Creativity and Commerciality

And so we return to normal space. To a planet ostensibly azure and green that we call home. Only to realise it's still in a fucking mess. The plague hasn't gone away, it, like the society infected, has mutated. Problem is no one discusses the social mutation where now we are compelled to life as normal. That's impossible, we can't ignore that, from 'Freedom Day' to the end of 2021 another 25,000 or so people, in the UK alone (possible even just England) will die to Covid. That's excess mortality; deaths from a single cause alone. If that's normal you're either a Tory or you're not paying attention.

Meanwhile I have spent the last 9 months working on my music. Taking an opportunity afforded by this nightmare. Perhaps a once in a lifetime (perhaps already too late) chance to create something. In my opinion a life lived devoid of creativity isn't satisfying to me; you may be different and that's ok. 

The fruits of my labour have led to the creation of an actual album. A piece of work uploaded to Bandcamp linked below. You are invited to listen, what you do afterwards is for you to decide along with my thanks. 

But as I present to the world the first of what I hope will be many expressions, I must accept we live in a society that simply doesn't support creativity. All this, for whatever it may be worth, is on me; it is my work to own alone. My effort and the resulting quality, pr perhaps lack thereof, is down to me. I do not think it is too bad, but I do not own a vast recording studio nor a graphic design team to shroud it in acceptable presentation. Something that I'm sure works against me, however that's just how it is. We all have to start somewhere.

It is sad though; I'm one of probably thousands in this country alone. All of us doing the same thing, hoping to find favour with the greater community, eager to sell our work (to be crass) in order to survive and continue the work. We don't live in an age of artistic patronage. In fact we don't live in much of an artistic world at all, which is sad. It's not a lack of artistry or artists, it's a lack of systemic support. We have the tools, we have the technology, so why not provide services to people to share and, more importantly, to build communities of mutual support. That is what I lack: I am not part of a wider artistic community that can amplify our output. I do not have social worth; I lack the credentials to capitalise on. I don't' have a brand nor a name. All I can do is spam my work across forums and hope that, in doing so, I don't piss people off but win them over. It's an unfortunate world that capitalism has forged. All one can do is try.

Ka Bollocks

Somewhere sitting on a beach while the country you're meant to be looking after goes to shit. 

That could just as easily apply to Britain, under this government, as it could to the unfolding nightmare in Afghanistan. Subjected to two decades of imperialism it has not moved on at all. The only thing that has improved are the profits of the capitalists that have plundered that country, in the name of blood and treasure. Warhawks profit once again. 

Returning from his no doubt well earned holiday, Raab enjoys a joke in Parliament while ministers pretend to care. Of course it's a pretence; it's just a talking shop. No one says anything of worth, except as an emotional toilet. No policy will be made. Once again Parliament proves its worth. While people die or drown, as they inevitably will left to get to here, where they foolishly believed they would be helped in turn, our government does nothing. Except to turn right. 

The sad spectacle of crocodile tear shedding ministers alongside the ludicrously out of touch lunatics that comprise the modern Tory party is equal parts farce and tragedy. Ben Wallace crying his fat faced heart out on breakfast TV. If he genuinely cared about the less fortunate he wouldn't be a defence secretary for a party that has spent a decade smashing its own people. 

I don't wish to play divide and rule, and that is not my purpose, but it is surely true that, if the Tories can't help the people that recently voted for them in astonishing numbers, they aren't going to care about refugees. They've just spent the Summer raising the temperature against them; contributing to the background noise that leads to not just racism in the terraces, but stochastic terror in Plymouth. None of these awful things just happen. So I'll take no moral guidance from ex soldiers whose tears are only motivated by the warped values inculcated into them by the military; itself a highly partisan tool of the ruling class (remember when squaddies were caught using Corbyn's photo on a dartboard? That's the tip of the iceberg).

And note that the pigs all crowded into Parliament, barely a mask to a man. Meanwhile the pandemic hasn't gone away. We may have, through sheer luck, avoided the worst of the predictions, but the virus is spreading. Cases are orders of magnitude above what they were last year, just before it went to shit for the second time. We aren't even at that stage yet, with kids yet to fully return to school.

We remain a miserable small minded island, at least from the top down. There are many who care, just look at the heartening response to racist Farage's repugnant fearmongering about the RNLI. Yet he's at it again, fearmongering and lying about Afghan refugees. That's what we appear to be now: a country of those who bully the least in society. All while lying to parliament, knowing they can get away with anything. Incompetent as fuck.

I hate them all.

Freedom Dazed

So freedom day came and went. We haven't descended into the next circle of pandemic hell. Or have we? I'm not convinced the numbers are even accurate anymore. I'm not a conspiracy peddler, we know the government has form on manipulating data. Not least of all because last year it massaged its PPE figures by saying a pair of gloves, for example, was two sets of gear when, clearly, that's twisting the truth.

How can it be that, following a weekend where cases rose to 54 thousand a day, the subsequent week sees such a dramatic drop, that, by the next weekend, it's half that? Cases have then been hovering around that figure up to this day. Does the virus just stop now that everyone can go clubbing? There must be something else in play. After all we know the government is motivated to get everyone 'back in the office' rather than uphold sensible restrictions. They are after all a cabinet of cranks let loose by Brexit.

It could simply be that we are not testing enough, although I'm not entirely sure that's true. There is some question as to whether people are reporting covid properly. The symptoms are more emblematic of a cold if you're vaccinated so it's possible that a higher rate of infections is being shrugged off as something else. That isn't good, it means the virus is still spreading and present in communities. It doesn't matter if you're vaccinated because we want it to stop spreading, that's why we want herd immunity, but we certainly haven't reached that over the last couple of weeks. We'll be lucky to have reached 60% of the whole population.

Certainly it is a combination of these, and possibly other, factors. Again this comes back to the prevailing ideology, driven by the Tories: end furlough, business as usual. Why else are they trying to reframe the pandemic as a 'pingdemic'. Another stupid phrase designed to trivialise a dangerous situation that has led to many deaths. They don't care after all. If people switch off the app then the app can't tell them they are infected. If they ignore actual covid in favour of something more mundane then they won't get tested. But they can still be spreading the virus. 

We are in the twilight zone. I can't see how this situation is ever going to improve. The government aren't minded to institute public health measures if they can see 'acceptable' figures while everything is open. That is the acceptable collateral damage capitalism allows, just the same as structural unemployment is acceptable under capitalism because a reserve army of labour (i.e. the unemployed) is a price worth paying to keep wages low. Forced competition, never mind the human cost.

The uncertainty all this has caused is one of the most pernicious aspects of this entire debacle. yet throughout the Tories will continue to wage their stupid culture war. How many more kids will Boris force upon the latest of his brood mares? How many more kids will Patel deny because refugees are to be scorned and hated? I'm tired of the endless gaslighting.

Freedom Days 2

It is punishingly hot right here. I have a sofa dangerously close to solar orbit while he fabric tag tells me the wrong sort of information. I may become a statistic of heatwave, a puddle in the age of covid.

Do we really believe our esteemed leaders are self isolating. Only Darth Johnson could be so bold. Or so stupid as to advertise the insanity of his recklessness by risking he disease. His health minister proclaimed lifting restrictions would be good for the nations's health while proceeding to catch the virus, despite being vaccinated. Absolutely the worst possible way to start this period. So everyone else went clubbing. 

The disturbing aspect to all this is that he is enacting the herd immunity policy right wing crank tanks and dark moneymen have been pushing since day one. All in the name of profit. These people have clearly been part of the government thinking process for a long time. Now they have their way and capitalism is actively killing us. hey want an end to the so called pingdemic. Behind that cute piece of propaganda is the truth: out of sight, app of mind. If you can't get pinged then you must be ok for work. It is a terrible metaphor for the Work Capability Assessment: ignore the condition the person claims to have, in the name of highlighting what they apparently can do, and they don't get he benefit and are left to struggle. 

Same people, same ideology. They are not just class enemies, they will see any of us dead in the name of this herd immunity ideology. They claim this is a bitter pill best swallowed sooner rather than later. But they ignore all the mitigation that could be employed between now and later, such as completing the vaccine rollout. Now there is less of an incentive to get jabbed - you can go partying anyway. The truth is this period is really just the pre-lockdown period. We will achieve nothing as a result because, at 100,000 cases a day (a figure no one is now contesting, including the government), they will have to be another lockdown and so backwards we go.

Freedom Days 1

Oh, hello January, is that you again? I just had the weirdest dream. That it was July, six months in the future and in the middle of a heatwave. Our government had decided, against all reason and science, to abandon every restriction and plunge us all into herd immunity. Yes, s nightmares go it was pretty terrifying. What had happened was that a few months from now there was a massive outbreak in crowd urban India which bred aa variant that become known as Delta. This replaced the existing variant which become known as Alpha. 

Hang on, what day is it? 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yes.

The fools went and did the thing. It is now July the 19th, otherwise known as Freedom Day, because everyone likes to be freed from critical thinking and evidence. The date historians will come to remember as Fuck Up Day. It began well enough: midnight Monday morning and everyone piled into the nightclubs freshly able to open at the earliest possible opportunity.

Reason lost, folks. This isn't a triumph for anyone except the crank contingent of the Tory party. The ERG Brexit headbangers who drove Johnson, willingly of course, to kick the moderate voices out, whom we might well have needed (assuming they have any spine). This awful trajectory, beginning in 2016, has driven out common sense, maginalised the countryin the name oof xenophobia, and led to the repealing of essential restrictions at a time when ar re needed most. Now we have to hope people engage in what is risibly an patronisingly called personal responsibility.

The problem is that those making this argument are using personal responsibility as a stalking horse. There is no choice to be made in the wake of a pandemic any more than there is at a crossroads with traffic lights. Sure you could choose to ignore the lights and risk a major collision, but that's a fool's choice. If you need to choose to do the right thing then you are making the case for the oversight needed to keep society going. 

Really that is a childish argument. It is made by emotionally incompetent people who cry because their privilege is being threatened by circumstances. Welcome to the world, you aren't as special as you believed. You're just like the rest of us: vulnerable to the plague. Now these clowns are arguing to switch off their test and trace apps because the pinging is disruptive. Can't think why, as cases rage, it might be triggering so much. 

This is where we are. Six months from a somewhat recalcitrant PM contritely telling us that this time things will be different. That he'll listen tot he data and not be driven by dates. That there willbe only one direction of travel out of the pandemic. That lasted long. Now, as them, people's efforts and sacrifices are squandered, all to appease the most virulent element of the Tory party. The adult children who demand staff wear masks but scoff at the need (they voted for) to do likewise themselves. They are driving us all off a cliff because they are immature spoilt children.

Welcome to Freedom Day.

Our Government Is Trying To Kill Us! Send Help! Lawyers Guns and Money!

It's a thing!

They know what's happening. They just don't believe what's happening. Johnson isn't making the decisions because he doesn't do details. Let the bodies pile high isn't the claim - and I well believe he said it, that's his pathology - of someone who cares. He is an arrogant oaf; a deadly product of our class system. Born to privilege with the arrogance of exceptionalism. Ironically informed by his surviving infection. He wants power, he doesn't care how nor for any responsibility that comes with it.

Enter Sunak. Last year he invited covid cranks into the heart of government. Now Javid is on board as the new health secretary. Both neoliberals happy to push a failed economic notion at the expense of our lives. Javid is happy to tell us we might summer temperatures of 100,000 daily infections. He doesn't care because he believes the vaccine has done the job, now let time mop up the rest. This is false; the connection between infection and death has been weakened, yes. It has not been cut. Nadim Zahawi was forced to, crushingly, admit this on Sky News. Did it make a difference? Nope.

Yesterday's press conference was a dismal failure of covid capitulation and confusion. We now have the ridiculous spectacle of government ministers themselves saying they won't wear masks (Jenrick) while advising the rest of us do. This is criminally reckless and it's designed to let them wash their hands of it when it all goes wrong. They know people won't obey good sense. Along with the ending of restrictions, such as opening up nightclubs, it will be a free for all. That's all it takes. It doesn't matter if the majority do the right thing because covid is a phenomenon of super spreaders; individual instances that birth clusters of spreading infection. Delta is transmissible enough to make that a serious problem.

A fact that has left scientists incredulous, to the point where impromtu public meetings (via the interweb) have been called. Throughout the speakers have been scathing, Richard Horton (editor of the Lancet) in particular. Hundreds have signed a letter, one that will no doubt be filed under B for Bin. They try, it falls on deaf ears. We are in for what even the government recognises will be a difficult Summer. It could see the return of lockdown measures, almost certain if cases do indeed skyrocket as high as even the Tories predict. They just don't care to do anything about it. 

If nothing else there is a perfect storm brewing. With Covid at the heart there is still the madness of Brexit. Food shortages are a reality, supply chains are threatened. Sure I can do without Broccoli one week or Cauliflower the next. But I am regularly seeing empty stocks where there weren't any before. This is a problem without solution because, again, the Tories don't want one. 

On top of that the football has exposed the hypocrisy of the Tories. People now see their grandstanding as exacerbating bullshit. Performative nonsense by a home secretary happy to condemn racism after being happy to tolerate the conditions within which it grew. The bastard child of Tory ideology is coming home to roost. Reap the whirlwind and get gone Boris.

So Matt Happened

So that happened, Matt happened. An image forever seared into our minds, scan lines scarring our collective cortices like a video nasty. The arse grab that cost a career. Only it's not really a career; as it stands he remains an MP. That's his real job. The cabinet position is just that: a position. Sure they all aspire to it given the prestige power and pay packet, but the real decisions are made by the civil service. Sometimes they get made by the minister, but only if his ego demands that experts kowtow. Oh dear.

So where's the failure? Where's the ownership of responsibility? He done a wrong thing and, all the Tories interviewed thus far say, "Matt's apologised for it". They try and brush it off by making him look almost like the victim (not two, now broken, families). That's what this government does; it wrecks lives without consequence. He's notched up 128 thousand others so what's one more eh?

All we have to show for it is the putty faced visage of an arse grabbing sleazebag. Thanks to our friend, Rupert Murdoch. Who knows if there was some secret agenda, maybe the government distancing itself from an increasingly toxic health secretary wanting to purify its reputation in the font of vaccine success. 

To be replaced by a banker. A money man. That position was no accident. He will know the value of the NHS, in it's brightest hour, to sell to the private secretary as the Tories have always intended, and have spent the last decade accomplishing. Make no mistake, once the crisis is over there will be only crocodile tears. Why give people you intend to sacrifice a pay rise? If the Tories relent to a better deal ift will only be vanity. It's our fight to lose.