Tankers, Bankers, and ... Oh, I don't know; something snappy that rhymes, probably.

It hasn't been easy coming up with anything this week, cats and kittens: not that there's nothing much to bring up the hackles and summon up a stream of metal-melting bile going on in the world - quite the reverse, in fact.  What's been difficult is that I found myself so infuriated the other day, that it was impossible to maintain my usual unbiased, cool and measured, almost forensic approach to analysing proceedings upon our disgraceful whirling shitball of a world.  Nor was I able to couch my views in the distant, irony-shrouded way I often do, so peeved did I find myself; there comes a time when exposing the fallacies and grotesque cuntery of the Great and the Good in a rather laboured and elaborate burlesque simply isn't enough.  I apologise unreservedly then, for the lack of any particular "hook" or "guiding conceit" in the following - especially to those readers (and there are many, I'm sure) who share my own delicacy of feeling and deep-rooted gentility.
It was that Vince Cable what done it: what a despicable, turncoat wankspanner he truly is.  Him and his dead, stocking-mask face were on Channel Four News on Friday, talking about the current dispute over the salaries and bonuses being awarded to Barclays' Bank executives; when I found myself hammering on the floor with my fists and screaming hoarsely at the television "Don't make me angry, Mr Cable - you wouldn't like me when I'm pulling your spine out and raping you with it", it became apparent that a line had been crossed somewhere.
It was the point-blank refusal of this glistening cadaver to say anything that really burned me up; despite - one might think - the official Cameronian doctrine of being "tough on the fat-cat culture" (or at least saying he's going to be) a discussion of this nature might at least call for some thunderously empty rhetoric, would you not? But no; Cable wouldn't even dignify the matter with an imposingly meaningless soundbite.  He claimed to have "very strong views" on the subject of barrow-loads of cash being flung at banking types like shit at a chimps' tea party, but he kept them very much to himself.  All he could do was repeat that it was "the responsibility of the shareholders" to ensure that pay for these people should be commensurate with performance and be at least nominally less obscene than the spectacle of John Merrick licking out Gail Tilsley off of Coronation Street - an attitude that suggested that the very last thing a Business Secretary should do is meddle with, interfere in, or have any dealings whatever with, business.
It's easy to see why, of course: after the Coalition folds in on itself (or the Lib-Dem contingent are actually eaten alive by their Tory overlords - whichever comes first) this amoral corpse is doubtless aware that he's unlikely to win any kind of election ever again; not even one of those "who gets a funnel-web spider enema?" ones on that awful Celebrity Jungle shambles.  That being so, he's got to be pretty careful not to rock the boat for the coporate pirates; a cushy directorship is about the only hope he's got of avoiding the dole or having to wrestle tramps for the last half-bottle of lighter fluid - we've all got to make some kind of a living, right? Quite so, but it was a sickening display nonetheless - particularly in the light of the Establisment's attitude towards the possibility of a strike by petrol tanker drivers the other week.
Self-righteous bellowing was much the order of the day then, as I recall: people were being "tough" and "strong" all over the shop; they pulled out all the old clichés about strikers being "irresponsible", "politically-motivated", and - my personal favourite - "holding the country to ransom" - and, in short, mirrored the consensus views of a nation brainwashed by Rupert Murdoch's newspapers, Margaret Thatcher, and years of repeats of "Carry On At Your Convenience".  Only a cad, bounder, or Communist, it seems, would even dream of striking - or supporting a striker, if the Cable-like reticence on the subject apparent in the big wet eyes of Ed Milliband and his acolytes is anything to go by.  Matters of pay, conditions, or health and safety should be resolved by Management or Think Tanks: such concerns are above and beyond the understanding or the remit of Union leaders (or - heaven forfend - of Union members) who should stick to organising the Works' Outings or the Darts League, and sorting out the whip-round for a "Get Well" card now and then.  The trouble with Unions, conventional thinking tells us, is that they're greedy and shiftless.  Whatever happens, their revolting cupidity should never be appeased: they should tighten their belts, achieve a Zen-like indifference to shabby material concerns, and be grateful to be working at all in these harsh times. They certainly shouldn't be looking for anything resembling a hand-out or a free ride - and they certainly shouldn't inconvenience a bunch of fat-assed car-dependent come-holes who may well drop dead if they had to walk a couple of hundred yards without the snug, smug, protection of their 4x4 chromed cocks.  The old Christian Work Ethic, in other words: remember your Duty to others around you - especially the ones at the top.  There's no talk of "incentivising" the average worker - yet it's the primary concern when it comes to the bankers.  Reducing their pay or bonuses is an idea bordering on heresy in some quarters: if some Spam-faced posho isn't offered the combined GNP of every Central African country each year, we're told, they simply won't want to know; they'll bugger off to America or some other Land of Opportunity - and then we'll have to deal with a society and an economy bereft of the kind of fiscal visionaries whose sound decisions and rigid moral code led to the bailouts, credit crunches, and double dips that have made Great Britain what it is today.  Now that's holding the country to ransom, I'd say.  The only difference is that banking chiefs don't strike - and here's why:
(i)  They're gentlemen - even the lady ones.
(ii)  Strikes call for picturesqueness: there's something affecting about people in donkey jackets, workboots, and pinched, desperate faces when lit up by a brazier.  People in thousand guinea suits forming a picket line and waiting for Nigel to get back from Cafe Nero with the pastries would look fucking idiotic.
(iii)  They secretly know that if they did strike, the rest of us would know how truly worthless they are.  Crops would grow and be harvested regardless, coal and metal ore would be mined and processed as usual; doctors would cure people, and painters and decorators would gloss skirting boards up and down the land unhindered.  The only difference if the Bankers weren't at the switch is that there would be nobody at the end of the day to say that all of the activity described above was rendered worthless because some avaricious shithouse in Sri Lanka was having a bad day on the Markets and had to sell off a couple of sweatshops - or something like that, anyway.
So there you have it: some are entitled to "incentives"; some are not.  I'm sorry I couldn't dress it up for you any fancier than that, but I'm really not in the mood.

COUNTRY WAYS: A semi-occasional ramble through rurality with a city-boy.

Having lived in the depths of the Countryside for a while now, I'd like to share some of my experiences for the benefit of those of you who are not fortunate enough to be awoken each day by the crow of a cockerel, or by the scent of new-mown horseshit wafting gently through the fresh morning breeze.  I offer these insights and observations in the hope that anyone visiting "the real England" will not make some of the mistakes that I've made already and will be able to blend seamlessly with the rustic population as I am already starting to do.  In no way should any of this be regarded as a collection of cheap gibes or glib, stock characterisations.
May is nearly upon us here in Grandborough, and while in the former Soviet Union and parts of Rotherham, May Day became synonymous with Revolution and Proletarian Struggle, here it retains its true meaning - whatever the suffering fuck that is.  I've asked around, but everyone from the Elders that gather around the bar of The Rampant Goat to the one-legged tinker that lives in an old Nissen hut on the common adjoining Ten Nigger Field* merely tap their noses, sigh, and tell me that I'll "knew all abewt it arter ten yirs or so, young 'un."
Whatever it is, they're taking it very seriously: already a May Pole has been erected on the Green, bunting has been hung up along the entire length of Main Road (well; "length" is probably pitching it a bit strong - but it certainly covers the front of both houses), and the heads of four incautious visitors from nearby Shuckburgh have been placed upon the railings outside Squire Erskine-Fowler's Manor. Damned festive they look too, I'm bound to say: there's something about a straw hat with feathers in the brim that counteract even the most ghastly look of death-agony - and you barely notice the grisly dark clumps of dried blood sticking to the protruding arteries.
Squire Erskine-Fowler's commitment to the festival doesn't end there, of course: he is, I am told, to throw open the gates of his estate on May Day. There, for the traditional fee of ninepence (£6 in "accursed new money") or a half hogshead of nettle beer, visitors can castrate a horse of their choice and be shot at with crossbows by the Squire's household staff - a collection of liveried psychopaths hired under the auspices of the Apprentice Scheme.  A parade will be held of course, culminating in the traditional Morris Dance and the Crowning of the May Queen.  This year's May Queen has yet to be decided upon, but I understand it's a two-horse race - Grandborough's female population is not, on the whole, all that attractive.  A hog-roast and bonfire will be held in the Beer Garden of the Rampant Goat, with an unprecedented TWO guest ales being available, and music provided by local children playing Los Del Rios' "Hey, Macarena" on the spoons and penny-whistles.
I'm not going.
                     
*There's an interesting story behind that name - but I'm too scared to ask about it.

Undercover of The Knights.

Anders Breivik's assertion that his horrifying attacks in Oslo were carried out on behalf of a shadowy network of anti-Islamic extremists seem to be the point upon which the case of his sanity hinges: if it's true, and the "Knights Templars" really exist, then he's not only sane (or at least saneish), but clearly a grim harbinger of further atrocities yet to come; if it turns out that the Knights Templars - as he describes them - are merely a delusional concoction of Dan Brown-style fantasy and too much "Assassin's Creed" games, then he's to be deemed a stone bonker and will more than likely live out the rest of his days in a rubber room - probably wearing a fetching Hannibal Lecter get-up.  That seems to be about the size of it, if I read the news aright - but is it?  I hardly think so.
There's a lot of talk about Breivik's claims to be linked to a Terror Network - either a real one or some imaginary one that has seeped through from the homicidal swamp of his underbrain into his mouth - but nobody seems to have seriously considered the possibility that it's all a load of crap.  No; it's condidered as a "delusion"; it's seen as evidence of some extreme and complex form of paranoia or some such; it's being judged as pure, unmitigated, lunacy.  That it's simply something he's dreamed up to cover himself in the event of being busted doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone.
Think about it, though, cats and kittens: if somebody knows they're about to kill seventy-odd people (and it's fair to assume he had at least that number in mind: car-bombing is, of course, an inexact science) in a horrifying, public manner, the possibility of having their collar felt surely must cross their mind to some extent.  Thus they find themselves considering contingency plans: clearly they're never going to see the light of day again, so it becomes a question of whether they're going to spend an incarcerated lifetime in solitary, awaiting the inevitable hors d'oeuvre of ground-up glass in whatever the Norwegian equivalent of bread-and-water is, or if it might not be better to kick back in a nice snug straitjacket with three mashed-banana-and-Thorazine cocktails a day.  I know which one I'd go for, I'll tell you that.
Of course, people are wise to the old dodges these days: overt pleas of insanity are viewed with suspicion, and thanks to Son of Sam, it's no use telling the court that "a dog made me do it".  On the other hand, a carefully-prepared "compendium" of manifestos and other deranged-looking screeds could well be enough to muddy the waters and point the beak's mind toward foam-rubber furnishings.  And let's face it: if that is the case, using the name of the Templars is a corking wheeze, is it not?  Even though Breivik claims that the inaugural meeting of this little crew was in 2002 - so they're presumably not the same Knights Templar that rotate with the Greys and the Illuminati in the rants of the tin-foil millinery fraternity - the very name instantly flags up any amount of associations with those unwilling or unable to subscribe to "conspiracy theories".  It's a masterstroke of diversion only excelled by having your brief try to prove that you're sane at the same time as you're presenting yourself as being madder than a packet of crisps in a Homburg hat.
What is notable about this dreadful case is that there seems to be a certain amount of reluctance in some quarters to accept that Breivik's organisation exists: it would suit a lot of people for him to be written off as a solitary nut-case rather than to acknowledge that a cadre of bloodthirsty racists exists and flourishes under the leadership of an enigmatic Serbian "war hero". Very few people in The Establishment ever questioned the provenance of al-Qua'eda, as I recall; it seemed perfectly feasible that there are any number of dark-skinned beard-gnashers setting their sights upon the West - yet that there might be a corresponding group of WHITE extremists is something many in power don't want to talk about...Rather odd that, eh?  No; I suppose it isn't, really - more par for the course than anything.
Regardless of that, Breivik is clearly a politically-motivated murderer; a hate-filled, hysterical fanatic that should be treated as such.  Terrorists may often be called "crazed", but they're hardly ever given the benefit of psychiatric evaluation.  Certainly the Navy S.E.A.L.s that gunned down Osama bin Laden weren't carrying any Rorschach cards along with their M-16s, and nobody ever recommended Group Therapy for the "bhoys" in the H-Block.  I'm reluctant to bandy terms like "good" and "evil" about in a world without absolutes, but it's hard to think of any other way of looking at a man who callously ended 77 lives and has freely admitted he'd "do it all again" - to designate Anders Breivik as a mentalist might be very easy (even compassionate, from a certain point of view), but it's simply wrong.