A Mad World, My Masters

Dom at a different rally

In the mad mood the country's in at the moment, yesterday found the BBC's Dominic Casciani, of all people, coming under sustained fire from certain (largely leftist) quarters for calling Tommy Robinson "an anti-Islam activist" rather than "a far-right activist" or "a fascist". 

The most common accusation was that by using such language the BBC was "normalising"Tommy Robinson and the far-right, with the more conspiratorial end of this Twitter faction smelling a deliberate BBC editorial decision to so do. 

There are plenty of demands for an apology. 

Such folly is par for the cause these days, but the idea that Dominic Casciani - Dominic Casciani!!! - was trying to do Tommy Robinson a favour and "legitimising hate speech and bigotry" is so utterly barking that every single person who made such a Twitter complaint should seriously consider moving to Barking, buying a kennel, setting up home inside and chewing on bones for the rest of their lives whilst listening to Ozzy Osbourne's Bark at the Moon on a loop forever . 

Oddly, earlier that day BBC Dominic had been busy mocking UKIP leader Gerald Batten on Twitter for spreading fake news: 

Gerard Batten: There are reports that water cannon may be deployed tomorrow in London, & that some of the police may try to aggregate and provoke Brexiteers. There is always the danger of provocateurs planted to cause trouble. I hope it is not true but I call on everyone present to be peaceful.

Dominic Casciani: Here are some facts rather than “reports”: Water cannons bought by Boris Johnson (as London’s Mayor) were banned by then Home Secretary Theresa May in 2015. Then they were sold off. Water cannons have never been used in disturbances in the UK other than NI.

Here are more facts than you cpuld ever want about the unauthorised Boris Johnson water cannons & why they were banned and sold off: Boris Johnson's unused water cannon sold for scrap at £300k loss

And here is the source link setting out government policy on why water cannons are not authorised: Home Secretary's oral statement on water cannon 

Incidentally, tonight's PM on Radio 4 had a very odd feature - a brief (one-and-a-half-minute) sequence of vox pop interviews by Dom C with Leave supporters outside Parliament, ending with one woman demanding that her friend being interviewed ask him where he came from. When he said "BBC", the crowd groaned in disapproval and the woman began chanting 'Fake news!' and 'Shame on you!' and a chorus of 'O Tommy, Tommy' went up. At which point the piece ended. Checking Twitter, I see a lot of clucking going on about it:

Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC: Disturbing clip on PM just now when Brexit demonstrators chant “fake news” after Dominic Casciani reveals he’s from the BBC. #trumpian. [Actually it was only one of the women who chanted that. The rest were singing about Tommy Robinson].
Dominic Casciani: I’m afraid this sentiment is emerging more and more in tense situations where some (but by no means all) Brexit supporters believe our coverage is lies and part of a conspiracy of elites.
Paul Waugh. Huff Post: So depressing to hear on PM Brexit protesters ask Dominic Casciani 'where you from?' When told BBC they shout "fake news! Shame on you!'.Those Remainers and Leavers, Tories and Labour MPs, who have perpetuated this Trumpish narrative, should be ashamed of themselves.
Dominic Casciani: There’s an anti news media sentiment building that makes many journalists feel unsafe. It’s influenced by online sharing and we’re not across it. When I and colleagues tried to find out why people came to Parly, most were decent and wanted to have their say. Some were hostile. Two examples: A woman was telling me there was a secret Lisbon Treaty annexe to merge the EU with N Africa. Why were the lying treasonous media “covering up” this Franco-German plot... She couldn’t point to evidence but she wouldn’t have it the plot was an online friction. Another woman (who didn’t shout at me) said the BBC was concealing child abuse up and down the land. This seemed to be linked to the Jimmy Savile mess, but now applied to an elite conspiracy to subjugate ordinary people.
Wesley Mallin, BBC: I’ve also had this. It takes a huge amount of effort to remain polite and professional. Like all conspiracy theorists I tend to ask them to explain the mechanism by which journalists are told to cover up this or that and they usually dry up.
Dominic Casciani: I give them my card and invite them to the newsroom for a cup of tea. I’m a bit disappointed no one has ever accepted the offer!

It's such a mad world that I'm tempted to add a video of the ever-perfect Perfect Day by Lou Reed, to cheer everyone up. I especially like its famous outro.: You're going to reap just what you sow. You're going to reap just what you sow. You're going to reap just what you sow. You're going to reap just what you sow...But instead I'll go with Ozzy:

Friday Night, Sunday Morning

Radio 4's obituary programme Last Word gave its closing spot today to Lou Reed. [You can hear this edition here, for the foreseeable future.]

It featured extracts from some of Lou's legendarily prickly interviews, where he made the interviewer's life less than easy - to say the least; though given the tedious predictability of the questions asked, I found myself rather rooting for Lou. 

I liked his answer to this question, from a later, mellower interview:

Q: What's 'The Last Shot' about? The line in it which says, "I shot a vein in my neck". Have you ever done that?

A: Steve, that's the same kind of question when I wrote a song called 'Heroin'. It was very important to people: Is this true, Lou? Did you really do this? Did you really take heroin?

See, if I said, "No, I didn't", they'd be very disappointed, because they wanted it to be true.

So, if you go up to someone who's a writer...I mean, suppose you went up to Dostoevsky and said "Listen, are you really just telling us about how you got money from this little old lady? Did you really do that when you were a student?"

On the fame of Perfect Day, Lou said:

"There are lots of songs I've got that are as good as Perfect Day. People just don't know them."

He also said that his songs get better known if he doesn't sing them, and that he's "an acquired taste."

Presenter Matthew Bannister had no hesitation, however, in describing him as a "great man".

It may be Friday night, but here's a lovely example of Lou Reed, matching the magic of Perfect Day, concerning Sunday morning (and featuring a celesta):

On Lou Reed

I don't know about you but wherever I seem to have turned in the last few days - whether it's the BBC's Today programme or the Daily Telegraph website or NotaSheep's blog - it's been Lou Reed all the way.

The late singer-songwriter's demise has sparked a considerable amount of interest and comment.

I will admit, however, to being mostly unfamiliar with much of Lou Reed's music.

I knew - on a quiz-goer's level - that he was the Velvet Underground guy - and that Velvet Underground did I'm Waiting For My Man - and, of course, I knew and liked Lou Reed's big solo hit 'Walk On The Wild Side' [though, rather like a stereotypical judge, I'd never picked up on the use of the word 'head' in the song], and I fondly remember Lou's namesake Oliver 'covering' this very song so enthusiastically [hic] on Wogan - which, as Grayson Perry might say, was art. [It was Walk On The Wild Side, wasn't it?]

The last few days, however, have brought to my notice Lou's original version of Perfect Day, so perfectly sung. I've never heard it before, yet have completely fallen in love with it.

Now, ol' Lou was [it seems] quite a character, and not an easy character. James Delingpole's blogposts about Lou Reed in recent day (and, yes, James interviewed him), have been fascinating - and somewhat surprising.

I've seen lots of deeply admiring writing about Lou Reed (including from NotaSheep) and quite a lot of negative comment too, but I was quite staggered [hence, feeling the need to blog about it] by a piece in the Daily Mail entitled [at length]:

A VERY debauched walk on the wild side: He did more than any other rock star to give drugs a false and dangerous glamor [sic]. Now, after a liver transplant in May, Lou Reed's own excesses have finally caught up with him 

By TOM LEONARD

Just a few hours after Lou Reed's death, Tom Leonard felt it appropriate to post an unremitting sneer at the singer. 

Even someone as fairly unfamiliar with Lou Reed as me could see that this was was a paint-the-dots hatchet job-attempt. 

I'd read about the 'Perfect Day'-Susan Boyle affair, for example, and knew that Tom was blagging. 

Tom Leonard says that Lou Reed made Susan cry by refusing to allow her to sing the song:

He reduced the Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle to tears in 2010 after he refused to let her perform Perfect Day on the America’s Got Talent TV show.

Wikipedia, however, notes that's there's much more to the story than that:

In September 2010, Susan Boyle had to cancel a performance on America's Got Talent at the last minute. She had planned to sing "Perfect Day", but two hours before the show, she was told that Lou Reed had intervened, refusing her permission to perform his song and to include it on her forthcoming album The Gift. As she and her choir didn't have time to rehearse another number, she decided to cancel her performance.

A couple of days later, representatives of Lou Reed stated that he had nothing to do with the decision and that it was just a licensing glitch. 

A couple of weeks later, Lou Reed agreed not only to let her include the song on The Gift, but also to produce her music video of the song. It was shot on the banks of Loch Lomond and premiered on 7 November 2010.

That seems to me to be a salutary reminder of how a certain kind of journalist writing a certain kind of piece can behave. 

Clearly, Tom Leonard cast this story in the blackest possible light and omitted all the subsequent part of the story where Lou Reed appears in a good light - indeed, as  the perfect gentleman - presumably because that didn't fit his chosen angle. 

Similarly, Tom Leonard makes a lot of Lou Reed's 'glamorization' of heroin, citing his fascinating song Heroin. 

Compare that with Neil McCormick's take on the same song at the Telegraph:

In the era of Sergeant Pepper and flower power, The Velvet Underground’s seven minute, two note drone about shooting up, speeding drug rush followed by grinding come down, feels like an extraordinary slap in the face to hippie drug culture. “Heroin will be the death of me,” sings Reed, who could never understand how the song might be misinterpreted as a pro-drug anthem.

I can quite understand, by the way, why Neil ranks that as the most 'essential' of Lou Reed's tracks. It's a fine example of youthful, Schubert-like genius.

Thankfully, all the top-rated comments below Tom's post take him to task, with a vengeance - and, in fairness to the Mail, they allow that to happen without censorship. [BBC moderators, please take note].

I have to say I'm old-fashioned in my belief that (unless it's Hitler) you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, within hours of their death at least.