Tag: Culture Club

Rant

Let me begin with a disclaimer: I really like Boy George.

As a personality, as a celebrity, as an icon, as an inspiration, yes yes yes, I’m in.

But as a music artiste? Hmm. Well, I can’t think of a single record by Culture Club that I actually like. There’s a couple (‘Time (Clock of the Heart)’ and ‘Church of the Poison Mind’, if you’re asking) which I think are kind of alright. But mostly, Culture Club is a band name synonymous with the word ‘dreadful’ in my book.

Let me give you an example: there have been many, great, anti-war songs. Edwin Starr’s War; Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son; Billy Joel’s Goodnight Saigon; Springsteen’s Born In the USA; Kenny Rogers & The First Edition’s Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town; The Pogues’ The Band Played Waltzing Matilda to name but a few.

Somehow, George’s intellectual insight doesn’t really cut the mustard:

Culture Club – The War Song

It’s just vacuous and meaningless tosh isn’t it?

Ineffectual, much like the JohnsonOut hashtag currently swirling around on Twitter, gathering next to no traction, because they keep sticking a different number at the end of it.

Now, with the exception of #MeToo, hashtags on Twitter are largely pointless, They never bring about change, and have even less chance of doing so if you keep changing the hashtag everyday.

If you wish for a large showing of defiance on social media, then you have to at the very least have a solid, unwavering hashtag for all like-minded thinkers to get behind. Given that he’s the first PM to have been questioned by the police as part of an ongoing investigation, might I suggest that #CrimeMinister might be a more appropriate one to go with?

Speaking of ineffectual, the sanctions our #CrimeMinister (I’ll get this to stick, I’m sure) announced against Russia following their threatened invasion of Ukraine definitely fall into this category.

Now, in a spirit of transparency, I’m writing this, furious, on Wednesday night, and so there may have been a change of heart since, but the sanctions against Russia announced by our #CrimeMinister earlier today didn’t really cut the mustard.

Here’s Lib Dem Layla Moran using Parliamentary Privilege to list 35 Russian oligarchs, unlikely to be affected by the sanctions, who perhaps should be:

And here’s how our #CrimeMinister reacted when Labour MP Chris Bryant attempted to ask him a question about one of those Russian oligarchs who would be unaffected by the sanctions he had just announced:

Probably off to find a nice fridge to hide in.

The problem Johnson has is that, much as he wants to come across all Churchillian, he can’t send troops to help Ukraine, because he knows that’s the first step to actual war with Russia, which nobody wants, especially the Ukranians. I would imagine that right now they are pining for quieter times:

The Wedding Present (aka The Ukranians) – Davni Chasy (Remaster)

(Yes, I have deliberately mis-labelled that; it’s just The Wedding Present but it made more sense in context to mention The Ukranians than to not mention them at all)

(And I deliberately chose that tune, given that the only lyric appears to be documenting Johnson’s career: “Lie Lie Lie Lie Lie Lie Lie Lie Lie” etc etc ad infinitum.)

But Johnson also can’t make sanctions against the Russians too severe, because the Conservative Party is mostly funded by Russian money. And if you’re not convinced as to just how deeply entrenched the party is with Russian lolly, you should note that Carrie Symonds, the current Mrs Johnson, and often rumoured to the real power behind the man, was a founder member of The Conservative Friends of Russia. They sound nice.

It’s no wonder that we still have not been allowed to see the report into Russian interfering with our elections and referendums, is it?

But Johnson’s probably quite happy about the invasion of Ukraine, because it stops everyone from talking about the ongoing Partygate enquiry, and his unfounded, incorrect and uncorrected claims that Labour leader Kier Starmer was in some way responsible for the failure to prosecute now notorious and, crucially, dead paedophile Jimmy Savile while he was still alive and rustling in a tracksuit.

Airing this lie in Parliament, and then refusing to retract it or correct the record, was a dog-whistle to the morons, and led to Starmer being abused in the street by a gang of knuckle-draggers. And you know they meant business because Starmer was with black Labour MP David Lammy, who they left alone for once.

It was a trick lifted straight out of the Donald Trump playbook.

Two serving MPs, Jo Cox and David Amess, have been murdered by extremists. Johnson’s words, reacted to with a despicable smirk when challenged in interviews, gives the impression he thinks two isn’t enough.

And let’s not forget what our PM once said, unprompted, about the police investigating historic sex abuse cases (which he later denied saying):

It’s almost like he’s an habitual liar, isn’t it?

Given the current Met Police investigation, it’s hardly surprising he was against the investigation of historic crimes of any sort, is it?

Actually, if you really want to link Savile to a particular political party, and decide who is culpable in the failure to make him face justice when he was still alive, then there’s plenty of evidence as to which one it should be:

Bucks Fizz – My Camera Never Lies

Paedophiles, Russian money-launderers: it doesn’t matter to this lot. As long as you’re loaded and have no morals, your money and support is welcome in the Conservative Party.

Watch him for the next few weeks dodge questions about Partygate by saying he’s determined and focussed on “getting Ukraine done”. No doubt he has an oven-ready solution up his sleeve, which, much like the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement he signed, he won’t have read either.

The Horrors – I Can See Through You

Back in the early 80s, Thatcher was glad of the Falklands conflict: her patriotic response (giving the order to torpedo Argentinian ships leaving an area of interest included) was a vote winner at a time when she needed it most. Johnson is banking on the Ukraine giving him the same wriggle room. Don’t be fooled by him again.

More soon.

Late Night Stargazing

And so the counting is over. I think.

The result has been called and accepted. By most people.

Joe Biden will be the 46th President of America.

And when I say “by most people”, you know who I mean: the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC who at the time of writing has refused to concede defeat and has announced that “it isn’t over yet”.

At least, that’s what we think he’s said, it’s pretty hard to tell. Twitter is his favourite method of dog-whistling to the racists, so let’s take a look at his Twitter feed:

Unbelievably, as Trump started tweeting his anger, along with his base-less accusations that the postal vote was rigged, Twitter finally grew a spine and started marking his Tweets which contained falsehoods.

So, let’s head to US news channel MSNBC to see what he’s got to say there instead:

Wow. Not just Twitter that has grown a spine: suddenly, finally, as CNN did the same thing, the mass media were doing the same.

Which leads me to my favourite Tweet from the past few days:

It’s a narrative that Trump has building for a while, that the postal vote was rigged, when in fact all that had really happened was that Biden had, mainly due to the pandemic, encouraged his supporters to stay home on polling day and post their votes in advance, whilst Trump continued to maintain his position that Covid is nothing to worry about and people should get out and vote on the day. Amazing though, I thought, how many of his supporters who turned up at polling stations, chanting “Stop the count!” were wearing facemasks all of a sudden.

All that said, it’s terribly bad form not to have conceded defeat by now. And the thing is, Trump knows it is. And how do we know this? Well there’s a saying on Twitter: for every Tweet he sends, there is a previous Tweet contradicting it. And on this occasion, it’s this one:

Everyone knows that Trump is a narcissist, who thrives on attention and viewing figures; there is now a movement on Twitter to #UnfollowTrump – that is, that everyone who followed him, y’know, just to keep an eye on him, should now unfollow him, and imagine his face turn a shade of slightly whiter-orange as he sees his follower figures crumble at the same time as his presidency.

Anyway, whilst Trump continues to play the victim card, tonight’s song seemed appropriate:

Culture Club – Victims

More soon