The three fuckos who front fun ‘magazine’ programme Top Gear say cars are doing no harm to the world at all, then having a right old careless, laddish laugh about it like it’s a Loaded column in 1995…
The 'irreverent' Jeremy Clarkson and his skidmarked denim uniform is being paid through the licence fee to defend ‘petrolheads’ and the car industry – regardless of whether the BBC would agree with his programme’s editorial line. Slagging off certain brands of car is not an objective view of this most tedious of industries. ‘Boys with toys’ or ‘wankers with wheels’, there is nothing more vile than the false democracy of a TV studio full of ‘normals’, not just to validate the parochial opinions of the sweaty-faced pubehead and his desperately exhorting cohorts (James May – confirmed bachelor, ie, sticks his cock in the lubed-up exhaust pipes of second-hand cars; and Richard Hammond – Theakstonesque organ) but also to say things that even they ‘can't say’, but do regularly when off camera. In fact, their reactionary rhetoric is quite clear in every other gob deployment, except self-fellatio. An Asian bloke (such is the democratic nature of anonymous studio audience participation) xenophobed in Clarkson's face about French cars and the lead-jawed one was delighted in Levis. Last night, Ranulph Fiennes guested and that was quite interesting. Because it had nothing to do with cars.
Previously on Top Fear, Martin Clunes had heartily laughed at his own jokes (rarely finishing any of them) while Clarkson signalled a regular new feature: now that cars are political (as if it’s a PC conspiracy that has made them so, whereas before they were just innocent machines driven by pissed Tories) he’s going after parliament’s abuse of the driver. Bizarrely, he starts by criticising the very existence of an all-party group on caravanning. As this is chaired by a Labour MP, it is ripe for northern stereotyping and the use of the word ‘bloody’ to express appreciable frustration and draw a nervous laugh from the socially inept audience. The Commons has been suspended and parliament is now in turmoil after yesterday’s salvo against MPs but it is punch-facingly obvious that this piece-of-shit programme only exists to lobby for the motor industry. Obesity is a present theme in public health debates and if the Top Gear template were to be applied to that then you would only be allowed to discuss what sweets are in the shops, not what’s in them or how they are made.
This revolving stall of car propaganda illustrates what is really wrong with using the licence fee to fund the BBC. Clarkson, in his stront pit of revved-up vacuity, is actively recruiting for an industry that is poisoning everything and is the transport equivalent of cocaine – feels good and enables you to remain impervious to any arguments about cause and effect. Oh, and lest we forget, empowers the ‘individual’ (to travel 20 miles everyday in a wholly unsuitable, inefficient and impractical vehicle) or those people who can afford a car ‘worth’ shouting about. Clarkson is a News International employee (Scum and Sunday Times columns) who would be more than happy to twist the private sector knife if he were to be denied a new Top Fear series with the public service broadcaster that gives him practically unlimited editorial scope and even hires him to talk about other aspects of technological innovation – witness his (recently repeated) computer-shouting and Brunel-lauding in the execrable ‘Greatest Briton’ jingo bilge. Sack the useless shithead and leave him to simmer on Channel 5.
Creams74 @ hotmail.com
> Lenin's Tomb
Democrats are disappointed; Republicans hardly perturbed. As for the others, only the most impressionable of the non-partisan curious can be much moved by Fahrenheit 9/11. The film has moved quickly into mass mediation, up for grabs like no documentary before it.
Jensen's argument, that there is very little left (or indeed any) critique in the film, is a belter. Moore is a self-proclaimed incompetent journalist. He has always said that he got involved in documentary journalism because no-one was asking the questions he wanted asked. No doubt Moore would argue that by concentrating on Bush in F-9/11 he is exploiting the cult of personality to stimulate interest in politics but Jensen is correct (and astute) in pointing out the lack of context given to the Bush administration's foreign policy and the unity of purpose/role between R and D presidents on foreign policy.
The film is also annoying in its attempts to capture the ‘soul of America’ and the values it holds dear, Mrs Lipscomb being the willing – Flint, Mich-based – propagator of flag rhetoric myths. It certainly is a conservative film, in both purpose and content. For example, the procession of black and Asian members of the House of Representatives trying to get the 2000 election result rescinded/debated is vitally important in illustrating the racist hegemony at senatorial level, yet Moore interviews at least one anti-Bush senator later in the film but at no stage does he ask why he didn't support his colleagues in the lower house. No doubt this senator is a Republican but it's that type of compartmentalised and sectional coverage that characterises F-9/11 and, ultimately, plays into the hands of the political establishment and serves the status quo due to the amount of contradictory and neutered points made in it.
By frothing at the nepotistic periphery, F-9/11 is in danger of giving credence to the view espoused by Fox News and others that people criticising Bush on Iraq have “politicised the war!” (in the words of arch jock-sucker Sean Hannity). By reducing it to a battle for the soul of the entirety of the US media, Moore may have inadvertently raised the stakes to such a level that it can only benefit News International and the other media ghouls looking to profit from fear (a point that was partly made in F-9/11 but not expanded upon). Latest DVD Outfoxed is tryin to redress that balance.
Like Moore’s unapologetic diet, F-9/11 is fast food politics – instantly pleasing but in an unhealthy and insubstantive way that quickly leaves you feeling hungry again (with a few gherkin-style concessions to political health in the form, for example, of very important FACTS about Bush's cuts to US soldiers' wages (30%) and veterans’ services (60%), which would definitely not receive such exposure anywhere else). We’re not ‘lovin’ it’.
By saying ‘it’s all his fault’ Moore is deluding US citizens. It may well be important to get the direct representation of the interests of the Carlyle Group, Halliburton et al out of the Sleight House but only a baseball cap wearing, wiener-fancier would seriously suggest that the Democrat alternative would a) be able to resist the overtures of such entrenched vested interests, b) want to resist them in the first place and c) have eyes and lips that don’t resemble a geriatric anus.
Check VP prospect John Edward’s glowing endorsement of Blair’s schizoid reaction to his Butler’s advice (essentially, “we weren’t wrong; I take personal responsibility for not lying; my faith is Christian and can you all please shut up now because I’ve allowed to be explained to you via God. Four times now and it really is getting a bit tiring for me and Him.”). Edwards has wasted no time in proving that he would do a better presentational job for the corporations eyeing the massive tax revenues in the government’s coffers than Dick ‘fuck yourself’ Cheney.
Also, the Desert Fox examination of Blair’s pro-war/anti-UN consensus in 1998 was invigilated by the smiling assassin Bill Clinton. If we’re looking for simplistic metaphors of the paper thin difference between Republican and Democrats then there we have it: Clinton’s apologetic defence of mass murder in the name of US commerce/democracy and Bush’s jock exhortation of mass murder in the name of US commerce/democracy.
Is that difference too subtle for Moore to attempt to convey, or would he consider that un-American? At the advance Leicester Square screening, Moore gave a personal message (via the conduit that is Mickey Mouse-slapping Harvey Weinstein) that said: “I did this because I care about America and because I know you do.” Got to pick you up on a couple of points there Michael... Oh, you’re not here.
I ‘care’ for ‘America’ (I assume M&M is referring to people rather than corporations) as much as I ‘care’ for ‘Iraq’ (the people of) – nobody should be killed for the sake of private profit, whether the Carlyle Group or Saddam Hussain’s Ba’athist clique. Is that liberal? Couldn’t give a fuck. Anyway, ‘care’ is a stupid concept when trying to define attitudes toward nation states, you sillyfattwat.
Future Democrat US presidents will all be from the south, as they, like Willy Clinton openly admitted, are all moderate Republicans. They can’t be Republicans due to the civil war, generational economic trauma and the consequent voting patterns. Still, e-voting should enable results to be dependent on which company the government contracts are outsourced too; nicely ironing out out any real ‘choice’ for voters.
While journos everywhere realised the handy headline connotations of our language deriving from the ancient Greek, a tearful Eusebio handed out the gongs. For Portugal, it was pure Sebastianismo again as a sense of mournful, fatalistic failure hit the crowd. This inability to seize the opportunity, to write your name in lights, is a spirit that pervades all areas of the post-empire country and coarses its way through Bernado Soares’ alienated noia in The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. Despite its pervasive boredom, although Pessoa must have had some inkling that Disquiet was going to be a modernist triumph he refused to publish it during his lifetime. At least the Portuguese got some celebrating in before the match.
In their desire to hang on to the coattail of cognoscenti cool BBC’s coverage included a quote from Disquiet about Lisbon. Taken out of context and then recontextualised, it was a handy shortcut for some bullshit about ‘Latin hearts beating’, etc. Then they stuck in the one Portuguese tune they could find. At least they could have had some fado ready for the inevitable defeat. Wider Iberian issues were then addressed when a Barça supporter, sporting a jimmyjump.com shirt, stormed the pitch, gestured to the merengue Figo and then symbolically shot himself into the Greek goal, highlighting what the team were unable to do. Double-marked, Deco dived wherever possible, Ronaldo’s tricks didn’t work and neither did a change of boots for Figo. ‘Tactical master’ Big Phil shouldn’t have played Pauleta against the defensive 'colossi' either.
English interest had obviously sapped fast after the pens exit. The embarrassing hysteria had abated and I was glad that the Infantry Brigades (Burberry division) could end their ‘campaigns’ in Lisbon and the Algarve, put down their ‘artillery’ (alcopop empties) and march back home. The numbers out there were impressive, but no other people have such a retarded relationship with their country of birth. What I found most illuminating was the disparity between expectation and reality. Just as the media, etc had built up England’s chances while ignoring the team’s ability to pass their way out of trouble, the hordes could not handle any reverse. I was fortunate enough to be at Gatwick as the daytrippers trudged back into Blighty after the France defeat and couldn’t resist a smirk or two at the massed veil of hungover belligerence. Go back to your semi, stop your Sky subscription, read some books and stop being twats. Anyway, all the stock images of our fans the Beeb had saved up were wheeled out for the usual round of clips ’n music pieces before the game. I won’t comment on ITV’s coverage because Tyldsley, Townsend, Venables and Yorath are all cunts so I can’t watch it.
For the ‘beautiful game’ in general, Greece’s victory showed that organised stifling will snuff out creativity hands down and the decadent complacency that Italy, Germany, Spain and co will always prevail in these tournaments has been comprehensively dismissed. But it comes to something when an ex-Leicester squad man is the finals’ midfield-general.
murray@cinestatic.com
