Birthdays and the Battle of Cable Street

It was J's birthday yesterday, i'd like to say that she is catching me up in the age stakes but until I develop a time machine it aint happening. Damn you all and the laws of physics.

Anyhows, J is bearing up under the ageing process and seems resigned to having to put up with me for the rest of life - apparently they were tears/sobs of joy. Her birthday celebration/present comes this weekend and will invlove a gallop anlong the beach.

What I hadn't realised was that J shared her birthday with the 70th anniversary of the
Battle of Cable Street. This is when a coalition of Jewish, Irish and Socialists battled the police to prevent a march of the British Union of Facists through the East End of London.

While this has always been one of the iconic moments within leftist and liberal groups it has made almost no impact within main stream society. This year seems a bit different. 70 apears to be when a contentious contemporary events become historical. As such they can be handled through the 'heritage' perspective. Main stream society can now review the events with most of the political sting removed.

I'm just hoping that i don't have to wait that long until J has the perspective about me not getting her a card for her birthday morning.

Children of Men

When I hear good things about a film I'm always wary about going to see it. Too often I'm disappointed. With Children of Men its a different story. I'd like to sit here and rave about how great it was and to give you a blow by blow critic of the fim in a effort to make you go and see, but I can't.

Anything I wrote would not do this film justice. It was fantastic. Imagine somwhere between the beach scene in Private Ryan, the camera work of 28 Days Later and the most potent images from the News for the past 6 years. Condense that into 109 mins with a simple story line with very understated acting and you have Children of Men.

You should see this film.

This week I have mainly been listening to..

This week I dug deep and went really retro. Plus I have a confession to make, I like(d) progressive rock. It's true under this facist exterior I'm just an unwashed hippy.

Genesis - Live Apparently a highly rated live album but I now find it niave and a bit schoolboyish. I much prefer Seconds Out as a live album. Still a great dose of stupidity and storytelling for the journey to work. I mean a song about how Gaint Hogweed is taking over the world, it can't get much better.

Led Zepplin - don't think it has a title but its number 4 and the one with the peasent on the front I never really got in to Led Zepplin as a kid but found it much later. The thing is that even though I never knowingly went out to here it when I finally did all the songs were familiar. How many times since has the When the Levee Breaks been sampled or just plain ripped off. Stairway to Heaven I can never make my mind up about this, classic rock or pompous parody?

Near where I live there is a town called Hebden Bridge. Its very hilly and wooded and in the 70's a lot of hippies moved there. This album always reminds me of it, and i'm guessing there is some one in Hebden Bridge still stuck on an acid trip and still in the 70's. But it does get you going in the morning.

New Model Army - History Ah the 80's, a decade that produced some real crap and some fantastic music. NMA come in the later catagory. Music with a political edge (so much so that America refused them entry to tour). This is a best of album and has some cracking songs on it. No Rest, a song that I had in an EP in the days of vinyl along with Herion (not on this CD) and I think I eventually wore it out. Plus the Green and The Grey. A band that, along with the levellers, plugged into a resurgent English Radiaclism of the 80's which is so lacking now.

JJ Cale - The Very Best Of J.J. Cale The man who taught me not to hate country music quite so much. A guitar player and favourite of Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton etc who was bought up where Counrty music and Blues are more than kissing cousins. I got into him through such tracks as Cocaine, Cajun Moon, Magnolia, After Midnight. I don't no why but it always makes me happy hearing his more blues side and I'm stunned by the fact that so few people have heard of him.

Diving at last

Well I finaly got wet. After many weeks of badgering, missed chances and cancelled trips I finally got to do some training dives. I guess it comes as no suprise that diving in a dry suit in northern european waters is completly different to a wet suit in the Caribbean.

So I rather sensibly joined the local British Sub Aqua Club (BSAC) and am currently undergoing training. I've already done the theory and the pool work. All that is left is the open water and it has been this which I've been trying to arrange for the past month or so. This weekend it finally happened.

Suit hired and picked up all I had to do was meet every one at a ridiculous, for me, time of the morning. I arrive at the appointed time but no one shows. I start to think that its all going the way of the pear again. I leave messages on the phone of the organiser telling where I am. 10 Minutes past the alloted time and just as start looking though my phone for people to ring and harass I get a call from unrecognised number. After a confusing discusion it becomes apparent that we have all been sat 50 yards apart seperated by a motorway for 20 minutes.

Ahem, anyway so we set of for Capernwray for my first experience of diving in a disused quarry and diving in a dry suit. Capernwray is basically a large flooded hole in the ground that by the looks of it is making money hand over fist. It was packed beyound belief, and I was told that wasn't busy. The facilities were actually good, now if only they put the same thought into their web site, but as it was a sunny day we (and every one else) changed in the carpark.

What this tells me about the state of British health is that we are a nation of fatties. Neoprene doesn't flatter or hide the bulges.

The Dives

My first dive did not go according to plan. The place was so cowded and I was struggling to get to grips with the dry suit that it all went wrong. The idea was to just spend 20-25 minuets going as far as possible and the only skill to worry about was buoyancy using the dry suit. Instead with people above me, below me and the bloody fish (3 foot long trout who took the piss out the novice divers like me) it was like swiming in soup. What with the bloom and everyone piling in the visibilty also dropped down to about 4 meters.

Stuggling to cope with all this my buoyancy was all over the show and as a result I was up and down like a yo yo. This eventually began to have an effect on my ears so I called a halt and abandoned the dive 15 minuets in.

The second dive went much better. I used the jacket for buoyancy instead of the suit and this worked so much better. This time we got as far as Lord Lucan and Shergar (two fair ground horses from blackpool that were sunk there) and the Dreamer (a boat sunk at teh far end of the training area).

The only down side was that becuase I was still worried about my ear I refused to do the mask clear (you have to let your mask fill with water and and then clear it followed by completly taking your mask off and putting it back on, and then clearing it). It was my first time wearing a hood as well so i wasn't that comftable with the whole mask thing.

URL's and all that comes with it...

The sharped eyed amongst you may have noticed I have placed a link to Dan's All That Comes With It. An interesting blog of a man and his new family (and I say that as a man who would gladly be refused a license to keep a goldfish, let alone children).

One thing I did pick up from his blog was this snippet of information he found when he was searching for a URL for his blog. He looked at www.holmfirth.com. Something you need to know about Holmfirth is that it's a tourist village and home to a television show called the last of the summer wine. If you don't know it it is the sleepest, quaintest and less offensive television show you could imagine. Its aimed at the grave dodgers within our community and the village has the appropriate image.

What he found was the following web site www.holmfirth.com. As Dan explains here.

Do I really want to do this?

I'm off diving tomorrow. Which is no problem but I have recently been reading the CDNN scuba diving news site. This site has started to worry me becuase all i keep reading is about diving accidents and deaths.

And then to top it all there is this news story;Shark 1, shark molesting scuba idiot 0. Put simply its about a diver, Dave Marcel, who attempted sexual relations with a shark and the shark wasn't keen.

Not sure about this any more.

This week I 'ave mainly been listening too...

My journey to work takes about an hour. My journey home takes about an hour. Usually I listen to the news on the way in and the news on the way out. I started to think this may not be good for me. I arrived at work already in a rabbid mood willing to lay waste to the hordes of lying two faced b'stds who so obviously surrounded me - not a positive attitude for work (primarily because there are hordes of lying two faced b'stds who I have to work with). I'd also arrive home full of impotent rage and ready to lead the revolution against the sea of oppressors, which trust me doesn't contribute to a contented home life - how Mr and Mrs Lenin ever got on I'll never know.

What I also noticed was that of late I have spent less time listening to music. So this week I have tried to change my habits. I have raided my CD collection and reacquainted my self with some music to soothe the beast within. So this week I 'ave mainly been listening to...

Rodrigo y Gabriel If anything is going to put you in a good mood this will be it. Don't be put off by the web site. Listen first and judge second.
Tricky - Maxinquaye acquired this by accident's from a friend and it really does chill you before work, really must thank him one day. Cheers Mark. There you go my good deed done.
Gil Scott Heron - Ghetto Style Ok this is a damn good cool mix of blues, jazz and poetry with a political edge. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is one of the greatest songs ever written and is sooooo relevant today
The Clash - London Calling What can I say; London Calling, Spanish Bombs, The Guns of Brixton, Death or Glory and I'm Not Down

Has it made me any more relaxed, not really. This could, however, be more due to the fact that I have just sat in waiting for a builder to turn up to do some work on my roof. To do this I cancelled a diving trip and he hasn't turned up - relaxed? Not so you'd notice.

Muslims Outraged

Not being a muslim I have noticed that in a 24 hour news world they seem to get upset rather alot by people talking bollocks. For a solution see my previous post on the pope. If in doubt apply it to any religion it seems to work.

Pope Talks Bollocks Shocker

Being bought up a catholic I can testify to the fact that popes have a tendency to talk bollocks, its not news. The trick is to ignore it. If you don't it only encorages them.

Labour Party Commits Suicide

There are moments in history where the fundamental coalitions underpining the political structure change. The founding of the Labour Party was one such time. Formed at the turn of the 20th century as the political arm of the Trade Union movement. It's purpose was to represent the workers in the political process. It was so sucessful that after world war one it replaced the Liberals as the party of radical reform. It has always been a party of the left and was always an uneasy alliance between socialists and social democrats.

For me growing up under Margret Thatcher it was my natural home. It opposed the blind self intrested money grabing and damn every one else capitalist approch that seemed to typifiy the Tories. On one day in May 1997 I remember that election day was like being libertated from 18 years of oppression, I was still up for Portillio and enjoyed every moment of it. Ever since then though i have been increasingly saddened to see the Labour Party that I was once proud to be an activist in move further and further right. Afraid of going back to those 18 years of tory rule the Parliamentry party was silent and compliant.

I want rid of Tony Blair but what the party are doing now is madness. Blair's arrogance in not seeing that people regard him as a liability combined with Brown's duplicity is an appaling spectical.

This can't go on. If Blair tries to stay it will rip the party apart. If a serious challenger to Brown isn't found it will rip the party apart. There are moments in history where the fundamental coalitions underpining the political structure change. I think this is such a time.

Labour Leadership Crisis

David Byrnes Journal

Just added another blog on the left, well its sort of a blog come normal website. Its one that I have been reading a bit recently. I've often found that as you get older and you find out more about famous people you admired in your youth its a bit like finding out santa claus dosent really exist. You kind of expect people to have views that you think as just plain obvious. Or someone who was cool just turns out to be a prick with an ego. Its refreshing when it happens the other way around.

Talking Heads fantastic band, and Pyscho Killer is still a great song. David Byrne took my music experience into areas that I wouldn't have gone on my own so its really cool to discover he really is a cool bloke.

Journal David Byrne

The Strange Weariness of Insomnia

For years I have suffered from the occasional bouts of insomnia. When I was a younger, and say when I was a student for example, it wasnt a problem but as the years start to drain my abilities to recovery and responsibility imposes a stricter time table its become a real bitch.

I have recently started a concerted effort to get fit. Going running twice a week, well I say running its more of chaotic shambling procession over a stated distance at a slightly faster pace than walking followed by much asthmatic wheezing. On top of this there is the all too infrequent riding (really must do more), diving (if the BSAC Club get there act into gear that is) and a few other things - Oh and i've probably eaten more veggies in the last year than in all my previous years on the planet. It's also coming up to 3 years of no smoking. Plus, recently I have cut sugar out from my diet and caffine has been cut down to one mug a day (thats one mug of coffee with caffine not one mug of pure caffine).

So by rights i should be healthier than ever and less prone to things like insomnia. So what the *&^%ing hell was going on last night. Got tired, went to bed......still awake so I got up. Browsed the net, went back to bed, got up read half a book on how to script CSS files, browsed the net, cursed the birds for waking up and finally went to bed.

End result, knackered. Sunday has been a wash out. At 3.30 am this morning I felt I had the energy to reorganise my entire life, open a business and put the world to rights. Today I have less energy than Enron.

Insomnia sucks bigger and more efficently than a dyson:(