First of all: the bombings in London a week and a bit ago. I used to work in Kings Cross railway station. Not near it: in it. I did over five years at King's Cross Thameslink (formerly KX Midland) and St. Pancras too... and when I say I was a Secondman at Hitchin TCSOP when I started in '86 and an R/S 'B' at Royston when I left the job in 2001, anyone that worked in the offices of the old British Rail will know this isn't bullshine.
Taking all that into account, I'd have to say that I have a pretty good idea of what happened down there on 7/7.
After all, I was also on 2200-0600 on the night of the King's Cross Underground fire, when they had to get 31's and 47's to pull the 312's, 313's and 317's out of the platforms because the 25kV was cut and there was smoke pouring out of the grates in the Euston Road. I was the Sunday office CO2 at Thameslink when the Bishopsgate bomb went off near Liverpool Street, and everyone in the station looked outside because it sounded for all the world like a car-crash without the squeal of brakes. I can't remember the number of times I was involved in evacuating a railway station in almost 15 years on the job, but it was well into the double-digits.
With all that said, I have a message for anyone that thinks bombs scare Londoners. We've had bits of London blown up since the Luftwaffe, so your point is...?
In fact, the part I found as disgusing as the bombs themselves was the vitriol from 12 of the 13 letter writers in the next day's New York Post. All but one of them had used their letter to justify Mess-O-Potamia, bash the "liberal elite" (who they would later punish by awarding them large tax cuts... I wonder if any NeoConservative ever wondered why they fight so hard to make the "elite" even more elite? That would be like giving pedophiles access to children because you say you object to sexual deviance, but that's what the Catholic Church did for decades and they helped get the vote out for Bush/Cheney in 2004 so you never know), argue against treating the environment as something more than your own personal urinal and promising to fight the terrorists to the end (without having the balls to actually see a terrorist in the flesh, never mind raise a weapon against one). The New York Post is the all-American newspaper that's owned by an Australian who once took a comedian author to court (and lost) because another of his holdings had registered the phrase "fair and balanced" so they could legally use it without acually being it, and the comedian used it too. You can see why I was disgusted by this, while simultaneously acknowledging that life is not without a certain amount of irony.
The second thing: The Dukes Of Hazzard. The man that used to play 'Cooter', who later became a politician and now runs two museums dedicated to the "good ol' boys", said the new film is a "profanity-laced script with blatant sexual situations that mocks the good clean family values of our series." You can see the full story right here.
Dukes Of Hazzard as "good clean family values" ...I'll let you think about that for a few seconds. Good, clean, family values. Don't let that picture of Daisy Duke on the right sway your opinion.It got me thinking: weren't they moonshiners? And wasn't Daisy one of the first examples of overt crumpet on the boob tube (OK, you can look at the picture now)? And didn't Bo and Luke get in a fight nearly every week at the Boar's Nest Bar? Which brings to mind this question: why the hell were they running moonshine if booze was legal? Wouldn't the legal availability of booze cut down demand for the hooch and kill the Duke's profit margin?
If that was "family values", isn't Tatantino's 'Pulp Fiction' a little bit Disney?
Listen : Kings Cross - Pet Shop Boys ... We Have Explosive - Future Sound Of London ... Not Afraid - Sisqo ... World, Shut Your Mouth - Julian Cope.
