Plane Stupid

This has to be the most suave and dexterous act of “egg-on-your-face” type protest I have ever seen. (Ok, I haven’t seen so many.)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/news/7927700.stm

It is amazing this Plane Stupid protester was able to get so close to Lord Mandelson and walk calmly away as if she were Anna Chancellor making a cool and collected stage exit. Third runway at Heathrow protester, Leila Deen, was then given airtime on the BBC during which she eloquently made her case. What a stunt. No agro, no arrest and loads of airtime. It is amazing that she didn’t get arrested! People have been arrested for much less!

To top it all off, Gordon Brown even made light of the incident:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7928074.stm

Clearly, a much better PR ploy than holding up budget airline passengers at Stansted.

Should Children Think Like Terrorists?

A year ago, I had a conversation with an acquaintance about suicide bombers. She told me that she had never understood suicide bombers until she saw the film Paradise Now. I subsequently watched the film myself, partly to see what was so persuasive, but it made me angrier against suicide bombers, not more sympathetic.

When I learned early last week that the government had withdrawn a teaching pack, which encouraged children to put themselves in the position of 7/7 suicide bombers, my immediate reaction was that ministers had made the right decision.

In my history lessons at school, I was never taught about the Nazis in this way. One drama teacher who encouraged pupils to explore themes around the Holocaust caused a stir and the exploration was brought to an abrupt end by other outraged teachers at my school. I imagine it is scenarios like this that caused the Department for Children, Schools and Families to think again.

"While the resource in no way looks to justify or excuse the terrible events of 7/7, and is designed to educate against violent extremism, we appreciate that it may not be appropriate for use in schools," a DCSF spokesman said.
"It's important that young people discuss these difficult and controversial issues in a controlled environment but, in this case, ministers apologise for any offence caused."

The Daily Telegraph quoted Jacqui Putnam, who survived the Edgeware bomb on July 7.

"I can't see why anyone would think it is a valuable exercise to encourage children to put themselves in the position of men who treated people in such an inhuman way," she said.
"To encourage children to see the world in that way is a dangerous thing. Surely, there must be a better way of achieving their objective?"

Another strong point was made by Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Commons terrorism subcommittee, who said: "How useful is it to pretend to be a suicide bomber if it defeats the object of the lesson?"

I agree. The packs were designed for children as young as 11 and, at that age, a clear and simple message about terrorism should be driven home.

I would hope that ultimately the aim would be for anyone who saw a film like Paradise Now to feel rage and sadness that suicide bombing is the last option the disaffected have.

The Cherwell Exposed

The Times and The Daily Mail have run stories today about the editors of Oxford University’s Cherwell newspaper resigning after producing a racist and sexist parody of the paper.

The "Lecher", the nationals report, mocked the Holocaust, referred to black people in racist terms, superimposed the faces of students and staff onto pornographic images, sexually slurred the Vice Chancellor and made light of date rape. The front page story describes two students abusing and killing babies.

Lewis Iwu, the first black president of the union, has demanded an investigation into the publication and has returned a recent reward he received from The Cherwell. The Oxford Student Publications Limited (OSPL), which publishes The Cherwell, demanded and received the resignation of the individuals responsible.

I have memories of The Cherwell from my time as a student at Oxford. An article I was asked to write about Jonathan Aitken (former Conservative MP), who came to talk to a small group of interested folk about his time in prison, was never run and the panel of public school boys who interviewed me for an editorial position sent me promptly packing. It was quite possible to feel the knife enter your back as soon as you had climbed up the stairs to the Cherwell office and heard the door shut behind you. One of the lines quoted in today’s Times, in which the Lecher refers to The Cherwell as a white, upper-class male commune, is pretty much how it was. I got bored of sticking my neck out for them as a reporter (such as being threatened with arrest after persevering with a story involving security measures at Lady Margeret Hall) and went elsewhere.

The Oxford Student alternative to The Cherwell was thankfully not like that. The Oxford Student boasted a friendly, down-to-earth and supportive editorial team. I hope they still are.

Women In Black

Last night I happened to walk past the Edith Cavell statue opposite the National Portrait Gallery in London as the Women In Black were holding their weekly hour-long vigil against militarism the world over. I first came across them one evening just after I moved to London nearly three years ago and I recognised some of the faces. They are hard to ignore. Dressed in black, usually in long skirts or overcoats, they look rather imposing and theatrical standing there in silence, billboards hung around their necks, as the pavement spotlights around the statue light up their faces and their (mostly) silver hair. I imagine the suffragettes would have had a similar aura.

I stopped and had a read of a flyer I was handed.

This week they were protesting against the war in Iraq and how women had been disproportionately affected by the war. That is certainly something I would want to protest about too. But there were a couple of sentences in the flyer which made me feel uneasy. A quote from the Basra Chief of Police in Dec 2007: “The UK has left behind murder and chaos. Basra has become so lawless in the last three months 45 women have been killed for being ‘immoral’ because they were not fully covered or because they may have given birth outside wedlock.”

I protested against the war in February 2003 and I believe that war is atrocious. But I fail to swallow the corollary that it is the UK’s fault for women being murdered for not wearing the hijab. That is a massive jump to make and it means you have to believe a whole number of things before you get to that conclusion. The UK is not responsible for Islamic laws. But it IS responsible for its military intervention and for providing security in the wake of its intervention. It can’t withdraw its troops until it has ascertained that pulling out will not lead to more chaos than staying. Obama is not saying he will pull his troops out tomorrow. He is saying he wants to pull out as soon as possible because he knows he has a responsibility.

There was another line in the flyer that caused me worry too: “Despite some improvements in the overall security situation, women are now more at risk of sexual violence and their lives more restricted than during the Saddam regime.” So, does that mean Women In Black are pro-Saddam? I asked the woman who handed me the flyer. “No,” she said, “We are not pro-Saddam.” Just a couple of extra sentences in the flyer clarifying that point would have avoided misunderstanding.

Aside from those few caveats, I supported all the action Women In Black were asking people to take, such as asking the government to investigate crimes against women, take measures to safeguard personal freedoms and improve the conditions of women.

Beth Ditto

As I write this, A2-sized free copies of The International Herald Tribune are being handed out on Marylebone Road, London, with Beth Ditto plastered across the front. She is standing nude in profile with pink fabric covering her below the stomach and her name in black writing from the newspaper typeface covering her nipples. Her hair is a flaming red and her eyes are surreanly closed, lavished in sultry eye make-up, her lips a deep red.

The curious thing is, if she were Kate Moss, she wouldn't be causing such a stir. It is because there is so much of her flesh that the image is more shocking and overtly sensual than if she were a size-zero catwalk model. The image is a mass of contradictions - mixing feminine with butch, covert with overt, sophistication with brash, conventional with unconventional and challenging notions of beauty. Could any other artist be capable of portraying so much in just one image? Beth Ditto rocks.

Gun At Damien Hirst's Head

Eugenio Merino is just the man I have been looking for. The Spanish artist has created a sculpture of the British artist, Damien Hirst, pointing a gun at his head. Not that I want Hirst to commit suicide, of course. (In my earlier days as a student at Oxford I wrote an article for The Owl Journal against the tawdry glorification of suicide in literature as a cynical stunt to pull: http://theowljournal.com/reader/?page=11&edition=7) But the point of his sculpture called "4 the Love of Go(I)d” is not death as an end in itself; it is about the worth of art. Merino’s point is that Hirst’s attempts to increase the value of his art could only be enhanced by his own death.

Yesterday, Merino was quoted in The Guardian:
"I thought that, given that he thinks so much about money, his next work could be that he shot himself. Like that the value of his work would increase dramatically," Merino told The Guardian. "Obviously, though, he would not be around to enjoy it. It is a joke but it is also paradoxical that if he did kill himself his work would be worth even more. That is a metaphor for the current state of the art world."

Parallels can also be drawn with the current state of celebrity. I predict that Jade Goody will become the muse of many a writer following her death (and I hope that she doesn’t die!). Do you remember when she was reviled? Now, because of the health tragedy that has befallen her, the media has become involved in a sort of expiation of the way in which it created the Goody phenomenon.

On 17 November 2008, I wrote a post in this blog saying that Hirst’s next work of art should be focused on its financial value: http://workofmyownfiction.blogspot.com/2008/11/price-of-art.html

I suggested that he place his next work of art in the middle of Leicester Square, next to all the portrait artists who sit out in the wind and rain every day, and tell everyone that the work is not for sale. This should be his response to Merino. Unless, of course, he can think of a better idea of his own.

No Kissing Signs At Warrington Station

I can’t resist posting a couple of serious clarifications which Colin Daniels, chief executive of Warrington’s Chamber of Commerce, could put under the “no kissing signs” he has championed at Cheshire’s Warrington Bank Quay train station in a bid to stop “congestion”. To check out the sign before reading my suggestions, visit:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/no-kissing-allowed-at-warrington-station-ndash-it-blocks-the-platform-1623806.html

No air kisses allowed - French only.

Trilbys obstruct kissing – ditch the rim.

No heterosexual kissing allowed. (If you take the figure with short hair for a woman)

No homosexual kissing allowed. (If you take the figure with short hair for a man)

Do as we do, not as the red ink says.

If you hadn’t thought of doing this, then do!

I adore this quote in The Independent today - Here is Mr Daniels, who first mooted the idea back in 1998 after hearing that a station in Deerfield, Illinois, had used the signs to ease congestion: “It is a bit of fun, but it will be interesting to see if people observe it. They seem frivolous, but there is a serious message underneath.”