“It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption.”
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu ( 1689 – 1755) - French social commentator & philosopher.
“Insanity in individuals is something rare — but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. ”
Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher), influential in the dogmas of fascist thought and actions.
Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
[Francois-Auguste -Rene, Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848)-French Romantic & Revolutionary writer]
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…meanwhile, on the Home [Austerity]Front…
“Cheers Mater, thy cup overfloweth!” contact@damnedenglish.info
The Anatomie of Abuses.” This consisted of a virulent attack on the manners, customs, amusements and fashions of the period, and is still valuable for its copious information on contemporary matters.
Philip Stubbes (1555 -c.1610)
As concerning football playing, I protest unto you that it might rather be called a friendly kinde of fight than a play or a recreation; a bloody and murthering practise, than a felowly sporte or pastime. For dooth not every one lye in waight for his adversarie, seeking to overthrowe him, and to picke [pitch] him on his nose, though it be upon hard stones? In ditch or dale, in valley or hil, or what place soever it be, hee careth not, so he can have him down. And he that can serve the most of this fashion, he is counted the only fellow; and who but he? So that by this means, sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometime their legs, sometime their armes; sometime one part thrust out of joynt, sometime another; sometime the noses gush out with blood, sometime their eyes start out, and sometimes hurt in one place, sometimes in another. But whosoever scapeth away the best, goeth not scot free, but is either sore wounded, craised, and bruseed, so as he dyeth of it, or else scapeth very hardly. And no mervaile, for they have the sleights to meet one betwixt two, to dashe him against the hart with their elbowes, to hit him under the short ribbes with their griped fists and with their knees to catch him upon the hip, and to pick him on his neck, with a hundred such murdering devices; and hereof groweth envy, malice, rancour, choler, hatred, displeasure, enmite, and what not els: and sometimes fighting, brawling, contention, quarrel-picking, murther, homicide, and great effusion of blood, as experience daly teacheth.
Forasmuch as there is great noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise, which God forbid, we command and forbid on behalf of the king, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in future.
Edward II, King of England
Royal proclamation banning football from the streets of London, 1314.
Click on BLACK BUTTONS to view in HD…or could it be BD [Blurred Definition]
EUROZONE EXCLUSIVE!!!
As yet to be verified, but England’s football governing body are ready to sign a certain Signor Berlusconi as manager of the player’s wives, girlfriends & hookers in the World Cup campaign…”Pizza’a'plenty for off-the-field action there boys!” comments our Foreign Food, Football & Fisheries reporter at F-F-FIFA HQ.
WORLD EXCLUSIVE!!!
Rumours abound that galactic soccer-cum-underwear pin-up “Beck’s” and musical comedy supernova Lady G@ G@ are to team up to star in a glitzy billion dollar remake of the James Bond classic “Octopussy” …
“Huh! No monetary crisis there!” is the guarded humour from our Financial ,Creative Accounting and Corporate Expenses Editor in Chief.
DOMESTIC NEWS SCOOP!!!
An unnamed source has tex’d the BBC to consider opening talks with the Royals for a proposed launch of Their very own Diamond Jubilee TV soap to rival the legendary long-sell-by-date working class epic yawn “Coronation Street”….Another viewer ratings scoop for fawning Auntie Beeb?
London Olympics supremo’s M’Lud’s Seb & Co. at the Ministry of Burning Money are demanding ,at the last minute, or is it “last orders, please”, so a drinks industry insider tells our Food, Beverages & Hospitality chief reporter, that “Strictly Binge Drinking” has to be included in the forthcoming games. A gob-smacked publican, setting up the next round of drinks , was quick to comment - ” Good news for London’s victuals trade…a sure punt for gold for the lads and lassies national team…I will be open twenty four seven….what about singles, doubles and mixed-doubles events!” No austerity measures when it comes to boozing!
MUSIC INDUSTRY CLIMATE CHANGE WARNING!!!
A source, said to be, close to the pop recording combo Arctic[ular] Monkeys has told our out-and-about Weather Forecast crew in the Costa del Beebo, of plans to stage their next award winning album at the North Pole!!! Brrrr!!! Not to be out chilled that other moaning troupe Ever So Coldplay are rumoured to conduct their interviews in cryogenic suspense. Brass Monkeys and Coldsore!!!
”Seems that frozen will be the next ” cool” muses our Culture Meddling and Climate Change correspondent. Brass Monkeys?
Tribute artiste “Beyondsense” may film his/her(?) music video on the Trans-Siberian Express we hear from a unverified music pundit. The song may well be “Baby It’s Cold Outside” originally composed in 1944, and a good time to de-frost it.
No doubt Russia’s P.M. will be puttin’ out alerts to all stations that this could be used as a platform for possible anti-government demo’s!
More stimulating soothsayer stuff to be headline news in 2012 - from the austerity augurs at Broadcasting House , London …TO COME
In the meantime……select reading…
The “dumbing down” of our culture is aptly described in a thought provoking book of essays , edited by Ivo Mosley:
“Dumbing Down. Culture Politics and the Mass Media”###
### not available from th BBC!!!
“Harvest Home”
[Adapted for our times from an Olde English volk-song]
Your hay it is mow’d and your corn it is reap’d.
Your bellies ain’t full and your women cheap’d
Come, boys, come,
Come, boys, come.
And merrily roar to our harvest home.
And merrily roar to our harvest home.
(All together):
Harvest home, harvest home!
And merrily roar to our harvest home.
And merrily roar to our harvest home.
They’ve cheated our people, they’ll cheat them again,
So why should the blockheads have one in ten?
One in ten, one in ten,
So why should the blockheads have one in ten?
So why should the blockheads have one in ten?
(All together):
One in ten, one in ten,
So why should the blockheads have one in ten?
So why should the blockheads have one in ten?
By prating so long, like book-learn’d sots,
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to the pot:
Burnt to pot, burnt to pot
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot.
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot.
(All together):
Burnt to pot, burnt to pot
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot.
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot.
We’ll toss off our ale till we cannot stand;
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England;
Old England, Old England
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England.
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England.
(All together):
Old England, Old England
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England.
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England.
(Final- All together):
Harvest home, harvest home!
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England.
And heigh-ho for the honour of Old England!
Be it at once a fable, yet Warner’s novel says somthing that is quintessentially English. The tensions within a village, insular and shambling, disrupted by the arrival of the charismatic Air-Vice Marshall, who represents the coming of a new age, that of Technology and its associated political change. Against the backdrop of the the Fascist ascendancy in Europe, the novel is “a love story” about relationships and the need to make sense of a new and confusing world. It is also the story of youth that is seemingly attracted to a philosophy of sorts that promises a kind of deliverance.
‘Remember that we expect from you conduct of a quite different order from that of the mass of mankind. Your purpose - to escape the bondage of time, to obtain mastery over yourselves, and thus over your environment - must never waver… This discipline has one aim, the acquisition of power, and by power freedom.’
This is the voice of the Aerodrome, ruled with an iron hand by the Air Vice-Marshal. His aim is to save humanity from itself by obliterating human error. He is dedicated to ruthless efficiency and absolute power. To Roy, the most brilliant young officer in the aerodrome, this challenging doctrine offers an escape from the muddled ideals and sexual blunders of the Village, his birthplace and the home of his unfaithful mistress.
This superb allegory is probably the only novel of its time to understand the dangerous yet glamorous appeal of fascism.
’Brilliantly imaginative … it remains the best, perhaps the only, English Kafka novel.’ Anthony Burgess, author of “A Clockwork Orange”.
More to come…in the Erzatz English Reader section >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
[ click on image to enlarge ]
“London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistably drained.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as spoken by the sleuth Sherlock Holmes in ” A Study in Scarlet” [‘The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” ]
…as yours truely, your very own poet-in-residence gumshoe, anxiously prepares for the summer sojourn to the salubrious centre of what is England. Not planning a historic junket to the Victorian hub of Empire but to the soiled seat of puppet-power, pernicious pranks and populist paranoia. This is London’s Calling Card!
Prescriptive pills and potions all packed, to combat the anxiety and alimentary disorders that may befall an unwary traveller; with fake (Made in China) French holdall bulging with all the essential requirements for the excursion to the metropolis of meritorious mayhem, the adventure starts in earnest. With cattle-class train ticket booked, online of course, in the wishful belief that the fume-belching people carrier, due to arrive on platform 3B will make it before doomsday. Or, as is now a traditional loudspeaker announcement, the tired trolley-bus has ground to a halt due to unidentifiable excreta on the rusting rail line, or that the overhead copper-rich cables have mysteriously disappeared overnight, or bizarrely, someone’s sat-nav has misdirected the chav-SUV onto some rail junction in the cardiac arrest provincial heartland, leaving catatonic commuters staring blankly at the blinking station information screens. Cancellation, delay, cancellation ad nauseum.
Oh to be in England, now that summer’s here!
Not omitting to have the Rip-Off London Hotels pocket guide at the ready, in the vain hope that the budget hostelry one is about to spend sleepless nights is not a replica of some third-world bordello; that the water supply has not been directly pumped from Mother Thames, that one is not asphyxiated in traffic jams and the half-board repasts are not a frugal food fantasy barely enough to nourish a chinese sweatshop worker.
Of course, the multi-lingual phrasebook is a must have for those tricky moments when choosing to dine continental, in say Boris’s Bolshevik Bistro, when having ordered a Hors d’Oevres or Plat du Jour the bemused waiter is then seen escorting to your table a peroxide diva, in skyscraper hoofs, stiletto claws, spray-on tan, sans-culottes and fake eyelashes long enough to be used as car windscreen wipers. Clearly a lady of ill-repute intent on eating you alive! Lost in translation? Did the maitre d’ mistake me for a premiership footballer? Nazdrovie comrade!
Best be mindful not to test one’s bravado and venture into uncharted territory, the inner city favelas where the natives are known to be a touch inhospitable. Those gun-totting, crack-snorting, trashed ghettos and fortress tower blocks where the social-engineering experiment is best described as a Ballardian# nightmare. The glossy, corporate celeb sponsored travel guide recommends the well-trodden routes to savour, the fairytale sights to feast the eyes, the well-worn nostalgia of times past grandeur, all so postcard friendly and posthumously defunct.
Being a connoisseur of post-modernism, and the brutalist revival, head for the architech atrocities of greed and gargantuan excess, known as Canary Wharf, the Tate (could that be Trite) Modern (Art for Export), the London Wheel-ie and other examples of money-laundering construction gone mad. Oh yes, then on route to the 21st century circus-ring concrete and steel of Wem-bolly-wood, the all-singing, all dancing temple to English football and on and on to the newest pleasuredrome that will showboat the forthcoming Olympiad.
To conclude the itinerary it’s a peek at that national extravagance, to top all extravagances, the most costly council property in this fair and flatulent isle, Buck’s Palace no less! An audience with HRH? Not likely, try Madame Tussauds.
Well, enough of that precautionary tale, now it’s off to the departure lounge for the dromedary Virgin loco, fingers crossed that it doesn’t end up in Glasgow. With the parting thought -” ‘ave a nice day, sucker! “.
# with reference to the English author J.G.Ballard
