Remember when you were a teenager? Most of your peers knew nothing about music or politics or anything, the majority of them were fuck-wits whom you despised. So when you’re listening to some young person going on about something or other, bear in mind that they are more likely to be one of the many than one of the few.
This may seem self-evident but I’ve noticed a tendency in myself and other people of my age towards identifying with young people and thus imagining that they are talking sense. Parents are particularly prone to this error because they get into the habit of trying to empathise with the insane whims and fancies of their children.
A simple test of whether someone is talking nonsense is to imagine that it is your Dad or Mum talking. You will then subject what they are saying to a proper level of scrutiny.
I need hardly add that you, gentle reader, are clearly one of the few, far exceeding the common herd in judgement and knowledge.

(My thanks to the Macintosh spelling checker which told me that fuck-wit is hyphenated, something I never imagined.)

A funny thing happened at the BBC yesterday. Someone from the Cairo office rang up the Newsnight programme asking them whether the rumours they had heard that Newsnight was going to be showing the controversial Danish cartoons that night were true. Newsnight were surprised, they said no, nobody on the programme had even suggested that they should show the cartoons, they hadn’t even discussed it. Later that day someone from the British Home Office rang to ask the same question, they had heard the rumour from the Foreign Office. Newsnight were even more surprised than before, but they gave the same answer – it wasn’t even on the agenda. Even later in the day the BBC press office rang. Over 700 people had rung the BBC to complain about Newsnight’s intended showing of the cartoons. A well co-ordinated complaining operation organised by foolish people based on nothing at all, rather like the whole controversy.

So what was going on here? Who was spreading this utterly baseless rumour? Was it the BNP? They must be absolutely delighted about this whole affair. For years they have been saying that Islam isn’t compatible with British values, now thousands of Muslims around the world are rallying in the streets echoing that view. Or could it have been Islamic extremists trying to stoke up the row in order to gain tactical advantages over other more liberal Muslims?

Meanwhile in Pakistan at least 27 people were killed today, torn apart by a bomb set off in a religious procession. The people who were killed were Muslim pilgrims. In the rioting that followed the explosion over half the town’s bazaar was destroyed, an unknown number of people were killed, countless more were injured or had their livelihoods destroyed. Was this bomb more objectionable than a picture in a newspaper, or is it just far easier for simple minded people to protest about some imagined insult instead of addressing the many difficult problems that we already have to deal with?

The underground train drivers in London are having a strike on New Year’s Eve. It has been a great London tradition for tube travel to be free on 31 December and it really adds to the pleasure of living in London. The strike is being called by the RMT union because they say they are worried about safety at tube stations because the tube management want fewer staff in ticket offices and more on the platforms. I went through Brixton tube station today. The station office had three men it it with their feet up, chatting and laughing, not doing much at all as far as I could see. No wonder they object to plans for them to be out of the office and working. I reckon if we had a ballot of Londoners asking whether the entire Tube workforce should be sacked and replaced it’d only be employees of London Undergound who’d vote ‘No’.

Robert Holleyman of the Business Software Alliance says “Few people would find it acceptable for a quarter of consumers to steal, rather than buy, their new car from a dealer’s forecourt.” What a tosser. Few people would find it acceptable for their car to unexpectedly not work on French roads or to suddenly stall on a motorway because they had filled it up with petrol from Esso rather than BP. When software works properly, as advertised then the software manufacturers will be entitled to take the moral high-ground.
I recently needed to edit together some multi-channel audio files. Several programs claimed to support the format but fortunately I decided to try those programs out by downloading them via BitTorrent. Mark of the Unicorn would have charged me £319 to discover that their Digital Performer software can’t import 6-channel AIFF files despite their claims that “you get unlimited tracks, unlimited undo, support for surround sound.” Buying Bias Peak would have been another £73 wasted, and so on. In the end I figured out a way to do it with Apple’s £20 QuickTime Pro. OK, Ok, I’ll pay for it now… sigh… why do I start out writing these things?

Well, it’s not exactly mine, but I did produce and mix it. It’s a documentary by World Service journalist Anu Anand (hey, I took that photo!) about how Afghanistan’s conservative society is coping with western influences like music TV. It focusses in particular on Shakeeb Issar, Afghanistan’s first VJ. He’s an interesting character, utterly egotistical and vain as a peacock, but I ended up sympathising with him. Although he seems utterly apolitical he is a radical just because his society doesn’t like the way he dresses and acts.

There’s nothing that I can add to Simon Schama’s superb, blistering attack on Bush. I can even forgive him his use of 9/11 to mean September the 11th.

The head of the British secret police, Eliza Manningham-Buller, recently made a speech in which she claimed that “Civil liberties may have to be ‘eroded’ to protect Britons from terrorism”. It’s not surprising that she thinks this; as a spook she must have spent much of her career being confounded by unwanted interference from people she probably sees as wishy-washy liberals. In fact, she has more in common with the people who planted the bombs in London on July the 7th than she has with the citizens who she says she wants to protect.

Although people usually characterise the “War on Terror” as being between Muslim militants and democratic governments it is actually a war between liberals and authoritarians. On one side the liberals wants all those things that liberals always want; equality for everyone, protection of civil liberties, tolerance of different opinions, all that sort of thing. On the other side the authoritarians want stricter laws, whether based on the Koran or the Bible or just general strictness, they don’t approve of women’s rights, they don’t like weirdos, they don’t care about civil liberties, they don’t like liberals. Terrorists are almost always authoritarian by instinct, so are policemen.

It’s such a sham when television programmes put together a discussion with a Muslim authoritarian on one side and a secular authoritarian on the other. It’s like two butchers arguing about whether to make pies or sausages, the animal that’s about to be killed doesn’t get a look-in. We liberals need to realise that it’s not just suicide bombers who want to change the world for the worse – the authoritarians from both sides are engaged in a sort of coalition to try and remove our freedoms. They are attacking on two fronts and Eliza Manningham-Buller is the enemy within.

…but it’s a shame that it had to be this man. The former Malaysian Prime Minster Mahathir Mohamad has offended the British High Commissioner by comparing US and UK pilots in Iraq to terrorists.

“The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cosy in their state of the art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim.

“And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate ‘mission accomplished’.

“Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?”

The only problem is that Mahathir Mohamad is an authoritarian racist who locked up and tortured a lot of people who opposed his government while he was in power. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong about this, mind you.

Compare and contrast Blair’s statements with those of our Mayor, Ken Livingstone.

Blair said:

“It is through terrorism that the people that have committed this terrible act express their values, and it is right at this moment that we demonstrate ours. I think we all know what they are trying to do – they are trying to use the slaughter of innocent people to cower us, to frighten us out of doing the things that we want to do, of trying to stop us going about our business as normal, as we are entitled to do, and they should not, and they must not, succeed.

When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated. When they seek to change our country or our way of life by these methods, we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people or weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm. We will show, by our spirit and dignity, and by our quiet but true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs. The purpose of terrorism is just that, it is to terrorise people, and we will not be terrorised.

I would like once again to express my sympathy and my sorrow to those families who will be grieving, so unexpectedly and tragically, tonight. This is a very sad day for the British people, but we will hold true to the British way of life.”

And Ken said:

“I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others – that is why you are so dangerous. But I know you fear that you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society and I can show you why you will fail.

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

They choose to come to London, as so many have come before because they come to be free, they come to live the life they choose, they come to be able to be themselves. They flee you because you tell them how they should live. They don’t want that and nothing you do, however many of us you kill, will stop that flight to our city where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony with one another. Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.”

You can really see the difference between the two men and their world views in these statements. I know which one I prefer.

Let’s send a clear message to the terrorists that they can’t change our way of life by planting bombs. We should refuse to sacrifice our freedoms; we should say no to Identity Cards.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair vows terrorists won’t win