him. He’d imagined being PM as one thing and it turned out not to be that thing at all. But whilst Brexit was a uniquely British thing, COVID very quickly became a global thing and for all the rights and wrongs regarding the government’s response to COVID, no-one said that it was their fault that COVID had happened in the first place.

So whilst I used to feel sorry for Boris’s Johnson, it is as nothing when compared to the nothing I feel for Stymied. The one year anniversary of his general election triumph must be tainted by the knowledge of what that year held in store. Because if the oft-quoted dictum is indeed true, and a week really is a long time in politics, then how much longer must a year feel? Especially given how, at the start of that year, Stymied was seen as all things to all men. Remember that? When the press and the public were united in their adoration of him. An adoration he earned by doing the bare minimum, which basically involved not saying or doing anything that might upset people and most importantly, not being Boris. That was it. Keep your head down and not be Boris.

Unfortunately, when he did eventually have to raise his head during the election campaign, he neglected to raise his game as well. Or maybe he did, maybe that was him trying his level best, trying to be all dynamic, and not like the boring technocrat he really was. His performance during a live televised debate between himself and Prada was a shambles. Labour strategists must’ve been in tears. Stymied had the record of fourteen Tory years to throw at Prada, but unbelievably, he floundered and spluttered his way through it. The watching public must’ve thought, “Well at least he wasn’t lying, his dad really was a toolmaker.”

The election campaign itself was basically one gigantic waste of time. The day it was announced, they could’ve held it and there’d have been no discernible difference in the outcome. Apart that is, from Reform UK springing up out of nowhere and having the audacity to win over 14% of the votes cast. That got them five MP’s. Even more outrageously, Labour got a smidge over 33% of the vote which somehow got them 411 MP’s. But the important thing was that the grown-ups were finally back in the room. That seriously minded people were going to do seriously minded things and that Britain would be the better for it.

But then things started to wrong very quickly indeed, and as is the way with politics, when things go wrong they invariably create a domino effect, causing more things to go wrong. Whilst politicians can only ever react to events – and in the case of Stockport, it was the mass stabbing and murder of three children at a dance class and the subsequent rioting that escalated throughout the England – it is up to politicians how they react to them. As I wrote at the time, no matter how distasteful the motivations, opinions and the sometimes violent means of expressing them the rioters used were to the new government, simply dismissing the rioters as ‘far-right’ negated any sensible discussion of any underlying causes.

Then the law got involved. The speed and severity with which rioters were treated was seen as disproportionate to their crimes, not least when compared to the more lenient sentences handed by the courts to arguably more violent offenders. Then problems with prison overcrowding meant that prisoners who were more of a threat to public safety were released early to make room for them. It emerged that one prisoner released early under the scheme was charged with sexual assault relating to an alleged offence against a woman on the same day he was freed. This in turn highlighted flaws in the probation service, whose job it was to monitor them.

Quite aside from the most alarming and unexpected events that any politician has to deal with, it was the domestic events that seem to blindside him, even though these were of his own making. Having made much in the election campaign about how he wasn’t going to tax working people, he did what all new governments do, and blamed the last one for leaving the country finances in such a bad way that he had no choice but to.

No matter the country had had a year of COVID, of a furlough scheme which meant no tax venue to pay for it and thus massive borrowing, the way Stymied would have us believe it, Boris’s Johnson had basically Johnson’d the money away. This had created a £21.9 billion “black hole”, and because of this, certain winter fuel payments would be scrapped for around 10 million pensioners. The farmers inheritance tax protests and employers increase in National Insurance tax storms followed. More scandals engulfed him.

All of which culminated in a weird kind of buyers remorse. People felt cheated. This wasn’t what they’d voted for. Although as Labour only got 33% of the vote, meaning that more people didn’t bother to vote in the first place, it was difficult to feel much sympathy for their nonsense. But now, how people feel is a big thing in our society, and because of this, we live in age where if you feel unhappy about something you start a petition and if you tell people about it on social media, hopefully enough people sign it and something will be done about whatever it was that made people sign it in the first place.

Over three million fuckwits signed one demanding that a new election was held, and in so doing, highlighted one of the inherent problems with a functioning democracy. Namely, in order to be considered as such, its electorate should some level of basic understanding of how it works. And how a government is elected is about as fucking basic as it comes. Its not complicated.

But thats where Britain was at the end of 2024. With a public who thought our government was like a crisp manufacturer and that by signing a petition calling for a new election was no different to one demanding that prawn cocktail Wotsits to be brought back. But this is a public addicted to social media, so used to sharing their thoughts and opinions, that they delude themselves into thinking that how they think or feel has greater worth than others who don’t think the same way.

So it can’t have been too much of a surprise then for Stymied to discover that Corblimey had a special anniversary present for him. A parliamentary expression of the same way of thinking, as equally blinkered and dogmatic, of the most performative virtue of the age, the least virtuous of all the virtues that have infected peoples minds, opposition to the Israeli war in Gaza. Yes, he and co-leader Raisin might’ve thrown in the odd references about socialism, to benefit cuts, poverty and the disabled but it was all just blah, a smokescreen to conceal their true intent.

Which is to pile on yet more troubles for Stymied, to weaken his position still further and to hasten the calls for him to go. With the year he’s had, one could hardly blame him if he did.

Leave a comment

July 1, 2025

34:63 presents “Oscar Wilde”

The best kind of virtue signalling is of course the kind that has minimal adverse consequences for whoever it is that’s signalling their imagined virtue, but will conversely only accrue them a multitude of positive ones. And no virtue is more worthy to be signalled these days than support for the Palestinian people, which is essentially little more than some cunning media strategy. It demands no actual obligation upon the signaller other than to loudly and with as much fanfare as possible to announce it. So, with all of this in mind, what am I to make of the news that the Co-Op, is banning all Israeli products as part of doing something it hopes will appease it members?

Those would be same members who voted overwhelmingly at its AGM last month in support of a motion which urged the board to demonstrate “moral courage and leadership” by removing Israeli goods from the shelves. To no-ones surprise the board issued a statement at the time of about it reviewing its sourcing policies, to “ensure that they reflect both our values and principles and the views of our members, which they have made clear today”.

Talk about delusions of grandeur and an over-inflated sense of self-importance coupled with a breathtaking moral superiority. Bear in mind that the The Co-Op is a supermarket. It sells things. That’s it. It has no business other than being in the retail business. It has no obligation to anyone other than its shareholders and only then to maximise the profits it makes for them. Remember when times were simpler, when business’s were solely involved in the business of making and selling things things? A nice transactional arrangement that suited everyone and more importantly, one in which everyone understood the role they they played in it. Nobody was confused, mainly because there was nothing to be confused about.

When exactly did business’s become so obsessed with not only how they were perceived by their customers, but also if that perception was a negative one, one that potential customers found off-putting, to change it to a more favourable one? Or have they always been and I just didn’t notice? But certainly, its got out of hand now, so much so that one could be forgiven for thinking that the actual business of some business’s was nothing more than an embarrassing hobby, a distraction from fulfilling their true purpose, that of being social justice warriors,?

The only values its members should be concerned about is getting value for money. Principles are fine and everything but until their customers stop using Apple products because their made in sweatshops in China, its all for show, a prop in service to the bolstering of their self-righteous smugness. By pandering so cravenly to the childish posturing of its members, the Co-Op has demonstrated that it isn’t a case of lions led by donkeys, as more donkeys led by asses.

I’ve tried to find out exactly how much the trade of Israeli goods is worth to the Co-op as a percentage of its profits, but to no avail. This invariably causes me to suspect that the sums involved are relatively small, because if they were significant, then the Co-Op would be parading that fact with gusto. Nevertheless, the internet positively abounds with articles praising the Co-Op. Because as always with anything to do with Israel, the internet mistakes pandering for principles.

Of course, this adverse consequence free ‘virtue’ signalling nonsense has infected our politics and anything that can be presented as a robust something against Israel is guaranteed to garner approving headlines and positive social media posts. The appearance of doing something, irrespective of what that something is or even if that something has any practical impact in achieving that something, is far less important than being seen to do something. The government knows this only too well. As its recent announcement of more sanctions against Israel amply demonstrated.

According to a report in ‘The Independent’ last month,“Britain has issued fresh sanctions against Israel over its “morally unjustifiable” escalation of violence in Gaza, and demanded an end to its “cruel and indefensible” 11-week block on humanitarian aid.”

And what, exactly, did these sanctions consist of? Suspending trade talks with Israel, basically. Which of course leads one to ask exactly how much trade Britain does with Israel and then, how does this compare with other countries?

According to the governments own figures, ‘Total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and Israel was £5.8 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q4 2024.’ This made Israel our 44th largest trading partner. The 1st was of course the US, with a total value of over £314 billion.

There was more of this performative politics earlier this month when the BBC reported that “The UK has sanctioned two far-right Israeli ministers over “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities” in the occupied West Bank.

Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich will both be banned from entering the UK and will have any assets in the UK frozen as part of the measures announced by the foreign secretary.

It is part of a joint move with Australia, Norway, Canada and New Zealand announced on Tuesday.”

Which is yet more something, although when one looks at the governments website, which most people won’t, we find that the something amounts some big talk but very little action. Freezing assets held in the UK is going to have little more than zero impact, however If Switzerland had joined in that’d be another matter. There’s also a similarity pointless travel ban. Boo-fucking-hoo. They can’t visit the UK or Norway. That’s bound to hurt.

So suspending trade talks, not the trade itself mind, or imposing functionally meaningless sanctions, might give the appearance of Britain taking a principled stance, because that is precisely what it is meant to do, give the appearance of principle. Although if that principle boils down to minimising the threat of yet more candidates winning largely Muslim populated constituencies by standing on as a pro-Gaza platform and maximising positive media coverage, then that principle isn’t that all that principled, is it?

*****************************************

Amid all the furore about a nonentity capitalising on the faux ‘free thinkers’ of the Glastonbury crowd and seizing his opportunity to say something designed to raise his bands profile and create demand for tickets sales to their shows, the bleeding obvious truisms have been missed.

All of the headlines, all of the media agonising about various this and that’s, overlooks three things.

Firstly, there is no such thing as bad publicity, Pop music thrives on notoriety, especially if it positions itself as not being pop music, as being radical, apart from the mainstream. Worked a treat for the Sex Pistols.

Secondly, what did people expect? Yes what he said was crass, but it was the logical continuation of madness that has infected our politicians, hijacked the BBC, most of the press and which we see played out on the streets of London on a weekly basis.

Thirdly, the irony of him encouraging a crowd at Glastonbury of all places was to join him in wishing yet more Jews to be killed was as staggering as it was offensive. He knew what he was doing.

He’d have known that less than three years ago, people at the Nova festival in Israel doing exactly the same thing as the Glastonbury crowd were doing and were raped, slaughtered and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists for it.

He’d have also known that no-one at Glastonbury would even realise the hypocrisy.

Leave a comment

June 28, 2025

34:63 presents ‘David Attenborough’

Glastonbury is upon us again. And the use of the words ‘upon us again’ is deliberate. There is no escape from it. The media are obsessed with telling us how wonderful it is. As the broadsheets (as were) would have it, it has seemingly transformative powers, somehow combining a near mystical experience with an empowering odyssey of self-enlightenment. The tabloids are less fawning, but no less obsessed. They judge that their readers have more sense than to fork out the £378 price of the ticket for what is essentially a 3 day camping holiday with no knowledge of who’ll be playing when they book or what’s going to happen, other than they’ll be constantly ripped off.

Much better to watch it on the BBC. At least there’s a much better view, much better sound, a toilet mere feet away and a bedroom with a bed, cleanish sheets and a door. Nothing screams Glastonbury than trying to sleep often feet- but if, unlucky inches – away from strangers with only canvas between you. But the BBC has ruined Glastonbury and I’m not going to launch into some fatuous nonsense about how it was much better in my day. Because it wasn’t. I’ve only been three times. The last was in 2000 and only because Orbital and Pet Shop Boys were playing was it any good.

There are a few reasons why the BBC has ruined Glastonbury, and in so doing, helps if one better understand the increasingly losing battle to secure broadcasting rights the BBC fights. Additionally, I’m also be incredibly hypocritical, because despite the fact that I subscribe to Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney + and Netflix – whom I’ll collectively call ‘the streamers’ – that won’t stop me criticising them.

The main reason why the BBC has ruined Glastonbury is contained in the name of the BBC itself. It is a broadcaster. The giveaway is in the word ‘broadcaster’. It’s coverage of Glastonbury is heavily skewed in favour of musical acts who will either have name recognition and a back catalogue of hits, be the sort of radio friendly muzak that only a deaf person could like, or else be so worthily cutting edge that their next appearance on the BBC will be on ‘Later…with Jools Holland’.

One could very easily spend the entire festival not visiting any of the main stages and be well satisfied with the wide variety entertainments on offer. Aside from the official stages providing a breathtaking amount of comedy, theatre and other performing arts, there’s also the impromptu acts, who just pitch up and do their thing, much like the wandering minstrels or troubadours of old. Some are simply drumming up an audience for a performance later on in the festival, some are less polished than others, and some are simply chancers and opportunists with hope and enthusiasm if not always talent.

But you’d get none of that from the BBC’s coverage. Which isn’t their entirely their fault, but well… sort of is.

Music acts, especially the better known ones, provide good television. They also offer a ready made narrative for the viewer encountering them for the first time. Whilst they might never have heard of this particular band before, the cheering crowd watching them clearly have, and besides, they’re on TV – or more likely iPlayer. So in most peoples minds, Glastonbury is a music festival. Sure, there’s other things happening, but off-screen. The BBC reinforces this impression because it needs to justify the cost of securing the rights to broadcast the more than 120 hours of TV and radio it’ll produce. There just aren’t the viewing figures in avant-garde mime, experimental theatre or penis puppeteers.

Since 1997, the BBC has been Glastonbury’s official broadcaster and it’s easy to see why. Previously they’d gone with Channel Four and whilst there may have been some mutual ideation of being outsiders, Channel Four had neither the technical competence to manage such a complex outside broadcast, nor could they offer the hours needed. The BBC, by contrast first devoted BBC2 for the entire weekends evening saturation coverage, with additional bigger names on prime time BBC1. Things really moved on when BBC3 and 4 both joined the fray but Glastonbury exploded when the BBC launched iPlayer.

Before then, it was a niche thing, the sort of thing a wild cousin might do, to get all that youthful folly out of their system before they settled down like a grown-up. Now, thanks to the BBC’s relentless promotion of it across TV and radio, it has become a rite of passage for the sort of people who’d like to imagine that they once possessed youthful folly, despite them no longer being young or ever having had much desire to folly. Over the years, and by a gradual process of inculcating it into the the mainstream of British life, the BBC has somehow managed to make Glastonbury into something both culturally irrelevant yet incredibly lucrative.

That’s the problem. The BBC, in seeking to widen the festivals appeal into the mainstream and having devoted its numerous ‘platforms’ to promote it, is now facing a problem of its own making. Basically, it has been too successful at it, and the BBC knew, or should’ve known, that this was a very likely possibility. Because it’s happened to them before. A few times, and always with sport.

Remember when snooker was a proper old mans game? When, as the saying had it, ‘proficiency at snooker was the sign of a misspent youth’? Something vaguely disreputable, not seedy as such but nonetheless rooted in most peoples minds as determinedly working class, and not just that, but northern working class. Played in dimly lit rooms, the air thick with cigarette smoke and tables full of empty pint glasses? Of course you don’t. Now it is a thing, a very popular thing. But not in 1969 it wasn’t. But BBC2 had just started televising things in colour and its then controller, David Attenborough – yes that one! – had the idea that the televising snooker would be a great showcase for the new technology.

Thus “Pot Black’ was born. It was a hit and ran until 1986 and was so popular it turned a minority pastime into national obsession, snooker players like Steve Davis and Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins into celebrities, such that the BBC broadcast World Championship Final between them in 1983 on prime-time Saturday night, uninterrupted until it ended at just after 1am. Used as we are now to television never ending, in 1983 it had never happened. Live sports overran, but never until !am. I know, as me, my brother and my Dad watched the drama. And it was. Tense, gripping and mesmerising. Millions of others thought so to. So did the people running World Snooker. They were able to sell the rights to broadcast snooker to the highest bidder, and because ITV wanted the audience, the price skyrocketed.

Same thing thing with Wimbledon. Previously only interesting primarily because it took place when football wasn’t happening and consequently there was no other sport, it has now become a thing. Its only still on the BBC because certain sporting events are legally mandated to be free to air for at least 95% of the UK population. Same with football, the World Cup and the F.A. Cup Final. But not the Premier League or any Champions League matches. Premier League broadcast rights were snapped up by Sky in a five year deal worth £6.7 billion. The rights to broadcast Champions League matches live are divided up by TNT and Amazon Prime. The BBC makes do with highlights.

Rugby League, Golf, Athletics that are not the Olympics, Formula One, Motorcycling, have all followed the same inevitable trajectory. Once simply niche fillers as part of BBC1’s excellent’Grandstand’, but over time popularised by constant, repeated exposure, once the audience had been hooked, an audience moreover that was willing to pay to watch it, then those governing bodies showed all the loyalty of a prostitute, and like a prostitute, took the money.

It’s foolish then to imagine that there’ll be any difference when the broadcasting rights to Glastonbury come up for renewal. The BBC will be priced out, a victim of its own success yet again. A shame, not because I’d miss Glastonbury on the BBC, but because it is yet another reminder that the BBC has finite resources, and as such is unable to compete on the world stage. Soon, not even the Pyramid Stage.

1 Comment

June 23, 2025

33:64 presents “Kemi Badenoch.”

We are indeed living in strange times. Times made all the stranger by things happening, that up until quite recently would’ve seemed by turns ridiculous, outlandish or farcical, but now seem to be another indicator of just how strange the strangeness is. And nothing seems to perfectly encapsulate the strangeness of these times more than the demonstrations against the bombing of Iran that took place in London last weekend.

Had one no knowledge of the well documented brutality of the Iranian regime, one might be forgiven that rather than being an unspeakably strict theocratic regime, it was a much maligned innocent in world affairs, one that had been unfairly cast as a villain by others in their pursuit of some unfathomably evil plan.

One might also be forgiven for thinking that because of the presence of women in the photographs that accompanied these demonstrations, that Iran was an implacable defender of female rights, and that these women doing nothing more than showing solidarity with their Iranian sisters.

Seeing such photographs and having read accounts of these demonstrations online, as so much news is accessed nowadays, one might also imagine that Iran was a bastion of press freedom, where internet access is as ubiquitous as it is unfettered.

To say nothing of the fact that these demonstrations, whilst heavily policed, were nonetheless allowed to take place and as such were part of the same freedoms as enjoyed by the citizens of Tehran.

The reason why you’d never think any of these things is possibly because you’d been aware of Irans previous abominations long before last weekend. The numerous reports on its human rights violations. It’s medieval treatment of women. It’s censorship of the internet. And that would mean that you didn’t rely on social media for your news and most importantly, weren’t infected by the current plague for interpreting every act through an incredibly subjective and highly reductive prism of anti-Israelism.

So whilst Iran may be bad, the US is far worse, there aren’t words sufficiently descriptive enough to describe just how bad Israel is. Despite Israel being the only country in that part of the world where most Britons – especially women and gays – would choose to live, it has attained a place in some peoples minds as the embodiment of evil. Which is utterly insane, factually unsustainable and morally repugnant.

Kemi Badenoch found herself engulfed in a media brouhaha a while ago after she made the claim that not all cultures were equal. Quite why is a mystery. It is undeniable fact. Life in Britain is better than life in Iran and only a fuckwit would suggest otherwise. But to users of the same reductive prism that absolves Iran for any complicity in the situation it now finds itself in and who happily march in support of it, it also allows them to denounce Britain as somehow being a jackboot away from being fascist.

There are protests to be had, causes deserving of media attention, injustices to be highlighted, action to be demanded. Iran however, isn’t one of them and for proof of that, I’d suggest that those protesting support for Iran in London, try protesting support for Britain on the streets of Tehran and see where that gets them.

Leave a comment

June 8, 2025

34:63 presents “Greta Thunberg.”

The best kind of virtue signalling is, of course, the kind that has minimal adverse consequences for you, but a multitude of positive ones. The most audaciously successful example of this is Greta Thunberg’s ‘school strike’, which somehow transformed her bunking off into some sort of noble act of protest. Quite why no-one called ‘bullshit’ on her little stunt, I can’t explain, but fair play to her, by her constantly banging on about how something has been exacerbated by political inertia, and that because of that, the action needed to combat it is as drastic as it is urgent, she has managed to get away with it.

Because if I’d have tried to get justify me bunking off school as something other than a test of how far I could push my luck with my parents, I’d have gotten more than a stern talking to. If I’d then constantly been on at them to change their lifestyles, to the extent that my mother had to give up on her career as an international opera singer because I’d been incessantly haranguing her about her flying to concerts, I doubt if I’d be eventually invited to address the United Nations or nominated three times for the Nobel peace prize,

But because of the world we now live, one that places a disturbingly worrying amount of importance on positive media coverage, her bunking off has been rewarded with her being lauded as a something about that something. And because of this, she is given platforms upon which to berate pretty much everyone for not doing what she wants. And in an almost masochistic way, one that seems to have the bizarrely religious need for flagellation to it, the more she lambasts people, the more they seem to want it, She’s like a virtue signalling dominatrix.

And no virtue is more worthy to be signalled these days than support for the Palestinian people. Despite their plight being having as many complicated causes as the something she gained ‘celebrity for, that is the only similarity. Yes, people are starving, but so too are people in Yemen and the Sudan caught up in the middle of civil wars fought between disparate factions as only civil wars can be, but then again, their humanitarian crisis’ don’t lend themselves the kind of performative display of virtue that is so beloved by the media. She is on a boat, sailing towards Gaza, in an attempt to bring food and medical supplies to the people of Gaza, as I write this. She is also live-streaming the whole thing. Of course she is. After all, what’s the point of virtue signalling something, if no-one knows that your virtue signalling something?

Leave a comment

May 23, 2025

34:63 presents “Mr. Kobayashi.”

All of the chatter last week about the assisted dying bill was concerned with MP’s voting for an amendment to give health workers an ‘opt out’, and a slew of measures that had been added ostensibly as ‘safeguarding’ vulnerable persons, to protect them from coercion.

Because of this, one might be forgiven for thinking that this was a fine example of MP’s putting ‘country before party’ and voting on principle, that the grubby business of party politics had been temporarily suspended in pursuit of some notion of a higher moral obligation.

You’d be wrong though.

To understand why, first of all you need to question who exactly it is those MP’s were so keen to safeguard and then to ask yourself who are the vulnerable people at risk from coercion? It is never fully explained what safeguarding is, or what a vulnerable person is, is it? Not really. ‘Safeguarding’ and ‘vulnerable people’ have, in regard to having any meaning within the whole assisted dying debate are as meaningful as calling a trans-woman a woman.

Where is any there notion of safeguarding the public purse in all this, of putting economic probity first, of safeguarding all the other public services that would face ever more drastic cuts to help pay for an increasingly ageing population? According to the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR), whereas today 18% of the population is over the age of 65, by 2065 they predict it will be 26%. It gets worse because whilst 26% of people will be over 65, an additional 15% of them will be under 16. Thats nearly half of all the UK’s population not paying tax, but still expecting the state to provide for them. Granted, eventually the young might become taxpayers, but by then quite a lot of them them will be working in the kind of low-wage job that requires government bailouts – working tax credits, housing benefit and the like – to avoid even more government help.

It’s all a vicious circle, and part of the blame lies with the NHS. Yes the NHS, so beloved by, well everyone, being as it is an institution that occupies such a unique place in our collective psyche that a segment extolling it was included in the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Because all of its various health initiatives – to help people to stop smoking, improved detection leading to better survival rates for heart disease, cancers and other previously life ending conditions for example – have been too successful.

So successful in fact, that of the 26% of the population that will be aged over 65 by 2065, the that the Office for National Statistics estimates that by 2045 there will be 3.1 million of them or 4.3% of the population will be older than 85. So to my way of thinking, anyone over the age of 85 who is claiming a state pension is guilty of benefit fraud. It may well be through no fault of their own, but they’re still claiming a benefit to which they’re not entitled.

To misquote Mr Kobayashi in ‘The Usual Suspects’, the fact that they were unaware that they were committing fraud is no excuse. When the current crop of pensioners – those over 80 I’m talking about here – were adults of working age and paid tax, successive governments had a realistic expectation that their time as a pensioner might last for maybe 15 years or so. Wasn’t that the deal with state pensions, that when they were of working age, the they tax paid then paid for pensioners pensions then?

The pension bill is only going to increase, whilst at the same time the umber of people paying that bill is decreasing. It is a state of affairs that is as unaffordable as it is unconscionable. Adult social care alone cost £26.9 billion in 2021/22, up 3.8% from 2020/21 and according to the OBR, pensions will account for 42% of the welfare budget this year, that’s £124 billion, the largest single expenditure – more than we spend on defence, transport and education combined. And those numbers are only going to get bigger.

Thats why the Assisted Dying Bill is hopefully a much needed first step towards state sponsored euthanasia. And just because people find something distasteful to even to contemplate, doesn’t make any the less urgent. If anything, the fact that people do find the subject of euthanasia, or assisted dying a topic they’d much rather avoid altogether is precisely the reason why it has become so urgent.

The government could offer pensioners upon retirement a deal, a lump sum equal to the value of their pension for 15 years – that’s the state sponsored bit – in return for a guaranteed undertaking for voluntary euthanasia on their part. 15 years seems about enough time for people to pit all their affairs in order, take all the holidays they’d never had and generally depart with dignity. Of course, when the 15 years had elapsed they could renege on their part of the deal, of corse they could, but that would mean an immediate termination of any governmental – local or central – responsibility for them.

And of course the financial benefits to society would be worth it. In addition to the savings garnered from a reduced welfare budget, the savings to the NHS, and local authorities, if people knew what the deal was, then the money invested in private pensions – estimated to be £112 billion in 2021 by the Institute for Fiscal Studies – quite a bit of that might be ploughed back into the economy. It would also help the NHS. There’d also be a societal benefit. In the housing sector, as more stock became available, house prices and rents would fall. Employment too. There’d be a huge swathe of jobs that were no longer needed, thereby creating new employment opportunities

We urgently need our politicians to do the leading part of leadership, as opposed to them being constantly fixated on what the media or the public think and constantly aware of their ow career. Of course MP’s have a idea of themselves as being all kinds of wonderful to everyone – after all being an MP means they have to take part in a popularity contest every five years – but unfortunately for them, economic reality makes their ideals unaffordable. Its those ideals that are actually coercing millions into hardship, creating the vulnerable they seem so concerned with protecting and plunging the country state ever closer to civil unrest. Generational inequality is not something that can be ignored for much longer.

Tough choices should mean exactly that, because otherwise they’ll only get tougher.

Leave a comment

May 21, 2025

34:63 presents “The principal principle.”

The best kind of virtue signalling is of course the kind that has minimal adverse consequences for you, but a multitude of positive ones. The announcement of more sanctions against Israel, is but one example of this.

According to a report in ‘The Independent’ “Britain has issued fresh sanctions against Israel over its “morally unjustifiable” escalation of violence in Gaza, and demanded an end to its “cruel and indefensible” 11-week block on humanitarian aid.”

And what, exactly, do these sanctions consist of? Suspending trade talks with Israel, basically. Which of course leads one to ask exactly how much trade Britain does with Israel and then, how does this compare with other countries?

So suspending trade talks, not the trade itself mind, might sound as if Britain plc is taking a stand, but it is nothing more than essentially an empty gesture. It might appear that Britain is taking a principled stance, because that is precisely what it is meant to do, to give the appearance of principle being enforced. Although if that principle boils down to nothing more minimising the threat of yet more candidates winning largely Muslim populated constituencies by standing on a pro-Gaza platform, appeasing disgruntled Labour MP’s, Owen Jones and assorted keyboard warriors and garnering positive media coverage into the bargain, then that principle isn’t that all that principled, is it?

Leave a comment

May 20, 2025

34:63 presents “Judas Iscariot.”

Much as it pains me to write this, I suspect that Farrago might be only honest politician in Britain. This bold assertion comes with add a few important caveats. The foremost one of these is that the usual standard of honesty as most people understand it, does’t seem to apply to to the world of politics. Boris’s Johnson’s entire political career bears this out. As his former Home Secretary Amber Rudd once put it “Boris well he’s the life and soul of the party, but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening.”

But at least Boris tried to implement the will of the British people after they voted for Brexit. This was despite the entire cultural and media elite being fervently opposed any expression of democracy that didn’t advance their interests, the judicial and parliamentary attempts to thwart it, and the relentless besmirching of those who’d dared to do make the elites nightmare a reality. The deal he got wasn’t perhaps the best deal he could’ve got, but it wasn’t as if the EU were minded to offer him one. They wanted to signal to other EU member states – the ones who had a high degree of Euro-scepticism among their electorate and were closely looking at how Britain fared – France, Italy Austria, and The Netherlands – exactly how steep the price for leaving would be.

Fast forward two elections and five PM’s to yesterday and Plonkers so called ‘reset’ deal with the EU. I’m not going to discuss it in any great detail and not just because I’m holiday as I write this, looking out at the sea and luxuriating in the good weather, but more importantly because it was’t a surprise, him never exactly being a massive supporter of Brexit.

After all, he campaigned for a second referendum, happy to ignore the democratic wishes of the majority of UK citizens when it suited him and his increasingly metropolitan outlook. By that I mean an outlook that wasn’t predicated upon prioritising the needs of the many, but instead the minority of people unhappy about the whole Brexit enterprise, people who thought of themselves as Europeans and not British.The ‘Youth Mobility Scheme’ bit of the deal amply demonstrates this.

Ostensibly a scheme to allow UK youth to work and study in Europe, in reality it serves as an encapsulation of his betrayal of Brexit. Firstly, it is because only those children that have not just the necessary skills and qualifications needed to make that even a possibility, but also parents rich enough to make that possibility a reality. Parents who not only have encouraged their children learn a European language, but have inculcated in them a sense that this is but the restoration of an entitlement. So not the kind of parents who work in care homes, as mechanics or teaching assistants.

Secondly, we have a population of around 60 millions, as compared to Europes total of nearer 450 millions. Can anyone see the problem here? In Britain we have a welfare system, one that’s struggling cope as it is, without even more demands placed upon it from EU citizens with a legal rights to it.

All this at a time when net migration is at historic highs, when the public is palpably crying out for control, when Reform UK gave Plonker fair warning as to the levels of discontent brewing in the country at the recent mayoral and council elections and he responded by seeming to take heed of their concerns, when in reality all he has done is make it worse.

Thats why, much as I am am loathe to, I think that Farrago might be the most honest politician in Britain today. Don’t be thinking I’m in any way a fan of Farrago. I think he’s nothing more than a snake oil salesman, all smarm and the kind of bluster that most people mistake as plain speaking. But if you were to ask any British voter at anytime within the last 15 years or so what two things sprang to mind when they thought of him, those two things would be the EU and immigration (although to be fair, that’s because they were the only things he ever seemed to talk about.) So he hasn’t shifted so much as the electorate have moved closer to him, in part because the other political parties have have moved further away from them.

So with that in mind, I’m going to rename Plonker ‘Stymied’ because that’s what he’s done to Brexit and as always, when I write about Brexit, I feel the need that to point out that I voted to remain

Leave a comment