Van the Man

Van Morrison's website wants to charge me for reading a review of Saturday at Battle Abbey, so harrumph to them and here's my take on it:

The weather was horrible until just before the start and again in the car park afterwards, however for the visit of himself it dried up. First up was Chris Farlowe, a blast from the same era as Van himself, who churned out some solid blues stuff, plus a version of Handbags and Gladrags (written for him by Mike d'Abo) which wasn't at all bad, and of course Out of Time, a classic Jagger/Richards tune which gave him his only hit. Next time Chris, just don't say anything in between ("this one's for the ladies").
The expert at non communication with the crowd was fairly briskly on stage shortly after this, with an excellent band who appeared, however, not to have spent much time with Van at all. The lack of input from the artiste was made up for by his occasional frustrated shouts to the band ("Wake up!" and "Solo.........SOLO!"). I was too far back to identify anyone, but I think it may have been the great Mick Green on guitar, also Geraint Watkins on keys. We were treated to quite a few of the great songs, including a lengthy version of Moondance as the sun went down, also Here comes the night, Bright side of the road, Gloria with Chris Farlowe joining in, and of course Brown Eyed Girl, relayed to Joel in Chatham down the phone. We also had old faves Crazy Love and Wild Night, and more recent offerings, Precious Time and Back on Top, plus the tribute to his former occupation, Cleaning Windows. The evening ended with a great version of Walking the Dog and fireworks, by which time Van was probably halfway to Dublin. A great artist and a great show; it's a pity he isn't more interested in the people who come to listen to him.

Loose change

"Everyone - watch 'Loose Change', just in case some day soon you can't"

Quote from BBC Newsnight blog. This here webpage has a new edition with new footage. Free of course.

Free energy

This is interesting, extraordinary in fact. Let's see if it comes to anything.....

Look here

and here

Fear

One of Jesus most repeated phrases was "do not be afraid". There are many situations where this can apply, but where does it apply in 2006, given that you may not be in a boat in a storm on the sea of Galilee. Fear is at the root of all insurance policies, and there is a vast wodge of cash tied up in this. The powerful are fearful of losing their power, and money with it. Fear of being alone - this might propel you into relationships which arent healthy. Interesting that although Big Brother pushed the Pete/Nikki Love Affair for ratings, when she proposed marriage he declined (allegedly) - maybe a sign of discernment, or was it the record deal on the horizon? Other fear can come from traumatic events of any sort, which provoke loss of confidence or loss of trust and change people from the inside.
Fear of danger is a God implanted thing which actually has a practical function - adrenalin gives the impetus to escape from the raging bull. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" - could it be possible that this is another healthy fear?
In the light of all this the ratcheting up of fear of terrorism by western governments in particular has a desperately bad spiritual effect. We have all lived with terrorism in various forms for many years, not least the IRA bombing campaigns of the 70s on mainland Britain. And governments have rightly in the past taken the line of not letting it affect normal life, because the clear wisdom on this is that it gives terrorists exactly what they want, publicity, and increased fear of what they will do next. From there they proceed to put governments under pressure to capitulate on whatever they are demanding. Now we have the quite obvious use of chaos, terror and fear to achieve various ends: 9/11 particularly has been wrung dry as an excuse for extending the US Empire, particularly in the Middle East. Any possibility of terrorist attack, let alone actual atrocities - and who can say now which are genuine and which are false flag - is across the media in a moment, extending the Fear of Terrorism which is necessary to prolong the "Long War" which enables the reform of laws protecting civil liberties, and the putting in place a structure which makes possible the suspension of democracy "in time of crisis". Are we really that supine that we cannot see what is happening? It appears so. Only the internet is giving us the ability to discern what is really happening - watch for the changes in that area before long (Internet 2.0 anyone?). The media is the real battleground for this – I found an interesting view of this in a book about Alastair Campbell:

"Mandelson's and New Labour's genius was to grasp that the key to power in modern Britain was the media. Revolutionaries in the past have focused on the obvious symbols of state - the armed forces, the prisons, government buildings and the royal palaces - and used the mob as their instrument of destruction. Mandelson realized that today the media mattered far more than all these put together. Two hundred years ago the French revolutionaries stormed the Bastille. In 1994 and since, the insurrectionaries of New Labour have taken as their target the BBC, ITV, the newspaper editors, the broadcasters and the parliamentary lobby. They were all there for the picking. The newspapers have never been a negligible, and are sometimes a potent, force in politics. In the 1990s the print media allied with broadcasting combined to turn into a devastating power in the land: they suddenly achieved critical mass."

This is even more the case in the USA - the Bush government have them all in their pocket, although there are signs that the facade is cracking and that the "terror we all have to fight" is not what it is made to appear. They "hate our freedoms". The response is apparently to remove the freedoms so they have nothing to hate.

Yes it's the return of...

It's about time I blogged I suppose although recently there seems too much stuff going on to know where to start. So anyway, what do you believe when it comes to the recent "terror scares"? How can a 59 year old woman create an explosion with a screwdriver, some vaseline and some matches? This is an interesting problem, like one of those lateral thinking exercises. Or how about a suitcase full of "the police wont tell us if there even is a suitcase but a source has said...". Does the source have a blog? I'd like to see it. Keeping the fear level up is crucial when youre having a bit of difficulty in the polls. I'm afraid (!) there is not a lot of hope in terms of all this stuff going away, they're committed to it now. We shall see which of the arcs of extremism is the most dangerous, the one across the middle east or the one across the atlantic. I know which one worries me most.