Down to the wire

As I'm sure you're all aware, tomorrow the French go out and vote their new head of State in, it's been extremely well covered in the international press actually, I was pleasantly surprised. After the "premier tour" the Independant devoted its front page to the result, along with a lengthy analysis.

Anyway, in the spirit of useless last-minute appeals... The situation at this stage is hardly straightforward from my perspective, especially in light of my earlier brush with unbridled idealism. I mean obviously we don't want that liberalist demagogue in power and condemn, in the strongest terms, anyone who supports him. The TSS (Tout sauf Sarkozy) message, being fiercely pushed by the Young Greens for example, and indeed the anti-liberal Left, does strike me as unfortunately negative, and really the TPS (Tous Pour Segolene) alternative ultimately seeking the same upshot, seems like a more appealing stance. This is why I'll share with you something I came across during the last Parliament session, circulated by French socialist MEP Catherine Trautmann, which I think lays out the case for Sego quite comprehensibly.

Les Européens pour Ségolène Royal

Nous, parlementaires européens, apportons notre soutien à Ségolène Royal, candidate à la présidence de la République Française pour les motifs suivants:

• L'Europe a besoin de plus de démocratie et d'intégration politique. Nous ne voulons pas d'un mini traité européen négocié au sommet. Ségolène Royal s'engage à soumettre par référendum le texte du nouveau traité aux citoyens;
• L’Europe a besoin de garantir son modèle social, de lutter contre la pauvreté et favoriser l'accès de tous à l'emploi et à la connaissance. Ségolène Royal s’engage en faveur de la cohésion sociale et territoriale;
• L’Europe doit prendre la tête de la résistance au changement climatique. C’est une urgence planétaire. Ségolène Royal est une partenaire européenne crédible pour mettre en œuvre une politique de sobriété énergétique et favoriser les modes de transport les moins polluants;
• L'Europe a besoin d'un monde multipolaire, plus sûr et plus solidaire. Ségolène Royal s'engage à soutenir le développement équitable des pays du Sud et à faire respecter le droit international;
• L'Etat de droit, la démocratie et les droits de l'Homme sont au cœur des valeurs européennes. Ségolène Royal s'engage à lutter contre toutes les formes de violences et d'atteintes à la dignité humaine. Elle défend l'indépendance de la justice et l'Etat impartial. Avec elle, nous faisons le pari de l'intelligence collective des citoyens et de leur participation, en France et en Europe, pour faire progresser la vie des Européens.

Le moment de verité

It was over the course of the various legs of my journey from Strasbourg to Dublin yesterday, that I finalised my position, albeit merely a theoretical one, with regards to the imminent premier tour of the french presidentiel election. It's a shame I haven't been able to comment more about it, which is mainly down to a lack of research on my part, something I belatedly attempted to remedy as I set off on my travels armed with a stack of lefty press and a lot of time to kill.

In the spirit of optimism, of not being strategic or playing the game, and approaching the premier tour without the spectre of the second overshadowing it, in a rather strange turn of events I've abandoned my affiliations, shallow as they are, with the Jeunes Socialistes in favour of a strange, distant & seldom-visited place, and where my fundamental beliefs truly lie - la gauche anti-libérale. As Politis laments however, we have not one candidate representing this camp, but three. I certainly don't know all there is to know about Marie-Georges Buffet, Olivier Besancenot, or José Bové, however based on that which I have learned, it's the latter, the alter-mondialiste, who gets my non-vote. A definition of voting which has been put forward in the past, and on which there appears to be consensus, although I compltely disagree with it, is the notion that voting is equivalent to, or signifies - giving an opinion. Personally I don't think voting, generally speaking, has anything to do with giving an opinion, rather with making a choice from a highly constrained range of options with a pre-determined spectrum, a compromise. But I suppose it depends what way you vote. Strategic voting, for Segolene in my case, would certainly have nothing to do with my opinions, or only a very little. Bové on the other hand, gets a little bit closer. A vote based on ideals, on aspirations, on hope.

In Politis, Bernard Langlois rationalises this "vote of conviction" (as opposed to the "useful vote") in the following terms:

"Ce candidat est celui qui exprime au plus prés ce que je crois? Je vote pour lui, même si je sais qu'il n'a aucune chance de figurer au second tour. C'est ainsi que je fais progresser les idées auxquelles je tiens, que j'apporte ma pierre a la construction d'une Cité moins ignoble que celle ou nous sommes contraints de vivre, que je donne une visibilité plus grande a une autre monde possible. N'est-ce pas se conduire de la façon la plus démocratique?"

After April 22nd, no doubt this small parenthesis of misplaced idealism will be brought to an abrupt close, and I'll be brought sharply back to the reality of the situation, back to strategy and playing´the game, in short - back to politics.

Unhappy Birthday

It may not quite top the list, but when it comes to things I really don't feel like thinking or talking about, Iraq is definitely up there.

I've just had it up to here with it.

I'd had it up to here with Iraq days after it began, when gigs were getting cancelled, shortly before the whole world went mental. A grossly unsatisfactory situation redeemed only by the novelty of being able to throw the word "war" around in a current context. And the obscene flippancy isn't quite so lost on me today.

So I did sit through that special edition of question time, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary, and listened to the whole thing. Only just. It featured, of course, the token pro-war american diplomat, the fiercely anti-war Tony Benn, some idiot from the conservative party, and the former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, a less obvious choice perhaps, but I felt she spoke the most sense out of any of them. Tony Benn is of course my hero for life, I've heard him speak in person at a conference I went to last year, and it was fantastically inspiring, however in this situation his rhetoric was just a bit too caricatured I felt, and instead of being involved in the argument most of the panel (especially the yank) just ignored him.

Even more interesting, however, and more harrowing also, was the input of the audience, which included iraqis, people of other middle-eastern nationalities, and people who's lost friends and relatives in the war such as one woman whose son was killed while serving.

Her comment, "I'm proud of my son but ashamed of my gouvernment for sending him to Iraq," struck me as bizarre. This sounds like something an American would say. I'm not being funny, and I hate to generalise, but I remember after Lewinsky-gate americans saying things like "I feel ashamed of our president" as if he was a close relative or something, and it sounded odd to me then and still does now. English people, on the other hand, generally don't tend to feel ashamed of their politicians - they hammer them into the ground, they jump down their throats and are the first to condemn them, they don't stand beside them and accept partial responsability for their idiocy! Which, if you ask me, is a far healthier approach.

Isn't that the whole point behind the opposition, the anti-war coalitions, the mass demonstrations and the endless outrage - that are all summed up in the seminal dictum - Not in our name.

I don't think the Brits have any call to feel ashamed for the actions of their government, anymore than Iraqis do for the those of Saddam Hussein.

Why the association? Why the apologism? Whence the shared responsibility? To whom is this misguided loyalty felt to be owed and why? I am not "ashamed" of Tony Blair for supporting Bush and sending troops to Iraq, I'm not ashamed of Bertie Ahern and the Irish government for letting american planes land in Shannon, I'm not ashamed of the people who defend them, who advocate imperialistic regime change and who continue to justify the whole wretched process. I'm outraged and incensed by it. I was outraged 4 years ago, and I'm still outraged today.

Watch last Thursday's edition of Question Time

Tony Benn's Stop the War coalition

Because I will never have recommended it enough, Baghdad Burning.

Thanksgiving

A gold star for the BBC for not being on a complete downer about the Treaty of Rome anniversary, & coming up with a list of ten things the EU has done for you. And one which, furthermore, professes to transcend from the europhile-eurosceptic bickerings, and stick to the cold, hard incontestable facts. So not only is it positive - it's positive and neutral! Surely not. Anyway, I won't list them all here for you, but here are my top 3, in descending order. If you look closely you might notice a theme running through it.

3. Easy travel "In the old days, travellers in Europe had to put up with different currencies, regular border crossings and customs checks, and even trains of different gauges... Now one currency, the euro, suffices for most European countries and border posts have been abandoned between the 15 countries that have implemented the Schengen accords"

2. Cheap Flights "Between 1992 and 2000 prices at the cheaper end of the market fell by 40%. At the same time, consumers benefited from a wider choice of both carriers and destinations, the number of routes linking EU member states increasing by nearly 50%"

1. Foreign Study "Thousands of students take part in foreign exchanges ever year under the EU's Erasmus programme. The programme helps students learn foreign language, gain experience of another culture, and profit from the host country's expertise in their field of study."

No surprises then, that I'm primarily grateful to the EU because it's the reason I've been to 8 countries so far this year (9 if you count Luxembourg, but who counts Luxembourg) and most of them more than once, extremely cheaply and with a minimum of currency, passport & security hassle. Because it's the reason I'm able to to do this Erasmus lark. And of course, because it puts money in in my bank account every month for the pleasure of faffing around the Parliament.

Cheers, the EU. Have a good one.

We'll talk about the protectionism, eurojargon & democratic deficit when the party's over.

I'm from Barcelona

So mission Spain-averse reverse got off to a good start, Barcelona turns out to be surprisingly enchanting, and enchantingly surprising. Myself and Marg did all the usual required things one would expect, consumed inordinate amounts of tapas & sangria, visited the melting church & various other trippy bits & pieces of Gaudi architecture, & smoked inside excessively because we could, as well as some slightly less conventional things aswell, like drinking Starbucks coffee for breakfast by the port, and downing several rounds of baby guinnesses on St Paddy's night. I blame the taking of such cultural liberties on the her being a yank factor.

It's black & white Italian cinema fortnight at Odyssey, which I'm possibly even more excited about than I was during the Fin film or Gypsy themed sessions. On tuesday went to see "Ladri di Biciclette" with a small crew from my science-po de l'europe class, and tomorrow I'm hoping to get to "La Strada" because it just doesn't do never to have seen a Fellini film, does it?

Press release

Rather eventful session this week, am now on first-name terms with all the security staff following an epic battle against bureacracy in order to get an expired pass renewed. Myself and Rafaele also interviewed Pierre Moscovici, which was rather traumatic as it involved getting to the apparently non-existant 12th floor of the tower, which is located in a parallel universe we were eventually able to find with the help of none other than Mr Anti-Europe himself & leader of the UK Europe-haters contingent - Nigel Farage, who was entirely amiable and extremely helpful, so my opinion of him has been radically reconsidered. Somewhat.

Anyway, a lot of things came up but the rest of it will have to wait as am in Barcelona ce weekend, attempting to stamp out the last remnants of my Anti-Span policy, which things like Dali, the institution of a Socialist gouvernment led by a valiant pro-European, and not hating the Spanish language nearly so much as I used to - have all contributed to gradually remedying.

As for that military coup I mentioned, the state of affairs appears to be even worse than I first thought, as calls for an early election & demonstrations of collective action, with protests leading impressive numbers out onto the streets to condemn Zapatero's political decisions and even his "illegitimate" regime, prove that it isn't just the officers who are grumbling. I suppose mobilisation is good thing in itself, even if they're mobilising in the wrong direction. Aie aie aie, non me gusta.

How will you spend yours?

Normally I don't condone making fun of the EU, it's too easy a target, although I will share with you part of an article by Roger Boyes suggesting ways to celebrate the EU's 50th birthday on the 25th of March, just in case you were at a bit of a loss for ideas...

Organise a street party The families at number 25 and 27 will insist that it was all their idea and you have diluted the fun by inviting the whole street. Don’t forget to ask the Turkish family at No 72, then change your mind and ask for the invitation back. You can’t stop the Romanians from the council houses at the end of the road coming, though. Set a date for the party, then argue about the buffet until midnight the day before. Call it a success, whatever happens

Birthday song Gather the neighbours to sing Ode to Joy. In 40 languages. Simultaneously

Family fun Consult everybody about the sort of celebrations they want. If they don’t want your own favourites ask again until they wearily agree with you

Put out more flags Festoon the lampposts with flags of all EU nations. Under Flag Display Parity of Esteem regulation 24, section vi, paragraph 6a, all the flags must be regulation size. Only the Union Jack will adhere to this, however. None of the neighbours will take any notice of the rule. Take down the Union Jack after the Health and Safety regulation 6,124 deems it a hazard to birds. The other flags continue flying

The birthday cake Cut the cake into 27 pieces. Argue about who put what into it and who should get which slice until it goes stale. Eat it anyway. Complain about the extra bit the Jones’s took and ask who ate all the raisins

Celebrate peace Make a speech pointing out that no-one in the street has attacked a neighbour for 50 years. Try not to look at the nice couple who work at the Deutsche Bank as you say it

I think I'll be going for the third option.

Grow up, democracy

Despite my general opinion of Piers Morgan as something of a Banker with a W, as they say, I have to admit I was very amused by the little anecdote he contributed to Question Time last thursday. Along the lines of, "I once had lunch with a Lord... he fell asleep into his soup" as if this clearly justifies the notion of an all-elected House of Lords, perhaps based on the argument that appointed Lords are inevitably a bunch of narcoleptics? Or just old, conservative and senile? I thought it was cash for honours and Blair cronies factor people found most offensive.

A certain MEP was this week the unfortunate victim of a rather caustic attack from one of the Lords, via the intermediary of a UKIP member, after merely making a few helpful suggestions about acheiving reform and improving democratic performance. He didn't take it too well. I would love to quote it, but it might get me into trouble. I'm terrible with sensitive information, like when my MEP goes "...if the Press gets hold of this all hell will break loose." Which is really the wrong thing to say to someone who's the child of two journalists.

Anyway, the point is the exchange clearly testified to the rather sensitive & volatile nature of the whole debacle, and this poor unsuspecting chap just happened to fall fowl of the obviously nervy & highly irritable current disposition of one amongst many other Lords, I imagine, perhaps to be taken as an indication that they feel they're on shaky ground.

However, I don't think this particular Lord (whose reponse contained some rather offensive not to mention unoriginal accusations about the EU - oh because we've never heard the one about "a country called Europe" before) or indeed any of his colleagues need to be losing any sleep over this. To me it seems more like a palliative measure, going through the motions of adressing the question.
Stranger things have happened, but let's be honest the UK isn't exactly famous for radically renovating its more archaic institutions. All this business about needing a "mature" democracy might be rationally coherent, but against the hefty weight of institutional pomp, precedent & tradition, I don't think it has a prayer.

MPs back all-elected house of Lords - BBC News

How's your relationship with death?

Only the french could mourn the passing of indoor smoking with quite such melodrama, in quite such romantic terms and to quite such an extent. And mourning it they are. I did however, find myself rather taken in by the contribution of a certain nameless reader in Liberation last week (and I'm not translating because I like the phrasing too much):

"Cette propagande-maladie met a nu le secret du fumeur, son intime souffrance, un aspect visible de son rapport a la mort... cette espece de paradoxe de devoir envers soi-meme, imposé de l'exterieur, moi ca me rend tres sombre, cette infantilisation... franchement, je ressens comme une tragédie qu'on essaie de s'opposer a mes pulsions de mort. La clope compulsive est toujours noire, du coté de l'incinération, des cendres, de la destruction par le feu."

Perhaps in one of my "wholesome" bouts of carrot-munching jogging teetotalism (infrequent as they are) I might be quick to dismiss the elegant prose & to condemn point blank the unsavoury and rationally indefensible practice of polluting others' & one's own lungs. Today however, and with the frame of mind I'm in for most of the time, I'm certainly far more disposed to accept the realities of what I've come to realise is the universal tendancy towards a kind of self-destruction. These "pulsions de mort" as our madame puts it, that are in no way pathological.

And I suppose it is rather offensive, not to mention futile, this paternalistic hounding of the smoker who knows exactly what they're doing, as if they were genuinely expected to be convinced by the incredibly naive suggestion that the practice of actively harming oneself in the name of some form of gratification were somehow novel, somehow deviant, or in any way exceptional.

Oh, wow.

I don't actually have access to TV currently, but thanks to the glorious invention of Youtube, podcasts and "watch again" features on various channel websites, it's sometimes difficult to notice.

One of the things I've been able to watch, with only a slight delay vis-a-vis its broadcasting schedule, is E4's much hyped "Skins".

Actually what really got me turned onto it was a feature on a recent episode of Screenwipe, where Stewart Lee deplores the modern depiction of teenagers in television - "selfish, avaricious but also confident, sassy and cool, and really at home with sex and drugs". Versus the portrayal of teenagers in the 70s - "terrified of the world, uncomfortable, alienated and alone" and according to him, "much truer to what it's like to be a teenager."

It raises the question of whether so-called "aspirational" television is ultimately quite destructive because it distorts people's image of real life, and what they ought to expect from it. And also because it leads people to feel "left out". While images of teenagers wandering around on their own and feeling highly alienated is presumably a great comfort. I'm not convinced.

I think Lee's assessment was essentially based on the first episode and that trailer (watch), which are quite consistent with his description as quoted above, and admittedly are perhaps a touch over-the-top and excessive, a bit cartoon-ish even, not to say ridiculous or obnoxious. The follow-up episodes seem to attempt to explore the characters and their problems with slightly more subtlety and depth. And they begin with Cassie, who is one of the most delightful & compelling characters I think I've ever come across on television. She's essentially an awfully tragic figure who's entirely disconnected from reality and at the same time somehow appears as a shining beacon of sense and reason among the insanity & frivolity of the world surrounding her. Unfortunately Cassie was made for another planet, and we all know what happens to people like that, who dont fit or play the game - they end up in mental institutions.

Suddenly it doesn't seem quite so aspirational. Then again, I think there's certain kind of "aspirational ambivalence" - one can aspire to a certain kind of suffering, perhaps not so much Cassie's, maybe more like Harry Potter's. There is such a thing as suffering with style, in addition the the implicit premise that after hardship comes triumph, and reward.

So the characters might be a smidge excessive, a bit "type" and lacking in dimensions to make up the full trio. But maybe its ok for them to be exaggerated, and can be justified in the name of producing characters to really get one's teeth into, in short - Characters, as opposed to human beings. Because that's what reality TV is for.

This is Cassie, by the way.

Watch Stewart Lee arguing his case, as featured in a recent episode of Screenwipe, about 2/3rds of the way in, and all the others while you're at it, since you certainly won't be watching any Skins, as at time of going to press all online episodes had been culled.