The day the music died

The rabbit has been slow in reporting the major international incident that took place in Hyde Park last Saturday aka the Springsteen concert due to pressure of work but I can now finally pronounce. Given the endless rain that the UK has been inflicted with over the 'summer' due to something called the Jet Stream that normally drenches Scandanavia moving south, I had wondered whether the concert was going to take place at all. A Kylie and Jason reunion concert (ermmmm ... ) at the same location on the previous Tuesday was cancelled - the surface of Hyde Park being described as 'emulsified'. Nice word that ... Help was however at hand in the form of 800,000 square metres of wood shavings (yes really). Here are some of the wood shavings having been spread over the ground. The effect was bouncy, safe and distinctly smelly in an agricultural sort of way.

Through the warm up acts it didn't rain very much at all. Although some people had sensibly come well prepared.

The final warm up act, and the only one to get any traction with the audience who had basically come to see Springsteen and only Springsteen was John Fogerty. He put on a good show and got an audience reaction. Towards the end of his set the big screen showed Springsteen sitting otherwise out of sight to the side of the stage. Cue much cheering. Then a little later Springsteen came on to duet in the final Fogerty song. Like so ...

And the actual Springsteen set? Well his concerts are a cross between a huge karaoke session led by Bruce and a revival meeting. That's not to knock it. I think the guy is a total class act and an honest performer. He is one of those performers who you sense is actually on your side and not on a corporately sponsored cynical exercise in squeezing one last payday out of the punters. His workrate is phenomenal - as is the length of his sets (with consequences known now to everyone not in one of the remoter regions of Papua New Guinea). For the first hour it didn't even rain. Then the rain started. The wetter it got the more Bruce cranked up the energy levels. It is fortunate for the rabbit's dignity - which is of course immense -  that there is no record of him singing and dancing along to Darlington County/Working On The Highway.

The young rabbit was absolutely blown away by Springsteen's early work. Was it possible for rock music to get any better? The young rabbit doubted it. The signs that the man was mortal after all first surfaced with the simultaneously released Human Touch and Lucky Town in 1992 which were okayish and no more. There hasn't been a subsequent decline like say Bob Marley's - from red raw stuff like the Catch A Fire album generally to twee rubbish like Three Little Birds. The later stuff is good - some of it very good indeed (see below). And the guy is a supreme performer. Then of course among the E Street Band were Steve Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren - sightings to make for a very happy rabbit. The Ballad of Tom Joad and Shackled and Drawn stood out in the middle passage. Then working towards the end, full on karaoke session with Born In The USA, Born to Run, Dancing In The Dark and Glory Days. The last of these like so ...

By this time it was pushing 10.30 and Springsteen had been on stage for about 3 hours not counting the John Fogerty bit piece. On came Paul McCartney - not being a huge Beatles fan, the rabbit was less than impressed but a decent duet to I Saw Her Standing There and Twist and Shout with a little bit of La Bamba thrown in for good measure followed. What happened then? Well we all know ...

What do i think? Well yes it was officious but the (not very many) people who live around Hyde Park are very rich, very well connected and hate the concerts in the first place. There are no doubt penalty clauses in the hire agreements for over runs. The organisers were no doubt getting jumpier and jumpier. Then someone threw the switch. The music didn't so much stop but fade away over a few seconds - a very strange effect.

Oh and guess how many complaints Westminster Council received as regards the over run? Two. Finally - here is a recent Bruce song to demonstrate that he can still hit the heights. It's not from the concert but was performed at it. Shackled and Drawn - Pure quality.

Whiskey in the Jar

I found myself idly wondering how an old Irish folk song managed to acquire one of the rock guitar riffs of all time via Thin Lizzy. the answer to this particular question still remains obscure, but I do like the lyrics - not the chorus, which is aload of nonsense words, but the verses. Who was Captain Farrell? Wikipedia suggests a military or government official which sounds a likely answer. I also like the phrase 'took me easy' that appear in a lot of the online lyrics but unfiortunately that would appear to be amis-hearing of 'tricked me easy'.

Just to give a bit of background, here is Irish traveller and traditional musician Pecker Dunne (calm down American persons - he's called Pecker for an entirely innocent reason - see linked text) with his version of Whiskey in the Jar. He's 79 now, was born in a horse drawn caravan and is still around. And, no - I dont know why he seems to have a hole in his forehead either. Otherwise happy weekend to all  - the rabbit is off to see Springsteen in concert in Hyde Park tomorrow - it's still on despite endless rain thanks to 8,000 cubic metres of woodchip deposited over Hyde Prk. the rabbit is taking the plastic anorak thingy he got for Maid of the Mist - the boat that takes you up to Niagara Falls through a barrage of water droplets.

Electronic cigarette terror and geobuck clam

Proof that as the Olympics grow ever closer the authorities are losing whatever grip on reality they may ever have  had came yesterday with an electronic cigarette. The rabbit has a friend who has taken these up - they are another nicotine replacement therapy (in passing the rabbit is not a fan of the same - they just feed the addiction in a less harmful way missing the point that the answer is to overcome the addiction) in which a nicotine vapour is released. The end glows green when the user takes a draw - a nice touch. Now unlike cigarettes they are legal everywhere - including on coaches. We go to a coach travelling from Preston to London where someone saw what turned out to be a passenger 'smoking' an electronic cigarette, a 'genuinely concerned member of the public' concluded I am not quite sure what except that she thought he was behaving suspiciously and called the police.

The result: a major anti-terrorism operation was launched, the coach was stopped in Staffordshire and armed police officers with military back-up shut the motorway for seven hours having detained the coach for four. They escorted the 48 passengers off the bus, telling them to walk with arms stretched out whereupon they were further told to sit in silence in a makeshift pen on the road while being checked by sniffer dogs (see above). 'I thought I was going to be shot. Everyone was terrified. Some people thought it was a bomb or a suspected terrorist attack while others thought we might have an escaped prisoner on board' announced the splendidly named Vermilion von Kangur, a passenger on the coach who seems at least to have got her 15 minutes fame out of the episode.

The response, which could fairly be described as 'enormous' involved police, army bomb squad and fire service. The overkill seems demented. Is there no proportionate way of finding out if there is a problem?

And above all, the suspicion remains that the paranoia around the Olympics is now colouring officialdom's attitude to absolutely everything. In a completely unrelated story, a 71 year old with an airgun looking for rats was arrested by anti terrorism police - complete with attendant helicopter! 'Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both'. Benjamin Franklin.

On more serious matters, a comment by JopJo yesterday set the rabbit on an online search for the geoduck clam. And here it is and a fine looking fellow it is too I'm sure all will agree. Natural habitat: the coastal waters of Washington State, British Columbia and - erm - trousers.

And before it is too late, the rabbit would wish to blow his annual raspberry at Wimblebore. Tennis or watching paint dry? Pass the brushes.

Circumcision, extradition and Angels' Share

This isn't new news - as it were - it broke last week but bears further consideration. A German court - in Cologne to be exact - considered the case of the circumcision of a 4 year old boy in accordance with the wishes of his Muslim parents. It constituted bodily harm, the court concluded (the matter became contentious as the boy began to bleed profusely two days after and had to be hospitalised). The boy's right to physical integrity and self-determination trumped the parents' religious freedom.

This as may be imagined became just a touch contentious. Jewish and Muslim commentators were predictably hostile. The Turkish Europe Minister offered grumpily to send the Germans 'scientific circumcisers' to 'show the Germans how to circumcise'. Very thoughtful, I'm sure - although there does not seem to be any suggestion that the procedure was carried out defectively. The fact that it was a German court ruling in a Jewish practice caused raised eyebrows.

And I think? well on one level the ruling seems unanswerable. To use a sharp instrument to remove  a section of someone's flesh is prima facie an assault. There are possible defences - namely necessity and consent but neither applies to the routine circumcision of infants and boys too young to give an informed consent. So does religious freedom trump the boy's right? Well maybe but if that is the case then the invidious result follows that parents motivated by religious factors have a defence but non-religious parents having their boy circumcised out of a belief that it is the appropriatev thing to do do not.

Hygenic arguments? Try soap and water. Plus all surgery carries a risk - albeit an extreme example, a link story shows 11 boys contracting herpes through a bizarre form of circumcision (TMI alert for details).

And therefore? I wouldn't make circumcision a criminal offence or actionable in damages generally. I'm not quite sure why I wouldn't but that's the view I reach. Incompetent execution of the circumcision or inherently unsafe 'techniques' (see link) must be at least actionable in damages in any event. Hopefully the practice will fade away with the passing of time without any martyrs to the cause.

I've blogged before on the unequal nature of UK/US extradition arrangements - the above young man is Richard O'Dwyer who gruesome secretary heresa May has approved his extradition to the US for -er - copyright infringement. He faces a sentence of up to 5 years imprisonment for offences - which if offences they be - were committed in the UK and would attract a maximum 6 months imprisonment here. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has organised a petition. Feel free to sign.

Finally - and briefly - the rabbit hopped off last Sunday to see The Angels' Share. Go see. It's quality. I won't explain what the angels' share is for the uninitiated. You'll just have to see the film.

Fourth of July

It is the time of year again where it is customary for the rabbit to send Independence Day greetings to his American readers. Previous greetings have featured such gems as Brad Neely's Washington, the same person (Washington that is not Neely) crossing the Delaware and Springsteen's Darlington County - the connection being the 'me and Wayne on the Fourth of July' in the lyrics.

The rabbit is pleased to announce that he wil be celebrating Bastille Day - the 14th July - at a Springsteen concert in London so - Independence Day it is for this year ... Different sort of independence but there ya go.



Expect a posting on foreskins (legal issues pertaining thereto) and extradition tomorrow from the law blog that makes the others look pretty stupid :D - well most of them. Honest.

Oh dear ...

A quick couple of items for now ...

Following Sir Gideon aka George Osborne's U Turn on fuel duty some hapless - and previously obscure - junior minister by the name of Chloe Smith (me neither) was ceremoniously hung out to dry for the Paxman treatment on Newsnight last night. Oh dear ... Watch from 6.19 onwards.

Continuing the political theme, the rabbit rather liked German Chancellor Angela Merkel as Terminator. See below ...

Oh okay then, as a parting shot, a bit of sixties stuff - a well known rabbit partiality - if you insist. A Frankie Valli/Four Seasons double header...

Rag Doll, plus the B side - Silence is Golden. How's that for two sided quality in a little piece of black vinyl?

Hopping back on board ...

The rabbit is still in the land of the living and as usual full of good intentions as regards more regular blogging but has been busy of late, principally trying to sort out publishing his crime novel on amazon. For those of you who haven't seen it on my facebook page here is a preliminary sketch for the cover illustration. the final version will be slightly different and will have title and byline obviously. Watch this space - much promotional spamming will follow!

Forgive the rabbit introducing a serious - and specifically British - topic. Indeed one which is not fresh news (the campaign arose during the period of rabbit blogsilence) but merits a mention in any event: the campaign to repeal (or at least amend) section 5 Public Order Act 1986, which provides as follows:

Harassment, alarm or distress.
1. A person is guilty of an offence if he-

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.

Which may sound a reasonable enough provision in the abstract but in practice is being used as a gag on free speech in the most ludicrous ways. A number of oddities arise: verbal abuse or insult is no doubt unattractive and a thoroughly bad thing but why should it be criminal (it will be noted that there are no qualifications as to intent) Similarly all that has to be shown by sub-section (b) is that 'harassment, alarm or distrsss' is 'likely'. Not that it actually resulted or anything quite so specific. A few illustrations of stupid, oppressive ways in which this stupid, oppressive provision has been used:

In 2010 A Christian street evangelist named Dale McAlpine was arrested and charged with this offence after expressing his belief that homosexuality was sinful. He expressed this view to a passer-by and a gay police community support officer while handing out leaflets to shoppers. There is no credible suggestion that the tone - if not content - of his expression of views was anything other than moderate. Now Mr McAlpine appears to have a number of odd views but so what? Why should his expression of this particular odd view result in his arrest and charge with a section 5 offence? What the hell (a subject close to Mr McAlpine's heart) has the criminal law to do with this expression of a mistaken belief of his on any sensible view.

Nothing.

Fortunately the charge was later dropped.

If anything even more grotesquely in 2008 a 15 year old was served the summons in respect of a section 5 offence by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the Church of Scientology. The rabbit has blogged on this one before but it merits repetition. The boy had a placard confiscated which said that Scientology was a 'cult'.

OF COURSE IT'S A CULT!!!

Here are some of the core beliefs of Scientology ...

"75 million years ago, there was an alien galactic ruler named Xenu who was in charge of 76 planets in our sector of the galaxy, including planet Earth, whose name at that time was Teegeeack.
All of the planets Xenu controlled were over-populated by, on average, 178 billion people. Social problems dictated that Xenu rid his sector of the galaxy of this overpopulation problem, so he developed a plan.
Xenu sent out Tax Audit demands to all these billions of people.
As each one entered the audit centers for the income tax inspections, the people were seized, held down and injected with a mixture of alcohol and glycol, and frozen. Then, all 13.5 trillion of these frozen people were put into spaceships that looked exactly like DC8 airplanes, except that the spaceships had rocket engines instead of propellers.
Xenu's entire fleet of DC8-like spaceships then flew to planet Earth, where the frozen people were dumped in and around volcanoes in the Canary Islands and the Hawaiian Islands. When Xenu's Air Force had finished dumping the bodies into the volcanoes, hydrogen bombs were dropped into the volcanoes and the frozen space aliens were destroyed.
However, Xenu's plan involved setting up electronic traps in Teegeeack's atmosphere which were designed to trap the souls or spirits of the dead space aliens. When the 13.5 trillion spirits were being blown around on the nuclear winds, the electronic traps worked like a charm and captured all the souls in the electronic, sticky fly-paper like traps ..."

AAAAAAAAAAARGH!

It goes on but the rabbit is losing the will to live.

If people want to believe the above then that is their privilege. If they want to be suckered in to spending startling sums of money on quack remedies until they have been bled dry and are discarded by the Scientologists as of no further interest then that is their privilege too.

But people are entitled to peacefully assemble to describe Scientology as a cult without fear of arrest or of having their placards confiscated.

In 2005 one Sam Brown, 21, a student at Balliol College Oxford, was arrested for causing harassment, alarm or distress and fined £80 after asking a mounted police officer if he knew that his horse was 'gay'.

Ermmmm ...

Words fail me.

A comment by Peter Tatchell: ' ... any controversial or dissenting viewpoint has the potential to upset someone and result in them complaining that they felt insulted, alarmed or distressed. Liberal Muslims offend traditionalists, gay pride marches alarm homophobes, mixed race couples distress racists and gender equality is an affront to sexist men'. Giving insult and causing distress ought not - or at the very least ought not ordinarily - result in criminalisation. The criminal law should not be used as a vehicle for attempting to suppress ideas you don't like (and that includes don't like with good reason). The test is too low. There are stirrings afoot to repeal or at least amend section 5. Good idea.



Some music is in order as a parting shot. The rabbit keeps hearing the above as he hops around the equipment in his local gym. Good stuff and it has bored its way into his ear.

And finally - ever at the cutting edge of legal blogging - the rabbit presents for the edification of the public a most informative transcript from the Supreme Court of Queensland. Hat Tip to Charon QC

A flying visit ...

I keep thinking that i must revive the old White Rabbit dreadful album cover posting. Here is a taster. It's got the lot, dreadful cover, surreal surname and an innuendo that puts Finbarr Saunders to shame.

Return of the rabbit - Nadine Dorries

For – as the well-known rabbit catchphrase goes – overseas readers and the terminally inattentive, the above person is named Nadine Dorries. She is a Conservative MP and until fairly recently was basically known for being very right wing and very anti-abortion (before anyone comments to say so, yes I know these are not necessarily the same thing).

Anyway, again for overseas readers there is a British occasion called Prime Minister’s Questions. It takes place weekly when Parliament is in session and the theory behind it is that it is an opportunity for legislators to hold the executive to account and – well – ask the prime minister questions. In practice is is a mindless shouting match that goes something like this:

Leader of the opposition: ‘Won’t the prime minister admit that he is a drivelling idiot who couldn’t make a half way competent job of wiping his own bottom?’

Cue huge noise from opposition MPs.

Prime Minister ‘On the contrary it is the right honourable gentleman who is a simpering imbecile and everything is the fault of the last Labour government’ etc etc

Cue huge noise from government MPs

Other MPs get to join in the fun and government MPs get to ask sycophantic planted questions. One interesting thing is that ‘Dave’ Cameron – a prime minister – gets genuinely as opposed to synthetically angry at Prime Minister’s Questions as if anyone insolent enough to criticise him is contradicting the natural order of things. Without permission.

In any event, some months ago Cameron in the course of Prime Minister’s Questions called Dorries – who is a member of his own party – ‘frustrated’. Presumably as in sexually. You don’t need to be a particular fan of Dorries to find this sort of witless patronising sneer – and Cameron has form for this sort of thing – unattractive.

Now the thing about insulting people is that they tend not to like it. And if they can get their own back on you they usually will. Dorries recently characterised Cameron - who is presently in huge amounts of trouble politically - and Chancellor Gideon ('George') Osborne 'two arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of milk'. The comment has resonated hugely.


Basically because it's so true.


Cameron needed this comment- which went viral in the British media - like a hole in the head. Dorries has put the boot in again, pointing out darkly that it only takes the signatures of 46 Conservative MPs to trigger a leadership election. Being sitting prime minister doesn't prohibit this - it is how Thatcher met her downfall. This again has gone viral in the British media. Now Dorries is undoubtedly a loose cannon but the moral of the story is that it is perhaps best not to make more enemies than absolutely necessary. 


I've been meaning to post this song for some time but now the context seems right. New Riders of the Purple Sage with Kick In The Head.

Apologies for absence

The rabbit - who is well and content enough - would like to apologise for the protracted period of blogsilence - basically due to busyness and distraction. Here is a man called Bill Shorten - Minister for Something in the Australian Government and plainly a man of towering intellect and independence of mind.

Think I lie down now ...

Passing through Leicester railway station this morning, the rabbit went to buy a newspaper. No, not the above one. The front page of the Daily Star did however attract the rabbit's attention. It was one of those 'do I inhabit a parallel universe or does everyone else - or at least a very large number of other people?' moments. I hadn't the faintest idea what the headline meant. I mentioned this to the woman behind the counter as I bought my daily dose of liberal rhubarb - sorry probably the best daily newspaper in the world. 


'You don't watch the X Factor, do you?' she asked.


Nope. Never seen it. Heard of it, though. One of those gruesome talent shows. probably something to do with Simon Cowell. I'd sooner stick my appendage in the blender than watch it. No, not literally. Investigations followed.


Duly 'enlightened', rabbit explaining this rubbish services will make all clear...


Tulisa is named Tulisa Contostavlos and - apart from being a judge (sic) on the X Factor was formerly a singer with something called N-Dubz. Someone wanted to sell a sexually explicit tape of her for £500,000. Details remain obscure save to say that she is apparently giving someone mouth to penis resuscitation. 


'Moi?' cried our heroine. '100% fake', it was announced on her behalf. 'Tulisa has categorically never allowed anyone to film her having sex'.


Jolly good.


Except the tape isn't fake, it emerges. It's 100% genuine. Plus our heroine now has an injunction prohibiting anyone disclosing - erm - images of 'an intimate moment'. 


If anyone cares, the recipient of her attentions is apparently named Justin Edwards aka DJ Ultra. Inevitably, Tulisa has addressed her adoring public on YouTube. It's like the Queen's Christmas broadcast save that Christmas has come (very) early for drooling idiots everywhere.



Hits (in no time at all) 1,809,456 and rising. This is drivel and demeaning drivel too. Why should anyone care? Why is the brain dead dimwit press obsessed with this rubbish? Think I lie down now ...

Dreadful - and quite clever - adverts ...

Pausing only momentarily to ask 'is facebook killing blogging?' (I have a nasty suspicion that the answer is 'yes') one of my favourite facebook pages is false advertising, which is presently having a discussion on the most annoying TV advert. There is a consensus emerging around the infamous Go Compare adverts (overseas readers, they are a car insurance comparison site) - the YouTube entry is introduced with 'Warning: song is annoying and will stick in your head'. This is very true and you were warned. I am on record on facebook saying what I would like to do to this person's moustache. It does not bear repetition in a family orientated blog. The advert below will make your brain bleed too but at least it's clever as opposed to merely annoying. I've some vague idea I may have posted this before. So suffer ...




Cadburys have produced a number of clever adverts, some featuring a gorilla ...





Parting shot: they say you should learn something new every day. Yesterday I  learned that there really is a place called Knob Lick in Missouri. TMI!

Marianne Faithfull

I defy any heterosexual male of a certain age not to fess up to the undoubted fact that in their adolescence they were madly in love with Marianne Faithfull. Apart from an extraordinary pretty face and an extraordinarily pretty voice, she had an extraordinary background. Her mother was an aristocrat from the very former Austria-Hungarian empire - an exotic state of affairs compounded by her being a dancer in productions by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill. How cool is that? Plus her great uncle was one Baron Sacher-Masoch whose erotic novel Venus In Furs resulted in him giving his name to a certain activity - namely masochism.  Venus In Furs of course later became a song by the Velvet Underground.


She had hits in the early 60s, notably with the above, married and had a son. the marriage did not last long. 'My first move was to get a Rolling Stone as a boyfriend. I slept with three and decided the lead singer was the best bet'. 


Hmmm ...


Anyway, she became a subtext in various songs by the Stones and others. And below is probably her major hit of all time, a Jagger/Richards song.




Then things totally imploded, she split from Jagger in 1970 and lost custody of her son in the same year. She ended up heroin addicted, anorexic and literally on the streets. She came back in the end but differently. Her voice changed. Laryngitis, cigarettes drink and cocaine abuse produced a new husky voice.


It worked and with Broken English in 1979 came her most critically acclaimed album. It wasn't a smooth ride thereafter, drugs continued to feature along with disastrous relationships. It probably never will be a smooth ride. She's high maintenance. Inevitably health problems have followed. All those years later, I'm not in love with Marianne any more. But I do like her. She's paid her dues. This is slightly back to front as I did blog on the mature Marianne a while ago and this posting refers back to her early years. So for the sake of completeness - and anyway - here from Broken English and her comeback is The Ballad of Lucy Jordan





Oh okay then - somewhat tangential but just for fun here are the Velvets with Venus In Furs ...

Afghanistan - Enough ...

Forgive the occasional excursion into seriousness but two recent stories from Afghanistan shock me into reflection - and comment. 


The first was the deaths of the six British soldiers (five of them 21 or under) by a very large Taliban roadside bomb. Their relatives have paid moving tributes to their bravery which rightly have been reported widely and sympathetically. It may seem that this is not the right moment to ask the question (I'm not sure there ever is a right one) but I regularly wonder the following.


'What will be said to the parents, spouse, relatives and friends of the last British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan as to what the purpose of their sacrifice was?'


It seems to me that there is no answer to this question, save for the unpalatable one - there was no purpose served at all.  The only legitimate objective of the original attack, namely to make it more difficult for Al-Qaeda was achieved pretty quickly. The rest is a hopeless - and doomed - exercise in nation building. Who seriously imagines the Karzai regime will last very long after the coalition forces are withdrawn? Or that it is of such merit - and has such a wide base of popular support that it seriously deserves to in basic democratic grounds?


It will last as long as the comparably corrupt South Vietnamese government did after the withdrawal of US troops. If that long.

The second story is the murder of 16 Afghan civilians including nine children by an - I assume mentally unstable - US soldier today just adds to the sorrow and the pity. It is not the case that some lives are more 'important' than others. All are precious and the loss of any diminishes us. No doubt conspiracy theories will abound and the revenge attacks begin. The mix is hopelessly - to use an overused word - toxic. This is more than enough. We must not 'cut and run' comes the inevitable cry. Let's cut and run - and bring the troops back for they can do no further good. And do it now.

White Heat

The rabbit has been having a difficult time since last posting. I'm fine - it's not about me - and I will tell all (well perhaps not quite all) in good time. But not now - bear with me. It is worth noting, though, that the BBC seems to have trumps having just seen the first part of new drama 6 parter White Heat. 


It starts in the present with pivotal character Charlotte being shown round a house in Tufnell Park where she had lived as a student in 1965. The then young owner is an arrogant rich kid who auditions students as potential tenants. Charlotte is one of the chosen ones. The no longer young owner has died. We go to back to 1965. Claire Foy runs with the Charlotte character who is soon smoking, taking drugs and fornicating (the latter two activities taking place in rapid succession in accordance with the customs of the time). The story runs through the years to Greenham Common and the Falklands war and beyond to the present day. But tonight was episode one and much remains to become clear. The rabbit was rather taken by the surrealism of a party set to the backdrop of Winston Churchill's funeral and left wondering what the drug taken before the fornicating was. It could not have been LSD, the thought went, as that drug was rare in 1965 and pretty much impossible to combine with fornicating, at least in the early stages of its effects, but I digress.


It is written by Paula Milne who has fessed up to the obvious, namely that it is semi autobiographical. She is plainly a part of a generation with an interesting collection of back stories. Oh, and the soundtrack is quality. It starts with the inevitable ...




Not to mention this one - I'd quite forgotten it but researches reveal it was released in 1965. US readers, I fear you'll have to wait until White Heat shows up on a public service channel or whatever ...

Neil Young mostly ,,,,

To slightly adapt a well known saying, work is something that happens to you when you make plans to blog. A lot of tearing up and down the country, then recovering by flopping in a heap doesn't make for serious - or even sustained frivolous - writing. So some music is in order - mostly Neil Young today. Starting with our man at the top of his game with My My Hey Hey from the Farm Aid thing. 'It's better to burn out than to fade away'. Hmmm ... I'll get back to you on that.

Neil Young of course first came to note via Buffalo Springfield- as did Stephen Stills (random fact: Stephen Stills was considered as a possible Monkee but it was decided that his teeth didn't pass muster). They produced one wonderful album (For What It's Worth) and a sort of theme song for the Vietnam war - For What It's Worth, did a lot of drugs and kept having infinitely confusing line up changes.


Then there was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, commonly known as CSNY, it must be said that a lot of their stuff was trite and sentimental as anyone who has cringed through Our House and/or Teach Your Children Well can confirm. But they also did all time rabbit favourite Helpless (written by Young). Annoyingly, the YouTube link to the Deja Vu studio version of Helpless has 'embedding disabled by request'. No problemo - just follow the link ..


Postscript: Or even better - and this shows the ridiculousness of the whole thing - same song, same album, different link - no embedding ..




All together now ...


There is a town in north Ontario
With dream  comfort memory to spare
In my mind I need a place to go
All my changes were there ...


Followed by one of the lines of all time ...


Blue, blue windows behind the stars

Then they also did Ohio ...

And finally as a very loud raspberry to a very rude woman who thinks the rabbit needs a haircut, here are Crosby, Stills and Nash from 2009 with Almost Cut My Hair Today. If you got it, flaunt it!

Let the overkill begin...

The London Olympics - which will plainly grind the city to a halt (probably literally) and suffer the hugest media overkill imaginable - is bound to bring out the contrarian in the rabbit. Hopping across London Bridge early yesterday morning, the rabbit was confronted by loads of professional photographers and their great big cameras on the east pavement. The object of their excitement? A float with the seven Olympic rings between London and Tower Bridges ...

Cue rolling of eyes. Compliments of the rabbit's homeboy Shiraz, here is a much clearer pic of the stupid thing ...

Today being the 29th February, by tradition women may propose marriage. The rabbit is open to all reasonable offers ...

And with Hat Tip to Charon QC ...

And a happy valentine's day ...

to all that could use such greetings!






And again in French  complete with pretty people ...

Things from facebook ,,,

Belatedly, and slightly against his better judgement, the rabbit signed up to facebook a while ago and above - with apologies to anyone who has seen it on his facebook page - it was stolen from the rabbit's homeboy Shiraz's page - is informative stuff on how to be made gay. If it doesn't work complain to Jester Wools (in the unlikely event that they still exist) and not to the rabbit.

Also from facebook - via a blogger near you (she may not want naming all over the blogosphere) is some more informative stuff. Never let it said that it was not educational chez rabbit...


The rabbit mentioned top Spanish organisation the CNT in a comment on Daisy's blog - adding something to the effect that it was the only political organisation he would contemplate joining but that was there, that was then. In fact it still exists and has a membership of 10,000 - to be contrasted with a membership of 700,000 in 1919! Rather a pity that - nice banner though.

A stern ticking off ...

Foreign Secretary William Hague denounced the Syria regime as 'murderous' in the House of Commons yesterday. Above is a recent study of Hague giving Syrian tyrant Bashar Al-Assad a stern ticking off as regards the latter's state as instrument of murder. Hat Tip to Old Holborn. For the sake of completeness, and in the interest of political balance below is former prime minister Tony B. Liar showing the now deceased Libyan dictator how all right minded people held his similarly murderous kleptocracy in contempt.