A Couple Of Films That Made Me Feel Small

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This wee film really hits home quite how tiny we are on this poxy ball of rock orbiting a rather insignificant star.

These people need to be stopped! Have they not seen Planet Of The Apes!?! Damn them! Damn them all to hell!!

Why Proof Readers Are Impotent

Seeing this reminded me how important it is to get someone else to look over stuff before you publish. I myself once had hundreds of stickers printed with the wrong web address on. Doh!

I’ll get me coat, and scarf.

Well winter’s here at last. Two weeks till the celebration of the christ god and it’s only just started getting cold…in Glasgow. Ach well better late than never eh? I’m perfectly aware that the seasons have been out of kilter for some time now. I mean I saw butterflies last November for crying out loud. The seasons have been changing for a long while now, summers are wet, Autumns warm and winter gets later every year.
I love winter despite the inevitable melancholy it brings with it. I love the bitter stinging cold and the sound of the wind beating the city streets and howling through the tenements like wild children on a rampage.
I find it immensely satisfying to wake up and see my breath misting in the air above me. To feel the harsh bite of the cold on my face. Not that I’m going to let my landlord know this or he’ll never get around to fixing my damn boiler!
And to keep with the seasonal cheer here’s a picture of a guy frozen to death in the snow.

Why I Hate Clowns

The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, or CIRCA has been a seemingly de rigeur fixture within the direct actionist milieu since its manifestation during the run up to the G8 summit of 2005. When I first saw the clowns I must admit I was sick in my mouth a wee bit. However my misgivings at the time were laid to rest when I saw the effectiveness of the tactic during the carnival for full enjoyment in Edinburgh (04/07/05). Seeing the clowns making a joke of the police and defusing situations where people would have otherwise taken a severe beating from the old bill was quite something. It was also heartening to see the police stumped for what to do, after all they would have looked a bit daft giving a kicking to bingo the clowno wouldn’t they?

However much I appreciated the tactic at the time I am now flabbergasted to see clowns cropping up seemingly everywhere. A point in case is the recent buy nothing day “protest” in Edinburgh.

Now I’m not a big fan of Buy Nothing Day and don’t understand the idea behind it but that is not the issue here. What confuses me is the presence of otherwise sane people wearing pseudo-military clown outfits.

What, I asked myself, is the point of dressing up like a clown in these circumstances.

The tactic, one of reducing police aggression with “tactical frivolity” seemed a bit pointless when you’re handing out free grub and bits of tat to folk on Princes street. Hardly setting yourself up to wet the truncheons of the local forces of law and order now are we folks.

So why the clowns? In a situation like buy nothing day or the blockade of the shell petrol station a few weeks earlier you dilute your message with absurdity and alienate people who you want to listen to you. It seems that some folk have latched onto this clowning malarky and attempted to turn it into something more than it is, a tactic. It is a tactic in so much as a black block, samba band or shield wall is a tactic when confronted with a heavily armed and well organized police force in a public order situation. Taken out of this specific context the tactic is absurd.

Would you go out on a state approved demo in a black block? No so why go as a clown? The imagery of the clown detracts from any message you are trying to get across.

If people want to dress up as clowns in their own time that’s fine, go join the circus or something. Same goes for samba players, in your own time cool and black blockers…well you could just buy a playstation or something.

Save the tactics for when they are necessary, you look like a buffoon otherwise.