Fahrenheit 11/9

Fahrenheit 11/9 is Michael Moore's furious polemic against Donald Trump. Thus, much as I do not share Moore's politics, I find myself applauding the venom with which he upbraids The Donald and his loathsome cronies. Yes, the dubbing of a Trump speech onto pictures of Hitler probably does not advance the quality of debate, but behind all this is the quite proper fury and mystification at this ever having happened in what styles itself a liberal democracy.

Moore gives Bernie Sanders and his childish politics too easy a ride but Trump is the right target. In addition and refreshingly Moore pricks the bubble of Obama veneration and gives the Clintons a good bashing on his way through. This film should be taken with a largish pinch of salt but it very much should be seen. Ignore the illogical jump it makes in its middle (it gets close to the point when it denigrates the electoral college but then veers off elsewhere) and just feel the outrage. Despite its glaring faults, 8.5/10.

What A Waste Of Words

A wise person told me that the proper response to the inaugurating of the Donald will be to shed a tear for the world. There is something in this. However the thought occurs to me that waking on Friday to a Hillary Clinton presidency would be almost as deadening for the soul - another wave in the cruel statist tide. Sad times.

Nichola Sturgeon. I mean bloody hell, talk about overstaying your fifteen minutes of fame. I care not what she thinks her little bitty piss-ant economy is entitled to over and above what the rest of us citizens have to put up with. Not being Alex Salmond is hardly a life skill, but I struggle to comprehend what else recommends her to us.

giants in the earth

Nick Clegg. Some people just don't get it do they? Here's an expensively well-educated polyglot and yet he has not lost his mastery of getting it wrong. Nick, son, don't (as you did on Radio 2 this morning) presume to tell me what I did or did not vote for in the referendum. Deal with it.

If we get the politicians we deserve then we must have done something pretty gruesome in a previous life. I am currently enjoying John Bew's Attlee biography Citizen Clem, which only serves to accentuate the intellectual poverty of our political times. There were giants in the earth.

2016 And The Kindness Of Strangers

So ends (well almost - there is another day to come) 2016. It has been a year of celebrity deaths, an unattended Olympics (this fact overlooked in the mood of British triumphalism), electoral schisms and general pessimism. I started the year unattached to any medication and finish it back on everything. In this latter regard I have learned my lesson - some things are meant to be. To those, particularly the Groupie, who were alarmed by my tumble from the well wagon, I apologise and thank them, particularly the Groupie. I'll try not to do it again.

Those electoral schisms - Trump first. The dust begins to settle but still I cannot see this as anything other than a scar on the face of America. The man is vile. What does become yet more obvious as Democrats sift through the electoral rubble, is that Hillary Clinton was a catastrophically poor candidate. Yet the closest they came to an alternative was a barmpot like Bernie Sanders with his half-baked student politico socialism.

As for Brexit, well you know which side of the fence I fell. What has been by turns most amusing and most horrifying is the wounded self-righteous gibberish of the bien-pensant. Usually sober and sane commentators have lost all perspective. And yes I'm talking about you Matthew Parris - you have branded millions of us as racist (which I am not) and you should be ashamed of yourself. I expect Polly Toynbeee to write bilge but I thought you better than that.

Help!

All of which can leave a nasty taste in the mouth. So it is good to finish on a note of reassurance. On Tuesday afternoon La Famille Roberts set out on a walk over Cannock Chase. DN1's GPS reading was our guiding star. Well here's the news - sometimes the technology goes wrong. We ultimately exited the Chase three miles from our starting point and enveloped in swift-falling darkness. We resolved to call a taxi and were on the point of knocking on the first door we came upon to get an exact postal location. Our interlocutor would have none of it. He would drive us round the Chase (we had conspired to traverse it) back to our car. I do not know your name Sir and we will never meet again but for that kindness you win the OG Man of the Year Award for 2016.

Happy New Year.

The State Of Two Unions And The Only Things Greater Than The Gods

Two Unions - rugby football and the United States to be precise. These are just two of my favourite things. My weekend put me in collision course with both.

First, rugby union. Well, you all know by now that I love the game in all its dangerous, poetic daftness. League rugby and professionalism have visited hard times on some of us and Aston Old Edwardians have copped it worse than many. Hey ho, one is master of one's own destiny I suppose. I have knocked refereeing on the head (those bastard calf muscles I'm afraid) but am doing some referee advising (we used to be called assessors but I guess the modernists find that too judgemental) and Saturday took me to Aston to advise a newish referee. Signs of the times (good ones at that): the referee was a woman and Aston's opponents were Birmingham Bulls - I quote from their website: "Birmingham's gay and inclusive rugby club". 25-15 to the visitors and the afternoon passed by without any crassness, at least that made its way to my attention. Some nice skills, rather less fitness but a good thing for all to have been involved in. In the bar I enjoyed the company of friends old and new and bathed in that atmosphere of familial comfort that is the true distinction of our silly old game. It may have been better in  my high days, but will anyone ever truly know?

To America (televisually) and the moral poverty of the second debate between the presidential candidates. Trump hovered menacingly over Clinton like the vulgar bullying sleaze he is. So damaged is she  politically that she could not put him away. A pitiful spectacle that lowered Monday morning.

But lo! By bush telegraph comes the news that Daughter Number Two has successfully scaled Kilimanjaro. Both girls have now accomplished this - if any more family members get there, we will have to open an office. Once again I offer up the girls to the gods and proclaim: "Behold, the only things greater than yourselves." A very proud Dad.

Of Cycling And Thinking

I've been stuck in a bit of a mental rut these past two weeks. Not a bloody big hole but, yes, a bit of a rut. Shit happens.

But today I cycled for an hour and a quarter (not earth shattering but this is me we're talking about) including twice scaling the Col de Worcester Lane and as a result I feel rather more positive. It hasn't helped that I've got stuck on something (literary Darwinism if you must know) in my thesis but I think the floodgates of academic inspration are at the point of re-opening. Floodgates is probably a bit strong - trickle of erudition perhaps. Literary Darwinism shouldn't really be that big a concern - much of it, to this untutored eye, is rather pants.

My good and distant friend JB posted a nice link on Facebook yesterday, a quotation from his late political mentor, Senator Paul Wellstone:

If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them.

Nice. I keep trying to think of new words I can deploy in excoriating Donald Trump but the one I come back to is - vulgar. I know, I know, I myself have never been afraid of a bit of vulgarity but, really, all the time? And on top of that you have to add the racism and the bare-faced lies. Clinton is hardly a stranger to artful half-truths but she simply isn't comparable to the Donald and his knowing cronies.

It's the cat I feel for

I must confess I am taken with the Trump puppet on Newzoids - the representation of his hair as a curled-up cat is inspired. 

Let us now raise the tone with something from the King James Bible which also put me in mind of Trump:

Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation.   Proverbs 26:26

I hope so.

A Bit Of Feminism Can Be Good For You

It only took us twenty-five years to get round to it but the other night we watched Thelma and Louise. Sorry about that, but life, as we all know, is too short to do everything we ought as soon as we ought. And watching Thelma and Louise is one of those things we all ought to do.

I've long been a fan of Susan Sarandon - the very fact of being in Bull Durham is a mark of greatness. She is reliably excellent and Geena Davis keeps pace with her. The two male reservoir dogs, Harvey Keitel and Michael Madsen, are excellent in supporting roles and the film wears its energetic feminism gracefully, not least because the Keitel and Madsen characters are sympathetic. A dangerously young Brad Pitt also puts in a good shift. This is altogether a good way to pass two hours. 8/10.

We are gradually catching up with House of Cards, American style and have just done episode 29 (series 3.3). As a rule I can't find any notable fault with this show and it makes (along with Veep) for a useful antidote to repeats of The West Wing. However this episode was slightly off-key - some clumsy Putin bashing being the theme. Nothing wrong with Putin bashing - the chap appears a cad - but that sort of politicking is not in the usual House of Cards mixture. Polished as ever, but discordant.  

Meanwhile real life America outdoes its fiction. Trump gets no better and Clinton is still further enmeshed in the email scandal. From a distance, this stuff gets you down - what must it do to Americans?

At Last A Glimpse Of Light

The Groupie tells me not to keep watching the cable news coverage of the U.S. presidential election since it only gets me all riled up. I, of course, keep going back and getting angrier and angrier. My angst doesn't just come from the sheer bloody awfulness of the Donald but from the inability (perhaps unwillingness is better) of Clinton to maul him intellectually. However yesterday my patience was rewarded by an impressive platform speech in Ohio by Clinton. In fact beyond impressive, it was genuinely uplifting. Track it down online and compare it to the stilted performance Trump gave via autocue earlier in the week as he outlined the foreign policy he had been given by some misguided slave wonks.

It is not always what Trump says. If you dig beneath the lewdness, the ignorance and the cant, you will find germs of good ideas in what Trump says - given how many unrelated thoughts he throws at a subject the law of averages rather dictates that this will be the case. It is his utter lack of humility that offends and his basic message - "I alone can make America great again." What drivel.

And yesterday it was not always what Clinton said that impressed - for example her instincts on tax are unsound. But the manner and tone of her delivery were, at last, reassuring. How can I put it? I know - she has her faults (they are manifest) but she also has heft and unlike her opponent, she is not a complete twat. There you go, OG has spoken - eat your heart out Charles Moore.

Used to work for big pharma - nuff said

My current hero Rod Liddle has described Labour leadership contender Owen Smith as a 'smarmy nonentity'. As ever the Boy Liddle done good. I can do no better than repeat it. Mind you, you really ought to read what Liddle says about Corbyn! You could not invent the mess that a once great institution has got itself into. How can Ed Miliband (the man who gave them as his parting gift the electoral system that landed them with Corbyn) hold his head high? He must be so proud.

West Wing 7:18

It is car crash tv - not The West Wing, to which I will return shortly - no cable news. I am drawn back to it, moth to flame - Sky, BBC, CNBC, Fox, et al. And it never gets any better, the spectacle of human awfulness, slain priests, economic stasis (a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the BBC revels), and above all else the wrteched Donald Trump. A man who makes Hillary Clinton and her truckloads of political baggage electable. Shame on the world.

So last night we watched West Wing series 7, episode 18, Requiem. Yes, I know it's not real but it portrayed a political class (of both sides) capable of humility before power. It had its villains but above all else it had redemption and optimism. Where did they go? We get Clinton. Tell me please how on earth those around her did not spot that using a private email server for matters of state was fuckwit stupid? And why can she not just front up and admit her mistake? But all of that pales into insignificance as Trump crushes any vestige of decency out of politics. He mocks the afflicted; he belittles war heroes; he lauds lawlessness; he flat out lies.

This matters. 'America First' has never been an attractive cry. America has been at its best in the past 'American Century' when it has had a care for the rest of us. It has been wrong, overbearing at times, but it cared about us and wrapped us in its optimism. Where do we go next?  

The Boy Parris Done Good

Matthew Parris writes well, not in the Champions League category with the Boy Liddle of course, but nevertheless he's got a good engine. All of which has made his recent peevish articles denigrating those of us who voted Leave rather tiresome. However let us put that aside (as I am sure we will all shortly manage to do as the embarrassing realisation dawns that the world has not come to an end) and applaud his return to form - Blair/Chilcot - an article in which a bit of realpolitik intrudes on the whinnying grandstanding of the chatterati. He clearly can't stand Blair (sounds fair enough to me) but puts to the sword the sanctimonious claptrap of shitbags such as that oaf Salmond.

Trump v Clinton is about to wind into full swing. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It Seems To Be Official - Clinton v Trump - A Battle Of Anti-Heroes

Diamond Lil

v

The Joker

Take your pick America

The Sun Shines On A Troubled World

Our expensively remodelled garden is bathed in evening sunshine and all the world can do is cast metaphorical shadows on the lovely scene.

Donald bloody Trump seems to have worn down all opposition to achieve the GOP nomination for President. It will not have passed you by that I do not regard this as good news. The man is a foul-mouthed, misogynistic, rabble-rousing bully, and the best thing that can be said of him is that he is not Hillary Clinton. Clinton seems his presumptive opponent for the leadership of the free world - a serial charmless liar, of whom we can very positively put it that at least she is not Donald Trump. How the hell did it come to this? Should we stand back and laugh or should we howl at the moon. There but for the grace of God etc. Oh but hang on, we go to the polls ourselves tomorrow (local elections so most of the enfranchised won't bother) and our choice is between parties led respectively by the smug, patrician Cameron and the utter buffoon Corbyn.

Just to illustrate the bleakness of it all, let us consider the nearest alternatives to the Donald v Hillary show (for Heaven's sake, it's not even the proper spelling of Hilary, ask Wedgwood Benn) - on the right there was the more than vaguely terrifying Ted Cruz, an evangelical Christian libertarian, if that's possible; and on the left there was (or remains, just) Bernie Sanders, a pacifist quasi-nutter graduate of the Corbyn School of Utter Bollocks.

For reasons not important to my current whinge, I have this afternoon been immersed in the total crapfest that is the Education Act 2011 and its doings. What baloney and proof if it were ever needed that politicians as a breed are actually opposed to any education other than their own. 

Do you know, the FTSE fell by 1.19% today and I am past giving even the vaguest toss. Such things used to vex me.

On the very bright side has been the triumph of Leicester City's millionaires over the multi-millionaires of the bigger Premier League clubs. Apologies if that sounds overly cynical - I do in fact acknowledge the Leicester victory as the best story in professional team sports for several decades. Football eh, bloody hell.

I am just listening to Donald Fagen's The Nightfly, one of the greatest albums ever cut and proof positive that mankind is capable of wondrous things to offset and overshadow the omnishambles that is modern politics.

Goodnight sweet prince.

How Trump Happened

There are a lot of Americans who simply can't abide Hillary Clinton and who are driven disaffected into the arms of the Donald. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that she feels that the rules are for little people, not for her. How the Clinton Email Scandal Took Root

It may all have been perfectly innocent, in fact I'm pretty convinced it must have been. But the problem is the familiar pattern of error/breach/discovery/absolute denial/dismissal as minor/obfuscation/victimhood. It's poor form and the rest of us sit back and hope that America will get its house in order. America's response is to give us the likelihood of a contest between the truly awful and the aloof. I know the choice is easy but it's pretty stinky nonetheless.