Aloof

There's a lot of frustration available. Frustration at widespread idiocy and the infantile nature of popular entertainments and my indulgence in the worst offenders. Frustration at a lack of purpose and drive which mars potentially-worthwhile endeavours. Frustration at the unsatisfactory life options available and the wastage of time. Frustration at the passive tone necessitated by my lack of shamelessness. Frustration at the immediate lack of compassion and resulting, comforting, guarded arrogance - warm and safe. A pointless egosurvivalist, living off tins of sausages and beans and sniping fellow survivors. A hermit with a blog and a twitter-feed.

Well, that's your dose of Saturday cryptic pseudo-psych bullshit.

Clubbing. (Or a survey of collective delusion).

Last night I was once again persuaded against my better judgement to engage in that most hallowed of university rituals, the ‘club night’. Now on paper clubbing sounds great; who wouldn’t enjoy getting monstrously drunk with their friends and rocking out to their favourite music? The thing is that the actual experience rarely lives up to those expectations. In my experience at least, the music is almost universally dire. Nights like the acclaimed ‘Fruity’ play to the lowest common denominator and whilst there are always a few good songs thrown in, the DJ seems determined to maintain a low average in quality overall. Despite their virulent protestations, I think everyone in reality feels the same about this. It seems odd to me that friends who are usually known for their taste in avant garde dark metal suddenly seem to know all the words to Justin Bieber’s latest shit on a plate. Or the right mouth shapes anyway. Stylus at Leeds University offers a unique opportunity to survey the behaviour of such doublethinking clubbers, as it has a balcony around the main dancefloor. I challenge you to count the number of people who look like they are genuinely having fun; that is not checking around them constantly to see if they’re being judged/judging others, or adopting a fixed grin whilst vibrating wordlessly to some dire dance track, or simply standing and drinking glumly. The only people who seem to me who actually enjoy themselves are those big same sex groups who are having an evening of ironic frolicking and therefore throwing themselves around with no regard to others, often being glared at by said others for being ‘saddos’ or whatever. I can appreciate that adopting the ‘irony’ approach might actually be pretty fun, but it’s not really a great advert for clubs if they can only be appreciated ironically. Or maybe it is. Maybe nobody actually really enjoys clubbing, except those who possess the insider’s knowledge that the whole phenomenon of clubbing is just one massive joke. Hundreds of thousands of people are nightly engaging in one massive self-parody, and by doing so perpetuating the myth to those not in the know that it’s a legitimate activity. Sometimes I think this can be the only viable explanation.

Even if one discards this theory, irony and self-delusion are nonetheless the predominant abstract nouns present at any given club, except perhaps drunkenness and unsatiated horniness. This is undeniably true. I shall give you a few examples. Last night we went to ‘Wendy House’, a night which advertises itself as ‘Alternative/Goth’ which to my mind suggests a playlist of screaming and blood curdling shredding but which apparently actually includes The Killers and The Human League. (As an addendum, it seems to me that club nights are a bit like political parties. They advertise themselves as being more radical than they actually are, to enthuse the party base and bring out the core vote, but then actually lurch inevitably to the centre in order to please the casual listener/voter. A recent example of this in my life includes a Rock/Indie night at the Faversham which turned out to actually be more Radio 1 dance music, with a token grunge or indie track thrown in every half hour. What I expected at that night was what we actually got at the ‘Goth’ night. Maybe in order to get music that actually appeals to people who only listen to vaguely alternative music you’d have to go to a night that advertised itself as Thrash Metal, or Grindcore. I digress.) To be honest, a night of Killers, HL and The Smashing Pumpkin sounds pretty appealing, so in terms of music it was a good night. Frankly I enjoyed myself. But so much of what I expect of clubs happened that a lot of time I had to stop myself from having a constant smirk on my face. For instance, the spectacle of groups of people spending half the evening taking photos of themselves at clubs is well remarked upon, and I shan’t go into all the hilarities of needing to prove to yourself and everyone else that you’re having a good time here. However, when a nearby acquaintance remarked to a friend of mine “I can’t wait to see these pictures on Facebook” I nearly punched her out of mirth. Why can’t you wait? Is it not enough to be living the experience right now? Are you blind to everyone’s amusing costumes in the here and now, only really realising what they looked like once those people who you actually know are digitised memories on a screen? Has Zuckerberg taken us all for such a ride that we now think our friends don’t actually exist until their image is legally in his ownership? Honestly. I’m surprised she didn’t implode in a scantily-clad mushroom cloud of irony as those few ill-informed words tumbled out of her dribbling drunken gob.

One final point. Something about clubbing seems to enforce the rules of social conformism even more rigidly than usual, which conceptually seems strange, considering the inhibitionless glee with which people down their drinks, and is especially twisted last night, given the philosophy of nonconformism behind much ‘Alternative’ music. Example. I observed several people at various points being berated by their friends for not knowing the words to the songs that everyone was bellowing along to. Such scoldings were generally accompanied by an air of self-annointed superiority; they knew they were in the exclusive club of cooldom and their lyrically deficient friends were not. Frankly this attitude is bullshit, especially when the song in question is Sum 41’s ‘Fat Lip’ whose lyrics include “I’ll never fall in line/become another victim of your conformity”. People are just having fun, if they wanna scream and shout along to a song they love, let them, even if they don’t know the words exactly. As the great Cat Stevens once said: "If you want to sing out, sing out". Who the fuck are you to judge? To be honest, if even that is considered a crime in the supposedly liberationist atmosphere of a clubnight then I don’t see what the point of them is at all.

/rant.

Against Poirot

I'm disgusted by the happy sentimentality of my last post, so I'm going to go back to good old-fashioned hatred.

Poirot is essentially a poor man's Sherlock Holmes. Not literally, of course, since he serves only that peculiar strain of the upper-middle-class who are so utterly detestable and parasitic that you hope they'll all be the culprits. Except that happened once already and then he let them get away with it. It's not an unusual occurrence. In fact, I watched another episode the other day where he let a jewellery thief abscond just because she was charitable enough to show him some brief attention. She even gave him a little peck on his fat, balding head as she was making a getaway. It's good to know that the most cunning criminal can evade the brilliant Hercule Poirot by showing him a bit of leg and slobbering on his face.

And his methods are deplorable. He views himself as a "psychological detective". He laughs at the idea of crawling on his hands and knees to collect clues. Instead, he leans back in his chair, eating buttered goose and psychologically profiling his adversary. No, Poirot. That isn't the mark of a great detective. Take, for example, the unsurpassed Mr Holmes. He went in disguises so brilliant even his dear friend Dr Watson (who, like Scotland Yard's Lestrade, was brazenly stolen and poorly reproduced by the egregious Agatha Christie) couldn't recognise him. He went without sleep and food when he was involved in a case, subjecting himself to horrific physical and mental abuse when he needed to untangle a particularly tricky clue. I doubt Poirot has ever missed a meal in his life, much less suffered serious discomfort for his work. He and his fatuous pop-psychology are not suitable for the role of a detective.

I've almost now exhausted my rage. Yes, this post hasn't been very coherently argued, but my defence for this is that I'm blinded by my anger at the fact that Poirot infects television with his mediocre and half-arsed methods, and lack of detective style.

Less Poirot, more Holmes!

InMe

Dave McPherson, frontman of InMe, one of the most criminally-underrated bands in history, is releasing a long list of signed/personalised memorabilia, gig experiences, and other awesome gifts as part of a pledge drive to raise money for UNICEF and to promote his new solo album. The prices are fantastic too, considering the level of devotion which InMe inspire in their followers. Of the people I know reasonably well, maybe 4 could be considered InMe fans. We're all borderline obsessed. They're addictive. I find myself going a week at a time listening to nothing but InMe because, by comparison, everything else seems crap. The lyrics are beautifully written and sung with haunting vocal hooks, and the guitar work is superb, particularly in the later albums. People don't always like them the first time, but listen twice or thrice, and you're hooked. They don't have a big following, unfortunately, but those people who know them love them.

I guess it's good that their following isn't too big really. It means I can buy a home gig for £500. Now if I only had £500... I can still afford the handwritten lyrics or the signed photos. Maybe the VIP pass for the Brighton gig. Fantastic stuff. I urge everyone to listen and love.

P.S. I'm now tempted to ask my brother to pay for InMe to play at his wedding. His fiancée probably won't mind.

P.P.S. ALMOST FORGOT! Here's the link to the pledge drive where you can buy the stuff:

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/davemcpherson/pledge

P.P.P.S Here's me with the man himself!
Image removed as part of the privacy drive (26th July 2011)

Exhausting Small Talk

I can't be the only person who finds the task of being civil for more than a few minutes to be exhausting. Smiling, chatting, making eye contact, complimenting, not being confrontational or cynical. These are all difficult tasks, especially when attempted in unison.

I suppose most humans simply follow the path of least resistance in their lives, and a lot of people are lucky enough to find being pleasant and light-hearted to be the easiest - or at least most agreeable - way to approach social occasions. I struggle, because I'm naturally cynical and critical and my face looks grumpy in its natural position. I can muster genuine enthusiasm for close friends and relatives, because they interest me, but for everyone else - casual acquaintances, distant family members, co-workers, etc. - forced-pleasant social interaction is exhausting. I'm not adept at small talk.

Demo Lition and the student protest movement

I cannot help but think that Wednesday marked the start of something. Despite the hilariously poor organisation of Leeds University Union, who seemed to have seriously misjudged the length of the M1, we managed to arrive before the biggest demonstration in a decade had quite finished. Whilst we were initially disappointed to have missed marching down Whitehall with the rest, it was soon apparent that the main events were yet to transpire.

We arrived at Millbank to scenes reminiscent of something you might see at your average festival; thousands shouting and dancing in time to make-shift drums and hastily rigged speakers blaring out dub step, whilst the unmistakable aroma of pot drifted lazily through the air. Despite the media’s characterisation of those who took Millbank, these were not ‘hardened anarchists’, these were excitable and angry attendees of what was turning out to be a massive free rave, in the centre of the government quarter of London. Most hilariously of all, one side of the occupied square was taken up by a massive ‘goldfish bowl’ style Pizza Express, the diners inside doing their best to politely ignore the noise, flares, chanting and squads of riot police that were literally surrounding them on all three sides. If this had indeed been a ‘riot’ as the papers keep odiously describing it, those massive modern windows would have been smashed and the pizzas looted. However, the only aggression was directed specifically against the Tory HQ. Rioters are indiscriminate, out of control with violence. The violence on Wednesday was spontaneous, and perhaps intimidating to some, but it was targeted and it was undertaken only because many felt it was just. I agree with them.

It was an odd position to be in, on Millbank for those tumultuous hours. We were part of a crowd that was clearly much better educated and more thoughtful than the average mob, and it adopted clear delineations of what was acceptable; there was universal cheering when protestors first took the roof and unveiled ‘Cut Fees’ banners, but the mood quickly turned against them when a fire extinguisher was thrown off into the crowd below. Cue immediate boos and chants of ‘stop throwing shit’. People around me expressed genuine fear that a police officer might have gotten hurt; these same protestors had been chanting ‘fuck the police’ only moments before. I don’t think I’ve ever known a crowd which simultaneously understands the dichotomy of the police as symbols of the state monopoly on power (a legitimate target for protestors) and the police as individuals who are ultimately just trying to feed their families, and who are just as affected by Osborne’s spending cuts as anybody else. Remarkable scenes therefore, of students helping injured police officers whilst others continued to throw sticks at the ones still fighting. It struck me that in a way, all of us there were victims of the same process. The police had been let down; there were far too few of them and they had not been adequately prepared by their superiors, many looked genuinely scared. It was a stark contrast to the G20 protests of 2009, where the police had stepped over the line and an innocent man was killed. Now it looked as if the police might suffer fatalities. What the dickhead who threw the fire extinguisher thought that would achieve for the student movement I have no idea.

At the same time, the occupation of Millbank was genuinely thrilling – what did it mean if ordinary kids were able to so easily take over the headquarters of the ruling party of one of the world’s great powers? Imagine the repercussions if this had happened in Burma, or China, or Russia. Can we seriously doubt that the dozens of protestors who made it onto the roof would have found themselves quietly executed?

My personal take on the events is that whilst I’m probably not the type to fight my way past police lines and start vandalising Tory offices myself, I found myself not unsympathetic to those who did. This wasn’t just mindless violence, of the type you see on any given Friday or Saturday night, this was the righteous expression of rage by a demographic that feels utterly betrayed. Who could have imagined this time last year that 50,000 university students would be marching down Whitehall chanting ‘Fuck the Lib Dems’? I imagine the Labour party is beside itself with glee. The occupation of Millbank made the tuition fees issue international news, something which the original NUS plan of a peaceful march of 15,000 would never have achieved.

The demonstration deserves not our contempt, but joy at the apparent re-awakening of student politics. Apathy has reigned for far too long. The left turned in on itself during the Labour years, it seems that there is now a clear-cut enemy once again. Considering the damage the Tories are doing to the lives of millions and to the health of society in general, they can take a few broken windows. If it feels like the 80s again, it’s because it is like the 80s again. The Cameron government are using the deficit as cover to embark on a programme of cuts that Thatcher could only have dreamed of. Long may the cries of “they say cut back, we say fight back” continue.

Choosing Newspapers

I recently ended my turbulent love affair with The Economist after 4 or 5 years. It began with such bliss. A trip to scout out the University of Sussex, an exciting front cover with a picture of a bulldog on it. Its calm, collected, monolithic style which made you think that, if only people did everything as The Economist said it should be done, the world would be perfect.

Later on, I grew to love its quirks, like its obligatory use of the phrase "mildly Islamic" when referring to any accommodating leader in a Muslim-dominated country (notably Erdogan in Turkey), or the way it put a picture of a withered, old woman with a shawl above every article about the Roma or other travelling people.

However, The Economist has no moral dimension. For example, as someone who tends to lean to the left-wing, I find the way it absolves Murdoch's, Bush's, and Berlusconi's more heinous offences by use of such a passive and balanced voice to be deeply unsettling. As Stefan Stern in The Guardian wrote, "its writers rarely see a political or economic problem that cannot be solved by the trusted three-card trick of privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation." Beyond that, The Economist reveals itself to be limited and distant.

Of course, it might also be argued that my problem with The Economist simply stems from me not being able to cope with its views being more right-wing than mine, and there's probably something in that.

The trouble is that left-wing sources often make me feel uncomfortable for being too left. I have a healthy disregard for the Tories and the right-wing in general, and yet I feel uncomfortable with a column which assumes Tory guilt at every turn. I've been trialling The New Statesman as a replacement for The Economist but it feels to be an easy let-off for the left instead.

I guess the problem is my inherent contrarianism (a word? Probably not). What I really need is a newspaper which criticises everyone all the time, for everything. That would make me a lot happier. Of course, a more conventional solution might be to read lots of different news sources and build an aggregated view based on a careful and reasoned analysis of many different contributors' thoughts and opinions.

The former solution seems easier though...

University: Not a Waste

Back home now.

I'm experiencing that general post-university malaise which occurs when you have to go from living with friends to living with parents because you don't fancy committing yourself to a graduate scheme with a corporate entity, wasting away and generally wishing for an early death.

I learn a disappointingly large number of life lessons from films, and if there's one thing I've learnt from films in this particular regard, it's that everyone's life is essentially dull and pointless, particularly if you work for a heartless business (and they wouldn't remain in business if they weren't largely heartless).

So right now, I'm working on a solution which allows me to keep my dignity and life-satisfaction intact whilst also providing me with enough money to live. It's going to be hugely successful. Ask me how I'm doing in 10 years (Y).

As I finish this post, I realise that I have no idea why I titled it "University: Not a Waste".

That'll be that ol' university-educated mind at work again.

We Don't Hate Enough

Don't worry, this post is going to be very specific and focused, and not at all influence by vague teenage angst and a mild dissatisfaction with the way that the world functions. I'm not a teenager anyhow.

I was talking to a dear friend who asked why, when we routinely criticise "over-paid footballers", we leave over-paid film stars alone. The comparison is both legitimate and apt. Both earn a lot and can give terrible performances, both species contain their share of COMPLETE AND UTTER dickheads (in acting, Mel Gibson/Tom Cruise, mostly), both sometimes receive more than their employers can realistically and sustainably afford to pay them.

And so on, and so forth.

The point being that footballers aren't always "over-paid", because they earn what the market dictates (granted, they do sometimes receive far too much if a club is owned by an oil tycoon with obscene amounts of money and no business model). Similarly, actors aren't always over-paid, even at ($/£?)15m-odd a time, because films starring those big actors generally generate a lot more than they cost.

Now I'm a capitalist at heart, inasmuch as its completely atrocious, but its use of competition does aid us. However, rational arguments are for the weak, and instead of being a heartless old sod myself, I'm going to conclude this piece by criticising Mel Gibson.

He's misogynistic, anti-Semitic and unintelligently foul-mouthed. Also, he's aged badly. How amusing for a man who's traded so regularly off his looks.

Etc.

(Okay, so it lost some of its focus. Fuck off.)

The Inherent Dangers of Social Networking

I've now signed up to twitter. It's like FaceBook's status updates, but more limited. Also, you can find out what famous people have been eating for dinner and laugh at their little in-jokes without really understanding them. It's the second time I've tried twitter, and I'm going to try and stick with it this time. I don't know why. I think it's a form of masochism. Soon I'll be strapped in to more social-networking sites than I can fit across the links section of Google Chrome. I've already got email accounts, network sites, forums and blogs up there, alongside all my news and information sites. I'm going to eventually run out of time in the day to check all these different ventures, and I'll end up not having time for a real job because I'll be too busy trying voyeuristically tracking Stephen Fry's every move. And then there's always the inherent risk that one of those crazy survivalist USA films about the government's unlimited power will turn out to be real, and I'll be cursing the day that I got myself addicted to twitter as the government surround my house and we have an exciting high-octane shoot-out.

I drew a picture to illustrate what this could look like:

Writing things down - as in, using a pen and paper - now has the feel of a bizarre form of resistance. I realise that I should be ashamed of my adherence to such an archaic system of transcribing my thoughts. And, the downside of this ancient system is that rather than everyone instantly finding out how I feel, they'll have to wait 'til I'm dead and my thoughts are published posthumously. And that'll only happen if I get famous somehow and people actually give a crap, which, let's face it, is not the most likely course of my life. So it's really a complete waste. Unlike social-networking. Which is the best use of anyone's time, always.

Loners

According to the BBC, there is a distinction between being lonely and being a loner. The basic difference is:

A loner gets satisfaction from being alone, someone who is lonely doesn't

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8703173.stm

Which seems simple enough, except for the fact that everyone loves to be alone at some point, unless they're some sort of deranged, psychotic leech who lives off the constant attention of their social betters. And, if that is the sort of person they are, then "their social betters" probably encompasses everyone.

Anyway, regardless of the adequacies of the BBC's magazine section - which after all, is written by a hungover intern to fill the space at the bottom of article templates - the point I'm going to make is that loners have it right, because, statistically, you will not meet anyone who is worth letting down your façades and defences for, and becoming emotionally intimate with. And besides, if you do (I'm still speaking statistically here), they'll already be tied down to a fat, useless stoner. If they're a friend, they'll let you down again and again (and vice-versa, of course). Even if you do find that special someone, statistically (still) you'll end up splitting up with them or divorcing them, or losing them in a bizarre gardening accident. As any economically-minded intellect will tell you, the potential benefits are minimal, and are in no way outweighed by the almost-certain humiliations, miseries and disappointments.

The problem is that humans are idiots, so we still live with that inane, air-headed sense of wonder which makes us crave the miseries of the future even as we recover from the previous endurances. My advice to the "lonely" is to accept the logic of a life independent of the capricious frivolities of human contact and act as though their entire pathetic life was the result of an intricate and successful plan.

Against Their Own Interests.

Warning: Lazy Generalisations Ahead.

Why do people so consistently support those who won't support their interests? The answer is, of course, that everyone is a moron. Take, for example, poor Southern whites rallying against the USA's healthcare bill when it would benefit them. Or, for that matter, their support of the Republican Party at all, considering its links with the wealthy business elites. Another example is The Sun, the shameless Murdoch publication which supports the party of the rich, tax-cutting Etonians, despite its readership of low-earners and white-van men (see what I mean about the generalisations?) who would be most likely to benefit from a less evil state.

This doesn't always happen in other publications, which match their readership more. For example, The Guardian and The Independent are liberal-ish, left-ish, generally intellectual papers, designed for mid-level earners who embrace a slightly more social view of capitalism. The Telegraph is designed for the more stuffy Tory-voting rich, who are a little confused by the complexities of modern life and long for the good old days. The Daily Mail is designed for their hate-filled moron counterparts.

I suppose in many ways, Murdoch is to be congratulated for making his readership consistently and unquestioningly lap up the bile he spews out in his publications (picture all those white-van men, lapping bile. It helps). It should be viewed as a triumph of stupidity over everything else. Still, it's not the world's most complex business strategy, is it? It basically amounts to slapping breasts alongside the propaganda to distract the idiots. What a visionary.

Dr. Greg's Sure Cure for the Blues

• Routine, and lots of it.
• Getting up early, so the day is never wasted.
• Regular exercise.
• Regular, healthy diet.
• At least 4-5 cups of tea a day.
• Classic novels / films.
• A love of comedy in every facet of life, no matter how irrelevant or irreverent.
• Pig-headed arrogance.

‘Thoughts on the Revolution’ or The drunken ramblings of a wannabe radical

As I sit in the faux-tropical surroundings of Varadero’s ‘Club Tropical’, sipping my umpteenth all-inclusive Cerveza-Cristal from a bamboo cup adorned with the infamous image of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, I am inspired to consider the things I have seen over the last few days.

As I’m sure has been commented on a million times before by tourists, guide books, and not least by the Cuban people themselves, Varadero couldn’t further from the truth of real Cuba. Originally built by holidaying tycoons in the Batista era, the tropical peninsula paradise cum metropolis of tourism still retains many of the features that made Cuba popular for visiting Americans back the pre-revolutionary days. Now of course, there isn’t an American in sight. Except for the Latin kind. The American embargo is the constant but unspoken background to all life here. One can’t help thinking that much of the visible poverty you see on the streets of Cardenas for example, is not the inevitable of a ‘backward’ communist dictatorship, but of the trade embargo imposed on a small developing country by its vast economic hegemon of a neighbour ninety miles to the north. There is an easily identifiable contrast between the Cuba America likes to portray, and the Cuba of reality. Even in the most run down urban shack, or in the tiny hamlets in the Valle de Yumurí, people are still well fed, happy and in good health. This is more than one can say for many living in the favelas of westerner-friendly Brazil, and Cuba is much safer than violently homophobic Jamaica for instance. Of course the human rights issue is incredibly important, and I subscribe entirely to the Jeffersonian idea that those who would trade liberty for safety deserve neither, but if there is a place on this Caribbean island where people are being tortured and degraded for their beliefs, it is Guantanamo Bay, not Havana.

Despite all this, it is painful for me to see the divide between the bourgeois luxury of ‘Tourists only’ Varadero and the daily grind of life elsewhere. Surely the revolution was supposed to end the prioritisation of wealthy drunks over ordinary people? And yet I’d be lying if I said that I thought tourism was an entirely negative force for the country – it isn’t. The income generated by holidaying (non-US) westerners creates valuable income for this impoverished country, helping to fund infrastructural, environmental and social welfare programmes, whilst tipping puts hard cash straight into people’s pockets, supplementing pitiful state incomes. However, the dual economy that this has created, of which Varadero is the most visible element, is a blight on Cuba which deeply distorts society; the poolside barman pouring my Cerveza-Cristal likely earns many many times more than even the highest paid doctor or teacher. Such an outcome is almost a parody of what communism is supposed to be about. The economic hierarchy has been inversed, not levelled. For this reason I feel a slight tinge of hesitancy every time I tip a waiter or bar worker; to what degree am I putting money into the pockets of people who need it and to what degree am I helping to entrench an economic system which is deeply unfair? And yet even when I consider these things I am aware how much of an arrogant assuming westerner I am. It’s kinda like the people who will only ever give the homeless a sandwich or a coffee, but never money. I understand the reasoning behind it, but ultimately they are just human beings like us and who are we to decide how they live? Maybe those quids and loonies aren’t just being spent on booze, but are being put towards some savings to help lift themselves out of homelessness. And you know what? If I was living on the streets of London or, god help me, Toronto, in the middle of winter then I wouldn’t expect people to begrudge me a little scotch to lift my spirits if thats what I wanted to buy. *

The thing about Cuba is that I really can’t decide if I think well of it or not. In a political sense I mean. If I was to just forget politics and let the atmosphere absorb me I would leave with an unreservedly positive impression. But that’s the impression Varadero is designed specifically to leave. There’s a reason we think of cigars, rum and palms and not of crumbling towns and barefoot children when we think of Cuba. I don’t want to end this entry on a boring ambiguous note, and it is tempting to simply quote my Caribbean studies teacher, Melanie Newton, who told me that life was complex and that one shouldn’t simply think in terms of good revolution/bad revolution, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the revolution has been generally positive for Cuba. There’s poverty here sure, but even the poorest have access to food and free healthcare, more than can be said for those on the lowest rung of society in the rest of the Americas, including the United States. Things need to improve; Castro should be ashamed of his refusal to allow free speech and this in itself is unforgivable, but Cuba is a country under siege. Ever since the Missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs the Cuban government has been terrified of another invasion. But the ideals of the revolution are unassailable. Things need to improve, but this is not the ‘bad’ country the US makes it out to be.


* Unlike London or Toronto, there are no homeless on the streets of Havana. Everyone is guaranteed housing.

"Nationalism is an Infantile Disease."

The title of this post comes from Einstein, who was often critical of blind patriotism because of its inevitable descent into jingoistic violence.

Friday is St George's Day, the day which commemorates the patron saint of about half the known world, "as well as a range of professions, organisations, and disease sufferers." (Thanks, Wikipedia). I feel no connection with the man, who appears to be a semi-mythical, barbaric zealot. Since I was born in England, however, he is apparently my patron saint too.

This could be rather daunting, except England doesn't feel the need to wrap itself in flags and blind nationalism in the same way that the USA does. This is a good thing. Patriotism, regardless of its actual worth, has been disfigured by its close association with the worst, lowest elements of society. Crude racism, anti-immigration sentiment, and all-round xenophobia are the cornerstones of English nationalism, and I am glad that St George's Day receives comparatively little attention.

Apart from anything else, patriotism is completely unnecessary and unwarranted. I have no particular love for my country (although I enjoy residing in parts of it, and will happily pay for its upkeep), and I genuinely can't see why anyone else would. What is there to love? Our political system? It's certainly reasonable, and a lot better than many countries'. Our history? Like most other countries', largely shameful. The people? I like a lot of them, but only because of them, not because of their "Englishness". There's nothing inherent to England which means I should love it, any more than I should love one of perhaps ten to twenty of the most developed and progressive nations.

Perhaps, instead, patriotism is just a crude form of gang mentality. We can band together, and feel stronger in unity. I suppose that has a warm, fuzzy feel to it if you, say, decide to support England in the football World Cup (god knows why you'd want to) The downside of this gang mentality is its inevitable decline into right-wing violence. In an arguably enlightened age, I think we can dispense with this, along with the whole despicable relic of nationalism.