The Soundtrack to 2012

No, not the God awful film or the amusing BBC Olympics based comedy series. Just the year, or, more specifically, my year. And it’s been a bit of a year. During this year I have moved cities, completed an MA, graduated, rediscovered the joys of being dole scum, finally settled on a career, celebrated my two year anniversary (I know! A proper adult relationship! How exciting!), bought a hamster, discovered a snazzy new way of doing my eyeliner and started (then re-started) blogging. I also get hangovers now. That is really, really not cool.

But, as always, these events were accompanied by a soundtrack. So, friends, I give you the Tunes of 2012.

Lana Del Ray-Born To Die

I gave the rest of her stuff a chance, I really did, but I found it rather dull. Sorry Lana. Still, this song is stunning. I first heard it, in true angsty dramatic style, in a sandwich shop the day I got told they wouldn’t be putting me forward for funding for the PhD I’d been building my life around taking. I then looked it up, decided I liked it, downloaded it and listened to it constantly for the next month. Perhaps Ms Del Ray was just playing on my vulnerable state but any song that gets an emotional reaction is good on some level. But it does have some truly terrible lyrics (keep making me laugh/let’s go get high). So, I will defend Born to Die to the hills. Or at least the sign saying five miles to the hills. I think it’s a good song, and I’m not the only one, but I’m also aware there this may be a time-and-a-placer.

Florence and the Machine-Shake It Out

In all honesty I did first acquire this album in 2011, but it still counts because it was a bit of a presence from about the beginning of December until the end of March. I’m not going to whack the whole album on here because that really is cheating, although there could be arguments made for about eight of its twelve tracks going on this list. But this one wins by a nose. It was a bit of a companion when things weren’t really hunky dory but, unlike Born to Die, this song is actually pretty inspiring. It seemed to be speaking directly to me in the wanky way music does when you’re feeling a little tearful. And Flo is ace. I was a bit resistant to her when she first came out for reasons too complex and insecure to go into here, but now I unashamedly love her. Yes, I <3 Flo. And the world should know that. 

White Lies-Death

2011 belonged to White Lies. More specifically the song Bigger Than Us. That song is still the most played on my iPod. They beat the Cure. The Cure! Unheard of. So, as 2012 wheeled round I decided to check out their first album. It’s good. It’s better than good. It’s magnificent. It’s also more self-involved and whiny than their second so I really fucking love it. White Lies need to be on this list and I picked this song to represent them because of this line; That’s why everything’s gotta be love or death. If there was a phrase that represented everything I think music should be, it’s that.

Fredrik-Chrome Cavities

Yeah, before anyone mentions it, I did hear this song on the Kopparberg advert but that doesn’t change how mind-bendingly brilliant this, or the how the rest of the album it came from, is. The whole thing is like being plunged into a swirling pool of weird sounds and haunting vocals. It also does that fantastic thing of working as a whole album while having a handful of damn good tracks on it. And it’s so eerie. More music should be eerie. Never let it be said that alcohol didn’t enrich my life.

Jesca Hoop-Born To

I defy anyone to listen to this song and it not raise both your heart rate and the little hairs on the back of your neck. Currently there is a rather disappointing trend where indie female singers need to be all twee and childlike. Jesca bucks this trend gloriously. There’s a subtle strength there that doesn’t result in overt aggression, although you still get the feeling she’d be scrappy in a bar fight. And she doesn’t feel the need to name drop hipster bullshit or tell us how much she likes comics or write songs about fucking cupcakes. So she’s a complete hero of mine. I’m also going to mention another song from the same album, Hospital (Win Your Love), which is about someone injuring themselves so they can get their love interests attention. Who knew passive aggression could be so brilliant?

The Temper Trap-Sweet Disposition

This song is older than 2012, but I didn’t hear it until this year. I can’t really defend it. It’s good, but not ground breaking, I just really, really liked it and listened to it about seventy four times in three days. It might have something to do with the film 500 Days of Summer but I cannot confirm or deny this.

Public Service Broadcasting-London Can Take It

A complex little project combining a truly great bass part with visuals and audio recorded during the Blitz in London. American journalist Quentin Reynolds released a film in 1941 called ‘London Can Take It’ (do you see what they did there?) and all the samples and footage used in this track are taken from it. Reynolds’ original film is on YouTube. It is worth a watch, and not just if you’re a twentieth century history geek like me.

Bat for Lashes-Laura

If, on hearing this song, it doesn’t make you cry you have a heart of stone. The most original but also one of the most simple songs I’ve heard for ages.

The National-Slow Show

The National are one of those bands who I was made aware of quite late so I started with their most recent album and worked my way back. The album this track is from (‘Boxer’) is now firmly my favourite. There’s a gorgeous cinematic quality to it that is best experienced walking along Newcastle Quayside at sunrise with the haunting coda kicking in.

Blaqk Audio-Cold War

This song is genius. Not because it’s a brilliant piece of musicianship (it’s not even the best song Blaqk Audio have done, and certainly not the best of Davey Havok’s lyrics) but because it’s basically someone having a hissy fit. I’m not going to give too much away to encourage you to go listen to it yourself. It has to be heard to be believed. And it’s only 2 ½ minutes long (although I don’t think I could have stood much longer to be honest).

Of Monsters and Men-King and Lionheart

There’s not a weak track on this album (‘My Head is an Animal’) and they’re all great pieces of storytelling. Each one is like a little saga. To be honest it was between this and Dirty Paws but I plumped for this one because it manages to say that you’ll be there for and protect someone without sounding either like an overbearing control freak or getting too soppy.

30 Seconds to Mars-Closer to the Edge

Shut up. This song is amazing to dance to when you’re pissed. I don’t care what you think. Don’t judge me. Shut up.

The Charming Face of Homophobia and Heteronormativity

David Davies has said some pretty eyebrow raising things recently. He claimed that ‘most parents would prefer their children to be not be gay’ (which was then replied to by several witty individuals that the truth was most people would rather their children were gay than a Tory MP. I know my parents certainly would). Following this he decided to do an interview with the Guardian, presumable to set the record straight. Said article was published yesterday and, as I sat with my Bailey’s coffee preparing for a good old knees up with the in laws, I read it. I was left almost speechless at how someone can seem to be completely unaware of how offensive they were being.

Davies spent the majority of the interview (as was described by Decca Aitkenhead) squirming, looking flustered and apologetic and muttering that it really wasn’t his intention to cause offensive. He bleated that he didn’t understand this world, it was different and confusing to the one he’d grown up in and, really, he was just an endearingly bumbling fool who meant no harm. Kind of like a Welsh Boris Johnson, and, just like the original BoJo, despite his attempts at a cuddly image, so much of what he said wound me up.

I’m left with two possibilities. Either Davies is genuinely that clueless, in which case I will be kindly pointing out to him that the flimsy excuses he’s been hiding behind do not stop his views being extremely troubling and damaging for many people, or he is using it to try and dig himself out of the hole those comments dropped him in.

So, please allow me to take a systematic look at the things Davies got wrong.

"But I suppose, at a certain level, I see heterosexual sex as being – and it's probably the wrong word to use – but the norm. I think it's reasonable to say that the vast majority of people are not gay[….]I just worry if children are going to be taught that [heterosexuality] isn't necessarily the norm, and that you can carry on doing all sorts of other things, are we going to have a situation where the teacher's saying, 'Right, this is straight sex, this is gay sex, feel free to choose, it's perfectly normal to want to do both. And you know, why not try both out?' I mean, are we going to have that?”

This is the attitude that makes young non-heterosexual people feel scared, lonely and ostracized; the idea, still rampant in our society, that heterosexual sex is ‘the norm’. Also, I have never understood why there is any cause for concern over discussing homosexual sex. If a young person is not attracted to the same sex no amount of discussion of homosexual sex will alter that. There’s also an argument to be made that young people should be encouraged to explore their sexuality safely and in an informed way.

The sentence ‘right, this is straight sex, this is gay sex, feel free to choose, it’s perfectly normal to do both’ sounds like a fantastic way to approach sex education. If sex education covers pleasure and intimacy as part of sex it can quite easily then go on to discuss lesbian and gay sexual acts and relationships. For young gay and bisexual kids struggling with their sexuality such frank discussions could be a tremendous comfort.

Davies, however, doesn’t think that changing sex education like this would necessarily be a good idea. He cites the example of a friend he knew at school who came out as gay at 16 but, when Davies met up with him aged 20, he had settled down with a woman. Based on this one anecdote Davies seems to have been put off the idea that young people should be able to experiment and try things to see what works for them. Aitkenhead points out, as noted above, that if young people have no same sex desire sex education is unlikely to change that. Davies mumbles about worries concerning how much detail will be gone into, and when Aitkenhead explains that no amount of discussion of lesbian sex would have turned her younger self into a lesbian he decides ‘it’s different for girls’. On to the next bit of problematic drivel;

"But you're a lady, you're a woman, so you wouldn't have felt quite the same way. I mean, at school the girls all went out and bought Erasure without any issue." He's being perfectly serious. But what about the lesbians in my class – what would have helped them? "Oh, I don't know what they went out and bought." No, I mean what about them feeling confused and excluded? "I wish there was some way round this that meant they didn't feel excluded, I really do."

Somehow women are not just different to men but they don’t need to be shown the same level of concern. The flippancy of how he discusses these young women in comparison to the young men mentioned above is very telling. If I was being paranoid it would say this might be because gay men are far more visible than bisexual people and lesbians and so a clueless twit like Davies will not have given them much thought. If I was being more generous I would probably suggest that Davies simply hasn’t given it much thought because he rarely seems to give any thought to anything. In all honesty I’m inclined to believe option one, but that is an issue to be addressed in another post.

The other problem with the above quote, which was touched upon earlier in the interview when Davies discussed the school friend, is that it seems to equate a non-heterosexual identity with liking Erasure (I know. What. The. Actual. Fuck). Not only is this a bit of a tired reliance on stereotypes it is massively reductive and extremely insulting. Who does this man think he is to reduce people he has already demonstrated he knows fuck all about to taste in music?

Then he wishes there was some way to avoid such young people feeling excluded. There is. It might even be something to do with the broader sex education he had just expressed his mistrust for.

Aitkenhead then asks him a hypothetical question. What if his worst fears materialized and a change in sex education led to more openly gay people? What would be the problem? The best Davies can offer is a vague sense of ‘unease’. He can’t really put it into words, he just doesn’t really like the idea of it. Basically he doesn’t know why, he just doesn’t really like gay people. That, my friends, can also be said as disliking gay people for no good reason and/or because they are gay. Otherwise known as homophobia. It doesn’t matter how much he whines that it is just ‘instinct’ it’s still homophobic. Maybe if we lived in a society that didn’t treat heterosexuality as the ‘norm’ and therefore everything else as ‘abnormal’ snivellingly thoughtless little shitbags like Davies would be made quite so nervous by those big bad gays.

Then he drops another clanger;

"I make no bones about it, I'm a product of my upbringing and of the time I was brought up, so I'm not going to pretend not to be. It's not like I was brought up in San Francisco or somewhere like that.”

Ah, that old chestnut. The ‘it’s all down to the place I’m from/the time I grew up’ argument. This is, quite frankly, the biggest, most irritating pile of apologist wank I’ve ever heard. Whenever someone blames their upbringing for their intolerant views it’s either laziness or looking for excuses. The same goes for the ‘generational’ argument. I cannot believe no one else is insulted at the suggestion that, because a person is raised in a strictly religious household, or South Wales, or the 1940s that they cannot listen to or critically assess new ideas and arguments. I would rather someone brought out the arguments against something that they had come to a considered conclusion over rather than just blaming their parents like sulky teenagers. It’s crap and generally offensive all round.

Do I think David Davies is a hate filled, miss informed, ranting homophobe? No, actually I don’t. I believe him when he says he doesn’t really know much about the debates surrounding gay marriage (although one then wonders why he spoke about it on BBC Wales). I think, sadly, that he is blinded by our heteronormative society and so bound by the ideas we are spoon fed that he really doesn’t have a fucking clue. But he needs to get one. Everyone does. No one, lesbian, gay, straight, bi, queer, asexual, pansexual, poly or other is benefitting from a situation where the rights of millions of people can be questioned due to a sense of unease.

But I also think he’s avoiding the issue by hiding behind a wall of (probably at least partially) fabricated confusion. This isn’t sweet. It’s worry for a politicians to be so utterly uninformed about something he pipes off opinions about. He needs to educate himself and anyone else who wants to weigh in on the debate needs to as well. There is no received wisdom here. Although it pains me to say it even Tories have braincells. They should learn how to use them.

Alec Shelbrooke; Remove Head From Sphincter, Then Suggest Policy

If you’ve been paying attention to our almighty Tory led government over the last couple of years you will no doubt have become aware that everyone on benefits is a lazy, cheating lay about who deserves nothing. As soon as they can find a way to placate those miss-guided liberals who maintain that people who rely on the welfare state have rights like anyone else, these spongers will be taken behind the chemical sheds and shot.

Well, it’s OK if that had slipped your notice because Alec Shelbrooke, MP for Elmet and Rothwell (depressingly near to me) has given us a reminder with a suggestion for a flagship policy in this hateful agenda. According to Shelbrooke people on certain benefits will be given their money on credit cards that prevent them from buying anything the government doesn’t think they should.

You’ve probably guessed where this is going. The two ‘big baddies’ of wasted welfare are mentioned. No fags and no booze for you naughty dole bunnies. You’re not allowed to gamble either. Or use ‘paid for TV channels’ (so…as I can’t find anything telling me specifically what that means, I’m assuming it’s anything that isn’t Freeview. I'm confidant that, if you're that way inclined, you will still manage to waste your life watching Freeview and fulfill another benefit recepient stereotype). As an aside I’m pretty sure if you’re locked into a contract with a company like Sky or Virgin they won’t look kindly on you cancelling it mid contract and will wallop you with fines, which you then won’t be able to pay because your only access to currency is a flimsy little plastic card that bars you from buying anything but pre-approved items.

One also can’t help but wonder how far they’d go with this. Will it be extended to banning you from buying anything but economy brand food? How about if you insist on shopping at Sainsburys? Will it frog march you down to Lidl to save the Treasury pennies? There’s also the assumption that the government (and Alec Shelbrooke in particular) know exactly what ‘essentials’ are. You might not starve to death if you don’t buy your child a birthday cake or present, but it seems unnecessarily cunty to deny them these little things because their parents had the audacity to lose their jobs.

Right, now I’ve done my nit picking we can move onto the moral objections. Chiefly among the moral objections is HOW FUCKING DARE HE?! What gives this trumped up Tory fuckwit the right to tell people how to live their lives? Treating people on benefits like idiots who don’t know what’s good for them is far more damaging than the odd snifter of booze or puff on a cigarette. It infantilises people and will only build up resentment for the government and the agencies that are trying to support them.

There is also the pretty insulting implication that people who are on benefits are utterly feckless and can’t handle being trusted with money. How would Alec Shelbrooke like it if they lost their job and, rather than being treated like a human being, they were treated like an incompetent fool that can’t be trusted not to drink themselves to death as soon as their given a lump sum in cash? Because that’s what this outrageous proposal will mean. This is the further dehumanisation and vilification of people on benefits. People who have done nothing wrong and need support. People who may be going through a very rough patch in their lives. Ideas like this, although not law, feed into misconceptions that blight the lives of millions of people. This will do no good at all.

Also has that arrogant thundercock ever considered that, when you’re at your lowest, you might need a few comforts to make you feel better? As us dole bunnies look like we’re about to lost the right to a pint down the pub with mates I suggest we be allowed to lynch clueless Tory MPs.

Tories Savage Worker's Rights

Well, April 2012 is looking like a right old corker of a month. Assuming the world doesn’t end on Friday and we all live to see it we can look forward to a complete arse up of the benefits system and now the possibility of eroding the rights of those who have been made redundant.

In a particularly stellar display of not-giving-a-fuck-about-95%-of-the-population the government has announced plans to halve the notice period of redundancy from 90 days to 45 days. It is hoped this will make it easier for businesses and workers, although how it’s meant to make it easier for workers is left unclear. As far as I can see this will allow businesses (or their administrators if things have got that bad) to cut workers adrift sooner. If the business in question is in administration then I can see the attraction of wanting to shift the responsibility for those pesky workers and their inconvenient wages off themselves as soon as possible. It is however a completely twattish thing to do.

The current ninety days gives people more time to sort things out. It may also give them more money and more time to figure out what to do with that money. The suggestion made that it would help people get into another job faster is laughable. If someone is being made redundant and a new job comes along they will still be able to leave after the agreed notice period regardless of whether that is ninety days or not. Although it does seem to have escaped the government’s notice that this country is not exactly brimming with jobs at the moment.

Another silly suggestion was that fixed term contracts will just be left to run their course. That's just daft. What happens if the company has gone under and will cease trading long before the decided end date? As well as being ridiculous thse plans also don't appear to be particuarly well thought through.

A cursory glance at the reporting seems to suggest that this is part of a drive to ‘cut red tape’. I’m starting to become extremely wary of this phrase. It seems to stand for ‘removing people and positions to save money’ and ‘stack things even more against working people by removing layers of access.’

The TUC have said this is part of an extended attack on worker’s rights. I’m inclined to agree with them. This is a clear example of the needs of business and money makers being put before those of ordinary working people. This is a symptom of capitalism at its absolute worst. The only people who will benefit from this are those overseeing companies in administration as they will be able to wash their hands of people caught up in the trauma of redundancy quicker.

Out of touch or simply don’t care? Arguments can be made for both.

Fox Hunting and the Nature of Charities

Yesterday a hunting group in Oxfordshire were fined after admitting to engaging in illegal fox hunting. Two members of the hunt were fined £2800 between them and ordered to pay another £5000 in costs. The Heythrop Hunt itself was fined a further £4000 and told to pay £15000 in costs. However despite these princely sums the case still cost the RSPCA a whopping £327000.

It was remarked upon by the magistrate that perhaps the money the RSPCA spent could have been put to better use. He hinted in a BBC news report last night that people who made donations to the charity maybe didn’t intend for their money to be spent on things like this.

That is, quite simply, bollocks.

Aside from the fact that these people BROKE THE LAW and there is footage of them BREAKING THE LAW and therefore it should have been a criminal prosecution and not left to a charity to bring these barbarians to trial that is not how charity works. There have been problems before of people earmarking the donations they made to charity and the charity having a lot of money but not being able to use it as it came with stipulations to be used for something else. This has caused unnecessary problems in Indonesia where money was given just to built orphanages. Anything else the communities needed was denied by do-gooding Westerners who thought they knew better. Almost the opposite happened in Japan after the recent tsunami. Being a developed and relatively wealthy nation Japan did not need all the aid donated to them, but because the money was given to help only victims of the tsunami it couldn't be given to any other causes. 

The arrogance of a person giving to charity to tell them what to spend the money on is staggering. When I donate to charity it is a charity I know well and so I assume they know what they are doing so I trust them to put my money to good use. There have also been times when I have heard the argument made by people that they won’t donate to charity because the charity might just ‘use it for overheads’. Does it really never occur to these people that, in order for it to do the best work, the charity will need some sort of infrastructure?

Also I have donated to the RSPCA before. I have made cash donations, bought things in RSPCA shops and it is one of the buckets I am most likely to put spare change in. This could be put down to years of watching Animal Hospital as a child but I really feel the charity does good work. Do I think they did the right thing in this case? Yes I do. Would I be proud to think some of my money went towards bringing the Heythrop Hunt to justice? Damn right I would.

This case sent a clear message to everyone who thinks they can flout this law that it is a law. To continue to hunt and torture foxes for fun is illegal and if you continue to do it you can expect to be prosecuted. Hopefully next time it will be a full on criminal case brought by the CPS and charities won’t need to foot the bill.

Fox hunting is barbaric. I have never heard an argument for it that convinced me to keep it legal. If it controls pests and keeps the fox population at a manageable level there are far more humane ways to do that. I also do not accept that something should be kept alive just because it’s tradition. I also resent the implication trotted out some pro-hunters that I don’t understand because I am not from the countryside or I am not from the particular class that indulges in this vile past time that I don’t understand it. I’m sorry, but I do. You are watching an animal get ripped to pieces for fun. That is both horrific and suggestive of a particularly vicious mindset. Getting pleasure out of watching something being brutally killed should be sounding psychological alarm bells. You can argue the positive social aspects all you want, but I’ve always managed to find positive social aspects in pubs, parks, house parties and good conversation. No animals needed to die.

I applaud the RSPCA’s actions, I just wish it hadn’t been left to them to do it. My only regret is that these scumbags aren’t going to prison.

All seventeen year olds love Boris

Aren’t digests great? You get exposed to the most odious and ill-informed of opinions without having to hand over money to the Daily Fail or give them advertising revenue through your precious mouse clicks. Marvellous. Also if it makes it into a digest (in this case The Week) the assumption is that it definitely is not a joke article and the fool with their head stuffed up their arse writing it actually SERIOUSLY BELIEVES THIS SHIT. Although I can never quite bring myself to let go of that last little pinch of salt when dealing with the Fail.

So the most recent thing to waft under my discerning nose is the crap spewed forth by Viv Groskop concerning giving the vote to sixteen and seventeen year olds. Apparently Groskop used to think they should because if you have the right to marry and join the Armed Forces you should be able to vote. I agree with that previous sentence. Except now Groskop has changed her mind. Why? Because of the X Factor.

Yeah, because of a sub-par talent show that exists only to make Simon Cowell money and act as a showcase for a load of whiny, self-obsessed, fame hungry morons the debate on whether or not sixteen and seventeen year olds should have the vote should be over.

You see the way under-eighteens behave on the X Factor is so immature that they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Seriously. This is the argument Groskop is making in the Fail on Sunday. I’m going to start with the obvious point that everyone acts like a twatbag on the X Factor. I’m fairly sure that’s one of the big reasons why people watch it. That’s EVERYONE Viv, not just under eighteens. Do you think everyone should therefore be banned from voting, or only the exact ages represented in the current series of X Factor?

But apparently even someone who writes for the Daily Fail doesn’t think that the behaviour of a group of ill adjusted and fame hungry teenagers should be the sole reason sixteen and seventeen year olds shouldn’t vote. Groskop's other concern is they might vote for Boris Johnson. She actually said that as well.

‘They love him because he is the funny man with the funny hair.’

^Genuine astute observation from our Viv there. I don’t think I need to spell out how insulting that is to anyone born between 1992 and 1994.

Because no one over the age of eighteen voted for Boris Johnson. Oh wait, everyone who voted for Boris Johnson was over eighteen. How the fuck does that work, Viv?

If we’re being generous I suppose we could say that there’s something to the ‘voting for a personality’ thing, but again that’s been going on for centuries and sixteen and seventeen year olds can hardly be blamed for it. It’s also a pretty sweeping assumption that Boris’ particular brand of baffoonary is what the average sixteen or seventeen year old is looking for.

Perhaps they’re concerned with, oh I don’t know, tuition fees and bus fares? Not in Groskop’s world. No suggestion that they might actually be politically aware, socially conscious and give the same amount of thought to the democratic process as older voters. No consideration of the possibility that being a vacuous dick magically stops when you turn eighteen.

Effectively Groskop Has looked at a current and interesting debate and thought I’m going to say something so bafflingly insulting and yet clearly bullshit it will confuse everyone and stop the debate. Fortunately they also write for the Daily Fail so no one who has ever had a logical thought will give a puffin’s chuff what they say.

NB. I’m not linking to the article because I don’t want to be responsible for people clicking on it. I’m sure if you really want to read it you can find it.   

Nick Griffin and why it isn't Cool to be Gay

Right, before I get onto the main rant I need to hock up a warm up rant about how Nick Griffin is an immature, bigoted, vapid cockwomble and anyone who has ever even considered voting for his band of knuckle dragging, neo Nazi, scumbags deserves to have white hot needles pushed through their eyes. Fair enough, you’re probably thinking, I already knew that Griffin was an immature, bigoted, vapid cockwomble. What has he done now?

What he has done is tweet the address of the couple who just won their case after a court decided they were unlawfully turned away from and B&B because they were gay. The High Priest of all Fuckwits then told the couple to expect legions of his grunting supporters to pay them a visit and tell them, somewhat bizarrely, ‘an English couple’s home is their castle.’

Apparently Lord Cuntbucket thinks this is acceptable behaviour. Intimidating someone because they had the audacity to be right in the eyes of the law is not big and clever you utter bellend. Not only have this couple gone through the stress and inconvenience of the court case but now they’re potentially going to be hounded by pond scum. Fortunately Griffin has made their address public so I can send them some homemade jam to keep their spirits up. I’m sure the police officers who now have to keep an eye on the house would appreciate some as well. Wasting police time as well Nick. Tut tut.

I sometimes think someone created Griffin just for me. It’s so easy to argue against his ridiculous party when he’s in charge of it. There is very little excuse for most of the things he does (including breathe) and this is a particularly shitty example of a coward who is being ignored (because he’s wrong) so he gets all nasty and playground bully-esque and just makes himself look like a snivelling childish waste of oxygen. Fuck Nick Griffin. Fuck him with a crowbar until his spleen explodes.

But what I really wanted to rant about is what I heard on the Jeremy Vine show concerning this story. My Mum’s lived here longer than I have so she gets first dibs on the radio, although she is fully aware that they often pick people to go on Jezza’s show on based solely on how much they will annoy me. She knew this, she could have switched over to Lauren Laverne on 6, she didn’t and this is the result.

The guest they dug up from some unknown cavern (supposedly Vanity Fair magazine where she is the contributing editor) was Victoria Mather I’m not completely sure what kind of magazine Vanity Fair is so I’m not going to comment on it, but I will comment on one particular sentence she said which demonstrated perfectly to me that she is at least semi-detached from reality, or at least any reality that I’ve ever had any dealings with. This sentence was;

‘In contemporary life it’s cool to gay but it’s not cool to be Christian.’

I’m assuming that you’ll want to read that several times to make absolutely sure you got it right so take your time.

Yep, this woman thinks it is ‘cool’ to be gay. There’s so much wrong with that statement I’m not entirely sure where to start, but I’ll give it a go. The word ‘cool’ carries connotations of being both a conscious choice and temporary. Being gay isn’t a trend. You don’t stop being gay when some other sexuality comes into style. I won’t even go into the nasty little notion this woman hinted at that there is an element of posturing to being gay, that people do it because it’s the thing to do at the moment.

Actually fuck it I will. Does anyone really genuinely think that people are so shallow that they will pick their partner on the basis of which gender it is currently fashionable to date? Besides I’d put money on it actually being far more common for the opposite to take place. People who fancy others of the same sex will likely pretend they don’t. These days, thankfully, stage relationships and marriages to hide a person’s sexual orientation are pretty rare in the UK but it’s still at work on a more subtle level. If you have a partner of the same sex chances are, rather than lie, you just won’t mention them or use gender neutral terms particularly with people you don’t know. If being gay was the next big thing there wouldn’t be the fear of rejection sitting in your stomach every time you reach that first point in a conversation with someone when you have to reveal the gender of your partner.

If being gay was cool you wouldn’t be accused of ‘waving it in people’s faces’ just by acknowledging that your partner exists. You wouldn’t think twice about holding hands in public. You wouldn’t feel just a little bit nervous when you leave a gay bar late at night.

But, and I wish dearly this wasn’t so, there is a tiny grain of truth embedded in Mather’s bigotry. There are prevailing narratives surrounding queer people in popular culture at the moment and this might be what she was getting at (although quite what that has to do with a couple being turned away from a B&B is beyond me).

Let’s start with the trope of the young, urban gay man with a lot of disposable income who is well dressed, quick witted and faaaaaabulous, darling. Some gay men are like that, some aren’t, and the ones that are (unless they stay constantly in Brighton, Vauxhall and Manchester’s Canal Street, which I will be coming back to later) will probably get a fair amount of abuse for being so visible. This is probably the man she had in mind when she uttered that stupid statement. I have an idea that Vanity Fair is connected in some way to fashion and I’m also given to understand there’s quite a lot of camp gay men in that industry. So, at the very best Mather is generalising her experience to the whole world. That’s naughty and every fucker else that does it gets rightly told of for it.

Let’s move on to the other narratives, specifically the ones that concern women (sorry lads, if you don’t act like a character out of Queer as Folk your visibility in popular culture is pretty low). The ‘cool’ one Mather was probably thinking of is young women who are openly bisexual. There’s a pretty disingenuous theory currently being grumbled around that these women do this to attract men. This is because porn has taught a generation that lesbianism only exists to turn men on. Think I’m stretching that a bit? Go look up some generic, badly made porn. You won’t get far without some HotGirl4GirlAction or whatever they tag it as these days. So, naturally, a young women who finds herself attracted to women as well as men or who is exploring her sexuality is faking it. Because what’s the point of women having sex if men get no pleasure from it? Oh, and male bisexuality appears to not exist.

Beyond that you have the tried and tested lesbian stereotype. You know the one. It involves short hair and dungarees. A gay woman can’t win. If she wants to rock the DMs she is told she’s feeding into this stereotype and should stop it as well as getting so comprehensively mocked no one in their right mind could consider that image ‘cool’. If she doesn’t she’s a ‘lipstick’ lesbian and this renders her, like the non-camp gay man, invisible. It’s hard to be cool if you’re not even acknowledged.

I’m not saying the LGBT community is immune from this petty pigeonholing, because it certainly isn’t. They appear to have bought wholesale into the myth that the only group worth catering for is the affluent city dwelling gay men. The advertising on Canal Street is pretty squarely focussed on this demographic. This is a situation hampered by the one remaining lesbian bar being run by the most arrogant, self-aggrandising tosspots this side of the X Factor.

So, basically, not being straight is still pretty hard Victoria, and saying pointless tripe like the above does no good. Also, when was the last time being ‘cool’ got you a room in a B&B? Oh, that’s right, you work for a magazine. You probably really think that’s how the world works. Maybe you’re not a bigoted heterosexual threatened by the fact that loving someone of the same sex is no longer a mental illness. Maybe you’re just deluded. Either way I’m not taking a word of what I said back.

That goes for you too Griffin.

The Joys of Being Dole Scum

In January I booked a hotel for four nights in Whitby for me and a couple of friends to go to the Whitby goth festival. I thought this would be fine, because, when I booked it, I assumed I would be doing a PhD or between courses and therefore pretty flexible. But things didn’t quite go to plan and three very tragic things happened to me. One, I had to leave Newcastle, two I had to go on the dole and three I had to move to Wakefield.

If you’ve ever been to Wakefield I don’t need to explain which of those three was the worst. If you haven’t then good for you.

But I digress. I now am pretty solidly on the dole. As of Monday they started paying me and everything, although they took their sweet time. I’m now going to refer to a span of twenty two days as a ‘JSA Fortnight’. And, because I think it’s only fair that if you enter an agreement with someone you uphold your end of the deal I’ve been looking for jobs and signing on and not being late to appointments (harder than you’d think with the bus service near me). So I’ve maintained the moral high ground over the job centre. Go me.

Except my signing on day falls on a day I’m going to be at the seaside. It’s not a complicated procedure. You fill in a form and then come in the day after you get back and sign on and then everything goes back to normal. Except some of the things it asks you to do just seem a bit, well, dickish. For example, you have to say you are prepared to return from your holiday if you get offered an interview. If you do not say you are prepared to do this it goes to a decision maker and you could lost four weeks work of payments. For those of you who think that’s fair enough think about what that actually entails. What could possibly be your only holiday in years is cut short because some bloodthirsty capitalist can’t be bothered to reschedule. And what if you’re there with other people? Do they have to come home too? What if you can’t? What if you don’t drive or you didn’t take your car or you went with advance train tickets and don’t feel like selling your kidney for replacements?

Also I’m pretty sure most employers would be understanding and give you a couple of days grace. Yeah, I know I just called them bloodthirsty capitalists but I got caught up in the moment a bit. I apologise.

Anyway, back to that bloody form. You also have to promise that you’ll keep checking for jobs. I’m jammy. I have internet access on my phone (in theory. Previous experience suggests signal is less than reliable in Whitby) so I can check job sites etc. What if a person has no internet on their phone? They could look in a local paper I suppose, but how useful is a bar job in Brighton to someone who lives in Carlisle?    

But these are just pedantic points dreamt up by me on the bus home. My biggest bugbear is the wording and tone of the form. They kept most of it so I no longer have the juiciest examples but the attitude was that I had done something unforgiveable in asking to go on a trip that had been booked for nearly ten months and at the time of booking, as far as I knew, I would be free. It’s symptomatic of the view expressed by every oozing, self-righteous corner of this country that people on the dole (or any benefit you care to think of) are scum. We’re less than ‘normal’ people and not only do we not deserve the same rights we don’t even deserve the same courtesies.

To be on JSA in 2012 is to constantly search for jobs. It is to never go out, never spend any of the governments money on anything ‘frivolous’ (screw you wankers. I had a half hour wait for my bus and I spent dole money on a second hand paperback and a coffee. A Costa coffee. I am a terrible person). It is to understand that it’s only by the grace of the benevolent state that you don’t starve to death. Although they were so slow processing my claim if I hadn’t had caring and patient parents I would have starved to death. Twice. It is to feel constantly ashamed and like a failure and live with the reality that you are the lowest of the low. As if I didn’t feel like that already.

It’s the same sort of mind set that assumes dole bunnies are scroungers sitting on their arse all day. I know from personal experience that it’s really hard to do fuck all on the dole. Last time I was on it my old computer in its final weeks of life ate an e-mail where I applied for a job. They stopped my JSA for six weeks because I ‘failed’ (accidently I might add) to apply for one vacancy. I had applied for twenty three others in the previous four weeks. Oh, that was over Christmas as well.

So, although I think it’s perfectly acceptable to tell the job centre you’re going away, re-arrange your sign on date and, if possible, keep looking for jobs/checking on jobs applied for it is not acceptable to treat people like this. People on JSA, as the name suggests, are seeking jobs. That can be a really hard thing and if they’ve just been made redundant or something similar it can be a pretty shitty time. They need support not stigmatisation.

Disclaimer: the people who work at Wakey job centre are all really kind and helpful. It’s the system that’s bollocks, not them. As well as being insulting this form was also quite confusing so the lovely Wakey job centre people talked me through it.

P.S. This blog is not getting an introduction. Everytime I tried to write one it sounded shit so I gave up.