The markets! The markets!

Oh good the markets are up.

Not surprising: there's 80 billion pounds to steal

Memorising poetry

Memorising poetry is Michael Gove's latest dictat.

I haven't heard him saying why.

I wonder if it's because he knows of research which indicates that committing material to the memory, in some moderation, is good for cognitive development.

If it is, I wonder why he doesn't pay more attention to educational research.

And I wonder how the poems to be selected will be chosen.

What Spain did next

I keep hearing what Spain can or will or should do. Spain is not an entity; so what is being talked about?

The Spanish electorate will get a chance to vote in a while, not soon; and, whereas normally they would be told a lot of shit about which brand of bollocks satisfies the souls the most, this time they will be subjected to a variety of threats if they don't do this or they don't do that.

They will not be helped to make a rational decision because no one is going to admit that the reason everyone is in trouble is that the crooked rich have recently stolen even more.

Memory Fictions by Lawrence Upton

Memory Fictions by Lawrence Upton
published by Argotist E-books
69 pages

free pdf download from:

http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/MEMORY%20FICTIONS.pdf

Memory Fictions continues Lawrence Upton’s restless investigation of renewing approaches to poetry. It is, in part, also a record of his recent formal exploration of notation (in this case of texts for two voices) to disambiguate typed text without being overly directive. The work is an affirmation by Upton of the importance of performance as the full realisation of a poem; poems written and presented to support performers inherently; and, in its structures and composition, it represents, though quietly, a new direction in his writing. (Lawrence Upton convenes Writers Forum)

Full Argotist Ebooks catalogue here:

http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Ebooks%20index.htm

[Not, I hope, a fashionable idiocy]

Too many noise and shit machines

I read the other day that the father of Boris Johnson, the fool of London said that we need to reduce the population.

Well, I agree completely. That is, we are overpopulated and need to do something about it.

His solution, as it was reported, was to control immigration; but then, as he suggested that 15 million might be a sensible maximum for this country, I question his analysis.

Quite what he was talking about or why anyone should listen to him is not available to me.

But the idea of a low target population – presumably in some generations – is attractive.

It would make a lot of problems – like energy and food – much less problematic.

To cope with the large and enlarging population we have we are being told that we must accept factory farming and nuclear energy.

And we are told that modern versions of these are really quite ok

Apparently housing still covers the ground it stands on.

It seems to me that we could get energy by harnessing all the flying pigs around here and then eat them when they are worn out.

If we are not prepared to make use of the pigs that fly out of the bullshit, we might try birth control.

People who believe it is wrong to control birth would have to be put to silence; and not before time.

The idea that we are so much in God's image that he wants to see more and more of us irritates me intensely. I am tired by the vast numbers of noise-and-shit machines being wheeled round by the electorate. There's no bloody room, you morons

The PM speaks from his backside

The David Camwrong defence of the government's u – turns is interesting. Sort of

I quote from the BBC website: 'Mr Cameron said it took courage for an administration to admit it was "ploughing into the brick wall" and change course.'

I must say that I am a little suspicious of any person or organisation that calls itself courageous; and the idea that it is brave not to plough into a brick wall is novel.

I also question how courageous it is to admit you have to change course if you do not, in public, discuss how it was that you were able to go wrong. That's the important point.

That might be difficult in the case of this week's u-turns because, in lieu of his explanation, I rather think it was the strength of opposition which persuaded them to change rather than the force of argument.

The only mistake they seem to have acknowledged to themselves is that they misjudged the degree of public resistance.

What interests me most is that 'Mr Cameron also insisted the government had "resolve, strength and grit"'

This is a subset of the “we're taking difficult decisions” nonsense. It's partly a consequence of most organised religion and, more, a consequence of the sadistic / masochistic undercurrent of the public school system which shaped him and his cronies: if it hurts, it's good.

Resolve, strength and grit may be ok in some situations; but too often it expresses itself as one of Douglas Adams' yellow robots yelling “Resistance is useless”

There is no indication in what the buffoon said that he has any concept of why the decisions they've abandoned despite their resolve, strength and grit were wrong beyond their own self-interest.

It's just that, in this case, more people than expected expressed a belief that they are fools or villains or both; and said they'd fight.

For instance, while everyone is congratulating themselves on resisting VAT on Cornish pasties, it seems that the ConDems plan to impose a parliamentary constituency across the border between England and Cornwall will go ahead. It may not hit the pocket immediately but it is rather serious. It is, however, harder to rally opposition even though its purpose is clearly gerrymandering.

I am rather pleased with the verdict on Mubarak -- in so far as I am able to judge.
Now perhaps we could see the net spread a little wider. Blair and Bush occur to me. Not the same as Mubarak; but maybe not all that different. And there are some rather disturbing things being said and done in Israel, which are surprisingly like things that were said and done about and to Jews in Europe in the 1930s; but then if you set up a state on racial principles then you are likely to get racism.
The worry with the Mubarak trial is that there may be a tendency to say "Well, we've dealt with that" when really there has just been a beginning.
His imprisonment, if they stick to it, is likely to be as comfortable as he can be given his health, if his health is really poor.
The people he killed will still be dead; and most of the people who did the killing will still be free.