As a former terminally ill patient myself - albeit with the miraculous recovery power of a Nazi war criminal after eluding extradition on medical grounds - I would like to draw your attention to my 2012 New Year's resolution which is to bring to earth - and not in that terrified fox-on-Boxing-Day-in-the-Chilterns, (may the High Speed Train tunnel its way through Lord Astor's living room way)- all Aesthetic Plastic surgeons. These being merely profiteering Frankensteins masquerading as healers and prepared to remove cut-price poisonous implants from their female victims only if the taxpayer bails them out like spoilt bankers. In fact all private health practitioners who triage patients not on the basis of their medical need but on their Standard and Poors' credit rating can crawl into a hole - preferrably the one with the aforemntioned High Speed train barrelling through it.
As a former newspaper columnist I would like to draw your attention to an observation that will be familiar to any parent, carer or teacher. You know how at least once in your life you will find in front of you a child who is repeatedly very very bad, but despite graduated sanctions, despite patient reasoning, despite the consensus of all the other children and adults, of every fictional role model from books or films or TV in comics or on Club Penguin, despite religion and culture and family and law and the very rules of language itself, will never admit he has ever done anything wrong. Well... Kelvin MacKenzie is that child.
As a former campaigner for equal rights I would like to draw your attention to the recently trumpeted fact that there are now a record number of women in FTSE 100 Boardrooms. Yes from 13% in 2010, today 15% of top Directors are female. This should do for ordinary women's lives at least as much as Dr Strangelove did for the disabled. Congratulations British capitalism on your burgeoning rainbow coallition. All we need are some British Stan O'Neals and all minorities and oppressed people
can rest assured anybody's aspiration can become a reality.
And as former playwright I would like to say that the silver anniversary re-boot of Les Miserables is alternately pompous, hysterical and twee with a hurried, careening narrative and cartoon characterizations bolted to a relentless, corny, corny score ( I have never heard so few tunes stretced across so much time since I was forced to take my niece to see saw Haircut 100 at the Odeon Hammersmith in 1982). Dickens meets Spinal Tap: could you make revolution, love and death less moving? I would trade £1m of revolving sets and 1m decibels of shouted songs for a single ounce of genuine feeling. As self-loving and over-coiffed as the 80's that spawned it... I'm told the book is quite good.
Yes dear followers, the date has changed but evidently FC Naylor hasn't.
FC Naylor
PS Good luck to Mark Hughes in 2012 although I fear "staying up" may be as great a challenge as its Carry On interpretation for my good self.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
World Domination
yMy grandaughter, Frances has had her second birthday party at which the little prodigal spoke words of thanks with lyrical eloquence beyond the wildest aspirations of Little Mix. So I used Frances' recently discovered treasure of conversational excellence to let her know that Father Christmas does not exist. Luckily I escaped castigation from her mother because, being American, Mary has no idea who or what "Father Christmas" is. Although she is quite sure that "Santa Claus" is actually Tim Allen.
The point is I calculated that if you are old enough to talk you are old enough to listen which means you are old enough to be exposed to lies. Or to "artifice" as the BBC TV Nature Department prefers, in suitably Orwellian newspeak, to justify showing two Polar bear cubs in a Dutch zoo while telling us they are actually in the Arctic. Apparently to mention the truth would have disrupted the "narrative" of the documentary. Sigh... I suppose real life can be so uncooperative when it comes to mirroring Robert McKee's Three Act Story structure. Where was Superman during the Indian Ocean Tsunami? Not blowing the waves back from the Sumatran coast, that's for sure. Where was the reluctant hero receiving the call to action during the Fukushima Daiichi Tsunami? Why didn't the BBC cut from an inundated nuclear power stattion to footage of the X-Men scooping up drowning Japanese? After all the X-Men are already mutants so the radioactivity would have been irrelevant. Why didn't Colonel Gaddafi go through a heart-warming redemptive final act like paranoid Robert de Niro in "Meet the Fokkers" or grouchy Jack Nicholson in "As Good at It Gets", free all political prisoners, marry Helen Hunt and move in with the family of WPC Yvonne Fletcher rather than get a bayonet shoved up his arse? Why? Because we live in a random, godless universe, there is no "narrative" and documentaries should reflect that rather than turn the struggle of an endangered species on melting ice caps into an episode of "iCarly". Either that or some producer up in Salford got confused between David Attenborough's "Frozen Planet" and Richard Attenborough's Jurassic Park.
Anyway the little girl was whisked away from me before I could go on to explain the finer points of European politics so i hope no one, in this Eurozone-obssessed political agenda failed to miss that the marvellous Dominque de Villepin has thrown his hat into the French Presidential race. (His actual name is plain old Dominque Villepin, he added the "de" to sound more classy. In the same way Denise van Outen added the "van" to sound more...? I hope Van Gogh didn't add the "Van" as well, I would hate to think one of my favourite artists is called Gogh.)
The reason I bang on about Monsieur Villepin's name is that the only reason this washed-up, right wing has-been with zero popular support could possibly have for entering the race is because Dominique Strauss Kahn (a sort of French Herman Cain, must be the similar surnames)was forced to drop out and clearly tradition requires at least one French Presidential candidate to be called Dominique (a bit like every 1980's English football team having to have a Gary).
In which case I can think of better candidates: Dominic Cork, at least as good a swinger as Dominique Strauss Kahn. Dominic West, but only in his recent guise as Fred West, after all Giscard D'Estaing looked like a sex criminal who might also be Head of Geography (although he did have an affair with the Dutch beauty, Sylvia Kristel but did not take her to the zoo). Dominque Sanda, star of Bertolucci's "Novecento" could stand with the USP of being female and actually French. Dominic Monagahan, the first hobbit President. Domino Harvey, the bounty hunter played by Keira Knightley in her only action film... except she OD'd and died in her bath. Dominatrix Natalie Rowe who used to hang out with George Osborne. Dom DeLuise, Dom Jolly, Dom Perignon (who interestingly was a monk... but not a Dominican - a Benedictine. And who invented a drink, but not Benedictine) Talking of booze, I am rambling on like an Oregon fossicker high on moonshine and mercury poisoning so I may as well drink like one.
Good luck against Man Utd on Sunday, boys.
FC Naylor
The point is I calculated that if you are old enough to talk you are old enough to listen which means you are old enough to be exposed to lies. Or to "artifice" as the BBC TV Nature Department prefers, in suitably Orwellian newspeak, to justify showing two Polar bear cubs in a Dutch zoo while telling us they are actually in the Arctic. Apparently to mention the truth would have disrupted the "narrative" of the documentary. Sigh... I suppose real life can be so uncooperative when it comes to mirroring Robert McKee's Three Act Story structure. Where was Superman during the Indian Ocean Tsunami? Not blowing the waves back from the Sumatran coast, that's for sure. Where was the reluctant hero receiving the call to action during the Fukushima Daiichi Tsunami? Why didn't the BBC cut from an inundated nuclear power stattion to footage of the X-Men scooping up drowning Japanese? After all the X-Men are already mutants so the radioactivity would have been irrelevant. Why didn't Colonel Gaddafi go through a heart-warming redemptive final act like paranoid Robert de Niro in "Meet the Fokkers" or grouchy Jack Nicholson in "As Good at It Gets", free all political prisoners, marry Helen Hunt and move in with the family of WPC Yvonne Fletcher rather than get a bayonet shoved up his arse? Why? Because we live in a random, godless universe, there is no "narrative" and documentaries should reflect that rather than turn the struggle of an endangered species on melting ice caps into an episode of "iCarly". Either that or some producer up in Salford got confused between David Attenborough's "Frozen Planet" and Richard Attenborough's Jurassic Park.
Anyway the little girl was whisked away from me before I could go on to explain the finer points of European politics so i hope no one, in this Eurozone-obssessed political agenda failed to miss that the marvellous Dominque de Villepin has thrown his hat into the French Presidential race. (His actual name is plain old Dominque Villepin, he added the "de" to sound more classy. In the same way Denise van Outen added the "van" to sound more...? I hope Van Gogh didn't add the "Van" as well, I would hate to think one of my favourite artists is called Gogh.)
The reason I bang on about Monsieur Villepin's name is that the only reason this washed-up, right wing has-been with zero popular support could possibly have for entering the race is because Dominique Strauss Kahn (a sort of French Herman Cain, must be the similar surnames)was forced to drop out and clearly tradition requires at least one French Presidential candidate to be called Dominique (a bit like every 1980's English football team having to have a Gary).
In which case I can think of better candidates: Dominic Cork, at least as good a swinger as Dominique Strauss Kahn. Dominic West, but only in his recent guise as Fred West, after all Giscard D'Estaing looked like a sex criminal who might also be Head of Geography (although he did have an affair with the Dutch beauty, Sylvia Kristel but did not take her to the zoo). Dominque Sanda, star of Bertolucci's "Novecento" could stand with the USP of being female and actually French. Dominic Monagahan, the first hobbit President. Domino Harvey, the bounty hunter played by Keira Knightley in her only action film... except she OD'd and died in her bath. Dominatrix Natalie Rowe who used to hang out with George Osborne. Dom DeLuise, Dom Jolly, Dom Perignon (who interestingly was a monk... but not a Dominican - a Benedictine. And who invented a drink, but not Benedictine) Talking of booze, I am rambling on like an Oregon fossicker high on moonshine and mercury poisoning so I may as well drink like one.
Good luck against Man Utd on Sunday, boys.
FC Naylor
Friday, 11 November 2011
SPONSOR = SAVIOUR
While lecturing my grand daughter Frances on the Great War (she is almost old enough to speak in complete sentences which would make her eligible to sign up in WW1) it struck me that while we stand in silence remembering the war itself and the Department of Health today issues stern warnings of a coming Flu pandemic, our economic dilemmas also mirror the times of ninety five years ago. In fact all we need is a revival of Ragtime, Prohibition, Spats and an army of Creationist preachers marching across America (erm, actually I think we already have the last bit) and we are straight back in 1919. Which is why Britain and France wanting the European Central Bank to flood the markets with brand new Euro notes in order to stimulate growth might just nudge Germany into a position of tempered resistance: given that printing oceans of new Reichmarks to pay huge bills led to inflation rates high enough to make Zimbabwe's Finance Minister dizzy, the undermining of the democratic state, the rise of the Nazi party and World War 2.
Given that our nation is immensely wealthy, with cars parked on Chelsea side streets worth more than houses in Easington,County Durham, paintings on Belgravia walls that could buy businesses in Merthyr Tydfil and enough jewellry on the fingers of shoppers on a single floor at Harvey Nicholls to knock down and rebuild Glasgow's Drumchapel estate, why is the prospect of a mere 0.7% growth in 2012 being called by Vince Cable "economic armageddon". Or even a contraction of 1%, 2%? The Haiti earthquake, Pakistan's floods and Somalia's droughts that's Armageddon! Not the UK's riches, with its stately homes, 250K per week footballers and Canary Wharf billions contracting to one or two hundredths smaller. A teensy weensy bit of sharing from our non-dom Russian emigres alone would be enough to top up all those shrinking teacher's pensions.
But if the concept of sharing and of giving is too revolutionary (as Christmas approaches)here is another solution. With oil prices rising higher than Nikola Zigic in a crowded Birmingham penalty area or Frankie Cocozza's heart rate at a West London house party, the Gulf States have plenty of cash to spare. So why not direct some of it to Greece and Italy and prevent them dragging down and destroying European capitalism like a fiscal Yoko Ono. In fact the synergy between those indebted ancient cultures and the culture-bare Arab peninsula's affluence is unstoppable.
Heard of the Emirates and Etihad Stadiums whose sponsorship funded the wages of Carlos Tevez and the development of the exclusive Highbury Square residential complex? Imagine how the Italian and Greek economies would benefit from selling naming rights in places like Venice where pigeons could flock to Saint Sheik Khalifa's Square or in Tuscany where you can climb the 296 white marble steps of the Leaning Tower of Qatar Airways never mind peering heavenwards at the legendary ceiling of the Vatican's Al Hilal Group Chapel and how much would UAE's plutocrats pay to lease the Dubai Bank Acropolis?
Countrymen you need not dip into your off-shore havens, your tax-free Trusts or your shares and property portfolios, skiing at Vale, dining at Nobu, boxes at the Royal Opera House and strawberries at Wimbledon will all remain affordable once we seal those contracts on the Burj al Nelson in Trafalgar Square and The Victoria and Ali Museum.
FC Naylor
PS FC Naylor would like to make clear that he regards foreign ownership of the means of production no more nor less oppressive than British ownership (but can't help dreaming of an island that turned back both Julius Caeasar and William the Conqueror and Hengist and Horsa, and the Danes) in which women could today walk freely, adorned in nothing but woad. Er and men too obviously , I am not Herman Cain. But, er not because he's black, I don't like Mitt Romney either. But not because he's a Mormon... actually yes because he is a Mormon.
Given that our nation is immensely wealthy, with cars parked on Chelsea side streets worth more than houses in Easington,County Durham, paintings on Belgravia walls that could buy businesses in Merthyr Tydfil and enough jewellry on the fingers of shoppers on a single floor at Harvey Nicholls to knock down and rebuild Glasgow's Drumchapel estate, why is the prospect of a mere 0.7% growth in 2012 being called by Vince Cable "economic armageddon". Or even a contraction of 1%, 2%? The Haiti earthquake, Pakistan's floods and Somalia's droughts that's Armageddon! Not the UK's riches, with its stately homes, 250K per week footballers and Canary Wharf billions contracting to one or two hundredths smaller. A teensy weensy bit of sharing from our non-dom Russian emigres alone would be enough to top up all those shrinking teacher's pensions.
But if the concept of sharing and of giving is too revolutionary (as Christmas approaches)here is another solution. With oil prices rising higher than Nikola Zigic in a crowded Birmingham penalty area or Frankie Cocozza's heart rate at a West London house party, the Gulf States have plenty of cash to spare. So why not direct some of it to Greece and Italy and prevent them dragging down and destroying European capitalism like a fiscal Yoko Ono. In fact the synergy between those indebted ancient cultures and the culture-bare Arab peninsula's affluence is unstoppable.
Heard of the Emirates and Etihad Stadiums whose sponsorship funded the wages of Carlos Tevez and the development of the exclusive Highbury Square residential complex? Imagine how the Italian and Greek economies would benefit from selling naming rights in places like Venice where pigeons could flock to Saint Sheik Khalifa's Square or in Tuscany where you can climb the 296 white marble steps of the Leaning Tower of Qatar Airways never mind peering heavenwards at the legendary ceiling of the Vatican's Al Hilal Group Chapel and how much would UAE's plutocrats pay to lease the Dubai Bank Acropolis?
Countrymen you need not dip into your off-shore havens, your tax-free Trusts or your shares and property portfolios, skiing at Vale, dining at Nobu, boxes at the Royal Opera House and strawberries at Wimbledon will all remain affordable once we seal those contracts on the Burj al Nelson in Trafalgar Square and The Victoria and Ali Museum.
FC Naylor
PS FC Naylor would like to make clear that he regards foreign ownership of the means of production no more nor less oppressive than British ownership (but can't help dreaming of an island that turned back both Julius Caeasar and William the Conqueror and Hengist and Horsa, and the Danes) in which women could today walk freely, adorned in nothing but woad. Er and men too obviously , I am not Herman Cain. But, er not because he's black, I don't like Mitt Romney either. But not because he's a Mormon... actually yes because he is a Mormon.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
MAGIC BULLETS
Adam sent me a link to a video clip on the Internet of Gareth Bale scoring twice against QPR last Sunday. I started supporting the Hoops as a teenager when Rodney Marsh joined from Fulham in 1966, Adam has been a Spur since his bris in Highgate some years earlier, so the arrival of this electronic torment was not entirely unexpected. With Pavla's help I sent back a video link to "Gaddafi sodomized by bayonet" an ugly but essential piece of cine verite detailing the birth of liberal democracy in the Maghreb, I offer as tribute to all who supported President Sarkozy's re-election campaign paid for and accompanied on the ground by the Qatari army ,err, I mean "NATO Jets protecting civilians". But my smug schaudenfreude was cut short by the announcement that NATO Jets, rather like Status Quo in the 80's, are not returning to their hangars after another successful tour but are idling on the runway preparing to attack Iran... on suspicion that Iran may be concealing weapons of mass destruction. The last clause in that sentence apparently ringing no bells at all in the MOD, FO, Palace of Westminster, Downing Street, UN, David Kelly's mausoleum, Andrew Gilligan's office. I can only suppose all bells have been disconnected since electricity prices went up 1000% after we privatised all those inefficient customer-unfriendly state utlilty companies staffed by striking Trotskyites in the 80's.
There was a time when "magic bullet" was a figurative term implying some sort of panacea such as penicillin, meditation, cranberry juice, or the (late) Jim'll Fix It (I don't care how much money he raised for charity that man was weird, I would rather my grandson shared a weekend in bed with Wacko Jacko high on "Jesus Juice" than spent sixty seconds in the same studio with that mother-fixated, bling-adorned, tracksuit-wearing bachelor disc-jockey-cum-wrestler). Today however "Magic Bullet" means just that - real actual bullets.
There seems to be no problem a prolonged spanking by a Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Mirage F1, F16 Fighting Falcon, Tornado GR4 and their complement of Tomahawk ,Brimstone and Paveway missiles (the former two sounding like tag team wrestlers from the WWF in the Hulk Hogan era, the latter like a Department Store Home-Loans spinoff company)cannot solve.
So beware not just Natanz, Qom and Arak, all "problems" are now liable to the NATO Jet solution: Greece, St Paul's, the favelas of Rio, the malarial mosquito, the HI Virus, Anorexia, MIlton Keynes Dons, Jeremy Kyle, gluten, that back-chatting schoolgirl Molly off "Educating Essex", , Jack Whitehall, people who split infinitives, Sickle Cell Anaemia, all blonde newsreaders worldwide, Ryanair (it's a Sidewinder air-to-air for you lot), Alan Green, Cher Lloyd, Bugaboo Strollers, middle-aged media men head-to-toe in figure-flattering black: you look like bald Ninja weaklings, the Boden catalogue, my ex-wife's new husband Alistair.... Hm, maybe not such bad idea after all.
FC Naylor
There was a time when "magic bullet" was a figurative term implying some sort of panacea such as penicillin, meditation, cranberry juice, or the (late) Jim'll Fix It (I don't care how much money he raised for charity that man was weird, I would rather my grandson shared a weekend in bed with Wacko Jacko high on "Jesus Juice" than spent sixty seconds in the same studio with that mother-fixated, bling-adorned, tracksuit-wearing bachelor disc-jockey-cum-wrestler). Today however "Magic Bullet" means just that - real actual bullets.
There seems to be no problem a prolonged spanking by a Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Mirage F1, F16 Fighting Falcon, Tornado GR4 and their complement of Tomahawk ,Brimstone and Paveway missiles (the former two sounding like tag team wrestlers from the WWF in the Hulk Hogan era, the latter like a Department Store Home-Loans spinoff company)cannot solve.
So beware not just Natanz, Qom and Arak, all "problems" are now liable to the NATO Jet solution: Greece, St Paul's, the favelas of Rio, the malarial mosquito, the HI Virus, Anorexia, MIlton Keynes Dons, Jeremy Kyle, gluten, that back-chatting schoolgirl Molly off "Educating Essex", , Jack Whitehall, people who split infinitives, Sickle Cell Anaemia, all blonde newsreaders worldwide, Ryanair (it's a Sidewinder air-to-air for you lot), Alan Green, Cher Lloyd, Bugaboo Strollers, middle-aged media men head-to-toe in figure-flattering black: you look like bald Ninja weaklings, the Boden catalogue, my ex-wife's new husband Alistair.... Hm, maybe not such bad idea after all.
FC Naylor
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Won't Get Fooled Again
I was on my way to St Paul's Cathedral to join the anti-capitalist protestors' camp when it dawned on me why the Metropolitan Police were unable to stop this occupation. Well, if a front garden can be "occupied". Now that Bob Lambert has joined Jim Boyling and Mark Kennedy as yet another outed police-infiltrator in the eco-warrior movement we finally have the real explanation as to why there are so few bobbies on the beat these days. They are all getting off with tattooed vegan hippies in tents outside power stations. The geuine male animal-rights activists and tree- squatters unable to compete with the superior disposable income and hunky meat-diet physiques of these double agents. Which is not only unethical, unlawful and a collosal waste of police sperm, but also gave the opportunity for a bunch of real villains in the summer(mainly school truants and twenty-somethings whose purchasing power was hampered by a credit rating less than of a Greek Bingo Hall) to set fire to Croydon.
But of course such civil disturbances appear as harmless as Trick or Treating in Gerrards Cross compared to NATO-sponsored street-wars in Sirte, Triploi and Bani Walid where heroic French jets successfully bombed a convoy of Gaddafis from tens of thousands of feet in the air. Why, Les Bleus have not engaged in such valorous combat against fleeing North Africans since the Paris police drowned one hundred Algerians in the Seine exactly fifty years ago this week!
At least the new Libyan government avoided the charge of lapsing into Ancien Regime barbarity following the capture of the helpless wounded Colonel. Immediately adopting the liberal, democratic values of the West they emulated those proud American Navy SEALs who captured Bin Laden in Abbottabad this year, and killed the fellow stone dead.
Finally good luck to the All Blacks tomorrow. I hope New Zealand pulverise the French in the Rugby World Cup in a stadium yards away from where the French Secret Service mined the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour. At least British agents only sleep with committed environmentalists rather than blowing them up.
FCNaylor
On Twitter @FCNaylor
But of course such civil disturbances appear as harmless as Trick or Treating in Gerrards Cross compared to NATO-sponsored street-wars in Sirte, Triploi and Bani Walid where heroic French jets successfully bombed a convoy of Gaddafis from tens of thousands of feet in the air. Why, Les Bleus have not engaged in such valorous combat against fleeing North Africans since the Paris police drowned one hundred Algerians in the Seine exactly fifty years ago this week!
At least the new Libyan government avoided the charge of lapsing into Ancien Regime barbarity following the capture of the helpless wounded Colonel. Immediately adopting the liberal, democratic values of the West they emulated those proud American Navy SEALs who captured Bin Laden in Abbottabad this year, and killed the fellow stone dead.
Finally good luck to the All Blacks tomorrow. I hope New Zealand pulverise the French in the Rugby World Cup in a stadium yards away from where the French Secret Service mined the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour. At least British agents only sleep with committed environmentalists rather than blowing them up.
FCNaylor
On Twitter @FCNaylor
Sunday, 9 October 2011
MOBOS AND WOWOS
In 1969 I saw the original production of Hair - of course for the full frontals and also because Cressida paid for the tickets. I also bought Melting Pot by Blue Mink so I am very much of the "black and white unite" school of politics.
I am not absolutely sure who Jesse J is other than she has an incomplete surname so I presume she is an existential everyman like Josef K but I understand there has been some carping about her winning so many of this year's Music Of Black Origin (MOBOs) awards on account of Miss J not being black herself. And yet the lyrics of Soul, Rap, Reggae and R&B all being in the English language technically constitute Words of White Origin (WOWOs). Is it not in fact the uniquely syncretic nature of contemporary Western musical culture with tangled roots that spread from West Africa to the West End, and the Church Choir to the Speakeasy that makes it so universally appealing. (My only concern is quite how it took six people to write "Do It Like A Dude")
I feel remiss at not having mentioned Angelic American Sex Kitten Amanda Knox whom some people continue to regard with suspicion. All I can say is - a legitimate court of justice examined and that same legitimate court of justice acquitted. And everyone agreed with me while I was at Nicholas van Hoogstraten's chatting to Sion Jenkins, Silvio Berlusconi, Steven Gerrard and (on Skype) O.J. Simpson.
FCNaylor
I am not absolutely sure who Jesse J is other than she has an incomplete surname so I presume she is an existential everyman like Josef K but I understand there has been some carping about her winning so many of this year's Music Of Black Origin (MOBOs) awards on account of Miss J not being black herself. And yet the lyrics of Soul, Rap, Reggae and R&B all being in the English language technically constitute Words of White Origin (WOWOs). Is it not in fact the uniquely syncretic nature of contemporary Western musical culture with tangled roots that spread from West Africa to the West End, and the Church Choir to the Speakeasy that makes it so universally appealing. (My only concern is quite how it took six people to write "Do It Like A Dude")
I feel remiss at not having mentioned Angelic American Sex Kitten Amanda Knox whom some people continue to regard with suspicion. All I can say is - a legitimate court of justice examined and that same legitimate court of justice acquitted. And everyone agreed with me while I was at Nicholas van Hoogstraten's chatting to Sion Jenkins, Silvio Berlusconi, Steven Gerrard and (on Skype) O.J. Simpson.
FCNaylor
Thursday, 6 October 2011
RAPACIOUS BILLIONAIRE TOYMAKER DIES
Back in the day when I made Richard Briers look like John Galliano, dressing in corduroy jackets and tank tops like an Open University lecturer - well, I was an Open University lecturer - Economists called it "Built-In Obsolescence". Washing machines, irons, cookers, toasters deliberately designed to fatally break down after a few years so you would be forced to pour more of your wages into capitalism's gaping maw, fossil fuels burnt, new metals torn from the scarred earth, old metals tipped into landfills like the mass graves of war or incinerated like Viking chiefs. Had Asgard been a G-Plan kitchen.
Now they call it "Upgrading." or as Steve Jobs preferred "Permanent Innovation." The phrase seems to have been adapted from Mao Tse Tung's "Permanent Revolution" which is probably how the Foxconn mega-factory in Shenzen, Guangdong Province ended up making all of the iPods' and iPads's components as well as being the suicide capital of the electronics industry. Or "Silicon Cemetery" as I like to call it, where 14 workers took their own lives in 2014. At least the others could plug into iTunes to muffle the screams.
Every year Apple brings a slightly faster, lighter, smaller version of last year's PodPadPhoneMac so you can throw the old one away. Each new model having a number 3G, 4, 4s tagged onto the end of its name like a dangling baby's appendage to disguise the fact, like all those Friday the 13th Parts, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, that what you are really buying is not a sequel but a remake with a slightly younger cast. This addiction to the latest version of the gadget being bought, of course, by card nicely stoking the boom in consumer credit, which like night follows day, quickly morphed into consumer debt and helped bring down the economy of the entire Western World. And while, after the crash, Apple's shareholding entrepreneurs can slump onto the plush cushions of billionaire assets and comfort each other on Whale Womb in Maduka Honey and Scotch Bonnet at The Fat Duck or The Ivy (whose profits are up in 2011) the rest of us make do with a bumpier landing of Greggs'sandwiches while queuing outside LiDL.
But I will miss Graham Dilley.
FC Naylor
Now they call it "Upgrading." or as Steve Jobs preferred "Permanent Innovation." The phrase seems to have been adapted from Mao Tse Tung's "Permanent Revolution" which is probably how the Foxconn mega-factory in Shenzen, Guangdong Province ended up making all of the iPods' and iPads's components as well as being the suicide capital of the electronics industry. Or "Silicon Cemetery" as I like to call it, where 14 workers took their own lives in 2014. At least the others could plug into iTunes to muffle the screams.
Every year Apple brings a slightly faster, lighter, smaller version of last year's PodPadPhoneMac so you can throw the old one away. Each new model having a number 3G, 4, 4s tagged onto the end of its name like a dangling baby's appendage to disguise the fact, like all those Friday the 13th Parts, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, that what you are really buying is not a sequel but a remake with a slightly younger cast. This addiction to the latest version of the gadget being bought, of course, by card nicely stoking the boom in consumer credit, which like night follows day, quickly morphed into consumer debt and helped bring down the economy of the entire Western World. And while, after the crash, Apple's shareholding entrepreneurs can slump onto the plush cushions of billionaire assets and comfort each other on Whale Womb in Maduka Honey and Scotch Bonnet at The Fat Duck or The Ivy (whose profits are up in 2011) the rest of us make do with a bumpier landing of Greggs'sandwiches while queuing outside LiDL.
But I will miss Graham Dilley.
FC Naylor
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
