Obama: Reaching For Hope

If I were an American

I would say, “Yes, we can!”

My soul would fall into naivety

And for once, give into hope.

.

We Brits, moan in the trudge of decline

We spread cynicism

Like butter on toast

When our technocratic leaders pontificate.

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We need his kind of inspiration

We need to believe that change can happen

That we can believe in hope

Then we’ll improve from the ground up.

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He is the heir to Cicero

The man to move beyond Martin Luther King

The man to make us colourblind

And a truly equal world.

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

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Wulfstan Crumble knows that for all the hope in the world politicians may fail to live up to their reputation or downright lie. With so much invested in his philosophy and rhetoric Barak Obama has to deliver if he wins. I hope he wins, so we may all believe and that he delivers. One day perhaps someone will come who truly wants to put Britain right and then we can believe too.

Game Show

We love game shows. The chance to see people compete for prizes or grandeur. My favourites back home were 15-to-1 and Countdown (i miss twice-nightly). I have many fond memories of competing against my brother and mother on these shows. My brother is a genius for Countdown but i won the most 15-to-1 contests. That said our performances would have got us knocked out in the first round if we were taking part for real.

In Britain the contestants are usually normal people who compete for pride or prizes. I must admit that i am missing seeing real people be able to better their lives by competition on the small screen.

Why? Well, in Japan Game Shows are for celebrities only. No normal people. The celebrities compete for the prizes and money. Today a dozen people ran around a theme park avoiding Matrix style Hunters. The game lasted 90 minutes and whoever was left at the end walked off with 1.50 pounds a second. That’s a nice prize all totalled up.

Yet, is it not odd to watch rich people get richer? Where is the egalitarianism and the chance to dream of winning big?

2:37

Today I watched a powerful film from Australia. This review will contain spoilers so read no more if you want to watch this. Though, those with kids, would be best advised to watch it alone.

The film begins with someone dead in a room. We do not know more. Blood seeps out under the door and then saddened faces.

The film follows several lead characters each with issues. As you run through the list each seems to be an extreme of the social condition. We have a recently out gay kid, a girl with an eating disorder (bulemia), a girl raped by her brother, the brother who has serious father-achievement-sister issues, a footie player who is secretly gay and a poor boy who has two urethas and cannot control his urine output.

There is bullying, suspicion and so on. During the film we see many people, several minor characters who appear normal but chat to the main characters. We also see black and white interviews with each of the named characters (those mentioned above). The story unwraps slowly much in the manner of “Elephant” which, set in America, was about a school shooting.

Throughout the film we are lead from character to character wondering which one killed themselves. Of course our natural eye is taken by these obvious examples of lives gone awry. The sister turns out to be pregnant, the footie player kisses the gay kid, the bulemic refuses to admit her footie loving boyfriend is anything but her prince. Yet, our eyes slip off another candidate. A girl called Kelly.

The girl tries to talk to the brother about a disturbing, yet unrevealed, short story he wrote. She tries to help the peeing boy too. Yet, in the end it is her, who takes her own life. Someone kind and caring who is totally ignored by everyone. Most do not talk to her, aknowledge her and are wrapped up in their own problems.

It contains a powerful message. We shouldn’t be so wrapped up in our problems to think of other people. Also, that the quiet people can be the most in trouble. It made me think alot. I hope others can go and see this too.

The Sparta Of The East

All of the developed nations of the world have a problem. They are, quite simply, not breeding enough. Many are barely maintaining their current populations thanks to mass imigration. The society that has this problem most of all in Europe is Italy. Yet, compared to Japan, Italians look like right old bunny rabbits.

2007 was a watershed year in Japan. For the first time since WWII the population actually shrunk back a bit. It now stands at around 128,000,000 people. Predictions are that in my lifetime the population will shrink to a more British 50,000,000.

The onus is on the Japanese government, and the people themselves, to stimulate new babies (all puns intended).

The government started off with a very helpful solution. One minister suggested that all girls from 12 through to 45 become baby ovens churning out new Japanese kids. For once some people actually protested against the utterences of their minister. The government is being slow to make working and life choice conditions better for women and for married couples.

A woman who chooses to have a child effectively gives up her promotion prospects for the rest of her life. Japanese companies and organisations work on a principle of age and longevity at the business. Therefore, time out for a baby, 9-12 months can put you effectively back to square one. Most mothers get consigned to part-time or temporary contracts. A lot of Japanese women are choosing to put life ahead of motherhood.

Now lets look at the people themselves. The French and Brits boast of making love 160-180 times a year, maybe more, on average. The Japanese apparently average 41-61 times a year. 73% of married men over 50 do not have sexual relations with their spouses. Yet 75% of married men over 50 admit to sexual relations with other people’s wives. Despite being illegal Japan easily beats Amsterdam for prostitutes and sexually related businesses from Soaplands to Delivery Health Services. They make babies not make love and barely make babies these days.

The Japanese media are pinning the hopes of securing the population not on immigration or encouraging men to be more romantic nor just encouraging couples to get it on more often than once a fortnight. They’ve pinned their hopes on Group Blind Dates to encourage couples to get together.

It reminds me of the Spartans who, much like the Daleks in Dr. Who, refused to muddy their blood with non-purebloods. As we speak there are no Spartans and there is only one Dalek left. Could we witness something similar?

________________________________________________________________

Well Valentines is upon us again.

It’s a time for me to relax. Yep i am going native this year. So, i will lay back safe in the knowledge that Valentines is a traditional day for women buying romantic gifts for men, making them chocolates and so on with no obligation on the male to return the favour. There will be no romantic messages, no breakfast in bed, no dates and flowers. Just me scoffing my face full of chocolates. Yummy.

Super W.C. Operator

 I’m all alone at home sat tense, cursing the skies

All my stories and poems vanishing before my eyes

Yeah I’m getting so tired, of how this sites wired,

I think my sense of humour j-j-j-j-just went and expired

So sick of ineptitude, 

Blow me my W.C. Operator 

Super W.C. Operator

Can you hear me W.C. Operator?

Super W.C. Operator

I’ve lost it all, Operator

Super W.C. Operator

Super W.C. Operator 

Super

W.C. 

Super W.C. Operator

Super! Super! Man! 

Show me a man, a man who understands about sacrificing all your hard work

Who sees the crumbled ruins running through our hands, yeah!

I’m calling to the website god, you know what I am missing?Everything.

You’re a magician of imposition and flawed intuition

A man divine, a form sublime

Promising everything will be better next time.

Promising everything will be better next time.

Go on, make it better

Better, Better, Better, Better, Year right! 

Super W.C. Operator

Can you hear me Operator?

Super W.C. OperatorSuper W.C. Operator

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Thought not!

You super W.C. wrecker

Now I’ve gotta write it all,Once more, yeah… 

*  

This song is based on lyrics of the song “Super CB Operator” written by Crispian Mills and performed by Kula Shaker. 

The writer would like to acknowledge that he feels a lot better now. He also recognizes that he should have backed it all up more often. Though it was inconceivable for all but the hardened cynic that his laptop and the website’s content would expire at the same time.  

Wulfstan Crumble is a fan of hyperbole and Kula Shaker, if it makes people think.

Vote For Stooge No.2

In just over a month my Russian friends will go to the polls to vote for a new president. Sadly for them the choices are, to borrow a description of Swansea, pretty shitty. It is well known that President Vladimir Putin has set up Dmitry Medvedev as his annointed successor to the Kremlin.

 Yet, in Russia nothing is ever simple. One cannot, these days, just simply stick a stooge in place and reap the benefits (as China does). Putin is probably also mindful of the old Greek adage that “a tyrant’s son always falls.” So, there must be the presentation of an election.

 There are several ways to rig an election. The first is to control the ballot boxes. This will probably done just in case Medvedev gets a lower than crushing vote count come March. However, Western monitors tend to see straight through such tactics.

The next option is to control the media and thus educate people into voting a certain way. Check. Classic Putin here. The next is to have really tough rules for becoming a candidate. Pressures and unfair rulings have thusly knocked out Putin’s most realistic opponents in Mikhail Kasyanov and Garry Kasparov (he the chess player).

However, this all looks a little too easy for Putin (or Poot-in as they say in America) or Vladders as we say in football circles. So, stick in the obvious yet hopeless parties. Step up Gennady Zyuganov of the Communists and Pro-Kremlin Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

 Yet, this is all still to establishment for a nice yet see-through victory. So, famous men like Garry Kasparov and Mikhail Kasyanov cannot get the 2,000,000 signatories needed to become a candidate yet an unknown former Kremlin employee known as Andrei Bogdanov can. He comes across as the great hope for democracy. He wants closer ties to Europe and more accountability. He is every westerner’s dream of a Russian candidate. He even has long hair.

Yet, he is a stooge, a plant. He and his greasy locks are there to make Medvedev and Putin look good and democratic. They could, if they wanted, argue that the presence of Bogdanov proves they do not wish to stamp out opposition.

Now, I know it is dodgy to be not of the land yet make a recommendation on someone else’s election. Yet, I would advise my Russian friends (the anti-Putin ones) to vote Andrei Bogdanov.

There are several reasons why:

1. He may be a stooge pretending to be pro-Western but any vote for him is a vote stating pro-Western desires.

2. Putin wants his stooge elected. But, would it not be fun to elect the wrong one? In this case either Putin has to reveal Bogdanov as a stooge thus opening him to all the right accusations of tyranny or Bogdanov will have to follow his platform.

3. It will make Putin really red faced and his reaction will be crucial.

 I urge my friends to vote for Stooge No.2.

Affliction of Youth

          Youth is perhaps something all adults want whether it is to live the good times again or to make a better job of the chances we mucked up the first time round. This poem is partly inspired by continued thoughts over those kids who have taken their own lives in Bridgend and partly by a lovely poem sent to me by my Argentinian friend Gabriela by the poet Facundo Cabral. I will post my own translation of his poem soon. Until then, thank you Gabriela.　Muchas gracias por aclarar mi día con un tan maravilloso poema. 

• Am I symptomatic
• Of the melancholy of modern youth?
• Feeling empty and alone,
• Separated by TV dinners
• And bedroom bound internet. 
• There feels like
• There is no one to talk to
• Parents do not understand.
• While friendships expect
• Conformity to be the norm. 
• We are the youth
• Complaining of nothing to do
• Save hang around
• Street corners
• Glaring at passersby. 
• We terrorise
• Vandalise stature and concrete alike
• We knife decent folk
• Because,
• What else is there to do? 
• Something lame? 
• And all the while,
• As we, the distracted,
• Seek our hedonistic highs
• Outside of crumbling innocence
• We are blinded. 
• Simple pleasures skirted over,
• Letter sets, left unopened,
• Chess, drafts, scorned as unfit,
• Rembrandt, Wordsworth and Austen,
• Replaced with FHM. 
• Drugs, sex and respect,
• Expected, never earned
• As lessons are never learned.
• Aborting lives,
• For fame or boredom. 
• We the modern youth,
• Dumbed down and unable to realize,
• That for each thing we miss,
• There are a thousand things to do.
• For each insult rendered,
• There are a thousand kisses waiting for us.
• For each bad parent,
• We see not the goodness in a thousand others.
• And for each evil pint sized Napoleon,
• We, a thousand adults, respect you for who you are not what you reject.

See this poem in bad Spanish:

http://wulfstanus.crumbulus.googlepages.com/laafliccióndejuventud

Immortality Clubs

       Ever since its crushing defeat in World War 2 Japan has grown in the world’s conscience. It was and to a certain extent still is a closed and exotic place. Yet, it is a place that wants to be loved and feels a divine right to a seat at the top tables. As with the other big economy in the world it buys into itself to a huge extent. As an effect of this its fashions, technologies and trends spurt out. The appetite for all things Japanese grows ever greater even as the government there slowly slides towards its more xenophobic side.

        The biggest export of all is technology with a large number of computers, games consoles and DVD players hailing from technological giants such as Sony, Nintendo, Sharp, Panasonic and Toshiba. Japanese cartoons have long had a following outside of Japan but in recent years this has grown exponentially. Anime has become perhaps the first word borrowed from English twisted in Japanese and then exported back into English. More recently Japanese food has begun to pop up all over the place.

  

     But has a social trend been exported? A most unwelcome social trend.Since July 2004, when I came to Japan, I have read occasional and disturbing news articles in the local papers about mass suicides. Japan has already one of the world’s highest rates of suicides. On average between 30,000 and 35,000 people take their own lives each year. The majority seem to be jobless Salarymen who have lost their Life-jobs and felt shamed. Another big group of suicides are bullied school children. It is telling that Japan’s romantic tradition is one of suicide pacts born out of doomed love.

       Yet, with the rise of internet social sites so has there been a rise in suicidal people banding together to take their lives en mass. Towards the end of 2004 26 people died in two months in this manner. Suicide clubs and social sites have sprung up so that the suicidal may meet one another and arrange their deaths. Such suicides are meticulously planned using sleeping pills, sealed vans and charcoal burners. The biggest single event was seven people just outside of Tokyo. The people who took their own lives came from all over Japan.

  

     Then today I learned that 7 people in Brigend, Wales, have taken their own lives in recent months. Within hours of each person’s death a memorial website has been erected online. As well as the 7 successful suicides there have been many failed attempts. The common factor, apart from being in the same social group, is the social website Bebo. This and the memorial sites bring an extra level of disturbance to an already appalling series of events.

      The Japanese suicides were by relative strangers who were already suicidal and who used the internet to find similar people. Each had their own reasons for suicide be it financial ruin, ill-health or other emotional problems. Often it is said that people were egged on by other suicidal people or fell into a group mentality with the momentum that goes with it. These suicides can be linked to a rare mental disorder known as folie a deux.

       Yet, in England, which has no such tradition of suicide as there is in Japan, it is all the more disturbing because it is affecting previously unsuicidal people. These people also seem to be sociable unlike sufferers of folie a deux. This is not the most disturbing aspect either. It would appear that the people are aiming for immortality via these memorial websites. Has the desire for our 15 minutes of fame come to this?

   

       If the answer is yes then we know our youth is in serious trouble. Do we really wish to see our youth seek fame at any cost? There can be no prize worthy of such a cost. The immortality brings with it the end of life, not immortality, just death and the void. It brings ruin on relatives and friends, true friends who would never wish someone’s death. It cuts short all of someone’s potential to live life, love and create.

       As with many such fads and group trends, those who originate it, spread the ideas on the internet and create the sites, those who do that are still here in this world. They do not believe in any moral reason for suicide just the fame it accords them in having set the ball rolling. I wonder how they square such a burden knowing they encouraged someone, maybe a true friend, to kill themselves for fame. Let’s hope that in such a world this act still generates guilt. For if it didn’t we would truly be in trouble.

      How do we stop these things? We could get draconian and shut down the likes of Bebo, or force them to remove the Memorial Pages. We could force only over 18s to be able to join such sites. But, would it help? We need to find a way to stop such things seeming like a good idea, to stop people feeling that it’s acceptable to do it and we need to be able to know these things are about to happen so we may engage with those kids. I will not pretend to know what to do only to state that we have to think of something.

Orchard Garden

     Here in lies a snippet recovered from a scrap of paper desperately saved after my laptop imploded destroying the story save a few lone snippets posted online.

      In the afternoon Tortrym found himself lazing in the sheltered garden behind Ithignir Hall. After lunch the Thegn’s daughter, a mischevous seven-year-old, had insisted that the Chief Hallweard, his grandsons and he challenge her to a game of horseshoes. She had of course won easily and gloated about it until she fell asleep under a pear tree. The Hallweard himself nodded off soon after against a rather mossy apple tree closeby.

      Tortrym ended up sitting on a tree-stump with a block of wood and one of his knives. At first the carving had gone towards a horse then he changed his mind to carve a humanoid figure, a girl. As indecision turned his toy into a woody pulp the sun began to wane and shine down Oakenbury Valley. The valley was famed in the right circles of the Kingdom for its vineyards. The vineyards twinkled in the sunlight and he began to muse to himself. “Noon’s golden valley. Enjoying neither dawn, nor, the last rays of dusk.”

     It was while creating such skalds, as poems were called, that he was called by a Burghweard. The man was dressed in the brown livery of Ithignir Hall. “Sir, a rider comes from down the Fosse path. The first such since well, you lot arived.”

     Tortrym tossed the wooden lump aside and stood up. “Where does he hail from?”

     The guy smiled, dirtily, “He claims to have ridden all the way from Burgsted.”

     He was shocked and nearly asked the Burghweard to repeat himself. Then thought better of it. It was his first chance to hear about a brother. “Does he bring word of Cafgar?”

     The Burghweard shrugged. “Best ask yourself. Won’t speak to me.”

     “Right. Let’s see if he will speak to a Prince of the realm. Until then go see if you can rustle up some food and drink for our messenger. Go see that Hallmaiden you like.”

    Tortrym then took himself to the main hall for the grand reception while trying to imagine what had happened to his brothers. The fires of Regensmuth were still etched into his dreams.

School Boy Error

     The most globulous and eccentric teacher at Curlywurly Technical College, Bournville, was well known to be Bazil Montageous-Priory. He was a most highly esteemed lecturer of English Literature and Applied Spelling. He had begun life as the well born sprat of upper class loafers. A fine family tradition had them living off the land, socialising and partaking in excessive amounts of ballroom dancing. This lifestyle was not fulfilling enough for Bazil. So, after inheriting his Oxford degree in 1969 he turned his full attentions to politics. At which he failed. Anthony Benn-Wedgewood was far richer and even better connected. So, as a last resort he turned to education; a fine tradition where he could pass on his wisdom gained from summer holidays spent at the MCC.

      After years of teaching in schools as grand as Eton and as bland as Cardiff Comprahensive he had found himself at the brand-spanking (oh he did like that) new Technical College in Bournville educating the latest waves of youths how to spell and read. At times he found it most demeaning yet he applied himself with an eccentric demeanour.

    One day there was a most grand panic in Room H5 in the Honest Hain building. Cries from the half-dozen students echoed down the corridor. The first on the scene was the crusty caretaker, Jim Fork. Upon entering the room he found the rotund lecturer on his back clasping at his chest, his face red and puffy. All around the students looking in shock as Bazil struggled for breath. Jim raced over to his side and loosened his Oxford tie. “Relax Bazil, breath easy.”

      Then Bazil whispered his last words to Jim before collapsing on to the tope carpet, dead. “Which one of you is the devil?”

      As he collapsed he let go of a piece of paper. The crumpled sheet contained scurrolous words doubting the parentage and other virtues of the late professor. At first he looked at it backwards then scrambled it all up but could not decipher it. Jim got up and turned to the class. “Whoever wrote this killed the Professor.”

The students were:

1. The elfine Nanna Addler. 

2. Travel obcessed Mel ii Fey.

3. The ugly, and oft angry, Rolf Trollhatten.

4. Moomin-esque Mo Naantali.

5. Pointy earred Ivor Mist.

6. Lion maned bookworm Tom Gonda.

Do you know who wrote the foul words that killed the professor?