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Perhaps Green knew about other, much more serious stuff, perhaps the govt just want to scare whistleblowers. Who knows? He should avoid taking walks in any woods for the next five years. Or climbing on board any yachts.

Has anyone considered that this could be a security services/ police attempt to undermine the (to them, extremely unpopular) Government? Or else, the surface machinations of some kind of turf war b/w the police and the SS (Security Service aka MI5)? It is so outrageous and heavy-handed that the Conservative Party is guaranteed to come out of it smelling of roses and civil liberties - and the likelihood of any charges arising are remote.

This government have done so many, frankly evil, things that I am loathe to question further evidence of its authoritarianism - and it remains possible, indeed probable, that this is simply more of the same. I'm being somewhat ridiculous here, I know. But this escapade seems bizarre. It is certainly not merely a police cock-up, as ... (more)

We shall see - or rather, it is unlikely that we shall ever truly see - what comes out of this awful terrorist attack on Mumbai. One cannot but harbour grave suspicions of all extremist blocks in India - Jihadists, of course, but also elements of the state. One thing is certain. The BJP will benefit hugely and they - and their fascist cohorts - control Gujerat state. One fears a repeat, too of the genocidal massacres which occured in that state during 2002. The whole thing is a mess. But it is a constructed mess. India needs to sort out its own house and that includes - most centrally - the deplorable and criminal (and criminally unreported) behaviour of the Indian state in Kashmir over many decades. A definitive political solution of the Kashmir issue urgently is required. It may be, too that Pakistani factions of the ISI are factionated into various opposing groups and this also may be of relevance.

Much hip-hop is turgid, unimaginative, aesthetically bereft and unoriginal. It's also a convenient self-immolating ghetto for black and brown artistes the world over No-one, it seems, dares to state this very obvious fact. In fact, the same can be said for much rock music in recent times. There is nothing new to come from these forms.

I once met a British ballet dancer of African origin during an evening's performance of so-called anti-racist hip-hop and break-dancing. I felt like asking him, why, when he was possessed of such powerful and comprehensive talents, had the organisers not asked him to showcase some ballet. The answer is obvious.

Oink, oink, I am a pig, scratching around in the dark. Is anyone there? Anyone...? Let us pray.

Well, well. It seems, on the face of it, that Barack Hussein Obama has appointed to lead his adminstration, a team of, not Progressives, but Aggressives.

One of the best progressive rock/ jazz fusion albums I've ever heard is by Al Basim, an Iraqi guitarist who, in 1979-80 went to study in the USA and made the album, 'Revival'. It's fantastic! You can get it direct from Mr Al Bassim, who now lives in France and continues to play guitar most beautifully. He should be at WOMAD and all the rock festivals - why isn't he? I note that on some websites, it says that Al Basim was Iranian and that he was hanged for playing on this album with Jewish musicians in the US - this is absolutely NOT true - in fact, he is Iraqi and I've communicated with him by e-mail over the past couple of years. Al Basim is a genius!

Check out anything by these Italian-Amercian singer-songwriters between around 1967 and 1972. They are far better known as Dion, Bobby Vee and Bobby Darin. Brian Hyland also produced some decent work around 1970. I figure that the creative and political (several were involved in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements) maelstrom of the 1960s allowed these guys to access their onw creativity and for a while at any rate to free themselves from Tin Pan Alley. Of course, Dion went on in this vein. But Bobby Darin died young. Furthermore, check out the work of Charles Weedon Westover (aka Del Shannon) from the same period - at times, his songs sound exactly like those of The Cosmic Rough Riders from their 'Enjoy the Melodic Sunshine' album of 2000. Also, has anyone remarked on the exciting resonances between the 1960s/70s work of US singer-songwriter, Randy Newman and the work from a similar period of French anarchist singer-songwriter, Leo Ferré?

Are there any Pakistani Glaswegian Socialists out there? If so, please would you raise your hands, with or without the clenched fist, or sing a song, or whistle in the wind, or something...

Why is that everyone I seem to meet from this community, of whatever age, viscerally subscribes either to the General Zia-ul-Haq version of Salafism, together with profoundly stupid, catch-all accretions which pose as cosmic political explanations such as, "It's the Jews", or else to the secular corporate right-wing militarist (native elites) world-view, when over the past 55 years, both of these trajectories (I absolutely will not grace them with the term, 'philosophies') have led to nothing but death, dependency and illiteracy? It's as though they or their families left Pakistan in the 1980s and their ideas and attitudes, like those of clones, have remained stuck in time's glue. The equivalent of Rednecks - let us call them, 'Brown-necks', a neologism redolent of a combination of the words, 'Brownshirt' ... (more)

The cultural and historical incompetance of the corporate arts sector is of Atlantean proportions. You will not really hear this spoken, or written, about much in the media (though columnist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown deserves credit for having had the courage to write openly about it), but it seems that in general, there are different sets of rules for white, brown and black writers - and the same applies for theatre.

There are multiple, overlapping, mutually reinforcing loops of exclusion - but class, geography and race are the three primary ones. 'London', and the power concentrated and jealously protected within that entity, is a suffocating noose around one's neck. There is no 'post-imperial' - what we are living through is just imperialism with its liberal mask (the conservatives won't give one the time of day, so forget about them). Episodes like the rabid racist radio presenter, Samantha Mason, who didn't want a South Asian taxi-driver to transport her teenage daughter are like gifts to ... (more)

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