Can you honestly imagine Lenny Bruce or Bill Hicks submitting to the discipline of the Whips?

That was the Right Honourable MP for Ealing North, Stephen Pound, on this evening’s PM programme on Radio 4,  once again justifying his status as one of the only contemporary British politicians I’d happily buy a pint for.  Following the news that US satirist Al Franken had been elected as Minnesota Senator, Pound and comedy writer John O’Farrell were discussing whether its possible for a comedian or satirist to become a politician and remain funny.   Pound felt that it was unlikely, partly because a true satirist like Bruce or Hicks could never slavishly tow the party line.  He thought it was a shame, because “most MPs are so buttoned-down, they’re so tight, they’re so butt-clenchingly anxious not to give offense or do anything but pitch to the middle vote.”

Refreshing stuff.

To his credit, this isn’t the first time Stephen Pound has name-checked the mighty Bill Hicks.  According to his Wikipedia entry:

In February 2004 he initiated an early day motion mourning the 10th anniversary of the death of comedian Bill Hicks, calling him “unflinching and painfully honest” and his words “a bullet in the heart of consumerism, capitalism and the American Dream”.

I first heard of  Stephen Pound during Christmas 2003, when Radio 4’s Today Programme asked listeners to suggest laws that they’d like to see added to the statute books.  A shortlist was reached, listeners were invited to vote for their favourite and the Right Honourable MP for Ealing North agreed to provide political support to the winning law.  With the toe-curling predictability of an episode of Baywatch, the Great British public backed the most bloody-minded, vindictive, just-to-the-right-of-Genghis Khan option available.   Pound’s on-air reaction was priceless:  “Well, the people have spoken – the bastards.”

I’ve owed him a pint ever since.

I should be watching Bruce Springsteen at Hyde Park tonight.

As I may have mentioned previously, I tried to buy a pair of tickets on the morning they went on sale but – quelle sur-bloody-prise -  it was too late.  It had sold out within a fraction of a picosecond.  Since then, an inordinate amount of time has been spent entering every damn chance-in-a-million competition for Springsteen tickets I could find, but to no avail.  I even thought of buying tickets from an online tout but – after seeing the hideously inflated prices on offer – that option was swiftly ruled out.  Possibly within a fraction of a picosecond, too.

Clare couldn’t go on account of our 9 week-old baby Edie, so the plan was for me to take my 5 year-old stepdaughter, Lily, who’d never been to a concert before.  Lily is a fan of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, High School Musical and The Sound of Music.  I’m probably responsible for 50% of her favourite artists, but I’ll let you guess as to which ones they are.

In any case, Lily and I were understandably grumpy today.  To make matters worse, my little brother Rob went to Glastonbury this weekend so he saw Bruce and the E-Street Band perform a storming set at the Pyramid Stage last night.  He phoned me this morning.  He wasn’t intentionally gloating; it just felt that way.

“I’m jealous of Rob,” said Lily.

I winced.  Jealousy is a negative emotion I’d never heard Lily express before.  I wanted to be  responsible adult and encourage Lily to redirect this negativity in a more positive and constructive way.  Then again, she was talking about a Bruce Springsteen concert.

“Me too,”  I said.

We have heard the chimes at midnight…

- Shakespeare, Henry IV

For as long as I remember, Orson Welles’ 1965 film Chimes at Midnight (AKA Falstaff) -- in which The Great Round One shamelessly yet seamlessly spliced together five different Shakespeare plays to create one cinematic masterpiece -- has been fiendishly difficult to get hold of.   Thanks to some decades-old, migraine-inducing ownership issues, you can’t buy, rent or borrow one of history’s most influential films in the English-speaking world and screenings continue to be as rare as rocking-horse shit.

I’m sure the legal shenanigans will eventually get sorted and the film will, at some point or other, get the lovingly-restored, Criterion Collection quality release it deserves.  However, if -- like me -- you don’t feel particularly inclined to wait another few decades to find out, some public-spirited soul has uploaded a rather decent copy of Chimes at Midnight in its entirety to YouTube.

Here it is:

Seventy-five years ago today, the notorious American outlaw John Dillinger was shot to death by FBI agents as he was leaving the Biograph Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.   The film Dillinger was watching was called Manhattan Melodrama, which went on to win Academy Awards for Best Screenplay, Best Original Story and Best Tasteless Marketing Campaign  (1935).  Nobody knows whether Dillinger liked the film, but this was probably due to the fact that FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover had ordered his G-Men to adopt a strict policy of  “Shoot first, ask critical opinions later”.

Tonight, a silent vigil will take place outside the Biograph Theatre, Dillinger’s final croaking spot.  If that sounds like too much trouble, you can always wait until next week and go see Public Enemies, Michael Mann’s gangster epic that stars Johnny Depp as Dillinger.  With any luck you won’t be shot as you leave the cinema.

Upon reflection, I suppose this renewed interest in Dillinger is quite timely.   Dillinger, after all, came to prominence  during a period of tremendous economic hardship.  Financial institutions were going to the wall and bankers and politicians were as popular as turd souffle.  In this climate, someone like Dillinger could be regarded as something of an urban hero.  Instead of letting a collapsing economy get to him, he took matters into his own hands.  Sure, he stole money, but at least he did it with a certain style and charisma and was always above board when it came to matters of disclosure.  He never lied about where the money came from.

Last night’s vigil was organised by the John Dillinger Died For You Society, one of those 60s counterculture mischief-making enterprises like Discordianism and the Church of the Sub-Genius that I’ve always been rather fond of.  According to Robert Anton Wilson:

The John Dillinger Died For You Society, run by a pseudonymous “Dr. Horace Naismith” (allegedly a Playboy editor by day and a maniac only by night), accepts as its savior John Dillinger, the gunman who robbed 23 banks and three police stations before he was shot dead by FBI agents in 1934. JDDFYS members place memorial wreaths and floral bouquets at the Biograph Theater, where Dillinger was gunned down, every year on the anniversary of his death, June 22. Their major spiritual teaching comes from Mr. Dillinger, whom they call St. John the Martyr, and consists of the words, “Lie down on the floor and keep calm,” (St. John said this often to nervous and agitated bank officials before looting their tills). Every member ordained by Dr. Naismith gets a membership card making him or her an Assistant Treasurer, entitled to collect tithes from any new disciple naive enough to remain a disciple and not become an Assistant Treasurer, too, by writing to Dr. Naismith for a card.

Dillinger certainly had a way with words.  When it comes to quotes and aphorisms, he was something of a cross between Oscar Wilde and Raymond Chandler.  My favourite Dillingerism has always been:

“You get more with a simple prayer and Thompson sub-machine gun than you get from a simple prayer alone.”

As other people smarter than me have noted, this seems to sum up the foreign policy of most countries.

Well, that’s it then…

I’ve just watched the final episode of the mighty Battlestar Galactica.  I’m probably one of the last of the show’s legion of fervent fans to have seen its finale, but so it goes.  I’m talking about the 21st Century Ron Moore-produced reimagining of BSG, of course, not the original 70s show with Lorne Greene and Faceman.  My lag time’s bad, but it’s not that bad.

First impressions: I liked it lots.  It was a sometimes perplexing but overall satisfying conclusion to one of the most consistently brilliant shows in TV history.   I even welled-up on a couple of occasions, but – like Jermaine in Flight of The Conchords – I’ll put that down to an inflamation of my tear gland (or, like Artie in The Larry Sanders Show, a bad case of “manly misting”).

I’ll let it all sink in, then maybe say more about it later.

This is my first WordPress blog post.  Doesn’t it look nice?

I’ve spent the last few days migrating my blog from Blogger to WordPress and making my new hi-res des-res look presentable.  No doubt I’ll be tweaking it relentlessly over the next few days.   The blog, that is.  Have to make sure the place looks tidy -- you never know, I might get some surprise visitors.

Moving home is supposed to be one of life’s more traumatic life-changing events, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my good friend Pete Ashton for helping to make this such a seamless transition by providing a veritable plethora of practical help coupled with an endless supply of patience.  If it wasn’t for Pete, I’d probably be stuffing all my old blog posts into tea chests while waiting for the Pickfords van to arrive.

Still, like any life-changing event, this is a move that’s tinged with sadness.  I’ll miss you, Blogger, and I’ll always be fond of you.  You introduced me to the world of blogging.  You taught me everything I know.   Sure, before we met I briefly dabbled with a MySpace blog, but that wasn’t the same.  You provided me with a stable environment and a user-friendly GUI, but after two years and almost 250 posts I felt it was time to move on.

I hope you understand:  it’s not you, it’s me.

Last December I was driving past the former Matthew Boulton College building on Sherlock Street in Birmingham as it was being demolished. Clare was in the passenger seat, but seeing as though neither of us were former students at the place and it wasn’t an old cinema it failed to elicit any kind of emotional response worth mentioning.

A few weeks later we drove past it again. All that was left of the college was a big pile of rubble, but that didn’t particularly bother me, either. Civil engineering was never my strong suit, but the one thing I do know is that rubble is an inevitable byproduct of knocking down a building.

A few weeks ago Clare & I once again passed the former Matthew Boulton College on Sherlock Street in Birmingham. On the site of the erstwhile big pile of rubble was a reasonably large field. This didn’t look like freshly rolled-out turf: it looked like it had been there forever. Despite the fact we were driving past it at a reasonable speed we could even see weeds.

“I remember when all this was buildings,” said Clare, wistfully.

“Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole”
- The Modern Lovers

Last Thursday evening we were driving home from Wales. Clare was sitting beside me and the kids had fallen asleep on the back seat. The two grown-ups were about to have a proper grown-up conversation when a jet black Citroën Xsara Picasso overtook us somewhat aggressively. The grown-up conversation was put on hold. “The Citroën Picasso,” I snarled with mild indignation. “What do you think old Pablo would have made of that?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Clare. “Why don’t you tell me. I can see you’re itching to.”

So I did:

“I think he would have hated it. I mean, there he is: this major big-ass icon of the 20th Century, a bona fide cultural heavyweight who revolutionised art and transformed the way in which we see the world. People like that don’t want to end up becoming synonymous with a safe and sensible family car. It’s bad for the image. If you ask me, I think he’d be pretty damned furious that his descendants were so willing to whore his name off so indiscriminately.”

“Really?” said Clare, somewhat dryly. “I bet they didn’t get a penny.”

“Really?” said I, somewhat dimly. “That makes it worse. At least, I think that makes it worse.”

There was a moment’s silence as I gathered my thoughts and watched the red tail lights of the popular MPV fade into the distance.

“It’s all about design principles,” I continued. “If you’re going to name a car after someone like Picasso then at least try to remain faithful to your source of inspiration. A proper Citroën Picasso wouldn’t look anything like that. For one thing, there’d be none of those functionally streamlined elegant curves. The real deal would be cube-like, wilfully asymmetrical and feature oblique references to the Spanish Civil War. Plus, all the wheels would be different sizes.”

“It’d be a bugger to drive,” said Clare. “You struggle with parallel parking at the best of times.”

I was now in full-on monologue mode, so I managed to deftly side-step my partner’s sarcasm: “Why stop with Picasso?” I said. “I want to see a range of family-friendly, design classic MPVs inspired by the greatest artists of the 20th Century. Just imagine a Citroën Dalí! A vulgar egg-shaped monstrosity with a massive pair of waxed windscreen wipers, a melting speedo and a Sat Nav that refers to itself in the third person.”

“Or a Citroën Pollock,” said Clare.

“What’s that like?” I asked.

“It’s like a Citroën Picasso that’s been in an accident.”

Well, no, he isn’t really – and he probably won’t be, either – but we all know in our hearts that he should be. Here’s a rather clever fan-made trailer from someone who agrees…

We spent yesterday in Wales visiting my old friends Jude & Jonathan at their secluded lakeside retreat located somewhere between Llanidloes and God Knows Where (Dduw Chnotiau Ble). I introduced my old friends to my new family and, for the second time in my life, tried to water ski. It was not a dignified sight.

The journey involved us driving up some ridiculously steep inclines, negotiating some svelte-like country lanes and indulging in the kind of hairy off-road antics that my modest Citroen Saxo is not best equipped for. The Saxo might be fine as an urban runabout, but last time I checked ‘driving through a field filled with sheep’ wasn’t one of its unique selling points.

(It’s sitting outside the house now, looking slightly forlorn and covered in a generous coating of babyshit-brown mud. My neighbours must think I’ve taken up rally driving.)

In any case, as we approached our destination we saw a rather disturbing sight. Next to a particularly treacherous bend on a particularly skinny stretch of a particularly vertigo-inducing country lane sat the corpse of a white Vauxhall Corsa. It was smashed to smithereens and looked as though it had been sitting there for quite some time. The most disturbing thing about it, though, was that it was covered in graffiti. Scrawled all over the car in black spray paint was the following sinister message:

HA ha HA HA Ha HA HA ha HA HA Ha HA HA ha HA HA Ha HA HA ha HA HA Ha HA HA ha HA HA Ha HA HA ha HA HA Ha HA HA ha HA HA Ha HA

Maybe it was because I watched too many horror films at an impressionable age, but I couldn’t help but feel ill at ease. Was this an omen of some kind? Should we turn back? Had we stumbled into some weird, Deliverance-style pocket of wrong?

As it happened, the day passed without incident. I can only assume that the white Corsa festooned in HAs was some kind of weird tribute to the late Heath Ledger.