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So I’ve discovered a few exciting things today. Some of my glaring shameful ignorances have finally been smeared full (to bursting) with that most horrible unctious goo that is ‘unpalatable truth’. For example, I discovered today (thanks to a conversation with Matt Haughey) that when the American press refers to the GOP, what they’re talking about is the “Grand Old Party”. The image of the “Grand Old Party” seems to me beautifully evocative of faded sepia, bruised faces, tight sphincters and mournful piano music – like some kind of apocalyptic and hideously decaying vision of the last half-hour of a Jay Gatsby-style social-gathering that went on just a hundred years too long. So I suppose it’s apt then that the phrase refers to the Republican party – since it seems to me that only a group of people so ruined by the hideous spectacle of infinite and never-ending indulgence could possibly need novelty so badly that they’d be prepared to allow an experimental monkey to lead them.

Another thing I’ve learned today is how to refresh the Grand Old Party in style and keep it going for another hundred years. I mean we all know how unsexy liberal policies are and how compellingly raunchy uniforms, guns, muscles and the enforcement of good down-home fist-action can be, right? So if you want to make something look and feel vibrant and sexy, then violence is where it’s at. I was reminded of this by SWAT which was one of the most gloriously power-fetishising, macho, reactionary, fascistically driven illiberal and hence enormously sexy and titillating films I’ve seen in months. Such films appeal to something deep and fundamental to all men and women. And by that I don’t mean our sense of morality, our aspiration for a better world, our attempts to aspire towards some kind of enlightenment or any woolly concepts of social contracts or democracy. Oh no – it is the wonder of our reptile brain that leads the way. It is that ancient part of our psyches that drags concepts of territory, aggression and violent fucking under its control and which we must surely thank for the glimpse of straining power under the GOP’s crumbling, dessicated and insect-ridden dinner jackets.

The other thing I learned today was to fear the French. In SWAT the villain was – to my surprise – not English or Muslim. Oh no, the new evil is far far worse than that. Where once we fought people with conviction and morality, now our enemies appear not to have morals of any kind at all. How could they when they disagree with us so violently? And if you disagree with us in the way we wish to fight terrorism – well that’s as bad as being a terrorist itself, right? And it’s not like we didn’t hate the French anyway. I mean they’re just so darn rude. They’re like that man at the Grand Old Party who’s secretly conspiring with the staff to create dissent! They’re traitors to their international class! To their religion! To their race! Well I’m sorry – you do that for long enough and you won’t get invited back, says our Muscle-Bound Bizarro Monkey governments. And quite right too! Quite right that their very name should be scratched out so we can put FREEDOM in their place.

Learning things is important. Learning things is good. And don’t worry! I’m learning well! I’ve learned the only position worth having is an absolutist one. The only party worth going to is the one that never ends – that has the strength to fight to maintain itself. After all, aren’t we right to be scared of what happens when that party ends? What will we do instead? Will there ever be a party like it again? After all, it’s them and us, whosoever they may be – and however much we’ve lost touch with what that US is supposed to mean.

Tony Blair has confirmed this morning that Saddam Hussein has been dug out from a cellar in Iraq and is now in custody. Apparently DNA testing has now confirmed that it is not one of his doubles. It’s a shame, of course, that the West bank-rolled, armed and propped him up in the first place. More on this story:

• BBC: Saddam Hussein ‘arrested in Iraq’
• Fox: Saddam Hussein Captured in Iraq
• Ananova: Saddam capture ‘confirmed by US official’
• The Australian: Saddam Arrested Reports
• Aljazeera: Reports say Saddam Hussein captured
• Saddam Hussein reportedly arrested

If you wish to keep track of the news surround the capture, probably the best place to look is Google News.

The Guardian has an article today about the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in society that is worth a read: Without Prejudice. It’s generally a pretty well worked-through piece, even if it has a tendency to represent things in perhaps too cheerful and happy a way. Here’s one of the more randomly bizarre questions it asks:

But do these advancing levels of acceptance leave us in a position where it is easier to be gay in the UK than it is to be black, or even female?

The answer to which is patently no –on the whole – because (1) there simply isn’t a consistent experience of being gay in the UK (some areas / industries / cultures are gay-tolerant, some gay-positive, some are patently and overtly not), (2) gay teenagers are still some of the most at risk of bullying, homelessness and suicide statistics, and because (3) there is still a massive amount of institutionalised homophobia and stereotyping both from outside and indeed inside the ‘community’.

On the other hand things have got considerably better. When I was at University you could almost feel the tides turning – and turning quickly. But there is another aspect to this rapid change in cultural beliefs regarding homosexuality and gay issues that I think the Guardian has missed. I remember when I first noticed (around ten years ago) that the frequent reference to – and tacit acceptance of – gay issues in TV shows like Friends seemed to be having much more effect on the hearts and minds of people around us than any of the dedicated and necessary campaigning and fighting of the oppressive late eighties. It seems to me that the media won the war for us, and that’s troubling in and of itself.

And it’s not just who won the battles that is alarming (because there’s no guarantee that they won’t start reversing their position – particularly in the increasingly right-wing USA), it’s also the speed in which the battles were won. I think we have to be aware of the fact that political and social life doesn’t just naturally have a tendency towards liberalism and socially inclusive politics. A rapid social swing in that direction (while wonderful in the short-term) makes me concerned about the possibilities for an equally rapid swing towards more repressive and less gay-friendly ideologies. Let’s let these changes bed in a bit before we start saying the war has been won.

In the meantime, The Guardian’s article is a bit of a charter for complacency, because as the man said, “Rights have to be defended all of the time because rights are under attack all of the time”. And looking back on the last twenty years, perhaps the lesson is not that we are naturally destined to be accepted as equals, but that – in the future if not now – the media will be the battleground upon which all ideological conflicts will be won.

I’m sitting in Foyles‘ cafÈ on the second floor of the massive and esteemed London book store and I’m having one of the most pleasant moments of my life. The cafÈ has a nice murmur of activity meandering around me. I’m sat with my laptop on an old school-like table. I’ve eaten some refreshing food, and am tapping away to myself while simple book-loving folk slip past unhurriedly. Most beautiful of all is the album of simple melancholic bluegrassy adaptations of Christmas carols that is playing in the background. It’s sedate, slow, respectful and humble – unlike the desperate to be happy, frantically cheery hysteria of most Christmas music. It’s all tremendously comforting.

On the wall is this rather lovely poster which has a review of the store I’m in from “The Bookman’s London” (1952) by Frank Swinnerton. It’s cast in this lovely typeface (I think it’s Parable). Anyway – I tried to find a source online for the (rather indifferent, but still apt) review and there wasn’t one. So I thought I’d transcribe it so that if anyone else looked, it would be be there for them to reference. So here’s Mr Swinnerton’s review of one of the world’s finest and oldest (and most randomly organised) Book Shops:

Towards the Oxford Street end stands one of the really extraordinary enterprises of the book world – Foyles. Two brothers began this shop within the memory of many who are living now. By sheer genius they made it the busiest centre for the sale of books known to me. One may go at any time of day into any of the departments – and there seems no end to them – and find everywhere a packed concentration of students seeking books and advice. The atmosphere is that of great, preoccupied busy-ness; the assistants are inexhaustible encyclopaedias; whole ranges of cheap classics, new school books, histories, dictionaries, novels and in fact everything, as far as everything can now be obtained, is at hand for the student’s need. There is, of course, a rare book department in Foyles, where those more exclusive in taste can rove; but for the most part this is a store for men and women of small means in search of essential tools. As an institution it is overwhelming.

Oh and if you are one of the more exclusive in taste, you might be interested to know that Mr Swinnerton’s book is in fact now itself a bit of a collector’s item (albeit not a very expensive one): Walter-Saxen Rare Books.

An interesting line about the selves manufactured by spies (that seems to me to have currency for all people who have cause to narrativise their lives in one way or another) from John Le Carré’s rather blandly-titled (but also rather good) new novel Absolute Friends:

But who is Mundy Three, when Mundys One and Two have gone to bed? Who is this third person who is neither one of the other two, who lies awake while they sleep, and listens for the chimes of country bells he doesn’t hear? He is the silent spectator. He is the one member of the audience who doesn’t applaud the performances of his two familiars. He is made up of all the odd bits of his life that are left over after he has given the rest away.

So there’s this TV show called The Million Pound Property Experiment. It’s presented by these two charming young men called Colin and Justin. Evidence suggests that the two young men in question come from a dimension that – let’s just say – is big on musical theatre. One of them (Colin) is quite fluffy and conciliatory (“We like Colin! Yay Colin!”), but the other one (Justin) is a bloody nightmare. Watching him in action is like watching a drag act on cocaine with foot-long claws hacking and slashing her way through a room stuffed full of fluffy bunnies, kittens and happy smiling teddy bears. I’ll give you an example. When the programme started they had this really decent guy working with them as a project manager. He was a bit of a curmudgeon at times, but he seemed pragmatic and mostly reasonable. And Justin just wailed at him and scratched at him like one of those impossibly unreasonable small children that you kind of pick up and watch quizzically while they writhe and kick and scream that they hate you. Nutter! And I’m not the only one who thinks so – you only have to read the vaguely homophobic thread over at Digital Spy to see how stunned and amused people are by his behaviour. And that’s discounting the whole Popbitch thing. Which we won’t mention, obviously. Oops.

That’s not to say – of course – that the buildings they end up producing aren’t beautifully assembled, but the most galling aspect is how relentlessly they ignore everyone who tells them about the prices in the area or that their design ideas are inappropriate for their market or that – you know – children could – you know – die if you build it that way. So week after week they get profits in the region of £1000 just because they’re snotting drama queens. It’s scandalous! Great television, though…

How to talk about thoughts about work (in public) that I need to articulate and work through a bit without said thoughts taking on a political dimension – feeling like part of some attempt to game social reality. How to deal with personal frustrations (or let those frustrations go) without projecting perceived inadequacies onto other people. How to reconcile the satisfaction of a work that will result in something made with the desire to work on a subject that you’re passionate about. How to know when one is doing that. How to think about what’s next without sorting out what is. How to handle the frustrations of watching other people do work in places where you used to be the only person who cared. How do deal with people communicating things you want to communicate but didn’t think you should. How to not sound shrill and callous and vengeful and bloody. How to not sound desperate and flighty and trivial and fake. How to tell whether your impression of things is a lie or not.

These being an adequate representation of the conundrums I find myself dealing with on a Tuesday evening, because it would of course be too much for me to scratch out any kind of mental peace.

My head, unfortunately, is far from in the position to do its best thinking. My blood feels like it has thickened to the consistency of thick pressurised loam, to be forced at pressure through brain-flesh, capillary and straining vein. Mental clarity is unlikely to be found in such a state. So I shall have a bath and go to bed. In the meantime: Conundrum vs. Conundra.

Right. For a whole range of reasons, I’m getting increasingly interested in finding out how many weblogs there are in the UK. If we could demonstrate that a large number of UK-based webloggers exist, then it could have a whole range of effects: it could encourage publishers to find constructive ways to engage with the community, could encourage UK-based people/companies to get more involved in building weblog-based software (or to spend time thinking around Denton-esque micro-publishing ventures like Gawker, Fleshbot and Gizmodo). All kinds of stuff.

Now there’s no really useful way of effectively measuring these things, but it occurs to me that we’d probably be able to motivate a good number of people to make themselves known as weblogers if everyone who read this post stuck up a mention/plug for one or more of the major geographical portals onto their sites. So I’m going to wander off now and check that I’m listed on:

• The Eatonweb Portal
• Globe of Blogs
• Weblogs.co.uk (which runs the extremely useful UK Blogs Aggregator)

And please – if you’ve got ten minutes and are interested in helping to uncover the lost continent of UK webloggers out there, then stick something on your site about this too.