Issue Three: Return of the dots...
Written: January 10th-12th, then July 13th, 1997.
My god, it's been a long time since the last one of these things. How long? Well, since the last one, we are months and months closer to getting a Labour government. How close ,who can say. For although there's a lot of people who think it is definitely time for a change, there are an awful lot of people out there who don't want a smarmy pixie for Prime Minister. It is, however, time for someone charming, dynamic and interesting. A man unlike any politician I know. Yes, it's time for us, the British public to elect an actor as Prime Minister. America tried it, and it nearly worked... now is our time.
My choices are:
Richard E Grant - Suave, sophisticated, and damn sexy.
Richard Wilson (as Victor Meldrew) - embodies so much of the England we love: Miserable and decrepit.
Michael Caine - A great statesman - "Oy you, four eyes! Are you blardy looking at me?"
But, you and I both know it will go to one person alone. Yes, that's right, Kenneth Brannagh. Oh well, at least it means Emma Thompson will get a job on the cabinet.
Something occurred to me the other day, when musing on the future of the world, as I often do between meals. Next century is almost certain to see the emergence and growth of two new super powers: China and India. I have a belief that in a hundred years time, America is going to find itself in the same boat as England is now... i.e. a former superpower, devoid of empire and with very little of it's once great influence left in the world. Quite how she'll handle it, I don't know. That will be interesting to see.
One things for sure though... America will always be remembered as the country that gave us Fast-food restaurants, made the Pizza an international dish, and the country where someone like Pamela Anderson could have a career.
It has been many months since I wrote the last entry in this column thing. If I worked for a news paper a) I would have been sacked; b) I would be a lot more regular as there would be the promise of financial reward, and like all good humans I have a greedy streak. My excuses for the lack of attention this column has received are typically feeble.
Actually the working abroad for a few months was a good excuse because during that time spent...
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...in Tel Aviv, Israel and Shanghai, China, I wrote two longish pieces on my time there, which will be...
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...transferred into typed English sometime soon.
I'll do a blatant plug for the book, if I can find a publisher. And I'll tell you all about the trials, tribulations of getting such a thing at about the same time.
(Six months later...)
Having written all that, I have again worked abroad for another three months or so, spend ages on a screenplay, and thus this single, pitiful column will have taken over six months to get produced. Am I crap or what? In fact since I started this column, we do actually have a labour government. And does it feel any different? No. Wasn't it The Bonzo Dog band who said 'No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in (heigh ho.)'? One thing is for sure, it was not Bonny Langford.
This semi-year's top-ten lyrics tell of the world when it really don't go your way...
Girl power! It's been about 12 years (or maybe months), since Slapper, Mouthy, Squeeky, Common and Ugly, The Spice Girls, hit the streets with their uncompromising blend of pop rubbish and throw-away pop rubbish. In that endless space of time, they have captured the hearts and minds of every single living creature on this earth. They have shaped our destinies and ensured that we are heading for a bright, and beautiful future. The Spice Girls would be easy to ignore if a) they were not now so much a part of the World's collective consciousness; b) their tunes were not programmed to lodge themselves inside your head and never escape; c) they weren't five attractive women.
They even have something to say. It's called Girl Power, and they are very vague when it comes to defining it. At the root of it is being proud of being a girl. And being YOURSELF! Not some headline-seeking extrapolation of yourself. I think.
I actually power my walkman by Girl Power! I can't turn the bloody thing off. And now it keeps complaining that I never listen to it any more.
That's a Boy Power! joke by the way, so you can't complain that it's sexist. And anyway, when I say Girl Power!, I mean Spice Girl Power!, which is not the same sort of thing at all. After all with you're average Spice Girl, you'd want to have a relationship up until that point that sex had finished, and it was time to talk purposefully about world events or the importance of the Ealing Comedy in shaping the direction of modern English comic films.
I should get out more.
But I don't even smoke.
(c) July 1997 Peter R. More.