Where everyone get whacked

The mass arrests and law enforcement indictments of senior figures in FIFA recalls the takedown end scenes in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and Casino, where the big bosses are arraigned and the mid-level henchmen get whacked.  Like a mafia clan, FIFA refers to itself as 'a family.  All that needs to complete the comparison is some ace tunes to form the background to all this (someone on Twitter suggested to my wondering tweet, Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones) - Scorsese should make a film about this too, a perfect counterpoint to the sanitised FIFA film about itself.
There is a great deal of excitement from those loathe FIFA's corruption but also a sentiment of caution too, given Sepp Blatter's remarkable propensity for holding on to power.  He welcomed Jerome Valcke, not just back into 'the FIFA family' but as his right-hand man, after the latter had served his sentence for perjury when a New York court ruled that he had lied under oath when giving testimony over FIFA's abrupt decision to dump MasterCard in favour of VISA as primary sponsors.  This was because Valcke knew where the bodies were buried and Blatter's patronage bought his silence.  Like the moll who knows her own best interests and who latch onto when her current hood falls from favour, VISA is now openly threatening to reassess its relationship with FIFA.  Other sponsors are also frightened, not because of the corruption they always knew was there but at this corruption being exposed and their own brands tainted.  Unsurprisingly, Russia's energy giant Gazprom is the sponsor least likely to quit the Augean Stables.
This morning the Asian football confederation reiterated its support for "Joseph S. Blatter" and, bar much of UEFA, will vote along with the rest of the world for Blatter to have a fifth term as president on Friday.  This is the reason why the 79-year old survives.  He represents not just the USA and Europe but the world and it is a sad fact that the rules of governance in much of the world are weak or lacking and hence corruption flourishes.  Many of these countries also have governments who are often rarely accountable to their own people so their football federation placemen would have little qualms about the dictator-for-life terms that Blatter is trying to establish.  He has given them increased power in the FIFA congressses and greased their palms, not directly but via many minions (those to be whacked).  FIFA is institutionally corrupt because the overwhelming majority of its members are and only by curtailing them can it be re-established on a firm footing.

Mendacity the Magical Scot

From T.S. Eliot's poem, Macavity the Magical Cat:
Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw -
For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime – Macavity's not there!

Macavity could easily be the feline version of the felicitous Alex Salmond, all bombast and evasions who gets his minions to do his bidding, except that as Salmond's a human we can call him ol' flatulent Mendacity, the man whose hot air could launch a thousand Zeppelins on London (as the leader of SNP during World War Two would no doubt approve).  He is not the current leader of the SNP, nor is he the leader of the SNP in the House of Commons (he is foreign affairs spokesman) yet here he is, popping up on the breakfast programme on Radio Five Live this morning to decry the agreed deal for new powers to Holyrood.  It was just around the same time Thought for the Day would have been on Radio 4 and it was no less bluff and bluster than many offerings there.
He said that almost all of Scotland was behind the SNP because they had won 56 out of 59 constituency seats at Westminster.  A brazen  misrepresentation as only 50% of Scottish people had voted for the SNP but the vagaries of first-past-the-post had created the near equivalent of a one-party state north of the Border.  This is the same man who during the independence referendum lied about having specialist legal advice about an independent Scotland automatically acceding to the European Union, used public money to fight Freedom of Information requests to obtain this 'advice' and then ignored the revelation when exposed.  He refused to answer legitimate questions about a future independent Scotland and blackballed media organisations that did not simper up to him.  And for a great socialist, he dined with Rupert Murdoch to obtain Rupe's support - any principles sacrificed on the altar of political expediency and grasping.  This should have discredited him from standing for the seat of Gordon but the SNP is so Teflon to its supporters that all scandals are the creation of the Westminster and media establishment, rather than disturbing facets of their representatives.  Salmond saw himself as an Ataturk of his nation but ended up the busted flush of a Bonnie Prince Charlie or should that be Big Time Charlie.
He has created a culture within the SNP where it is acceptable to be smug and bullying and insufferable.  Whether his successor, Wee Jimmie Krankie, can change that is one thing and whether she wants to is another matter - my introduction to her at a forum debate in Scotland was "What's wrong with being chippy?"  Maybe that's why the SNP are so humourless (except with viciously cruel jibes at their 'opponents', wherever they are) because they are beyond parody.  It is said that successful political parties are broad churches but what has been established is the Church of the SNP with the blessed St Nicola (tradition usually holds that a person must be deceased before becoming a saint) in charge and woe betide anyone who crosses them.  The Church of the SNP make the Church of Scientology look respectable.  And their Pope Emeritus, Salmond, can not resist pontificating on matters beyond his remit.  Someone should entomb him in the SNP equivalent of the Vatican Necropolis.

Lipstick, phone-tapping and firefights in Macedonia

Since emerging from the disintegration of Yugoslavia relatively unscathed, tensions within the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (or FYROM, a disambiguation from Greek Macedonia over which Athens is very protective) have remained precarious. Civil war loomed in 2001 between the Slavic majority and the significant Albanian minority before western mediators brought the Balkan country back from the brink. Now, in drama reminiscent of the television series House of Cards, recordings of taped conversations leaked to the press showed the government involved in large-scale phone-tapping and covert surveillance, electoral fraud, abuse of the justice system and even murder.
This has provoked a mass turnout of protestors in the capital Skopje on Sunday 17th May demanding the resignation of the centre-right government which narrowly won elections in April 2014, estimates putting numbers between 20,000 and 40,000. But the following day, tens of thousands turned out to support Nikola Gruevski’s administration, playing nationalistic music and waving Macedonian and Serbian flags (with Albanian flags conspicuous by their absence, Gruevski accused of manipulating ethnic tensions in divide-and-rule tactics).
This all takes place against the backdrop of a deteriorating security situation in the west of the country, as Albanian rebels took up arms seeking to improve the rights of their ethnic kin. Just a week prior to the protests, 22 died in gun battles, including eight policemen. The rebels see the example of Kosovo immediately north and by turning to organised violence, they believe there is no viable future within Macedonia as currently constituted. The Serbian flags in the pro-government demonstrators in Skopje are a way of showing solidarity to Belgrade – which refuses to recognise Kosovo as independent – as a proxy for their concerns with Macedonian Albanian rebels.
Freedom House, the non-governmental organisation that promotes democratic rights and civil liberties, has downgraded Macedonia to a partly free ‘transitional regime’ – a group it graduated from to a ‘free state’ (in Freedom House’s calculations) ten years ago – because of worsening standards of press freedom. The wire-tapping is emblematic of the new environment with the long list of victims including journalists, religious leaders, police and opposition politicians, with even government ministers subject to such intrusion and Freedom House says the immediate outlook is negative.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Russia has accused the West of attempting to “orchestrate another ‘colour revolution’ similar to those seen in Ukraine and Georgia.” But with European Union states deeply concerned about circumstances in Ukraine, rowing back from its Eastern Partnership scheme approach to former Soviet states and engulfed in Euro and Brexit wrangles and the USA looking towards the Pacific rim while alarmed by ISIS, it is extremely unlikely that the West would seek to stir up a hornet’s nest in the Balkans. Rather it is another play for influence in Europe by Russia – which does not recognise Kosovo and would love an informal ally in power in Skopje.
More than 1,000 anti-government protestors remain encamped in the tent village erected outside the prime minister’s office. One of those there is Jasmina Golubovska, a 30-year old political analyst for the Helsinki Committee on Human Rights and a long-time activist. She is now a Facebook and Twitter emblem for change and peaceful protest after photographs emerged showing her applying lipstick using the reflective riot police plastic shield in front of her. Later images displayed one policeman’s shield having a scarlet kissmark.
These hardcore of demonstrators are also angry over the alleged cover-up of the death of Martin Neskovski in 2011 following a beating of the 22-year old by an interior ministry policeman. Rumours even suggest that the conspiracy goes to the very top with the former Interior Minister (who resigned on 12th May) participating.
Speaking to The Guardian, Golubovska said she and others had seen Neskovski’s brother and mother push to the front of the crowds and, instinctively they went to shield the aggrieved family from the riot police. Golubovska was there for two hours and began a conversation with the policeman in front of her, inviting him to join the protestors and disobey orders so as to protect the constitution. “I told him my father was a retired police officer, I told him that I understood how hard it was for him. And then I asked if I could draw a heart on his shield, but he didn’t like that at all.” Receiving no response to the request to use the plastic shield as an impromptu make-up compact (the ultimate compact where someone carries it for you), she put on the lipstick and, “then I very quickly kissed the shield. He didn’t move but I did see him smile, very slightly.” More than all the social media support, touching that policeman would have meant most to Golubovska. From such acorns can regimes fall.

The morning after the night before

The Guardian missed a trick today.  I saw their main sports page on Match of the Day last night/this morning (it was just after midnight) with contrasting pictures of Newcastle United and Hull City, entitled 'Heaven... and Hell'.  Well, surely that should be 'Heaven and Hull' and I'm sure the Tigers are hoping it is mere Purgatory.
The story of the day belongs to Jonas Gutierrez for the Magpies but Mike Ashley made a rare comment (non-verbal).  He says he will invest in the club in the summer.  Will he or will it be the £34m swilling around the club's accounts?  He also says he will sell up once the club wins something or qualifies for the Champions League.  That's a Kafka-esque scenario as the club hierarchy's official policy is to neglect cup competitions because they might result in a relegation dogfight if the club got to the final (little good going out of the League Cup at the quarter-final stage and the FA Cup at the first hurdle did this season).  Moreover, the squad is so pared back it is unable to challenge for a Europa League place, let alone Champions League spots.  It needs serious investment just to get back to mid-table.  So this pretty much says the owner does not want to sell up, period.  Ashley certainly does know how to poop a party but Newcastle fans know at least the club will be at the top table for another season.

No sweat

So in the end, it was alls well that ends well.  Newcastle United stay up and won't have any more 'interest-free' loans added to their holdings by the odious owner in a bid to get back in the Premier League.  Hull City go down and as the Championship is a 'local' league (despite being the fifth largest in terms of revenue in Europe) as opposed to the 'global' league of the top flight, mean their unpopular owner may concede defeat in trying to change the 'City' bit of the name to 'Tigers'.  West Ham United fans get to see the back of Sam Allardyce to whom they never warmed.  And Manchester United reel off another final day result which they didn't lose.
Newcastle beat the drop the right by beating a listless West Ham (an attitude I predicted by knowing Allardyce's contract wasn't being renewed) 2-0 at home.  Jonas Gutierrez, a man who has beaten cancer and in his last day at Newcastle, had a blinder, providing the assist for the first goal and scoring the second via a deflection.  The Dubious Goals Committee may subsequently take it away from him but they'll never take away the elation that accompanied the sealing of the triumph.  This day will always be special for him and for fans because of him.  John Carver got his first victory since the end of February.  It would have been tiresome to have been relegated but not the unthinkable trauma that occasioned 2009, safe in the knowledge that in many ways it would have hurt Mike Ashley greatly.  When the dark place drew with Arsenal midweek, I felt the scales tipped 60/40 against Newcastle (as one relegation rival was removed from the mix and Manchester United would have less incentive), yet all the same, that still meant there was a considerable chance the Toon would escape.  And with this victory, it means Newcastle finish above their bitter rivals for the fourth consecutive season.
Elsewhere, Liverpool recorded their heaviest defeat in over 50 years and against Stoke City at that.  There were rumours that Brendan Rogers' job would be on the line in the event of a loss at the Britannia Stadium and what a rout it was - 6-1.  Steven Gerrard, on what could be his last day in English football as a player, got the consolation goal.  It was also Frank Lampard's last day in England as a player - he was captain, he did score, his team Manchester City won, but he was substituted before the end (ovations are overrated) so we know who really got the most out of today!
I'm glad that Newcastle Utd will be playing Bournemouth next season and not Preston North End (though historically such positioning would have been reversed).  Preston's victory in the play-offs at the tenth attempt and the first in their history condemned Swindon Town to another season in the lower leagues.  As Swindon by curious chance (like Crystal Palace and Brighton and Hove Albion) are bitter derby rivals of Gillingham FC, their 4-0 crushing at the hands of the men from Preston was all the more sweeter.

Eurovision 2015 - money talks

Well, Royaume-Uni may have finished in the bottom four (of 27) with only 5 points (3 alone of those from San Marino) but we finished ahead of France (on 4 points) and Austria (the hosts) and Germany with nul points.  So humiliation for last year's winner but the UK, France and Germany being the main funders of Eurovision will not need a semi-final qualifying round (or even being excluded for a year).  Money talks.

History shattered

I tried to be phlegmatic about Islamic State's razing of Nimrud because like a child craving attention they do this to scandalise world opinion and to take the long view miminise the hurt they can do to you.  But the rolling tide of destruction they have brought is simply disturbing.  Relics from antiquity that had survived for hundreds or thousands of years in one of the world's most volatile regions, are being denied to humanity forever.  Now the ancient desert city of Palmyra has fallen into the maw of the fanatics and being abandoned before the adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire may face the same fate as Nimrud.  Another archaelogical treasure lost on the watch of Obama but from reverberations created by the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
As Rome was temporarily brought to its knees in the mid-second century AD, Palmyra, hitherto a powerful client state of the Caesars, defeated first the revived Persians under the Sassanid dynasty and then conquered the entire Levant and Asia Minor from Rome.  Under the brilliant soldier-emperor Aurelian, the empire was reunified with Gallic separatists defeated and the Palmyran gains reversed, with its queen captured (it had been the assassination of her husband that had unleashed this desert fury).  In a stance of unusual leniency, Aurelian spared the city (while looting it of its treasures) and stationed a garrison of 300 archers as overseers.  Before long though the garrison was wiped out as Palmyra re-proclaimed its independence.  But there were to be no second chances and Aurelian, in implacable Roman tradition, destroyed the city pour encourager les autres to demonstrate fealty to Rome.
So it was the Romans who first visited annihilation on Palmyra and what is left is ruins created by them rather than time.  Yet what is left will be sold into private collections in the most optimistic scenario.  It was under the control of the Assad regime, which seems to prefer dropping barrel bombs on civilians than combatting Islamic State (augmenting its mendacious argument that it is fighting terrorists, which was not how it all started).  Assad could be sacrificing Palmyra to unify world opinion behind him.  The regime forces did no put up a fight - once the population of 70,000 had been evacuated the troops just pulled out.
After World War Two, several ravaged cities rebuilt themselves with original plans - Warsaw, Leningrad, Dresden and it is to be hoped in the distant future that some such reconstruction of Palmyra and Nimrud will occur in the future.  They won't be of the original stones carved by unknown craftsmen countless moons ago but they will reaffirm the past that others tried to erase.  After all, the timbers of HMS Victory have been replaced three times over but the ship itself remains a symbol for the history it helped forge.

Hemlock with a slice of cake

I've said it before here that, unless one is an 'equal opportunities offender' like Seth MacFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad and several ventures of varying quality), to discriminate against anyone because of their beliefs, race, gender or sexuality is abhorrent.  Yet asserting the supremacy of one attribute over another is a form of prejudice in itself and the Equality Act that the last Labour government instituted in its dying days emptied the public space of legitimate differences of opinion.
Following a spate of similar court rulings in the USA, a bakery run by Christians has been found guilty of discriminating against a gay rights activist, Gareth Lee, by refusing to ice the wording "Support Gay Marriage" beneath an image of Bert and Ernie (acknowledged gay characters from Sesame Street).  Admittedly, the bakery was foolish in accepting the request in the first place and making Mr Lee pay upfront, before telling him two days the later the order could not be fulfilled.  I can understand fully why Mr Lee would interpret this as a slight and it is grossly unprofessional.  Karen McArthur, a director and founder of the bakery, may have taken the order to 'avoid embarrassment and confrontation' but ironically compounded such things many times over.
A full refund, a fulsome apology explaining the position of their religious beliefs and some form of mutually agreed compensation should have been in order.  It seems that this was not acceptable to Mr Lee who was attending a social function later that day where he would have presented the cake, though it seems also that Mr Lee was not one to make a fuss, yet it spread by word and mouth at that party and his case was taken up by the Northern Ireland Equality Commission to bring the full force of state-sanctioned opprobrium on the bakery.
This is not a case of 'No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs'.  The bakery made an honest mistake and should have made every effort at recompense to Mr Lee.  Instead, at Belfast County Court today, district judge Isobel Brownlie declared, "This is direct discrimination for which there can be no justification," as if McArthur and her co-workers had beaten up Mr Lee for his sexual orientation.  They had tried to avoid discriminating in the first instance and it had rebounded on the bakery.  Yet, without being offensive about it, the bakery should be free to damage their business by declining the custom of those who wish to make statements the bakery find incompatible with their beliefs, possibly even with directions to a local commercial rival.  In the opinion of the judge though, they should suppress their beliefs - essentially compromise who they are - in favour of rights warmly promoted by the state.  In not dissimilar circumstances 2,500 years ago, Plato fulminated against democracy after his mentor, Socrates, was (and indeed felt) compelled to drink the hemlock for refusing to accept the pieties of the day and the establishment.
Socrates was sentenced to death for "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities" - the first charge, with artistic licence, applies in this case in Northern Ireland but one could reword the second charge as 'reintroducing God'.  Judge Brownlie said the bakers should have been aware on the on-going same sex marriage debate, as Socrates' accusers might have said he should have been aware of the deteriorating military situation against Sparta debate and suppressed himself.  The cake row has prompted a proposal  to introduce a 'conscience clause' into equality legislation (similar calls are made in socially conservative states in the USA) - yet Sinn Féin (exhibiting the authoritarian tendencies that can be found on the political Left) have vowed to veto it.  The judgement delivered in Belfast isn't against Christianity or in favour of gay rights but against the very tenets of European civilisation, would that more people be aware of it.  Whither Jonathan Swift?

There are many stories in Twin Peaks

You couldn't make it up.  A shootout between rival gangs of bikers that left nine dead (all gang members) and 192 arrested took place at the Twin Peaks Sports Bar and Grill in Waco, Texas.  Twin Peaks, David Lynch's masterly TV series that made Kyle MacLachlan a star, needs no introduction for its wackiness.  Waco is of course where the FBI besieged David Koresh and his Branch Davidian followers in a compound, whereby a fire resulted killing all 76 of those inside the compound.
To add to the craziness, the owner of the Twin Peaks Bar wanted the five gangs to be present there.  It escalated from fists to knives to gun, the Bandidos and Cossacks suffering fatalities.  Then there was some odd speech from a present police sergeant after the event, “None of our innocent civilians were injured today in this mélêe,” as if there may be innocent civilians who weren't under his jurisdiction.  So, so bizarre.

A sense of balance

One Marxist axiom is that history repeats itself, first time it is tragedy, second time it is farce.  And this may be borne out on the last day of the Premier League football season.  In 2009, Hull City, Sunderland and Newcastle United (plus Middlesbrough but they had the slimmest of chances to escape, so we won't mention them) were all in the dance of death to avoid relegation.  Newcastle failed to even get the point from a draw that would have kept them up on goal difference and went down.  In 2015, the same teams will be involved on the final round of games with the third relegation place still undecided.
A lot of pundits are saying Newcastle has had it, they're going down, history will repeat itself - some of these commentators with undisguised glee.  This partly stems from antipathy towards Mike Ashley, support for the underdog of Hull and general ill-feeling stemming from ignorance from the southern media towards Tyneside.  What a lot of them overlook is that by a further strange coincidence, Hull's last game is at home against a Manchester United side with nothing left to play for.  In 2009, Hull, despite their best efforts, lost that game 1-0.  Their goal difference this time round is actually better than Newcastle's but a repeat of 2009 of that result against the current crop of Old Trafford will send them down because crucially, unlike in 2009, Hull will be in the third relegation slot.  Moreover, unlike for Newcastle in 2009, a draw won't be enough - they have to win to have any chance while hoping Newcastle don't win and Sunderland don't get at least a point.  The pundits are saying that the Magpies' opponents, West Ham United, will be really geed up by Sam Allardyce who was sacked from Newcastle by Mike Ashley while Manchester United will coast along.  Well, hang on.  All of West Ham's players have one foot in the Algarve and know that Allardyce won't be around next season to chastise them for poor performance (Allardyce's contract will almost certainly not be renewed), whereas Man United's players are fighting for their future at their club, with Louis van Gaal deciding who should stay and who should go.
It's not inconceivable that Hull beat Man United and Newcastle fail to beat West Ham United, or indeed that Sunderland get so hammered at Arsenal midweek (the game in hand) followed up by another pasting at Chelsea on the final day, wrecking their goal difference to the extent that Newcastle only need a draw.  If one was being pessimistic, I would say it's 50/50 that Newcastle get relegated but let's not overegg the pudding.

Authoritarian libertarian

After resigning from the leadership of UKIP after failing to win the constituency seat of South Thanet and then doing a U-turn two days later, Nigel Farage has said he would have to become 'more autocratic' to hold the party together.  Given that his leadership style is already described as Stalinist, that does not bode well for UKIP's top brass, some of whom have already come out and attacked not the Great Leader but his coterie in a veiled criticism of Farage.  How the newly ensconced UKIP leader must wish he could take out his internal foes with an anti-aircraft gun firing squad, reserving a flamethrower death for election campaign chief Patrick O'Flynn and a death by mortar for Douglas Carswell ('not a shred of him should remain').  North Korea's taste for the gruesome deaths have led to some apocryphal tales such as Kim Jong-Un's uncle being fed alive to a pack of ravenous dogs but Farage at the moment must feel he is fending off such dogs himself.
For a long while, it looked like Farage would lose in South Thanet giving him time to triangulate a return from the moment the ballot was declared.  He didn't exactly resign "in ten minutes" as he promised but he still bit the bullet - or so it seemed.  Re-ascending to the apex in the space of time that even his political hero, Vladimir Putin, would balk at, he unleashed a firestorm of those who hoped to take UKIP to the next level.  Left-leaning O'Flynn and probably Carswell wanted to continue the direction of travel of UKIP picking up working-class votes and no doubt felt that a privately educated, former city trader from the south had taken the party as far as it could go.  That Farage became the proverbial bad penny was most unwelcome.
Yet he seems to have triumphed.  Like Burundian president, Pierre Nkurunziza, provoking street protests (violently suppressed) and an attempted military takeover by seeking an unconstitutional third term, the coup has been defeated.  And like in Burundi, the coup plotters were popular.  Farage has ruled out a leadership election saying that it would be a waste of three months if the In-Out EU referendum is held as early as May 2016, ignoring that nothing much will happen before September in regards campaigning for it.  When challenged to offer a snap leadership election, as on Thursday night's Question Time, he waffles on refusing to answer the question.  It's because Farage knows he would lose, either to Suzanne James or to Carswell.  The national executive may have backed him as well as all the regional executives but there has been much muttering about arm-twisting tactics and, allegedly, only a third of the national executive believes Farage is the right man for UKIP after the general election.  Yet it may be a Pyrrhic victory for the UKIP leader as the party will mobilise for the EU referendum and then dwindle away afterwards, instead of taking the path to permanent viability.  By making the party brand more toxic than it already was before, Farage may have put off those unsure about the merits of EU membership but abhor being in the same camp as The Nigel Farage Party and he would see his long-cherished dream of Brexit slip away.

RIP Olive Cooke

It feels kind of strange when one of your relatives is all over the news - even more so when it is the most tragic of circumstances.  Olive Cooke in most circumstances would have had her death gone unremarked by the national media had she not been the oldest living poppy seller, having sold at least 30,000 poppies in her lifetime since she started in 1938, remembering her dad's contribution in World War One and made more acute when she became a war widow in 1943 at the age of 17.
This national exposure was unwelcome though for a modest and humble lady.  She was inundated by charity letters pulling on the heartstrings, never failing to elicit a donation from her.  This contributed to the depression she suffered from and she threw herself off Clifton Suspension Bridge.  She was 93 (though the media has it she was 92, the family who were closest to her tell me otherwise).  Moreover, she would have to take two buses an then walk the final stretch to get to that point.  That's the thing about depression - it's still very much misunderstood, it's subtle nature preventing remedial action until it's too late.  When someone resolves to take their life, a perverse determination is induced in them and they won't tell even their closest what they are about to do.
A friend of mine who didn't get her name in all the newspapers and on the TV and radio but was no less dear to me and was greatly beloved by hundreds of people committed suicide last December.  You just think what you could have done but unlike a physical injury we are ill-equipped to know the signs, let alone try to help.  Her memorial tribute was on 30th April, several days before Olive passed away in similar circumstances.
Mental health is not neglected but has become the poor relation compared to cancer research and the science investigating Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.  Nick Clegg raised it on the campaign trail and, in the absence of a coalition, it remains to be seen if the new government increases its profile, but one thing is increasing for the better and that is society is becoming more tolerant of those who can't see a way out.  Hopefully, if we can get people in this position to talk about the problems they feel they face, that is half the battle won, but our society needs more education in how to be aware in the first place.

Controversy afloat in Venice

Jerry Saltz, the American art critic, may have said, “Venice is the prefect place for art to die. No other city on earth embraces entropy quite like this magical floating mall,” but the organisers of the Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibition would no doubt they are endeavouring to keep the lagoon city at the cutting edge.
Of course, contemporary art can be contentious as it seeks a niche hitherto unexplored and, in that regard, a niche in the wall (or ‘mihrab’) indicating the direction of Mecca may be just that, except that niche has been installed in a church building. The Swiss-Icelandic artist, Christoph Büchel has in fact made a historic church into a mosque. This has brought the furious protests of the Roman Catholic church, not to mention Venice council, down upon the provocative art installation, which may have been Büchel’s intention. Someone should have said to them, Don't Look Now.
One might say it is a symbol of inter-faith harmony with Muslims allowed to pray inside the tenth-century Santa Maria della Misericorda (St Mary of Mercy) church. Büchel himself ostensibly claims it is designed to demonstrate that Venice does not have a purpose-built mosque, despite historic trading links with the east. Indeed, when an independent city-state, Venice frequently put profit above religious sensitivities, such as doing the bare minimum to assist Crusaders to avoid damaging their profitable relationship with the Sultan of Egypt and even directing the Fourth Crusade away from the Middle East to attack Constantinople and dismember the Christian Byzantine Empire, a commercial rival. The descendants of these trading entrepreneurs are not so sanguine.
Venice council, seeing itself as the custodian of the entropy Saltz described, has threatened to close down this artistic initiative (slated to remain until November) by 20th May, unless the correct permits are produced. The pettifogging bureaucracy may be cover to act on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church.
In Venice’s history have been many Renaissance wars with the Papal States but now the city officials are in concert with the Roman Catholic Church in the desire to remove a temporary mosque. The installation taps into a base of fear of being supplanted, to see one values and beliefs effaced, to leave no permanent mark. No matter that the church itself has not been a church since being deconsecrated 45 years, being privately owned since 1973. The Church is guilty of hypocrisy too, having taken over many non-Christian Roman temples such as the Pantheon when it gained supremacy throughout the Roman Empire 1,600 years ago.
Nevertheless, the Catholic authorities protest that they should have been consulted over the initiative (no doubt to try and pre-empt it altogether). It is interesting that they were happy for it to be used for secular purposes yet find it abhorrent that another faith should use what is now merely a religious edifice. Of course, the Vatican still has an anti-heresy division in the Inquisition (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) which still wields informal power – that the UK does not have it means former churches can as much become, say, Sikh places of worship, as much as pub places of hedonism. Yet if all the paperwork is in order, it can huff and puff to no effect. Büchel meanwhile has achieved his aim and the more the mosque is talked about, the higher his profile rises. He could have chosen a building that had never acted previously as a church but that would not have had such an impact. Much contemporary art is geared towards producing a reaction from the public, as the Turner Prize frequently demonstrates. It is that reaction which inadvertently on those who express it forms part of the artwork. It can appear controversy for the sake of controversy but harvesting the way people view it goes to the heart of propagating culture.

The toll of the bellwether

There are so many stories emanating from last night/yesterday morning - at least 650.  Once again, bellwether seats Gravesham and Dartford returned MPs who would form part of the winning parliamentary party.  One anecdote though in a piece of analysis in the early hours before it was clear all was lost for Labour was how an advisor to Tony Blair in 1997 recalled how excited the soon-to-be prime minister was when the seat of Hove fell into the red ledger, Blair exclaiming, "If we can win in Hove, we can win anywhere."  It was the sign that Labour was returning to power after 18 years away and the kind of seat that had to be taken as sign of a general trend.  This little story was used to buttress what Ed Miliband needed to do to win the keys to Downing Street or at least take significant strides towards those steps.
As Labour continued to crash and burn through the night, it went little remarked that Hove switched from Conservative to Labour.  Indeed, the Conservatives reinforced their position in Kent and Sussex, eliminating the UKIP presence in Rochester and Strood and devouring their erstwhile coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats on the south coast, while retaining every other seat bar Hove.  As Pyrrhic victories go, Labour's late declaration triumph in Hove must be up there with them.  It is fair to say that by that part of the morning, no-one in Labour headquarters was getting excited.  This bellwether has suffered a significant toll on its reputation as a predictor of national electoral outcomes.

I waited up for Balls

And all I got was this lousy t-shirt.  Actually, I didn't on either count.  The phrase "I waited up for Portillo' has entered lore when dearest Michael Xavier was ejected from office in 1997 from an ultra-safe seat.  I set my alarms for 4 am and my bodyclock woke me up at 3.30 am, so I didn't really wait up in the strictest sense to see the shadow chancellor lose his far from safe seat of Morley at 8.15 am.  It really capped a night of disaster for centrist-leftist parties as both Labour and the Liberal Democrats suffered severe decapitation results.  In Scotland, it was no surprise that big-hitters would be drowned in the SNP tsunami, both the Alexanders, Danny and Douglas (no relation) biting the dust, along with Charles Kennedy and Jim Murphy.  But it was devastation for the Lib Dems in the south as Simon Hughes and Vince Cable were carved up between Labour and the Tories and the Conservative Party stormed the Lib Dem citadel of the south-west and effected a wipeout.
Unlike Angela Merkel who gobbled up her coalition partner to the extent that she got tantalisingly close to an overall majority but her partner failed to reach a parliamentary threshold of 5%, thus leaving Merkel without any suitable coalition stablemate and forced into a grand coalition with the socialists, David Cameron destroyed the Lib Dems in England as paving the way to an overall majority (plus snatching a few seats off Labour for good measure).  The only real disappointment was Employment Minister Esther McVey becoming unemployed and coming within a whisker (348 votes) of having two Scottish Tory MPs and thus being able to boast to having more Scottish MPs than Labour.  Small details as they've won and can rely on the Northern Irish DUP and reborn UUP when backbenchers get too rowdy.
For Labour, Scotland was the dominant issue. Yes, Miliband was repeatedly lampooned by the media who were ferocious in their treatment of him and gushing in their praise of the Coalition and wasn't any great shakes as a leader until the last few weeks of the campaign, by which point it was too late.  But the real trouble was that Labour were outflanked on being left-wing by the SNP in Scotland (plus lingering grievance in opposing independence) while were too left-wing for England and Wales.  In the marginal seats especially, electorates were terrified at the SNP 'propping up' (as if a minority Labour administration would be an invalid) Ed Miliband in power, so Labour was squeezed from both sides and stood little chance.  The next election will be worse because the Lib Dems blocked boundary change in the last government which the Tories can now alter to their hearts content to favour them.  It was the worst result by the Labour Party since 1987 (though its performance in England and Wales was superior to that year) and that only by three seats.
There is some real anger about the the most unexpected result since 1992, the polls consistently showing the main parties neck-and-neck and a hung parliament in prospect.  Despite the moaning of UKIP, a Tory majority has kicked electoral reform into the long grass far more effectively than the 2011 referendum.  Even the exit polls underestimated the size of the Tory majority while overestimating the number of seats UKIP and the Lib Dems would take - only in Scotland were they accurate.  I am ambivalent though as I am not in a bad way and the married tax allowance (which introduces equality into the government's approach to relationships) will benefit me.  The prospect of an In/Out referendum on the EU is not a bad thing, as I expect Cameron to campaign in favour of staying in and an 'In' vote to be delivered as people see where there economic interests lie - it will lance the boil that has been festering since the semantics of the Blair years.  I trust the Conservatives more than ideological Labour over education but the scale of the cuts they can introduce across the public sector unfettered is scary and the determination to shrink the state (inevitably affecting the NHS which they have made a mess of) is also an ideological misstep.  This is not a result on from which the poor and disabled can take any comfort and the gap between the haves and have-nots will grow even more rapidly than before.

Newcastle disunited again

I once heard it said that the lot of most football fans is 90% miser and 10% joy.  Well that 10% seems to have all been used up for Newcastle United in a five-game winning streak as autumn settled on the nation.  Relegation is now not just theoretically possible, nor a very real danger but likely.  The last time it occurred in 2009, it was very traumatic for one-two days, akin to the stumbling reality dissonance when the club failed to qualify for the Champions League in a play-off in 2003, beginning United's long and slow decline (bar the 2011-12 season which blazed as brightly and as briefly as a shooting star).  This time though it is not unthinkable and the club is in a more serious plight than in 2012-13.
Burnley and QPR, after today, can count themselves down.  Now the battle is to avoid 18th place.  The magpies already have one more point than they did in 2009 and 35 points would have been enough to stay up in that year.  It may still prove to be in this year but with the black-and-whites on a club record-breaking eight consecutive defeats (in all competitions) and with the squad seemingly resigned to losing the last three games of the season, reliance is on the failures of others.  It would be easier to bear if the most likely candidates to leapfrog Newcastle is the bitter derby rivals.  On each of the past three seasons (including this one), United has generously given them the points needed to stay up by losing the last five games - except this time, it might cost the club beyond bragging rights (counterbalanced by consistently finishing higher in the table).
Aside from that, relegation is more irritating and disappointing than shattering.  An overwhelming consolation is that it will hurt owner Mike Ashley where it really hurts - in the pocket and being a laughing stock among his Spurs-supporting friends.  If there's one thing that aggravates Ashley, it is losing money - his employment of zero-hours contracts on virtually all of his SportsDirect workforce attests to that as he glories in being worth more than £3bn.  It is the principle as much as anything.  The policy at Newcastle United was the same - mid-table every season, free from the distractions of cup competitions, all designed to avoid relegation but this season the string has been stretched so far as to snap.
There has been incompetence at every level in the club this season.  The only halfway competent actor was former manager (or rather 'head coach') Alan Pardew and since he jumped ship to Crystal Palace, he and his new team have been like men reborn.  Starting with Ashley, he is a billionaire who won't spend a penny (more) on the club, insisting all revenues are raised internally.  While it is nice to run a profit, what good are they if the owner refuses to sanction their use.  Essentially, it is his money but in reality it is the club's and he has no good reason to withhold it.  £18.8m was more than double the profits Arsenal, the next most profitable club, made (and Arsenal are in the Champions League), but unofficially it is £34m but redesignated otherwise 'for cashflow purposes' (whatever that means).  Those were the figures for the 2013-14 season.  They may be higher this season but are only a third of the cost of relegation (and its lingering after-effects).  In starving the club of ambition and the squad of numbers (partly to spite the fans who he fell out with after he forced out Kevin Keegan as manager, an action that culminated in relegation), Ashley has gambled again, as he did selling the best player mid-season in each season since the club returned to the Premier League.  No player was sold this time, but neither were any reinforcements brought in mid-season.  Add to that him taking £18m out of the club every season for his own bank balance.  In being parsimonious and reckless, it will eventually cost him more as he will never recoup his money while Newcastle are in League Two, so will have to spend his own money to ensure they return.  Moreover, a second relegation in his time in charge may finally make him sell up, realising his business model is broken and considering the hassle and expense not worth it anymore.  That would be the ultimate silver lining.
Lee Charnley was previous club secretary but when Derek Llambias resigned as managing director in protest at another hare-brained Ashley scheme, Ashley, as is typical to save money, promoted from within.  He has been useless in his higher role and would deservedly receive a P45 at the end of the season if it came.  He told Ashley that the club was safe from relegation and didn't need to spend any more money on the squad.  At the same time, he sold off two of its better defenders as their loan periods lasted long enough to trigger moves away, preferring to bank solid money rather than possible money by finishing higher up the table.  As I said, string stretched too far.  If Ashley is cacking his pants as relegation looms, Charnley's squirming in his seat on matchdays suggests similar.
John Carver must take a significant proportion of blame too.  Despite losing all but one of the matches last season while Pardew served a stadium ban and a touchline ban (after the former expired), Carver's blandishments to Charnley and Ashley that one season as head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps equipped him to become 'head coach' at Newcastle were disingenuous - understandably though they jumped at the thought of saving more money, while pocketing £3m for Pardew from Crystal Palace.  But Pardew helped the squad punch above its weight and when he moved to Selhurst Park, he took his valued assistants with him (part of the £3m compensation).  Maybe a good no. 2, he is totally out of his depth and blaming players for performances rather than protecting a shell-shocked squad, shows he is losing control.  Craig Bellamy once threw an airport chair at him - I am starting to understand why Bellamy did that.
The medical team has been abysmal as too many Newcastle players have been injured for far longer than they should have been.  The latest is that a supposed routine operation on a knee for Papiss Cisse that would need a couple of weeks recuperation looks like ruling him out for the rest of the season.  That the world-class University of Newcastle with its medical division is so close by is one more scandal among many.  The club has always been in the top three of clubs with most days lost to injury and while that membership composition changes, Newcastle remains there.  It needs a complete overhaul as such consistency cannot be down to bad luck.
Graham Carr has had a good track record with cheap, high-quality signings but there have been diminishing returns and one bad season would prove very dangerous.  The signings at the start of the season were inserted into a threadbare squad and while Jack Colback and Daryl Janmaat have impressed, the rest have been duds and the first XI is not good enough to carry so many passengers.
The players deserve criticism - rank indiscipline, resulting in numerous and long-lasting suspensions (two more players banned today), is partly the fault of Carver's weakness but also indicative of the malaise at the club.  When they have managed to stay on the pitch, most have been disinterested and/or not good enough, a consequence of Ashley sucking ambition out of the club.  Local lad Colback fights for the cause but it is a case of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
The fans, it must be said, also bear some of the blame.  It was their vitriol towards Pardew that helped make up his mind to leave and now the consequences are being felt.  I was ambivalent about Pardew given his awful derby record but the club's avaricious refusal to appoint a replacement has been stunning yet what the fans in a way deserve.  The inability to pose a united front to Ashley is another concern - he doesn't listen at the best of times but it is easier for him to ignore fan protests if half support and the other half tolerate the thin gruel served up.
Maybe it is too late but a new, experienced manager must be appointed for the last three games of the season if one can be found.  No good will come of persisting with Carver but are Ashley and Charnley still gambling that Newcastle will escape or are they rabbits in the headlights?  The uninspiring selection of Steve McClaren seemed a done deal for the start of next season but will it be if Newcastle are in the second tier.  In a way, Derby County 's collapse to finish outside of the play-offs (when they were top of their respective table ten weeks ago) means their season is over and McClaren can join immediately, rather than continue at Pride Park to try and win the play-offs.  He also knows come what may, Derby will be a second-tier side next season.
So relegation seems inevitable.  No demotion is ever good but it may allow the club to start again.  Ashley will have to invest deeply to get Newcastle back up at the first attempt and if he sells up the moment promotion is clinched, some good will come of it.  Yes, a new owner could possibly be worse than Ashley but very few people on this planet would fall into that category.  An era of blight needs to end.

Femen takes on FN from above

“I just don’t want to be a damsel in distress. I’ll scream on the balcony, but you’ve got to let me do a little action here.” – Kirsten Dunst, actor.


In 2004, radical documentary maker Michael Moore made a controversial appearance at Madison Square Garden where the Republican National Convention was gearing up to re-elect George W Bush as president. From the press row balcony as a ‘guest columnist’ for USA Today, Moore gloried in his role as pantomime villain as the West Virginia and Missouri delegates below booed and abused him. He then threatened to disrupt the entire convention by dragging around roughly 70 Secret Service personnel and tagging journalists like a magnet attracting filings. One delegate from Missouri who got close called Moore “a disgrace,” seconds after asking for his autograph.

It would be fair to say that no Front National (FN) supporters would be asking Femen to sign fanbooks (or bodyparts). Turning Dunst’s quip on its head, they were no damsels in distress, but screaming from their balcony they were certainly in the action. Minutes after blackballed former-FN leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen made an unauthorised (and, by the reaction of the crowd, adulatory) appearance at the podium of a FN Mayday rally, the Femen protestors chanted anti-FN slogans from the balcony of a building overlooking the stage as Jean-Marie’s daughter and successor, Marine Le Pen, began her speech. The FN members in attendance reacted in much the same way as West Virginia and Missouri delegates did to Michael Moore back in 2004.

Visibly unsettled, Le Pen junior shot back at her detractors ensconced on high, “Lot of surprises on this May 1st. It’s quite a paradox when you call yourself a feminist and try to disturb a tribute to Joan of Arc.” The 15th-century French military heroine has been adopted as a nationalist symbol by the FN as someone who repelled overseas invaders but most French would reject their adoption, as many Charlie Hebdo surviving scribes denounced FN marches holding banners reading “Je suis Charlie.” Earlier in the day, Femen protestors made a direct intervention to try and prevent FN supporters laying a wreath at a statue of the sainted Joan, the fracas lasting for ten minutes until four FN security men removed the activists who were later arrested. From the balcony though, their ‘sisters’ were untouchable.

Femen have targeted other figures for their protests. In recent months, topless activists harassed the car of former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and one-time Socialist presidential candidate frontrunner, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, as he was ferried to and from his trial on charges relating to prostitution. They daubed their bodies in the provocative “Your turn to be f####d’ in reference to his reputation as a notorious lothario. But like their demonstrations against the FN, there is an undercurrent unnoticed by commentators.

Femen are now primarily based in Paris but they originated in Ukraine in 2008. The Femen office in Kiev closed and the leadership relocated to France in August 2013, ‘fearing for their lives and freedom’, but their identification with their native homeland remains strong, especially against overbearing Russian influence. On 8th April 2013, they carried out a trademark ‘topless ambush’ of Vladimir Putin at the Hanover trade fair, spokeswoman Alexandra Shevchenko describing it as “non-violent women protesting against the most dangerous dictator in the world, it got great coverage and will hopefully inspire people in Russia as well as helping us to recruit new members.” Putin brushed it off saying he “liked” the topless nature of the protest.

Nevertheless, Femen’s contempt for all the works of the Kremlin is reinforced by Putin’s close association with the Russian Orthodox Church (which supports the state in a symbiosis unmatched since the tsars), another bastion of patriarchy in their opinion. They have previously urged the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to break with its Russian counterpart in a move of independence. So when, in July 2013, Strauss-Kahn accepted a position as a board member of the Russian Regional Development Bank: a banking subsidiary of the Russian state oil company, Rosneft and shortly after also accepted a similar position at the Kremlin-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund, he became a legitimate target of Femen. Similarly, the FN have taken millions of euros in loans from Moscow – their pledge to leave the European Union serving Putin’s purpose to see a disunited continent, as Russia has backed other nationalistic parties across Europe.

Femen, it seems, does not only want to ‘liberate’ women but also attack ‘stooges’ of Moscow who seek to portray Russian behaviour, especially in Ukraine, as acceptable. The protests may be small-scale and limited but crucially they generate media coverage that allows their opponents to seen in a negative light by their reaction. And that is how Femen, in their own way, even if shouting from a balcony, help their brothers and sisters back in Ukraine and maintain the right of the individual to assert themselves through solidarity.