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Dear readers, treasured guests, I hope your Christmas day is better than this terrible song from Bing Crosby's flat children, about a snowman who... well, hear for yourself:

Love transmitted regardless.

F.T.O.D. (my rubbish Thank You note)

 

 From 2015 (trigger-warning: Mogg)

 Well, we saw.

 Again.

 This election should never have been agreed to while so many of its participants were under investigation, but it was agreed to, and the self-styled "Grand Wizards" now have their majority. To everyone who campaigned against them: thank you from the bottom of my heart. But if it's any consolation, I don't think the Wizards won because they named themselves after the KKK, I think they won because most people are scared of free broadband. Honestly. And they won because their campaign was the issuing of a simple three word sentence followed by an unprecendented fucking off, while the opposition's campaign insisted on being a narrative centred around its most obviously off-putting not-fucking-off-er.

 As the exit poll came in last night, I was talking with my mate Tom about performing in front of crowds without a demographic, and he noted that, yes, people are superb when they're paying attention. Jeremy Corbyn however was an attention repellant. Every wonderful, brilliant, compassionate canvasser for Labour knew that his name was a handicap, they heard it again and again, and reported back, but the man himself never seemed to care... And, wait, I love.... I love... that he addressed how abominable things are for so many... that he noticed, as just one example, postal workers are now penalised for standing still, nobody else was talking about that! But... as I also noted when I first voted for him in 2015, he does love telling people off, and people really do not like being told off, and while I'm repeating myself, he was also... is also... a terrible, terrible boss. If only his claque (a clique that claps, true word) could have brought itself to get behind that motto of the London Olympics: "This is for everyone." But no, it had to make gospel the caveat "Not the few", and whether that qualification was simply tone-deaf or pitch-perfect dog-whistle, it was never going to win an election, ever. You cannot spearhead a popular compassionate campaign with threats. Momentum also enjoyed telling the electorate off of course: austerity was Tony Blair's fault now (just as the Tories had argued) - why would you vote for Tony Blair, you stupid idiots who voted Labour into office three times in a row! So I hope Momentum get in the fridge too. I am excited by that prospect.

 Similarly exciting is the fact that both main parties promised an end to austerity... although voting for a lie doesn't make it true, so who knows what will happen next? We have our Nixon now (not our Trump, that's potentially Rees-Mogg), and Johnson is absolutely incompetent enough to let this country slip into civil war, but I've no idea who he'll have around him with this majority, maybe this larger pool will provide a greater chance of non-maniacs in office, a group less Steve-Bannon-y. And even if it doesn't, there is still the law. And there are still lawyers. Things change, is what I'm saying... although that's easy to forget while watching yet another Labour leader take to the podium and, just as Miliband and Brown did before him, blame the fucking media. Well no, hon, you chose to post that appalling Celebrities Read Mean Tweets video when you're not really a celebrity and those weren't really mean tweets, and you can't really read. You chose to make this election about you, when so many feel threatened by you, not just because of shitty political coverage, but because of literal threats continually being issued by your defenders, upsetting the work of the thousands who played nice.  

 Here's why I'm writing though. It's not because I have anything new to say (hence all the links). I just think that now that the campaign is over - and I count myself so lucky not to be terrified, so it's easy for me to say this - we might stop filling our feeds with nightmare worst-case scenarios, just for now. Nobody in the history of talking ever "won" an "argument" anyway*, and twitter's not a hole in the ground to scream into. It is the exact opposite of a hole in the ground, in fact; it's possibly part of the problem, so we should probably stop feeding it. We can't hate the electorate. Fascism Thrives On Division. People are simply scared of free broadband, that's all. And they don't like being told off.

 And thank you again to those who played nice. You make me happy, you give me hope. And when Corbyn goes, oh my goodness, the hope then...

 What she said. Again.

* Update: This was not a reference to Corbyn's  "We won the argument". That was published the following day.

"Look at him"

 I remember when twitter first took the piss out of J*c*b R**s-M*gg. I think he'd posted some photograph outside a shop that sported a Vote Labour poster in 2017, with a caption about how he'd be "taking his custom elsewhere" or some bollocks, anyway he looked like a twerp, and twerps are good currency on twitter, especially among comedians, so my timeline was full of him. The following day, however, I realised I hadn't been looking closely enough. The shop was a tattoo parlour. It was a joke. And the Sun, the Mail, and BBC2's "Daily Politics" I remember, all heralded M*gg as a darling of the internet. And they were right.

 I already knew of him though, as I had remembered - but not verbatim - his speech in the House of Commons the previous year when Leave had won the referendum, something about how this vote had – and I wish I could remember the exact words – "awoken an ancient power". And I remember it because I remember fearing he was right, and wishing someone would ask him to specify exactly what "ancient power" he was so looking forward to see returning.

 And I remember, far earlier, in 2008, when Boris Johnson won the London Mayoral election, thinking quite specifically: "Oh fuck, Johnson's going to be this country's Nixon, isn't he... He's never going away until he gets the top job, and once he does, history will never forget him oh bloody hell." And I remember seeing Johnson, four years later, cycle right past me – ten feet from me – long after he'd tried to turn the fourth plinth into a war memorial and greenlit that weird little wedge-shaped temple on the corner of Green Park celebrating the role of white guys in WWII - and I remember dreaming, just then, of pushing Johnson under a bus, just... just in case, just a little dream... And oh yeah, four years after that I played the prick.

  And now he's Prime Minister, and the other one's Leader of the House, and both have taken private meetings with Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon, a self-confessed white supremacist who understood as none before the unprecedented lift a tidal wave of publicity can give a candidate who looks like they don't give two fucks about political process, even if - and this is something that had clearly never occurred to Johnson before - it's a wave of outrage.

 And tonight, a new British Government lost its first vote. And Johnson might call an election, positioning his Government very specifically now as anti-Parliamentary. And M*gg is lounging on the front bench, literally, and all over my internet again. Trending. And it's all very Bannon.

 So, really what I'm saying is, until we're absolutely sure M*gg isn't going to be this country's Trump, let's maybe actually not look at him. Do nothing to build the wave he looks so sure is coming to lift him. Just in case. Ta. Here's yer moment of Zen:

(Thanks to David Reed for the tip.)

Khan-spreading

Last Christmas my Mum gave me "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford because apparently I'd been complaining about how little I knew about Genghis Khan. Now that I've finally read it I'm very glad she did. Here are some passages to give you an idea why, accompanied by images of Genghis Khan statuary in ascending order of spread:

 

"In twenty five years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans had conquered in four hundred years... On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope of Genghis Khan's accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination and tax the resources of scholarly explanation."

 

"Instead of attacking the walls of Riazan, the Mongols used their massive number of conscripted laborers in a project that confused and terrified the citizens even more. The workers cut down trees, hauled them to the Mongol lines outside the city, and rapidly began building a wall completely surrounding the already walled city."

"The four serpents on the Silver Tree of Karakorum symbolized the four directions in which the Mongol Empire extended... When the khan wanted to summon drinks for his guests, the mechanical angel raised the trumpet to his lips and sounded the horn, whereupon the mouths of the serpents began to gush out a fountain of alcoholic beverages into large silver basins arranged at the base of the tree."

 "The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches... Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation."

So why didn't any of it last? The same reason so little lasted beyond the fifteenth century AD: the Black Death, which wiped out a fifth of the population of the planet. Having opened up the world from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, the Mongol Empire's extraordinary infrastructure collapsed from the casualties, a victim of its own success. Western Europe meanwhile, protected from the Mongol invasion by its forests, stepped into that world as soon as the coast was clear, and that's what we call the Renaissance. Would read again.

 

(Apologies for non-inclusion to Dashi Namdakov.)

Something I only noticed about Horror Sequels watching Darlin'...

Frankenstein's sequel: The Bride of Frankenstein...

Night of the Living Dead's sequel: Dawn of the Dead...

Evil Dead's sequel: Evil Dead II...

etc...

They say comedy is tragedy plus time, so it makes sense so many horror sequels turn out to be hoots, and while I knew Freddy Kreuger got sillier and Godzilla cuddlier over time, I hadn't noticed how quick the turnaround could be on absolute corkers until this evening when I saw Pollyanna McIntosh's "Darlin'" (the trailer's packed with spoilers by the way). Its predecessor "The Woman" is an absolute classic - stark and simple and absolutely merciless - and the sequel does everything I now realise a return to the scene of that trauma should do: introduces a wider world, builds a family, and parkours from tone to tone without putting a foot wrong or looking like it's searching for a way out (everything "Bride of Frankenstein" did in fact). Also it looks incredible. It's out in September I think, it will make you laugh and it will make you hurt, and it is a hoot.

 

"Son of Kong" however is shit.

 

What Do The Pills Do?

 Well, I didn't know they do this for a start:

 

 And now, apologies. The lights went out all over my old laptop a while back, but I have a new one now, so I can blog again woo! And I have something to plug which is ending very soon: "Coma" – a show ostensibly about lying down and taking a pill. The pill-taking is optional, but not the lying down, as space in the venue is limited (see below).

 Photo by Mihaela Bodlovic.    

As part of their ongoing Darkfield project, creator David "shunt" Rosenberg, writer Glen "Ring" Neath, musicians Max and Ben Ringham, et al have recorded me and others doing things in a box, and then taken that box up to Summerhall, so people can lie in it in total darkness for half an hour, and be an audience. Given the absence of any live performer (as far as I know) it's extraordinary how live an event these shows still manage to be – the simple presence of others counts for a lot, it turns out, even if you can't see them. And the twitter reviews I've read have been incredibly pleasing, although the most pleasing was probably: "Neither pleasant nor unpleasant it sits just the right side of creative to make you feel that things are not good until you leave", because it's so confusing. You can book TICKETS HERE and then I think the show's moving to Canary Wharf in September. But, as I say, most of my work was done a month ago, outside Television Centre (see below). You know, in that heat wave. Water was on hand... that's not much of an anedote is it – Okay: I was asked to provide a component of something unique built by friends. It was fun. And still is. I'm assuming.

So yes I'm doing Edinburgh this year, sort of - not physically (which is a shame as London "Gabbie" Hughes is obviously KILLING IT UP THERE), but I hear it's like I'm really there, right down to the smell (see below – not sure which vial's me):

 

And of course David's been doing stuff with binaural sound for over a decade now. And shipping containers. Things were easier back in 2007, before the crunch, back when we were doing "Contains Violence" and were still allowed in buildings. I can't believe I've never posted this shot of the microphones going into Nigel's head so we could record me stoving it in with an Apple Mac before:

And here's the card handed to audiences from that first binaural gig, intended to minimise technical hiccups. The system's been refined a bit since.

 

25/08/19: P.S.: I've just remembered, my favourite review is actually this one comparing the character I voice to "one of those vaguely disreputable Cronenbergian scientists", and noting "in fact Cronenbrg's two earliest movies, Stereo and Crimes of the Future could provide acceptable alternative titles for this..."  Lovely stuff.

POW NYEEOW PEGASUSES BANG tink tink tink - Two "Avengers: Endgame" thoughts

 Stark staring

"We're not beginning to... to... to mean something?"

Samuel Beckett, Endgame

 Am I wrong, or have Marvel movies changed what film stars are, changed them back to what they were? These charming, witty, principled but troubled and surprisingly middle-aged heroes of Marvel Phases 1, 2 and 3 aren't the kind of blockbuster surefire things I or even my Dad grew up with. They're Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, and like those stars - and unlike the singular Schwarzenegger or Connery - they're legion. If Disney really is buying all the cinemas and Netflix all the telly then the Studio System might be returning, and I don't know what to feel about that because I've always loved old movies... That was one thought I had after "Avengers: Everyone". The other's a SPOILER, so anyone who doesn't mind those, meet me under the table, and everyone else, BYE x

Okay the other thought was:

SPOILERS, REMEMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She lets him die. "We're gonna be okay... You can rest..." The more I think about it the more gutted I am. I've never recorded on this blog before how oddly important Downey's "piping hot mess" has been to me. Iron Man wasn't a comic I knew anything about and I'd always found RD Jr a bit too get-out-of-my-way in previous films, but from "Iron Man 2" onwards Futurism was suddenly a thing again, and curiosity and hope, all served with newly smart grasp of the USA's unique relationship with fantasy, and this excited me. And I loved Tony Stark. So to see him finally diagnosed with a death wish, and to see that wish granted by the person who cared for him most was devastating. There were other reasons he had to die of course narratively speaking: as an idealisation of post-War America, Stark's mini-Hiroshima with the finger-click couldn't go without a reckoning (just as the earlier murder of Thanos had to turn Thor blurry). But I'd hoped for a happy ending with "Endgame", and feel something has been let go, and that it being let go is final proof it was untenable. And I don't want to type the words "Rest In Peace" again either I don't think. At least the alternative "Fare Forward" avoids the idea life's a chore. Ideally I'd just like to say from now on "Sorry you've gone"... Good film though.

Clark staring