Food and fuel prices go up, Boris becomes Mayor and Bob Log III plays at Gearclub

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

Retail News : Food and fuel prices
Er, what did I miss? Obesity and global warming were identified as two major problems. Artificially cheap food and fuel prices were said to be exacerbating both problems. Was the government brave enough to increase prices to stop people eating too much and driving endlessly into traffic jams? Er…no.

For me it’s an interesting ‘aide memoire’ that when I see higher prices I remember I eat too much and that driving is not a good idea right now. In fact before we get to global warming I am aware of the appalling waste of rows of traffic sitting going nowhere. Anyone driving in London when it is not highly necessary is possibly a little bit crazy.

In fact, the price mechanism in the petrol case is a much better one than congestion charging and wasting all our lives with parking fines, and restrictions. The small minded profiteering of local councils and privately contracted parking firms, deliberately making ordinary people into criminals, is a disastrous waste of human life, and destroys the usefulness of the car anyway. It simply wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t far too many cars on the road or they drove a bit less, and the price mechanism is a way of achieving that across the board without diverting human energies into hate-generating pettiness.

Election News: Boris Johnson becomes London Mayor
‘If I could turn back time’ sang Cher. As I watched Ken Livingstone’s speech accepting that he had lost the race for election as London Mayor, I couldn’t help feeling that if only his electorate had seen it before the election it might have swung enough votes to get him in.

Of course what is particularly interesting is the use of ‘second preference’ votes, allowing the unhappy people that can’t get the candidate they want to ‘stick it’ to whoever might otherwise win. Our ruling coalition of alternate Conservative/Labour politicians has shied away from allowing us this choice at the most important general election, in the same way that the national governing party gets a majority power whilst inevitably having a minority of the popular vote. You don’t witness Zimbabwean-level calls of injustice against that.

As I enjoyed Boris’ acceptance speech, eloquently delivered and with the full magnanimity available to those who win, I was unfortunately reminded of those heady days when Tony Blair swept to power and we honestly thought that there was cause for a new optimism.

Being an old romantic I would wish for nothing else than for Boris to confound the critics and achieve the ‘fixing of mistakes’ and the ‘building on achievements’ he described in his speech. However, with the massed ranks of pessimism and our insatiable appetite for stories of cataclysmic failure, he will need a very large supply of luck. Particularly as a lot of what is likely to happen will probably have been determined by things that have already happened or that a London Mayor has no power over.

That said, I do have every hope that Boris will have a flamboyant style that will be a refreshing tonic when juxtaposed with our dour Prime Minister. He retains his depressing air of moral superiority whilst delivering tedious marginal changes that seem only to be edging us further towards bad times. Good luck everybody.

Concert Review : Bob Log III, Gearclub at Debaser Stockholm, 02/05/08
On reflection I am rather disappointed to have only caught the last 2 songs by support act Robert Johnson & the Punchdrunks, because they sound very interesting musically (covers of Doctor Who, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Dangerman and Groovin’ with Mr Bloe) despite their lack of live drums. The 2 songs I did see were fine. Bizarrely they were the most ‘visible’ of the 3 acts as they were only partially swamped by dry ice and back lighting.

By comparison Tremolo Beer Gut, the next act, who come from Denmark, were almost invisible, and I wondered why they wore anything in particular. They occupied a Treble Spankers/Charles Napiers/original Dick Dale corner of the musical world and were probably my favourite act of the evening. Good on them, for instance for having the drums up front with the rest of the band. With my favourite kind of paradoxical logic they announced a song as ‘Swedish Erotica’ and then went into a completely wild west instrumental twang.

Last up was Bob Log III himself. He’s a one man blues band from Tucson, Arizona. He plays electronic drums with his feet whilst playing a very traditional blues sounding guitar, and singing through a distorting microphone held next to his face by an obscuring motorcycle helmet. With his ‘Wolfman’-style humour and delivery it was fun and interesting, but with its relentless false endings and a very generous length of set I found myself rather drained by the end.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]