Vodafone tax protests put Left and TUC to shame

Look. This is what can be achieved with imagination and a bit of media savvy. The sneaky Vodafone deal whereby the ConDem coalition government (that did NOT win the election) let them off £6 billion in taxes owed to the British public while smashing up our society with draconian cuts has been thrust into the media spotlight by independent activists.

So where is the leadership from the Left, whether it be Labour, the TUC or the far left? The sad old dinosaurs and sectarians have had MONTHS to get their act together. Yet all they could do was hold a couple of demos in the week of the actual cuts with another planned manyana.

Meanwhile, the right have been given a free run in the media with the BBC especially shameful in their reinforcing of the cutters' narrative. I'm sure I wasn't the only one to listen to the BBC R4 Today programme coverage on the morning of the Bullingdon Budget (thanks Armando Iannucci) on October 20th, spitting blood over the presentation of the right agenda with no balance except for a meek and mild Mark Steel at the very end.

Did they have a team harrying the BBC editors to present the economically literate side, as articulated by Robert Skidlelsky, and as demanded by their public remit? Aside from the odd token appearance allowed of commentators such as Skidelsky and Ken Loach (who put up a damn good fight versus Michael Heseltine on Newsnight), we were left almost entirely without spokespersons. Selective vox pop meant that the Tory cutting lie was halfway around the world before the truth had got its pants on.

There is a groundswell of disgust with the left's inaction over the assault on our services with the suspicion that Labour is keeping quiet because it, too, would have pushed through similarly swingeing cuts. Johnson instead of Balls in the Treasury? Wrong bit of anatomy, mate. See, I told you "Red" Ed Miliband was all pantomime (here and here), confirmed when he didn't even turn up for the first of the demos as he'd promised.

I look forward to more Vodafone-style action from the public while the Left and the TUC find their balls, now officially MIA.

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Ozzy Osbourne meets Tony Blair: War Pigs

Ah, the wit and wisdom of Ozzy Osbourne, clown prince of rock 'n' roll but a breath of fresh air among the creepier psychofrantic wing of the liberal media.

While some present Blair as a sincere chap who, f'rinstance, donated his £4 million book advance to the British Legion out of the goodness of his own heart, which I say was the price of buying back his brand taking a clobbering in the nether regions of the advance book sales lists, Ozzy paints a very different picture of his fan.

From Ozzy's hilarious autobiography, I Am Ozzy (Sphere, Little Brown) a small but telling moment when Blair schmoozed while soldiers and civilians died in his war:

I'm not so comfortable with politicians. Meeting them always feels weird and a bit creepy, no matter who it is. For example, I met Tony Blair during The Osbournes period at this thing called the Pride of Britain Awards. He was all right, I suppose; very charming. But I couldn't get over the fact that our young soldiers were dying out in the Middle East and he could still find time to hang out with pop stars.

Then he came over to me and said, "I was in a rock 'n' roll band once, y'know?"

I said, "So I believe, Prime Minister."

"But I could never work out the chords to 'Iron Man'."

I wanted to say, "Fuck me, Tony, that's a staggering piece of information, that is. I mean, you're at war with Afghanistan, people are getting blown up all over the place, so who honestly gives a fuck that you could never work out the chords to 'Iron Man'?"

But they're all the same, so there's no point getting wound up about it.

A quick reminder of those Black Sabbath War Pigs lyrics:

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'til their judgement day comes
Yeah!

Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
Oh lord yeah!

Gauguin at the Tate review: Derek & Clive go to the pictures

I finally saw the Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) exhibition at the Tate Modern yesterday and, yep, it had more breasts than a Bernard Matthews turkey farm.

It's an interesting look at a former impressionist who predates Matisse in his use of colour and the surface plane of the canvas. Murkier than the great colourist or even Van Gogh en masse, the subject matter was also a bit more, er, limited? A tiny tad "one note', shall we say? All T & A, or, for variety, T or A. As my lovely companion observed, the arses follow you around the room.

There's a hilarious schizophrenic collision of what the gallery wants you to focus on through their high-tone wall texts, and the glaring obviousity that Gauguin was a white bourgeois having much fun with the native girls of Tahiti and the Polynesian South Seas whilst away from his Parisian home.

Overwhelmingly comprising paintings of naked and half-clad dusky women, the exhibition provides a slightly disturbing portrait of a white man immersing himself in the local "colour" and enthusiastically dipping his paintbrush at the drop of a lei. As if Gary Glitter, having spent happy times in Indo-China, produced an oeuvre of work recording the musical delights of his exploits for our delectation.

Gauguin, the double of Alfred Molina (who played him in a recent TV biopic), sought the pagan but initially found the missionary position as the Christian missionaries got there before he did, arming the islanders against their own innocent sexuality with biblical tracts in a process some call civilising and others might think was bloody imperialist cheek. Gauguin made the reverse journey, recreating primitivist fantasies of a lost age in his art. He morphed from bourgeois banker to "savage" ... and he did it very well.

In the last room we were most gobsmacked to learn that Gauguin died of syphillis. WHAT??? Yer kiiiiddiiiing! I'd've thought him more likely to have been hit by an Acme piano dropped from a great height by Wile E. Coyote.

But here's Derek & Clive putting it far more eloquently than I ever could. (Phooey to the purists who point out that this is actually a Pete 'n' Dud routine.)

Admission: Adult £13.50.
Runs until 16 Jan. Sun-Thu 10.00-18.00. Fri & Sat 10.00-22.00. Closed 24-26 Dec.
Telephone: 020 7887 8888.

Anti-cuts demo: Harpy Marx has pix

Harpy Marx has a great set of pix of today's anti-cuts protest in London at her website, including this rather fetching portrait of the proletariat's finest.

I like a man in uniform. Actually, I don't. But I'll make an exception for these chaps. You can come and rescue my cat stuck up a tree any time. (Be still my beating heart.)

Anti-cuts demo: Harpy Marx has pix

Harpy Marx has a great set of pix of today's anti-cuts protest in London at her website, including this rather fetching portrait of the proletariat's finest.

I like a man in uniform. Actually, I don't. But I'll make an exception for these chaps. You can come and rescue my cat stuck up a tree any time. (Be still my beating heart.)

Dr Patrick Nolan defends bankers: Orwell Prize launch

I offer in evidence of the depraved mindset of the managerial class imposing the Tory cuts this video from the Orwell Prize launch debate (Thursday 21st Oct 2011) on Poverty and the Spending Review.

The charmless Dr Patrick Nolan argues that the bankers are innocent while the plebs who sneak smokes back across the channel and small businesses who work the system are to blame.

Tumbrils. Now.

More on Dr Patrick Nolan here

Video 3 of Nolan's original speech here.

Harpy Marx's comments from the floor, followed by Penny Red, in video 8 here