An Open Letter to the Church of Scientology

Church of Scientology, Blackfriars

Dear The Church of Scientology,

How are you today? I am fine myself. The reason I am writing is that, on Tuesday, I was handed a leaflet by one of your people in the Tottenham Court Road. My curiosity piqued, on Saturday I looked in at your main HQ in Blackfriars. I’m afraid that, despite trying to be as open-minded as possible, I wasn’t convinced. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll explain why.

You see, The Church of Scientology, when it comes to criticism, you come across a little bit like a bad writer when the reviews come in. Do you know what I mean? Rather than actually address the criticism, you tend to either attack the critic or claim “religious persecution.” While you may think this is acceptable, to everyone outside your organisation it looks somewhat paranoid. An intelligent person will point out that you’re not actually addressing the question and therefore that the criticism is valid.

So, before I go any further, let me say that I am not going to persecute you for your religious beliefs. This, in part, is because you’re quite cagey and conflicting in your accounts of what they actually are. What I am going to do is point out where you are going wrong. So, without further ado, here are my suggestions.

1. Stop playing the religious persecution card.

Religious persecution is an attack on a person or a group of people specifically for their religious beliefs. If I say that the persecution of Catholics during the Tudor era was a Bad Thing, that is not an attack on Protestantism or Christianity as a whole, but a criticism of the government that pursued a policy of persecution. If I attack Fred Phelps, that is not an attack on Christianity, but an attack on a horrible man whose beliefs and actions do not accord with those of most Christians. If I point out that the Bible has self-contradictory points, that is not religious persecution. It’s religious questioning, and in my experience most religious officials are happy to address it.

Unfortunately, The Church of Scientology, you do not seem to understand this. When someone questions your beliefs, your church or your founders, you shout that it’s “religious persecution” even when it clearly isn’t. Now, to be fair, it might be argued that some anti-Scientology groups do attack your beliefs themselves – we’ve all seen that South Park episode, I’m sure, and it wasn’t exactly even-handed. But such attacks are normally based around concepts like Xenu, which you claim not to believe in anyway.

2. Stop “attacking the attacker.”

While you deny that a policy of “attacking the attacker” exists, the fact is that when you’re criticised, you immediately resort to ad hominem arguments. This is a very poor debating technique, even creationists know that. If someone is untrustworthy, point out the faults with their argument. Blow away the sand their castle is built upon. If you choose to strike at the person making the complaint, as I said above, it looks like they might be right.

3. Chill, Winston.

If I may quote from my own upcoming self-help work, Awesometastics, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, someone else will do it for you.” The problem, The Church of Scientology, is that you don’t seem to have a sense of humour. The only time the average person sees a scientologist laughing is either at the expense of someone who has criticised the church or while gushing about how great Scientology is. This makes you look, if I may dip into the vernacular, kind of like dicks. Mean-spirited. It makes people turn against you. Look, having a sense of humour at your own expense is not a sign of weakness – I’d say it’s exactly the opposite. It shows that you’re secure in yourselves.

But more to the point, many of your detractors do use humour. That South Park episode was pretty funny, and so are some of the articles about you on Encyclopedia Dramatica. Why not take them on at their own game? Come on, you must have some comedy writers among your number, give them a shot. If you can get people laughing with you, not at you, you’ll win!

Along those lines, you need to be less uptight about what people say. Again, it makes you look bad when you overreact. Just ignore them, they’ll get bored and go away. Don’t – I repeat – do not throw lawsuits around like confetti. That looks even worse. That makes you look like a big bully who likes squashing the little guy. Have you heard of a case known as the McLibel trial? That, briefly, was a case in which two activists handed out some leaflets levelling accusations at McDonalds, who sued for libel and won. But it was a Pyrrhic victory, because McDonalds was forced to admit that while the allegations against them were not true, they weren’t entirely pure as the driven snow. Plus they looked like litigious jerks. Not that I’m saying you have skeletons in the closet, but you know, just be careful is all. Sometimes you just have to let it go.

4. Stop using Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is a crazy sandwich with a side of pickled wrong. Stop using him as your celebrity figurehead. Everyone’s thinking “Scientology = nutjob” when they see him. There must be loads of celebrities you could use instead. I mean, don’t you have the guys from My Name is Earl? They’re great! You could do a skit with them. Something along the lines of, I don’t know, “How’s the list going, Earl?” “Well, Randy, Karma’s pretty good, but now I’ve discovered Dianetics!” Something like that. I don’t know, I’m not a professional writer.

5. Understand the Internet.

Your understanding of the online world seems a little shaky. I’ve noticed this in your dealings with the group known as “Anonymous.” You only seem able to deal with them if you think of them as a conventional organisation. I’ve seen your Religious Freedom Watch website, you seem to feel that you have to paint them as some sort of grand conspiracy rather than a bunch of people with a common interest and Internet access. As if you can take the leader out and the rest will follow. It doesn’t work like that.

On the subject of your Religious Freedom Watch website, it really is very obvious that you own that. I mean, one look at the forums will show that the only religion that people are interested in defending on there is, in fact, yours. And the fact that there are only threads denouncing those who attack Scientology, with every post written in the same style, shows that you need to spend more time lurking on actual forums. Where are the misspellings? The inexplicable usernames? The funny signatures? The threads devoted to useless crap? It’s a blatant deception, The Church of Scientology. I’m not so much angry with you as… disappointed. I just think you’d look better if you either didn’t lie so obviously or, better still, didn’t lie at all. While we’re on the subject…

6. If you don’t want people to think you’re a cult, stop acting like one.

You deny the allegations of child abuse. You deny that L. Ron Hubbard demanded that people who turned against the church be killed using “Auditing Method R2-45,” i.e. shooting them with a handgun, claiming that this was a joke (and might I say that I don’t think that’s in very good taste). You deny that you pursue the policy that anyone who criticises you is “fair game.” You deny that you’re a cult. The thing is, The Church of Scientology, it can’t be denied that you do some pretty sinister things. I saw that Panorama documentary (you know, the one where John Sweeney lost his temper), and you were very blatantly sending people to follow him around in cars. What was the deal there?

And there was “Operation Snow White” in which you were caught performing illegal activities, which for reasons of space I will not go into here. And “Operation Freakout.” And that business with Noah Lottick. And Lisa McPherson. And the National Association for Mental Health in Britain. In these cases and others like them, you tend to deny any wrongdoing but – here’s the fly in the ointment – you also tend to act in a shifty, evasive and unhelpful fashion. It looks like you have something to hide. I am trying to be nice to you here, The Church of Scientology, but you really are not helping yourselves.

This is particularly relevant when you claim religious persecution, as I suggested above that you should not. But if you absolutely must claim religious persecution, it really doesn’t help your case if you’re going around acting like a less professional version of the Men in Black.

7. The UK does exist.

This is more of a nitpick than anything else, but when I visited your Church, the videos you had showing were in American English. The facts and figures they quoted referred to the USA, not Britain. It’s not as if you couldn’t afford to put new videos together for the British market. It just seems a little disrespectful to me. Not to mention the fact that I find myself thinking, “Well, maybe psychiatry did kill more people than the Spanish-American War, but I know nothing about the Spanish-American War.”

8. I want an apology for Battlefield Earth.

L. Ron Hubbard, in pretty well every non-Scientology source, comes across as a deeply unpleasant man. Racist, homophobic, egotistical, lying, fraudulent, bullying and generally something like the Used Car Salesman From Hell. Come on, Battlefield Earth featured a race of kimono-wearing, kowtowing aliens known as the “Chinkos.” Makes Jar-Jar Binks look like… something that isn’t a racist alien caricature.

Now look, I appreciate that by attacking Hubbard, I myself am indulging in an ad-hominem argument. But I really fucking hated that film, and an apology from yourselves would go a long way to rectifying that.

Conclusion

Now, I don’t know how you’ll take this. You may ignore it. You may attack it. You may laugh at it on one of your websites, possibly with a series of eerily similarly-worded replies. You may even start investigating me for past crimes (you could probably get me on fare dodging, forging signatures and trespassing if that helps) and start publicly laying into me. I suspect you won’t. I suspect you won’t even see this. But if you do, don’t dismiss it. Seriously. I’m trying to help you out here, many wouldn’t. Just think about it, okay?

 

Bonfire Night explained

Twice over the past couple of weeks I’ve been asked by colleagues at work what November 5th is all about. Being from Russia and Australia, and relatively recent arrivals in this country, they were unfamiliar with the concept. Therefore, I dedicate this entry to them. This is Bonfire Night, explained for the benefit of everyone who isn’t British.

It all started with the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. She died childless, and so the throne went to her distant relative, James VI of Scotland. Importantly, James’ mother had been Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic monarch who had been executed (reluctantly) by the Protestant Elizabeth. The Catholic population of Britain therefore assumed that with James on the throne, they could expect a bit more tolerance. Unfortunately, it was not to be – James had been raised Protestant, like many Scottish nobles at the time. Additionally, the government of England was largely unchanged from Elizabeth’s reign, and James had little interest in domestic policy.

The Gunpowder Plotters. Bates tries not to laugh at Winter's hilarious outfit.

A group of wealthy Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, essentially said “Buggre thys for an Game of Soldiers,” and decided to take drastic action. They intended to bomb the opening of Parliament in 1605. This would take out the King, most of the nobility and the senior bishops of the Church of England. This in turn, the conspirators hoped, would allow them to rise up and take control, installing a Catholic monarch (James’ daughter Elizabeth, who was 9 at the time and probably couldn’t give a damn either way).

Guy Fawkes, the best-remembered of the plotters, was a former soldier and explosives expert, and therefore central to the plan. The plotters had, by chance, found a house with a cellar directly under the House of Lords. Parliament was due to open on November 5th, and Fawkes would be there to set th explosion off. There were 36 barrels of gunpowder, enough to completely destroy the Palace of Westminster and devastate the surrounding area.

Unfortunately, the plotters were betrayed, possibly by one of their own number. Lord Monteagle, a Member of Parliament, received an anonymous letter which essentially said, “Yoe Dude, ye may wish to staye awaye from the Openynge of Parliament, be-cause I have heard that Somethyng Bigge is going downe.” He, fairly predictably, had this note read out and a search was arranged. Fawkes was duly captured and arrested, initially using a pseudonym of “John Johnson” and claiming to be a lone nut.

Under torture – which even in those days was viewed as an extreme and distasteful measure – Fawkes confessed all. The plotters were rounded up and then hanged, drawn and quartered. This was followed by an anti-Catholic backlash and, from 1606 onwards, it was officially made the custom to celebrate the failure of the plot and the deliverance of His Majesty. The tradition of a Halloween bonfire was turned into a November 5th bonfire.

There’s some debate over whether the plot would have succeeded. Many historians take the view that, without foreign support, the planned uprising could never have gone ahead. There’s even the persistent suggestion that the whole thing was a conspiracy by the anti-Catholic minister Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. However, as with most conspiracy theories, there’s a drastic shortage of actual evidence.

These days the occasion is still celebrated, although frankly it’s more an excuse to let off fireworks than a commemoration of King James’ survival. An effigy of Guy Fawkes – known simply as the guy – is burnt on a bonfire, sparklers are distributed to children and baked potatoes are usually involved. Also mulled wine, if you’re lucky.

Interestingly, Fawkes’ cultural status has changed in recent years, largely due to Britain’s succession of crappy governments. He’s gone from a symbol of treachery to a symbol of dissent. There’s a popular political blogger named Guido Fawkes (Guy’s name when fighting in Spain). The ambiguous hero of V for Vendetta takes his likeness from Fawkes. In turn, the online anti-organisation Anonymous, best known for their attacks on the Church of Scientology, wear V masks to protests.

Anonymous

On a more mundane note, have you ever referred to someone as a “guy?” You’ve got Fawkes to thank for that, too. A guy, in the sense of an effigy of Fawkes, was a ragged and often strangely-dressed dummy. In the nineteenth century, this came to be used as a term for a ragged or strangely-dressed man, and later became slang for any chap you might see.

Enjoy Bonfire Night, kids. Here’s hoping it’s a good one.

Your swell pal,

Tom

Ebenezer Scrooge versus Sweeney Todd versus Big Ben

You may have seen these posters around the place. Yes, they’ve made yet another version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, which I swear must be the most filmed book in the  entire world ever. This version, as you can see, stars Jim Carrey in 3D motion-capture glory (I hear he switched the lights on in Oxford Circus last night, good for him). He also appears to be getting some sort of sexual pleasure from that bollard there. No doubt this will be explained in the film itself. I won’t be going to see it, having already seen the versions starring Alistair Sim, Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine, Bill Murray, Ross Kemp and Scrooge McDuck.

But I’m wandering from the point I started with, which is that the British posters feature, very prominently, the sight of Big Ben under construction. I have my own theory as to why this is, quite apart from the fact that Big Ben is shorthand for “You Are In London.” You may recall the Tim Burton-directed Sweeney Todd a couple of years ago. The publicity campaign for this ran into a little trouble over this image:

If you take a look to Mr Depp’s right, you’ll see Big Ben emerging from the fog of Olde Londone Towne. This caused consternation among certain historically-minded folk, who pointed out that Big Ben (or, if you want to be pedantic, the Clock Tower) wasn’t built until 1859, and the story of Sweeney Todd is set at some point in the 1840s. The poster was pulled. The scene in which Todd sails under the 1894-built Tower Bridge was left in, which strikes me as a far greater anachronism (the filmmakers’ excuse was that it is depicted as still being under construction, builders at the time apparently being shite). One might also point out that the ship that brings him in would have docked at Rotherhithe rather than into the heinously busy Pool of London. One might further point out that Tim Burton’s version of London in Sweeney Todd is a Disneyfied vision of 19th century Olde Englande marketed towards weekend Goths, and actual historical accuracy might freak them out. Frankly we’re lucky Sherlock Holmes didn’t step in to save the day.

I actually quite liked the film, I should point out.

So anyway, yes. That, in my characteristic rambling style, is why I think the London version of the posters for Yet Another Christmas Carol make a scaffolding-clad Big Ben bigger than the main character – to show that they’ve actually done a bit of research unlike some we could mention. Of course, if you want my opinion, and you’re going to get it whether you want it or not, I think these people could save themselves a lot of trouble if they just went with St Paul’s Cathedral as the London landmark. It’s a better symbol for London than Big Ben, which isn’t even in the goddamn City.

Further Reading

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/well-at-least-he-didnt-die-poor/ - The real-life historical figure that was the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge.

Poop Poop

I’m not much of a Sunday morning person. As a matter of fact, I tend to view Sunday morning as a theoretical concept that exists largely to prevent the clocks from getting messed up and to give churchgoers a time when they can worship without disturbing awful heathens such as myself. So waking at six today was, as you might imagine, something of a wrench.

Hyde Park, this morning

Making things worse was the fact that I’d only got in at about 4. I’d been at a Halloween party hosted by Becky B, who is an excellent host and also – if you follow the link on the right – a fine purveyor of bloggery in her own right. As it was a literary-themed party, I went as Fantomas. Partly because, you know, any excuse for a top hat and tailcoat.

On the way back I made the mistake of falling asleep on the bus, and when I woke up my bag had been stolen. Fortunately I am incredibly paranoid about having my bag stolen, so there was nothing of great monetary value in there. However, the bag itself was a leaving present from my old job and it contained my sketchpad, my trusty A-Z and my favourite cravat, so they only got things of sentimental value. They could have taken my coat, hat or cane, any of which would have been worth a lot more in monetary terms. In conclusion, should I ever find the fucker who stole my bag, I will eat them and telephone their mother to let them know what is happening. I’m really quite upset.

That aside, today was the day of the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. This is an event held on the first Sunday of every November, first run in 1896 to celebrate the end of the Locomotive Act. This had limited self-propelled vehicles to a walking pace (down to 2mph in built-up areas) and – prior to an 1878 amendment – demanded that all such vehicles be preceded by a man with a red flag. This was the origin of the Act’s popular nickname, the Red Flag Act. The London to Brighton Run was originally known as the Emancipation Run, and opened with the symbolic destruction of a red flag.

The event is now run by the Veteran Car Club (of which Yr. Humble Chronicler used to be a member) and sponsored by Tindle Newspapers. It starts from Hyde Park and ends on Madeira Drive in Brighton. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a race. For a start, I believe racing on public highways is illegal in this country, and doing so in vehicles this old would be downright suicidal. The rules also stipulate that no vehicle built after 1905 may partake, although it’s not unknown for petrolhead spectators to show up in later classics.

These days, the event serves as a sort of eccentric commemoration of the pioneering days of motoring. It’s commonly attended by celebrities of the motoring world – I think just about every Top Gear presenter ever has taken part, and racing drivers are common participants. Various organisations, such as King’s College, the VCC, the Royal Automobile Club and motoring manufacturers also tend to put their own vehicles in, although the bulk are privately owned vehicles that have either been passed down the generations or rescued and restored. Period dress is not obligatory, but it’s certainly popular.

I’d say that it’s a typically British event, except it’s not. Vehicles and drivers come from literally all over the world. They encompass a wide range of backgrounds and age groups. Generally, it’s a splendidly cosmopolitan affair where people from right across the planet can get together and celebrate their mildly odd passion. I mean that in a good way, I’d love to take part myself.

Genevieve. It was too quick for me.

The event even has its own film, the 1953 comedy Genevieve, starring John Gregson and the ever-marvellous Kenneth More. I mention this largely because Genevieve, the title vehicle, still does the run, as you can see to the left.

One thing you realise from watching this event is how much things have changed since those early days. Cars, when you get down to it, are usually built to a fairly standard format. Four wheels, engine at the front, either two or four seats in the middle. No such standardisation back before 1905. Some of the cars look like little more than farm carts or gigs with engines strapped on. Some have passengers seated in front of the driver. Some have passengers sitting facing the driver, with the steering wheel mounted amidships (the “sociable” layout, as it was known). There was the dos-a-dos, with the passengers facing backwards. There were the buckboards, flimsy-looking two-seaters that look only a step up from a skateboard. Tiny little things for one and great stagecoach-looking things. Manufacturers you’ve never heard of, home-built one-offs, kit cars and early examples from the great companies of today.

They weren’t even sure how these should be powered. Petrol won out (although in those days it had to be bought at the chemist), but steam and electricity were also popular modes of propulsion. Indeed, compared to the smoking, chuffing, rattling petrol vehicles of the day, the smooth and surprisingly clean-running steam car looks light years ahead.

My favourite vehicle in the show would have to be the unique Salveson seen on the right. My comments about steam being clean and smooth don’t quite apply to this steam car, which is coal-fired and requires a fireman and a separate coal tender. It’s a magnificently steampunk-looking contraption that puts me in mind of the Arkansas Chuggabug from Wacky Races. 

Although I think I have special admiration for the young chap who was riding alongside the vehicles in Victorian costume, pedalling a Penny Farthing. Now that, friends, is dedication.

The Case of the Missing Tube Line

My explorations in and around Islington continue, and last week saw a visit to one of London Underground’s oddities. Take a look at this old map of the Northern Line found at Acton.

As you can see, it shows a branch that is no longer there. A slightly pointless branch, in fact, given that Essex Road and Highbury & Islington are just a short walk from Angel (unless you’re lazy). This is the not-quite-departed Northern City Line.

The line was devised by the Great Northern Railway (the company who built the terminus at King’s Cross and also came up with the Flying Scotsman). While King’s Cross was nice and all, it wasn’t in the best place for city folk. The Northern City Line would let them send trains into the City itself, as well as clear up some of their congested lines around King’s Cross. Unfortunately, they lost interest in the idea and so the Great Northern & City Railway was built without the help of its original backer.

The completed line ran from Finsbury Park to Moorgate, incorporating all the stations seen above. With the exception of Drayton Park, the whole thing was built underground. Uniquely, while it was definitely a “tube” line, i.e. built completely underground in a tunnel, as opposed to being built in a trench and then covered over a la the District and Metropolitan lines, it was large enough to hold full-size trains. For comparative purposes, here’s a normal Tube train next to a District Line train, which is about the size of a regular train:

So there it was. A short Tube line designed for greater things but rendered essentially useless by unfortunate circumstances. The Metropolitan Railway, as it was then, stepped in and bought it in 1913. They essentially aimed to finish what the Great Northern Railway had started, running services from the GNR station at Finsbury Park via the GN&C Line, extending to the Metropolitan station at Aldgate. But they weren’t allowed to build the extension, so that was that. The Metropolitan Railway was left sheepishly holding on to a line that not only didn’t go there, but didn’t even connect with the rest of their line.

1933 saw the Metropolitan Railway taken over by London Transport, and the notion of an integrated transport system could finally be explored. London Transport had a scheme that was known as the “Northern Heights” Plan. This was a scheme to extend the currently-existing Morden-Edgware Line (it wasn’t the Northern Line in those days) up through the Northern suburbs of London. It would have taken over a number of already-existing GNR branches, giving the Northern Line a service to High Barnet and Alexandra Palace among other places. It would also have added an extension from Edgware to Bushy Heath. Most importantly for the purposes of this entry, it would have incorporated a line from Highgate to Finsbury Park and then taken over the GN&C. All in all, it would have made it even harder than it already is to find a Tube going in the right direction.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever wondered why the Northern Line is so called, despite the fact that it’s not especially Northern compared to other lines (in fact, it goes further south than any other Underground line), it’s because of this scheme.

A certain amount of work on the Northern Heights went ahead, but the full scheme was scuppered by the Second World War and post-war Green Belt legislation. Interestingly, those who believe in such things claim to have heard a ghost train in the uncompleted cutting at Highbury – a strange claim even if you believe in the paranormal, given that trains never ran through there.

And now the Northern Line was left with the Northern City Line (as it was now known). A line which, again, didn’t link directly to any of their other lines. In 1964 the Victoria Line swiped the Northern City’s Finsbury Park platforms and in 1971 it was decided, sensibly, to hand the line over to British Rail in 1975.

28 February 1975 was the date of the most notorious event in the line’s history, when a Northern Line train overran the platform at Moorgate and crashed straight into the end of the tunnel. Forty-three people, including the driver, were killed in the accident and several more died from injuries, rescue attempts made all the more difficult by the accident having taken place in the tunnel. The circumstances of the accident are a mystery. Driver Leslie Newson appeared to actually accelerate as the train approached Moorgate, and witnesses reported that he looked perfectly calm as the train shot through the station. No strong evidence was found of any intoxicating substance, nor was there any apparent reason for suicide – Newson even had money in his pocket to buy a car for his daughter. Various suggestions have been made for the driver’s actions, from brain seizure to simple human error, but none are entirely satisfactory.

A few months later, British Rail took the line over, and it remains in their hands as a commuter route. I’d long been curious about this route, having first encountered it in 2000 when commuting to Highbury & Islington Station. I’d never had the chance to actually explore it until a couple of weeks ago.

One of the things that I found strange about this line – apart from the fact that it’s half regular railway and half Tube – is the fact that the stations are timewarped. This one, for instance, carries the colours of Network SouthEast, which ceased to exist in 1994. It rather reminds me of the way the Waterloo and City Line used to look before it was taken over by London Underground.

This building was at Drayton Park. I’d guess it’s either an old electricity substation or a goods shed.

The platform ends at Drayton Park, in the shadow of the Emirates Stadium.

I rather like this strange, twisty tunnel you use to get from the Northern Line to the Northern City Line at Old Street. I don’t know why. I feel like using it in a low-budget horror movie.

Train departing Essex Road. If I were to set a low-budget horror movie on this line, this would be the point where our hero is left trapped in the station on his own with the monster. Wait, I think I just described the exact plot of Creep. Damn it all.

In order to get up to street level, you have to go quite a long way down from platform level. This may be taken as a sign of unfortunate planning, or possibly that the builders of this station wanted to mess with our heads in order to soften us up for the inevitable late-night vampire attack.

I don’t know why it was felt necessary to fit these buttons to the lift. If you try to press “lower level” when you’re already on the lower level or vice versa, the chances are you’re not the sort of person who’s allowed out unsupervised anyway.

Essex Road Station at street level. I wish I’d had a bit more time to explore the line, as frankly I never realised how spooky it is in the middle of the day with no commuters around.

Every so often someone will suggest doing something with the line. The Green Party want to link it to the Waterloo and City to create a new cross-London route, for instance. But I quite like it as it is. I know, it’s a fairly useless line when you get down to it, but I’m just sentimental like that.

Further Reading

http://www.londonrailways.net/gn_c.html - A fuller history of the line.

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/oh-banksy-banksy-banksy/ - Something else I found that day.

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/lets-democratize-some-luxury/ - And another thing.

Mostly Farmless

Cerys in concert - another triumph of my mad photography skillz

I’ve managed to do very little this weekend, largely due to still feeling grotty and having a cough that makes people ponder their own mortality. I did go to see Cerys Matthews’ gig in St Albans on Friday with a number of friends, which was totally wicked-awesome. I had a massive crush on her when I was about 17, so you know.

Other than that, though, the weekend’s been uneventful. Last weekend, though, I managed to finally get down to Deen City Farm. This is about ten minutes’ walk from me, and yet it’s taken me this long to get there. It’s located a short way down the river Wandle from Merton Abbey Mills craft market, so you might consider combining the two for a pleasant afternoon if you have children or a hangover.

Being a city-raised person, animals are an exciting novelty to me. Here are some photos.

These are chickens. They are edible.

Ducks. These exist primarily for our amusement, although are still delicious.

Rabbit (edible) and guinea pig (not considered edible in Europe)

A turkey. This breed, I am told, is known as a “jive turkey” and is also described as “highly edible.”

Piggies! These are perhaps the most edible animal around.

Sheep. Edible but high in fat. Consider goat as a lean alternative.

A finch. Edible, but not really worth the trouble.

Let’s Democratize Some Luxury

Take a look at what I found on Essex Road the other day:

I can’t decide whether it’s utterly magnificent or utterly vulgar, but either way I like it. It was at one time the Carlton Cinema, designed by George Coles and opened in 1930.

I don’t know if you saw that rather good BBC documentary on the subject of Art Deco, Glamour’s Golden Age, Part 1: The Luxe Experience, but that went briefly into the subject of these picture palaces and is worth catching on iPlayer. To sum up, before the 1920s, cinemas tended to be small-scale operations, often temporary and never classy.

As Hollywood started producing longer and grander films, it became not only economically possible, but economically sensible to build cinemas that could hold a larger audience. In the twentieth century, there was a trend towards what someone (I forget who, but I don’t want to sound like I’m nicking someone’s quote) described as the “democratization of luxury.” That is, buildings such as department stores and cinemas being designed to give the average person a taste of how the other half lives.

The first “picture palace” was the Mark Strand Theatre in New York City in 1914, and was followed by many others in the US and across the world. With these, the cinema itself could be as much of an attraction as the movies showing. They would include such luxuries as pipe organs and air conditioning. They were designed along theatrical lines, with dress circles and balconies. The still-extant Odeon in Richmond even features a low-relief Mediterrainean town either side of the screen. Why? Who cares?

Unfortunately, the days of the picture palace were short-lived. Over the following decades, television, video and now the Internet have eaten into the dedicated cinema’s monopoly on film entertainment. The Carlton there closed in 1972. Its last film was Mutiny on the Buses, so while I assume the cinema closed for economic reasons, it is possible that the building simply lost the will to live after seeing that film.

These days, the emphasis is on cramming as many screens as possible into the modern multiplex. Architecture be damned, and would you like to buy some ridiculously expensive popcorn while you’re waiting? The old picture palaces have, with a few exceptions, had to find new uses. Many have been converted into clubs or bingo halls, with their seats ripped out. The old Granada in Tooting is a bingo hall, but has been very sympathetically restored, complete with its old pipe organ.

Alas, the poor old Carlton lies abandoned. It did reopen as a Mecca Bingo, but as of 2007 has been abandoned. Being Grade II* listed, it’s reasonably safe for the time being (Grade II* puts it above the BT Tower and London Zoo), but still. It would be nice to do something with it.

Further Reading

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1157_art_deco/about/buildings/mecca.htm - The Victoria and Albert Museum’s rather outdated entry.

http://cinematreasures.org/theater/15111/ - Cinema Treasures’ more comprehensive entry on the cinema.

Obligatory Nick Griffin/Question Time Post

What? This has nothing to do with Nick Griffin! Picture guy, you're fired!

By virtue of the fact that my blog’s had so many hits from people specifically Googling the phrase “Nick Griffin is a twat,” I feel slightly obliged to comment on the hugely controversial debate on Question Time last night.

Of course, he lost entirely. He got the verbal smackdown of a lifetime, and I think as a result I may be slightly in love with Bonnie Greer.

As you probably know, the decision to invite him on was hugely controversial. There were protests outside the BBC. But, like many people, I’m not with them. See, much as I loathe Griffin (incidentally, if any friends of mine are reading this and can’t think what to get me for my birthday next year, a low-cost idea would be to urinate on him in the street), I think he needs to be heard. If he’s not, he can quite rightly say to his supporters, “Well, what are they so scared of? Clearly I am a force to be reckoned with.” Whereas by allowing him to dribble his wrongheaded politics on TV, he’s exposed for the lunkheaded, ignorant, doesn’t-look-like-Jabba-but-now-I-can’t-get-the-idea-out-of-my-head bubo that he is.

The problem with the debate, in my ill-informed opinion, was that often his opponents came off as being as crude and kneejerk as him. Particularly disappointing was Jack Straw’s response to the suggestion that Labour’s immigration policy had resulted in a rise in BNP support, which was to go into another ramble about our long and glorious history of cultural diversity and providing refuge for the needy and blah blah blah. Which is fair enough, I’d agree with that (I mean, the Empire Windrush didn’t just show up on the offchance that we happened to need thousands of workers).

MV Empire Windrush

But by appealing to emotion rather than actually answering the question, Straw was playing the same game that Griffin himself plays when he goes on about feeling like a second-class citizen in his own country. Griffin’s complained that people only talk about the race element of the BNP’s policies, which I’d argue is a bit like saying “But nobody talks about Josef Fritzl’s skills as an electrician.” But, much as it pains me to say this, he does have a point. Of sorts. Christ I feel dirty now.

What I mean is, it’s a fact that the BNP’s support has risen and that they now have two seats in the European Parliament. And I don’t believe for a moment that all those people fail to realise that the BNP is a racist party. Nor do I believe that all its supporters are racist – hell, a fair few of them aren’t even white. What we should be asking is, why are people actually voting BNP? What is it about their wrongheaded policies that means people are willing to vote for them over any of the three mainstream parties? Instead of going for the kneejerk racist-racist-you’re-a-filthy-racist reaction every time Griffin opens his mouth, mainstream politics should be addressing that.

Godwin’s Law in effect: It’s a pretty common factor in history that people are willing to put up with extremist views if, in their day-to-day lives, the extremists look like they’re going to make things better. See the French Revolution. See the rise of the Taliban. See, yes, the Nazis.

Disarm Griffin by confronting the real issues. Once those are dealt with, the BNP will lose its grip on political legitimacy and return to the wasteland from whence it came.

I mean, that aside, Griffin looked like a complete dork. He stumbled and backtracked, he hurled accusations around and at the end – when it looked like he might just be able to salvage a little dignity – he had to bring his conspiracy theories re the BBC to the forefront. Way to make yourself look sane, Nick.

Bonnie Greer, on the other hand, was fantastic. She should get her own series. Hell, she should get her own parliamentary seat.

See also:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/23/bbc-question-time-nick-griffin - Apparently Griffin has his supporters.

Oh, Banksy, Banksy, Banksy.

OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was a boring sort of day, when I did -I DON’T LIKE BANKSY THERE I SAID IT! Yeah, I know, as a middle-class guy with vague pretensions towards being bohemian in some half-arsed way I’m supposed to like Banksy’s work, but I just don’t.

It’s not that I think his stuff is bad per se, I just don’t think it’s all that good. I mean, some of it’s kinda funny, in that if you saw it on a greetings card half an hour before you were due to arrive at a friend’s birthday party you might consider buying it. But I don’t think he’s half so clever or witty as the critics make him out to be.

The thing is, he’s safely subversive. He’ll make some sort of point, but he won’t take you out of your comfort zone. He won’t implicate you, dear patron of the arts. He’ll keep things nice and subtle, often to the point where it’s not clear what his message actually is. Take the above piece, wot I encountered in Islington the other day. It’s called Saluting the Flag. It’s about capitalism, right? Kids… worship Tesco’s? Something like that? Tesco’s is a country in its own right, but is only regarded as such by children? No, you’ve lost me.

Nor is his work particularly original. Take this one here. DO YOU SEE WHAT HE’S DONE THERE? He has combined Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald with a famous photograph from the Vietnam War to make a comment on American foreign policy and commercialism or something along those lines. Except both Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald have been subverted in the exact same way about nine million times already. Seriously, subverting those two is actually no longer considered subversive. How old is the idea of subverting these characters? Well, in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Ralph Steadman included a shot of Mickey Mouse wearing a swastika. That book  was published a year before that famous photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc was actually taken.

“Ah!” you could say. “But that’s not the point! Banksy is forcing us to reevaluate the famous photo, which has become over-familiar and lost its original shock value by taking the central figure and placing her in a new context!” Well, perhaps, but even that’s been done before. Take Marcus Harvey’s Myra, pictured right. The famous photograph of Myra Hindley is recreated using children’s handprints. This painting caused so much outrage that it had to be removed from display on the very day it was put on public display after being attacked twice by members of the public. The only people who ever attack Banksy’s work are council jobsworths, because nobody else feels even remotely challenged by the stuff he does.

This one here is one of his non-graffiti pieces, Elephant in the Room. What he’s done here, you see, is taken the expression ”elephant in the room” and portrayed it literally. This represents the things that are very obvious but which we choose to ignore. Do you see how clever that is? He has portrayed a metaphor literally! Along those lines, here is an artwork of my own, which I call Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth.

The second cook along represents AIDS. The ladle represents Tony Blair. The fact that the fourth cook’s torso doesn’t go all the way down is a subtle comment on our society.

Ultimately, the reason I don’t like Banksy is that he’s Anarchist-U-Like. He won’t upset people or freak them out too much. He’ll give them a bit of a giggle. But he won’t put any kind of pressure on them, he won’t force them to reevaluate themselves. How many of the people who chuckled at The Elephant in the Room are going to leave the gallery and say, “Well, actually, I do exploit developing countries quite a lot”? I mean, and then do something about it. By being so on-the-face-of-it subversive, but so when-you-get-down-to-it safe, he enables people to pretend like they give a shit about real issues without actually doing a goddamn thing. Meanwhile, he himself edges closer and closer to becoming one of the brands he so often attacks. Here’s a tip for you, Banksy - if your graffiti actually adds thousands of pounds to the value of the place you target, you’re no longer dangerous. See John Lydon in those Country Life adverts? That’s you, that is.

hack cough uuurgh

Hullo all. Apologies if this post seems a little phoned in. That’s for the simple reason that it is. I’ve come down with the dreaded lurgy, some form of the ‘flu. The doctor tells me it’s down to an excess of licentiousness, but the horoscope bodes well for my recovery provided I avoid shellfish, willow bark and the colour red. So I’m afraid I’m sort of writing this in the few minutes of coherence I have.

Rather than send you good people away empty-handed, here’s an interesting fact concerning illness. No less an authority than Dr Travers of the Brompton Hospital recommended an unusual treatment for tuberculosis in the 1860s consisting of antimony, creosote and boa constrictor excreta. It’s not clear whether this was supposed to be used as a balm or taken orally, but for the sake of the patients I hope it wasn’t oral. Apparently it was a treatment only affordable to the rich, due to the obvious scarcity of snake-poo. Having said that, given that the treatment probably had zero effect whatsoever (other than perhaps as an emetic once the doctor told you what you’d just swallowed), I think I’d rather take my chances. Given the choice between dying of TB and dying of TB with a stomachload of creosote, I think I’d favour keeping things simple.

Anyway, there’s that for you. Hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.