Blah Blah Flowers

2009-11-01T11:33:00.002Z

It may be a coincidence but the Evening Standard doesn't seem to have published anything by Nirpal Dhaliwal since it went free. One of the last things, so far, he wrote for them is this column, and I can't tell if he's joking or sincere...

Evening Standard: Honesty puts my ex-wife in a league of her own
-August 5, 2009

MY ex-wife, Liz Jones, has a new book out this week, The Exmoor Files: How I Lost a Husband and Found Rural Bliss. In it she gives her version of our marital break-up two years ago, which she documented in her newspaper columns, and her experience of moving to the country afterwards.

It was excruciating to have my dirty linen aired like that but I'd been an appallingly unfaithful husband and to some extent felt it was her prerogative to badmouth me in public. Like the mistakes I made in my marriage, it was an experience I never want to repeat.

I now look back on Liz's work and am awed by the phenomenon she created. She turned the genre of confessional journalism almost into an art form and made a name for herself in the process. Detailing the intimacies of her private and emotional life with brutal frankness, her columns had a pace, turn of phrase and expectancy that any novelist would be proud of.

Uncomfortable as it was to be her subject, I could never fault the quality of her writing.

Others disagree. Last Sunday, one magazine published a disdainful interview describing her as looking "a bit mad", implying that her writing stemmed from a mental disorder.

When we were married, I sometimes called Liz mad too. I now acknowledge that she is, in fact, a genius, a brilliantly effective writer who can provoke 130,000 comments to a newspaper with a single article about her anorexic relationship with food.

Some dismiss her work because much of it focuses on herself, but the same is true of many journalists, diarists, even novelists. And how many other writers have tapped the public nerve so powerfully and consistently? Though her columns concentrated on our marriage, they recorded a unique moment in the history of women as they finally flood through the cracks in glass ceilings in unprecedented numbers. Liz articulated the anxieties of a successful woman who out-earned her husband and sacrificed motherhood for her career yet still felt pressured to conform to idealised notions of beauty and achieve the mythical state of "having it all". Her success reflects the increasing feminisation of our culture, in which women's interests in relationships and domestic life compete equally for attention with male concerns.

On topics such as multiculturalism, female empowerment and the neuroses of consumer society, other columnists pontificate loftily without insight. Liz, however, took readers on a unique journey through the reality of these issues via the nitty-gritty of her mixed-race marriage to a less accomplished younger man me. Her columns were compulsive reading.

Other writers have boosted their careers by penning what poses as the highly confessional while omitting detail to spare themselves ridicule, such as the fact that a husband's affair was actually with another man, or publicising the trauma of giving birth to a sickly child without admitting that booze and fags were enjoyed throughout the pregnancy.

It is Liz's merciless honesty that put her in a league of her own and I readily acknowledge it, even when the honesty hurt me. Like that other great columnist, Julie Burchill, she provokes adoration and hatred for daring to unveil the darker side of the female psyche. Julie confessed she felt nothing for her first child, while Liz admitted that she feels superior to others simply for being thinner.

Like her readers, Liz's critics are overwhelmingly women. But however strange they think she is, they can't deny that she has pioneered new limits for journalism and has the sort of hold on the public imagination particularly of women that most writers can only dream of.

Of course, Nirpal does not mention that he lacks Liz's 'merciless honesty', that he not only called her 'mad' but also 'fatty' and that he still calls her for money.

2009-10-13T06:10:00.003Z

The Spectator, of all magazines, is reporting that the Guardian has been prevented from reporting on a question asked in Parliament, including who asked it, who will answer it, who injuncted the Guardian and why. Never mind, other people not yet having had proceedings taken out against them seem to think it's Carter-Ruck, a collection of lawyers that, as regular Private Eye readers will know, make Wolfram and Hart look like fucking Aslan.

The article reports this as being their best guess at being the offending question.

From Parliament.uk, “Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009″

(292409)
61
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

And here is the Guardian article on that Minton report. So yeah, Carter-Ruck seem to have managed to stop a newspaper reporting on business in Government about press freedoms to report when big companies massively fuck-up and then try to hide the evidence. Let everyone know, yeah?

These injunctions-which-include-you-not-being-allowed-to-tell-people-that-there's-an-injunction-against-you are worrying, even if they tend not to work on the Internet. Andrew Marr, the BBC journo, has one which is apparently about him fathering a child with a journalist he had an affair with.

2009-10-11T09:22:00.003Z

Posting this on behalf of others, so I am not one of the 'we', though I know some of them and support all of them:

London trans activists call for boycott of sham demo on October 17th

We are a group of trans activists who wish to make known our concerns about a demo, claiming to support the depathologisation of trans people, in London on 17th of October. The facebook group for the demo can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147494409183

The description of the event reads:

"Being transgendered is not a mental illness. We are simply part of the diversity of humanity. Gender Identity Disorder is therefore not a valid diagnosis. Homosexuality we removed as a mental health diagnosis diagnosis in 1987. For us to achieve true liberation and recognition we need to throw off this unjust stigma. We are not ill, just different"

A large number of people were invited by the demo organiser, a non-trans man by the name of Dennis Hambridge, and some of us were initially concerned by the rationale for the demo. In particular, we were worried that campaigning for the removal of Gender Identity Disorder as a medical diagnosis without proposing an alternative mechanism by which transsexual people would be able to access medical transition resources was premature and dangerous, especially in a climate where NHS primary care trusts need only a minimal excuse to deny funding for our hormonal and surgical procedures. We do not support the labelling of our gender identities as disordered, and realise that our relationship with the medical community is far from ideal, but do not wish to support a movement which may give the impression that we seek complete divorce from the medical community.

These concerns were put to the Facebook group by a number of trans activists. Rather than address them, Mr Hambridge entrenched his position, making claims that gender dysphoria was an artefact of society and the medical community, and that removal of any form of classification of gender dysphoria by the WHO was "non-negotiable".

In moves more reminiscent of the actions of transphobic radical feminists than supposed allies of trans people, Mr Hambridge started deleting some of the comments from those trans people who were concerned about our future access to hormones and surgery. Subsequently he banned a number of those trans people from the group, silencing them in that space.

To reiterate - Mr Hambridge, who is organising a demo which is allegedly supporting the rights of transsexual people is using his position as a group organiser to silence and shut out the voices of the very people he claims to support.

In light of Mr Hambridge's intransigence and refusal to listen to the voices of actual transsexual people, we are calling on all activists who support the concept of transsexual people having a say in our own medical care to boycott this demo. We further call on Mr Hambridge, who is not trans himself, to stop claiming to speak on our behalf when he is ignoring our protestations and silencing our voices, and to call off his demo.

Please spread this open letter widely.

Roz Kaveney has more information here and Aunty Sarah here.

2009-10-09T20:10:00.003Z

It worries me to be seen to agree with conservatives so instead I will simply say "It is my intention to bring peace to the whole world. Can I have my Nobel Peace Prize now?"

2009-10-03T09:54:00.001Z

Lily Allen has been saying some very silly things about piracy recently. Dan Bull has a response. [via Bloggerheads]

2009-10-02T05:23:00.000Z

Johann Hari gets it spot on: If we care about the BBC, we must fight to defend it.

2009-09-30T09:08:00.002Z

I am a gadfly flapping around in the wind of public opinion or somewhat, so needed Kate Harding to remind me that Roman Polanski drug-raped a child and was then a fugitive from justice for thirty years, not a victim of cruel and unusual prejudice. She presents some especially inglorious highlights from the 'OMG!!1! Will no-one think of the poor persecuted rich artist who has been able to get on with his career in Europe' crowd. She points to Joan Shore at HuffPo who, in what I hope is a satirical piece, says that while she doesn't mind about the Swiss Banks holding on to all that looted Nazi gold what she can't stand is their police seizing a rapist. A surprising number of film directors and producers seem to share this view, including Henning Molfenter, who is quoted as saying "There is no way I'd go to Switzerland now. You can't watch films knowing Roman Polanski is sitting in a cell 5km away". Then there is Whoopi Goldberg, who doesn't think nonconsensual sex with a minor is rape. Bernard-Henri Lévy manages to sum up the issue in the pompous manner we all love the French for, We ask the Swiss courts to free him immediately and not to turn this ingenious filmmaker into a martyr of a politico-legal imbroglio that is unworthy of two democracies like Switzerland and the United States. Good sense, as well as honor, require it. Yep, it's dishonourable to pursue a felon for a crime they pleaded guilty to. Fortunately not everyone on HuffPo wants to give a pass to artists.

There's more from Kate Harding here.

If you like that sort of thing, there's a Facebook group here.

Solidarity with Serbian LGBT Demo

2009-09-26T18:25:00.002Z

Solidarity with Serbian LGBT Demo
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

Text Adventure Pop Songs

2009-09-22T18:15:00.003Z

I'm not sure if I've invented a meme or rediscovered an old one, but pop music in the style of those old text-driven adventure games. Ok Go!

Common People by Pulp.

>LEAVE GREECE

She came from Greece, she had a thirst for knowledge

>GET PLANE TO HEATHROW
>GET TRAIN TO LONDON
>GET TUBE TO HOLBORN
>EXIT TUBE STATION
>N
>ENTER Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
>ENROL ON SCULPTURE COURSE

She studied sculpture at Saint Martin's College

>LOOK
>EXAMINE TALL AND POOR LOOKING MAN

That's where I caught her eye

>SAY TO MAN "MY DAD HAS LOTS OF MONEY"

She told me that her Dad was loaded
I said "In that case I'll have rum and coca-cola

>SAY TO MAN "FINE"

She said "fine"

>WAIT
>WAIT
>WAIT

And then in 30 seconds time she said

>BEGIN CLASS TOURISM

"I want to live like common people
I want to do whatever common people do
I want to sleep with common people
I want to sleep with common people like you"

>WAIT

Well what else could I do?
I said "I'll see what I can do"

>LEAVE Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
>S
>ENTER Sainsburys

I took her to a supermarket

>SAY TO MAN "WHY ARE WE HERE?"

I don't know why
but I had to start it somewhere
so it started there
I said "pretend you've got no money"

>LAUGH

but she just laughed

>SAY TO MAN "Oh YOU'RE SO FUNNY"

and said "oh you're so funny"
I said "Yeah
Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here
Are you sure
you want to live like common people
you want to see whatever common people see
you want to sleep with common people
you want to sleep with common people like me?"

>SAY TO MAN "PARDON?"

But she didn't understand

>SMILE
>GET HIS HAND

she just smiled and held my hand

>BUY A COPY OF LOOT
>EXAMINE LOOT
>ARRANGE VIEWING OF PROPERTIES ABOVE SHOPS WITH LOW WEEKLY RENT
>ARRANGE TENANCY CONTRACT FOR PROPERTY

Rent a flat above a shop

>VISIT HAIRDRESSERS
>HAVE HAIR CUT
>VISIT JOB CENTRE
>SIGN ON JOB SEEKERS ALLOWANCE

Cut your hair and get a job

>VISIT NEWSAGENTS
>BUY CIGARETTES
>SMOKE CIGARETTES
>VISIT POOL HALL
>PLAY POOL

Smoke some fags and play some pool

>DROP THE LETTER 'H' FROM SPEECH
>MIS-SPELL WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS

Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right

>GO TO BED

'cos when you're laid in bed at night

>EXAMINE WALLS

watching roaches climb the wall

>CONSIDER PHONING FATHER

if you called your dad he could stop it all
yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
because there's nothing else to do

>VISIT PUB IN A WORKING CLASS AREA
>SING

Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through

>LAUGH

Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along although they're laughing at you

>DO SOMETHING STUPID

and the stupid things that you do

>THINK 'POOR IS COOL'

because you think that poor is cool
Like a dog lying in a corner
they will bite you and never warn you
Look out
they'll tear your insides out

>VISIT A&E DEPARTMENT
>ASK NURSE FOR TREATMENT FOR BITES
>ASK NURSE FOR RABIES SHOT

'cos everybody hates a tourist
especially one who thinks

>LAUGH AT A&E
>GO TO WORK
>LAUGH
>GO TO FLAT
>LAUGH
>GO TO POOL HALL
>LAUGH
>LEAVE HURRIEDLY

it's all such a laugh

>GO TO FLAT
>PREPARE BATH

yeah and the chip stains and grease

>WASH OFF CHIP STAINS
>WASH OFF GREASE

will come out in the bath

>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)
>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)
>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)
>UNDERSTAND HOW IT FEELS TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH NO MEANING OR CONTROL AND WITH NOWHERE LEFT TO GO
(fail)

You will never understand
how it feels to live your life
with no meaning or control
and with nowhere left to go

>GIVE UP
>BE AMAZED AT HOW WONDERFUL THE WORKING CLASS PEOPLE ARE

You are amazed that they exist
and they burn so bright
whilst you can only wonder why

>BUY A COPY OF LOOT
>EXAMINE LOOT
>ARRANGE VIEWING OF DIFFERENT PROPERTIES ABOVE SHOPS WITH LOW WEEKLY RENT
>ARRANGE TENANCY CONTRACT FOR A NEW PROPERTY

Rent a flat above a shop

>VISIT HAIRDRESSERS
>HAVE ANOTHER HAIR CUT
>VISIT JOB CENTRE
>SIGN ON JOB SEEKERS
>LISTEN AS IT'S EXPLAINED THAT SIGNING ON TO JOB SEEKERS ALLOWANCE TWICE IS 'FRAUD'
>APOLOGISE

Cut your hair and get a job

>VISIT NEWSAGENTS
>BUY CIGARETTES
>SMOKE CIGARETTES
>VISIT POOL HALL
>PLAY POOL

Smoke some fags and play some pool

>DROP THE LETTER 'H' FROM SPEECH
>MIS-SPELL WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS

Pretend you never went to school
But still you'll never get it right

>GO TO BED

'cos when you're laid in bed at night

>EXAMINE WALLS

watching roaches climb the wall

>CONSIDER PHONING FATHER

if you called your dad he could stop it all
yeah
You'll never live like common people
You'll never do whatever common people do
You'll never fail like common people
You'll never watch your life slide out of view
and then dance and drink and screw
'because there's nothing else to do
I want to live with common people like you.....

>STOP CLASS TOURISM

2009-09-21T19:43:00.000Z

It is race.

Crane Park Nature Reserve

2009-09-13T19:34:00.005Z

Crane Park Nature Reserve
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

Crane Park Nature Reserve

2009-09-13T19:34:00.004Z

Crane Park Nature Reserve
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

2009-09-05T08:42:00.002Z

Some humour for Saturday morning. Keith Olberman goes after Glenn Beck and it's hilarious.

And there's more.

2009-09-04T11:57:00.001Z

2009-09-04T11:04:00.004Z

I'm interested in this report from the New York Times that Conservative parents in Houston don't want President Obama to give a speech at their children's school, not so much for that , I tend to think these kind of nuts have always existed and that, possibly goosed by Karl Rove during the Shrubya years, mainstream media will quite happily give vastly disproportionate mention to Conservative craziness to fill column space (have the Birthers gone away yet?). But what caught my eye was this:

"The thing that concerned me most about it was it seemed like a direct channel from the president of the United States into the classroom, to my child," said Brett Curtiss, an engineer from Pearland, Tex., who said he would keep his three children home.

"I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement."

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't this fear of infection a purely right-wing thing? Left-wingers will barrack or ignore or walk out on someone they disagree with, I can see opponents of Shrubya pulling their kids because they don't want them used in a poster moment for the war, or because they don't believe Shrubya won the election in 2000 or so on, but I don't think we've ever heard them say "Little Britney went to hear George W. Bush and now she believes that God is telling her to invade next door to liberate their puppy and toys".

So is this exactly the same impulse which one's political culture educates them to react in a specific way? I'm not saying that everyone who is a Conservative reacts like this and all left-wingers behave the opposite, I'm talking about what might just be small groups on either side and I'm probably trying to speak of groups too small to really statistically matter.

2009-08-30T09:25:00.002Z

Scientific American has an article on the evolutionary history of depression, as the article states, although depression isn't just a problem for the young, surely by now we would have evolved our way away from such problems if they were just brain malfunctions.

So what could be so useful about depression? Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.

This analytical style of thought, of course, can be very productive. Each component is not as difficult, so the problem becomes more tractable. Indeed, when you are faced with a difficult problem, such as a math problem, feeling depressed is often a useful response that may help you analyze and solve it. For instance, in some of our research, we have found evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test.

The snarky side of me suggests that the article is arguing that all mathematicians should immediately be put in mental hospitals before they slit their wrists and that all those scientists who said that quantum theory was 'mindblowing' weren't talking in metaphor. But then six or seven years ago, when I was less of the happy bunny you see before you today, I found writing a lot easier than I do today and that a big mental Iron Curtain of a block has been raised as I developed techniques to either deal with or avoid bouts with the Black Dog. Seeing as Winter is a more difficult time for me I have been pondering doing the opposite of what I do normally and actually follow the habits that tended to lead to depression and see whether it actually has a corresponding increase in my creativity once more. I'm not saying 'great depression is necessary for great art', more like 'a little moodiness is necessary to write piddling little stories'.

Fuck PETA Part #1305

2009-08-25T18:51:00.002Z

PETA calls all overweight people 'whales'. Seriously, this makes me want to go out and hunt foxes. To break their legs and watch them die slow, agonising deaths. While wringing the necks of baby chickens. Before smearing myself all over with duck liver pate. I mean, why don't PETA just put out a press statement saying 'Dear World, we all think you're arseholes' and then slit their throats so their astral forms can go join the vegetarian spaceship? I can only assume that PETA are actually a huge prank being played on the world by Chris Morris. Oh sure, he says he's making a movie, but who really knows what he's up to?

London Mela 2009, I'm Going to Marry That Girl

2009-08-18T06:33:00.002Z

London Mela 2009, I'm Going to Marry That Girl
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

London Mela 2009, Joga and Parichay

2009-08-18T06:32:00.002Z

London Mela 2009, Joga and Parichay
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

London Mela 2009

2009-08-18T06:31:00.005Z

London Mela 2009
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

London Mela 2009

2009-08-18T06:31:00.004Z

London Mela 2009
Originally uploaded by Loz Flowers

2009-08-13T17:00:00.002Z

I don't think there's much point saying anything about the whole health plan nonsense in America because it does seem that everyone against it is a dick. I'm sorry, it's not particularly incisive political commentary but I've yet to see anyone open their mouth or put key to keyboard against it who has not them proceeded to prove themselves to be an arse of the highest district. In the meantime, Stephen Hawking, ha ha ha!

2009-08-09T09:18:00.002Z

The Daily Mail produce one of their typical hatchet jobs on Harriet Harman for daring to suggest something should be done to try and stop domestic violence against women and Liberal Conspiracy retort with what is probably the best response so far. Mailwatch goes into the detail of the Mail report.

Mail: The Government claims that violence against women is costing Britain an astonishing £40billion. It has emerged they are carrying out five separate reviews into the causes and how women can be better protected. This is despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that young women are becoming increasingly aggressive.

Mailwatch: The Mail is trying to destroy the feminist arguement by shouting that boys are a bigger victim than girls and Harriet is just looking after the girls. But just like any comparison, it needs to be like for like and this is not it. Boys and men are victims of domestic violence too, but not in the same numbers as women. It would be good if boys as victims were included in this report too, they may well be, but to try and beat Harman with the feminist stick by making incompatible comparisons between these two levels of victims is wrong.

A quarter of all violent assaults in England and Wales are carried out by women, and it is the most common reason for females to be arrested, recently overtaking theft and handling stolen goods.

So three quarters of all violent assaults are carried out by men.

Liberal Conspiracy: The plans are being rolled out despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that it is in fact young women who are becoming increasingly mean: a staggering 25% of all violent assaults in England and Wales are carried out by vicious ladette women, and it is the most common reason for females to be arrested.

The other 75% of violent assaults are thought to be carried out by transvestites and gays, not men.

2009-08-07T20:03:00.002Z

ID cards haven't been issued yet and already they can be cloned in under a quarter of an hour.

Not Safe For Work, Not Safe For Sanity

2009-08-02T08:57:00.002Z

Have you ever wanted to see portraits of a naked President Obama riding a unicorn while fighting with Stalin, the Russian Bear and Newt Gingrich (I think) while Gregory House and Ugly Betty look on? You have? Weirdo.