I blame the scapegoats (37 page)

Of
course, an increase in pub bores could well be the disastrous unforeseen
consequence of this legislation. If we are going to have more drinking,
publicans should be given the right to stop serving people when they have got
too boring. In fact, it should be illegal to be 'drunk and uninteresting in a
public place'. Police should be given powers to do random bore tests.

'Excuse me, sir, I saw you come out of
that pub and you are talking very loudly. Can you say something into this
machine please?'

'No, listen, like,
Sir Alf Ramsey, right, he would have put Beckham up front, alongside Geoff
Hurst. . .' An offence like this could result in a six-month court order,
banning the offender from talking about the Kennedy assassination, classic cars
or the greatest all-time England XI.

We have an immature attitude to drink in this
country which needs urgent attention. People will describe their Saturday
nights with the phrase, 'It was hilarious, we got completely pissed!' which I
would propose is a highly subjective analysis. People drink to get drunk, and
then make complete idiots of themselves. Not that this would ever have happened
in the Palace of Westminster, of course, the one place where the bars were
always open all hours. I suppose those bars will be closing earlier now that
the Commons finishes at a civilized hour. And suddenly MPs are voting to have
twenty-four-hour drinking in the pubs outside. Ah, now it all makes perfect
sense.

27
June 2003

When
the worldwide web first began to take off, no one had quite anticipated the
degree to which this new resource would be used by millions of very sad men to
access such appalling and depressing material.

When
their family were all tucked up in bed, these middle-aged anoraks would
furtively log on to the internet and then nervously click on the file entitled
'Phil Collins' Greatest Hits'. 'Can people at the other end tell my identity?'
they fretted as they downloaded 'Lyin' Eyes' by The Eagles. 'What happens if I
have to take my computer into PC World to be repaired - will they be able to
tell that I've been accessing sites featuring the music of Gary Glitter?'

The
swapping of music files on the internet has become so commonplace that this
week the record industry announced it is going to sue individuals who download
pirated tracks. It is a terrifying threat that has put fear into music lovers
around the world: 'I know there are hundreds of millions of you and you're all
impossible to identify, but you'd better watch out because one of you is going
to get a lawsuit.'

The
multi-nationals who run the music industry have obviously made this
announcement in the hope that it will help turn public opinion against the
digital music pirates. Imagine the scene outside the courtroom: with a blanket
over his head the defendant is rushed between the crash barriers as he is
jeered and spat at by the angry mob, who are filled with hatred at this
flagrant breach of copyright laws.

'You bastard! You don't even care about Time
Warner's profit margin! You should rot in hell!'

The
trial itself will go on for months. First the jury will have to listen to all
the music on the defendant's computer, doing their best to tap their feet
cheerily and gently sway in unison to the DJ Hype remix of 'Smack My Bitch Up'.
Then in order to verify a particular song's composers and its year of release,
the judge will be passed a copy of the
Guinness Book of Hit
Singles.
This is guaranteed to waste hundreds of hours
of the court's time.

'Goodness,
I never realized The Troggs had a number one hit with "Girl Like
You".'

'Yes, if you could just turn back to the song
in question, your honour . . .'

'Well I never - Smokie got to number five
with "Living Next Door To Alice" . . .'

The greedy record industry only has itself to
blame for the current situation. By forcing us to switch to CDs and buy our
albums all over again, they laid the foundations for music's digital
revolution, which they now find themselves unable to control. Did they care
about the death of the vinyl LP and those millions of pounds of student grants
that we spent in vain? Did they think about the dilemma of forty-somethings,
faced with nowhere to store their old album collection now that the loft is
being converted? And just what are young people supposed to roll their joints
on these days?

Of
course, music piracy has been happening ever since the very first teenager got
out his crayons to try to recreate the cover of
Dark
Side of the Moon
on a little piece of card to slot inside
the plastic cassette case. So let he who is without a compilation tape throw
the first stone. But the problem for the record companies is that now it's got
so quick and easy. All you have to do is log on to the internet, go to one of
the music-sharing sites and run a search on the track you want. Oh hang on,
it's saying do I want to download kazaa media desktop v2.5 or v2.2 - what does
that mean? 'Windows Media Player Not Configured' - well, how do I do that? I'll
look in 'Help' - 'Ensure file extension is specified'? Good point. Er, what the
bloody hell are they talking about?

The legality is a little easier to
understand. The record industry are correct when they describe this practice as
theft. And yet it's hard to feel even the mildest pang of sympathy. Perhaps it
might be different if they'd ever shown any qualms about ripping off their
customers or indeed any emerging musical talent.

If the record companies do win their first
lawsuit they'll expect to be awarded millions of pounds of damages. But if
there was any real justice they would then be handed a cheque for a mere
hundred quid.

'What's this?' they'd
say in astonishment.

'Ah, yeah, well, we had to deduct the money
for your limos, publicity expenses, hotel bills, agents' fees and everything,
and this is all that's left, honest. Now don't make a song and dance about it,
guys. Because we held on to the copyright.'

I
July 2003

After
September 11th no planes flew over Britain's cities for three days. Nobody was
woken up at five o'clock in the morning, and then again at 5.17am, finally
drifting off only to be woken at six by their partner elbowing them in the ribs
and saying, 'Listen to that one, that's the loudest one yet!' In all the
theories about September 11th no one seemed to consider the possibility that
maybe Osama Bin Laden lived in Hounslow and was just that desperate for a few
nights' decent kip.

After
a ruling this week in the European Court of Human Rights, the millions of
Britons who live under the major flight paths will no longer be woken up by
jumbo jets at 5.30 in the morning. This is because they won't have got to sleep
in the first place; the planes are going to be allowed to roar overhead in the
middle of the night. The court ruling agreed with the British government that
to block the increased demand for all those businessmen who want to land at
British airports would be detrimental to our national economic interest. Yup,
it is simply vital to Britain's prosperity that there is no reduction in the
number of blokes flying off to Dublin for stag weekends, drinking too much and
then puking up in O'Connell Street. Air travel is simply too important to our
economy for us to limit the number of flights for lonely middle-aged men going
to Bangkok.

It's only a hundred years since the Wright
Brothers first got a rickety plane off the ground, while their sister wheeled
the drinks trolley down the aisle and offered them the chance to purchase a
duty-free teddy bear pilot and a giant Toblerone. Since then, air companies
have become big business, with no government having the courage to clip their
wings, as it were. Chris Mullin said that when he was at the Department of
Transport he learned two things. Firstly that the airlines' demands are
insatiable and, secondly, that they always get whatever they want. There was
actually a third thing, but no one could hear him because a plane went
overhead. When flight paths are drawn up they make sure that the planes go out
of their way to disturb the maximum number of people possible. 'This is your
captain speaking; time in London is 5.23am and we're just passing over Barnes.
Unfortunately we did spot one or two homes where people didn't switch on their
bedroom lights as we passed overhead, so we're going to have to go round again
just to make sure.' Next there'll be a camp air steward ringing on every
doorbell, waking us up with a little tray of congealed egg and two button
mushrooms.

The skies have got so busy that now the radio
traffic news has someone in a car looking up and reporting where the worst
congestion is. The burning of aircraft fuel is a major contributor to
greenhouse gases, but unlike petrol it remains untaxed. Next time you're in the
duty-free shop trying to find a present for grandma that doesn't look like you
got it at the airport on the way home, look out for that pilot buying a
thousand gallons of duty-free aircraft fuel. Ever-increasing air travel means
more noise, more pollution, more runways and, worst of all, more opportunities
for Richard Branson to get his face on television.

The
Minister for Transport should be meeting up with his opposite numbers across
Europe to find ways to reduce the amount of traffic in the air. It'll mean
dozens of ministers, with all their civil servants and translators, flying to
Brussels on a regular basis - hang on, that's not going to work. If the
government are not going to dampen down the demand for air travel then we will
have to do it ourselves. Next time you are on a plane and the air hostess gives
the safety demonstration, put your hand up and ask questions. 'Yeah, just going
back to that bit about "in the event of an emergency landing on water
..."
How does that work exactly then?
'Cos you'd think the plane would just sink, wouldn't you?' Or when she
demonstrates the oxygen masks dropping down, say, 'But what if we are all on
fire? Wouldn't oxygen just make the flames worse?' Or before you get on the
plane, when hordes of anxious travellers are lining up at the check-in desk,
try walking along the queue shouting 'Anyone here flying to Marbella?' while
dressed as the Grim Reaper.

Somebody has to stand up to the air
companies. Whenever they look like they might not get everything they want,
they either use 'Britain's economic interest' or, failing that, they'll play
the 'safety' card. No wonder every passenger is supplied with a sick bag. They
are interested in profit above all else, however much pollution or misery they
cause to millions. I don't know how those airline bosses sleep at night. I
suppose their answer would be simple: 'Well, we don't live under the flight
path, obviously.'

4
July 2003

Among
the brightly coloured bits of plastic at the bottom of a toy box in my house I
recently came across a little plastic doll. It was a miniature Barbie that had
been free at McDonald's, and in tiny writing on the back it said 'Made in
Vietnam'. It sort of left me wondering who'd actually won the Vietnam War. One
generation endured the heaviest bombardment in history and succeeded in driving
out the world's most powerful army in order that their children could be free
to sit in a sweatshop making little Aryan Barbie dolls to be given out free
with a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Today
is Independence Day in the United States, when Americans celebrate the day that
they broke free from Britain. The final straw had been the enforcement of the
Penal Acts, which had been passed so that two hundred years later teenage boys
would giggle in history lessons. If today's British government had found
themselves at war with the Americans they would have been very confused. 'Er,
right, but can we still be on the same side as you anyway?' Re-reading the
famous Declaration of Independence makes you realize what far-sighted men those
first American politicians were: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. Oh and the right to put American bases in over a hundred independent
countries, organize fascist coups to install pro-American puppet regimes,
stifle free trade if it's not in US economic interests and force children
everywhere to watch a schmaltzy purple dinosaur called Barney'

But
American imperialism is a lot more complex and subtle than the version that
they themselves threw off a couple of centuries ago. For example, they have
ruthlessly taken over our cinemas with the calculated and cynical trick known
as 'making better fdms than we do'. And the British computer industry could
never really compete with Microsoft; tragically, that abacus factory has closed
down now. Sharing a language means our culture is even more open to colonization.
My laptop tells me 'Your battery is running low' in an electronic Seattle
accent. If French and German computers have their PCs talk to them in their own
tongue, we should insist on no less. Computers sold in London should be
programmed to talk like Cockneys: 'Do wot mate, yer bleedin' battery's running
Barley Mow innit?' Dublin computers should say, 'I'd say the old battery's
running out there, but I shouldn't worry about it.' And on the Isle of Wight,
well, it's not an issue because they haven't got computers there yet.