PJ's Today

Hahahaha. Today I've been mostly listening to PJ Harvey’s Today programme. 

What a shocker!! (as they say on the tabloids) It’s just the type of thing I would’ve come up with, had I been invited, when I was about fourteen. No, twelve.

Of course what she really wanted to do, the imp, was to make Today, Radio 4 into a teen-pop programme like, say, BBC three, amateurish but without the wit.

All the items I heard seemed to be survivors of self-awareness-ectomies. Or should that be otomies.

Pilger! Actually he said many spot-on things about media manipulation but forgot to mention that he is himself the arch media manipulator, nay, the king of media bias, both by emoting and omission. 

Then, obviously Assange. The penultimate and much awaited Thought for the Day. 

As many others have noted on the interweb, his whinge was a self-serving plea for an unabated information free-for-all. 

Let’s circumvent the democratic process, he might as well say, which is after all as flawed as the people we elect. Let’s let every member of society have a say in every facet of governance, perhaps in the form of multiple referenda, or is that referendums, so that everyone can ‘ave a go at deciding stuff. Yippee.

I can’t help agreeing with those who don’t see any harm in a bit of coercive questioning, especially if it’s regulated and justified. I know they’ve stopped police doing it. They now have to wait patiently for a voluntary confession. 

But I’m infantile enough to succumb to a bit of bad-taste sniggering at the anti-war version of When Johnny comes Marching home. I kept thinking of Ivor Cutler’s song The Boo Boo Bird. 

If you don’t know Ivor Cutler, imagine a lugubrious Scottish delivery, largemente, accompanied by a mournful harmonium. 

I can’t find the exact lyrics, but if I remember it goes something like:

“I am the Boo Boo Bird.

Of all the birds I am the most absurd.

I have no tail.

I have no wings.

I have no legs.

I have no head.

I have no body.

I’m invisible.”

________________________________________________

Ivor solemnly pronounces ‘bird’ almost as ‘beard’, and ‘invisible’ ‘invisibille’

I enjoyed the whole thing because it was so absurd, and righties who are too incensed are liable to make themselves look pompous, which will no doubt delight PJ.