Tuesday 10 September 2019

BEFORE I WIN THE WAR CAN I HAVE A STARBUCKS ?


The problem with the world is basically that everybody hates .....Everybody !....Esspecially people from anywhere else . As the world got bigger ,everywhere else got further, from neighbouring caves ,to huts, to villages ,to towns and cities ,to countries and other side of the planet and back again! These 'set too's' were instigated by whoever was in charge , wether he was the biggest caveman to the mightiest king to the weediest ,slimiest of politicians who rule today and decide we indulge in a 'set too' or as we know it now ..WAR !

To fight a good war you had to frighten the other army with your manpower. This army as it was now called , consisted of the king who picked the fight for the fun and honour of battle ,or land and riches. His army would be poor innocent farmers who had not known they even had a king except for the 'tithes' they had to pay . The old fashioned word for tax....Before it was on line , inland revenue @screwublind.com.

These poor put upon farmers and peasants ,now given the title of soldiers would march onto a feild armed with clubs and sharp sticks and knock seven lumps out of the other sides farmers and peasants armed with clubs and sharp sticks. After a few hours ,in them days, the field was littered with dead and mangled farmers and peasants whose day had been totally ruined. The kings and princes basked in the glory of the battle even though, quite possibly they'd had nothing to do with it and rode away unscathed ,but filled with the thrill of a massacre well done.


As with anything ,with practise the chaos of war became the art of war. New weapons were invented and  slashing and stabbing was perfected wit swords ,spears and even long range forms of entering the human body by way of the long bow was formulated for killing at a distance. Then those sneaky orientals in China invented a powder which caused huge explosions and then the shit and the rest of the enemys innards hit the wall of the besieged fortress. Cannons followed which could fire balls of iron then eventually a hand version called a rifle then a handgun was made. Except for those very odd sorts ,the Japanese , the sword died a death. Honour was a big thing in war and seemed to die off with the loss of the sword . The Japs become insanely honourable and would rip their insides out if their honour was 'damaged' or lost in anyway. If their lord lost or cocked up they would commit Seppuku, or as we'd say "Harry Carry!"

The armies got bigger and bigger all armed with rifles and by the time of the Napoleonic wars , tens of thousands of men would be on the march. If everybody hated the enemy they  hated their own men ,'the common squadie!'...They were treated like dirt and discipline was horrendous. Even The Good ol' Duke of Wellington refferred to his own men as 'filthy scum!' 

War was a thing of lovlieness now as the uniforms were lovely bright colours with feathers in lovely tall hats ,the condition of the uniform ,brass buttons n' all was more important than the maintainance of the weapons. Even in the mile long straight lines of men who could only fire once before a complicated reload ,maybe two shots a minute, they had unarmed men marching beating drums and blowing brass instruments, and men carrying the flag , which the enemy would home right in on . I can understand anyone keeping clear of the standard bearer.

The 'war to end all wars' came with world war 1...By then although calvalry units were still thought to be wonderful and lots of old style techniques and stratedgies were used ,the invention of repeater rifles then the machine gun ,wiped out millions as soldiers spent 5 years in mud and blood. Then everyone went home to wait for the next 'set too!', which wasn't that long in coming ,gave the next generation long enough to get to the right age to be called up so they could get into what was imaginatly called 'world war 2!' The pains in the arse ,the Germans who started the first war , decided theyd come off with a bad deal after their defeat , so the nutjobs in the Nazi party who ran the place thought Germany needed more territory and invaded everywhere and, thus was six years of  world wide fighting ,with the UK as the only one holding out and making an effort, we were kicked out of France and Europe was overun and we ended up in North Africa. Our supplies were coming from the US,Across the Atlantic ,German U-Boats allowing ,which they didn't . 

America didn't want to get involved ,but a good European war is great for curing a depression, so all of a sudden everybodies got a job and for protecting convoys and lend leasing second hand old boats getting all British bases and colonies around the world and a debt ,i think we paid of ,two weeks ago ,last Thursday, The Americans loved the war. Until those crazy Japs bombed Pearl harbour and all of a sudden there they were , as we all know ,"Pullin' our goddamn limey asses outta the fire!" 

The Americans came out on the winning side and so Hollywood has been celebrating that ever since....Since then theyve utilised their massive funds ,equipment and manpower to do ,well not much, Korea , Vietnam ,Afghanistan , etc ....Even invaded Haiti , a tiny island for 'Operation uphold democracy', a good American military title. 23,000 men attacked the island , 100 Haitians were killed and...One American!

Kids used to play war in the play ground at school ,blasting with pretend machine guns , until they discovered sitting playing computer games....Although weve had armies ,navies ,airforces , nuclear weapons , we are now using spy satelittes and drones to guide missile strikes ,so the missiles and drones are controlled by soldiers with starbucks coffee mugs playing computer games in the pentagon....Kids are the fighting forces of the future!




















Thursday 9 May 2019

GAWD!....WOT A PERFORMANCE !




"WOT A PERFORMANCE!".....A phrase that covers a myriad of sins and events. You might think of it as to do with show biz and the theatre ,but its life as a whole ,in fact anything you care to get involved in , work , personal home life or even your sex life ,christ thats often a 'performance' as is the relationship between the stars of the show ,men and women!

Porn is an interesting show of the performance between men and women and the multitude of  variations on that performance !....Somebody pointed out that watching porn would give youngsters the wrong idea not so much about sex, but about the long convoluted performance involved in getting a plumber or a telly repair man ,or a variety of household repair services, as in these performances the repairman is always there right away and forms the basis for these well thought out ,well written dramatic performances!?

Mucky stuff aside we ,of course have the traditional treading of the boards in the theatre ,with proper performers of the thespian variety called acto(oo)rs. Funny ,as i wrote the extended version of the word actors ,i can hear that  perfomance enhancing explosion ,Brian Blessed saying it . Unlike the mucky stars the thespians dont project bodily fluids ,but project their voice richocetting around the hall cluttered with their audience trying to understand what the hell Billy Shakespeare was raving about when he wrote this play that nobody can mention the name of ,but its ok to write on the poster advertising the performance.

Performances are for the arty farty sorts , And for their benefit music was invented to be performed and acted and opera was born which made less sense then Shakespeare ,as it was shrieking fat ladies singing in Italian then the show finished?

Then they performed dance in the form of Ballet , fellahs with big lumps in their skin tight trousers and women with very odd circular dresses called tu tu's bouncing around on their toes with the other leg up behind them pointing at the ceiling, and performing all this body twisting, knotting and mutilation....And all to music!



As i said the arty farty sorts go to watch actors, dancers and singers perform at performances, whereas us lower class ignorant ,unwashed go to watch entertainers at shows ! Performers of various types ,in fact a variety of different performances gave the name to the halls , and the form of entertainment of the working classes ...Variety !

Variety was a form of entertainment to do just that, entertain......Shakespeare ,the theatre ,ballet and opera where a million miles away....Comedians were invented on the creaking boards of tatty cluttered halls around the country ,jokes ,funny songs, dances ,etc ,were performed without change throughout a comedians career as there wasn't TV or radio once upon a time and as they were on the road most of the time ,people rarely saw them more than once , this was the glory years for the performers ,a bit of a drought for the comedy gag writers tho'!

When radio hit the airwaves the variety acts carried on , but some broke through onto the radio and the comedy writer was born and the performers in some cases became household names ,Hancock ,et al!....The variety halls were still doing great business until the telly came and done for them and radio. But for us boozy brits ,there was always the working mans clubs where comedians and musicians had to serve their hard apprenticeship performing for peanuts and lucky to escape with their lives from legendary comedian venues like the Glasgow Empire.

In the days were the club entertainers were musicians and comedians ,many still play the clubs ,but the clubs are closing and places to perform are thin on the ground. Bands played halls all round the cities and country ,pubs and universities ,crammed into transit vans and performing gig after gig. now every kid who wants to be a 'pop star' ,not a musician or really a performer , just a celebrity perform to themselves in their computer in their bedrooms for Simon Cowell for the X-Factor.

The big bands who survive still sell out massive arenas ,sadly great venues like most city theatres never get used...Would've loved to have seen the Beatles or the Who in the Liverpool Empire for instance. A strange thing is happening where the smaller theatres have 'Tribute bands' playing ,once their performances were teeth grindingly awful ,but nowadays some are superb and they sound great ,they are cheaper and play in the small local theatres as their inspirations may well have done once upon a smashed guitar ago!

The comedians from the clubs are sneered attoday as ok in the 'context of their times?'....Meaning they were "ok then!", but shite now . Our new comedy performers aren't called comedians , 'Stand ups!'...Ex students who try a stint at a 'comedy club'. Then if they get through they join the smug , self satisfied clique of gobshite 'stand ups' ,who sit down on a million panel shows on sky 'Dave' channel and others. night after night ,then 'lve at the Apollo. Then a tour of arena venues to push their new DVD. They would never do a working mans club were the audience are old enough to drink.

The world of variety is almost gone , but the only man who fought to help them ,never pushing his DVD, i don't think he ever made one was the comic genius KEN DODD. He vowed he would play every old variety hall all round the country ,which he did until the day he died and performed no more.




Friday 15 March 2019

THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE WAS WHEN THE CAVEMEN STARTED 'GRUNTING UP' THE WOMEN!





A way once upon a few million aeons ago when Homo's erectus had become his sapien !....(Have you ever had a sapien?)...Language was a series of snorts and grunts . It could be argued that the method of communication  has regressed to that level again. Language , with waving arms made a form of understanding possible. Various items and instructions adopted their own grunt and snort, for example "Grunt ,snort ,growl ,bark, snarl !!" could be translated as "Hey ,woman!...Pass me that bone i want to smash that lizards head in for dinner !" Repetition of the man of the caves house orders over time became understood by the cave wife and thus was planted the seeds of language. So it is a scientific , anthropological fact that man invented language, although it was up to the female to make sense of the grunting , no change there then!

At first every cave had its own language and when lone cave men got together in communities and had to communicate with each other , community languages evolved, although accents evolved from various caves. Fred Flintstone , Barney Rubble , and bill ughrock  would have the equivalent of scouse, Geordie and Brummie accents as they lived far apart ,100's of feet. 

With the development of language romance evolved and women instead of being sex objects quite got to like being 'Grunted up!'...The prehistoric version of being 'chatted up!' As some smoothie cavemen were better than others at 'copping off!'...This started the the male to smarten themselves up, like cleaning themselves after ' dropping their guts!'....Even the women started prettifying themselves , scraping mud out of their hair and things ,this led to a massive growth in the population and like all good diseases the human race spread .

All over the place human settlements sprung up and not wandering about they developed their own languages . But they still werent very bright as they would be told things and promptly forget them. This led to the discovery of scraping symbols in the mud to remind them of whatever gossip or dirty joke they'd heard. Put 2 scribbles together and you have twice the information , almost a prehistoric graphic novel!

3 scribbles ,4 scribbles ,100's of scribbles and mankind was on his way inventing thinking and stuff like philosophy which was no good to anyone but involved lots of reading writing and thinking and led to science ,maths, history ,etc, (History was dead easy in them days ,as there wasnt much of it!)

As with language which was totally different wherever you went , the drawings that evolved from illustrations to a mish mash of squiggly lines or single squiggly lines from left to right ,from right to let ,from top to bottom ,from bottom to top ,from front to back ,from back to front....This variety of writing is probably more complex to understand than spoken language.

The spoken language spawned the theatre and stories and poetry written mixed it all up to into a stew we call 'the arts' with the creation of very odd well spoken characters called actors!...Who once spoke very well and were understood by one and all ,whereas nowadays we have film stars who speak the language of the 'Blockbuster action film' ,where the writing isnt important ,but action and heroes who speak with gutteral throat ripping grunts ,much like once long ago in the prehistoric times.

As the spoken language has regressed as 'street talk' has taken over and where once gentile local accents from areas all around our green n' pleasant land have been replaced by a horrible 'street speak' which has distorted accents like the Liverpool scouse accent which has gelled into a horrible scallification of a once decent accent. Evolution of the language ?

The written word was the tool of language and communication and a side effect was good spelling and punctuation.Then with the invention of the phone the spoken language returned in all its glory. Now in these days of 'Unsocial media' ,where texting has taken over the spoken language taking us
 back to a preemptive written word, Where the writing is worse than god knows when, spelling ,punctuation has gone and that preemptive text curse , what is the f'in' point of that ?

 I passed a school playground the other day and it was dead quiet ,with texting, i remember the playground full of bad language and various games had their own language ,again mainly obscene ,but always remember the swapping of picture cards, the "Got, not got !" language. Bad language or swearing is a wonderful new thing ,i have heard Gaelic and Welsh spoken and our very own 'F' word, "bollocks n' bastards " popping up , The English language was the one that invented swearing on top of everything else and for that we should be proud!