Kleenex rides the wave of inconsideration

The latest advertising campaign by Kleenex tissues on tube trains across London, incredibly, features the strapline “Blow it loud and blow it proud”.
I won’t be buying Kleenex again.

The Poppies: That’s What We’ll Do

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Here’s a great song from back in 1993 - very hard to find now too.

Whatever happened to The Poppies?

Archbishop Rowan Williams on sharia law

Muslims are in the headlines again here in the UK, but this time courtesy of the Archbishop of Canterbury. While all religious people can be said to have a loose grasp on reality inasmuch as they are prepared to hold fundamental beliefs which lack any evidence or even reasonable probability of being true, Dr Rowan Williams, who seems to be a kind but misguided man - a Type 1 Christian - has been saying some particularly strange things recently, not even in the interests of his own faith.

People are often all too eager to embellish and miscontrue things others have said when they think they hear something they don’t like (I know it’s happened to me), so let’s first be clear on what the Archbishop did not say. He did not say that he “wants sharia law in the UK” per se, as you might be forgiven for thinking looking at tabloid headlines today. He said that Muslims should be able to choose sometimes between British law and sharia law and that this was in any case eventually going to become “unavoidable”. Anything else he said was too vague to be of any use as he merely floated questions rather than provided answers, as religious people often do (which is ironic considering their complete certainty over unverifiable events).

While the whole of sharia law should never be adopted, of course, because of its barbaric punishments, its many arbitrary rulings and its superstitious foundations, there may be a few useful ideas in it which could be incorporated into our secular law - but only inasmuch as the points might happen to be good, not because they are religious. This might turn out to be a very short list, granted, but we need not dismiss the possibility out of hand. (Religious people do not have this luxury of “pick & mix”, by the way, because if it’s the word of god, well it’s the word of god, and He surely cannot have made any mistakes.)

What should not be encouraged however is any idea of two different laws for different groups within the same country, especially if this is to appease and accommodate irrational religious belief. This is what Dr Williams appears to be advocating and it both is avoidable and should be resisted strongly: such a move would be dangerous in that it would sanction the insidious concept of moral relativism, implicitly endorse religious belief, further segregate people and introduce double standards and confusion (some would say more confusion) into the British legal system.

London Transport teaches manners where parents have failed

London Transport has launched an initiative called Together for London, which is attempting to teach manners to a society which now seems, largely, to regard them as nothing more than a quaint anachronism (whereas they are actually of fundamental importance to a happy society). I have been saddened to see some bloggers cynically dismissing the attempt, because it is in fact long overdue. These individuals are obviously not familiar with the words of Edmund Burke.

It is an indictment of a society, certainly, that a transport organisation should have to teach it basic manners, but we are seeing this society self-destruct as people show no regard for anybody else (and thereby, really, no regard for themselves) and at least London Transport are doing something rather than simply considering their own profits.

I just wonder if the approach may be a little too soft. I would like to see inconsiderate people shamed into good behaviour - but I thereby open up a whole new debate about causes, ways and means, a debate for another time.

Coldplay: What If

This video was not made by Coldplay, however it might just as well have been. I like the scenes of ordinary people and the importance attributed to them…

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Spot the difference

Is it only my girlfriend and me, or is it obvious to everyone how Stephen Jones, gifted melody maker and quirky lyricist of Babybird fame, and Kiefer Sutherland, good actor but repeated drunk driver of 24 fame (and several good films including Flatliners beforehand) are virtually identical?

Disregarding Sutherland’s exploits off-screen and considering his no-nonsense persona Jack Bauer instead, it seems heroic characters sometimes come looking the same!

Nice quotation

“Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.”
- John F. Kennedy

North & South: A call to romance

The following is the ending of the BBC Bafta award winning drama North & South, based on the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell. It’s a “spoiler” in that it shows you how the story ends. It’s an “improver” in that it will remind you of a time when women were ladies and men were gentlemen, and this touching, understated, and well acted scene would surely melt the heart of even the most hardened and misguided feminist or the most loutish yob. The music, by Martin Phipps, is also beautiful and adds much to the atmosphere, so I have embedded it at high quality…

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Very often on this site I have written of the need for people to re-examine their values. It’s sad to see city women reject decent men in favour of idiots during their twenties and then wonder why they are “on the shelf” in their thirties. They should instead, of course, reject the corrupted values of junk magazines and programmes such as Sex and the City (and most other programmes on the TV for that matter), which do not have their happiness, rather only their own profits, at heart.

Many men are little better: I see the most disgraceful brash, vulgar behaviour on some occasions when I go out (the only only trouble is, of course, these same men are often the ones chosen by the women while decent men are sidelined). One can hardly stand at a bar for 10 seconds these days, for example, before a mouthful of offensive language is unloaded nearby without the slightest care. And if you were to complain to staff, who do you think would be the one asked to leave? Objection to public profanity in this decadent society would merely be considered quaint. So now I avoid pubs at weekends. Men need to grow up and understand that real fulfillment cannot be found from drunkeness, idle sex and abandon, but only from an acceptance of responsibility and a justified sense of integrity.

There needs to be a widespread return to sensitivity and dignity in city society, because it seems to fast be evaporating before our eyes, with people only ever behaving properly because they feel they “have to”, or “might get caught” - and this elimination is being celebrated. It looks a little like the fall of the Roman Empire. People need to understand that genuine consideration for others, not the pursuit of wealth, is the source of happiness. This needs to happen generally and needs to filter into personal relationships too. There needs to be a return to romance - which is an explicit demonstration of sensitivity. Like Tina Turner said:

“There’s not enough romance in this world. Too many people thinking only of themselves. You’ve got to give love for its return.”

I, however, will not be available. I’m taken - by the kind of lady I thought had been conditioned out of society all together, the kind I have wanted to find all my life. With her grace and integrity she is an antidote to the vulgarity of the society I see around me here in inner city London, and is the kind all men would desire to have and all women would aspire to be, if they only knew what was good for them. I feel rather as if I’m flying away in a helicopter from a war zone, as in the film Platoon - I feel concerned for what is left behind, but very happy to be out.

Damien Rice: Cold Water

The video shown here for this beautiful song was filmed in the southern Lake Region of my girlfriend’s parents’ country, Chile:

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