Meeja Hoors are obviously in plentiful supply in the sanctimonious aftermath of a terror strike. The old-school London evocations of Parsons et al have been dealt with on the other side, for example.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown alerted ES readers to the “fair and balanced” Fox News’ conduct on 7/7. The Murdoch news spore had Brit Hume frothing “buy shares now” on terror panic in the UK, while Brian Kilmeade said that it was good that the war on terror (WOT?), and not those trifles such as Africa/debt/climate change, etc, was back on the agenda. Also, the New York Times made mature mention of “Londistan”, cocking a snook at the muslim communities in the frig apple. In our caliphate of a capital apparently, the government is practically encouraging them to bomb sense out of the tubes. We did use to have some civil liberties, it’s true.
While the yanks pall and appal with their hard yards analysis, London, which had been commended for “it’s only a bomb, life goes on” attitude, reached out for the stick of egregia. The decree ran: “Let’s show them who’s boss with a two-minute self-muting”. Brave office workers and put-out motorists participated, a capital defiant.
In the wrinkled pocket of civilization (Westminster), they walked in their shoes to the sun and silenced themselves for the sake of those who fell in the first UK round of the terror wars ’05. Not even the outrageous smell of trance from a car stereo could weaken their silence and their intention not to say anything or make any noise for 120 seconds. As Michael Showered bowed his head along with Davis David, the bomb grief left heads and was replaced by thoughts of lunch. They will not stop our way of life, our gestures and symbols, or our strong commitment to profound banality.
In EC1, we exited, we walked, we stood, we thought “that’s a nice dress” on the girl next to us, adding “I wish I had a cameraphone”, adding “we give them a rundown slum in Leeds and this is how they dare to repay us”. They’ll never defeat the British high street of life, no way.
This picture compelled us to reprise k-punk’s stupid photos of stupid columnists series.The marvellous period portrait of David Frost is from the Mail on Saturday magazine; a discarded copy of which assaulted my eyes on the bus the other day. Naturally, the article is the sort of reputation fornication that these toadying celeb rags revel in. Can a heartfelt homo-erotic connection between subject and object explain that ridiculous “yeah I can do serious” gaze?
Then we saw the demented socialite Frust conducting an outrageously pally interview with Donald Rumsfeld on Newsnight. Absolutely repulsive display of mutual masturbation between self-regarding pillars of the ‘two backs’ establishment. Questions such as “So, should people just get used to the idea of American military supremacy?” were lapped up by the slightly more sentient pensioner from the DoD. Frust even described, with requisite gentleman's club elan, Rumsfeld's ‘known unknowns’ mind spew as poetry. Don dutifully repeated his excellent cognition by explaining this concept.
David Frost, we are in your debt for illustrating the power of aggressive stupidity and cosseted ignorance. And Donald Bumsfelt, I do not want to see your killers’ hands; thanks for the nightmares though.
