Daughters of the Dust by Rhiannon Hooson

Daughters of the Dust

There can be no mermaids of the steppe
though its bare hills roll and boom like the sea. Only
some strange creature, lithe in the gelid dust
and furred like a fox: silent, accusing in the eyes,
a deep wind parting fur down to bone coloured skin.
Horizons pile thin as paper one atop the next
and they spin their story into the pinched air: a woman,
and a wish, and a corsac fox. Nights

of the great white zud they might dance away the snow,
leaving paths of grass for the herd to eat, or else
rise like walls to blow across the landscape
stately and slow and sickening, only the chiming ice
singing their welcome with its spare high notes,
each like the prick of a needle. And in the city,
where the nights smell of sweet smoke and milk
and idling traffic, they go walking now:

silent over the glaze of blood frozen to the ground
around the wrestling palace. Silent in the alleys
where stray dogs sleep in the warmth from sewer grates.
Silent past the cafes where soldiers thaw their brows
over salt milk tea. Silent, until they are singing,
each alone in the dim reaches of the night,
each pale as an unlit candle, up through the gers
where the roads falter and the lights go out; up to the mountain
where the wind sings back; towering, and tidal, and old.

Read this poem today in The Guardian; their poem of the week. Love it. To be read out loud, 

The Human Phonograph by Jonathan Tel

From The Guardian:  Many years on... The site of China’s first nuclear weapon research base
Haiyan county, Qinghai province. Photograph: STRINGER/CHINA/REUTERS

Understated yet compelling writing. A short story by Jonathan Tel; winner of the Commonwealth short story prize 2015. Details of each year's competition may be found at Commonwealth Writers. 

The Human Phonograph can be read at the Guardian website. 

A Perfect Fit

The Guardian and Sir David Attenbourgh. These two cultural icons have influenced all of my adult life and more. Happy birthday Sir David.

Funny ... if it were not so depressingly true

Ben Jennings cartoon in today's Guardian

Letter to Clive

This week's soft target of the usually more witty Clive James

Clive James writes a weekly column in The Guardian.  In today's edition he's having a patronising dig at Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, and a less than subtle go at Mr. Corbyn's support for a policy of not replacing the UK's so-called independent nuclear deterrent - Trident.

Clive writes, 

I admire the way [Jeremy Corbyn's] principles are uninhibited by reason. I also like his beard, which reminds me of one of the beards I grew at various times in my life when I wished to prove I was still a student, even though the years had passed. Corbyn is a student at heart.

I couldn't resist a response. It's here. 

Dear Clive, 

I know you strive to be witty and for that you have our respect. But (as you know) the Trident thing is not about beards or eyes glittering with goodness. 

Field Marshall the Lord Bramall KG GCB OBE MC, former chief of the defence staff, is, as far as one can tell, clean-shaven AND opposed to the Trident nuclear missile system, writing "our independent deterrent has become virtually irrelevant, except in the context of domestic politics." 

And General the Lord Ramsbotham GCB CBE, former Adjutant General, former ADC to Her Majesty the Queen is, like Lord Bramall, clean-shaven and, like both Lord Bramall and Jeremy Corbyn, opposed to the Trident nuclear missile system. Lord Ramsbotham wrote, 

"We don't own the missiles and it is absolutely unthinkable that we should ever consider using it or threatening to use it without having the clearance of the United States". 

"The fact is that Trident is an inappropriate weapons system. You can't see Trident being used against something like nuclear blackmail by international terrorism. It is a cold war weapon. It is not a weapon for the situation where we are now." 

Two more points, if I may. 

Having a dig at the Daily Mail version of Mr. Corbyn is beneath a man of your intelligence and wit. Sinking to the Mail's level belittles you. 

And it's my confident guess you are being disingenuous when you suggest you were nicer when a student than you are now. I'll bet my house on it that your peers would beg to differ, even those who liked and admired you. 

You can join CND here http://www.cnduk.org Beards are not compulsory.

I'm very glad to see my remarks have produced some quite agitated responses from Tories. Who knew they trawled The Guardian looking for Lefties to abuse? I would have thought that's about as difficult as shooting fish in a barrel.

The Big Short

I watched the film The Big Short last week and had been meaning to post some thoughts about it here before now. That good intention slipped (as many do). I was brought back to the film by Peter Bradshaw's review today in The Guardian Online. Mr, Bradshaw, whose film criticism is always worth reading, was considerably less impressed by the film than I was. Here's just one part of his two-star review:

I came to The Big Short in a state of anticipation, only to be baffled at how smug, laborious and self-important it is, trying to combine Gordon Gekko sexiness with anti-banker correctness, like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street rewritten by Malcolm Gladwell and Justin Welby. It’s a film that doesn’t let you have your cake, or eat it. And how agonisingly it keeps stopping to explain technical stuff by bringing on celeb guest stars such as superchef Anthony Bourdain or singer Selena Gomez to recite the patronising and gimmicky mini-explanations written for them.

I was kinder.  I added my twopence-worth in the comments section below the article.  This is what I wrote.

It is quite a difficult film to rate. Parts of it worked well, I thought (breaking the 4th wall worked well for me and I thought the performances were very good). Parts of it not so well, although I did wonder if what seemed like a weak script at times (e.g. the Florida mortgage brokers' bragging) had more to do with the fact that the truth about those people at that time is more difficult to accept than fiction - as in, 'you couldn't make up this stuff'. 

I think as well it's interesting to contrast The Big Short with Spotlight: two drama-documentaries about small, tightly bound groups of (predominantly) men seeking to uncover hidden truths about corrupt social institutions - one group for personal gain, the second group for a higher moral purpose. I quite enjoyed both films but I couldn't stop thinking about how old-fashioned & trad Spotlight felt in its style, technique and structure. Maybe that was intentional (although I doubt it). For all its flaws (some of which I agree with PB about - a degree of smugness, the almost total absence of dramatic concern with the folk who were ripped off by those sharks) The Big Short does seem to be trying to tell its kind of story in a more contemporary manner. 

Two out of five is a bit harsh. It's a film worth watching even if it doesn't deliver all the time.

I guess that means I'd give it three, maybe three and a half.  Still worth the ticket price.

It's like that advert against drugs ... Just Say No!

So today's Guardian has another of its doom-laden speculations about how everyone (except The Guardian) is underestimating the threat posed by Donald Trump.  Unless we waken up, it cautions readers, we shall enter January 2017 surprised to find President Trump staring down at us.

I disagree. I think his standing has - in part - been inflated by the very media circus that warns us of the fate worse than death to democracy Mr. Trump represents.  Mostly, of course, I think his effervescent rise tells us exactly what a rich megalomaniac can buy in the way of public opinion before real people start to cast real votes.  I'm betting, not just hoping, the Trump bubble bursts by the end of March.

I should know better than join in but the article annoyed me - the fact of it as much as its 'straw man' contents.  I wanted to stamp my feet and shout ... just stop it please!  Instead, despite my better judgement, I allowed Mr. Angry from Gilmore to leave comments 'below the line',  I wrote:

I know it's not in any way fashionable to make the following claim but I believe the underlying evidence of everything I've read indicates that Donald Trump's preposterous and distasteful tilt for the Presidency will be effectively over by March 2016 at the latest. His legacy - if that's not too polite a term to use - will have been to drag all the other Republican candidates to the right because they lacked the moral and political courage to stand up to the charlatan nincompoop posing as a politician. It's a depressing state of affairs but the good news is that not even the Republican Party will follow that megalomaniac over the cliff, never mind the rest of the American people.

Someone who goes by the login name of honey1969 responded;

Trump/Cruz 2016 

You can't stop the Trump Train!

And I wrote back:

The Trump train will be lucky if it makes it out of the station once real people start voting rather than answering pollsters' questions. Good luck to you if you support him but be prepared to watch the Trump Train Wreck.

Someone by the name JohnMappin added:

I know it is hard for the died in the wool left wing intellectuals who have been feeding from the mamaries of their own self created media delusion bubble for best part of a decade to grasp - but Trump is appealing across the spectrum to republicans and democrats alike Americans want to win and they see the standard politicians as losers. Trump is their one shot and like Eminem they are going to take it..

And I wrote back:

I believe that American voters - Republican and Democrat - see through that charlatan and when it comes to making real choices in Caucuses and Primaries they will vote for other candidates to flush Donald Trump down the toilet of political history. If he's the Eminem of 21st Century politics my name is Beyonce.

"Died in the wool"?  I resisted the temptation to be a pedant.

Now Douglas, have you got all that off your chest?  Good.  Then please Douglas, just stop it!

Modern Australian Politics 101

Bonkers

Another insightful article from Lenore Taylor in today's Guardian Australia online.  And yet more below the line commentary in response from yours truly, here:

I am not now, never have been nor ever could have become a supporter of Tony Abbott. Just need to make that clear cos it's reasonable to acknowledge the point of origin of one's critique. 

But truly ... 

One is left almost speechless by the self-serving, delusional hypocrisy and cant of the man. It beggars belief that he could be so out of touch with the real world, so stunningly incapable of even the mildest form of self-critical examination. And yet one wonders if he has inhabited a Tony Abbott bubble of sycophancy for so long, speaking only to trusted like-minded others who only knew how to or had the courage to say "yes Tony, whatever you think", that he may actually have persuaded himself he speaks truth?

• The leadership ballot was brought on because it was about to be revealed he was - in fact - a winner? Eh? 

• Everyone else is disloyal, careerist and backstabbing? But even he does not refute Scott Morrison's revelation that TA offered to dump Hockey to protect his Prime Ministerial skin. 

• And nothing has changed? How supremely ironic that Mr Abbott and the ALP front bench are now the only sentient beings on Earth who cling to the delusional hope that what the Tories did was simply change the sales team.

Mr Abbott can be allowed to believe or promulgate that last idea because

1. he lost and is clearly hurting, 
2. he is as bonkers as is the idea that nothing has changed and
3. his shock jock friends need some one who is no less disconnected from reality to interview for a while as they try to savage the new Prime Minister. But even the shock jocks will get bored with Tony Abbott's broken record because they were only interested in cosying up to power and poor old Tony now has none.

But the ALP needs to shake off its fondness for / reliance on their last hope - like TA - that nothing has changed. The whole game as changed. The future looks entirely different - which isn't to say that some policies won't be carried forward because they clearly will be. Others, however, will alter and the context, strategy and discourse around the central conservative agenda for Australia will be conducted in wholly different terms. Tony Abbott is irrelevant to a conversation about what the future may look like because he always has been irrelevant to any discourse about the shape of modernity. He only ever wanted to look back and return to the mythical past. That and his demonstrable incompetence are the reasons he was dumped.

Now, however, the ALP has a duty to engage with the legitimate, necessary debate about what a modern, social democratic Australia could look like and offer it to voters as a credible alternative vision to 21st Century conservatism. The longer the ALP stays in the same conversation and mind set as TA the farther behind they will fall and the more difficult it will become to persuade Australians that the modern Left has anything real and appealing to offer.

Forgive me if I sound a little sceptical here.

I'm reading this article about a new phone designed by a Britishdesigner (chances are he owns an Apple Powerbook Pro) for a Swiss electronic products manufacturer. I'm in Australia so I'm reading the Guardian online article on my Chinese manufactured Anroid smart phone although it could just a easily have been using my Microsoft Surface tablet / laptop or my all-in-one desktop if I was at home. Later I shall tweet. I'll check my Facebook page and maybe see something there - on YouTube - that'll make me laugh. It could have a cat in it or be a Walking Dead meme.

That all seems pretty ordinary to me in the second decade of the 21st Century but as a 58 year old man I am nothing like as engaged with the smart technologies and their apps as the smart generations that are transforming the world.

But here's the thing - I have my relationships at home which function more or less as well or otherwise as they did or didn't 30 years ago. I have all sorts of social relations beyond the home and not online. I may even delude myself into thinking some of them have meaning (for me) and are purposeful: a work colleague's leaving do tomorrow, a friend's second child's Christening on Sunday, another friend and her 13 year old foster child coming to stay next week on holiday during which time the thirteen year old will go to the local glass artist studio with my glass artist partner to learn how to slump hot glass to make butterflies.

All of us connected as humans in a real world. Our smart technologies and platforms facilitate those connections. We all know where the off buttons are located if we really need to find them although, as sentient beings, we simply put down the phone, tablet or PC and pick up a book, get on the bicycle or bus, engage differently in whatever way we can or choose.

I just don't buy into all the cod sociological doom that comes with this guy's retro phone. I don't believe that smart phones, Facebook, Periscope or Apple are taking us to Hell in a handcart where anomie, alienation and the collapse of civilisation await.

It's a phone. Buy it or not because it's a product you want or don't want. Spare us the sociology lecture though. I have the suspicion it's much the same pitch as the papyrus salesman made to the world when the paper makers set up shop.

Are we doomed to repeat the past?

When I was a child growing up in Scotland my parents brought me up within the Presbyterian traditions of the Church of Scotland - the Kirk, which in many ways acted as the moral compass of our small, northern nation.  Although I never acquired the sense of Faith felt by my mother and father, and I am not a Christian, I have taken with me into adulthood and my life in the world fundamental tenets that have guided 'Believers' across centuries - millennia, I suppose.

Among those fundamentals are these two pillars of decency and civilised co-existence:

• First, there's the 'Golden Rule' also known as the 'ethic of reciprocity'. I know best the Christian version from the Sermon on the Mount and rendered in the King James Bible as ... "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." (Matthew 7:12)  Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  It's a maxim one finds in every major religion and, I have no doubt, in any moral framework where religion isn't the driver.

• Second, there is this ... "Blessed are the peacemakers".  Same sermon but this time Matthew 5:9.  It speaks for itself, don't you think?

Those thoughts came to mind while I was reading an article in my beloved Guardian.  You can read it here:

Osborne announces £500m for Faslane and says Corbyn threatens UK security

Chancellor says cash will create thousands of jobs at home of Trident deterrent and criticises Labour leadership hopeful’s anti-nuclear stance

The replacement cost for the Trident nuclear missile system on the UK's four - allegedly independent - nuclear-armed submarines is estimated to be at least £100 Billion over the next 35 years.  One hundred billion pounds - at 2012 prices - to replace a weapon that has never been used, should never be used, and which, if used, would signal the end of all human life.

The Trident-class nuclear submarine Vanguard. 

The Trident submarine base is located in a sea loch on the River Clyde in Scotland about 30 miles from where I was born and raised.  As the crow flies ... or nuclear missile soars, come to think of it ... the submarine base is just over 63 miles from the isle of Iona where - in 563 AD - an Irish prince by the name of Columba arrived on a missionary expedition that led to the introduction of Christianity across Scotland. When I was maybe two or three years old my father carried me on his shoulders as our family made its way across the beach to what's known as the Iona Community - blessed peacemakers if ever there were such people - where he and other volunteers were working to renovate and refurbish the community's buildings.

Iona, Scotland

Today's story in the Guardian made me sad and angry.  Scotland needs investment in its people, infrastructure and future.  Half a billion pounds to bolster the nuclear offensive capability of NATO is, however, something no one needs.

As sometimes happens, maybe often, the news set me off on one of my below the line rants in the paper's comments section.  This is it:

It seems we still have to ask the question the proponents of Mutually Assured Destruction have never been able to answer ... In what conceivable circumstances would or could a British Prime Minister independently authorise the firing of nuclear armed missiles and at which - or any - known, likely or foreseeable 'first strike' enemy?

Given there are none - not one, not ever - Trident is not now and never has been the UK's nuclear deterrent. It deters nothing and no one and would never be used independently of an authorisation from the USA via its front organisation NATO. Trident is a tool of MAD in a box wholly owned and controlled by American foreign policy

And given the genocidal consequences of nuclear war, MAD and the impossibility of a 'first strike capability' resulting in anything other than those two outcomes what social, economic or moral purpose does Trident serve?

That's right ... none. Not one. Never.

Have we still not learned?  Make peace, not war.  Join CND.

It's in The Guardian so it must be true

Earlier today I read a short article by Natalie Haynes in The Guardian's Books section. The article is headed March of the megabooks: it's all Donna Tartt's fault and can be read here.

The gist of the short piece is that very long novels (900 to 1,000 and more pages) seem to be in vogue.  Ms Haynes writes that she has nothing against long novels per se but that some of the recent crop demonstrate the want of a good editor.  She adds that "a book can be any length, if the words earn their keep on the page" and suggest that we might be overlooking short novels, citing two examples of fine writing: The Testament by Colm Toibin and The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono, which she describes as "the most beautiful book I read last year".

I've never heard of Jean Giono nor - obviously - have I read his short book. On the strength of Natalie Haynes glowing praise, however, I have just ordered a copy (in hardback with woodcut illustrations) from the Book Depository. We shall see soon if it lives up to the recommendation.

Only in The Guardian

A headline in yesterday's Guardian caught my attention ... as it understandably might.

Uncovering the face value of beards

Written by Fanny Arlandis, the piece, which you can read here, began with this paragraph:

A beard has both social and political meanings. “A powerful distinguishing mark, the appearance of facial hair plays a key role in the process of asserting or stigmatising identity,” says ethnologist Christian Bromberger. “Being hairless and clean-shaven, or not, is far from neutral,” says Stéphane Héas, a sociologist at Rennes 2 University. “One’s appearance impacts directly on the way others judge us.”

I was tickled, read on then - a bit tongue in cheek - left the following comment below the line:

Scottish man with beard

Forty years of me having a beard may be explained by this ...

“The patriarchal, male-dominant nature of western society in the 19th and 20th century almost certainly explains the appeal of sophisticated beards and moustaches,” Héas says. “Policymakers made their presence felt through their discourse and facial hair.”

Or ...

I do not like shaving.

Answers on a postacard to ... any French deconstructionist you may still be able to find anywhere on the planet. No ... seriously ... I'm quite fond of Derrida, love Barthes; really. But guys. It's a beard.

After a good night's sleep I awoke (on what was still 6 April in the northern hemisphere) to discover over my breakfast reading of The Guardian that my smart-arse comment had provoked a response, seemingly less tongue in cheek than my own from a fellow Guardianista, one Andrew the Gaunt, who wrote as follows:

I think you missed the point. Sociology does not care about individual cases, but is concerned about trends. Why did men all shave during the 18e century, but not at all during the 19? Why was it reserved to marginalised groups in the 60s and now is popular amon the youngs? You can hardly argue that it's mere coincidence, suddenly people hate shaving, and yet all like it back in the same time.

Sociology tries to explain this, why do we behave the way we do and what led us into behaving that way...

I could not resist a further riposte, I'm afraid, which I posted today. 

I'm reasonably sure I didn't miss the point, Andrew. 

I am not as sure, however, that what may or may not be a sociological trend warrants this article in the Guardian at this time because there are already very strong indicators that the most recent trend for facial hair peaked some time ago and in our Capitalist, post-industrial societies the resurgence of the clean-shaven metrosexual, now setting up porridge cafes, social media consultancy services and home-delivered vegan frozen dinners, is already apparent. The beard thing is already a bit like Hush Puppy slip-on shoes. SO last cultural wave.

As for an old geezer like me ... I'm keeping the beard because someone has to hold on to pre-Capitalist fundamental principles. Don't shave. It only accelerates the commodification of one's double chin.

You see, I thought I was simply having a laugh.  Clearly I made a mistake.  

Are sociologists entirely bereft of humour?

In The Guardian ... so it must be true

I submitted three of Spike's photos of our trips to games at the Asian Cup which were posted on the Guardian Witness web site here.  A journalist from The Guardian, Tom Stevens, wrote to me with questions about our experiences at the tournament.  I rushed off answers before jumping in the car last Friday to drive to Sydney for the Quarter Final and Semi Final games last weekend.  Never thought any more about it.

Iraq v Palestine, 21 January. Pic: Spike Deane

I received an e.mail from Tom earlier today with a link to his article in The Guardian today, here.  Spike's photos are republished and extracts from my answers to Tom's questions were turned into quotes for his article. 

Lifelong Guardian reader that I am, I couldn't be more chuffed to appear in its virtual pages.  And - ageing Leftie, as I am also - I'm very pleased that my references to the broadcasting deal struck by the Football Federation Australia were quoted ... almost as I wrote them.  Tom wrote,

"Another interesting point our readers have made hinges on the Australian TV coverage of the event, or lack of. Dougie suggests that Football Federation Australia sold its soul too cheaply by signing the rights to the group stages over to Foxtel. “FFA missed the opportunity to open the tournament up to casual viewers through free to air broadcasting. It might be a long time until Australia host a football tournament of similar stature, and rather than being ‘dazzled by cash’ FFA could have looked at this tournament as an opportunity of building a long term future for the game.”

Happy camper.  Off to the final tomorrow.