http://bigbrother.channel4.com/bigbrother/   totally obvious link there - but it's back, and as i have watched every series since it started (thus proving that i have a sad and empty life) i thought it was probably necessary to add a word or two about it here. firstly, i think that the people they have writing the copy on the site this season must be moonlighting from the sun or sport newspapers "phwoooar! stunna! scorching! babe!". but i assume that they know their market.

also, i want to say (i bore anyone who'll listen with this every year) that it seems that the show is based on a form of false consciousness  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness, in the sense that these bozos tend to forget that it is a game - they are forced into competition with each other, or rather they voluntarily chose to be in this particular case, but it is a microcosmic representation of capitalist society's mores- and talk about what is "good for the group". when obviously, the group in that situation is the last thing they should be thinking of, if they want to win, which i assume they do. consequently, trouble makers, or the argumentative  tend to be nominated early, because (one of the contestants already said this last night, only day 2) they are here "for the fun side, not the argumentation". this means that there are really some pricks that believe that people will be watching to see a group of self congratulatory attention seekers "having fun", as if it is friends (minus the good jokes) or a fucking holiday programme! this must be because they believe that their "personalities" (unique selling point and valuable commodity in itself) are so fucking scintillating that we will watch them without the possibility of seeing fights, breakdowns, manipulation, betrayal, hypocrisy- all the other things that make it worth watching; plus the chance of catching a surreptitous (or not) shag.

as i expect i have said before, in a society that valorises the individual as the ultimate basic unit, because our roles as voters and consumers excercising individual choice are what lends the whole enterprise legitimacy; "personality" will become seen as the ultimate commodity. the biographical genre is the top selling form of literature - the adventures of the self- bourgoise porn. of course "personality" is not what in reality dictates our relation to the means of production- but it is a convenient fiction for the society that needs to see itself as predicated on individuals and their choices. this is another form of false consciousness.

which brings me to one of the most interesting of this years contestants (by the way, it is true that this year's are a big improvement on the hollyoaks clones that they seem to have been recruiting the past few years): kittenhttp://bigbrother.channel4.com/bigbrother/housemates/housemate_news.jsp?id=36 . she is as she has to be,  a shameless self publicist, describes herself as a lesbian feminist (don't know if seperatist) vegetarian, anti capitalist, political and animal rights campaigner. it does make you wonder why she wants to be on the programme at all - except for the possibility that she is actually manifesting a fantasy of mine, to go on the programme and use the 24 hour saturation coverage as a platform for exposing said false consciousness and disseminating revolutionary propaganda. i predict that she will last a week or two in any case, same as i would in her position. biting the hand that feeds, hopefully with vigour. this position is naturally fraught with ironies and ambiguities, which i expect she is too young and self-righteous (as any 20-whatever political campaigner needs to be) to see them, or have the wit to exploit them. also she is, as her youth and self- righteousness demands, eminently slappable. it's early to say, but she might be first or second out.

there are three candidates for first out: Nadia, portuguese transexual. i suspect this because she's slightly older and the older woman is always first out, she can make something out of the transexuality if she tells, but i think she will be saving this up to be used in an emergency. the next is ahmed, an older man, therefore destined to leave in the second week. this is a shame, he was an asylum seeker and is a muslim and i suspect that just these two facts will be sufficient to wind some people up. he also said, on the first night when he was conversing with some of the others about their reasons for entering the house that he "wants his existence to be acknowledged", and apparently can think of no better way of making this happen. this was honest, and maybe sad. the other thing about him is that he expressed some homophobic views -before he went into the house this is- and i sincerely hope that he will do so in the house. what has happened previous years is that the people who express any view contrary to the warm fuzzy liberal consensus soon leave, or mellow for self preservation. it is a love feast held under the benevolent star of "personality". that is, we tolerate anything as long as it is like us. otherness is awkward if it raises questions; whereas otherness that is like us (not really otherness then) we celebrate. everything is down to "personal choice". things are thus in blair's britain so also in the big brother house. oh, and the third and strongest contender to leave the end of the first week is the aforementioned kitten.

one would hope for heated debates that stretch the consensus, about gender and sexuality, race and immigration. i take it that this has dictated the choice of candidates, as well as who is most likely to get their kit off. i think though, on previous viewing that consensus will start to prevail, by say, the fourth week.

and an early prediction for the winner: jason, the scots muscle boy who entered the house in nothing but a thong and bow tie. he has tabloid appeal, if he has any latent homophobia/racism, it will be smoothed away very early by consensus/survival, he is friendly without being overbearing, a sort of solvent. plus he is male. a woman has only won once, that was in a year of such overwhelming blandness that the apalling jade goody became the star of the thing. but, just as the older woman is first out, so a woman is very unlikely to win.

and by the way - 1100 visits, whooooohoooo! this makes me feel good!

at home now, drinking.

thinking, as i tend to, at these moments, what a beautiful instrument the electric guitar is when played ineptly(ish) but with gusto. that fuzz filled wall, melancholic in its way, but with the power to grab you by the genitals. it's like a loved voice, when you can hear the strings still,and the air vibrating around them. even more so when rythmically speaking, it stutters and hesitates. when (and i have to say that this is the case with a lot of american nu-metal or whatever it's called) the stuttering, and the plaintiveness is produced out into a slab of 100% testosterone it resembles more a mass produced burger of hormone fed beef. pavement were a band that avoided this, for a while anyway, and kept the chaotic, (to be honest, fucked) human sound in the midst of the amplifier induced howl and fuzz. the strokes i believe have had enormous popularity, apart from being from new york, having good haircuts and rich parents, from the rawness of the gituar sound. raw, that is, in the sense of not being produced into blandness - it still sings- not raw as in "raw".

have a look at this:http://www.militantesthetix.co.uk/money.html i just spent a fair bit of the night on this site; it's fascinating - so i'd reccomend having a bit of a look round there.

spent the weekend at my grandmother's 90th birthday do....had a pretty good time- and it's the first time in years (since my grandad's funeral in fact) that we've all been under the one roof. - in fact, i'm not sure that we were all there for that. anyway, this time we got almost everyone there- except one of my cousins, who bottled out with "food poisoning" before the car left london. she's a veggie, which makes it pretty hard to get food poisoning.

it's a shame because i haven't seen her in years, despite the fact that she lives pretty near me, in tower hill. i don't blame her though, because she and our grandmother share a mutual loathing since she was small. when it was announced that she had go home ill, my grandmother asked "who?" feigning ignorance, and my aunt, the ill cousin's mother, understandably pissed off, retorted "your fucking grand daughter!" and stormed into the kitchen. she spent the rest of the day telling everyone that she was the invisible daughter, next to my mother (who is the oldest), and my uncle (who has the heady distinction of being male), she is the youngest and female. i think, knowing my grandmother, there is some truth in this.

i also witnessed a degree of competetive cooking going on- the three of them, my mum, my uncle and aunt had all brought food; but my mum and uncle had arranged the food together, making my aunt's contribution irrelevant. it was heartbreaking and absurd to see the three of them in the kitchen, my aunt trying to find a space to work around the other two, who seemed virtually oblivious to her and her burritos. it was not consciously done, or with malice; it was just how they've always done things. and she was invisible. the fact that she was slower to get her contribution to the table, due to the others' (instinctive) monopolisation of the kitchen also meant that everyone had eaten by the time she had the stuff ready, and therefore did not fall upon it with the correct gusto. for the rest of the day she would walk around periodically trying to feed people.

she doesn't all together help herself; she is a clot of unresolved injury and imminent offence-taking, waiting to be slighted, pushy, and competitive- her kids are the best looking and most accomplished, she name drops shamelessly, my uncle-by-marriage is a (once successful, now out of vogue) author, and through him she has met numerous people whose (first) names litter her conversation like well thumbed and greasy visiting cards. but there is no doubt that she is ignored. my grandmother effects to forget her name in front of her, and has even, before now, pleaded with my mother not to be leave them alone together"what will i say to her, what can i do with her?" - this is her own daughter that shes talking about; and as i said, doesn't know her children. and my mum and uncle, as they always have, i assume since childhood, take no notice of her. so she circled the house, attempting to feed and pleading for attention. my grandmother was not forthcoming, and we (mostly) did not eat.

before my aunt arrived, i was treated to a diatribe about her from my uncle's girlfriend, who i like very much, but is implacable as an enemy. this stems from before my grandmother's stroke. since the stroke, however, both my uncle and my mum have been making the weekly journey, one wednesday one saturday, to see after her. this is a long drive for both - he comes over from devon and she from london. my aunt rarely makes it - once or twice a year, maybe a bit more since the stroke. my uncle's implacable girlfriend feels that if she did her share it would be easier on the other two. this is true, but she has good reason not to want too much to do with her mother, reasons amply demonstrated later in the day. (my grandmother's stroke did damage her memory to a certain extent, but it is coming back pretty quickly, and she does know peoples' names, if she wants to) i tried to take my aunt's part in this, even though i do think she should do her share for her siblings' sake if not her mothers', because i think she must have compelling reasons for not coming. implacable girlfriend was having none of this, and it seems that her animus predates the stroke, perhaps back to my grandfathers' funeral. my aunt hated my grandad, who was not her father, but my grandmother's second husband, but turned up to the funeral in order to "support mum"; something that she did little of- instead getting drunk and saying that she was "glad the bastard was dead". true to form, everyone ignored her on that occasion - except, i think, implacable girlfriend, who noted it and held it against her, until a more concrete and pointed weapon could be found, the matriarch's stroke supplied her with this.

there is a showdown approaching, about money, and the party yesterday was just the next step. my grandmother has quite a bit of it. it has to be distributed somehow. because of the stroke, and her advancing years, executors have been appointed. the executors are the two eldest children, my mother and uncle; and not my aunt, on my grandmother's express wishes. we don't know why. this suits implacable girlfriend, because she doesn't think that my aunt has deserved to have any trust placed in her, and practically, if someone is to sign cheques, it is useful if they are around to do it. the thing is, i'm not sure if it occured to the two eldest that perhaps the aunt should be asked anyway, as a gesture that she was accepted. they just did it as they usually do, and sorted it out between them. this came out at the party - and aunt asked angrily why "she wasn't good enough to be a fucking executor"? everyone more or less ignored her. this is almost certainly better than telling her that her mother didn't want her to do it, but not exactly good.

i went for a walk with aunt and cousin, to defuse a potentially explosive situation, and to admire the local church. she extemporised at length on her sense of injury. she was a walking injury. not without reason, but without grace. she said that she knows my mother and uncle would never cheat her out of her part - which i know to be true, though i cant say as much for implacable girlfriend, with her punitive sense of justice - but to be an executor too would give her the sense of being accepted, which (again, the injury) she has never got. my cousin, her son, placidly ignored her and admired the romanesque windows. the fight, when it comes, will be ostensibly about money, what it will really be about, however, is something far more vital. it's a boring truism, but true (doh!) that families can be incredibly cruel.

aside from my grandmother's second husband, who was not a blood relative, though i always thought of him as my grandfather, and loved and admired him more than any other man i have known, men have not had a big impact in my family; being mainly ornamental and innefectual. (this is probably true of most families). there have been three generations of charming, dark haired, big nosed men, favourites, and forgiven a lot by the women; for the money and marriages that ran through their fingers, elegant fingers, and artistic, in a vague but interesting way. and yes, that does describe me, i am the latest installment, my uncle the one before; and before that, my biological grandfather. there is no next installment as yet, none of the younger ones, myself, my brother, or my two cousins, have spawned. in the case of myself and my brother, it seems unlikely.

"The repetition that abounds in history presupposes the whole history of repetition. the further back we go, the more repetition becomes shrouded in majesty. the rarer written traces become, the more imposing is the part repetition plays in them. it seems that signs are drawn chiefly to indicate how something must be repeated. protocol is the first literary genre. for something to have meaning, it must be repeated - and if one thing is to be repeated, everything must be repeated."  

                                              Roberto Calasso "The Ruins of Kasch" (trans.william weaver and stephen sartarelli) Vintage 1997

pattern, say in wallpaper for example; is obviously based on repetition. it is pleasing, unthreatening, insidious because it speaks to our compulsion to repeat. the eye can trace its patterns, lose itself in the geometry, but still feel a sense of mastery based on the predictability of the arrangement. at other times, the pattern can seem rigid, a prison. memory has similar tropes. the act of remembering has similar tropes. the same window, in a different house. the same gesture, in a different person. the same stimulus to remembrance, a favourite chair, smell, alcohol, lighting a cigarette, music. maybe patterns are made to cover walls, unobtrusively, as a required reminder, of how much we are made by, and how much we need, repetition.

the question is, how do you placate memory? i don't know the answer. i know that remembrance is different to nostalgia. both could be described, if so wished as   "dwelling on the past" (as if that's necessarily a bad thing). nostalgia is commodified past, i think though; and that's the difference. it's like victorian-style litter bins or the contents of national trust shops. fashion does nostalgia. remembrance is something different. it is characterised by continuity, or the attempt at such. re-membering = remaking the body. the fierce tenacity of memory. the process contains loss, as does nostalgia, but unlike nostalgia, refuses to accept this loss as irrevocable.

the past does not die. that was one of modernisms vital oedipal myths. corbusier's whitewash was meant to be an exorcism. the scrolls and ormolu of the belle epoque harboured ghosts, if only the ghosts of vegetation. heavy draperies whispered to themselves and created shadows. the past will not lie down with a stake through it's heart. the decorative, or kitsch, returns. it's flowers and foliage returns, psychedelic and vaguely threateningly vomit hued in the 70's, as laura ashley retreads of the 18th and 19th century in the 80's - in this case nostalgia..

i try to re-create every house i have lived in (and there's been quite a few) inside my head. and then walk through them, look out of windows, try to pick up and read the books left lying around there. then walk down the street. they coexist with me now. they have not gone.

i pass some of them, in this city every now and then. paintwork has altered (in most cases, improved, is cleaner). i'm sure they are newly painted or papered inside. but nothing will erase me from them - i still walk their hallways and stare from their windows - or them from me.

there was a theodolite standing on the corner of my street the other day, not doing a lot. i find the presence sinister. quite apart from the fact that it looks like something from war of the worlds.

in the old days (ancient) surveyors knew that the appropriate sacrifices must be made before breaking the ground, the planets must be aligned correctly, ancestors consulted and placated. now there's none of that, before they drop a fucking shopping center or car park or luxury flats for twats on your head.

george battaille said something like  the most enduring myth (of the c20th) was that we had no myths left. if they don't exist, they can be everywhere and we don't see them. so the sacrifices still happen, but not in the correct way, and what is sacrificed is not apologised to or placated (vital); and the sacrificers don't even know what they are.

what must always be placated is memory, or eventually it bites your arse.

there is a procedure, that way no one is confused.

i'm not the only one whose made this connection, it seems that the libertines have asked chas n' dave to support them at the reading festival this year. link to story here:http://www.efestivals.co.uk/news/040226b.shtml . there is a connection to be made between the  art/design/smug twats now in the east end, and the mockney tomfoolery of chas n' dave. the commodification of an area. the old east end is one our founding national myths (see eastenders, tight incestuous community, misplaced glottals etc.) blitz spirit, rhyming slang etc.

my music hall songs are obviously a simulacrum of a past that i don't remember (except for The Good Old Days http://tv.cream.org/ don't have very much info on this, except that it ceased in 1983, after running form the mid-fifies) and may not have existed. so is the modern mockney. it seems that roots are invented if they don't exist. we need them.

http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/adults/other/tbawm.htm and http://www.museum.tv/ETV/B/htmlB/blackandwhim/blackandwhim.htm for info on another variety format show that ran for longer than it probably should - the black and white minstrel show. this featured singers in "black face" - blacked up with white eyes and lips, which was derived from music hall minstrel acts. this too was based on a past that probably never existed - that of happy slaves in the deep south. i did toy with the idea of doing brahn umberella song in blackface. it probably wouldn't go down too well, which is fine.

the image of chirpy cockneys coughing their lungs up over a piano, can beformulated this way:

if you have no access to capital, learn to sing, or dance -

we will do the real work

we will buy the ground from under your feet

entertain us-

we might let you stay

 

here's the libertines music hall themed site (nav bar like c19 playbill):http://www.thelibertines.co.uk/    

you can check out chas n' daves lyrical genius here: http://www.chasndave.co.uk/newindex.html