FCC

shhhhhh

Something's occurring at the Camden Town white rectangle. 

You ain't see me.... right? Oh, and what's with the new QR code? 


Any answers?

no one looks good

No sooner does this is my england construct a defence of the use social media than somebody mentioned in that article decides to draw attention to himself by messing around on Twitter in just about the most crass way possible.

Enter QPR captain Joey Barton, a somewhat complex person able to veer wildly between acts of lunacy, acts of apparent stupidity and instances of presenting himself as an intelligent and quite interesting person. In recent interviews, the player has come across as articulate and with a well-rounded range of interests away from the game.

But Barton's chequered past is, of course, well-known. There's the two convictions for acts of violence, and further aggressive and unsavoury incidents besides. Then there's the several notable confrontations with opponents on the football pitch, some of them violent. Down the years, the midfielder has attracted opprobrium for notable clashes with the likes of Dickson Etuhu, Xabi Alonso, Morten Gamst Pedersen and Gervinho. 

When Barton joined QPR early this season, the tussle with Arsenal's Gervinho was just days behind him. Rangers manager Neil Warnock articulated the notion that on talent alone the former Manchester City and Newcastle player would have been a transfer target for higher profile clubs were it not for his "baggage". This seems pretty obviously true.

It was with mixed feelings, then, that some QPR supporters waited for the serial controversialist to make his Loftus Road début.

Thus far, on the pitch at least, Barton's performances have, for the most part, quieted the doubters. In some games, not least the recent appointment with his former employers from the blue half of Manchester, the Rangers skipper has looked excellent. That said, some QPR messageboard regulars have not been impressed with every one of Barton's outings in a hooped shirt. One common feeling seems to be that if a player identifies himself as the best English born midfielder currently playing he thereby sets for himself an impossibly high standard against which he will be judged every time he takes to the pitch. Excellence, then, becomes expected and scorn may be attracted when this expectation is not quite met. Hoisted by your own petard, Joey?

As well as signing a highly talented player capable of drawing negative attention for on-the-pitch indiscretions, Warnock and the club owners will also have been aware that they were taking on someone whose constant use of Twitter was well-documented. During his somewhat acrimonious parting from his previous club, Barton seemed to be using that medium quite skilfully to try to maintain good relations with Newcastle fans during the split.

Up to now, the player's tweeting activities while employed by QPR have seemed harmless enough - sometimes even quite amusing. Further, Twitter offers ardent football supporters the opportunity to feel closer to the players they pay money to watch. Via Twitter, we can see banter between team members that seems to provide evidence of good-humour and camaraderie. So we can feel reassured that all is well in the squad - that the new signings have bonded with the established players, that team spirit is good, that the lads are a decent bunch. So far, so good.

But yesterday Barton chose to become involved in a tedious exchange of insults with members of the 'cast' of the bafflingly popular TV freak show The Only Way is Essex. For the (blissfully) unaware (non-UK readers, perhaps), this singularly dismal series follows the lives of vacuous, perma-tanned denizens of affluent suburban  areas to the east of London. Viewers do not see 'reality'. What is offered instead is apparently real people in 'modified situations' saying 'unscripted lines' but in a 'structured way'. Wrap your head around that concept for a moment, if you will. 

These inarticulate and uninteresting people 'work' variously as nightclub promoters, models, beauticians and radio DJs. No real jobs then. No lawyers, surgeons or lecturers. No nurses, bus drivers or plumbers. Just people enabled, presumably, by their parents' wealth to do things of marginal value while apparently living quite ostentatiously. In short, these are people that exemplify a lot of what is unpleasant about today's Britain, notably that while millions of decent, hard-working people struggle to pay the gas bill and run the car, there exists an element living comfortably while contributing nothing of real worth to society or to the economy. It seems inconceivable that a healthier, happier, saner society would offer these people such an opportunity for self-promotion or further enrichment. 'TOWIE' seems emblematic, then, of a certain sickness among us.

The TOWIE cast, then, seem like people that it would be best to ignore. What can be gained from increasing their supply of the oxygen of publicity? What good can come of engaging in an argument with such vain, preening airheads? As George Bernard Shaw memorably said, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

Barton, then, is wrestling with pigs who clearly like the extra attention. But has he got dirty in the process? Yes. Most definitely. The fact that a QPR player has now been condemned by a spokesman of learning disabilities charity Mencap for his use of the term "retard" during this undignified spat does not really do the club any credit.

Well, we knew that life with Joey Barton at the club would not be plain sailing. All that can be hoped for, perhaps, is that continued strong performances on the field of play do more than enough to compensate for this otherwise intelligent man's lamentable tendency to do his already tarnished reputation further damage. 

tumblin'

this is my england is now mindlessly reblogging superficially attractive but meaningless images with the best of 'em. see. follow. like. reblog. repeat ad nauseum. then come up for air.

your super soaraway sun

nineteen years old and angry:
clutching the kalashnikov, the holy qur'an
the throats of black men,
and the hope of change;

leaning on the shovel:
300 hunks of hated flesh
worked into the hard, hot earth;

he couldn't place scotland on a map,
he has never heard of guildford, birmingham,
or of brighton's grand hotel.

THAT'S FOR LOCKERBIE
And for Yvonne Fletcher
And IRA Semtex Victims

Twitter twits, political correctness and worse

Since this is my england learned of the online racial abuse directed towards Anton Ferdinand by Paul Brennan and others, the QPR defender has been subjected to harassment of an apparently more serious nature.

Poisoned pen, poisonous minds

The newspapers tell us that last week a letter containing a death threat was delivered to the club, with reports alleging that the contents of the document were so graphic that Loftus Road officials decided not show it to the defender, who remains the focus of media interest since allegedly being subjected to a racial slur by England captain John Terry during QPR's recent defeat of Chelsea.

It is to be hoped that a police investigation into this poisonous letter will lead to the swift identification of a culprit, followed by a successful prosecution for malicious communication.

While it is absolutely fair enough to doubt the veracity of the claim made about Terry, those berating the QPR man should keep in mind that the complaint about the Chelsea player appears to have been raised in the first instance not by Ferdinand but by a member of the public. A careful reading of the subsequent coverage suggests that the Rangers centre-half has done nothing more than provide evidence when asked to do so by the authorities investigating the alleged incident on the pitch during the heated west London derby.

That said, even if the investigation into Terry's conduct had been brought about purely as a result of a claim first raised by the apparent victim of his alleged racial abuse, it would remain the case that reactions such as a 'death threat' letter and Paul Brennan's moronic comments are wholly intolerable, whatever the perceived provocation.

When this is my england elected to flag up Brennan's deplorable behaviour and to dig out some photographs he had inadvertently left available when hurriedly deleting his Twitter account in an attempt to cover his tracks, this attracted a mixed response. Some have agreed that it is quite right to discomfit Brennan in this way. He has committed what amounts to a criminal act in this country, some would argue, so it is entirely justified to draw attention to him. Others have suggested that what this is my england has done is an overreaction and that however ill-judged Brennan's comments were, he does not deserve what some might see as a witch-hunt, not least because this may damage his employment prospects. One can only assume that those articulating this latter view were not supportive of national newspapers printing photographs of rioters and looters in action in the aftermath of the disturbances that gripped London and other cities back in August. Photos displayed in order to draw the long arm of the law towards people alleged to have committed criminal offences. Same thing, right?

Staying focused 

Experience teaches us that those who issue cowardly threats or vile abuse via the internet or poisoned pen letters rarely go on to commit actual acts of violence. Their bark is almost always worse than their bite. So the letter sent to QPR last week almost certainly contains an empty threat, notwithstanding the fact Ferdinand was apparently been advised to review his home security arrangements just in case the threat is real.

The strong likelihood of this threat not being a real one notwithstanding, though, Ferdinand is to be commended for remaining focused on his game. His form remains excellent and he was among those QPR players giving a very good account of themselves in Saturday's heroic but vain attempt to resist free-scoring Manchester City's awesome fire power. The writer of the sinister letter, it is to be assumed, far from planning a real act of murder, merely intends to unsettle the QPR defender. This deserves to fail - and it has failed. Ferdinand is surely playing well enough to merit consideration for the England team if his form continues in its current vein. Wouldn't that be fun? A John Terry-Anton Ferdinand core to England's back line...


Previous offences

The Rangers defender, of course, is not the first person to receive death threats following a famous Chelsea defeat. In May 2009, Norwegian referee Tom Henning Øvrebø was the subject of Facebook campaigns worded around threats of this kind. Officiating at a Champions League semi-final match between Chelsea and Barcelona, Øvrebø had turned down numerous penalty appeals by the London side.

It doesn't seem to be the case that any Barcelona fans called for Øvrebø's death as a result of his unjustified sending off of defender Éric Abidal in the same match, though. Perhaps the fact the result went the Catalan team's way was enough for this to be overlooked. Or perhaps Barcelona's fan base just contains fewer poisonous nutters than Chelsea's?

Someone who might be tempted to say yes to this last point is Donal MacIntyre. Back in 1999, the Irish investigative journalist famously exposed the darker activities of a group of hooligans claiming allegiance to Chelsea F.C. As recently as 2009, MacIntyre and his wife were assaulted in bar by people apparently seeking vengeance for the conviction of hooligan ringleader Jason Marriner for offences highlighted by the Irishman's investigation.

Clearly, the glamour of winning silverware and signing top players in the Abramovich era is enough to blot all of this out. As new fans have jumped on the Stamford Bridge bandwagon in recent years, it is to be assumed that they have given little thought to these darker aspects of the club's image.

Probably no football club is entirely without a violent and unpleasant contingent among its fans so it would be unfair to single out Chelsea as being somehow unique in this regard. After all, ageing berks 'supporting' our little QPR went on the rampage in the bar at Manningtree station a couple of years ago, getting arrested for their efforts. But whether our club will ever be associated with quite so many unpleasant characters as our neighbours in SW6 is to be doubted.

Tweeting twits?

QPR manager Neil Warnock is no fan of Twitter. His latest criticism of the pervasive microblogging service was directed at Ferdinand, whom Warnock feels is a "twit" for using it. The veteran manager has expressed concern about the downside of players engaging so directly with groups of fans.

Warnock is unlikely to be able to insist on a Twitter ban for this players, though. It seems that team captain Joey Barton is already a highly influential member of the squard - and Barton is a famously prolific tweeter. More importantly, a significant component of a new era of openness at QPR is the willingness of charismatic club Chairman Tony Fernandes to engage with supporters via Twitter, of which he too is a very enthusiastic user. Vice-Chairman Amit Bhatia is also among the active Twitterati.

It seems, then, that while Rangers fans will continues to enjoy these new opportunities to feel closer to previously distant players and boardroom bigwigs, we may have to continue living with the ever-present danger of Twitter and related media drawing the unwanted attention of trolls and worse.

The view of this is my england is that, as Warnock said with regard to Twitter, the rough must be taken with the smooth. The feeling here is that upside of new media outweighs the disadvantages. Moreover, the fact that these media can be abused does not imply that the abuse needs to be meekly tolerated. If someone abuses you in the street, it's unlikely that many people would urge you to stop walking around outside. If some lone idiot abuses you at a football match, it's unlikely you would call for an end to football matches. Instead, you would be faced with two choices - live with the abuse, accepting it as an unpleasant fact of life; or tackle it head on, perhaps naming and shaming the abuser and getting the law involved. It seems instinctive to go for the former approach by default, switching to the latter when levels of abuse escalate to an intolerable or dangerous point.

Political correctness gone mad

A quite instructive discussion of online abuse was had in yesterday's Guardian. This covered the issue of the sexist abuse received by some female writers. Helen Lewis-Hasteley reported the experiences of women bloggers who have been "threatened with death or rape, often in very graphic, detailed terms."

"Now, I believe in freedom of speech," she writes, "but – and several existing laws are clear on this – you absolutely don't have the right to threaten violence against people with whom you disagree."

Her suggested response? "The first thing is to speak up. People might say that you're exaggerating, that you 'can't handle bad language', that 'everyone gets a bit of abuse on the internet', but the more evidence we collect, the harder that will be to maintain. If you receive a specific threat, report it to the police. If they don't take any notice, blog or tweet about it."

In quoting feminist Guardian writers and in agreeing entirely with the sentiments expressed by Helen Lewis-Hasteley (as exemplified by last week's 'outing' of Paul Brennan), this is my england will perhaps attract scorn from some readers. Perhaps this blog is humourless? Over-sensitive? Part of the 'PC brigade'? 

In respect of the latter accusation, this is my england pleads guilty. If you think 'political correctness' has 'gone mad', I would suggest you consider the highly articulate response to that charge by comedian Stewart Lee: 

"I'm of an age that I can see what a difference political correctness has made. When I was four years old, my grandfather drove me around Birmingham, where the Tories had just fought an election campaign saying, 'if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour,' and he drove me around saying, 'this is where all the niggers and the coons and the jungle bunnies live.' And I remember being at school in the early 80s and my teacher, when he read the register, instead of saying the name of the one Asian boy in the class, he would say, 'is the black spot in,' right? And all these things have gradually been eroded by political correctness, which seems to me to be about an institutionalised politeness at its worst. And if there is some fallout from this, which means that someone in an office might get in trouble one day for saying something that someone was a bit unsure about because they couldn't decide whether it was sexist or homophobic or racist, it's a small price to pay for the massive benefits and improvements in the quality of life for millions of people that political correctness has made."

Well said, Mr. Lee.

So let's keep enjoying our football and enjoying the opportunity to connect with players and team owners in ways we never dreamed of even a few years ago. Let's keep enjoying TV coverage that brings the on-pitch activities of players right into our living rooms in glorious HD colour.

Let's accept, too, that sometimes this open access will bring us into contact with words and actions that may cause offence. Let's not make a sport of being offended for the sake of being offended. But when the offence is real and grievous, let's kick back against it.

we hope it's chips

It's 1982. Britain has been in recession for two years and unemployment has climbed to three million for the first time since the 1930s. The Prime Minister tells her cabinet of vegetables that a quick war over some islands that no one has ever heard of should be enough to avoid defeat at the polls.

A cul-de-sac on the edge of town. A newly built, boxy house with integral garage. The end of a working day and the teatime television is warmed up. A Transit van rattles away from a cul-de-sac on the edge of town where more boxy houses with integral garages are being readied for new shareholders in the nation of home ownership. In the front passenger seat, a weary brickie brightens at the prospect of his evening meal, speculating, to the tune of Que Sera, about the accompaniment to the meat. "Will it be chips or jacket spuds?" he wonders. The driver is barely able to conceal his hostility as his singing workmate raises the alternative prospect of salad or frozen peas. A cats' chorus in the back of the van introduces the possibility of mushrooms and a heavily-accented West Indian labourer pines briefly for impossibly exotic fried onion rings.

As a whole hungry mob meld their voices to roar "you'll have to wait and see", the TV viewer's thoughts turn to the kitchen smells of his own dinner and he wonders why he recognises the Benny-hatted builder in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Quadrophenia, he thinks. Definitely Quadrophenia.

A more patrician accent is now heard, cutting across the proletarian singsong. Calmly, we are told of the introduction of Birds Eye Steakhouse Grills. These are "pure ground beef that you cook like a steak and serve like a steak". To put it another way, they are hamburgers, misshapen and minus the bun. The speaker attempts to inject his voice with twinkly bonhomie as he appeals directly to the working class housewife. To hawk this cheap meat, the advertising agency have opted to use the assumptive close. Purchase is inevitable. Only the side dishes are a matter of question. "What will you give your old man with his Steakhouse Grill?"

The lads, of course, hope fervently for chips.

chilby revealed

A while ago, Londoners started to notice yet another set of mysterious stickers appearing on the city's street furniture. The black-and-white stickers were of a plain design, bearing the capitalised legend THE CHRONICLES OF CHILBY.


Intrigued, this is my england found the associated Facebook group, where similarly baffled individuals speculated in vain about what the stickers might signify. No one guessed correctly.


In the last few days, the answer has come to light. THE CHRONICLES OF CHILBY is a self-produced EP from rapper, singer, dancer and actor V.A.S.


Here is a sample of his wares:



this is my england is typed by a pair of hands attached to a brain too old and out of touch with the kids of today to be able to form a useful view of the merits of the multi-talented Londoner's music. The approach to promotion and entrepreneurship warrants comment, though. It says something about the shrinking of the industrial structures of music promotion and sales. It says something about how even unsigned artists such as V.A.S. buy into the notion of positioning themselves as a brand rather than simply a maker of music. Ahead of doing a deal with any record label, V.A.S. has created a logo for himself and has stepped into the world of advertising and product endorsement, albeit on a local and small-scale basis. “I’m at Shaketastic” he says in an advertisement made earlier this year, “because that’s what I do when I’m in West Hampstead, or Finchley, or Mill Hill or Brent Cross”.



These days it’s striking, then, that there are those who aspire to achieve prominence as music stars or in some other highly visible field and whose approach speaks of their being highly marketing-savvy, branding-aware and digitally literate. When evaluating their chances of success, which will prove more important? This streetwise approach to packaging and promotion? Or levels of actual creative talent? this is my england could only speculate about that, but is mindful of a pervasive celebrity culture in which people famous only for being famous (or, at most, famous for doing something trivial a long time ago) can make a comfortable living. The transformation of loud-mouthed topless poppet Katie Price into a surgically-adjusted, pneumatically enhanced and ever-present irritation is emblematic of this. These kind of phenomena being taken to the horrible place of their logical extremes is further exemplified by Price hosting a TV “talent” show designed to uncover a successor in her role of annoying person who makes money from just being all over the fucking place all of the time for no apparent reason. The plan is for Price and protégé to make money together. Somehow. this is my england does not wish them luck. Anything which hastens the further coarsening of our popular culture is not to be applauded.


Luck, though, is definitely wished to Mr. V.A.S. Seems like a nice chap making a good go of doing what he loves doing and finds interesting.

Do you know Paul Brennan?

In this blog's most recent QPR-related ramble, I declined to comment about the allegations of Chelsea and England Captain John Terry racially abusing our centre-half Anton Ferdinand back on October 23rd, when the Rangers grabbed a win over their west London rivals.

It is still not the business of this blog to speculate about the truth or otherwise of these allegations. It is the business of this blog, though, to respond with disgust to the (thankfully isolated) racial abuse to which Ferdinand has subsequently been subjected via Twitter.

A person apparently named Paul Brennan, apparently based in London and using the account name @brennan6666 chose to say the following: "RT this you fucking BLACK CUNT", adding, with reference to the alleged offender John Terry, "1 England captain". It seems reasonable to suppose that Mr. Brennan is a Chelsea fan, and a big fan of Terry in particular given that his Twitter bio consisted of the words "Captain, Legend, Leader. JT". I say consisted of those words because Brennan, having first made a grovelling apology to Ferdinand this morning, has deleted his Twitter account, presumably fearing the consequences of his earlier remark. My understanding is that this form of abuse does constitute a criminal offence in this country and even if the police don't take an interest, perhaps Brennan's employer would take a dim view.

While the Twitter account has gone, at time of writing, Brennan has left an electronic footprint at yfrog, the image hosting service which allows users to share their pictures and videos as links on Twitter:

I know a lot of readers of this blog are based in the west London catchment area of both Chelsea and QPR. So perhaps someone who visits this site knows Paul Brennan. Perhaps you only know him by sight and are not 100% sure of his name? If so, maybe these pictures, (grabbed from yfrog in case they also get deleted soon) will jog your memory. Do you know this man?

generosity knows no bounds

The lucky winner of our Camden White Rectangle competition is Gemma from Barnet. Gemma cracked the QR code devised by street corner art bandit stu bags. 'THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE HERE' was the plaintive message left by poor stu, the precarious nature of whose work was underlined when several months' worth of tinkering with his favoured chunk of wall was screeenwiped by some unknown hand.


Gemma wins one of these CA$H FOR YOUR WARHOL stickers, picked up by this is my england on a recent visit to the the Moniker Art Fair.

Gemma might send in a picture once she's decided where to stick it. Let's see.