Brits take Swine Flu to China

OK, I'm taking childish pleasure in this, but am I the only person to think it's funny that, reversing all the Yellow Peril scares about dastardly Chinese and their Avian Flu, SARS and even Foot & Mouth Disease (exposed as a flat out lie by a government department in 2000), British kids have now taken Swine Flu into China?

The students say that, although their once-in-a-lifetime school trip has been scuppered and they're confined to the hotel, they're still having a nice time with top medical care and "very good" food.

This reminds me of my own distrupted grand tour of China, accompanying my parents during the Mao era, when I contracted dysentery in a Karachi stopover to Beijing. Well, my mother did warn me not to eat any meat for the two days we were there, drink bottled water and wash the fruit. So who knows what madness made me think it was a good idea, out of range of my parents, to buy a burger off a street-stall that I wouldn't have touched had it been parked outside a London tourist trap.

I spent ten days in a Beijing hospital, quarantined in a spotlessly clean tiled room, listening to the cicadas chirruping while my guts exploded in slomo. I was given a mixture of Chinese medicine and Western pills by masked nurses and doctors who were incredibly kind and caring. And the food was lovely — steamed rice with small tasty portions of meat and veg.

In another personal note, I see some of the invalids were from Central Foundation School in Clerkenwell, the brother school of my own Central Foundation Girls School formerly of Spitalfields. Small world, large gin.

Get well soon, guys.

Tony Blair: King of the World

Pic: "I want THIS much!"

Now Neil and Glynis Kinnock join in the cheerleading for Tony Blair to be made President of Europe. What, only Europe, Tone?

How corrupt do you have to be to continue rewarding the man who took Britain into an illegal war with Iraq which pillaged that country's resources, murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, and has turned it into a basket case. It's not like he hasn't already been paid for services rendered, with JP Morgan shoving millions at him, the US lecture circuit syphoning dosh into his coffers, and Kuwait and Israel giving him vast sums.

And where was our peace envoy while this was happening? (Hat tip Socialist Unity)

Do they want the rest of the world to hate us?

Mother Nature's Alien Headfrakk: How Parasitic Wasps Have Babies

Holy ker-rist! Just watched footage of the first stages in the life-cycle of the parasitic wasp on More 4 (waiting for The Great Sperm Race).

A caterpillar is stung by a parasitic wasp and implanted with eggs. Over time the larvae grow inside until they take up a third of its by now obese body. In order to keep the host alive, the larvae only consume the blood and stay away from the organs.

So far, so gruesome. Now for the Alien stage.

The wasp larvae need to get out and, in order to cut through the caterpillar's tough skin, they've grown little saw-like teeth. When it smiles, it does indeed look like what Bette Midler termed, having seen Ridley Scott's classic sci-fi horror, "a penis on a skateboard". The caterpillar — let's call it "John Hurt" writhes in agony but only for a short while, for in an added twist, the larvae secrete paralysing chemicals, although what John's supposed to do with a third of its body mass exploding out of itself is anyone's guess.

In the delightful video above, the babies (Aw, they have their mother's eyes) BURST out. To protect themselves from other parasitic wasps, they start to spin cocoons around themselves.

Now, here's the headfrakk ... John Hurt doesn't die but comes to. You'd think, consdidering what it's just been though, it would mash the little fukkas. But, instead, something in the chemicals secreted by the larvae makes it spin a covering, not to protect itself, but to protect the wasp pupae! Gasp!

Not only that but it then hangs around to guard the silken mass from predators ... UNTIL IT STARVES TO DEATH!!!

I know people like this.

Hmm. Sperm. The human equivalent of fifteen miles in two seconds, huh?

Anna May Wong Must Die! show highlights video

I finally got an extract of Anna May Wong Must Die! on YouTube. Recorded Tuesday 26th May 2009 at the Roxy Bar & Screen, South London.

Still writing and putting the finishing touches to it. And, alas, no remote control of the Powerpoint/Keynote presentation due to my Mac iBook having no infra-red receiver, something I only found out the other month.

China Uighur uprising put down

Having no special insight into Sunday’s unrest in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, I’m as dependent on media coverage as everyone else, but I’ll try untangling the emerging information.

It appears that what started off as a lynching of two Uighurs in a Guangdong toy factory following false accusations of a gang-rape by a disgruntled worker, has erupted into full-scale riots possibly exeeding those in Tibet. YouTube clips show 3,000 angry protesters confronting an army armed with watercannon and guns. About 160 people have died, with 800 injured and 1,400 arrested.

The Uighurs say they were holding a peaceful demonstration when the army piled in, while Chinese sources say the protesters went on the rampage attacking and killing ethnic Hans.

These events lead to a range of questions: why now? Bush has courted Muslim Uighur insurgents (while locking up others in Gitmo). Is Obama doing the same? With China about to become the world’s number one superpower, is this (cold) war by another means, whereby western proxies fracture the state?

Or has this been brewing a long time? Complaints similar to those we hear from Tibet are of the indigenous Uighurs being overwhelmed and dominated by an influx of Hans who make up the majority of China’s population. Times Online says: “Uighurs feel that Han immigrants to Xinjiang are depriving them of jobs and diluting their unique culture.” They come over ‘ere …

In a debate on the Harmony Central Political Party forum, Elvira G says:

Uyghur is a Central Asian language which has nothing in common with Chinese languages. No one is prevented from speaking it socially but only Standard Mandarin is acceptable in education and business. Mandarin is the language of instruction in all schools throughout China and local languages are only taught as minor subjects.

The introduction of standardised Mandarin and the Simplified Chinese character system in 1954 enabled rapid mass literacy and easy communication throughout China. Standard Mandarin has been so successful that not only was it responsible for an increase of literacy within China of over 30% in a single generation but it has also been willingly adopted by almost all Chinese speakers outside the mainland simply because it is an excellent system.

Islam is recognised as an official religion and subsidised by the state but religious leaders are not permitted use their position to express political opinions.

Elsewhere, Blood & Treasure says that this time the Chinese are allowing the press more leeway in their coverage but the high body count indicates the army has lost it big time. Again. Also, there’s evidence emerging of anti-Han lynchings.

There’s another news round-up here.

Tania Branigan’s video and report for the Guardian say that now the Hans are tooling up in response to attacks. Great. All we need is a spiralling cycle of violence. Like the poet said, Man hands on misery to Man, it deepens like a coastal shelf. This one could run and run.

So is this another clash of civilisations with religion fuelling a Muslim versus Chinese conflict? Or is it about economic imperatives and discrimination? The Chinese government is accused of creaming off the wealth of the region. Not only that but some of these outlying areas (Gansu province) have been subjected to nuclear trials, much the same as Nevada in the US.

China used to be the world’s doormat — drained, pillaged, turned into a nation of junkies when Britain forced it to take opium. Sliced into dim sum by colonialist powers, China has done well to build up its industry and feed its people. But at what cost? I’d like to see it remain whole and invulnerable to further imperialist predations. But now the cracks are showing and the contradictions are there in radioactive neon. Capitalist economic progress comes at a price. Anyone with a basic baby knowledge of Marx knows that.

There is a chauvinist streak in Chinese society that may make it easier to dominate those perceived as inferior due to culture and race. This diminished during the brief communist period when the spirit of internationalism was drummed into everyone. It’s now resurfaced even bigger and weirder than it was before.

There was an alarming episode in BBC’s recent series, The Incredible Human Journey, which showed a Chinese scientist whose idee fixe is to persuade the world that the Chinese evolved from a completely different line of humanity [Peking Man] he claimed diverged over 100,000 years ago, from Homo Erectus, (heh, heh! He said erect …) and not Sapiens. This mad notion has taken hold to the extent that it is taught in some schools and there is even a theme park dedicated to the promotion of the theory.

Luckily, we now have genetics at our disposal. Another Chinese scientist, geneticisit Jin Li, conducted widespread tests and concluded that, no, we are all from the same Homo Sapiens strand that left Africa through the Yemen 70-80,000 years ago. And thank frakk for that. If you saw the sloping forehead and monobrow statues illustrating your supposedly illustrious ancestry, you too would be feeling mightily relieved that the Gallagher brothers are their only known descendents.

Jeff Beck at the Royal Albert Hall last night with David Gilmour: music review

Saw Jeff Beck at the Royal Albert Hall in London last night, an idyllic way to spend a glorious summer evening before the predicted storms over the next few days. We even caught an old-fashioned Number 9 Routemaster bus complete with a proper conductor for the last leg of the journey, something that turns us passengers into ten-year olds, drawing smiles and getting us talking to each other. No mean feat for hard-bitten Londoners.

The Hall is huge and we had good seats in the banked stalls facing the stage but these were up the far end so the performers were tiny. Luckily, I had the foresight to bring my posh opera glasses, a fan for the muggy atmosphere, and a bottle of water so, except for sitting behind the biggest man in the world with a head and neck built like a bullock, I was happy.

After a great support act by progabilly singer Imelda May (Hmm, a name from two of my shows — I, Imelda and Anna May Wong Must Die!), Jeff appeared. Lithe, lean and tanned in his all-white with a little red bandana (were those pixie boots?) he looked dead cute and more like Nigel Tufnel every day, even though he turned 65 last week. This being the sedate Kensington Gore and the audience being mostly over fifty, the volume does not go up to eleven but is loud enough to give maximum pleasure, Jeff being the ribbed condom of the rock world, without shredding your eardrums.

Lovely Companion Charles Shaar Murray said, "Most instrumental rock guitarists can bore me to tears. Jeff Beck can move me to tears."

Apart from his awesome playing where the meister of the bent string and tremolo arm makes his white Stratocaster sing and wail, I love Jeff for the way he treats women musicians. Although I missed the presence of Beck regular — the marvelous (and statuesque) Imogen Heap — and wished she was there singing Rollin' and Tumblin', Imelda May (shorter by a foot) filled the Heap-shaped gap with a powerful voice and percussive backing band featuring jazz trumpet and Celtic drumming. (Am I the only person who loves drum solos?)

Jeff's been using the same bass player for years, the amazing prodigy Tal Wilkenfeld (now only 21 years old), including her in his legendary Ronnie Scotts series of gigs which you can get on DVD or get a glimpse of here. A light sensitive touch and digital dexterity does the trick. She holds her own providing a solid foundation for Jeff to do his thang and countering with imaginative bass fills. The highlight of their partnering last night was a duet on bass where Tal played the complex melodic stuff up the high end and Jeff at her shoulder plucked at the low strings.

Vinnie Colaiuta is simply brilliant on drums — did I mention I love drum solos? Part of the pleasure is counting his complex timing which never ever falls apart but always looks so damned easy.

I couldn't hear Jason Rebello's keyboards that clearly but then again you don't want synths cluttering up the scenery and competing with the man we came to hear.

For the encore, Jeff was joined by surprise guest performer David Gilmour (the tiny speck in black in the pic below) for a rousing rendition of Jerusalem, a real crowd-pleaser. Someone with a good seat has already posted the video (above).

For the second encore, they went from the sublime to the ridiculous with Hi Ho Silver Lining, a song Jeff once said was like having a fackin' pink toilet seat slung around your neck for life. David Gilmour sang so look out for the video on YouTube and one here. This effectively bookended the night with his first and biggest hit as he'd opened with Bolero, the B side to his greatest pop choon (1967).

Bad sound in the choir seats behind the PA led to our friends walking out before the encore and I'd urge promoters not to sell these seats without a warning and at knockdown prices. But otherwise a great show and a sold out venue. Promoter Harvey Goldsmith must be very happy with his new managerial conquest.

Pic: David Gilmour joins Jeff Beck onstage for the encore

UPDATE: Because so many visitors from outside the UK are reading this review, I'll quickly add what I can remember about the actual set-list. Mostly it it was the same as the Ronnie Scott's gig. A Day In The Life was gorgeous. Nitin Sawnhey's Nadia, and Stevie Wonder's Cause We've Ended As Lovers with a bass solo from Tal, were beautiful. Also enjoyed the stomping Big Block, and Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/Brush With The Blues. Peter Gunn was a new one — who doesn't love that heavy spy guitar riff? Aside from joining in the encore, Imelda May changed out of her rockabilly tight top and mini skirt and into a glamorous green velvet and net evening gown to sing the Eartha Kitt classic, "Lilac Wine", slow and sultry with Jeff's band. And the very last encore was Jeff and Jason on the haunting Where Were You?

Six New Personality Disorders Caused by the Internet

"Hey, someone's got something wrong on the net! I have to put them right."

One for my lefty buddies, especially some of the weirdos scumming up the otherwise useful Socialist Unity website. I particularly like the prolier-than-thou bullies yelling at working class people how to be properly working class who turn out to be public school educated nitwits. I never knew you could type in Mockney!

Ever wondered why no-one seems to be able to have a normal conversation on internet forums? Puzzled why you spend so long on dickheads you'd walk away from if you ever met them in a pub? Wondering why you give them the time of day when a spraycan of mace would do the trick so much better?

Jonathan Kimak at cracked.com nails psycho behaviour on the net in a great online guide.

The Internet makes people crazy. We all know this. The guy on the message board who just called you a shitclown for owning a different video game console than him probably would have been perfectly polite had you met in real life.

In fact, we're thinking it's time they updated the psychological diagnostic manuals with this list of new disorders that only seem to kick in once the person opens a web browser.

And, yes, we've all seen the "Internet Asperger's Syndrome" trolls: "Soon the thing you're communicating with isn't a person, they're just a bunch of words on a screen. A bunch of words that the little bastard didn't even bother to spellcheck."

See also David Wong's Five Ways To Stop Trolls Killing the Internet

Thank you for your good sense, JK. Hat tip Popbitch

No dicks allowed

UPDATE: Renegade Eye has found another illuminating article on the subject of Flamers. Note Number 12, "Denying/projecting: We cannot see reality honestly, but must constantly manipulate it by erasing some parts and distorting others."

Anna Lo, UK's first Chinese politician under threat from Northern Ireland racists

Having chased out 100 Romanians from Belfast, racist loyalists in Northern Ireland have set their sights on Anna Lo, the United Kingdom's first Chinese-born politician elected to national Parliament, and the sole ethnic minority member of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

According to a report in the Belfast Telegraph, police have warned her that she is under threat of attack.

Far right groups have also threatened Polish and Islamic centres in Belfast. Brain-bogglingly, some of these charmers are said to fly the flag of Israel beside their own. Go figure!

It's hard to understand why there's been a revival of old hatreds with foreigners now added to Catholics as fuel for bigots. How would they like it if decent hard-working Protestants who work abroad were given the same treatment? Actually, come to think of it, they probably wouldn't even care.

Anna Lo is incredibly brave and I hope she gets maximum support from everyone who wants peace in that beleaguered nation.

Hat tip Splinty

Crosstown Lightnin' debut gig: Charles Shaar Murray plays blues

For all you NME babies and blues fans out there, Charles Shaar Murray's new band, Crosstown Lightnin', features the Cowboy, the Punk and the Queens of Funk: CSM on guitar and vocals, Buffalo Bill Smith on harmonica, the sublime Max Doray on bass and JoJo Ruocco bashing the hell out of her drumkit.

Following a 30 minute warm-up at Mitchum festival the other week, the band played two 45-minute sets at the Green Dragon in Croydon for their very first gig on Thursday 18th June 2009 and delighted all the old blues fans as well as assembled bright young things.

Here they are with their opening number, Freddy King's classic instrumental Hideaway.

More videos to follow.

Filipino prisoners do Thriller: Michael Jackson RIP

Oh, no! It's Michael Jackson looking brown bread ...!

In memory of the King of Pop, here are 1,500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Phillipines performing Thriller with an interesting leading lady. It's a pleasure to see these prisoners inspired by Jacko's funky groove, or a sad indictment of the way showbiz functions to keep us all in line under capitalism, depending on mood, politics and where I am in my monthly cycle.

Worth listening again if only to hear Vincent Price uttering the immortal lines, "The foulest stench is in the air, The funk of forty thousand years ..." and so on.

By the way, it's looking like Michael was taking Demerol, an elephantine pain-killer that was a favourite of William Burroughs due to its similarity to heroin.

UPDATE: Jacko's doctor, Dr Tohme Tohme [edit: we now know the doctor was Conrad Murray], who pumped him full of Demerol less than an hour before he passed out, has done a runner. The Daily Mail reports: One website quoted a hospital source as saying: 'Shortly after taking the Demerol, he started to experience slow, shallow breathing.

'His breathing gradually got slower and slower until it stopped. His staff started mouth-to-mouth and an ambulance was called. He never regained consciousness.'

Michael Jackson heart attack may be fatal

Uncomfirmed reports say that Michael Jackson suffered a cardiac arrest today, wasn't breathing when paramedics arrived at his Bel Air mansion and attempts to resuscitate him with CPR may have failed.

Initial suspicions that it was another sickie in order to get out of his imminent live tour have proved wrong and Peter Pan may be dead at 50.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson pronounced dead at 3pm.

Also dead today are Farrah Fawcett, 62, and former NME journo Steve "Swells" Wells at 49.

The King & I review: go you Orientals!

Daniel Dae Kim and David Yip

Hah! Here's one show you can't accuse of yellowface. Last night's Rodgers & Hammerstein 1951 musical The King & I, revived at the Royal Albert Hall, had so many Asian actors they must have emptied out every Chinatown in Britain. About thirteen kids and 20 or so women swamped the handful of white actors on the stage in something out of Margaret Thatcher's worst nightmare. How I laughed.

The latest King in a list that includes Yul Brynner, Jason Scott Lee and Chow Yun Fat, Daniel Dae Kim cuts a handsome dash as the barefoot monarch of 19th century Siam who'll do anything to avoid a charge of "barbarian", even importing an English governess, Anna Leonowens, played by Maria Friedman, who will tutor his (many) children and civilise the brute. (Hmm, do I really need to elucidate?)

As a Buffy and Angel fan I was keen to see DDK, who will always be evil lawyer Gavin Park of Wolfram & Hart to me. I'm pleased to see he's also notched up an impressive TV CV with Lost, CSI, Charmed, 24, The Shield, NYPD Blue, ER, Seinfeld (??? I don't remember him in that), Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise (oh well, there had to be at least one turkey) prominent.

Charismatic and handsome DDK may be, but a singing voice isn't his strong suit. Mind you, neither was Brynner's and the role cemented his career. Still, the other actors were phenomenal in this department. The two young lovers, Yanle Zhong as the rebellious Princess Tuptim (a gift to the King from Burma), and Ethen Le Phong, as her secret lover, Lun Tha, had powerful lungs and a sensitive delivery typical of the glory days of the stage musical. Their duet, We Kiss In A Shadow, had me quite teary and masking my snuffles as my current bronchitis.

My friend, David Yip (The Chinese Detective) as the King's Minister, didn't have to sing or dance but marched around as the power behind the throne, sounding most urbane and looking very professorial in his spectacles. I am so glad he didn't have to do "sinister" in this role.

The coup de theatre of the evening was the hilarious and spectacular show-within-a-show, The Small House of Uncle Thomas, staged by Princess Tuptim as a pointed indictment of the King and his insistence on mastery over the lives of his slaves despite his ambitions to be a "civilised" man and appease the British who are considering replacing him with their own puppet ruler.

The dancing, singing and choreography were a joy. Even my Lovely Companion, a rock 'n' roll/blues/trashkulchur fiend who complained that this was the worst thing I'd done to him since making him sit through Ivan The Terrible, Parts 1 AND 2, conceded that this visually lavish section was a delightful entertainment. I especially liked Uncle Tom, Little Eva and Topsy prancing Thai-fashion in white face. Heh!

The orientalism of The King & I is so transparent that I hope we know by now what we're looking at. The notion that the British project was to bring civilisation, a superior culture and democracy to "primitive" societies has been so thoroughly debunked, not least by the debacle of Iraq, that I hope we can all laugh at the show's assumptions. Cruelty, we now know, is not the unique attribute of that psychological landscape we know as the "Orient". British and US forces are as adept at this as was any eastern despot in history.

Suspend your critical faculties rather than bury them, and you will have a lovely evening. Personally, I found it to be a lot more honest that the execrable More Light, a modern regurgitation of orientalist stereotypes with a huge dollop of pretension and dumbed-down feminist politics without the excuse that it was written more than half a century ago. The King & I is a breath of fresh air by comparison.

Runs until Sunday 28th June 2009

Cast list:
Daniel Dae Kim, Maria Friedman, Jee Hyun Lim, Ethan Le Phong, Yanle Zhong, David Yip, Michael Simkins, Stephen Scott, Mischa Goodman, Hugo Yamaguchi, Miwa Saeki, Aiko Kato, Karen Cadogan, Victoria Sahakian Rogers, Adam Wong, Azumi Ono

Directed by Jeremy Sams
Musical director Gareth Valentine
Choreography Susan Kikuchi
Set and costume design Robert Jones
Lighting design Andrew Bridge
Sound design Bobby Aitken
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Blair keeps dirty Iraq secrets in the dark

Thanks to Louise who just found this item on Tony Blair and Iraq at the Observer.

Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to hold the independent inquiry into the Iraq war in secret because he feared that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public, the Observer can reveal. ...

... six weeks before the war, at a meeting in Washington, the two leaders were forced to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second UN resolution legitimising military action.

Bush told Blair that the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, painted in UN colours, over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes, he would put Iraq in breach of UN resolutions and legitimise military action.

None of which Blair wants made public. What was that about exporting our home brand of democracy to poor deprived nations?

This is positive as revelations go. Perhaps with a public "trial" Blair will have to spend some of his ill-gotten gains from interested parties — such as JP Morgan bank, Israel, Kuwait, and the US lecture circuit — on a legal defence and lots of PR.

The widespread revulsion over MPs expenses will be as nothing compared to the personal and institutionalised corruption exposed with an open inquiry. Which is why, of course, Blair, who has thus far gotten off light, must be in a bit of a sweat. I wonder what posterity will make of the state of his underpants right now.

Gary Younge on Labour's road to corruption. "If you keep resorting to the lesser of two evils, you just end up with evil."

Caryl Churchill's Gaza play in Tel Aviv

David Horovitch in Seven Jewish Children

You can watch a video extract of Seven Jewish Children, the Caryl Churchill play about Gaza, that's causing an uproar. It has now played in Hebrew in Tel Aviv, while the BBC has "declined to commission" a radio production of it.

Guardian's Michael Billington gives it four stars

Analysing the charge of anti-semitism.

Tony Kushner in The Nation on Churchill's play.

Read the full text of Seven Jewish Children at the Guardian.