BUCKY

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”


Richard Buckminster Fuller

leaf me alone

the dignity of parliament

an example to fledgling democracies everywhere

John Terry and the army of twits

H.L. Mencken once contended that no one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. If the sage of Baltimore were still alive, it seems doubtful that a good look at Twitter would cause him to row back from this view, especially if he followed the chitchat around John Terry’s trial for a racially aggravated public order offence.

Given the fame of the defendant, and given the level of interest around the alleged crime of which he stands accused, it is not surprising that a lot of people feel inclined to comment on the case. But for anyone who prefers not to recognise Mencken’s very gloomy characterisation of the general public, the nature of many of the comments will perhaps come as an unwelcome surprise. This is because so many people feel able to state pretty strong views about the case without having first grasped even the most basic facts about it.

A lot of Twitter twits start out by labelling the case as being a clash between Terry and his alleged victim, QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. This is incorrect. This is not the case. Ferdinand has not brought a private prosecution. The tawdry affair being played out at Westminster Magistrates’ Court is R vs. Terry NOT Ferdinand vs. Terry. “R??” explodes an angry tweeter. “Who the fuck is R??”

R is short for Regina. AKA the Queen. You know. That dear old lady who has been our unelected head of state for the last sixty years. 

For the avoidance of further doubt, this is a CRIMINAL trial. John Terry is the defendant. Anton Ferdinand, as the alleged victim, is simply a WITNESS. The other party is the Crown Prosecution service, which is bringing the action against the defendant on behalf of the Crown. Terry is NOT being sued or otherwise prosecuted by Anton Ferdinand. That’s NOT how criminal law works. So the case should properly be referred to as “R vs. Terry” or “the Crown and Terry”.

Of course it is fanciful to suppose that very much public debate on this or any other issue will ever be based on firm possession of germane facts. We don’t have the right sort of education system to encourage it. We don’t have the right sort of print and broadcast media. Pick up most newspapers this morning. You’ll doubtless get the full scoop on the fluctuating waistline and thigh-firmness of some creosoted dimwit currently starring in a structured reality TV show. But you won’t learn much about the country you live in, much less the wider world. Who cares about a bunch of boring facts anyway? Empirically testable knowledge? Bollocks to that. Informed discussion of difficult issues? Bore off. Too clever by half, that’s your fucking problem. Facts? Evidence? I’ll fact you in a minute, you mouthy little twat. etc. etc. etc. 

So we will doubtless see more of this stuff:

Ryan Glynn from Liverpool believes that Anton Ferdinand is trying to get John Terry banned and that the QPR defender’s role in this affair is akin to waving an imaginary red card at the referee. Ryan has not checked his facts. If he had done so, he would know that the alleged offence was reported to the police not by Ferdinand but by a member of the public. This fact was in the public domain before the court proceedings began to unfold this week, and the testimony heard in the trial only serves to make this even clearer. 

Jamie Doyle, a Chelsea fan from Hastings, believes that Ferdinand is providing his witness testimony to the court not because he is obliged to do so and because he is under oath but because he is seeking fame. To have arrived at this view, Jamie can’t have any understanding of the differences between a criminal case brought by the CPS and a civil dispute between two individuals. A later tweet from Jamie indicates that he is a graduate. Twelve years in school, three years at university – and he doesn’t have any idea, even at a very basic level, of how the law works in his native country. If he is a representative case, then we do have to question the value for money offered by our education system when it comes to shaping the well-informed citizens of the future. Or perhaps we don’t want well-informed citizens…?

This lack of even a very basic understanding of how the law works seems to be widespread. Twitter timelines were full of this stuff yesterday. The witterings of Ryan and Jamie were just plucked at random from a vast morass of similar nonsense. 

But the dubious worth of some comments about the John Terry case do not only touch on ignorance about the interplay between the police, the CPS, victims, witnesses and the courts. Consider this offering from Joshua Keeligan of Leeds:

At least Joshua understands that the work of the CPS – prosecuting criminals – is paid for with public money. He, surely, gets the point that Ferdinand is not himself prosecuting John Terry. So, on this point at least, we can’t accuse Joshua of ignorance. But he seems to object to the idea of the prosecution of alleged criminals being funded from the public purse. How far does this extend? Should we not fund the prosecution of burglars? Muggers? Rapists? 

Or perhaps he means something else. Perhaps he means that public money should not be used to bring to justice specifically those accused of committing racially aggravated crimes. If this is his belief and if we choose to make the assumption that Joshua does not actually approve of racism, this raises a question that we could put to him: Why do you think that racism is less acceptable and less widespread in our society than it once was? Many would contend that the law has had a role to play – introducing sanctions both for discriminatory practices on the basis of race and for the racially aggravated element of some crimes. Perhaps Joshua believes we have arrived at an arbitrary point in time when “enough” has been done to discourage racism and that it’s time to roll back the various mechanisms that have combined to hold it somewhat in check. But given that Joshua has the wit to understand some very simple facts about the legal system, perhaps we should be optimistic about the chances of at least having an intelligent discussion with him about such questions. 

For others, though, the prospect of such an informed debate seems a more distant one. Take Charlie Harkness from Corbridge in Northumberland, for example:

Charlie believes that hitting a black man is a racist thing to do but shouting the words “fucking black cunt” to him is not. The odds on Charlie winning Mastermind at some point in his life became rather longer the moment he wrote that tweet.

The trial, as they say, continues. Let’s see how much more bullshit is tweeted about it.

AVB: our part in his downfall?

Covering the mishaps of a reluctant young conscript, the first of Spike Milligan’s autobiographical war stories rejoices in the title Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall. The tongue-in-cheek hubris is magnificent.

For QPR fans, perhaps there is some fun of this sort to be had when considering the irritable and seemingly very naïve Portuguese man who managed Chelsea for part of last season. It does feel, after all, as though our ragtag outfit played their part in his downfall. André Villas-Boas even admitted as much himself.

People love a handy initialism. The young Portgueezer provided one, his name quickly being reduced to 'AVB' by the English football public. An initialism favoured by many QPR supporters? ABC. Anyone But Chelsea. So it was music to many pairs of west London ears when, in February, sports journo Yann Tear reported on Chelsea’s badly stuttering attempt to recapture the Premier League trophy. The Pensioners' then-manager felt that his side’s acrimonious defeat at Loftus Road was the beginning of the end of Chelsea’s title bid. Lovely stuff.

During that bad-tempered match, it certainly became clear that the southwest London side could be rattled. Apparently surprised by the hostile crowd and the doggedness of the home team, Chelsea’s discipline evaporated. Seven players booked. Another two sent off. The captain getting drawn into a situation that led to him being charged with a racially aggravated public order offence.

It also became very clear that Villas-Boas could be rattled. His tetchy post-match comments to the press and his attempt to remonstrate with the referee got him in hot water. This lack of composure also surely provided encouragement to any other managers considering the use of mind games.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The Rangers may have done their bit in sowing the seeds of doubt in the inscrutable mind of AVB’s temperamental Russian sugar daddy. But the young Portuguese boss was undone mainly by his own mistakes and shortcomings.

Among these was an inability to win over the big egos in the Stamford Bridge dressing room. It’s a tough gig down there. In the popular imagination, a cabal of senior players can get managers fired by refusing to go along with any boss with whom they do not click. Whether or not this is a fair characterisation of what goes on behind the scenes at Chelsea, the newspapers were soon reporting that Villas-Boas was somewhat aloof, apparently not communicating the rationale for his team selections to those players disappointed at being dropped. Some managers are able to rule their clubs with an authoritarian style at the same time as commanding the respect of their players. AVB did not manage to pull off this balancing act at Chelsea. Why was that? One can only speculate, but his background may well have been an issue. Not much older than most of his senior team members, he came into management with no career as a professional player behind him. You have to ask whether the likes of Lampard, Terry and Drogba ever took him seriously when he was crouching in his technical area, gesticulating enthusiastically and trying to give detailed tactical input. Is it really fanciful to imagine that when ‘Lamps’ and ‘JT’ looked over at him their thoughts were along the lines of “cheeky little cunt, never played the game and he’s telling me where to fucking run”?

It’s hard to see why this approach to match-day communication and to man management will go down any better at Spurs than it did at Chelsea. The Tottenham squad have reputedly become used to a regime which was all about letting talented players express themselves, playing the game without the shackles of overly prescriptive instructions or overly rigid tactics. Their former boss is also someone known as a highly personable man manager. The transition from Redknapp to Villas-Boas, then, may not be a smooth one for some Spurs players. How long, one wonders, will it be before the spiky Portuguese coach is clashing with members of his new team?

We should also observe how Villas-Boas handles the media in his new job.

It seems to be the case than here in England it is possible for foreign managers to create an initially very favourable impression. They speak slowly and carefully. We think this means that they are more articulate and more intelligent than our home-grown gaffers, failing to realise that slow, careful speech is simply a consequence of operating in a foreign language. When we compare these guys to a Sam Allardyce or a Mick McCarthy, we think of them as more suave and sophisticated. But that’s just because we are better able to make judgements about the education and background of our own countrymen than we are about people from other countries.

Fooled by the appearance of a calm, almost scholarly demeanour, we perhaps imagine that managers from mainland Europe will be clever and unflappable when interviewed. We assume they are all going to be charming. But they all crack in the end. The pressure here is great. Our newspapermen are bastards. Our pundits can be cruel. The only real surprise with Villas-Boas was that he cracked so quickly, almost immediately proving unable to charm the media. He answered pretty harmless questions rather warily, looking paranoid in the process. He thereby showed signs of weakness. This is fatal. Our newspapers are sharks. They go in for the kill when they scent blood in the water.

At Spurs, AVB faces a particular challenge. His predecessor was a media darling, a great favourite of the football press, who united almost as one to proclaim him as the only viable candidate for the England job. Unless Villas-Boas has somehow radically reinvented his approach to media relations, there exists the danger of him being given a very rough ride indeed, especially if Tottenham do not make a strong start to the season.

For our part at QPR, we don’t get to give a Villas-Boas-led team the full Loftus Road treatment until January. But other managers, teams and fans would be well advised to test his temperament before then. Unless the man has changed a lot over the summer, he looks vulnerable to psychological warfare and is unlikely to enjoy the lessened pressure of a long honeymoon period in the media. 

QPR 2011-12: upset and upsets

Here, finally, is the much-delayed this is my england look back at QPR's first Premier League campaign for what felt like a zillion years. No insightful match analyses. No in-the-know stuff. Just the usual personal ramble, more impressionistic than accurate. If that's not your cup of tea, do not read on. If it is, here goes... 

That our club had a funny old season is beyond dispute. Our first campaign back in the top flight after a long, long absence was fraught with upset and marked by upsets...

Just another shit ref

Upset? Plenty of that. Consider the performances we saw from some teams of match officials. We saw serial controversialist Joey Barton sent off for a phantom head-butt, the officials conned by Norwich City’s sneaky cheat, Bradley Johnson. We saw a vital match up at Bolton spoiled by the linesman failing to spot that Clint Hill had stabbed the ball some distance over the goal line. Had the Rangers not eventually avoided the drop, that incident would surely have been one to moan about for years to come. As it was, Bolton’s handy failure to register more points in their last couple of games felt like poetic justice to QPR fans (if not to Patrick Barclay).

Another memorable outrage came at Old Trafford, where another cheat tumbled to the ground when only breathed upon, winning a penalty and getting the tough-but-honest Shaun Derry sent off. That the cheating Ashley Young was offside when the supposed offence happened - well, that just compounded the sense of frustration for all Rangers followers watching the match. Sure, this was not a game that the visitors would have expected to win, but the terrible mistake on the part of the ref ruined it as a contest very early in the first half. Any QPR fans who had travelled up to Manchester must have felt particularly aggrieved, having paid through the nose only to be robbed of a meaningful spectacle. That the club's attempt to have Derry's red card overturned was dismissed out of hand by also caused some of us to suspect that incidents involving current members of the England team are treated differently by the FA than is the case with other contestable dismissals.

Enough with the queasy provincial love-in

Also unsettling for some of us was the protracted media wankfest around the two other clubs promoted into the Premier League at the end of our successful 2010-11 campaign.

The slow, tedious wannabe tika-taka of the division’s Welsh interlopers was applauded by many commentators. This, we were told, was how the game is meant to be played. Well, those of us who schlepped our Christmas hangovers up to the architecturally sterile and curiously small (why build a brand new ground with a capacity of only 20,000?) Liberty Stadium would beg to differ. Swansea seemed a dull side. What’s so interesting about watching the ball move around between the goalie, the fullbacks, the centre halves and a holding midfielder?  Over and over and over again? Until all of the oxygen is sucked out of the occasion?

Norwich, meanwhile, did offer better entertainment value, scoring more freely and not needing to rely on boring their opponents into submission. So it is harder to complain with proper justification that media interest in the Norfolk side was over-the-top. But it still rankled. It was still irritating to hear the Canaries widely praised as a good example of a promoted club making a real go of its first season back in the top division. Because those sort of plaudits were simply not directed at the Rangers for much of the season. Which is fair enough, really. Because QPR did make heavy weather of finding decent form.

Shopping on the cheap, followed by a mad splurge

That QPR failed to perform as well as the other two promoted teams is due in no small part to the inauspicious circumstances the club was facing at the beginning of the season. Though we have ended up with a hugely popular and ambitious chairman who now seems set to lead the Rangers into exciting new territory, the timing of his takeover was not conducive to a well-ordered 2011-12 campaign. The poisonous troika of Briatore, Ecclestone and Paladini did not relinquish control until the season was already underway. Clearly intent on selling the club, they were not minded to give then-manager Neil Warnock a sizeable transfer kitty. His spending constrained, then, Warnock shopped around for a ragtag collection of bargains. Then when the Fernandes takeover was finally concluded, the manager was left with a very short time in which to go on a quick spree of panic buying. While some of the players acquired both before and after the change of ownership went on to make decent contributions, it seems very doubtful that Warnock would have picked up precisely the same collection of new additions if he’d had time to plan his purchases more carefully.  So while some supporters will find fault with the Yorkshireman’s tactics and team selections and whatnot, we can only speculate about whether he would have found better form and lasted the season at QPR had it not been for the unhelpful conditions with which he had to operate when putting his side together last summer. It remains the case, after all, that QPR occupied seventeenth place in the Premier League table the day Warnock was dismissed and were still in seventeenth place when the season drew to a close.

But it’s probably overly simplistic to suggest that Warnock’s replacement has not been an improvement. Mark Hughes may never be a warm, charismatic character when interviewed. He may always come across as a tad straight-laced, even humourless. But as a former Manchester United player and as someone previously trusted with a job as significant as managing Manchester City, he seems to be better connected around the game’s upper echelons than was the case with Neil Warnock. Over time, it is likely that this will continue to work in the club’s favour, raising its profile and making it a more attractive destination for higher calibre new players.

Explosions of joy

So we have had a quick look back at the upset and heartache – the terrible refereeing; the unpleasant feeling of being seen as second best to Swansea and Norwich; the chaotic start to the season. A turbulent and sometimes traumatic season, then – and this time we’ve not even dug over the bones of Joey Barton’s idiotic season finale and its consequences, a matter given fairly thorough treatment in an earlier article. For the sake of brevity, we’ve also elected not to dissect the numerous individual disappointing matches that the Rangers should have won – the draws at home to the division’s less accomplished sides. Anyway, given that the season ended on a high note and given that we are looking forward hopefully to an easier second term of this latest stint in the top flight, it seems more fitting to move on from the upset and celebrate a few of the upsets – the games in which our lads took all three points against the odds.

The first of these came in October. Registering their first league win of the season, the R’s managed to find themselves on the back foot for much of a tense fixture with that horrible lot from down the road in SW6. On the back foot and struggling to win back the ball against just nine men for much of the time. But who cares? Because all that huffing and puffing came after the only goal of the game, a tenth minute penalty from dear old Heidar Helguson. Not only because of Chelsea’s two red cards, this was a famously fiery affair, still smouldering all these months later and still emitting a horrible stink – the stench of bile and bad feeling arising from the allegation that Pensioners’ skipper (and all round piece of shit) John Terry racially abused Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during the match. Terry gets his day in court tomorrow. We wait with interest. We wonder what sanctions the Chelsea man will face from his club and from the FA should he be found guilty of the racially aggravated public order offence of which he is charged. We look back at the further abuse Ferdinand has faced from Chelsea supporters. Abuse for simply being a witness in the case, the Rangers centre-half not having been the one to report the incident to the police.

Oh, to have been at Loftus Road the day a much needed three points was grabbed from the Pensioners! But no such joy for this correspondent. Word of the humdinger at the Bush reached my ears via mobile phone, prompting a little jig of joy at the baggage carousel of Abu Dhabi airport. What a fixture to have to miss! But never mind. A few more memorable upsets came along, never to be forgotten.

Of these, one of the finest was the recovery from a two-goal deficit to beat the visiting Liverpool. We do remain indebted to the arrogant presumption of Kenny Dalglish. Thinking he had victory in the bag, the cranky Scotsman replaced the unplayable Luis Suarez with the lumbering, ineffective Andy Carroll, instantly nullifying Liverpool’s attacking threat. The Rangers prospered and it was such sweet joy to celebrate that late winner in close proximity to the stunned Scousers (and Surrey boys) in the School End. The bruises to the shins? Worth it. The hoarseness lasting several days? Worth it. The sense of walking around for the rest of the week on a massive adrenaline come-down? Worth it. Another great Loftus Road memory. As is the home fixture against Spurs. What fun to have been part of that magnificently hostile home crowd.

Onwards and upwards

It wasn’t a perfect season by any means. It started with players of doubtful value joining the club. A year on and we still haven’t seen much to suggest that Shaun Wright-Phillips was an astute signing. We haven’t seen a lot of end product from forwards Bothroyd and Campbell. We barely saw Kieron Dyer at all. We also ended up relying on the poor form of rivals, praying for bad results for both Blackburn and Bolton in the latter stages of the season. But we survived it, and so did QPR. This summer feels very different from the last one. Tony Fernandes continues to inspire confidence with his relentless positivity. Mark Hughes has time to make sensible changes to the squad, and while we won’t all agree on the value of every new signing, some of the new additions do look very encouraging. Rob Green should be an upgrade between the sticks. Park Ji-Sung will offer boundless energy in midfield.

Can it really be the case that we will start the 2012-13 season with relatively few worries? Let’s see. It’s hard to believe. Plain sailing at QPR? It doesn’t happen, right? Either way, this off-season feels long and dull.  Not because of a lack of excitement about what's going on at the Rangers. On the contrary, developments at the club are just causing some of us to wish away the next few weeks, such is the keenness to get back to following the Rangers. In the meantime, we’re not even getting any decent summer weather to offset the lack of football. Roll on August 18th. Bring on the Swansea. Come on you R’s.

pause for thought at loftus road

Make what you will of the Evening Standard's assertion that our QPR are looking to pick up a couple of unwanted Spurs players. It's not a great newspaper. It gets things wrong. There is rarely any evidence of much affection for our club. But if there is any truth in this, how excited should we be about the prospect of Jermain Defoe and William Gallas joining Mark Hughes's rapidly evolving squad?

Defoe is (just) the right side of thirty and is considered good enough by the England manager to have warranted a place in the Euro 2012 squad. He would be signing on the back of a decent 2011-12 campaign (11 goals in 25 league games, 17 goals in 38 games overall) so we know he can still find the back of the net. A reasonably exciting prospect then.

Gallas? Very much the wrong side of thirty, and looking back on a season disrupted by a variety of injuries. Were he to form a central defensive partnership with the Tottenham cast-off already at Loftus Road (Ryan Nelsen), we'd be looking at the Premier League's most grizzled pair of stoppers.

Perhaps more exciting than talk of Gallas in a hooped shirt is the news that our popular club Chairman is now looking seriously at three possible sites for a new stadium.

Loftus Road has been the only home-from-home that most of us have ever known. Only the true veterans among us can remember the 1962-63 season, when the Rangers plied their trade at the cavernous White City Stadium just along South Africa Road. Fewer still will remember the club's other short period of playing at the giant former Olympics venue. Anyone who was ten years old when QPR played the final game of their 1931-33 White City stint would be eighty-nine now. Any fans of such long standing reading this article today are warmly congratulated on their incredible staying power.

With the prospect of a new ground now seeming to be a less distant one, talk among supporters is rightly turning to concern that any planned stadium should keep us close to the pitch and able to create the Istanbul-like atmosphere that visibly rattled some visiting teams last season. But whatever the level of justified affection we have for Loftus Road, many will agree that it is not a suitable home for a club looking to establish itself at English football's top table in the twenty-first century. Small, cramped and with basic facilities, it offers no room to grow. So worries about how far any new base would resemble the current ground in terms of atmosphere are, perhaps, a nice kind of problem to have. Better, surely, than the prospect of being forever hemmed into a tiny plot of land between the flats of the White City Estate and the terraced houses of Ellerslie Road.

Should that new ground ever be constructed, it is to be hoped that as well as being properly atmospheric, its design will include elements of tribute to our greatest names from the past. Those of us old enough to remember him are still reflecting on the horribly premature passing of one of the most distinguished of these, the late Alan McDonald. Will anyone coming up through the club's youth system now go on to play more than 400 games for QPR? Or anyone who comes up through the improved system being set up by the recently appointed technical director? It seems doubtful.

With the worst of our traumas behind us, it seems, the future of the Rangers does now seem brighter than it has for many years. Great players will join us. Perhaps even players good enough to join the ranks of our few true legends. But it does not seem very likely that any of these will dedicate as many years to the Superhoops as Macca did.

If you have time, a summer visit to Loftus Road is to be recommended. The streets thereabout seem eerily quiet in comparison to what you experience on a match day. But this is fitting. It gives you pause for thought when casting your eye over the tributes to Macca which are arranged to one side of the players' entrance on South Africa Road. The book of condolence is still open and you might like to jot down a few words of appreciation. As we ponder what a seemingly exciting future may hold for our club, it's good to offer up our appreciation for one of the players who truly shines out when we look back over the often frustrating but always compelling story of QPR to date.

U RRRRRRRRRRsssssssssss

search poem

writing poetry is easy, don't let
anyone tell you it isn't,
I mean
look at this:
all I've done, right,
is to take the search terms
that lead the freaky people to this website.
well, not all of them,
just the funny ones,
the ones that make you think "my god,
who ARE these nutters?"
so here goes:
football factory chavs extractor england
bomb the past
and luis suarez teeth
and
topless tuesday
and
picard wallpaper
and
we hope its chips its chips
and
becca wertheim has
huge tits.
see what I mean?
nothing to it.
sixth form surrealism,
queasy juxtaposition
and
I didn't even need
to think

you can't wipe your arse on it

TOILET PAPER MAGAZINE does not seem to exist. well, it does not seem to exist on paper. online then? yes, but it has no text. visuals only, and these in the form of very short and vivid YouTube clips, collaborations between artist Maurizio Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari. they describe this non-magazine magazine as "a mental outburst". this is my england describes it as "easy on the eye" and "soothingly  blank". some sample issues:

PIMPON

the last three shithot music videos pimped up here were relatively lo-fi/home-made efforts - creative souls doing their visual thing in the bedroom with someone else's tunes. this here now = quite different. this is the work of  Rémy Gente,  a French dude who has made ads/trailers for the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Dolce & Gabbana. here he's put together a belting little piece to accompany the musical stylings of the electro sex pop combo Apoplexie, also from France. it's got quite a lot of Hellraiser and a bit of Prodigy going on. it's good.