407. Why have I heard of ‘Rylan’?

 Why have I heard of ‘Rylan’?

I don’t even have TV!

 

I spent the weekend with television

And this is what struck me.

 

I’ve heard of a guy who according to 40 seconds internet research became famous for coming 5^th in the 11^th series of a talent programme I’ve never watched.

 

Even if I hadn’t given up on TV last century I would have avoided this type of offering  like – well – The Covid.

It’s a talent programme where, as far as I can tell from my further ‘research’ on You tube, the aim is to take a song or imitation of a famous person – preferably one well known but not too badly invested with original talent themselves and shit on it. Creatively murder the thing that has been done before by hundreds of others and better by at least 99% of them – but with an unassailable lack of self-awareness.

And , having failed at that – according to my 10 second Wikipedia ‘research’ R went on to another coveted staple of British entertainment – reality TV. And that, it seems is why – having spent the weekend in a house with TV, I saw an orange face with ken doll hair and nuclear teeth and knew this person’s name was Rylan.

WHY?

It used to be that to be famous – you had to do something. Play a thing  - however badly, or sing a new song – however awful, say witty things or write a thing or have something quirky about your personality / have a personality. Even back in the days of Saturday Night at the London Palladium – a guy who could bang a tray on his head in a way you’d never seen a guy bang a pub tray before could get on.

It’s not that I don’t wish this guy as much luck as anyone else. I’ve never met him and am sure he is – on a personal level – as ok as the next person.

BUT

Is this it? Is this now Britain for good? Not an aberration, not a blip. We have to tell our kids that writing, creating, being original is not what counts. Work on your fake perma-tan…

Problem is - I have a sneaking suspicion it – whatever IT is - may explain why the current crop of non-entities, topped off by the pig-in-a-suit, are being paid to masquerade as leaders of the country. The country is, after all, being run like a failed game show.

To look at it from the other perspective – I have less than zero interest in football. The closest I came to any real involvement was back in the dark ages when I was a Newcastle City councillor and sat on the planning committee at a time when St James football ground was given planning permission to extend their premises. That’s it. And yet, I fully understand why I’ve heard of Ronaldinho. The star quality of  Ronaldinho de Assis Moreira  shone so brightly from the firmament that it even glittered far outside the football realm.

But I don’t understand why I’ve heard of Rylan any more than I understand why Johnson is Prime Minister… It matters because Johnson and his ilk are not going to save the planet, they are going to (and are) fiddling while Rome burns.

So I say again. I understand why I’ve heard of Ronaldinho. But why oh WHY have I heard of Rylan?

406. England’s Deference Disease is destroying Britain.

The Deference Disease is rampant in a bizarre England that has, for centuries, supported/ voted for an elite that has never had the interests of the majority at heart. This strange phenomenon – accomplished with sleight of hand, anti-foreigner rhetoric, duplicity and the age old trick of divide and conquer – has had the unfortunate effect – more apparent now than ever – of dragging the less populated countries of the union, down with it. Case in point, either Ireland or Scotland voted for Brexit or Boris.

I’m not fool enough to try and explain Wales…

The Deference Disease was damped down a little after WWI and significantly after WWII but has gone crazy this century. New, less easily recognised but aggressive variants have invaded all organs; the media, politics and wider society.

No, it’s not just the ridiculousness of the royal family – I mean their very existence. A cabal of racist in-breds, currently protecting a suspected paedo – who, despite their wealth are still supported from the public purse as those actually in need forge in food banks.

 It’s not just the different standards so clearly applied to people depending on where the English public see them in the stultifying social strata. It’s not just the starkly differing life chances that still depend on which school you attended and it’s not just that your chances of living a long healthy life directly follows what class you were born into (increasingly so). It isn’t even the worshipful status afforded to the who-even-is-that parallel new elite of done-nothing celebrities who’ve bared their dull souls, shallow personality and baby bump/new partner/near-death experience/new kitchen in an ‘exclusive’. No. It’s all of the above and x1000.

More immediately we’ve seen a Prime Minister too involved in the mess of his own private life – mishandle a pandemic to extraordinary levels but still riding high in the opinion polls. A man who’s cowardice is on open display. He was absent for the I’ll lie down on the runway to prevent Heathrow expansion – vote. And was absent again – sunning his blubber in a mate’s holiday villa with the latest daughter-age blonde – sorry Mrs Johnson 3rd – when the half arsed report was published about the UK’s covid failures.

Is it because the nature of the catastrophic mishandling of covid was so huge, the waste and loss of life so vast? Maybe. I would argue that a similar outcome delivered by a Labour or SNP administration would have been torn to shreds by an enraged public led by a howling press and media. Why do Brits – and especially the English, accept things from those at the top of the social pile that they would not from those lower down? It has to be the Deference Disease. Partly – they are just expected to behave like that and let’s face it – much of life these days is about managing expectations.

Not only has Boris Johnson gotten away with being a racist, misogynistic, lying coward - he was elected PM after these things were known. A la Trump. He has behaved corruptly – buying water cannon to use on the credulous Londoners who elected him mayor. More recently, when the mad idea of a bridge from Scotland to Ireland re-surfaced (presumably the millions of pounds in feasibility will go to Tory mates like the PPE contracts) I scanned the press for reference to his previous bridge scandal – The Garden Bridge – and came up empty handed.

How does this work? (That is not a rhetorical question; if you know tell me…)

Johnson’s Brexit minister Lord Frost is currently bitching and whinging about the Brexit deal he negotiated and his master signed amid claims it was a great deal for Britain. Those of us who could see it was a disaster where ‘doom mongers’ then. Now Frost is expecting (and getting from the fawners and toadies) credit for being tough on old johnny foreigner. The only problem is, as almost anyone paying attention has pointed out, it’s his deal.

Yes – I know that whenever the peasants get restless – the toffs just start screeching and scare-mongering about foreigners and – here’s a flag to wave – and oh look – here’s a rich dullard in dressing up clothes and a crown – how marvellous.  But dear god – that might have worked in 1381 – WHY IS IT STILL?

While this Deference Disease is damaging us from within – preventing the real talent from rising and ensuring that we are governed by the half-baked (Raab), the witless (Frost) the gormless and slimy (Gove) the talentless bullies (Patel) etc etc etc– that is not the worst of it.

When we look ‘up’ and see incompetence and politically and socially incestuous behaviour choking our progress in the world it is a depressing sight. However, for a while now – the rest of the world has not been looking up to Britain. It’s been staring down - in disbelief.

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on a lighter note. Its the Leamington poetry festival this weekend. I'll be performing at the comedy event on Saturday night at The Temperance.

405.The Legends of Eleanor Catherine - real books for real girls!

 

Much as I dislike mentioning the 'C' word before December - for obvious reasons there is more panic than usual and - spoiler alert - Johnson is no more going to 'save Christmas' this year than he did last year. So, if you know young readers who'd enjoy an adventure book where the girl hero is front and centre and, in various guises, the hero throughout, here is a handy suggestion while I have a week off.

'Funny, exciting, quirky...' 

Yes it's a trilogy therefore if you like one, there's pudding. However, each story stands alone so you could just pick the one you fancy. Click My BOOKS or navigate to your favourite online book retailer. Available in e-book or paperback

NB: print-on-demand books are environmentally friendly but take longer to arrive.

404. Toxic Masculinity & Britain’s Careless Patriarchy. We should be worried…

 

…but not surprised.

So, Britain’s growing toxic masculinity problem seems to have come as a surprise even though our main political institution is run by a Toxic Male and our most prominent tourist institution (royal family) is currently protecting a Toxic Male at great expense from facing up to child trafficking charges; both being given the soft glove treatment by a limp UK media.

Britain began the century with a privileged public schoolboy illegally invading Iraq (destabilising the middle East, setting off a wave of migration that further undermined fragile international balance, sending wealthy western nations into a panic – which fed into the 2008 crash [the result of other posh brats’ unfettered greed and lack of regulation]) Now we totter into the third decade, dragging the carcass of Brexit after a massive lurch to the right and increasing macho nonsense. Mix in 11 years of Tory austerity culminating in a populist fool whose middle name – if it weren’t ‘de-Kermit’ might be Careless Toxic Masculinity.

Boris Johnson is a toxic male and it’s partly that trait – covered, as it often is, by the bravura and always accompanied by his own poisonous brand of carelessness – disguised as charm – that got him elected. And the defences wheeled out by all his excusers are of a colour applied to all abusive, powerful, recklessly careless inconsiderate men ‘oh – it’s just Boris’. What does that even mean? Maybe Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe or the Muslim “pillar box” women or the various discarded wives and families could explain. Or even the currently mesmerised one – she of the gold wallpaper -who did once cause the police to be called on her then married partner over ‘a domestic’…

Toxic Masculinity goes hand in hand with failing Right-wing administrations.

The police force and The Met in particular is suffering a crisis of confidence both internally and from the public that has for years been suspicious of its attitude to race. Now, its attitude to women is in the spotlight with falling rape convictions and aggressive attitudes to women in the headlines.  The police approach to the vigil, held for the murdered young London woman, drew unfavourable comparisons set against their attitude to football fans in Glasgow who congregated – also in breach of then covid restrictions - but who were treated with a very different hands-off approach.

These are simply the most visible and news worthy incidents of a society that has become more right wing, populist, fearful and oppressively macho this century.

As the post-war social gains have been steadily eaten away before the very eyes of my generation, lucky enough to have benefitted from at least free higher education – it seems that hard-won steps towards equality are also being eroded.

Racism – which seemed to my naive eyes to be at least moving to the back foot – at least unacceptable in public even if not in people’s heads at the turn of the century, has seen a resurgence under the unfortunate growth of the rabid right and the anonymity of social media.

Women, still having not achieved equal pay for equal work have lost their 5 years of earlier retirement than men - ironically on the basis of a gender equality which takes no account of the effects of maternity breaks or their lower pay, fewer opportunities or the sexism they face in the work place daily. Suddenly our society, so loaded towards men, found it needed equality in one of the few areas that would harm women.

On a much less important level there are parallels with the case of driving insurance (stay with me). It used to be the case that young women could get cheaper car insurance because stats showed they were less likely to have serious accidents than young men. No, no - said the predominantly male judiciary system. On this one we want equality – never mind the figures. So, the ‘facts’ and ‘stats’, that all insurance is based on – were overridden in favour of more faux equality. 

It’s amazing, when the patriarchy suddenly finds itself in favour of equality for women it is never when it is actually going to benefit women.

Right wing societies are often synonymous with overtly patriarchal, sexist systems and have historically denigrated and oppressed woman.

I am only sad that the ‘reclaim the night’ marches of my student days in the 1980s, now morphed into Reclaim these streets - have never seemed more relevant.

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