mr sg was talking about us drowning in unintentional satire and certainly the weeping wailers of the Pier Head triumphantly announce their self-loathing, their quarter-century of death cultism, their daily mortification of the soul, as though it were a blessing.
The satire oozes from Liverpool, as though they and they alone, are the keepers of the All Coppers Are Bastards flame, as though H'bro is somehow unique, as though every single copper in the land didn't do this shit every single moment of his working life; as though every single health trust in the land did not close ranks and conspire against wronged patients; as though every single religious diocese in the land did not collude in child sexual abuse; as though every single mainstream journalist was not a plague rat, scuttling, in dark places, from one sewer to another. What on Earth is it, with Scousers, that they do not know that bureaucracies exist only to protect and further themselves and for absolutely no other reason? Do they think that ambulance drivers - much less their managers - actually give a fuck about anything but themselves?
If this mawkish momentum should falter, in Liverpool, if, as they should be, senior police officers are jailed - not just for H'bro but for all their crimes - if, as he should be, the degenerate loudmouth Kelvin McFilth is flogged through the streets - not just for H'bro but for his nation-corroding career vileness and if, as they should be, the ninety-six families were compensated with millions per head; if the whole nation linked arms every Saturday afternoon, singing-along with Gerry and the Pacemakers, from now until Judgement Day and if every city in the world twinned itself with Liverpool, proclaiming Je Suis Scally; if, in short, all that could be made good was made good, the guilty punished, the victims recompensed and their reputations restored, if all these things happened and the great ship of Grief lost even steerage way then the flashmourning mob would have lost a limb or two, would be crippled, no more vigils, no more demands, no more outrage.
They have added to whatever was the original offence at H'bro - what was it, anyway, I went to a Brimingham city match in the early eighties, with my old friend, and was horrified by tens of thousands of drunken men, perched on terraces, baying and screaming like banshees; what do people think is going to happen, in an inebriate crowd which has suspended its reason? I never went again. But whatever it was, the Big Bad, these things remain more likely to happen than not, when you compress large numbers of drunken testosterone-fuelled men in tight spaces, a football match crowd and the opportunity for individual self-protection and preservation are mutually exclusive, abandon all hope, ye who enter here, that should be over the blessed turnstiles, shouldn't it, for here be inferno and riot? That the cops will behave badly in the event of mishap is axiomatic, that they will then cover their arses is axiomatic, too, everybody knows that, and if they don't they shouldn't be allowed out on their own.
It was not the cops but the going to the match which killed these blessed martyrs, if they'd stayed at home and watched it on the telly with that nice Mr Des Lynham, they'd all have lived. But then, whither this glorious crusade; how, without tragedy, would so many define themselves, punctuate and underline their lives.
Can they, now, lay down their weary tune, these people, or will they seek, like Gerry and Cilla McCann, like the Dowlers and so many others, to impale the rest of us on a grief so easily avoided?
20 comments:
Its not just men, Mr I. When I went to football matches (Man City many years ago) its was the women you needed to avoid. Violent, abusive, foul-mouthed - the women.
Last time I was in Liverpool in the 80's in a bar one evening (in a 'posh' hotel) it was like the aliens scene in that star wars film. Boris was right re Liverpool.
A couple of anecdotes though trawled from the weeping radio this last few days:
One of the bereaved was in the habit of going to Anfield with his teenage daughters and sitting in a pair of debenture seats with his missus, letting the kids go on alone and stand on the Kop. Presumably for the singing, swearing and spitting. What the fuck is that about?
Another one of the survivors told of being let in through the infamous gate with his mate, "rushing" late for kick off into the back of the deadly pen, and while "working [their] way to the front", he lost sight of his mate who eventually was found to have perished. "Working their way to the front" means what precisely the fuck?
Still I see that the already retiring, almost sacked, was-actually-in-Manchester-on-the-day scapegoat copper has been re-sacked, or re-retired more like. Footie supporters, eh? It's a tax on the daft. Though to be fair, I think the filth have outdone even themselves this time.
I have to admit the first thing I thought this morning when I heard on the radio that the Hillsborough families were planning to sue S Yorks Police for some compo was 'Oh, so it wasn't all about the 'justice' then?'
As ever its a case of 'Show me the money!!!!'
Not sure how these things work, mr jim, but I would be in favour of a hit on the SYP pension fund, that would certainly make them mind their manners, otherwise, any compensation will only be paid by you and I, as usual.
I do, however, think that in the light of the recent verdicts compensation is appropriate, both for the loss of a loved one and for defamation, and that settlements should be appropriate and prompt. Losing a father, a husband and having his character assassinated over a quarter century, well, a million pounds a head, I would have thought, in such cases, less for single men and women and nothing for nieces and nephews or some bloke you knew down the 'pub or in the chippy.
As payments are made we will surely see this coalition of grief dismantle itself, some feeling short-changed, others, as you say, showing themselves the money, like pools winners.
From start to finish the whole thing reflects bady our nation's priorities, obsessive, tribalised recreation at any cost; institutionalised, careerist blame- shifting and downright Mafia-style corruption; the vileness of skymadeupnewsandfilth and the indifference of legislators.
Kelvin McFilth does it for me, always has, ask anybody round herr, this cunt pursued teenage girls until the very day of their sixteenth birthday, when they could get their tits out in his shitrag of a paper and now the PBC pays him to imform and educate us.
A big guillotine and a bigger bonfire, that's the only language which these people will ever understand. Cut their heads off, roast them and feed them to the dogs.
My dearest chum of over 50 years standing was a retired copper of the old school and we had many a conversation on the nature of policing in the UK. He was one of the most searingly honest men I ever knew and would never try to defend the indefensible but he became a tad peeved when I once posited that policemen have to uphold the law, no matter what, and if that law is unjust or, worse, plain wicked, then a policeman cannot in conscience defend it. He must leave the Force, for to remain is tacitly to accept the injustice and thereby defend it. Perhaps the refrain, "All coppers are bastards" may have its roots in logic after all.
Oh, certainly, king caratacus, I do not say it merely spitefully, it is the nature of the gig that it is them against us, and those who resile from that resign or are sacked or worse. I had dealings with a great community sergeant, in Bournville police station, years ago, and he was Grace made flesh, but I knew that if it came to it his overriding consideration, his first priority would be standing on citizens' throats, mine included, I knew it and he knew that I knew it. Other countries have made lawnforcement a graduate profession, time we did ghe same.
There was never, of course, any chance of another outcome to the unending inquest. The verdict had been announced by Dave, humbly relaying the findings of the last (entirely impartial) inquiry, to a packed and reverent Commons, two or twenty years, was it, beforehand. Noble matchgoing scousers wholly exonerated, or else.
The coppers are filth indeed, as if we ever needed the Stanford prison thing to tell us about that model.
As you say, this has been a drama for our age, the 96 having long since been left behind.
I see the Hebes are right now claiming back their God given right to the ownership of the Book of Sorrows, temporarily stolen from them by the scallies. Brother Jeremy taking some flak for the muzzie bint and comrade Ken.
Tis one of of life's truisms, all Coppers are Bastards. They could speak out when they see injustice, but, as you have often said, their pensions are too important.
Incidentally I have never met one of those 'good' coppers, all the bastards are cunts, otherwise they wouldn't do what they do.
Good to see you back Mr I.
And I wonder if there's anyone in Liverpool who'd come forward and say, Actually, pet, I lost me 'ubby an' everythin' but I just gorron wi' me life, life's too short, innit, for all this shite. Because it is.
Thanks, mr inmate, I do agree, lazy, arrogant, conceited bullies, most of them, at all ranks, maybe my first encounter with Frank was heightened in some way because he sensed how keen I was to keep a young person out of custody and picked up on it, himself. We got the lad into a bail hostel, instead. Hard times, long ago and far away, the more usual experience was of the coppers breaking the limbs of gay people, because they could. They had the plague, you see.
Yes, the Jews claiming exclusive Ownership of Sorrow, that's one of my Auschwitzisms, isn't it?
It's not so long that von Cameron was bleating about giving people, well, people like Rupe's boy, Coulson, a second chance. But this muslim bint, she's unforgiveable, isn't she. Anyone'd think she'd been snorting coke and smashing-up Oxforc, when she was younger, on Daddy's tax-free money. Oh what a time tnis would be for an Opposition, if only we had one.
.
I have always believed that all football club supporters should be let into the grounds and channelled onto the pitch, and should be compelled to kick about a ball or another supporter's head for ninety minutes, and the police should be forced to watch from the stands. Seating for officers and standing for plods. The club players should be forced to watch on TV.
I think about it a lot, the football thing. The game would e better observed on television. yet for millions the live occasion is compelling, for some it is an occasion of licensed hatred, for some tribal violence, for very many it is an absorption into a groupthink, a hive mentality; the football crowd is the antithesis of the enlightened, rational being, the Nuremberg Rally de nos jours, its heroes coarse and monstrous. I think I hate it, m. alphons.
Well, she is beyond forgiveness, isn't she? Horrible fucker. We have rehearsed the aggressive Israeli IDF here before but the old left just has anti-Jew running through it like a stick of rock, and has done this last hundred years. It's in yer man's book, innit. "International Jewry". Fuck me. Easy bedfellows now with today's New Muslim Army. Fuck the lot of them. Hoist indeed by their own petard of whining correctness.
As for wanting somebody to blame - it is inevitable, isn't it? If I went to somewhere and came home without my kids, I'd crawl under the bed and spend the rest of my life screaming it away. And that the Filth would stitch them up like that doesn't surprise any of us - or shouldn't. I am surprised that any Scouse copper lived to see another day.
As strange coincidence would have it, Daughter 2 was picked to do one of those History Witness things and last week indeed she went to Auschwitz, a Wednesday day trip - like to Hunstanton, without the candyfloss but with a great pyramid of ownerless shoes. Now that is proper tragedy to be a witness to. It is a pity we don;t have any politicians able to man up to the job.
I don't know the details, mr mongoose, of her offence, but they are nothing compared to those of Blair's New Labour, she has done no slaughter and young people often speak hastily, especially whilst ransoming their lives to Zuckerberg snd his greedy mutants. I have said, myself, here, that it was not the Palestinians wrought KristalNacht and Buchenwald, why should not European Jews claim Bavaria as readily as Jerusalem; is Jewish superstition and scripture more valid than Muslim? Why must the Muslim arabs be dispossessed, for the crimes of Europeans. We are entitled, yet, to ask, without censure.
Nothing said here dismisses the horror of H'bro, the vileness of Authority, I simply urge that there is more to life than mourning, death comes soon enough to us all, too soon for us to become its disciples.
The filth do what they do, I betcha that the branch of lawnforcement which nailed-up your Saviour never saif a goid word about Him, either, called Him all sorts. And he was the son of fucking God, wasn't he?
Talking of which, that Annihilation show is on the History channel, the noo, covering Eichmann, such an efficient bureaucrat.
Well, you acquaint yourself, Mr Ishamael, with the lady's drivel. And I am afraid that if she is too young, too innocent a flower, too unversed in the nuance of language that she has said things she didn't mean... Oh, FFS look up the squealing for yourself. Well, then she is not fit to stand for public office (yet). And so to the bucket with that defence, Sir. The other is that she is not quite as horrible a bastard as Blair. FFS2. We do not gradations of squalour here. I had hoped at least.
All man-drawn lines on maps are lies. Anyone living in a country with a straightish boundary line on it should hold their tongue about the MidE carve-up. (Hadrian's Wall was probably one of the earliest. But that is a thought worth thinking about on a longer day.)
I don't mind people drivelling, mr mongoose, better that than dropping frag-bombs on playgrounds and telling the bereaved mothers to be grateful, somethuing which is, by implication in this context, better than speraking too quickly or unwisely. I don't give a fuck about MPs of any hue,they're all filth, but older, whiter men have got awa6y with much worse than this and been , still, honouyrable and right honourable gentlemen. I can see Scaopa Flow, from here, the ghosts bobbing up and down, so's people could say what they wanted to.
I expect this storm of outrage is bought and paid for by the all-party parkliamentary Friends of Israel. There, that's me firmly anti-semitic. Anyway, there's a new tab on this matter, further on up the road.
As a Probation Officer in England's second city, I once worked with a Violent Offenders group. It was flawed in concept, in that the violent offenders vied to be the most violent and therefore have the highest status in the group. Impossible to curb the hierarchically-driven reminiscences about the fun of inflicting pain, cutting flesh, biting off ears. But that paled into insignificance by the chap who quite casually described his careful preparation of his weapons before attending the football every Saturday in the season of the year. This was quite some time ago, so I suppose the football fans (short for fanatics) were not searched as they entered the grounds. Are they now? If not, they should be. Anyway, this chap explained how to turn a potato into a lethal weapon: you carefully insert Stanley knife blades into the potato, sharp side sticking out, then hurl the said potato into the crowd, at its thickest. Spirit of Agincourt. Doesn't give the satisfaction of seeing the injury, hearing the scream,but the potato-grenade thrower inflicts his certain damage to tender flesh with little possibility of apprehension. We also used to run Thinking Skills group work. Linking actions to consequences, that sort of thing. The potato-grenade thrower had no deficit of such skills. Knew exactly the sort of damage he could inflict with his home-made weapon, and was jolly proud of it - in the tradition of peaky blinders - inserting a blade into the peak of your cap, then slashing your opponent across the face- preferable the eyes- with it.That is football. Nothing to do with football skills at all. Just the opportunity to align yourself with one tribe and do your possible to kick, maim and cut your opponent.
I have always been a pacifist, therefore I have always opposed football and all the other blood sports.
I'm truly glad that you have once again taken up your pen, Mr. Ishmael. The world is not the same without your true gaze.
Up all night, leaning on the windowsill, ms agatha, I watched a a sentimental Henry V, a tentative St Crispin's Day speech and an over remorseful post-Agincourt mood. I don't know if any of that stuff is true or remotely accurate, although we have made much art and more propaganda from it and there is a strain of thought that says male bellicosity will assert itself where it can, battlefield or football stadium. We have had the Blair wars, since your violent offenders' group, and many of their participants have shamed us all, although, Hush, mention it not, and we now have semi-legitimate anti-Muslim movements in which Mother Nature's Violent Son can strut with impunity, and in the Brexit movement there will be an element which is steeped in the myths of Agincourt and Crecy, as well as Rorke's Drift and el Alamein.
I never know about the warrior thing, other than that it is deeply-rooted and maintained and popularised in the Book of Common Pulp.
It is perfectly proper to link football violence - and the attendant vulgarity, loutishness and rapine of its stars - to the battlefields of Myth and see it as a substitute, perfectly natural and to be expected; it is also right to deplore the whole corporate business and see it as another hijacking of what was working class entertainment by GlobaCorp, by Uk PornoWitches, like Karren Bradey, Dirty Old Lady and Tory peer, by Russian crooks, Malaysian pimps and US gangsters, I dunno what these monster have to do with Sheffield Wednesday or Accrington Stanley. And I must say that people like Jose Wotsit, Sven-Urine, Arsehole Wenger and the rest do make me want to reach for my longbow.
As I said, I do think quite a lot about football, and what it means. I know that smarter people than I write about it beautifully and occasionally I can see why. I stand, however, by what I said earlier - drunken angry men, herded together, roaring tribal chants, whether they be tooled-up violent offenders, neo-Nazis or family men, doung their thing, here be mayhem.
Peaky Blinders returns. I have seen enough of it and they must blind one another without my attendance but I expect it will run and run, just as long as it never becomes thoughtful.
Post a Comment