Space Dementia

I just can't help myself, the mad impulse in me is screaming skip to the end, and only through some incredible force of will can I hold myself back. It arrived four days ago, sheathed in bubblewrap, squeaking a little when I pulled it gently out of the packaging. I want to rip it open and force it into my DVD player, scream like a giddy schoolgirl and sit there and watch all ten hours at once, my eyes hollowing slowly, the feeling draining from first my fingers, then my toes and my feet, as I slowly slip, smiling, into an ecstatic and vegetative state of satisfied hardcore geekiness.

As you may (or may not) have guessed, I'm talking about Battlestar Galactica season four! Through some woeful timing I've gone back to start watching the entire first three seasons with my flatmate (a BG virgin) and now I can't bear the fact that it's going to be weeks (weeks! weeks!) before I can quench the giddy thirst for more, more, MORE with which I was left, panting, after the end of season three.

For those of you who have never watched this magnificent television programme, think The Wire in space. With robots and explosions and demented scientists and all the same intelligence and brutal allegory. As with all genre-based television, Battlestar Galactica is a hard sell to people who wouldn't watch it anyway, so I won't bother trying to convince you. I will say however that it sits neatly in my top three teevee (sic) ever - along with the aforementioned The Wire and Kieslowski's Dekalog.

The real question here is - should I stick to my arbitrarily-defined principles and save season four until I've re-digested seasons one (excellent), two (better) and three (spectacular) first? Or should I whore myself to the god of hedonism and shove it merrily into my gaping eyeholes, cackling with delight at the naughty pleasure of a televisual binge, and finally admitting to myself I'm a demented child of the now-now-now YouTube generation?

Clowns

Proof, if it were needed, that the old adage is true. If you don't have anything worth saying, then don't bother writing an article on it in a national newspaper.

I am, literally, speechless.

Once And Never Again

Today the Long Blondes announced that they have split, following the stroke suffered by guitarist and songwriter Dorian Cox in June. Quite simply one of the best British bands this century, it is not only a personal tragedy for Cox and his family, as well as the band, but also a great loss to music. In 3 short years the band leave a legacy of a mere two albums, each spectacular in their own way, as well as a clutch of catchy singles, inventive b-sides and infectiously fun demos.

Intelligent, witty and spiked with humour, the Blondes' music has often driven me to (entirely justified) hyperbole, and catching a handful of live performances throughout their career ensured that they remain cemented as one my favourite bands. From their ramshackle early performances in Sheffield before they signed with Domino, through the indie pop perfection of debut Someone to Drive You Home, up to the slick electro of their second album, the Blondes always carried off indie rock with more style, panache and personality than any of their peers.

With a small but devoted following, the Long Blondes will hopefully be reclaimed as one of the most overlooked bands of the decade, and Cox as a great and underrated songwriter. With songs lamenting a weekend without makeup, dissolving in the seduction of fast cars, or simply floating on dreams of running away on motorways to relive your glory days, the Blondes provided something rare in music. Virtually every band in existence offers the listener a choice of style or substance. With the Long Blondes, quite simply, you could have both.

Honey Bee (Let's Fly To Mars)

The Chinese are going to the Moon. Take a moment to digest this information, and then ask youself, why?

When the Apollo 11 Lunar Module touched down on the surface of the Moon, on the 16th of July, 1969, it was no small step for a nation striving to prove that it was the leader of the world, free or otherwise. Logistically, economically and politically the Apollo programme was a nightmare of epic proportions. Let me put this another way; only 12 men have ever walked on the surface of the Moon, and the last one left nearly 36 years ago.

The scientific benefits of going to the Moon were minimal at best. There is little useful you can learn from the low-gravity, zero-atmosphere surface of the Moon that you can't learn from the zero-gravity vacuum of space. Why else would Alan Shepherd be allowed the luxury of playing golf on one of only 6 manned missions that have ever reached the Moon's surface?

The real impact of the Moon landings was political. The twelve men who stepped onto the surface (and the six who merely circled a couple of times round the block) were instant patriots for America. Great war heroes, who had won a war against seemingly insurmountable odds. They gave a nation that craves jingoism a victory, that somehow clouded the rather more real defeat in Vietnam.

China is embroiled in no crippling war. The struggles that China faces today are those of the Western media, and the impact of Western ideals on a culture which must unfurl its protective shell in order to blossom. The 2008 Olympics, marred as they were by protests, arrests and an uncomfortable silence, marked China out as, at least in part, a modern, developed, and spectacularly wealthy country. To put a man on the Moon would show them as the true economic power on the globe today - as there is certainly no other country with the resources, financial backing and political single-mindedness to be able to achieve this feat.

Yet it seems likely that the true benefit for China would be more intangible. Throw aside the political, scientific and nationalistic benefits, and imagine the sheer kudos. Imagine a world where a country can prove its superiority not by tackling it's human rights issues, nor by eradicating internal poverty. Where a country can openly deny free speech, outlaw religious tolerance, spend years occupying and oppressing a peaceful country.

Imagine a world where, despite all of this, one man standing on the surface of the Moon can look back at the Earth, and see that his nation has taken a great leap to become the most powerful and important nation on the planet. And imagine, as he looks back, how small and insignificant the Earth must seem.

It's Only The End Of The World

Hysteria is a strange creature. It spreads, a virus, infecting everything it touches. A virus, yes, but one that feeds on a conscious surrendering to the apparently inevitable. The most rational mind becomes gripped by the desire to give in and follow those around it as they slip into despair. The nauseating and reassuring feeling of falling suddenly. The human impulse for calamity beyond personal control.

Economic turmoil is a factual eventuality not because capitalism is a flawed structure, though it is, but because the collective being of civilisation is a coward and a fool. It fears its own weaknesses and thereby succumbs immediately to them. Its sight is narrow and self-involved, and never looks beyond the present. It never sees further than the near past and does not consider the yet-to-be.

A scapegoat is always to be found. Rich bankers sucking the system dry and lining their pockets with the residue. Irresponsible investors throwing aside acumen for chance. A tactless media whipping up frenzy in a bid to stave off the growing spectre of irrelevance. The truth is that all of these are symptoms of the human virus. Capitalism is the distilled form of the most vulgar and strong of human impulses - the need for success. The need to rise above the rest. The perverse notion that the individual is the driving force behind everything. That one person can stand alone in victory.

If the sudden downturn in global markets shows anything, it is that the individual does not exist as a distinct entity. All of us are affected. As the drunken headiness of success crashes in the gutter to spew out the half-digested notions of charity and economic and social responsibility, the weakened state is infected with a hysteria that impacts every person it touches. Those at the top slip on the edge of a precipice, and those at the bottom shelter from the debris that rains down.

As with violence, greed and jealousy, panic begets panic. A recession is not the apocalypse, but if confidence is the life force of a globalized economy, and hysteria the cancer that eats it away, then brace yourself for a shock. This dead meat is going to start to stink.