why oh why?

what's the connection?

plenty of bandwagon jumping has been going on, we are told.  First there was a memorial ceremony in Reading for LibDem former mayor Jim Day - I remember him as Not Safe In Taxis, as they used to say - which, inexplicably, Mr Salter attended, making a speech about himself, which was described by one who was there as "totally inappropriate".  Why was Mr S there?  He was MP for Reading West, which includes the Tilehurst area represented by Jim Day for many years.  OK.  But Mr S spent almost all his time as MP prancing about and doing photocalls in Reading East.  And for quite a lot of Jim Day's time the MP for Reading West was Sir Anthony Durant.  Is Sir Anthony still alive?  If so was he there?  If not why not?  Mr S has form on this.  When a person who has or has had prominence in Reading political life dies Mr S forces himself on the family, pestering the grieving relatives until they give in and let him speechify about himself at the obsequies.  He's even done it to the families of murder victims. Jim Day was mayor, there must have been some civic input into the memorial, so why was Mr S allowed to take it over like this?

The picture, from His Master's Voice, shows an event held (now we're getting back to normal) in Reading East, at the Pakistan Community Centre, at which a German former journalist was promoting her book about her conversion to Islam.  It might well have been an interesting event.  You can see though from the picture that Mr S is not pictured with the author, meaning that he was not directly associated with the event, but he was present there (you can see the publicity behind him) promoting something quite different.  So why was Mr S at this event?  Was the Reading East MP invited to this event in his constituency?  If not why not?

Mr S is promoting a "big get-well card" for Malala Yousafzai, the girl shot by the Taleban for speaking out for education for girls.  A bit late to support her now, after she has been shot.  Mr S has visited Pakistan, once to my knowledge, in the company of, and as the guest of, male dignitaries of Pakistani origin from Reading.  Nowhere around that visit did he speak out for girls' education or against the Taleban.  Quite to the contrary, he gave a platform to known Taleban supporters who said they would not let their daughters go to school. And of course we all know that back in the day he marched with the book-burners of The Satanic Verses.  There were informal groupings in Parliament on these matters in my time there, including one which raised money and awareness for girls' education in Afghanistan.  I belonged to this group and donated to a girls' school in Afghanistan.  Mr Salter did not. I currently help to support five children in Pakistan, contributing so that they can attend a school which educates both boys and girls, together.  Does Mr Salter do any of these things?  He did not in his time in Parliament, and had nothing to say on the subject.  So why is he promoting this now?

Why?  Mr Salter has only ever promoted anything, or publicly supported any cause, if he sees it as in his own interest.  The Angling Trust, which Mr S told us loudly a while ago that he was now organising, has gone rather quiet, and it has been weeks since we have seen any pictures of Mr Salter gurning at parliamentary receptions on their behalf.  So I imagine he has moved on to other things.  The question is what?  I thought an elected mayor of Reading had bitten the dust as a notion.  But maybe not.  And maybe he just needs a job.  I remember him saiying, as if it were something profound he had only just thought of, "there's nothing so ex as an ex-MP".

Why?  Not only why is he doing this but why, apart from the usual obligations His Master's Voice has to copy out everything Mr Salter sends them, is his appearance being publicised in this way?  I only ask.

the annus mirabilis

of the rock album was 1971, says David Hepworth on his blog here .  I know boys like lists, and I don't, much, but it is worth remembering how much great stuff in the form of albums was put out that year.  Some names on the list make me reach for the iTunes Store - Dory Previn, John Prine, Grin.  This was mostly music made by war babies.  We boomers did glam and punk, I guess.  Anyway, look at the list and see if you are reminded or inspired by anything on it.  I was.  I haven't thought in terms of albums for some time now, I just download tracks I want, or listen on Spotify, and I dislike CDs, always have - they just take up space and you have to go to IKEA and buy lots of Billy bookshelves to put them on.  Our sitting room would be quite big if it was not for significant other's CD shelves taking up the whole of one wall.

What am I listening to now?  Two very different things, and both of them albums.  Sexion d'Assaut, "L'Apogee", if you don't know them they are a high-class rap collective from Paris, seven fellows who know which way is up.  If they weren't francophone they would be big all over the world.  I have a ticket to see them in Strasbourg on 20th October, v. excited.  Naturally enough, because I am (just a little) older than the average demographic of their fans, I paid 10 euros more for my ticket and I have a seat.  Also, Bob Dylan's latest, "Tempest".  I've liked his last three albums very much, classy tight-knit blues.  On the latest one I especially like his song for John Lennon (more than 30 years since John was murdered, just think), "Roll on John".

In 1971 I was seventeen, and it was probably the year in my life when the greatest concentration of important things happened to me.  I had an email conversation with my brother recently about this very thing. A great deal of what and who I am now is because of things that happened that year.  It's only now that I begin to understand them, and the same is true of the music which came out then.  I've written a group of stories, to come out soon, which are loosely based on episodes of my younger life (though, I hasten to point out, they are not about me and the events in them did not happen to me), and I'm rather pleased with them.  I'm nearly always pleased with the stuff I write, which is probably not a good thing.  The first one is set in Berlin in 1971, and is called "Spandau Sweetheart".  The title is a very conscious homage to Haruki Murakami, the laces of whose shoes I am not fit to tie, but I don't try to write like him.  On the final read-through of the stories I realised that they are actually a bit porny.  That's not what I set out to write, but it's what I have written.  And no, I haven't read "Fifty Shades of Grey", and don't intend to.  If you would like to read "Spandau Sweetheart" free, send me a message and I'll send you a pdf.

The Taleban banned music.  An act of great wickedness, though not the wickedest thing that bunch of barbarians has ever done.

occupation?

 some silly Stoppers and similar have been tweeting that the USA boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games because the Soviets were occupying Afghanistan, and that - you're ahead of me - it is the USA which is occupying Afghanistan now.  Well, it's perfectly true that the US has changed sides on Afghanistan - in the 1980s they deemed it right to give covert support to the Taleban - but they were of course right to change sides, and are on the correct side now.  The Soviet Union is long gone, and the world has changed.  That said, I was a strong supporter of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979-80.  If something isn't right, it's wrong.  Blowing up girls' schools, with the girls inside them, is wrong. Come to that, banning music is wrong, but I wouldn't invade a country for that.  Under the Soviets, girls went to school and the literacy rate climbed.  There were women in professional and public life.  They were all sent home when the Taleban, so beloved of the keffiyeh-wearing Guardianistas, came back.  But there is a whole generation of Afghan women, now in their forties and fifties, who are mothers and grandmothers, and influential in their families if nowhere else, who can read and write and who keep hope alive for Afghan girls and women. That's a good thing, hein?  Stay and finish the job, say I.  If the Taleban can be smashed for ever as the evil they are, good.  If not, help to keep a regime in place which is strong enough to ensure that those barbarians never get the chance to run the show.  Oh, and nationalise the poppy fields while you're about it.  Tankie, much?