Urban Him - The Departure Of Tony Blair
With some smirking, I note that today, Tony Blair's last day in office was sound-tracked in montage, slo-mo form by The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" on both major news channels. I'm not certain what it is they were trying to evoke with it but it sure was fuckin' cheesy. Bet Ashcroft is mortified. The flipside of that, of course is that I bet Loog-Oldham is pumped.

I'm not bothered about his last day in office. I wasn't here for much of his reign though I watched it happen in time-lapse shots of the country, coming home from abroad. I can't lie - people, materially, are probably better off than they were before him. Spiritually and morally, I think we're all much, much worse off but that may just be how the capitalist world is headed in general. I think that Britain is a place with very, very deep social problems that, though they were perhaps not borne of NuLabour's government, have certainly not gotten any better and may even have been exacerbated by it. Britain now, compared to what it was at the tail end of Tory rule looks better. It just isn't. Better that is. I think Tony Blair leaves us with a really damaged country but with a clean dressing on it. We all think we're better off because we have a two year old Ford Focus. We just ignore the fact that we have to wait two years to get a dentist and that there's a really strong danger that, should we need to go into hospital, we're going to contract a life-threatening lergy we never had when we went in. We can overlook some of the highest rates of income tax in the world as long as we've got a seventeen foot trampoline in the garden of our windowless, rough-caste former-council-house box and the kids have a made in China mountain bike.

As well as that, and even more importantly, in the eyes of the world I think we're much, much worse off. I think that we have been governed by liars and lackeys of the United States of America which, though it's a relationship where there's a certain necessity of some ass-kissing, we've just gone overboard. We've positively rimmed the US where in the past we'd have gotten away with a few pecks on the buns.

Tony Blair should be remembered primarily for leading us into a completely unnecessary war that he sold to us on a tissue of lies and half-truths. The rest of his achievements are so far overshadowed by that, that you can't even read the label on them.

At least we've got a Jock in the drivin' seat now. Even if he is a bit of a Caledonian Calvinist caricature. I have chary faith in him.

Things You Can Be sure Of I just watched Weller's live performance in the blanket coverage of this year's Glastonbury festival. He's the bollocks, isn't he? Name me a rock star that's aged as believably as PW? Watching him right now, finishing the set with 'Town Called Malice' was comforting, a reminder that some of the things you like will just always be fucking cool. That good music is good forever.

Scientology On The Ropes Once Again Oh, the Scietologists are having a rough old time of it in the UK of late. First the carry on with Panorama and John Sweeney in which, it has to be said, they came off looking rather worse than a middle-aged man losing his head, and now this. Their Nazi-like methods of combatting dissent are not only ineffectual but really poor for the old public image. I'm almost tempted to look into tickets for this play, for example, on the strength of their violent reaction against it. If they can't see that people are far more interested in someone taking the piss out of them than in them defending themselves, they deserve to lose the millions it takes to comb the media every day for signs of anyone badmouthing them! If they kept schtum, like the masonic lodge, they'd get far more new recruits who'd be curious about what they did. Instead, everyone thinks they're mental, paranoid, chino-and-button-down wearing, stock-broker-cum-bullies who seriously can't take a joke. Sometimes, silence is truly golden.

More Faces

Kirkconnel Gala Day 2007
Yesterday was the annual gala day in my hometown. I started out taking wide pictures of the scene but I was gradually drawn to the amazing faces around me. So I have this collection of faces I'm going to post here.

Mellyfied
A great anecdote in the paper last weekend about the great, the flambuoyant, the utterly irevenrent George Melly - GB's most instantly recognizable jazz icon. Referring to life on the road with Melly, his former trumpeter John Chilton recounts a few gigglers about George's declining aural skills in the latter part of his performing days. for example, a heckler shouting 'aren't you embarrassed' and Georgie saying matter of factly 'I am plainly here and not in Paris'.

But the prize and the one that had me gigling all night last night was this one: Outside a show in London, George inquired of a middle-aged fan whether or not she was local. 'Yes' she said 'but I spent several years in Uxbridge.' 'You poor soul' empathised Melly. 'My heart goes out to you. To have undergone such terror and tragedy and still to be able to smile is remarkable.'

The woman was startled but managed to say 'it wasn't quite as bad as that.' 'Such bravery,' whispered George, his voice almost choked with emotion.

It eventually turned out he thought the lady had said 'Auschwitz.'

Teeter
You can see how changing the light was from these. The first one was perfect and was what my settings were all right for. The second shows how the light changed right as the demolition started and is the only one I got in which all four towers are in the process of falling. The last one shows when a (possibly radioactive) dust cloud descended directly on the site, rushing towards us.

Showering: The Truth
How To Shower: Men Vs Women - Watch more free videos

Coasting A number of weeks back, we took a hike along the Galloway coast from a lighthouse to the town of Portpatrick, to eat seafood. It was a golden day and the scenery down that way man? It's God's country sure enough - I mean look at this - who thinks of this kind of scene when they think of Scotland?

Stalker Went on a whistle stop western highland tour over the weekend, spending a night near Oban and one in Fort William. This is Castle Stalker, near Appin in Argyle. The name, apparently, comes from the Gaelic, Stalcaire, meaning Hunter or Falconer and there has, as far as is known, been a fortified dwelling on this site since around the 1300's. It's most famous, honestly, for being 'Castle Aaaaaarrgghh' in the Monty Python Holy Grail movie. Lovely spot, shit light.

Khmer Rock

Read this great article in the Observer Magazine last week there about a long forgotten musical style called Khmer Rock - from pre-Pol Pot Cambodia. The artists there were for the first time exposed to western music via the AFN booming over the hills from Vietnam where an early prototype of the War On Terror was going on. They immediately plugged in cheap, nasty guitars, organs and started howling their own primitive version of what they heard. I love it! I love it in the weird way I love Bollywood music - it just sounds so damn, foreign and thus has a great mystique and appeal to me. you can get a taste of some of the original artists here, at Khmer Rocks. However, my main discovery from all this has without doubt, been the exciting sounds of Dengue Fever - a modern-day US outfit doing their own tribute version of Khmer Rock with some other little flavours in there. their version of Ros Sereysothea's "I'm Sixteen" is burning up the iPod here at New Soup.

I am hot for a look at this documentary about the genre, mentioned in the article, and uncovering the deeply moving history behind this music and the desperate tragedy that its joyous, innocent sound preceded.