Literally Anyone Can Commit Crimes. Get Over It.

I watched with more than a little amusement, the media storm over the extradition of Christopher Tappin. Perhaps amusement is the wrong word: he's a local guy, his wife is lovely and I feel for her. I cannot imagine how awful it would be were one of my family members arrested and dragged to foreign soil away from the safety of our own justice system.

And this isn't just any justice system either: it's the US, boo hiss... Orange jumpsuits, gang rapes, Shawshank and Louis Theroux.

Except oh wait this isn't what has happened. 

There are several arguments to be made against extradition of Christopher Tappin. First, he committed the crime in Britain and thus should be tried in Britain. Except this doesn't quite work. Global crime requires global policing and as much as some may resent the fact that the US has taken this mantle, it was essentially forced upon them post 1945 and more recently by successive global governments demanding their attention to internal problems. The USA is far from the only body that extradites the citizens of other nation states, the European Union also does this. It would be long and complicated to enter into the various EU-wide policing bodies however invaluable their contribution to policing of organised crime, but it is noticeable that much of the tabloid debate about extradition has failed to mention this.

For his part, Tappin believes that he is a victim of entrapment and if this is the case it is a serious charge. The FBI has used stings in the past and of course our definition of entrapment differs from their own, but the British media has not actually seen any evidence of this. Nor, they complain, have we seen much evidence at all. Because this is a criminal trial. Where they aren't going to release the evidence of the case before it goes to trial. Because I repeat, this is a criminal trial.

So the non-story rattles on. It has, as we have seen the perfect public comment bait: anti-Americanism. And now, with UK extradition policy in the spotlight, another perfect little angle.

That is, an evil brown man cannot be deported, but a nice middle-class white guy can. To America no less (boo-hiss).

I don't need to tell you that these are different cases though. Right? Right? I mean it's not like you can conflate them just with each other in a headline.

"Preacher of Hate has more rights than me." Daily Mirror. 

Oh.

Which brings us to my final point. The newspapers in this case haven't actually had to find this story. Tappin supplied it himself. He wore a blazer and cravat on his plane trip stateside to "teach the Americans some class" and has been promoting his own story ad infinitem for the last few weeks. That this won't help him at all Stateside is moot point, he has the perfect media storm: a story that appeals to the tabloiders and readers of the Guardian, despite the fact that it has no merit whatsoever.

Old white guys in golf-clubs commit crimes too and if it emerges that he has sold batteries to the Iranian nuclear program knowingly, then he should go to jail for a very long time and good on the US for prosecuting this case. And if he has not, well that is unfortunate, but justice rolls on and we are generally safer for it.

Finally, a not on constitutional issues. The USA rarely allows her own citizens to be extradited which is one of the things that inspires a lot of ire amongst citizens of other nations. The USA is a constitutional democracy where congress and the courts must ratify international agreements so that a small limited executive cannot sign away the rights of her people without the consent of those same people. If we want to see more sovereignty, more control and more democracy, perhaps it is there that we should look.

A Little Late- But these are my arbitrary opinions on the Leveson.

A little like a new computer, the Leveson enquiry was out of date before it even started. I read with interest that Paul Dacre would like to see a the introduction of a ‘kite-mark’ system for journalists. However, surely any such move, aimed only at “members of print news gathering organisations or magazines” is a move aimed at justifying the existence of such organisations rather than attempting to fix any ethical wrongdoing? 

Actual Daily Mail headline probably. 

By the time the News of the World finished last year, its circulation had fallen to 2.7m copies, easily the most popular of the sunday papers and as such, an excellent example of the changing way in which we now consume news. 

There is absolutely no doubt that media organisations have used underhand methods to break stories before, perhaps even more so in the pre-internet days when breaking a story quickly could give your paper up to a full day’s advantage over your competitors. Today the competition is even more fierce, with hundreds of thousands of online blogs and news outlets existing to circulate content. Of course ‘content’  is the key word here. Often what is produced is nothing more than comment or rumour which is then seized upon and parroted ad-infinitum by the other blogs, by the dailies and by news organisations globally until often the source of the story completely disappears. 

This situation surely gives some sort of credence to Paul Dacre’s argument. Whatever one might think of the Daily Mail, at least his idea of a ‘kite-mark’ brand for journalism allows a future for real ‘reporting’. After all, despite the existence of hundreds of thousands of news organisations globally, most people are still relatively loyal to a few established brands. It is telling that MailOnline and the BBC are still the most popular deliverers of news in the UK. 

Yet to claim that outlets such as Mail, Guardian or even the BBC are entirely or even primarily ‘reporting driven’ is a fallacy. Moreover, who gets to regulate what constitutes good reporting? Dacre has suggested that this kite mark be self-regulating but is that not, like many independent bodies, essentially the same as cronyism? Where would this ‘self-regulated kite mark’ leave upstarts like The Huffington Post? The newspapers would like a mark of journalistic quality to guarantee them privileged access to police reports and so on. They also want the government out of the business of regulating the press. Yet this is surely contradictory. By allowing a fatuously self-regulated group official access to privileged information, the government will be involved whether they like it or not and if there is one thing we really do not need, it is the government, especially spooky Labour shadow cabinet ministers suggesting that bad journalists should be ‘struck off’. 

There has not been a single suggestion for how the press should conduct itself in this enquiry that has not come with a whiff of desperate nostalgia. They are fighting less for some debatable notion of press ethics than they are for their own lives. There are no laws that could have prevented last years scandal that are not already in the books. If anything, we could do with less rules, especially in regards to UK libel law. 

Wouldn't mind seeing a bit of this. 

What we are seeing as a shift of power. Whilst it is true that most people still use formal news organisations, they were far from the first to report on the Arab spring, the financial crisis and so many other stories. They act as a useful filter for information, a quality control, but here their position is as precarious as ever. If they do not provide us with what they want, they will swiftly decline to be replaced by something new. In some ways that is all the regulation we need. That is until you look and see what sort of news is most popular. But to fight our new world is to be like King Canute fighting the incoming tide. Useless. 

The Great British Novel

In the wake of what might be a new contender for the Great American Novel, ‘The Art of Fielding’ by Chad Harbach, I rather suppose that it’s natural for us secret Atlantophiles to wonder what our response should be. What great tome, what powerful epic can we summon to conjure up, in the wake of Thomas Hardy and Dickens who came before, what Britain really is? 

Well there shouldn’t be one. Not ever. I am immediately distrustful of anything that begins with the phrase ‘The Great British...’. To be quite honest I’d be afraid that ‘The Great British Novel’ would be somewhat akin to lauded cultural masterwork, ‘The Great British Bake-off’: hunger inducing, but ultimately sickly and mainly consumed by the unemployed or mentally ill. Also messy. Oh so messy. 

My heart swells with love for my country. 

By the way, this absolutely isn’t one of those “isn’t Britain rubbish ho ho ho” articles. Bugger them. I love this place and hate the endless insufferable misery that gets churned out to us in opinion pieces everywhere. 

When I was a kid one of my favourite books was called “Scribbler”. It’s about having a dreadfully grey old life until a Banksy-esque colour vigilante brightens up everybody’s day. It’s Shane Meadows without the harrowing bits. Maybe. 

I haven’t got a clue whether ‘Scribbler’ is by a British writer and I can’t find it anywhere, but if there is one contender for The Great British Novel then ‘Scribbler’ should be it. Look, I’m not saying all art should be Tiny Tim: a broad smile and an upbeat attitude despite the fact that Timmy’s most likely destiny is death by malnourishment and tuberculosis. What I am saying is that art should be there to uplift us. And, like the Scribbler’s graffiti, it should be everywhere. 

There is an ongoing narrative right now about whether ‘the arts’ should be state funded or not and, brushing that aside I am often aghast at the examples that are dragged out as ‘our art’. Sure, we have incredible theatre, scores of opera houses and free galleries, but where are the mentions of the cranks, the crack-pots, the joyful amateurs? Where are the women who rush home after work to build forests from their 2 year old’s yoghurt pots? Because that’s how I see us- a nation of amateur nut-bars. A nationality defined by weirdness just waiting to be shown to the world.

And this year is the perfect time to do it! It’s 2012- the olympics. Everyone’s going to be here watching perfectly choreographed, big-stage arena shows that have been tested, rehearsed and rendered spectacular and just a little insipid. Let’s give them a show they’ll never forget. 2012, The year where 65 million people collectively air out their crazy, because what kind of ridiculous nation has a ‘great central dream’ anyway? Not us, we think baked beans and blood sausage are appropriate for breakfast. Forget the Great British Novel. Long live Great British Eccentricity, or baking, whichever gets your goat. 

Eccentric does not however equate to being a massive tool, like this Robin Williams-alike. Although I would genuinely prefer him to be our head of state when Lizzie dies, but that's another story entirely...

It’s 2012. Happy New Year.

Leonard Cohen

I caught the darkness
It was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
from your little cup
I said, Is this contagious?
You said, Just drink it up.

I’ve got no future
I know my days are few
Ah, the present’s not that pleasant
just a lot of things to do
I thought the past would last me
but the darkness got that too

I should have seen it coming

It was right behind your eyes

You were young and it was summer
I just had to take a dive
Winning you was easy, baby,
but the darkness was the prize

I don’t smoke no cigarettes
I don’t use the alcohol
I ain’t had much lovin’ yet
but that’s always been your call.
Hey, I don’t miss it baby
I got no taste for anything at all

I used to love the rainbow
and I used to love the view (ahh)
I loved the early morning
and I pretended it was new
But I caught the darkness, baby,
And I got it worse than you

I caught the darkness,
it was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness
from your little cup
I said, Is this contagious?
You said, Just drink it up.

Leonard Cohen - Darkness by leonardcohen

My Resolution

Man alive.

I just re-read my blog.

For a man who supposedly reads and writes a lot and has actually edited other people's articles, my grammar is atrocious.

Here is my resolution.

Edit before you post.

Get into Programming

Hey so I know absolutely jack shit about programming but seriously I have learned the basics of javascript in about 2 days flat. If you can do any maths which you definitely can because you've got a brain and you have to add up to do things like buy stuff then feel free to use this.

Then take your degree and shove it because stuff like this is probably more useful. Oh well.

Code Academy

A Memory of Liverpool.

Just a big NB. That anecdote at the end. It's not really mine. I nicked it like that British fella nicked Homer's sugar. If you are the one who told me it TOM, well it's my story now and I'm more handsome and stuff anyway so people will prefer it when it comes from my mouth.

Anywhere here's some things I have to say about my beloved Liverpool.

Oh hell yeah. Liverpool.

Liverpool is a place. An actual real life-place. You can go there on the train and everything. There are a few of you, presumably scousers who've never know any different. There are outsiders who've never been and are probably wondering why I'm bothering to highlight the bleedin' obvious and that's fine because you will never understand without going, the sheer what-the-fuckery of that city. 

The experience starts with the taxi drivers. Like most scousers, Liverpool cabbies are easy to talk to and like most cabbies they'll spin a few yarns whilst doing so. Thing is that everywhere else, the stories tend to revolve around, "That foreign fella what runs the corner shop." Here, they're a little bit more Lewis Carroll. 

"That grave there mate, you know why it's a spike. Because Gamblin' Eddie sold his soul to the devil for luck at the cards and when he was about to die he had himself entombed alive standing up so Satan couldn't catch him." 

You're in a city that isn't quite. A city teetering close to the edge of the world of dreams. 


Here, you can take a civilised picnic to a David Lynch film strung out across the wall of a church torn apart by bombings, before quickly strolling to FACT and lying underneath a Laser Cone where you will, there is no other phrase, quite literally trip balls. From here you can go to a gig in an old gym and flex your muscles whilst listening to Liverpool's burgeoning hardcore scene before costuming up and taking the 'world of dreams' theme literally in an explosion of light, music and colour in The Kazimer. 


Sure, you can visit the Tate and feel free to do so, there are some fantastic exhibitions, but Liverpool's real strength is the boldness with which it sticks its big fat artistic middle finger at anything that makes any sense at all. 

Liverpool changed my life once. I heard from a friend of mine who, whilst relieving himself in the Asda toilets saw a young-ish red faced man wander in. He dropped his trousers and small-clothes before shuffling towards the urinals. Naturally he tripped and as he fell, thousands of empty shopping bags cascaded from his coat. Pants round his ankles and tears in his eyes he begged my friend not to tell security and that "His heist wasn't over yet."

To some this would be an indication of the tragedy that narcotics and perhaps even poverty and abuse can have on the mind. But for me I was just confused and ponding this, I began my walk home past a shop selling 'Sunbeds and English Lessons', a Hairdresser that moonlights as a carpentry place and thought to myself that if I understood a single jot of the nutty stuff that happens there on a daily basis I would be infinitely wiser. 

This place exists.

What artist could live there and not raise his game?

?

Here's something that actually happened in Liverpool.


POST SCRIPT
I was going to end this with a thought about how our government is robbing a recently revitalised Merseyside of her dignity, but I will not. Instead I implore you all to do one thing. Visit and immerse yourself. You will not regret it.