Phil Woolas gets a pie in his face, Magic Ship at the Half Moon, Putney, Roger McGough and PC adverts

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK
Political Review : Phil Woolas gets a pie in the face, Manchester University Students Union
I have written about Phil Woolas before, but I couldn't resist commenting on the synchronicity of his getting a pie in the face this week.

In 1981 he was the General Secretary of the same student union where he received his pie. It was famous for a similar assault on an officially Conservative politician at that time. Now, after fashioning a career in politics for himself, Woolas was back as an unofficial conservative politician receiving his reward for unhelpful pronouncements about immigration.

Back in the eighties he was famous for drunkenly asking 'do you know who I am?' at a local pub. Despite him having a smart haircut since those long-haired student days, people have a better chance of 'knowing who he is' now. He might even get compared to Enoch Powell for saying things that got everyone uncomfortable about immigration.

I am happy to be unrecognised on rare occasions when I go back to Manchester.

Concert Tip : Magic Ship, Half Moon, Putney, 31/10/08
Shared a gig with Colin Gillman and his band Magic Ship this week. The first thing that struck me before I heard a note was the amazing quality of their promo material. They had produced postcards and card thick posters for the occasion.

Second thing was the politeness and good humour of Colin, the band's main man. I was rather tetchy from stabbing back pain caused by my awkward-to-move but reliable Carlsboro Cobra 90 keyboard amp. Colin shamed my surly unpleasantness with his positive outlook. Then they played a very professional rock set that showed how much they were enjoying themselves and how well they had prepared for this 'warm' up gig.

Anyway, now the warm up is over and they will hit the larger stage of the Half Moon, Putney. If you can't make it you can learn more them at myspace.com/magicshipband and their CD is available from stoneislandrecords.com.

Media Watch#1 : Roger McGough reads poetry in Waitrose advert
It was a source of some web discussion that Billy Childish & The Blackhands (with myself on accordion) are appearing playing the Dad's Army theme in a series of adverts for Asda. Asda are owned by Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart have had their reputation questioned as a result of some of their business practices, and Billy Childish is not normally associated with big business.

He is also a little 'out-of-sync' with some of the poetry world. I remember him telling me about a poetry event where the organisers had tried to convince him of its worthiness by telling him that Liverpool poet Roger McGough had already confirmed his involvement. He replied with words to the effect that he didn't care if Roger f-ing McGough had confirmed, he wasn't interested.

As if to echo this memory in my mind, Waitrose have now adopted Roger McGough reading poetry for its national advertising campaign. I can only hope that they put a fair price on using his art in this high profile way (I've long been a fan...).

Media Watch #2: PC ad
Some time ago, ads for Apple starring Mitchell and Webb portrayed Apple Mac computers as being easy and elegant to use, whilst PCs were rather tedious and unnecessarily complicated.

In a rather late attempt to answer these adverts, Microsoft have now come up with one showing a succession of people (one of them Bill Gates) saying 'I'm a PC'. This is slightly reminiscent of the famous gladiator film where the question is 'who is Spartacus?' is asked because Spartacus is to be put to death. In a show of solidarity everyone answers 'I am Spartacus!' Amazingly the corporately strong PC suddenly appears like the lone warrior standing up to the world in a show of unity with friends.

So the PC no longer needs to be judged by whether it is infuriating, tedious, or not secure. Instead it can be assessed by the variety and worthiness of the people that continue to use it.

To my mind this advert is an overtly 'defensive' feeling one. People with Macs tell me how they love them. They tell me the great things they do with them. If the PC is the instrument of doing something good the credit goes to the software, or the internet, or the broadband, but seems extremely unlikely to go to Microsoft.

The other thing about saying 'I'm a PC' is that it sounds like 'I'm PC' i.e. politically correct. How could anyone dare argue against the importance of being 'PC' ? It's almost as if the PC is for the ethnically diverse whilst the Mac is just for rich white folks.

Well at this point I have to say that not only am I a PC, I'm several. I'm the PC that doesn't go online in case it gets a virus. I'm the PC with an 8Mb broadband connection that gives me 2Mb if I'm lucky. And I'm the laptop PC that I rarely use cos it takes about 4 minutes to boot up.

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