I have commented before on the singer, Soulja Boy (see Video killed the radio star on this blog), with regard to people playing music out loud on their mobile phones:

The speakers are rubbish and any sound that comes out (quite apart from the lyrical delights of Soulja Boy’s wonderful hit, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy), which exhorts us to watch him do before cranking it ourselves, possibly without the necessary safety equipment) will be offensive to the ears.

Soulja Boy has come out with a new song. I hate to do this to you, but I want you to listen to and watch the video that accompanies the song on YouTube.

It is awful, is it not? This song has actually made me angry. Why? Let me count the ways.Firstly, the music. There is a single, tinny phrase that repeats throughout the song; fortunately, much of it is obscured by the rapping and voice-over, but it still comes through. The five notes on a synthesiser and drum machine beat go on throughout the song, repeating without regard to verse, chorus or bridge; there is neither synchronisation or syncopation. The repeated phrase is, however, perfect for mobile phone ringtones, much as Soulja Boy’s previous song, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy), was.

Secondly, the lyrics. One particularly memorable lyric is

Aint got time for chit chat I’m tryin to get this money
So get up out my face, you doodoo head dummy

‘Doodoo head dummy’? It’s almost not worth commenting on that level of wordsmithing. Soulja Boy has been famous for about (by my watch) thirteen minutes and he’s already telling his fans how much he hates them.

Thirdly, the message. Contrary to popular belief, under this crusty exterior, there’s a pretty crusty interior, so I’m not claiming to be ‘down wiv da yoof’. The appeal to c-list celebrity status, though, is remarkable. Soulja Boy has had one hit prior to this and we’re already being told ‘about the life and how you live it when yous [sic] a star’. Singers often say and are often told to write about themselves, their lives and what they know. Unfortunately, they becomed divorced from reality and start banging on about the perils of endless fame and their deep insights. Nickelback took eleven years to release Rockstar, Madonna was around for twenty-one years before the truly execrable American Life and even Britney Spears took a couple of years between Baby One More Time and Lucky.

Fourthly, the rest of the message. Saying ‘Yahh’ is not a solution to problems any more than ‘talk to the hand because the face ain’t listening’. It may be me being crusty again, but I don’t think dealing with issues by making a random noise is a good message or even a message worth listening to. It’s still a random noise.

Fifthly, the b-side. As I said, I am not ‘cool’, but the low expectations expressed in the b-side appended to the end of Yahh!, Report Card are disquieting. The song talks about receving a report card that is all ‘F’s and then insisting the teacher change it to ‘D’s. Even I recall that some people found it amusing to do badly but what annoys me here is that the improvement is only to a ‘D’. There’s a lack of ambition for you.

Sixthly, the endcap, in which he exhorts people to ‘[l]isten to Soulja Boy Tell’em - stay in school’. If you’re going to sing about being wild and rebelious, making random noises towards people who annoy you and if telling your teacher to change your grades, don’t then insult your audience’s intelligence by telling them to stay in school.

Seventhly and finally, the record’s existence. Someone, somewhere (a producer by the name of Mr Collipark) thought this record was worth releasing. While Soulja Boy says that he wants to get away from the negative messages traditionally associated with hip-hop, he replaces it with inanity. For example, the song SideKick is about his mobile phone and even he has the decency to end with the lines

Man I Can’t Believe That I’m Rappin ’bout A Phone
But What U Won’t Believe Is I Wrote This Song….

and the attempt to be ‘nice’ by telling people to stay in school seems rather flat given that the lyrics to his previous single, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy) include the memorable lines ‘Superman that ho’, ‘Superman that bitch’ and ‘Super-soak that ho’. There is also ‘and if we get to fighting / then I’m cockin’ on yo’ bitch as’ which I presume to be a reference to cocking a weapon, although I may be wrong on that one.

Apologies for the rant, but I hate the song with a passion.

xD.

Sunny Hundal asks a couple of interesting questions over at Pickled Politics; should a no-platform policy with regards to the BNP be continued and should that it be extended to groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir?

By way of a background, I understand a no-platform policy (in the instance of the BNP) to mean that no-one from an organisation with that policy would share a speaking platform of any description with a representative of the BNP and that the BNP should not be invited to speak at said organisation. I don’t consider this to impinge on freedom of speech. Firstly, there is no obligation, for the most part, on anyone holding an event to invite people of all political persuasions. Secondly, there are no restrictions placed as a result of the policy on the BNP’s ability to inform others and on others to inform themselves about the BNP as there is plenty of information out there, not least on their website; nor does it prevent their arguments being dealt with as it is not necessary for someone to be present to be able to take on board their argument.

The point of the no-platform policy is to prevent a serially mendacious party from being able to claim any form of recognition or acceptance from civil society because they will twist ‘appearing on platform x’ into an endorsement of their existence and precisely because they crave that acceptance. The evidence for that is the dropping of the boot-boy image for suits and the attempt to cover up their racist and violent tendencies for the image of a legitimate political party.

Sunny asserts that the ‘BNP has been successfully de-legitimised’. I’m afraid that this is not universally true; in parts of East London, they are very much legitimate to some parts of the community. It is true that there was not much of an increase in the vote for the BNP but it put them above the five per cent threshold to give them an Assembly seat; we cannot deny and must not ignore the benefits that the BNP will seeks to extract from this position. There are many things that can be done and, in fairness, are being done. However, abandoning a policy of delegitimisation just as the BNP achieve an electoral success would simply allow them to say that their ‘growth’ means that the mainstream parties now see them as a legitimate part of the political sphere.

A good reminder of the illegitimacy of the BNP comes from the Tory Troll, who reports that an internal challenge to the leadership of Nick Griffin has been met by that organisation’s elections officer, one Eddy Butler, telling members not to sign any nomination papers and for ‘zero publicity’ to be given to the challenger.

Hizb ut-Tahrir are a different kettle of fish altogether. Yes, they are unpleasant and, yes, they have traits in common with the BNP but it would be wrong to see Hizb ut-Tahrir as simply an Islamic version of the BNP. For one thing, they are in different situations and they have different political ends; that alone is grounds to consider different tactics for opposing these groups differently.

The BNP, as I see it, wish to appeal to all whites. Their tactics are dependent upon a broad appeal and, because of the level of their support, they cannot nurture individuals. Their aim is to represent what they would consider the ‘true’ inhabitants of the UK; a broad take-up of the no-platform policy makes it harder for them to claim that representation as the mainstream not only disagree with them but see them as beyond the pale. That might sound a little counter-intuitive, but they are not just going after the alienated but after people who feel they are abandoned by the major parties; the difference there is important.

Hizb ut-Tahrir are not targeting all Muslims; rather, they are going after Muslims they might consider susceptible to their influence. They seek to capitalise on alienation and would be able to capitalise on the exalted position of difference if no-platform were broadly implemented towards them; for those who might feel removed from the British polis (to the extent that it exists), this would highlight Hizb ut-Tahrir as a standard around which to rally.

I would echo a point made by Sunny:

“The other problem is that most of the people who choose to take on HuT don’t know much about them, which provides them an opportunity to play the victim card and pretend they’re just lovely people.”

“[T]he truth will set you free” (John 8:32¹) or knowledge is power²; whichever way you prefer it, providing honest information and background to both these groups is a decent part of defeating them. The question of no-platform is essentially a question of the best way of delivering the message and countering the threats they pose in a manner which at least does nothing to strengthen their position and at best weakens it. Given that, as I have said, I have no philosophical objection to no-platform, it becomes a tactical issue. Going back to the original questions, I would say that we should continue the no-platform policy against the BNP but that we should not extend it to Hizb ut-Tahrir at this juncture.

xD.

1 - Disclaimer - the truth will set you free, but you might not like it.

2 - And, given that I’m quoting a lot and that both the BNP and Hizb ut-Tahrir have their own variations on truth, ’sunlight is the best disinfectant’.

If Ms Dorries (’Hounds of Hell‘) has had unpleasant things sent through the post, threatening calls and messages smeared on her window, I urge her to call the police, for her own protection and for that of her family and staff, but also to protect the debate. I would firmly disassociate myself from anyone who would use such methods to advance their aims, but I hope that no-one would use these reprehensible actions to poison the debate or smear people who oppose the amendment put forward by Ms Dorries to reduce the legal limit for abortions from twenty-four to twenty weeks.

Therefore, I wish to reply to Ms Dorries’ post, Antediluvian.

Antediluvian does, indeed, mean ‘from before a flood’ and more particularly the Great Flood as recounted in the book of Genesis. I have mentioned before that Ms Dorries’ appeal to the popular genius are at best short-sighted and at worst a dereliction of duty. The epithet ‘antidiluvian’ is appropriate precisely because there are problems with the existing law. However, Ms Dorries and her fellow-travellers make the debate impossible because, for one thing, they resort to emotion and distortion and, for another, because their opposition to abortion is so implacable that they will not permit any movement towards liberalisation - say, abortions on request up until the fourteenth week - even if offset by a reduction in the upper normal limit.

“All faiths, including Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians are all antediluvian. “

Er, no. Please see my earlier post on religion and abortion, but I would point out that there is no one definition of a faith and that there are plenty of people of those and other faiths how do accept abortion and, as I mentioned, some religions make specific provisions allowing abortion.

I want to link back to this post from Unity debunking the ‘Hand of Hope’ myth that Ms Dorries is peddling, this post from Tim and this post on the Liberal Conspiracy; they’re all worth reading.

xD.

The Space Hijackers - who describe themselves as “an international band of anarchitects who battle to save our streets, towns and cities from the evils of urban planners, architects, multinationals and other hoodlums” - came up with the idea of the Circle Line Party. In an effort to reclaim part of the urban landscape, a party is held on, well, a train going round the Circle line.

As drinking is going to be banned, there is going to be a farewell Circle Line party on the thirty-first of this month - the day before the ban comes in to effect. There is a Facebook group for the party.

xD.

Matt Sinclair has an interesting post up, in response to Will Hutton’s article, on the role of universities in promoting America’s hegemonic position. In short, Matt says that non-Western countries lack (in short) the cultural situation that allows Socratic method to flourish and that good academia attracts good academics.

To an extent, Matt is right, but he is mistaking symptoms for cause. If we look at the second point, which he refers to as network effects, we see the role of complex sequencing. Setting up a new university today is not the same as the creation of the Ancient universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Saint Andrew’s - the redbricks or even the plate glass universities. In the case of the American universities, a couple of hundred years of building up endowments means that promising academics in countries that do not have the traditions of freedom of speech and academic dialogue of the US are likely to end up overseas, hampering the development of an autoctonous academia. This explains Matt’s first point on cultural differences. Although I disagree with what seems a slightly Whiggish interpretation of history when Matt talks about cultural differences, the brain drain may result in reinforcing hostility to free speech. Geographic congregation for some skilled trades was noted by Adam Smith; this is a modern form of it.

There are other reasons that are essentially a result of complex sequencing. The de facto international language is English, which gives the US, along with a few other countries, a big head start.

xD.

This cheery fellow woke me this morning with his song.

Click for a larger version.

xD.

Speaking on the BBC World Service (audio clip here), Frank Field MP (Lab, Birkenhead) said:

With this budget coming up […] if we don’t get a satisfactory deal I think there’s enough members on the Labour back benches who will, with others, block the budget and that will make his position intolerable at that stage.

If the budget were blocked, it would mean the government had lost supply. I believe I’m correct in saying that the last time a sitting government in the UK lost supply (as opposed to confidence) was 1909 when the Tory majority in the Lords (this being prior to the convention that followed the People’s Budget that prevents the Lords from delaying money bills for more than a month) refused to pass David Lloyd George’s budget. The result was a constitutional crisis. While the outcome was positive in the end, it was by no means assured. Mr Field is playing for high stakes indeed. Given that Mr Darling has written to the Treasury Select Committee outlining his proposals to help people adversely affected by scrapping the 10p rate and that detailed proposals are being worked out, it seems that what Mr Field thinks is the ace of trumps may turn out to be the two.

xD.

I wish to express my support for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and my opposition to the amendment proposed by Nadine Dorries MP (Con, Mid Beds) that would restrict abortion to the first twenty weeks of gestation as opposed to the current twenty-four weeks¹.

The key proposals of the bill are

• ensuring that all human embryos outside the body – however they are created - are subject to regulation
• regulation of inter-species embryos created from a combination of human and animal genetic material for research
• a ban on sex selection of offspring for non-medical reasons
• retention of a duty to take account of the welfare of the child in providing fertility treatment, but removal of the reference to ‘the need for a father’
• recognising same-sex couples as legal parents of children conceived through the use of donated sperm, eggs or embryos
• altering the restrictions on the use of data collected by the regulator to make it easier to do follow-up research
• increasing the scope of legitimate embryo research activities, subject to controls.

The Coalition for Choice, set up in part by the Liberal Conspiracy, is campaigning in favour of the Bill without amendment.

xD.

1 - in both the current situation and the proposed amendment, it would be possible under very narrow circumstances for abortions to be performed at any stage; this is rare.

Since time immemorial, the White Cliffs at Dover have welcomed peregrines and knights errant back to the British Isles. It is fitting, then, that a landmark is to be built at Ebbsfleet, within sight of the western end of the Eurostar station and on the modern gateway to London, the South East and beyond. The website, with pictures of the designs, is at ebbsfleetlandmark.com.

There are five designs being considered for what has already been dubbed ‘the Angel of the South’ and I have a strong preference for one, although I will briefly mention the other four. They are Mark Wallinger, Rachel Whiteread, Richard Deacon, Christopher le Brun, and Daniel Buren.

Rachel Whiteread is, I think, best known for her installation on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square, Untitled Monument, but her other well-known work, House, is repeated in her submission. The core of the proposed work is a cast of the interior of an otherwise-ordinary house. I like Whiteread’s art for its habit of making us consider and reconsider the spaces we inhabit; like Antony Gormley’s Blind Light, it draws our attention to how constricting walls define space and how our living spaces affect us.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be seen like that. Rather, it will come across as a fitting description of the UK today: welcome to a land of quiet domesticity, tea-drinking and worrying about house-prices. I don’t think that is what is intended and I certainly don’t think it’s the message we want to give visitors to our shores. There is also the problem of scale; while

The gigantic horse proposed by Mark Wallinger has done most to publicise the project. It picks up on a couple of themes - chalk carvings on hillsides and Horsa, a semi-mythical Saxon invader of Kent. The iconicity test fails because it is too easy to achieve on a graphics programme; indeed, that’s already been done a few times. It’d probably end up with other farmyard animals around London and while I am not necessarily averse to a sheep guarding the M3, it’s not the memorable symbol one might want. Equally, a statue remembering an invader-king is possibly not the welcome note we want by the door-mat.

I find Richard Deacon’s proposal for a skeletal cairn cold and soulless; where a cairn was a welcoming sight for travellers, this is a shell that serves neither as a waymarker or a cache of food. I similarly find Daniel Buren’s stacking concrete cubes to be somewhat cold and clinical and, as many estates and tower blocks in London testify, concrete looks good on paper and its physical properties make it attractive to architects and artists, the result, particularly after weathering, is less attractive.

The proposal from Christopher le Brun is altogether the most fitting. Firstly, it has the potential to be an icon of the South East. The test to apply here is ‘which would look best in a photo’; bathed in the orange light of dawn or the rose light of dusk or with a moon behind it, le Brun’s proposal not only wins hands down but is actually a beautiful, distinctive piece of art; in any light, it would be aesthetically pleasing. Moreover, the wing and circle motif echo rather more important themes than, say, the white horse. The disc, for me, refers back to the entrance the Channel Tunnel, particularly when combined with the travelling, to and fro, represented by the wing. It also seems appropriate given that the Ebbsfleet Landmark has already been christened the Angel of the South.

Models of the proposals will be on show from 27th May at Bluewater shopping centre; I intend to go and so expect more thoughts towards the beginning of next month.

xD.

Mayor Johnson, as we know, opposed the smoking ban. His voting history on the issue can be found on TheyWorkForYou.com. The noxious fumes produced by the evil weed were not, it would seem, enough in Mr Johnson’s opinion to warrant an intrusion on people’s liberty and bar and pub workers would have to lump it; they could, of course, choose to be out of a job at any time if their health was such a big issue.

At Old Street station, there is a sign up announcing that alcohol will be banned from the first of June on public transport. The occasional drunken idiot is now more of a threat than smoking, which the World Health Organisation considers to be behind 26% of male deaths and 9% of female deaths in the developed world.

It is gesture politics for three reasons.

Firstly, it is unenforceable. Part of Mr Johnson’s campaign was the reintroduction of bus conductors to prevent anti-social behaviour on buses. Unfortunately, his costings were a little bit out. £92 million out, as it happens. Unless every bus, every tram and every carriage is covered, people are going to chance taking that can of their bag and having a beer while they’re going wherever they’re going. That would be nigh-on impossible, and the 400 extra officers proposed, while undoubtedly welcome, will not be able to enforce it.

Secondly, it will make matters worse as people will stand outside the tube station or hold up the bus while they neck their alcohol of choice before getting on the vehicle in question. It will also make life a lot harder for the poor sods who have to try to enforce this - TfL staff. As Bob Crow (and it’s not often I agree with him) has pointed out, you’re making staff pick unnecessary fights.

Thirdly, it’s targeting the wrong problem. That problem is too much drinking in general in the UK and is better dealt with through social means - health education and so on. Unfortunately, that takes time, money and lots of work behind the scenes and does not give the lovely, ‘get tough’ headlines.

Don’t get me wrong - I’d rather people didn’t drink on public transport. However, I think there are better ways to tackle the issue and better places to spend the resources committed to this idea. It is, however, an eyecatching headline that every Londonder will at least notice because of the signs going up at every tube station.

I do wonder whether Mayor Johnson thinks the same applies to tubes as planes. In a speech in Parliament on 16th May 2003, he said

Might the Minister reflect on that, thinking whether, if there is to be a total ban on being drunk on a plane at any time, it may be necessary to consider some compensatory measure to bring back smoking sections on aeroplanes? Many people frankly find it difficult to put up with the rigours of a long flight without the sustenance and reassurance of a smoke .

I am sure that many people consider Bank tube station in the morning as bad as a long flight.

xD.