On Selling England, By The Pound…
The “prog rock” kids just loved them some Genesis. But that eponymous album of 1973 never rocked my boat. I mean, come on, how could it, against belters from Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Bob Marley, Steely Dan, Springsteen, Marvin Gaye and Roxy Music, to name a random few. And, of course, Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges. Those pimply little choir boys simply melt away under a chorus of “Search & Destroy”…
But I always remembered the title and in view of the current shit-show, it seemed as good a time as any to reference that as a simple description for what’s being done to the country and — most specifically to the public money — by the increasingly deranged kleptocrats in power whose sole aim is to transfer as much of this loot as possible to their backers and friends as they possibly can before (and this is just a dream I know, as the sclerotic body politic seems incapable of anything more than a few loud “boos” directed at their main puppet as he appears in public) they and their establishment elite are swept from power in a dawn revolution at which point, after the tumbrils have rolled and the guillotines have done their work, a true socialist communist paradise is established and the dark, satanic capitalist mills are burnt to the ground.
”But what about any reference to food” shouts the increasingly fewer and more desperate readers of this blog? You mean the picture above wasn’t enough?
OK, then, how about one of their lyrics?
“Easy, love, there’s the Safe Way home, thankful for her Fine Fare discount, Tess Co-operates.”
I mean the band members were all public schoolboys, so without going too much full-on class-war here, kindly shut the fuck up about stuff you know sweet fuck all about. No, still not enough food content?
Two things that caught my eye over the past couple of weeks, whilst trying to blind myself to any mention of the complete shit-show that is this sad attempt to drag a country back to some sort of ‘relevance’ on ‘the world stage’ after the self-inflicted catastrophe that was Brexit, by celebrating A CONSTITUTIONAL HEREDITARY MONARCH whose personal wealth would be enough to banish hunger and poverty for the ‘loyal subjects’ in this green and unpleasant land but instead, of course, chooses to ensure the continued longevity of this same institution.
And the current crop of Tory sociopaths, one of whom will be anointed by less than 0.2% of the population will then become, just like the monarch, totally unchallenged or validated, the new PM who will no doubt attempt to try and dispute that there’s anything at all to worry about in the world but that once we get Brexit done (not sure how many goes they want at this chimera of an impossibility but hey…) and stop people using other peoples’ toilets, we’ll all be fine…
And finally, a simple group of films. No catch. No politics. No hidden agenda. Just the facts. Called “Chinese Restaurants: Beyond Frontiers” from 2005 and directed by Cheuk Kwan, it’s a fascinating walk through the Hakka community around the world. Watch one of them here…