THE AMERICAN CENTURION

In some respects, the story of Henry Kissinger – whose death at the grand old age of 100 was announced today – embodies all that is both good and bad about the American century. The Bavarian-born Jew who fled Nazi Germany at the eleventh hour (1938) arrived in New York as a 15-year-old refugee, yet within 30 years he’d risen all the way to National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under President Nixon – a classic example of the American Dream in action. Indeed, at the point when Tricky Dicky was distracted by problems of his own making, it could be argued Kissinger was the most powerful man in the country; Nixon certainly resented Kissinger’s popularity and reputation, yet both he and his successor Gerald Ford depended heavily on Kissinger’s advice and intellect, particularly when it came to America’s role in international affairs. Kissinger played a key role in America’s rapprochement with China, establishing a crucial advantage at the height of the Cold War when relations between China and the Soviet Union remained frosty, to say the least; it was a supremely shrewd move and, along with Kissinger’s negotiations with the USSR to limit the escalation of the respective nuclear arsenals of the two superpowers, showed him to be a diplomat of outstanding skill. Had that been the extent of Kissinger’s achievements, it’d be a pretty impressive CV; however, there’s also the flipside of Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger is routinely labelled a war criminal, cited as having a casual attitude towards human life if it served as an obstacle to America’s global influence; he often carries the can for the US bombing of Cambodia in the middle of the Vietnam War, for America’s support of Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War (when actual war crimes were committed by Pakistan), for US involvement in the bloody 1973 Chilean coup led by General Pinochet that overthrew a democratically-elected government, for America’s support of the military junta that ruled Argentina with noted brutality from 1976 to 1983, for giving the green light to the dictatorship of Zaire as well as the invasion and occupation of East Timor by Indonesia, and for being an effective backseat driver for so many of the dubious military interventions that took place on his watch in the first half of the 1970s. Distanced from them as we are, it’s evident now that these were all pieces on the Cold War chessboard as the Americans and Soviets enacted their power struggle by proxy across the globe, much as Britain and France had during the Napoleonic era. And if innocent lives got in the way of the ideological conflict between communism and capitalism, so be it; they were viewed by both sides as collateral damage.

It is for his significant presence behind the scenes of so many enduringly controversial international disputes that Henry Kissinger has remained such a divisive figure, despite not having held office in government since the inauguration of Jimmy Carter as US President in 1977. Such is the long-term legacy of decisions he endorsed in the countries that encroached onto America’s radar during his time as the world’s most celebrated exponent of ‘shuttle diplomacy’ – and so prominent does his somewhat sinister spectre seem to loom in the background of all of these ongoing tragedies – many refused to allow him to slip away into quiet retirement. Upon visiting Cambodia, American travel writer Anthony Bourdain wrote, ‘Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands’, whereas Christopher Hitchens went so far as to pen a biography of the man titled ‘The Trial of Henry Kissinger’, in which he argued his subject should be prosecuted ‘for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offences against common or customary or international law’, adding that in his opinion Kissinger was ‘a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory’.

Quite a journey, then, from the Bavarian city of Fürth, where Kissinger was born in 1923 – and not one there were any real indications he would be embarking upon. As a boy, Kissinger was an aspiring footballer – i.e. the version the Americans call soccer – until the 1933 election of Hitler as Chancellor brought in the discriminatory laws barring Jews from participation in such activities. When the laws expanded further, Kissinger’s father was dismissed from his teaching post and the family, like many Jewish ones in Germany at the time, realised their only option was to get out while they still could. After a brief stop-off in London, the ultimate destination was that well-established sanctuary for European refugees, New York. As was traditional, the family initially settled in to a community consisting of people the same as themselves and it was always noticeable that Kissinger never really lost his original accent, despite the fact he quickly regarded himself as American. At the same time, he often credited his ultimate allegiance to his new homeland with the US Army, into which he was drafted in 1943. He distinguished himself in military intelligence and found his Germanic roots came in handy during the Battle of the Bulge, earning his American citizenship the hard way.

After the Second World War, Kissinger resumed his education, excelling in academia at Harvard, where he achieved a Bachelor of Arts; his political career took shape in the early 60s, when he became foreign policy advisor to Nelson Rockefeller during his three unsuccessful bids for the Republican nomination as President, and though he had a less-than high opinion of Richard Nixon when the two first met, Kissinger nevertheless accepted Nixon’s invitation to become his National Security Advisor following his victory in the 1968 Presidential Election. The relationship between the pair quickly developed a closeness that excluded other members of Nixon’s administration, not to mention the likes of the State Department; even if Nixon had an envy of Kissinger’s affable charm, he was smart enough to realise the two shared common ground when it came to both governance of the nation and the enforcement of America’s global position, and he recognised that he had an exceptional enforcer when it came to Kissinger.

If ever one individual could be said to represent the nature of post-war American foreign policy in all its questionable morality, Henry Kissinger certainly fits the bill; even in his role as National Security Advisor, Kissinger appears to have formulated the suspicion and paranoia that has characterised the divide between the US Government and its citizens since the 1970s. His far-reaching influence in the way America governs itself and responds to events beyond its borders is unmatched by any other single figure of the last half-century, including the Presidents he served under and all the ones that have followed. Therefore, his passing – however much his opponents bemoan the fact he evaded taking his seat beside the likes of Slobodan Milošević at The Hague – is worthy of note.

As stated in the opening paragraph, whatever controversies continue to blot the man’s copybook, it’s indisputable that his remarkable rise to power symbolises the endearing American narrative that anyone – no matter how lowly their origins – can go all the way to the very top. The chip that Richard Nixon carried on his shoulder regarding the inherited power and privilege of the Kennedys was a grievance born of the personal struggles that scarred his formative years, yet he still managed to ascend to the highest office in the land. Similarly, few would have earmarked a teenage German immigrant for greatness when he arrived on American shores in the late 30s, but Henry Kissinger showed what can (or could) be achieved in what was once the most egalitarian of democratic societies. As the last member of Nixon’s inner circle to pass away, with him an entire era of American politics recedes into history; the legacy of his career, however, is very much still with us.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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BUSINESS AS USUAL

A fortnight off this treadmill may be unusual, but this time it’s one prompted more by the need for a well-earned break than the four months’ absenteeism provoked by less-benign reasons almost six years ago. Periodical private reviews of my most recent publication during occasional stints in the Armitage-Shanks cubbyhole have helped to remind me that this here Winegum serves a purpose of sorts, so I was keen to return to the fold once the holiday season was over. And, in my current absence, what has changed? Well, missing out on a routine obituary – in this case for Terry Venables – was a minor compromise, but as for the wider world, it appears my vacation didn’t miss much in the way of progress. The Israel-Palestine thing is ongoing, but what’s new? That’s been ongoing for the best part of 75 years, give or take the odd intermission. The blind eyes turned to the true intentions of Hamas are equally nothing new where the so-called ‘liberal’ intelligentsia are concerned, so there wasn’t much I could really add to that particular conflict when spending my evenings overdosing on After-Eight mints at the radically-early hour of 7.00pm; yes, things really were that decadent.

Besides, the harsh facts of living in our glorious nation in 2023 were never far from the picture. I was staying at the home of someone who has never shirked from a working day, yet is rewarded for her lifelong endeavours by having to endure an ice-cold environment due to extortionate heating bills. Naturally, there have always been plenty whose indoor temperatures have been dictated by the ability (or inability) to pay for the privilege of gas or electric, yet the in-work majority have never previously had to grin and bear it in quite the same way as today. I received an additional reminder as to the state of the nation on my first day back at base; seeking merely a telephone chat with a doctor regarding a recurring ailment that has recently flared up again, I was informed by the receptionist that the earliest I could be granted the honour would be a week on Thursday – and that’s just a consultation on the bloody phone, remember; I’d probably have to wait another six months if I wanted to actually see a GP in-person. And, of course, this information was regaled to me in a waiting room utterly bereft of patients. En route home, the traffic lights at the crossing were out of order yet again – the third or fourth such occasion I’ve experienced this since the junction in question underwent a laborious redevelopment that took the best part of half-a-year to complete; therefore, it was back to taking one’s life in one’s hands as I accompanied other pedestrians navigating their way through vehicles coming from all directions. Images of coppers on point duty from old Ladybird books momentarily filled my head.

Anyway, it was interesting observing events across the Irish Sea during my absence from here; for once, such disorderly events were not taking place on the ‘British’ side of the Emerald Isle – rather, emanating instead from the independent nation we’re often reminded is a fine example of virtue-signalling liberalism we should view with envious eyes, as the Martians once did this island Earth (at least according to Richard Burton in 1978). The brutal assault on three small children and a crèche-worker by an Algerian national with a blade at the school gates may have inspired a rare outbreak of civil unrest in a nation that has seen an unprecedented – and unrequested – influx of foreigners in recent years, yet the MSM has unsurprisingly focused on the alleged ‘far-right’ tendencies of those who chose to protest via violent means in the wake of the barbarous attack as well as shying away from the injuries inflicted on the innocent children by eulogising another ‘immigrant’ who came to the rescue of the crèche-worker struggling to protect the infants from certain death at the bloodied hands of a Jihadi fruitcake of the kind we in the UK are more than familiar with.

The veil of silence surrounding the attacker – and the attention given to the imaginary ‘far-right’ motivations of the rioters – is reminiscent of the contrast between the widespread publicity afforded the killer of Jo Cox in 2016 and the murderer of another British MP (David Amess) five years later; the former’s political motivation was endlessly scrutinised whilst the latter’s was conveniently whitewashed, lest it raise questions as to precisely who we are allowing to breach our borders under the guise of ‘refugees’. However misguided the response in Dublin last week, the fact it happened at all suggests the project instigated and endorsed by Ireland’s political class is not working for the indigenous population of Eire as much as the PR campaign would indicate. We’re accustomed to this in Blighty, but it would appear the Irish media is similarly committed to glossing over uncomfortable truths by shifting the blame to a convenient scapegoat so miniscule in numbers that to suggest they are an organised threat to the status quo is ludicrous.

The most recent census in Ireland revealed that one in every five people living in the country today was born outside of it – 20 percent of the population. As is well-known to those whose communities experience such a large wave of immigration, it has an effect on the communities, and not merely the public services that fail to expand in a corresponding manner to cope with the sudden rush of additional citizens. This is an age in which we are regularly told that native culture should be preserved in amber and resist ‘colonial’ influence, yet where Europe is concerned, the same rules don’t seem to apply. Embracing the native culture of the West is frowned upon and the native culture many immigrants export from the land of their birth is one they are advised to cling to as though it can easily be slotted into an existing – and often considerably different – native culture altogether with little in the way of teething troubles. This naturally creates friction with those born-and-bred in the immigrants’ new home and when the areas in which ghettos spring up overnight are invariably ones not exactly affluent, ‘Us and Them’ suspicions and resentment are unavoidable.

The horrific incident that sparked the rioting in Dublin last week confirmed the fears many confronted by the strangers in their midst have long harboured; to pin the blame on the bigotry of an uneducated and unenlightened underclass is the default response by politicians and a MSM detached from the realities of their Utopian imagination, both of whom have created a climate wherein nobody is allowed to voice a dissenting opinion on the rainbow nation without being labelled racist or ‘far-right’. And as nihilistic as the reaction was, perhaps many who participated felt it was the only way they could be heard anymore. The borderline – and in some cases blatant – anti-Semitism on display during marches masquerading as peaceful pleading for Palestinian independence is as symptomatic of the deluded idyll of incompatible cultures blending in the fantasy melting pot as the rejection of a West that has facilitated freedoms unknown in favoured societies by the clueless beneficiaries of it. Queers for Palestine indeed.

Not to worry, though – no doubt the Algerian national responsible for the grotesque crime that lit the fuse in Dublin will be spared a prison sentence on the grounds of ‘diminished responsibility’, which is the get-out-of-gaol clause awaiting all such murderous individuals courtesy of our wonderfully benevolent justice system – see Valdo Calocane, who stabbed to death two students and a school caretaker in Nottingham last June, and today entered a plea of three counts of manslaughter at Nottingham Crown Court as well as admitting the attempted murder of three other innocents he attempted to mow down in the stolen van he was driving through the city centre. One doesn’t have to wonder for long why so few have so little faith anymore – and the impossibility of ensuring a doctor’s appointment is only the tip of an exceedingly deep iceberg. Yes, it’s good to be back.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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UNHAPPY VALLEY

Funny how a strange, vintage TV series rooted in supposedly far-fetched supernatural legends of Celtic mythology seems less bonkers than most ‘straight’ stories that clog-up online news outlets today; but that’s what it feels like coming back to ‘The Owl Service’, the 1969 eight-parter produced by Granada. I first watched it when I purchased the DVD around five years ago; a characteristically thorough release by the late, lamented Network, the DVD was a purchase inspired by seeing snippets of the series on some documentary about children’s television a while before. Too young to have seen it at the time it originally aired, and never having caught the two repeat runs in 1978 and 1987 respectively, I was intrigued by the clips from what looked like another of those creepy and irredeemably disturbing dramas that used to be aimed at a young audience accustomed to having the shit scared out of them by public information films. Following on from the psychedelic Swinging London weirdness of ‘The Tyrant King’ the year before, and anticipating similarly out-there series to come, like ‘The Changes’ and ‘Children of the Stones’, ‘The Owl Service’ emanates from an era when kids’ TV didn’t just cater for the infants but also recognised pre-and post-pubescent viewers required something to make them think as well as serving to entertain them.

‘The Owl Service’ was based on a recent book by Alan Garner, who adapted the novel for television himself; shot entirely on location and on colour film, the series was quite groundbreaking in its day, a TV era when most shows reserved filming for occasional exterior scenes, preferring studio interiors shot on videotape to suffice for 95% of screen time. The decision to shoot entirely on film enhanced the uniquely atmospheric aura the story generated, with the rural Welsh locations breathtaking and eerie in equal measure. The series revolved around a trio of young leads, who the script stated to be roundabout seventeen. The photogenic Gillian Hills – who had left little to the imagination beside Jane Birkin as one of the two wannabe models seduced by David Hemmings’ photographer in ‘Blow Up’ – played Alison, the fey, disturbed girl whose mother remarries and provides her with an instant stepbrother as well as a stepfather. Her stepbrother is the somewhat repressed Roger (played by Francis Wallis), who spends a lot of time in a pair of ridiculously skimpy shorts, perhaps to complement Alison’s miniskirts. The third member of the trio is Gwyn (Michael Holden), son of the unhinged housekeeper hired to run the summer home the newlyweds and their adolescent offspring decamp to as the unseen mother convalesces.

As with many TV dramas of the period, the class system plays a prominent part in how the characters are distinguished from one another; Alison and Roger are unmistakably middle-class whilst Gwyn is clearly from the ‘lower orders’. Roger’s disdain for Gwyn seems to be born as much of his snobbish sense of superiority as it does his evident jealousy of the growing closeness he witnesses between the servant’s son and Alison. Increasingly playing the gooseberry whenever Gwyn joins them, Roger begins to spend more time alone, wandering round the locality with his camera and then barricading himself in his dark-room to develop the end results. When he photographs a stone monument with an intriguing hole in it, Roger receives the full myth surrounding it from the house’s handyman Huw (Raymond Llewellyn). Initially coming across as a bit of a village idiot yokel, Huw is gradually unveiled as a character with hidden depths; his absolute conviction in the truth of a fatal ménage à trois that forms part of an ancient local legend is matched by his belief that Roger, Alison and Gwyn are beginning to re-enact the tragic love story that, as it turns out, was re-enacted in his own doomed youth.

The odd title of the series derives from a dinner service Alison and Gwyn discover in the attic of the house when she sends him up there after being shaken by the repeated sound of scratching on the ceiling of her bedroom. Expecting to find rats, Gwyn instead stumbles upon said plates bearing an unusual design; Alison deciphers the design and makes paper models of what are revealed to be owls, becoming a little obsessed with the exercise. Alison’s mother – who, as mentioned, is never actually seen – disapproves of her daughter’s relationship with Gwyn, whilst Gwyn’s mother Nancy (Dorothy Edwards) expresses her own disapproval via neurotic outbursts. Mind you, she bears a grudge against the family occupying the house, believing it to be rightfully hers, as she was once romantically involved with a distant relative of Alison’s who was killed in a motorcycle accident before they could marry. The only seemingly sane and unaffected adult character is Roger’s father Clive, played by a veteran of many a British movie and TV series, Edwin Richfield, though he appears largely oblivious to events under his nose until they’re pointed out to him. But it is the three juvenile leads whose journey provides the real interest.

Both Alison and Roger are damaged individuals. Roger’s uptight aloofness is something he evidently wears as protective armour, having been emotionally traumatised by his parents’ divorce and his mother’s sullied reputation; he only ever lets his guard down when alone. Alison is more of a mystery, though it’s hinted that the death of her father could be held responsible for her occasionally odd behaviour. Gwyn is equally affected by not knowing who his absent father was, yet he refuses to let this define him; ambitious to escape the limitations of his background without quite knowing how, he admits to Alison he bought a batch of LPs teaching elocution because he hates his accent, yet doesn’t have a record player to listen to them on. It’s an engaging and sympathetic performance as Gwyn by Michael Holden – one that perfectly captures the hunger and yearning of youth to see beyond one’s backyard, and Alison appears to represent a beguiling alternative. However, when Gwyn asks her what she wants to do with her life, her reply is ‘Mummy wants me to go abroad’, a statement redolent in the lack of self-determination characteristic of the not-quite-grown-up, still bearing the child’s fear of upsetting parental plans. At one point, a frustrated Gwyn attempts to run away, but finds the mountainous landscape as much of an impediment to escape as the family secrets that Huw blurts out, sending him back to the house.

There are numerous moments in ‘The Owl Service’ that belie its premise as ‘something for children’; it’s certainly hard to imagine a series as multilayered, complex and darkly disorientating being served up as kiddie fodder today; at one point, Alison even becomes ‘possessed’ in a manner that recalls ‘The Exorcist’, albeit without the ill-advised employment of a crucifix. Setting a trend for the young adult series of the 1970s, when the pagan mysticism of the pre-Christian age routinely resurfaces and collides with the modern world, ‘The Owl Service’ retains its ability to surprise and occasionally shock. In one scene, Gwyn responds to yet another manic eruption from his mother by casually telling her to ‘drop dead’ before claiming he’d gladly study A-level profanity if it was an option at school. Sadly, less than a decade after playing Gwyn, Michael Holden was killed in an unprovoked attack outside a pub in 1977. Nevertheless, the series left its mark on many of the cast members and also on television itself, particularly during that brief golden age of intelligent and thought-provoking drama that followed it in a timeslot allegedly intended for the under-18s. No, we won’t see its like again on TV, but at least it’s still out there for anyone intrigued enough to track it down. It’s worth it.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE OLDER

Not much more than a year ago, Suella Braverman resigned as Home Secretary and helped contribute to the swift (not to say welcome) downfall of Liz Truss; she was back in the job in a matter of days as new PM Rishi Sunak sought to establish some semblance of continuity whilst simultaneously deviating from the suicidal path favoured by his immediate predecessor; sticking with an experienced Minister who’d played a part in ousting Truss seemed a sensible option. Braverman was running the Home Office at a moment in time when the common gripe with politicians was that they rarely expressed their personal thoughts and instead blandly courted the court of public opinion in a bid to win favour with the self-appointed mouthpieces of the electorate in the MSM. Braverman bucked this trend and instead satisfied the clamour of the actual electorate by echoing some of their concerns; and for her troubles, she soon received the same treatment as Priti Patel, caricatured as a Cruella de Ville figure and portrayed as ‘far-right’ – the fate that awaits anyone who contradicts the consensus and speaks out on subjects most spineless chickens in Westminster would rather sidestep.

So-called ‘Suella Derangement Syndrome’ has taken hold of social media and Fleet Street in recent weeks, frothing at the mouth whenever the Home Secretary broke rank and said what needed to be said. Short memories are abundant in the MSM, neglecting to recall that Theresa May in her somewhat longer stint at the Home Office memorably told the police to get their house in order a decade ago; when Braverman applied the same approach to the even worse state of a public service that has deteriorated rapidly since May’s admonishment, she was greeted with a barrage of hysterical fervour from the usual suspects that contrasted sharply with the recognition amongst a majority of the general public that here was a politician who was at least prepared to address the issues that most politicians shy away from. Sure, there were misfires – evoking the loathsome phrase, ‘lifestyle choice’, in relation to the homeless was ill-advised, to put it mildly; but when Braverman rightly criticised the police or highlighted the realities of the anti-Semitic ugliness at the heart of the so-called ‘peace’ marches that have disrupted London ever since Israel retaliated to extreme provocation by Hamas, she was condemned to the point where a Prime Minister glumly looking electoral annihilation in the face sought to lay down his friends for his life and dispatch a P45 to the Home Office.

Did Braverman really say anything about the police that we didn’t already know, though? There has been a blatant two-tier system of policing in place for years, but it took the unique conditions of the pandemic to expose it to all and sundry. The contrasting treatment the likes of BLM or Just Stop Oil have received from the boys in blue compared to, say, anti-lockdown protestors or those sat in their own gardens during social distancing restrictions – not to mention those guilty of daring to misgender male rapists in wigs and dresses online – has laid bare the priorities preferred by the College of Policing and has made it clear that some ‘offences’ are more offensive than others in this Brave New World of law enforcement. When coppers are caught on camera removing pictures of Jewish children held as Hamas hostages from London streets yet don’t apply the same ‘safety first’ tactic in the name of multicultural harmony when it comes to Palestinian flags, what other conclusions are people supposed to come to?

Confidence in these particular public servants is at an all-time low, and the necessary language required to get this across to the police themselves has understandably sharpened further when coming from the Minister with whom the buck effectively stops. If ever a public service needed a kick up the arse, it’s hard to think of any more deserving than the bloody police, and who else is there to deliver the boot? When it comes to the ‘hate/peace’ marches (depending on which side of the barricades one stands), Braverman spoke for many who can see through the apologist bullshit spouted by the illiberal intelligentsia as to the aims and intentions of those broadcasting unashamed anti-Semitic propaganda on behalf of a terrorist organisation masquerading as freedom fighters. The media of both mainstream and social varieties lazily laid the blame for the disorder in the capital on Armistice Day last Saturday at the Home Secretary’s door, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was the professional ‘progressive’ race-baiters themselves who coaxed the tiny minority of hairy-palmed EDL rednecks and reliable old Tommy Robinson out of their bedrooms and in the direction of the Cenotaph.

A clash in Central London between the two opposing forces was as predictable as Israel’s anticipated military response to Hamas invading its territory and massacring hundreds of its civilians; Hamas knew precisely how Israel would react when it committed its atrocities and was coldly prepared to use the people of Gaza as human shields whilst spinning its victim yarn to the West, knowing full well there were enough useful idiots schooled in the oppressor/oppressed rhetoric to buy into it. Similarly, the substantial anti-Semite wing of the pro-Palestine cheerleaders that have spouted their hate on the streets of London for the past few weekends were well aware that it wouldn’t take much to wind up the miniscule (despite what the Guardian says) far-right fruitcakes into action on Saturday, and all turned out just as planned.

Well, Suella Braverman has carried the can and now pays the price with the loss of her position, replaced by former Truss crony James Cleverly as Home Secretary, fresh from many an overseas jolly as Foreign Secretary. And who takes his place at the Foreign Office? Okay, no laughing at the back. It’s…erm…David Cameron. Yes, the return of ‘Call Me Dave’ to Cabinet, following in the footsteps of Alec Douglas-Home as an ex-PM recalled to take on the job of Foreign Secretary is perhaps the most unexpected aspect of the Rishi reshuffle. Whereas Home had gallantly renounced his hereditary peerage in order to take up residence at No.10, Cameron’s absence from the Commons since the post-Brexit fallout of 2016 has been rectified courtesy of a re-entry via the backdoor of an instant title in order to take up his new post from the comfort of the Upper House. After a period of exile penning premature memoirs in his caravan and lobbying to claim furlough cash for a dodgy company during lockdown, the Coalition Premier will no doubt hope he can repair his tarnished reputation, though when one considers what’ll be clogging-up his in-tray I’m sure we’re all in agreement it couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap. Rumours that Nick Clegg will be installed as his office boy remain unconfirmed.

Yes, it all just looks like another desperate throw of the dice by Sunak, reacting to a small albeit vocal minority demanding the head of Suella Braverman on a plate for daring to say an uncomfortable truth out loud. But recalling David Cameron from the wilderness is a rather eccentric gamble that won’t exactly be greeted by an astronomical improvement in the polls; indeed, the only thing it’s harder to imagine sparking more of a rush towards the Labour Party would be the installation of Boris Johnson in a Ministerial role. That hasn’t happened yet, but with Cameron back in office and The Beatles back at No.1, it’s difficult not to rule out any eventuality at the moment.

© The Editor

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A.I. AM THE WALRUS

‘Taxman’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Back in The USSR’ and ‘Dear Prudence’, ‘Come Together’ and ‘Something’, ‘Drive My Car’ and ‘Norwegian Wood’ – just four examples of first and second tracks on Beatles LPs, demonstrating the variety and lack of repetition that makes the best of their albums such a rich listening experience. Sequencing tracks in an order that showcased their versatility was something the band paid a great deal of attention to, rendering the DIY sequencing of the iPod age largely unnecessary where The Beatles are concerned; it’s hard to beat them at their own game. Moreover, they were able to specialise in this due to the dazzling panorama of eclectic musical styles available on LPs like ‘Revolver’ and the White Album; a determination to never make the same record twice is a hallmark of The Beatles that must come as an eye-opener to any novice only aware of the trio of facsimile Beatle releases from 1995 onwards, one who assumes The Beatles just produced plodders on the piano. Naturally, none of these three ‘reunion’ songs were ever intended as such in the first place, all being numbers composed by John Lennon over five years after the four had ceased to be a working unit. Bearing all the sonic limitations of primitive home demos, the said trio were incomplete, with on-the-spot lyrics used in the absence of the finished article. Chances are Lennon may have gone back to them and completed the job had he lived longer, and if he’d known what would one day happen to them he’d probably have tried harder.

By now, we’re all aware that what is being touted as ‘The Last Beatles Song’ is out there, retrieved from a dusty cassette at the Dakota Building and put through the latest technical mangle to emerge on the other side as a fully-formed Frankenstein’s Monster of a Beatles record, over half-a-century after the final occasion in which John, Paul, George and Ringo were all in the same room at the same time. The slick marketing machine of the band’s one-time Utopian enterprise Apple befits the corporate gatekeeper of the most valuable legacy in pop it has subsequently become, with no opportunity missed to ensure the product is promoted. As a song, ‘Now and Then’ would have perhaps nicely slotted in to an imaginary John Lennon solo LP from the late 70s, but I doubt it would have made the final cut of a genuine Beatles album, for which the three creative forces within the band reserved their finest compositions. However, for all the technological trickery of ‘Now and Then’, it’s refreshing – and quite poignant – to at least hear Paul McCartney’s voice hasn’t been ‘de-aged’ for the occasion; he sounds like what he now is, an old man; and, for me, the elegiac vibe the record strives for is enhanced by this fact.

In many ways, though, the song is secondary to the event; whenever the Stones release a new album, nobody expects anything on it to surpass ‘Satisfaction’ or ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ – merely the fact they’re still around to actually make a record is enough to justify the hype. Similarly, few people – especially those familiar with Lennon’s original demo – were anticipating another ‘A Day in the Life’ or ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ when it was announced that Paul and Ringo were polishing up a track they’d abandoned polishing up with George 30 years ago. I suspect some were simply curious as to whether or not today’s technology could improve upon what was possible with ‘Free as a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ back in the 90s, and it has to be said that ‘Now and Then’ is an impressive technical achievement; utilising new audio techniques pioneered by director Peter Jackson when working on the ‘Get Back’ series, Lennon’s voice was isolated from the piano it was locked into on a one-track recording and now sounds as though he was in a vocal booth at Abbey Road, singing along crystal clear to a piano recorded on a separate track. It’s not quite ‘A.I.’, but it’s still a remarkable development.

It’s possible Apple made a mistake in not releasing Peter Jackson’s accompanying promo video for ‘Now and Then’ simultaneously with the song, as the emotional impact of visuals can often paper over the cracks of an ordinary tune – something MTV-era pop stars have known for the best part of 40 years. Mixing Paul and Ringo in shot with both their younger selves and their two departed bandmates is a clever touch, as is the ‘Benjamin Button’ tactic of the four de-ageing all the way back to infancy at the end. It emphasises the intended finality of the project, with the canny tagline of ‘Now and Then’ being ‘The Last Beatles Song’ vindicated to a point in the sense that we’ll never hear anything new with all four of them on again, even if John and George have been beamed-in from the past. Lest we forget, Ringo Starr is now 83 and Paul McCartney 81. Indeed, one might accurately point out that ‘Now and Then’ actually features more Beatles than either ‘The Ballad of John & Yoko’ (just John and Paul) or ‘Yesterday’ (just Paul). Knowing Apple’s cynical habit of fleecing fans with endless – and often pointless – reissues and remixes, however, I doubt ‘Now and Then’ will be the full stop on the most creatively fruitful career in pop history that Paul McCartney for one intends it to be.

Let’s not ignore the dull and astonishingly unimaginative sleeve design of the single either, which looks to me like some naff 80s graphics of a kind that would have graced the cover of a Level 42 CD back in the day. There are so many great photos of The Beatles that are begging to be used on record sleeves, and all their recent releases have spurned them in favour of bland designs that are a poor representation of a band whose album sleeves are amongst the most iconic works of pop art produced in the last century. Am I nitpicking, though? Well, I’m not alone. But maybe few are paying attention to that aspect of the release, for what Apple is more than aware of is just how powerful a factor nostalgia is in persuading people to fork out a fairly extortionate amount of money for a new Beatles single at a point in history when the past has so many advantages over the bleak insecurity of the future. That understandable desire to recapture the ‘first time’ effect of hearing a new recording by The Beatles is the same desperate emotion ruthlessly exploited by the likes of George Lucas with his repeated repackaging of the original ‘Star Wars’ film. Both he and Apple know that this feeling intensifies in middle age and particularly when the wider world appears to be heading in a considerably darker direction than the retrospective Technicolor daydream of the Swinging 60s.

Having The Beatles return to rescue us is akin to King Arthur hotfooting it back from Avalon when the nation is experiencing its darkest hour, and there’s no doubt there’s precious little else to feel optimistic about right now; therefore, the appeal of the country’s most beloved cultural ambassadors being resurrected by whatever means possible is bound to provoke the kind of OTT response we witnessed on numerous YT channels last week. Like a new Shakespeare play or a new Dickens novel, the prospect of a new Beatles record is irresistibly tantalising in these dreary days, a rare glimmer of sunlight to illuminate the West’s winter years. It’s something a sizeable proportion of the band’s fan-base has either never experienced or (if they’re old enough) hasn’t since 1995; the former has always regretted being born too late, and if it takes a John from the 70s, a George from the 90s, and a Paul and Ringo from the 2020s to simulate that effect, so be it. You can’t blame people for wanting it.

Where do we go from here, though? Will A.I. carry on the job when Father Time finally forces Paul and Ringo to hang up their bass and drumsticks for good? Ten or twenty years from now, artistic considerations may well be set aside in order to satisfy the incurable appetite for new, genetically-modified releases from a band who ceased to exist three decades before the Millennium. The fact one can see such a thing happening is both an indictment of contemporary pop culture’s inability to deliver the goods and an acknowledgement of just how enduring a legacy The Beatles left behind, one that people don’t want to let go of – even if ‘Now and Then’ has precious little to do with it.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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INQUIRY AGENCY

Bloody Sunday, Levinson, Grenfell – the list of long drawn-out public inquiries over the past decade or so may have superficially fulfilled demands for answers simply by being held, though most appear to have raised buck-passing to a virtual art form; it would seem the pandemic is now receiving the same treatment, with an agenda swiftly becoming apparent on the part of the prosecutors. Another star turn from Dominic ‘f**king’ Cummings has grabbed the majority of the headlines this last week, with a MSM that summarily failed to seriously grill the Government over its policies at the time predictably getting excited at below-stairs gossip concerning Boris and his entourage. However, by focusing on the trivial and bypassing the big issue, Fleet Street and the broadcasters are merely continuing a spineless, supine trend they established during the pandemic, when not one journalist dare speak out and challenge the logic of lockdown at those televised daily briefings – probably mindful they risked their future prospects of becoming Downing Street press officer should they do so.

Of course, the timing of the Covid inquiry – coming smack bang in the middle of Middle Eastern carnage – means a lot of bad news can be buried should it surface, though the inquiry isn’t exactly unearthing much of it, anyway. The aim at the moment appears to be to uphold the reputations of those who promoted the science we were advised to believe, with scientific advisers and assorted SAGE personnel receiving the easiest of rides, and clearly-marked heroes and villains assuming their designated roles as Ministers are condemned for not instigating lockdown proceedings earlier; the catastrophic impact of lockdown, regardless of how ‘late’ it was eventually implemented, doesn’t seem to be being addressed at all. Whenever a medically-qualified lockdown sceptic and critic of Government pandemic policy has been interrogated at the inquiry, the kind of hostility such figures were greeted with at the time has been revived; even the ‘blame it on Brexit’ line has returned to spare the lockdown cheerleaders from collective responsibility.

The only thing the Covid inquiry is missing so far is celebrity testimony; it could really do with calling, say, Gary Lineker, so we could all hear what his vital opinion is on the subject. We really need to know. Alas, all we’re getting is a waste of time (and money) whitewash which threatens to drag on for another three years, with a disproportionate focus on the 24-hour tittle-tattle of Westminster Village, the kind that we received more than enough of when Dominic Cummings publicly burned his bridges with Boris back in May 2021 during his celebrated seven-hour kiss-and-tell appearance before a select committee of MPs. Whatever ‘toxic’ culture existed in and around No.10 at the time of the pandemic is an insignificant side issue to what was actually going on beyond the Whitehall bubble; Cummings referring to his then-colleagues as ‘useless f**k-pigs’ had absolutely no bearing on policies that affected millions of people’s lives, and the inquiry should acknowledge this instead of highlighting such frivolities with a gutter press giddiness that hardly imbues confidence that this showcase event will satisfy the public’s need for a reckoning.

Any alleged ‘revelations’ as to precisely just how out of his depth Boris was as PM when confronted by Covid are hardly earth-shattering; even his callous dismissal of the death toll – when (according to the then-chief scientific adviser to the Government, Patrick Vallance) he viewed the coronavirus as ‘nature’s way of dealing with old people’ – is not shocking anymore; we all know via Matt Hancock’s unredacted WhatsApp messages that the lives of the plebs were little more than collateral damage in the eyes of the powers-that-be; as long as the right people had a ‘good pandemic’ by profiteering from the chaos, what did it matter that the infected elderly were being dispatched from hospitals back to care homes? Pass a PPE contract in a brown paper bag under the counter to the landlord of your local whilst the mugs out there are clapping for the NHS on the street corner and it’ll all turn out alright on the night. According to the inquiry testimony of one Downing Street insider, the social distancing imposed upon the rest of us was tried out for one Cabinet meeting and then abandoned following a cacophony of complaints as to how unworkable and ridiculous the system was; at least those involved realised this fact straight away – as did we all. But that didn’t prevent plenty outside No.10 from facing financial ruin when fined for coming to the same conclusion by an officious police force given free rein to make up the rules as they went along. Yes, the unenforceable extremes of social distancing and social bubbles were routinely ignored by the public in private, but the public didn’t devise them; the truth that those who did devise them didn’t abide by them either invoked anger when all this initially came out mainly because of the scaremongering rhetoric the devisers employed at the time, a time when they were posing as law-abiding, holier-than-thou advocates of their antisocial design for life. But tell us something we didn’t already know.

On a purely personal level, the timing of this inquiry and the headlines it has managed to wrestle away from Gaza – however rooted in trivialities they may be – is quite canny when it comes to promoting a new publication. Titled ‘Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases: A Journal of the Plague Years’, this is your humble narrator’s compilation of all the Winegum posts that appeared on this very subject between February 2020 and May 2023. Even when I was documenting this surreal period as it happened, at the back of my mind I knew there was a good book in it; and I was right. Mind you, a necessary breather was required before publishing, a degree of distance needed to be sure we were through the worst of the madness. I appreciate SAGE and Fleet Street would prefer it if we were to never sleep safely in our beds again, so that we can respond to every new variant with the required level of hysteria and panic; but life, by and large, has returned to normal now – at least compared to the privations we endured in 2020 and 2021; indeed, it’s remarkable just how short memory can be, requiring some serious jogging via revisiting these Winegum posts before the full realisation of just how disrupted our lives really were at the height of Project Fear becomes clear again.

I only began to compile the posts a few months ago and naturally had to read through them in order to decide which made the final cut; I was amazed at how much I’d forgotten, but a vivid picture emerged of a strange upside-down intermission from normality I almost found hard to believe I’d lived through; but there it was, first-hand documentation of what happened as it was happening. In this respect, it has more affinity with Samuel Pepys’ diaries than with Daniel Defoe’s 1722 ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’, which didn’t arrive on bookshelves until 57 years after the year it depicts – i.e. 1665, when London was decimated by the last mass outbreak of bubonic plague; Defoe himself was only five at the time and relied upon the contemporary journals of his uncle for its eyewitness accounts. As I’ve a feeling I won’t be around in 2077, I decided now was the time to publish, though I couldn’t resist paying homage to Defoe by inserting a faithful pastiche of that book’s famous frontispiece into my own.

Anyway, if you ever fancy a reminder of it all and can’t be arsed trawling through the Winegum’s archives, I’ve spared you having to do so by placing the posts in one nice, neat volume – and I’ve even evoked the spirit of 1665 on the cover of the book by superimposing the infamous ‘beak’ costume of the plague doctor upon a close-up image of the Covid virus itself (as seen in the photo above). Could be you might receive a truer vision of that bizarre period of recent history than you’re ever likely to get from the inquiry.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?fan_landing=true&u=56665294

TAKING A JOKE

Much like ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, ‘South Park’ appeared on the cusp of a fresh century that had a different approach to making people laugh than the one we were poised to wave goodbye to. What it shared with Larry David’s series was something the best comedy has always done in its refusal to ring-fence any subject and take no prisoners – something both series kept on doing even as the walls began closing in. ‘Curb’ identified and satirised a specific brand of what used to be known as Political Correctness, one that was then coming to dominate discourse in the strongholds of the American entertainment industry but had yet to capture the corporations and institutions of the entire Anglosphere. 25 years on, it’s somewhat amazing that at least the animated adventures of four foul-mouthed school-kids and their dysfunctional families are still going strong, operating in a field of one as all around them capitulate to a consensus seemingly conceived to kill comedy. ‘South Park’ has always courted controversy, despite the fact it actually balances its satire to skewer both sides of the widening divide; it’s just that one side tends to get offended more than the other, and is in possession of platforms that enable its objections to be heard the loudest.

Not so long ago, ‘South Park’ tapped into the widespread weariness the general public have with Harry and Meghan, ridiculing their privileged whingeing and whining by portraying the pair embarking on a ‘World Privacy Tour’, highlighting their alleged desire to be left alone whilst ensuring the entire global population is made aware of every intimate complaint they are insistent on sharing with us. As a means of poking fun at the narcissistic cult of victimhood, ‘Me, Me, Me’ culture and the absolute absence of self-awareness its most visible promoters are guilty of, the show couldn’t have picked a better target; the predictable outrage from the usual suspects merely underlined how ‘South Park’ continues to say out loud what many think but are afraid to utter in impolite society. Perhaps, as with Larry David and Ricky Gervais, Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the men behind the series) are able to get away with what the majority can’t because their positions and reputations are secure, so successful that they don’t have to concern themselves with kowtowing to a moral minority who can only kill the careers of the little people.

Hot on the heels of its expert nailing of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, ‘South Park’ has now dropped another welcome bomb on the self-satisfied, lecturing elite pulling the strings of our mass media by satirising Hollywood’s habit of race and gender swapping established characters, replacing Evil White Men with diverse Strong Females, oblivious to the box-office poison such a cynical tactic has become. In an episode that has received maximum publicity, the obnoxious Eric Cartman has a dream that he has been suddenly replaced by a Woman of Colour and everyone is supposed to simply accept this dramatic change. The episode expands the nightmare by introducing us to the ‘Panderverse’, whereby every demand for diversity and representation is pandered to by Hollywood in the laziest manner by simply reinventing existing formats to tick the required box; also a satire on the tedious Marvel ‘Multiverse’, the episode sees any questions raised by the remaining cast of characters as to what’s going on shouted down as racism while their new female incarnations spend most of their time moaning about The Patriarchy.

When it comes to a trend that is representative of just how creatively bankrupt today’s Hollywood has become, Disney is undoubtedly the worst offender at being incapable of creating brand new sagas that could promote this agenda in a way that actually entertains. It instead chooses to reboot and ruin eternally-popular franchises by belittling and diminishing the popular (male) lead characters that made each franchise such a success and installing superhuman female characters in their place, imaginary women who win every fight against hordes of men twice their size and have absolutely no flaws whatsoever – humourless, smug dullards completely lacking in likeable personality traits, whose every utterance is a wise-cracking putdown of the male of the species as sisters do it for themselves. Giving the finger to the audiences who kept these franchises afloat for decades, it comes as no great surprise that the audiences have deserted them in their droves, yet still ‘the message’ has to be hammered home like being whacked about the head by a copy of the Guardian. Over the past few years, Disney’s creative malnutrition has been hiding in plain sight, with a string of lousy remakes of its finest masterpieces – timeless classics that are now dismissed as ‘old-fashioned’ in order to refashion them to suit the supposed mores of the modern day, or at least the mores of Sillycunt Valley.

What Disney and all the other equally culpable corporations in Tinsel Town have failed to grasp is that relentlessly shoehorning ‘diverse’ characters (whose sole defining characteristic is their ‘diversity’) into already successful franchises is not the way to address any past imbalances, whether real or imagined. In order to do that, one would have to employ talented writers capable of creating fully-rounded characters who incidentally just happen to be black or female or gay, rather than reinventing an iconic character in the box-ticking fashion and making them a cipher for an ideology that then renders the character an utterly unbelievable human being. But Hollywood can’t do that today; it’s too committed to the commercial suicide of the dogma that dominates the creative arts. Hire so-called writers not on merit, but because they fulfil a quota and the end result is the creative quagmire the movie industry has sunk into over the last decade.

20 years ago, Trey Parker and Matt Stone satirised American foreign policy in the wake of 9/11 with the movie, ‘Team America: World Police’, which also worked as an homage to Gerry Anderson’s Supermarionation series of the 60s in the same way that ‘South Park’ can be viewed as a subversive tribute to ‘Peanuts’. The more vocal actors in Hollywood – those who attach themselves to causes they usually expose their ignorance of whenever they open their unscripted mouths – were equally targeted with ruthless hilarity in ‘Team America’, and considering how many of that ilk have recently nailed their colours to an ideological mast that turns a convenient blind eye to the barbaric nihilism of Hamas, the satirical edge of ‘Team America’ remains as sharp today as it was in 2004. Of course, as with ‘South Park’ itself, ‘Team America’ offsets its satire with smutty humour that often irks the puritanical overlords as much as digs at their holier-than-thou hypocrisy. The fact that coarse, puerile gags can sit alongside the satire for me makes the perfect combination; and ‘South Park’ has always managed this tricky balancing act.

An additional satirical subplot in the ‘South Park’ episode under discussion concerns the sudden redundancy of the town’s white-collar workers, usurped by AI; all the degrees they’d been encouraged to acquire in order to work in the likes of human resources, accounting, data analysis and so on are now worthless. Meanwhile, the blue-collar plumbers, builders and mechanics are more in demand than ever and fabulously wealthy due to the fact nobody else can do simple, practical jobs anymore. But it is the long-overdue roasting of Disney, Marvel and the whole ‘Woke’ orthodoxy which runs through Hollywood like a turd-infested river that makes this episode what will hopefully be a turning point, when a whole culture begging to have the piss taken out of it can no longer carry on safe in the belief that no one dare bring it tumbling down for fear of the hounds being released. It needed someone secure from character assassination on social media to do this, and ‘South Park’ has done it. About bloody time too. Mind you, five years ago…https://vimeo.com/720879040

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?fan_landing=true&u=56665294