see what i mean?
the opposition parties giving the government a blank cheque.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1523910,00.html

"Mr Clarke's Tory shadow, David Davis, endorsed calls for calm and warned against the terrorist strategy to "demoralise and divide our communities" - which must not happen, he told MPs... "It goes without saying that the government will have our full support in dealing with this assault upon our society."

i, for one, don't understand what is required of me, if i am to remain "totally united" with the country against this threat; because that is what we are all exhorted to be. and, if i am not "totally united" with the government, or my fellow countrymen, does this mean that i am not part of the country?

i hope that this combined with the olympic news doesn't stimulate an upswelling of moronic patriotism. i expect it will. the dead have been conscripted. they died for the patrie, so they are martyrs, rather than just unlucky in being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

it has now been repeated, in all media, the mind numbingly cretinous statement that this was an evil act by evil people, so it came from nowhere, has no causes. there were no grievances to redress, because it was just plain evil. they hate our way of life. we must not "surrender to terrorism", apparently. what is "surrender" and what is "terrorism"?

bad day in london today, obviously.

i wasn't anywhere near the tube, and although i do get the 30 bus now and then, rarely if ever at that time of the morning. i was making a sculpture on my urban regeneration course, and only heard about all of it several hours after. of course i understand it could have been me, or anyone that i know and love, this thing wasn't aimed at anyone specifically, just more or less everyone.

i want the people who did this to be caught, and put on trial, and if found guilty, to go to prison for a long time. it is a criminal case, it doesn't have to be treated as an act of war.

 i do not want the suspects tortured, or their (or anyone else's) civil liberties suspended, nor do i want to see whole communities criminalised, or for this to be seen as a pretext for barbarous acts against other states and their people. i do not think that it is appropriate, under the guise of a mawkish national unity, for the opposition parties to roll over and allow the government to milk this for all it's worth in terms of draconian "security measures".

we will see this used, with perverse logic, as retrospective justification for the war in iraq (look, just forget about the WMD, it was all about terrorism really); "that's why it was right to invade iraq, we had to fight terror there, because just look at what it's done here".

we will see various lachrymose politicians visiting tube stations, or standing outside with police in yellow jackets, including blair, trying to reprise his sickening "peoples' princess" routine, this time sanctifying himself even more, with considerably more corpses to emote over.

we have already seen Condoleesa Rice, writing in a condolence book "your deaths will not be in vain". what the fuck? she has already conscripted them as martyrs into the war on terror. i'm sure that they would be very happy to hear that. and their families would.

blair says that we must not let this destroy our way of life, cos he's going to do his  best to do that for us with ID cards, and internment without trial.

 another picture of my mantelpiece. the sausage with a face is a dog toy from a £1 shop (as is more or less everything else) the CCTV camera is a false one, bought to be part of an as yet unmade sculpture. it is battery powered, and when someone goes near it, a red light comes on and it scans from side to side like a real one. but it doesn't have a battery at present.

still playing with my phone.....well i have sod all else on this weekend. i think that it's as quiet out there on the street as it is in here. can hear a few random drunks now and then, but nothing as compared to the usual. maybe it's early yet. the picture i took last night shows that it has been unearthly quiet round here.
anyway, this is my mantelpiece in my room. the objects shown, not all of which are decipherable are: german gingerbread heart, small plastic frog, old brass doorknob, found photograph of small girl with really crap facepainting, plastic model of an alsation, stoneware schnapps(?) bottle with picture of stuttgart, coffin shaped bar of soap with plastic skeleton embedded, cut off head from a resin ornament in the form of teddy bear (the rest was made into a sculpture), cheap pressed tin greek orthodox icon of virgin and child from the island of Tinos.









another part of my mantelpiece. objects include: ceramic ornament of bunnies ice skating with a dog (bunnies were dripped in glitter glue, which is now peeling off, like a skin), cut off head from a resin ornament in the form of  bunny rabbits in human drag (the rest was made into a sculpture)
one of those pressed tin plaques with body parts on (forget the proper name of them) that you can buy in certain churches to get a cure for the afflicted and depicted part.

the view from my window at approx. 12:30

i've got a phone again at long last!




and it can take pictures. (that is a hairbrush against my curtain, and a bit of my very red walls is visible on the left)





and this would be a still life.