Song of the Week

This is frigging great href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D2o8F2MOuI&feature=player_embedded">

I came across the Milbank protest after work, which is just across the river from where I work. I could hear them, and we all watched them ripping bits out of the Tory party lobby.

This is one slogan I saw.

The question that comes to mind with all this talk of 'fight back': against what?

Against 'Nasty Nick' Clegg? 'Ideological' cuts? Neoliberalisation of education?

Or could it be the guy that sets the low Chinese exchange rate? The aging population? The baby-boomer generation? Too many people going to Uni? Or existential angst?

Personally I go with the latter group of answers. I understand why the first group is an easier target, they at least fit on a sign.

Gareth Bale

I have really not got in to football this season. It seems inevitable that Chelsea will win the title, and they'll win it by no more or less than a moderately tantalising 5-7 point margin. I felt the same last year, but thought Man Utd were only slightly less good and went through the motions of anticipation. Now I feel they've slipped. Part of my apathy so far is the fact that The Blues are no longer my Bete Noir, an honour now held by Man City, and also I generally think that Essien, Malouda and Hiddink make quite a cool cosmopolitan set up.

There's another reason for my lack of interest, one held my many fans. Wayne Rooney. The machinations orchestrated by his agent leading up to his contract renewal are possibly a good case study in game theory, but they're also incredibly slimy, disloyal and greedy. With all his other problems, you can't help feeling that we'll look on his case as an example of the impossibility of extreme wealth providing contentment. Man Utd have got him though, but I think he's a a mistake. Rooney's a bad apple and I can't believe he'll help the team and unless things are really much nicer than we think, Fergie has totally lost grip of his own adage that no player's bigger than the team. Things are bright in his absence: the new Mexican guys looking good and Berbatov's been on form and they've won in his 'injury' absence.

But not everything's gloomy in British football. The new golden boy superstar is of course Gareth Bale, who has emerged for Spurs in juxtaposition to Rooney, Terry et al. He seems like a normal modest guy. Then also, at eighteen is another star in the making, Jack Wilshire. When he was about 8, and I was 14, the young Wilshire ran humiliating rings round me during a football encounter in Hitchin. For the sake of football in this country, I hope they survive the media and they live up to expectations of them.

Rally to Restore Sanity

There were two things that struck me from yesterday's march on DC.

The awards for fear were pretty well deserved. I've just seen The Social Network, and in one way or another, as a child of generation Facebook, I appreciate how Mark Zuckerberg has done his bit to preserve fear. We hear how much the guys in Palo Alto are trying to preserve our privacy and now for instance, as I noticed this week, one can now observe another pair of fbk friend's 'friendship'.

And then there's Anderson Cooper the purported face of reasonableness in the US news media. Of course he's the epitome of bland. Not only that, after all dumbing down is no crime, I once saw the man in the flesh when I was in DC. He seemed a little douchey, as Americans would say, turning away from some respectful, albeit somewhat hysterical fans who saw him in the crowd.

Second and more important though is the impression that Jon Stewart is just a nice guy. Despite the lampooning and mockery, you generally feel he is sincere and good in spirit. Very different to the British cynicism we have in the UK, evinced by the likes of Ian Hislop. And isn't the niceness the key to understanding Stewart's world view? The man's a liberal, and liberals are generally the nice people in the world; those people who have faith in people to live their lives for good or ill. Those liberals who are not gripped by existential fear- fear of the poor, or of investment bankers.

Falling Backwards

TS Elliot was forgetting something when he described April as the cruelest month. Over the last few weeks, daylight hours seem to have shrunk quickly in ten-minute chunks, day after day, since October began.
Oh well. I think we tend to underestimate the importance of sunshine in our lives. It's not only important for Vitamin D, and the superficial glow of a tan, but for a whole range of hormonal reactions. Sunshine in the eye is very important for energy, for morale and optimism. In its absence, so many of us Northern Europeans get Seasonal Affective Disorder, once the clocks go back and the sun clocks off at 4.30pm, over the winter months. It's a big part of the reason for the miserable attitude that we have in this country.
But there's no reason to be gloomy. I've just picked up an interesting book on coping with the phenomenon. There are lots of obvious tips, including sun beds, savouring August (will remember for next year), a daily hour outdoors (rain or shine), exercise, good food, and tropical January holidays. I'll see what other genius insights they might provide, but in the meantime i'll maintain my membership of the "Movement to move Britain to the Caribbean" facebook group.