Scottish Political News

The problem may be that I'm not doing as much campaigning as I should be. Or it may be my opinion poll addiction (they don't matter, they really don't matter) which makes my hands shake every time I guide the little mouse button onto the Guardian election page, with its polls section and the handy guide up the top saying 5 DAYS TO GO (yes, thanks for that). Or it may be the media dribbling on about all the wrong stuff. Or it may be - I don't even want to think this - about Lynton Crosby. His Queensland Gambit is particularly unpleasant, in that it tries actively to make voters stay home. Now this may be politically correct of me, but I thought the point of an election campaign was to make people vote for you. Convince people how great you are, and/or how shit the other boy is, and make them come out and vote to get you in or the other one out, doesn't matter about their motives, the point is they vote. Right? To try to make people think 'sod it, I'll stay home' because they will never ever vote Tory is extremely daring and extremely cynical. I don't know if I'm the only person to think it stinks. The Queensland Gambit is a kind of political bulimia. In the short term it works fine. In the long term it does serious damage not just to everyone but to you in particular. (I'm only using the bulimia metaphor because of the word 'erode' floating around my brain.) Watch out, Lynton Crosby. Instant karma may not get you, but it'll catch up with you eventually.

Just to let youse know that I have been trying truly, madly, deeply to sort the page so that I've got a bit at the side for Links; but I can't.
Also
The Greens have been putting an awful lot of paper through my door lately. Neither I or any of my flatmates are on their priority list. I simply note this for the attention of future generations.

I am trying terribly hard to avoid turning this into When Where and Why I had a fit, incorporating how awful I felt at the time, what I missed on tv and in real life, and how disappointed I am; but I had one last night because I missed my tablets earlier on, so it was entirely my fault. I am also going to try to avoid turning this into a series of personal attacks on Michael Howard, but not terribly hard, so I will simply mention his verdict on the tory campaign so far, which is not that far from Lynton Crosby's (which everyone, allegedly, is talking about). He was asked on We the Jury or Whatever the Fuck it Is how he thought it was going and he said that he was a football fan [in passing may I mention that all politicians, from whatever party, who go on about how much they like football make me want to vomit] and it was quite common for a team to be 2-0 down at half-time and make a miraculous comeback in the second week, sorry half. From the Guardian:
But Mr Howard admitted that his beloved team [this being Liverpool - me] did not provide a great precedent. "We were ahead [in the Carling Cup final against Chelsea] until the last 10 minutes and then we were screwed."

This shows that he is desperate:
a. he seems to have been talking about Lynton Crosby
b. he finished an anecdote with the phrase 'and then we were screwed.'

Oh my dear goodness. I am actually surprised, really, no shit, that my arms are functioning well enough to work this keyboard; I started stuffing envelopes on Friday and today I stopped and it feels like several years. The story is this; that I went for coffee (assiduously counting calories in the cappucino froth) with a couple of Marxist friends and was rude about the Labour Party for an hour or so, then took the scenic route home. On the way I passed the flat I used to live in in my third year, which was a bit of a shithole (the flat and the year) and saw no. 78 Buccleuch St covered in Labour posters. I am a Labour Person. I wouldn't leave the Labour Party if national conference voted to cut little babies' throats. I'm certainly not leaving it now. My feet automatically walked me through the door.
"Any leaflets to stuff?" I asked a woman jocularly.
"Yes."
In the back room were a few people and some leaflets. More than a few leaflets. We're talking large numbers of boxes here. Seriously large. I found a place at the table (not difficult) and settled down to be told the Rules; one pre-folded (thank christ) leaflet to each envelope, of course, and put in a certain way, so that the first thing people saw when they opened it was Alastair Darling's lovely face. (I am absolutely certain that I will see Alastair Darling's beautiful face in my dreams for many, many nights to come. The top half of it, rather. The bottom bit was cut off by the way it was folded over.) I got a pile of envelopes and a pile of leaflets, and started.
My god, what did I get myself into? The short answer, of course, would be "stuffing fucking envelopes. Of course it hurts your arms. Everyone does it, you moaning twat." But it was much more complicated than that.
All right, it wasn't. And occasionally we (being more people every day) did have a good time, chattering on about how Michael Foot had stayed in one woman's bed (audience: ohhhhhh??) which her father, then an MP, used as a spare room while she was away at college (audience: ohhhhh), and the Jeremy Paxman interview with Michael Howard. I never watch Jeremy Paxman interviews because they're so frustrating; if the politician gets to finish one sentence, let alone one answer, s/he's lucky. It's just a symptom of the current simplistic political debate; we want Answers Now No Obfuscating (nobody says obfuscating, but you get my drift), which is entirely understandable but doesn't allow for the fact that some issues really are more complicated than 'yes we did' 'no he didn't' 'but they are' et cetera ad nauseam. And then he complains that people don't understand politics... At any rate, I didn't catch Michael Howard, being engaged in more rewarding pursuits eg picking my toenails, but the only other Michael Foot fan in the village said that he (Howard) looked "really as if he was - mentally ill.' We asked, naturally, for evidence, and she talked about the way he kept pulling bits of paper out of his pockets to illustrate his points rather than giving an answer of the real sort. Everyone pulls bits of paper out of their pockets, I do it all the time and I'm not mad. (Well I am, but it's got nothing to do with little bits of paper.)
Put like that, though, it does sound a bit crackers, simply adding to his resemblance to Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers."
Stream of consciousness rubbish. My hands are getting better, you can see.
But he does. I think it's the teeth.

On Newsnight last night I came across the immortal sentence "Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby." I find it highly unlikely that the we're-fucked attitude of the Conservatives' Director of Communications is as big a deal as the death of the last pope, a royal wedding or Gwyneth Paltrow changing hairstyles, but having been read my sister's top ten country song titles (the winner, if I recall rightly, being 'You're the Reason our Kids are Ugly') I decided that it should be recognised as the wonderful title it is. Therefore my song for scratchy voice, blues guitar, incompetent piano and improvised drum/s, in the style of country and western crossed with Flanders and Swann. This is dedicated to the cast and crew of Newsnight.

EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT LYNTON CROSBY

Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
Yesterday we'd never heard his name
Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
Talking talking about him just the same.

Sold his soul to the devil the daft sod did
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
Shacked up with Michael Howard for a few thousand quid
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Arrived in London all fresh and clean
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
Sold himself to the Tories, got dirty and mean
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Now he thinks himself his tone's all wrong
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
So none of us think he'll be here for long
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Now he'll take back his memos to his native land
I found it amusing all the same
Guess it's sad though he don't understand
Got nobody but himself to blame
Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
But Lynton Crosby
Yeah Lynton Crosby
Lynton Crosby is a fuckin stupid name.

In compiling my Kraut Pop guide I wanted to introduce any English-speaking music fans to a narrow slice of German popular music. Keeping each section succint and to the point was my aim but the thing about the Hosen is that they’ve been there and done it all - two paragraphs ain’t gonna do them justice.

Unter Falscher Flagge

Under the Wrong Flag (90% native)

This early Hosen album sounds like a bunch of pals having fun in a Düsseldorf pub. Lot’s of songs about drinking - nothing special.

More than just a German national institution this Düsseldorf 5-piece have now been around for well over 20 years and still retain what we in the UK like to call the ‘common touch’ - when I lived in Düss lead singer Campino was often spotted at my friends’ gym slogging it out on the treadmill; no £20K-a-year George Michael-style London spa for this bloke. Campino, incidentally, is also a Liverpool FC nut and when not touring can regularly be seen at home games cheering on his pal Dietmar Hamman from the Kop while stuffing his face with dodgy Scouse burgers.

Damenwahl
Ladies Choice (90% native)

The nascent DTH sound starts to peek through. Standout tracks: ‘Wort zum Sonntag’ (Sunday Sermon), ‘Großalarm’ (Red Alert).

The Hosen fan base covers the whole spectrum from young lassies to ageing rockers and, for some reason I’ve yet to fathom, they are massive in South America, particularly Argentina. They’ve come a long way from their early days as a glorified pub band singing about Altbier, Korn and the like but the great thing is they’ve never forgotten those roots and the sense of humour they had then has been dragged kicking and squealing alongside their commercial success. On ‘Opium . . .’ there is a mock interview featuring an over-earnest reporter castigating the band for their past obsession with alcohol. Someone (Kuddel?) agrees wholeheartedly claiming that when seeing starving children on the TV he could never conceive of singing about Bommerlunder (a form of rocket fuel). There immediately follows ‘Zehn Kleiner Jägermeister’, which has since become one of the most popular Sauflieder (drinking anthems) heard now in every pub in every ski resort on the German-speaking side of the Jura.

Ein Kleines Bisschen Horrorschau
A Tiny Little Horror Show (100% native)

Starting to find their feet. More direction, sharper protests. Standout tracks: ‘Hier Kommt Alex’, ‘Mehr davon’ (More).

When it comes to politics and attitude DTH take their cue from the punk of old with a strong social conscience kind of veering towards good ol’ anarchy: think Clash, Sex Pistols and The Jam (before Paul Weller fell in love with Thatch). The Hosen sound meanwhile, is more akin to The Ramones tuned up a bit, although recently they’ve diversified massively - Unsterblich being a brilliant example of what they can do when the guitars are unplugged and they let things just chill.

Never Mind the Hosen here’s Die Roten Rosen

(100% native)

The lads give the Hosen treatment to a selection of 60’s and 70’s German hits. I’ve met deranged alcoholics in the Düsseldorf Altstadt who will disown this.

Learning English Lesson One

(0% native)

DTH pay tribute to their UK/US influences from the Ramones to the Vibrators by way of Sham 69. Campino’s English accent is damn good and the album cover has me in stitches. Interesting but for die hards only.

If you find yourself professing a liking for the Hosen while sausage-side then don’t be surprised if you get a few odd looks - it’s kind of like going to Manchester and saying how much you like the Stone Roses, kind of a given. But that’s not to say familiarity has bred contempt, DTH are still much loved as I saw a few years back when I went to their 1000th concert in Düsseldorf’s Rheinstadion - like Oasis at Maine Road but twice as good.

Opium Fürs Volk

Opium for the Masses (100% native)

Truly outstanding. This is the point when DTH became a serious band. The gurning and political ranting is replaced with more targeted protests and a harder, more sinister edge plus with ‘Er denkt…’ there’s a touching tribute to the power of everlasting love. Standout tracks: ‘Bonnie und Clyde’, ‘Viva la Revolucion’, ‘Paradies’, ‘Er Denkt, sie Denkt’ (He thinks, she thinks).

There’s a few gaps in my discography here but a pointer or two towards the good stuff should catch your eye as should, hopefully, a warning away from the dross.

 Im Auftrag des Herren
On Behalf of the Gentlemen (80% native)

An excellent live album. A cross-section of the DTH catalogue with little from the early years, and, as you would expect, totally uncompromising. Campino’s rasping vocals are even better live than in the studio. The spooky version of ‘Böser Wolf’ (Evil Wolf) will have the goosepimples going. Standout tracks : ‘Hier kommt Alex’ (Here comes Alex), ‘Alles aus Liebe’ (From Love, Everything), ‘Nichts Bleibt für die Ewigkeit’ (Nothing Lasts Forever), ‘Mehr Davon’ (More).

Die Roten Rosen-Wir Warten auf’s Christkind
Waiting for the Christ child (90% native)

DTH do Xmas carols.

Utter bollox.

Unsterblich
Immortal (90% native)

Brilliant. Well-produced and with a rich range of themes this is a corker. Standout tracks : ‘Warum Werde Ich Nicht Satt?’ (Why Am I Never Happy?), ‘Wofür Man Lebt’ (Why We Live), ‘Regen’ (Rain) and not forgetting the excellent title track.

Auswartsspiel
Away Game (90% native)

There’s a slightly tired feel to this album as if it followed too close on the heels of its predecessor. Standout track ‘Nur Zum Besuch’ (Only for a Visit) however, showcases again the Hosen ability to give a unique and powerful take on lost love.

Zurück zum Glück
Back to the Good Times (95% native)

Powerful, hard-hitting and, if ‘Die Behauptung’ (The Claim) is any indication, often ear-shreddingly pish. Overall frankly lacking in imagination. Standout tracks : ‘Herz Brennt’ (Heart Burns), ‘Freunde’ (Friends).

En Misión Del Señor - Live in Buenos Aires (DVD)

(80% native)

Great music and behind the scenes rock-docudrama featuring a collapsing stage and totally insane fans. Spoiled only by Campino’s naff attempt at singing in Spanish. And on disc 2 there’s a classic piece by a typically over-earnest German TV presenter interviewing people queueing for the concert: “What do you like about Die Toten Hosen?” Unkown to her, Vom (DTH drummer) is in the queue for a laugh and says some wonderfully disparaging things about his own band. The look on her shocked face as she asks the cameraman to “cut that bit” is a classic.

The Blue Road :-

Travelling I consider as an extremely useful exercise.

It sets the mind in movement.

Montaigne.

To position this work among what we’ve come to categorise as ‘Travel Literature’ would, I’m sure, lead the author to a Prufrockian ‘ That is not it at all/That is not what I meant at all.’ Yes it gives an account of a journey from Montreal to the Ultima Thule of Labrador, yes it describes and comments on the physical landscape and the people encountered. But there is more, much more. What the author is attempting to do, I feel, is get to the very essence of this space, move out beyond the signs, the labels, the preconceptions and to convey to the reader his experiencing of the way-out- there of this journey, through the landscape/mindscape of himself and its inhabitants.

It is fairly well known that Kenneth White writes in three genres – essays, poetry and the ‘Way Book’ of which The Blue Road is arguably his finest example. White himself says that these books are hard to categorise, being neither fiction nor poetry, which is not surprising given that his whole ethos is an attempt to live, think, experience and be ‘outside the box’ – whatever or wherever that box might be.

White is never content with description alone, although he’s not short on that facility. What he seeks,I feel is an immediacy with the landscape which he achieves in two ways. Firstly, a widening of perception, getting in, inside and underneath description,

---the whole of the North is still a cold enigma to most Canadians,

While to the Amerindian it’s full of live realities --- something like

Poetic space to the normalized mind.

Secondly he is constantly engaging with the people on the land, the people who feel the land, who have genetic memory of that land, again not in a descriptive, superficial way but directly and empathically. Most of us, I'm sure, being engaged in conversation by two drunks on a train, would be content with platitudes of the ‘nice meeting you,’ ‘must get on type’? White’s approach is genuine interest in these two Indian boys resulting in an invite to a wedding and access to a depth of information simply not otherwise available.

Another such encounter with a woman selling beaver pelts in a small shop leads to a visit to her uncle, a modern day Amerindian Shaman who introduces the author to the mysteries of the drum in Amerindian culture.

When he’s in the woods,he says, he beats on the drum to call the caribou.

And as he tells me about it, his phrasing seems to become more rhythmical,like this:

When you go up into the woods

when you’re up there in the woods

you consult the drum

you use it like a TV set

you see what you’re going to kill

when you hunt with the drum--------

Poetic space.

White’s field is boundless, open and inviting to anyone prepared to take the risk and travel there. Like me you may find some stony ground, some difficult places, but the bright clear-cut diamonds are plentiful.

All afternoon I sit there,listening.

With evening falling,I murmur this into the wind

I’m living today

but I won’t always be living

red sun, you’ll remain

dark earth,you’ll remain.

Charlie Orr

Edinburgh April 05