The grief-driven news cycle

Having covered Newsnight recently I avoided writing about the recent Jon Venables-themed Question Time discussion.  There's only so much bragging about watching high-brow TV (albeit while covered in breadcrumbs and flicking through insane Red Dwarf tributes on You Tube) that one blog can sustain.  If I had, I would have mentioned the contrast between Will Self's humane common sense and the soon-to-be Baroness Vorderman's shrill tub-thumping.  As Self twittered shortly afterwards, "I'll have an F and a U please, Carol".

David Mitchell is very good in the Observer today on the public fascination with Venables' crime and the citation of it in any wider debate:

The Venables case is so horrifying, unusual and unrepresentative, such an outlier on the graph, that making it the focus of a discussion about how convicted criminals should be treated not only perilously weights the debate against clemency but is logically absurd.  You may as well cite Adolf Hitler as a reason for not encouraging children to paint.

I concur.  I also think it is alarming that the grief-scrambled pronouncements of Denise Bulger are being treated by the mainstream media (current BBC headline - "James Bulger's mother calls for commissioner's sacking") as proposals worthy of ministerial debate.  As the person whose life has been most forcefully and permanently ruined by James (never Jamie - that was a newspaper invention, as if his victimhood needed any more emphasis) Bulger's death, she is also the least qualified person in the country to have a say in the handling of his killers within a legal system built on impartiality.  Yet whenever the case seeps back into the headlines she is rushed onto breakfast TV to rail against her son's killers, which is then reported as if it should have bearing on judicial process.  Surely it is the greatest kind of cruelty to repeatedly give her such a platform, and so the expectation that her wishes will be carried out, when they can not and should not be?

Anyway, I doubt this sort of thing is what you're here for. Somehow this blog has found its way onto a site called Bloggapedia, where it is disdainfully described as covering "a range of fascinating and essential subjects such as [my] domestic cleaning habits, proudly obscure musical tastes and endless British social hang-ups".  I supposed that's fair enough.  Expect posts in the coming weeks on my dysfunctional relationship with Windolene, the underappreciated genius of Baader Meinhoff and why I find the whole nod/smile/avoid eye contact dynamic tricky when walking towards someone you know down a long stretch of office corridor.

Oh, and the Kennington Park laboratory experiment made an unwelcome return on Friday morning.  I intend to invest in some bolt cutters.

Duke Luke

I've written here before about my vast affection for Luke Haines, the evil rock genius behind The Auteurs, Baader Meinhoff, Black Box Recorder and a slew of bonkers solo albums. His new album, 21st Century Man, came out last weekend and the neighbours have been treated to it on a deafening loop ever since. I seem to remember my girlfriend shouldering her way out of the front door laden with overflowing suitcases around about Wednesday. She's left a letter, probably about how much she likes the album.

The problem with loving Luke Haines is that so few other people do, and despite everything he does being packed with melody and intelligence he can be a challenging prospect to the uninitiated. Alexis Petridis of the Guardian brilliantly described him as "a lavishly gifted songwriter, but never a man likely to dazzle onlookers with the bewitching symmetry of his features". His voice can be harsh and reedy on the first listen, and the humour in his pitch-black lyrics is an acquired taste (as shown by the banning of Black Box Recorder's first single, Child Psychology, from UK radio for its chorus of "Life is unfair / Kill yourself or get over it").

Haines gives every impression of being happy to be a cult concern. By the end of The Auteurs he was already resigned to not getting his due credit on songs like Future Generation ("The future generation will take me to their heart...the next generation will get it from the start"). He also takes a patrician approach to fan relations, which is either admirable or suicidal depending on whether you're his biographer or his accountant. The forum on his website used to be a brilliant place for his cabal of dedicated followers to bicker over top 10 lists of b-sides. Rather than nuture this ragtag platoon of committed product purchasers, he took umbrage about complaints over a solo tour featuring no band and a 30 minute set and closed the forum down, although not before announcing a "Whinger of the Month" competition ("The winner will receive a prize of Luke Haines playing a set in their living room/ stone they live under. This prize is not optional. Haines turns up whether you like it or not. He will play an excruciatingly short set".).

But if you do get the bug and starting exploring the back catalogue there is so much depth and quality to get immersed in. I suggest either Baader Meinhoff (a concept funk album about German terrorism filled with brilliant pop tunes) or - why not? - the new one as being ideal for the newcomer. The epic title track is below - go on, give it a go: