Getting older has its drawbacks – but it's a lot better than the alternative.
June 1, 2011 • Feeling My Age • Comments
In case you haven’t seen this, The Guardian reports: “Féilim Mac An Iomaire, who erected an advertising hoarding on the busy Merrion Road in south Dublin in an attempt to find a job, has said he has been overwhelmed by the response.”
Brilliant, just brilliant. Stil no job, mind you: check out Féilim’s Jobless Paddy page on Facebook.
May 19, 2011 • Feeling My Age • Comments
Nina Simone’s version of Please Don’t Let Me Be Mistunderstood is being used by the BBC in a trailer for their cop drama Luther. It’s a powerful reminder of her importance as an artist. Have put together a few other favourite tracks to remember her importance as an advocate for Afro American rights.
In her songs you can hear Simone’s massive talent suffused with simmering rage. “You don’t have to live next to me – just give me my equality” (Mississippi Goddamn) “Hard times in the city… in a hard town by the sea” (Baltimore) “You better stop the things you do… I ain’t lyin” (I Put A Spell On You) “Shall we kill them now – or later?” (Pirate Jenny).
Having been born in 1933 and grown up in North Carolina she had plenty to be angry about. See her biography on Wikipedia. Meanwhile here’s that TV trailer…
April 30, 2011 • Feeling My Age • Comments
Click for slideshow on Flickr
On my way into town yesterday found myself walking smack through the middle of someone else’s street party. Nice chilled vibe in a road bordering on an open green space in the late afternoon.
The euphoria up the line in Westminster had long subsided, leaving central London strangely deserted by the time I headed home that evening. No trace of the million revellers who’d descended on the city that day apart from a few lingering traffic diversions. And morose men in orange jackets at Hyde Park Corner dealing with the 140 tonnes of refuse they’d left behind.
In today’s Guardian Ian Jack compares the wedding with that of Charles & Diana in 1981, pointing our that in the middle of all the royalist ballyhoo imprisoned IRA men were dying on hunger strike, urban rioting had erupted in several English cities, and 2.5 million people were on the dole.
Checking the headlines this weekend, Gaddafi’s Libya is being bombarded with air strikes and riven by civil war, the governments of Syria and Uganda are killing increasing numbers of protesters, there are more riots in Bristol – and the US has just suffered its second deadliest outbreak of tornados in history, with at least 340 people dead.
Japan meanwhile has 18,000 recent deaths and widespread devastation to cope with – along with a nuclear crisis at Fukushima that remains – even according to official sources – “very serious”.
No wonder my brother’s buying himself a geiger counter.
April 28, 2011 • Feeling My Age • Comments
Just received an email from my younger brother:
“Dear friends and family, this is one of the most powerful interviews I have ever heard in my life. Minister Louis Farrakhan gives the real implications of the US/ British/ French/ Italian/ Canadian invasion of Libya: Farrakhan Warns Obama About The CIA Plants In Libya”
It only lasts nine minutes – hear for yourself.
On his last visit my brother startled us by announcing that the CIA had deliberately caused Japan’s earthquake and nuclear disaster in order to further US commercial and political interests. And sure enough, if you care to look for it, the evidence is right there on the internet:
Back in 1964 the Warren Commission was able to convince most of the world that JFK was assasinated by a lone sniper with a single gun.
Nowadays the unbelievable outrages committed by the CIA – from 9/11 to the Japanese earthquake – can be explained to the world within hours by some of the finest minds on the planet. Thank God for the internet.
