Russell Brand has my vote

You may have noticed Russell Brand being in the news a bit this week: not for his shagging or drug exploits or even for offending the delicate, but for saying that he doesn’t vote.

That derives from this, an article he wrote for the New Statesman – which he was guest editing this week.

Quite what it means to get a celebrity to “guest edit” a magazine, I don’t really know. How many crap contributions were spiked by Russell Brand? Did he give the advertising department a hard time for a lack of renewals? I suppose we’ll never know.

Anyway, over the course of 4,500 words, Russell Brand (celebrities are always to be referred to by their full names – that’s in the ODHSNM style guide. The editor would have a fit if I didn’t follow it) says this:

I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned. As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to vote for. I feel it is a far more potent political act to completely renounce the current paradigm than to participate in even the most trivial and tokenistic manner, by obediently X-ing a little box.

He also says:

Apathy is a rational reaction to a system that no longer represents, hears or addresses the vast majority of people. A system that is apathetic, in fact, to the needs of the people it was designed to serve.

This has caused an eruption of ruffled pomposity from the political and media establishment this week – whose response to Russell Brand’s unauthorised trespass into their exclusive domain has been akin to the expression on the face of a wood pigeon that has just fallen out of a tree.

It is best summed up by the tired spectacle of that sneering symbol of everything that is loathsome and exclusive about the establishment, Jeremy Paxman, calling him a “trivial man” on Newsnight – followed by columnist after columnist commenting on this and then on each other’s comments, like a dog eating its own shit, sicking it up, and then eating it again.  

The argument appears to be that Russell Brand is not entitled to express an opinion on politics because he chooses not to vote, despite having a reasoned explanation as to why this is. Maybe Russell Brand's explanation can shed some light on why millions of other people don't vote - or is that an impossibility because he's a Hollywood celebrity? I'd suggest that he has more in common with those non-voters than anyone playing the Westminster game. 

Russell Brand is a witty man who expresses himself well, while also annoying people and being a monstrous show-off. Who else was like that? Socrates was a lot like that. You could argue that Jesus was a lot like that.

CLEARLY I AM NOT COMPARING RUSSELL BRAND TO JESUS OR SOCRATES. Come on, this isn’t the Daily Telegraph comments section.

You don’t have to agree with his point of view (Russell Brand even points out later in the article – YES, I DID read it all – that he acknowledges that apathy also comes from laziness and the inability to care about distant things) but he deserves a hearing. That’s what’s different between today and back then. 

Equally ridiculous looking

Russell Brand may not be the best person to explode the political/media/business cabal, but so what if what he says resonates with people? Paxman trivialises himself once again by playing the man not the ball. His persona and schtick is just as absurd as Russell Brand's. 

Plus, this is not a new point of view. Here’s HG Wells, 100 years ago talking about Parliament.

So far representative government has not had even the beginnings of a fair trial. So far we have not had representative government, but only a devastating caricature. 

Politicians are: 

Not really the elected representatives of the people; they are the products of a ridiculous method of election; they are the illegitimate children of the party system and the ballot-box 

Criticising the electoral system, HG Wells (the celebrity, not the conference centre) says 

The system lies, in fact, wholly open to the control of political organisations, calls out, indeed, for the control of political organisations, and has in every country produced what is so evidently demanded. The political organisations to-day rule us unchallenged. Save as they speak for us, the people are dumb. 

Echoing Russell Brand, HG Wells goes on: 

Elections of the prevalent pattern, which were intended and are still supposed by simple-minded people to give every voter participation in government, do as a matter of fact effect nothing of the sort. They give him an exasperating fragment of choice between the agents of two party organisations, over neither of which he has any intelligible control. 

Last quote, I promise: 

Our governments in the more civilised parts of the world to-day are only in theory and sentiment democratic. In reality they are democracies so eviscerated by the disease of bad electoral methods that they are mere cloaks for the parasitic oligarchies that have grown up within their form and substance. 

Perhaps HG Wells was a “trivial man” too. He did, after all, write science fiction novels, thought bicycles were the future of warfare and was a prominent “useful idiot” for Lenin.  

Oops - now we can't take him seriously on anything

Perhaps I am a trivial man too. Almost certainly I am. 

And I'd much rather be one than the sort of creature a Paxman takes seriously. 

My point is simply that there has been a tradition of dissatisfaction with the (still) prevailing political orthodoxy that goes is more than a hundred years old. That critique is not new, nor is it something that establishment has a right to reject out of hand because a “celebrity” is putting it forward. 

You shouldn’t have to be nothing but “serious” to be taken seriously. Politics is not the sole domain of people who have never thought about or done anything other than politics. 

The meaning of “democracy” is not exhausted by the Westminster farce and the media wankers who tell you what you can think about it. Russell Brand has reached his own conclusions – so can you. It's as much ours as it is theirs. 

Top Five Pointless Conventions

Lots of things we take for granted in everyday life do not serve any reasonable purpose. Today, ODHSNM considers some of the most egregious.

Encore

So you’re watching a band. They’ve been on for a while and they haven’t played their most popular songs.

What’s this? They’re walking off the stage? But...but...NO! You must return! We, the audience, demand it!

What is the point of an encore? Everyone knows you’re going to do it. Band - you are not spontaneously responding to the audience. You’ve got a LIGHT SHOW sorted out for this bit, FFS.

Audience – you could all sit there in total silence and they’d still come back out and play the same three songs they intended to play all along. They're not going to waste that light show. 

Perhaps once an encore was a spontaneous response to audience demand. Now – like most of the grammar of pop music - it’s a ridiculous bit of play-acting nobody can remember why they do. Just don’t bother. 

Outside Broadcast

Suppose there has been some big news event, with a political element to it. Cue TV reports beginning:

“I am standing here outside Number 10 Downing Street...”

WHY? That is the last place on earth where anything relating to this news event is likely to happen. Nor are we convinced by the presence of a TV crew there that you are somehow at the heart of what is going on. You read a press release (or whatever) and drove the crew over there, the same as everyone else!

Why is it considered necessary to put a man in a coat in front of a well-known monument or some building that has a bearing on the story in question? Do you think we can’t grasp the idea of “politics” without a picture of the Houses of Parliament?

The 9 to 5

OK, not everybody works those particular hours, but the vast majority of us do. This is incredibly inefficient and detrimental to our collective well-being.

Rush hour, peak time fares, lunchtime queues, “all our operators are busy at the moment” – these are all side-effects of the idea that we all trying to do the same things at the same times.

Couldn’t we all stagger our working hours to avoid getting in each other’s way?

Yours sincerely

 Perhaps this valediction is in irreversible decline with letter-writing heading for extinction, but I for one will not miss it.

Firstly, at 37 years of age, I still struggle to spell it. Secondly, the whole sincerely/faithfully thing is a tiresome pinhead for pedantic angels to dance on.

But thirdly and most important, what the hell does it mean? In what sense am I claiming to be “yours”?

“I remain, Sir, your obedient servant”...? Is that what it’s derived from? If so, that’s not really how I want to sign off a letter. Because I don’t.

Parliament

Ha ha! A pun on the word “convention”.

But seriously, in what way is (i) the ability to get selected by a party machine as a candidate and (ii) the ability to make lawyerly speeches in the big green debating club in any sense correlated with (iii) having ideas about social and economic organisation that are likely to do any good and (iv) being competent to implement them?

It may have been suitable for a 19^th century Britain run by gentlemen for gentlemen, but it looks pretty preposterous today. 

PLEASE BE ADVISED - The convention that the photo and the text should be in some way related has been bypassed - this is a picture of a pelican put through Glitche.

Speed Awareness

This weekend just gone, I went on a speed awareness course.

The first irony of many to be encountered across this post is that I was aware of precisely how fast I was going when I got nicked, back at the end of July – ie 37 mph.

What I was not aware of was that Truvelo Combi (pictured) cameras take pictures of you from the front if you pass them at a speed above the limit. I had always thought they were the ones that took your number going in to a “measured mile” type of speed trap and then got you on the way out if you’re too quick. 

Naturally, I had intended to slow down sharply right before passing the second camera.

So I had already learned something valuable a long time before going on the course.

I shall spare you any further details of my lawbreaking. Suffice to say I was eventually faced with the following options:

• A £60 fine and 3 points on my licence
• Go on a 4.5-hour speed awareness course, which costs £75

Considering the price of car insurance these days – and the risk of recidivism on my part (to which we will return later) – it was a no brainer.

Not only that, I thought it would give me something funny to write about here for you, my beloved readers. I was hoping for:

• A “scared straight” police lecture to take the piss out of;
• A local government health and safety boreathon to take the piss out of; or
• At least one or more foul-tempered 50+ Yorkshire arseholes who think that arguing with the poor schmuck giving the presentation will lead to the law being immediately changed in their favour and their course fee returned, with an apology for wasting their valuable time. To take the piss out of.

My hopes in these regards were to be dashed, although there was (inevitably) a little dash of each. Just not enough to really get stuck into.

Potentially ironic photograph

It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, innit? That is to say, debatably ironic but primarily just a little bit disappointing and wearing.

To give them their due, the pair who ran the session were very entertaining – given the subject matter and the fact that most people there were being forcibly detained under pain of punishment for the first time since school. On a sunny Saturday afternoon, no less.

I did also learn a couple of things:

• Unless there’s a sign to say otherwise (or you’re on a motorway or dual carriageway) the presence of street lighting = 30 mph speed limit. “Built up area” means nothing in this regard.
• A multi-lane road is only a dual carriageway if there’s a central reservation – and this is important because there is a different national speed limit for single carriageways and dual carriageways (ie for cars, 60 mph and 70 mph, respectively).

I expect you knew all of that, right?

As you would expect, we also heard some harrowing stories about how cars going too fast had killed people, saw some harrowing videos of cars going too fast killing people, collectively imagined what it would be like be driving a car too fast that had killed some people etc.

For me however the problem was this. Even after 4.5 hours of listening, nodding along and generally taking it all in, I didn’t really feel as though I had done anything wrong.

I got done driving past a speed camera around 7pm in the evening. There was nobody around.

On one side of the road beyond the pavement, there was a brick wall with woods on the other side of it. The wall is approximately 6 feet high on the other side of it. So nobody is about to dive into the road from that side.

On the other side is a grass verge, a pavement, a small wall, a big open lawn and finally a block of flats.

The view is very good; there are no junctions or other hazards. There are streetlights. I’m checking all this on Google StreetView as I write, so this is not just how I remember it.  

I am not saying that I shouldn’t have been done because of all these things. I’m saying I can’t understand why there is a speed camera there, unless it is just an instrument of revenue-raising or tyrannising drivers with the threat of constant surveillance.

I just cannot see a real safety reason for that camera to be there - or for a lot of other cameras to be where they are. Which makes one think: "Yes, I understand and agree with everything you've said. But what has it got to do with the situation I found myself in, which was completely unlike everything you've talked about?"

Honestly, I wanted to come out of that course a changed man. For £75 you expect an epiphany, not just a couple of cups of coffee and a free pencil. I’m not sure I was even supposed to take the pencil.

But I didn’t.

I’m not an habitual speeder – on a scooter one rarely has the opportunity to break the limit. But I still believe in my stomach that the risk of getting caught or having an accident is sometimes outweighed by my need to be somewhere, fast. I can’t help it. It’s pre-rational.

I’ll probably still believe that right up until something awful happens.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?