Fawkes That For A Load Of Symbolist Poppycock

Yes; that's two puns in the title - and shit ones, at that.  What do you expect, though? I don't really know what I'm doing here, to be honest; it's going to take a while for this thing to settle down to anything like a coherent format.  F - as they say - FS; titles are frightfully difficult, but you've got to have them, I know that much.  I could just number these screeds, but that's a short-term solution that smacks of laziness and doesn't really consider the students of tomorrow who'll doubtless be citing a lot of this stuff in theses and the like. They'll need some keywords to help them search these annals, won't they?  It's going to be dashed hard on them if they can't tell at a glance which piece is a bit of trenchant insight into prevailing attitudes to the NHS and which is merely some late-night, drunken musings on how the contestants on ITV gameshows all seem to look like failed genetic experiments and have all the apparent wit and charm of bacteria that key other bacteria's cars just for a laugh.  Think of the children, eh?  Even if the students of the future will all be rich entitled cuntslugs studying Management Science, they deserve at least a basic level of courtesy...
Though perhaps I'm being unduly pessimistic? The days of the super-rich élite may well be numbered if the Occupy movement's success in winning over the (at least tacit) support of the Church is anything to go by.  After all; they may be an almost total cultural irrelevance - and their idea to set up some kind of commission to look into the Ethics of Capitalism is kind of náive and clueless even by the standards of people who believe in God - but it's a kind of victory. It certainly shows something of an awareness of the urgency and sincerity of the cause amongst an institution that rarely does anything more than dole out soup and cough diffidently from the sidelines. No; the protests in London and New York are having an effect, it seems; it's just the masks I don't care for.
There; we're back on track - and it didn't take all that long, did it?  The Guy Fawkes mask that's been taken as a symbol by the Occupy movement is an odd choice, I reckon. I mean; I can see why they chose it - he was a dissident, and V For Vendetta was a pretty cool movie - but I can't imagine old Guido being terribly opposed to greed and capitalism. He was reasonably well-off - back in those days anybody who even knew what the House of Parilament was would have had a shilling or two.  Secondly, his Finest Hour was getting involved in a plot to kill the King and put a Catholic on the throne - and back those days, religious types didn't mess about. Had he succeeded, we might well to this day be enjoying the "freedom" of meatless Fridays, procreation-only sex, and even more priests running around with the cassocks twitching for little boys: magic stuff, Guido - what a pity it didn't work out, old sport...Even leaving aside the fact that unless a protestor photocopies the iconic fizzog onto some cardboard and makes eye-holes in it the heartless mask corporations are making a tidy bundle, I have to say that I don't care for masks; these are ordinary people who are righteously angry about the fiscal shitter they've been dumped into - they have no call to hide their faces.  Stone me; I don't have the most classic profile on Earth (those that know me seem to agree that I look like a Croatian paedophile or something, in fact), but were I to demonstrate or protest, I'd so so proudly, without hiding behind another man's face - especially not the face of a God-bothering nut-job.
Still; symbols are important to people, I suppose - to the point where they seem to matter more than the ideals and beliefs they embody.  Another symbol that comes in for a lot of coverage at this time of year is the British Legion Poppy: these distinctive paper flowers are reviled in some quarters as "glorifying" war; similarly, those that don't wear them - or choose the pacifist White Poppy - are decried as being monsters who are only prevented from pissing on the corpses of dead soldiers by laziness and a lack of moral fibre.  They're only symbols; it's not worth getting so riled up about them, really - their utter meaninglessness is underlined by the fact that MPs wear them. I always envisage a desperate scrum to be the first one in the House to pin one on and show just how committed they are to honouring the War Dead - and then trotting off to vote for a piece of legislation that ensures there will be plenty more of them.  A charity that seeks to help out old soldiers is a good cause; so is one that promotes education about peace - however impractical it may seem.  Donate whatever you want to either, and feel free to wear whichever colour poppy best matches your eyes - just don't think it says anything significant about you, any more than anyone else's says about them.  And shut the fuck up, because I've been hearing this inconclusive, squabbling nonsense off and on for forty years, and I'm as familiar with as I'm fed up with every self-righteous word.

Questions, a Corpse, and the Firework Code

I've always felt that one of life's greater pleasures is wrapping oneself around a few bottles of sherry with a few like-minded chums and putting the world to rights: it can often be quite stimulating to the brain (even though it's giving the spongy fucker quite a hiding at the same time); it encourages the consideration of ethics, politics, and other high-minded matters - which makes a nice change from discussing "crisps vs pork scratchings" - and above all, it's totally harmless.  Nothing ever comes from these late night sessions, after all.  Whatever hellish dystopia you and your cronies end up fashioning from personal prejudice, a mixed bag of intentions, and the kind of inspiration that only eight cans can provide, you'll awaken to find nothing worse has come of it than a screaming headeache and perhaps a puddle of piss in the corner of the living room. The world carries on; nothing has changed, and despite the acclaim the suggestion received last night, riot police don't have big smiley faces painted on their shields to lighten the tone of protest rallies and the abuse of the crippled. Then you do it all again next week.
I was reminded of this pleasure today by a news report on the future of Libya: the provisional government now find themselves in almost exactly the same position of one of those crapulent caucuses - the only difference being that they're not saying "I'll tell you what I would do"; they're actually doing it.  Their discussions will have weight and will affect not only millions of Libyans, but also the world to a greater or lesser extent.  Being Moslems, they're doing it without booze as well; a terrifying thought, really - and not something I'd take a whack at.  Fuck me; I don't even like deciding which brand of Oven Chips I'm buying without having had a couple of lagers...They're also having to decide what to do with a dead body - which again, is something that most pissed-up social visionaries don't have to deal unless something's gone very awry during the evening.  "The Man With The Golden Gun" is currently lying in a meat-storage room, and before they can even think about laying the foundations of democracy in their country, they've got to work out what to do with him: should they get him under the ground, or should they drum up some quick cash for the national coffers by charging people a couple of dinars for a gander (spitting extra)?  Of course; another consideration is that they might need to produce Gadaffi's chilled carcass to some kind of international enquiry - which is what really caught my attention.
Why, exactly?  What purpose would an investigation serve?  The only one that leaps immediately to mind is that it would strengthen the international impression that the UN knows best, and that a bunch of sand-hugging savages can't be trusted to keep a straight bat and play the game "like a white man".  Perhaps those of you with long memories will recall the news stories and photos that accompanied the fall of Communism in Romania - disturbing pictures of Ceaucescu and his wife lying dead and blood-splattered in Wenceslas Square?  The headlines were in much the same vein as those that accompanied the news of Gadaffi's passing - "Death of a Tyrant!",  "Freedom!", "Tulisa and Louis In X-Factor Feud!" etc.  The general belief was that it was a Good Thing that a despotic dictator had been brought down by the righteous fury of the oppressed.  I don't recall anybody suggesting anything other than the cunt got what was coming to him - there was certainly no international outcry about "due process". Mind you; he was a Communist, and thus beyond the pale, wasn't he?  The people that killed him were also European and thus civillised and keen to learn all about market forces and the other blessings of Western Capitalism. 
It's a kind of double standard that we see in the International Community all the time: those anti-nuclear proliferation treaties always seem to be more about preventing African, Asian, or Middle-Eastern countries from getting their dusky, trigger-fondling fingers on nukes, while the US, the UK, and the ever-reasonable and soigné French are deemed wholly fit and responsible to have world-sundering arsenals at their disposal.  It's like a Dad looking after the fireworks on Bonfire NIght is what it is: he can lurch out to light a dozen rockets after a few liveners, but the kids can't have so much as a sparkler until they've proved that they can be "trusted to act responsibly".
Still; there's no point in jumping to conclusions just yet, is there? There's too much of this sort of carping mistrust knocking about; it sours people and probably does more harm than good.  Let's just wait and see, shall we? The UN will doubtless do their utmost to preserve the independence of Libya's nascent government - and to assist them in every way to find the same kind of freedom and democracy that we enjoy every day. It would be churlish and narrow-minded to suggest anything else, right?
I'd still like to sit in on the "What are we doing with the body" meeting though, I'll tell you that for nothing...