How to Avoid Riots - an Idiot's Guide

So London is on fire and everyone's got their opinions on what is going on. I'm not going to pretend that my thoughts are the most enlightened, informed or intelligent, but I think I have a few ideas as to how such stuff might be stopped. Given the seriousness of the events, I have taken out number 7 (send for Thunderbirds),  19 (let's just all move somewhere nicer) and 23 (let's listen to what Nick Griffin thinks).

If you want to protest, aim in the right bloody direction

Yes, there are many things worth protesting about. Yes, you might feel like the normal channels of complaint will not get the attention of those in charge. The authorities do appear to be an ignorant bunch of bastards who don't listen to anyone unless they went to school together, so I get that you might want to make more noise than just complaining on facebook. But once you start burning houses and looting shops, you've kind of lost the coherence of your message. Now all anyone can hear is 'I'm a greedy, thoughtless prick'.

You'll notice I didn't complain when you smashed up government offices last year. Blame them - not poor bloody small businesses.

If you're simply a greedy, thoughtless prick, don't pretend you're anything else

As the rioting continues, it's pretty apparent that there's no political will behind most of the violence - just the desire to indulge in selfish, stupid behavior. If that's you, then grow the fuck up. You aren't making any kind of postitive change. 'Getting you tax back' are you? From whom? Curry's? They took tax from you, did they? Or, whoah - is it the whole capitalist system, man? Are you somehow attacking the underlying roots of the system by nicking a telly? Or are you just taking something you're too bloody lazy to work for?

I'd have a lot more respect for you if you just said 'I like breaking things and I want things for free because I'm incredibly selfish.' I understand that from when I was nine years old. Also, it would mean we could just set the hounds on you, and I wouldn't have to worry about having become a fascist.

If you're the Police, don't let your officers get away with murder

Watching the news last night I found myself torn when I saw armies of police marching up the street. Part of me thought 'Thank goodness - get to where you can protect people from this violence.' And part of me thought 'Oh dear, this sight is probably not going to calm anyone down.'

Sorry, The Police. I'm sure most of you are brilliant, and I'm glad you exist. But how many stories have we heard in recent years of you killing people and getting away with it? Fatal shootings on the tube, manslaughter at protests, unexplained deaths in custody - these are not things that make people look at your uniform and think, 'Phew - I'm safe now!'

It's not even the killing, really. Not quite. I get that things happen in high pressure situations. It's your lack of accountablity. It's the sense that nothing you do gets properly investigated. It's the fact that some of you are bullies, and don't respect our rights, and that you get away with this because of systems which protect you when you should be protecting us.

If you're the Government, wise up to the fact that this is your bloody fault

When I teach a class, there is nothing I can do should my students decide not to co-operate. There are loads of them and only one of me and, despite many times of asking, I'm not allowed a cattle prod. Yet somehow I get through the day, working with my classes, getting stuff done. I'm sure you'll find this is the case for most people working in most situations.

Systems only work when everyone understands that we all benefit. My students aren't scared of me, but they understand that I represent the potential for achieving a qualification . Employees of the worst boss in the world will resist punching him in his stupid face, knowing that the financial and career rewards are worth putting up with his bad tie and stupid jokes. We adhere to systems because we believe in them.

Do you understand, The Government, that this is how your country works? There are many more people than you can control with the police, the army, the courts and the prisons. Last night proved that. You can only possibly maintain order if people believe that order is reasonable and good. The hundreds of people who started burning things yesterday might be dickheads, but they've probably been dickheads for ages, and only now are they going mental.

And you have to take some responsiblity. You reward the rich and punish the poor, to an almost cartoon-like degree. You have made huge, idiotic cuts that attack the very soul of the country you are meant to be protecting. Are you really so stupid that you don't understand the consequences of reducing provision to culture and recreation? Yes, you might save a little money not paying for youth workers. But that money - while not as exciting as the money that flies around the financial sector, making you wet your pants as your banker friends slap your back - that money works constantly and subtly to help people believe that the culture of this country isn't just for millionaire tossers like you.

In conclusion

It's everyone's fault. Except mine, obviously. And maybe yours. For now, take a look at this, and gasp at the irony.

Your contempt for Bono is no cooler than wearing sunglasses indoors.

Hello you. Like the hat! Go and take a look at this and tell me what you think.

http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/u2lc-2.jpg

There's something wrong with it, isn't there? But what? Take a moment... have a think.

OK, time's up. Now I'm going to read your mind. You're thinking... you don't like Bono. You think he's a git, and you hate his stupid sunglasses-clad face. You're thinking, "If he was covered in flies and worms and being bitten by dogs, and crying and shouting "Please God make it stop!",  and I could stop all that happening just by blinking, I would do all that was in my power to make sure I never, ever blinked again, even if it meant going blind."

I'll be honest, there is something about that photo that makes me dislike the man. His posturing, self-conscious air of psuedo-cool is thrown into sharp relief by the laid back, genuine, actual-cool of Leonard Cohen, standing next to him.  And it's not helped by the fact that Bono is clearly thinking "Look at me, I'm in a photo with Leonard Cohen - one of the greatest songwriters in the history of popular music. That must mean I'm also one of the greatest songwriters in the history of popular music. That's why we're in a photo together. This photo is so full of truth that it will probably become the flag of Ireland before too long. And people will gaze upon the flag, singing my songs and masturbating and calling me The King."

And Leonard Cohen is obviously thinking, "Who is this self obsessed bastard?"

So, it's easy and fun to mock Bono. And wandering around the internet this weekend it's been hard to avoid people doing just that - hurling insults at the singer, and at U2's Glastonbury set last Friday - as if Bono had broken into their house and drawn sunglasses in indelible ink on the faces of all their pets. Gosh, we all hate him. And we like to spend time and effort telling the world how much he irritates us.

And here's the thing: although Bono is quite tiresome in his own way, I'm starting to find the knee jerk criticism of U2 equally predictable and equally dull. Yes,wearing sunglasses indoors is a silly and pretentious way of trying to appear cool. But you know what? So is rising up every time a band's name is mentioned and loudly shouting "I hate them!" It's just another way of saying "I'm cool, I am. I'm with it, and edgy, and hip, and no way do I like old grandad music like U2! Yuk! That's for non-cool people! I really hate non-cool people!"

I've been suspicious of this attitude ever since I was at college, where coolness seemed to be dictated not so much by what you liked, but by what you didn't like. I remember joking, one day, that we should book insanely expensive bands for our Summer Ball. Given that our budget could barely stretch to Jools Holland, I found it amusing to chalk up a short-list of Phil Collins, The Rolling Stones, INXS and - yes - U2 on the black board. The next day some humourless prick had scrawled all over the board: "These are not the bands students like! Get a life!" That's right, you dick. I was seriously entertaining the idea of booking Phil Collins. I thought he might like to play above the bar in the Kennel Block. But don't worry that you've missed the point - you've proved that you're very cool, and you don't like U2, and you probably temporarily like the Inspiral Carpets because you've been told that's acceptable by someone with an equally confused sense of self.

And I remember thinking - what an incredibly negative way to formulate your image. Defining yourself by things you don't like. How desperate, and sad, and needy, to have to slag off everything around you to achieve this mythical status you so long for. Do you not realise that, in your desperate desire to slag of Bono, you have become Bono! Your cut-and-paste dismissal of the bands you think it is cool to hate is your leather trousers, your whining sense of cultural superiority is your indoor sunglasses. When you moan loudly and constantly about the bands you dislike - rather than simply ignoring them like a sensible person - you are posturing at the edge of the stage, waving a flag and hoping to be photographed against the sun.

I don't really care for U2 anymore. I liked them a lot in the early 90s and was probably very uncool about it. I think their last three albums have lacked any real vitality or sense of creative power, especially the last one which was so boring it achieved a kind of quantum state of pointlessness. But no matter how dull their recent output, it isn't anywhere near as dull hearing people complain about them just to assert their own credentials. You might not like them, and fair enough, I can understand why. But please stop telling me about it.

The bleating self denial of the paranoid heart

This week, two tales of stupidity from the world of culture.


"We are morons" no 1: ITV

Watched the BAFTAs last night with C and a really good bottle of wine. It was quite enjoyable, and made me realise how much good British television is being made these days.

Totting up the results, I see that the BBC are responsible for a massive 14 of the winners. ITV and Channel 4 go four each, and Sky got one. That's significant, because it means that the BBC continues to be a relevant creative and cultural force in the UK. And also, it amused me, because do you know how ITV's website has reported this statistic? ITV who, remember, go 4 out of a possible 23 awards?

"ITV Sweeps The BAFTAs"

Seriously.

Sweeps.

The BBC, meanwhile, having won 14 of the awards, could have been forgiven for leading with: 'Brilliant BBC Wee in ITV's Pathetic Face with Mathematically Provable Superiority in All Aspects of Cultural Significance'. But they didn't. They don't need to. They don't even say 'BBC Sweeps the BAFTAs', though it would be true this time. They go with "New faces topple star names." Dignified, restrained, factual.

If you ever need any help working out who is telling the truth and lying, here's a simple test. Is the person bleating loudly about how great they are, and hinting constantly that you might want to give them praise and/or sympathy? Probably a liar. Are they maintaining a dignified silence? Probably telling the truth.

Or asleep. Or not paying attention. Whatever.

"We are morons" no 2: Wakefield Council

Cultural idiocy is also alive closer to home. Well, closer to my home.

This weekend saw two stories about Wakefield and sculpture. The first you may have heard of - we've got a great big new sculpture gallery - The Hepworth - and everyone is very excited about it. The council has done a good job pushing the funding through and maybe Wakefield will start to regain some of the cultural vibrancy it lost over the last decade or so.

Or maybe not, Because elsewhere in Wakey a couple of artists have found their efforts to create something interesting stamped on by the very same authority.

Victoria Lucas and Richard William Wheater have been running a great project called 12 Months of Neon Love, whereby they erect large neon signs on the roof of a building, spelling out the lyrics of love songs. We've passed the signs on the way back from the pub a few times, and they have made us happy. Unusual, creative, positive, grassroots, brilliant.

Well, not if you're Wakefield Council, apparently, who have denied the artists planning permission. Their reasoning is made of nonsense and couched in typical authority nothing-speak. Listen to this garbage:

“The sign by virtue of its scale, design, temporary nature and illumination would introduce a feature that appears incongruous and significantly harmful to the visual amenity of the locality contrary to Local Development Framework Development Policies Document Policy D16 and the guidance contained within Planning Policy Guidance note 19: Outdoor Advertisement Control.”

OK. Firstly, anyone using the phrase 'visual amenity of the locality' is, by any defintion, a machine,  and shouldn't be allowed to pontificate on matters of culture. Secondly, and more pertinently, you stupid great bloody hypocrites.

Let's take a look at the Hepworth again, shall we? Yes, I'm glad it's there. Yes, I think it is a good thing. But if we're going to start talking about features that appear 'incongrous' and 'harmful to the visual amenity' I think we need to take a look at the Hepworth Gallery too. I mean... it's a great big grey concrete slab in the middle of a load of trees and a river. It is angular, unnatural and weird looking and absolutely, certifiably does not fit in with its surroundings.

I'm not saying I mind the Hepworth Gallery looking like this. I think it's interesting. I'm saying that you, Wakefield Council, are talking crap if you say 'Neon Love' can't carry on because it doesn't look right. I'm saying that your real reasons are probably more mundane, and depressing. It feels a bit like 'real' art, expensive, big name art, is allowed, because you're hoping it will draw in the tourists. But locally produced, independent, off-the-wall art worries you, and doesn't fit into your parameters, and must be taken down.


The decision is being contested. If you want to add your voice to a petition on behalf of the artists, you can go here. Please do, and do it by Thursday.

Around the Houses 2: Buttershaw

When I pass away, leaving a legacy of sterling deeds and exciting indescretions, I hope to be remembered not just through my contributions to famine relief, intellectual discourse and sexy dancing, but also through a number of memorials erected in my honour. You know the kind of thing - a brass plaque nailed to the side of house, declaring "Rob Reed lived here between 1998 and 2008, and that's probably why the carpet's like it is." That would be good.

As detailed in a previous blog entry, the first place to bear such a memorial would be Harrogate Place in Bradford, where I battled wasps, coffee-flavoured Revels and dopplegangers of my friends. The second place would be the pebbledashed wall of Raeburn Drive in Buttershaw - a semi-detached where I dwelled for about a year, when I was five.

If you could ask the house itself about my time there, it would probably shrug in a nonchalant fashion and say "I do not remember the child." It would probably resist the plaque, wondering why anyone should care that I'd spent such a brief portion of time there. However, a few things have survived through the haze of time, and I think future historians will agree, they are massively important and exciting.

1. A wasp makes me drop an ice-cream

The war with the insects continues, as the evil cousin of one of the hedge-dwelling stripey bastards from my previous house attacks me in the street. I have just been bought an ice-cream by my grandma, with a bit of red juice and a flake. (The ice cream, not her.) Out of nowhere, driven by nothing less than pure hatred, a wasp appears and helps itself to a bit of my bloody ice cream! Shrieking in terror, I hurl the ice cream at the floor, hoping that the resulting explosion will destroy all wasps forever. Instead, my previously lovely treat splats pathetically into the hot tarmac and the malicious six legged twat flies away to ruin someone else's childhood.

I think the reason this stays with me so vividly is the scale of the disappointment; the vastness of the gulf between the pleasure I was anticipating and the bleak, desolate nothingness I ended up with. I wept hot, insane tears as my ruined ice cream melted away into the road. The same tears plague me now, whenever a beautiful thing is ruined by the actions of an idiot.

2. A girl sits on my legs

It is hard to say exactly when my interest in girls first made itself manifest, but there was certainly something going on when Nicola Smith sat on my legs one day during storytime. I was wearing short trousers and she wore patterned knickers, leaving a perfect series of prints on my bare legs. Don't worry - it isn't a sexy thing. The idea of a girl sitting on me was nothing more than an amusing diversion during an otherwise boring story about a worm. Indeed, if you had said the word 'knickers' to five-year-old me, I would probably have giggled myself into a frenzy of vomiting. But the patterns were a matter of great fascination, a peculiar fragment of a forbidden world, inscribed upon my flesh. Not sexual, exactly, but... interesting.

Quite why our teacher allowed this  blatant transgression of boundaries I'm not sure, though it was the 70s, so maybe she was adhering to some kind of progressive, counter-cultural educational agenda designed to bring down the government through alternative ideologies. If I'd stayed there, she'd probably have been encouraging us into threesomes by the time we could do long multiplication.

3. I learn to read - sort of

Although I have, clearly, turned out to be one of the most intelligent and learned men of my generation, I was not by any means an early developer. My earliest attempt at reading was something of a flawed affair and went thus:

My mum holds up the 1976 Dalek annual. There is a picture of a Dalek, and the word Dalek.

MUM:   What does this say?

MY THOUGHT PROCESS:    That's definitely a dalek from Doctor Who. And that first letter there is almost certainly a 'D'. So... a dalek, and the letter D. Right. Here goes.

ME:   Doctor Who!

MUM: No.

ME:    It is! It's the monster from Doctor Who! I've seen it on television!

MUM:  And what is the monster called?

ME:   Doctor Who.

MUM:   No...

ME:   (furious tears)   IT IS!!! IT IS DOCTOR WHO!!!

I storm off in a whirlwind of injustice, convinced that I am correct, and that all external evidence to the contrary is a liar.

Things have changed little in this respect.

We left the house about a year after we moved in. I don't know why. But my loathing of wasps and my fascination with Doctor Who persist. Hurrah for them.

Why I am a terrible boyfriend

Oh, ha ha ha. Yes, you've got lots of hilarious contributions as to why the title of this blog is so apt. Well, you're wrong, mostly. I didn't do any of those things. Well, maybe about 7% of them. That's hardly any. And that was ages ago.

No, I'm a bad boyfriend because it was C's birthday recently, and I've accidentally bought her presents that are sort of for me. By which I mean, I bought her things that I thought she'd like, and it turns out I really like them too, so its like I bought them for myself and passed them off as presents.

I'm assuming most couples who live together cope with this all the time, but I find it bizarrely dfficult to give a present to someone I live with without feeling I've also bought it for myself. For example, I know she really likes cheery serial-killer TV show Dexter, and we don't have season 3, so I could have bought that. But then, once opened, it would have gone and sat on Squarity Jim - our mighty shelving unit - with all the other DVD box sets. And thus it would sort of become mine too. That's not really a present, is it?

So I go to some lengths to think of things that avoid this trap, to buy something that I don't want for myself. This is no mean feat - the buying of a gift should be something that the giver believes to have worth. It's great, isn't it, giving someone a book, or CD, or film that you've really enjoyed, hoping they will enjoy it too. To give someone a present you think is rubbish just doesn't seem to make sense. "Here you are - it's Marley and Me, the crap-awful Owen Wilson film about a dog that takes forever to die and nothing else happens. I think it's awful, but I though you'd like it. By extension, I believe you to be the kind of person who enjoys over-sentimental plotless wank, i.e. - an idiot. Happy Birthday!"

So I have to think of something which a) is probably good, and has merit beyond merely having cost me some money, but b) I don't really want myself. Arg!

Anyway, I thought I'd got it sorted this time. I got C series one of  the American show Lie to Me, starring Tim Roth as a man who works out what you're thinking by closely examining your facial tics. It's basically CSI, only instead of visiting a crime scene and finding your DNA on a spoon, he stares at your face and finds your eyebrows betraying you by arching sarcastically when you lie. I though she'd like it, because it's all psychological, and I'm pretty sure that her job has something to do with that stuff.

Well, she did like it. But, sod it, so do I. It's really brisk and fun, with a simple but ingenious central premise and a smart performance from Tim Roth. So far each episode is structured in a pleasingly rigorous manner -

Important A plot, usually about murder ("Did you murder her?" asks Tim Roth. "No," says the suspect, nodding vigorously. Oops.),

slightly more emotion-based B plot ("Are you having an affair?" asks Tim Roth. "No," says the suspect, unconsciously stroking his cock. Oh dear.),

character led C plot ("Stop staring at my face!" says everyone who works with Tim Roth).

And the face-science is fascinating, and makes you think you can tell what everyone is thinking.

Never mind, I thought. I've got her another present - Hugh Laurie's new album, Let Them Talk. She likes him a lot - she's all into House, which I can't be bothered with (although I realise it's more or less the same as Lie To Me, only with hideous diseases instead of subconscious body language) and it sounds like the kind of easy-listening stuff that she can sing along to and I can safely ignore.

Well, wrong again. The CD turns up, she puts it on. It's brilliant. Sod it. How can one man be so good at so many things? Did he steal my potential when I was young, and is that why all I can be bothered doing is playing Command and Conquer: Kane's Revenge all day? Did he make some kind of deal with Satan? If so, I don't think that's going to work in Satan's favour. Come the day he tries to claim Hugh Laurie's soul, he'll find the entire human race pelting him with fruit, shouting "Leave House alone! Leave House alone!" (Except the older ones, who will be shouting "Get off Prince George!" or maybe, cleverly, "Look beihnd you Mr Caesar!")

So now I've bought my girlfriend two things that, essentially, I'll be using as much as her. This is why I'm a bad boyfriend. Boo to me. On the other hand, I suppose I do let her look at my Doctor Who figures whenever she wants.