Melvyn Bragg Interviews Gore Vidal - Southbank Show - 2008

It's a wonderful conversation although for me, there are two exceptional moments in this 2008 Southbank production. Baron Bragg says he saw the US President was in Africa on TV that morning but Gore Vidal interrupts his story.

'How can they tell?'

Lord Melvyn Bragg tries not to laugh louder and it's worth paying attention.

I'll come back to the second moment a little later.

As a little Torquemada?

— LAsky (@LAsky66) September 6, 2023

Took ages to find out the word I couldn't understand. I find listening very difficult in any language and generally respond to body language more than words. That's why podcasts are the best way of learning for me. Nothing to distract my eyes. In any case Gore Vidal is referring to Torquemada. A name I've never heard before.

What's striking is the comparison with Bobby Kennedy and saying it on camera. This is why Gore Vidal was a Greek among Romans. He said what he thought even if it took its toll, as he did with the Salzburgers who own the New York Times, now even worse and inarguably a propaganda rag. GV was an insider and knew the Kennedys so it's an exceptional piece of intel as we're now presented with RFK Jr who has done an excellent job on the Covid scamdemic only to declare his unfailing support for Zionism despite Ben Gurion's role as the highest authority (he reported to the next level up) for initiating JFK's and by extension RFK's assassination. To understand all that do a search on JFK + PERMINDEX then look at the correspondence between JFK and Ben Gurion on Dimona. JFK was adamant that Israel would have no nukes and that decision cost him his life.

Don't get me wrong. JFK upset everyone you could imagine (CIA, DoD and the FED etc) but the one thing nobody discusses is that he was bloodline and he chose to make the speech that went too far at the Waldorf Astoria which is Astor bloodline. They had to take him. He was doing everything he could to expose them. 

Another gem that I picked up from Gore is that his blind Senator grandfather was 33 Degree Mason and that it's common in bloodline families for one child to be clued up and another to have no idea. They are 5th Dan black belts in secrecy and most people haven't a clue.

I'm going to use this space to share a little more of what this video confirmed for me but only those who bother to check back on this post will know. I have no intention of embarrassing anyone, but the above video confirms my hypothesis and that's a confirmation that is mostly for my indulgence. I hope the future looks upon In Our Time as a very classy effort at asking difficult questions to answer about their lies. 

The credit goes to the man in the arena.

Punk Beijing

What can I say...

This blog wouldn't exist without Punk. I was too young be one in 1976, and certainly too Catholic. Fast forward to 1999 and one of my newest and closest friends (professional troublemaker) Blue Doran sat me down in his Bangkok apartment over bottles of Sangsom and underneath his vintage movie poster collection (Midnight Cowboy and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid) draping the walls, he explained Punk to me from his first hand experience of following the Sex Pistols around as a fifteen year old from Worcester, and my mind was blown. I got the concept, I got the sizzle and I got the history all in one night, from a living witness and nothing was ever the same again. By coincidence my daughter's Aunty was a punk inspired designer in Thailand with the widely loved Scotch-Soda clothing brand.

Perhaps it is fitting then that this designer, often styled ironically in pin curls and pearls, and so involved with the pop cultural desecration and modern rebrand of British heritage, should depart in the same year as the woman whose image she once helped lance with a safety pin.

On one of my returns to the UK I stayed with Rob, my former design lecturer at Uni, and he had a very expensive Vivienne Westwood collection for both himself and his partner. 

She tossed her prezzies out when they separated and Rob mentioned it was about 20 grands worth. That's just the stuff she was given. Back in the 90's she also refused a chance to be a model for one of the Vivienne Westwood collections. Super Croydon girl is Audrey (went to school with Kate Moss), totally grounded and couldn't give a shit about any attention seeking lifestyle. In a way that's about as punk as it gets.

While at Robs we took the opportunity to go and see Vivienne's retrospective at the Victoria & Albert museum and that's when I really got into her work. He also gave me Jane Mulvagh's biography of Vivienne, An Unfashionable Life, to read. It's a really good book and provides a bit more dispassionate granularity than most biographies.

Raised in Derbyshire from working class stock, Ms Westwood established LET IT ROCK with Malcolm 'Svengali' McLaren on the Kings Road. I dare say Tavistock were all over the show, without even letting them know. Nobody wants to talk about that so let's roll on. After leaving the rock (let it rock, black rock, tavistock... quarry men then the rolling stones and G Brethren and so on and so forth).

I can't let it go

Vivienne Westwood did not feel pretty as a child, but while roaming a wood near the family home in Derbyshire she dreamt of becoming a beautiful wood fairy.

“I daydreamed that I would be walking in this wood and I would have this little house under these tree roots. I would have this fantastic dress and just come upon one or two little boys that I knew and they would just really be impressed by this dress. I always had this idea that some day I could make myself better.”

In a way it's Tolkienesque right? 

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. 

Next thing, we're in Rivendell

Perfect

All around the alleged globe, the British don't quite understand that of course the people are loved, but the empire?

... nah... the international community want to punch the football into the net like Maradona, unless it's filling Kiev's MuthaWEFFer pockets or the EU or the WHO or do I really need to continue?

If you consider yourself British (i'm a space mongrel) I can assure you there's lot's of British historiography around the world (all over the world)

She may have come to fashion designing at the comparatively late age of 33. 

Vivienne as it were.

You will only see two British iconographies from the slums of Rangoon to the Showrooms of Beijing. 

Those are Bentley Motors & Punks

All strata of society around the world know those two and till recently the Queen and the Beatles.

Prove me wrong

Jerk Jam Soundclash - Palmerston Park

This is probably the slowest post I've ever finally got round to. 

On Friday the 24th of September last year (2021), I was walking home through Palmerston Park and a sound stage was being erected (excuse the pun) for the next day, by the old fashioned bandstand, which leaks quite a bit when it's raining. I know because I've taken shelter there and been joined by all sorts of interesting people ducking for cover in a downpour. That's my electric bike on the right, I want to come back to that subject because as some of you know, I had two electric bikes when I lived in Beijing, during the 2008 Olympics. and there's an obnoxious scam going on with electric bikes in the EU. Let's park that and come back to it another day. Keep the vibes nice because on Saturday 25th, there was music in the park I've previously mentioned right near my gaff, and indeed all over the city centre which was hosting a reclaim the streets day. Art, Music, Culture, Festivities and loads of stuff for children and parents to do. Southampton is close to winning the bid for cultural city of 2025, and as I've mentioned previously, the city has transformed since my years abroad living and working in foreign countries.

When I left Southampton, nobody smoked a joint outside. We had to sneak around and be careful as well as paranoid. But on my return I was blown away when my old mate Chris, who along with his missus, generously put me up (when I returned to be  with my terminally ill mother), lit a joint up walking to Common People Bestival festival on Southampton Common, 2017. I thought I was in Amsterdam for a moment, but the reason I mention it, is that by 2021 I was comfortable having a doobie before I joined the crowd dancing at Jerk Jam. The music was reggae and the weather was a bit iffy at one point, but one of the London MCs, literally predicted that the clouds would part and the sun would come beaming through and lo, it happened as he prophesied.

Probably one of the best feelings I've had, or at least up there in the top 20. It was memorable and awesome. 

I was so happy for Southampton.

It's come a long way, and there's more to go.

CIA Triggered Tiananmen Square By Pumping In Guns To Students

Sound like Syria or Ukraine anybody?

Stunning scoop by Voltaire Net over here.

Don't give me that cold war bollocks either because that was rigged by the same industrialists and Wall Street bankers who funded the Bolsheviks (who then crushed the Mensheviks), Lenin, Trotsky and the Nazis. Even the CIA are just useful idiots until you get to boardroom level. Then at least a start can be made on getting to the bottom of the cesspit.

Olympic Eve (Beijing 2008)

Pretty good atmosphere on Tiananmen this evening. Absolutely no planned celebrations but a lot of people congressing on T Square. Joyful and jubilant. Not a smidge of nationalism and lots of nice people over the moon that they have a chance to celebrate. I'd guess that nothing like this has been seen on T Square in its history. Looking forward to tomorrow. These people deserve it.

 

Special Olympics Update

Jon Stewart punctures the hypocrisy of the U.S. and makes us laugh at the same time.

Olympic Cycling

Making my way back home earlier I was caught in a road block and managed to catch some Olympic cycling on the N95 camera. I've encountered some of the teams training around Tiananmen square early in the morning and like this ride-by they are a fearsome experience of pedal power and swooshing noise as they rush by. Nothing like my sedate ambling even on my electric bike.

In this clip they are approaching me and have just emerged from the West heading East out of the fog/pollution on Changan Avenue, with the famous Chairman Mao portrait to their left on the north side of Tiananmen Sqaure which must be quite an inspiring sight for those at the peak of their careers in Beijing this Olympics.

Sneak Preview: Beijing Olympics 2008 - The Cube and The Birds Nest

 

  

  

  

 

Pics via Focus China.

I've been twittering for a few days about the lack of foreigners in town and tonight intend to hit a few hot spots to see if it's just around Tiananmen and the Forbidden City where apart from Olympic Officials and Journalists they are definitely thin on the ground. I'm reminded of Baudrillard's simulacra that if enough people see it on televison around the world, then maybe its an international event. Simulacra or othewise.

Creativity

Listening to the world service recently I've been blown away by some of the creative audio they've prepared for the Beijing Olympics. It's awesome because for those that know me, I've become a little sceptical about the whole 'safety first' Olympics and even delayed my return to Beijing because the preparations for the Olympics are too intensive; foreigners with non Z class visas have been sent home, migrant workers have been cleared off the streets to project an image of modernity, factories closed and cars banned from the roads on alternate days depending on the number plate to project an image of cleanliness, bloggers and activists rounded up and thrown in jail to project an image of harmony and even tourist visas refused as well as a whole host of stuff that strips the spontaneity and fun from the event such as the official Olympic Cheer that I blogged about over here.

Happily the British Isles are blessed with people who have a creative response to the celebrations and just seeing this today over at Neil's blog has cheered me up no end. I'm sure it's going to be a good Olympics once we get into the swing of things and it's content like this this by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett that is going to help far more than any condescending cultural fingerpointing. I first realised that when I saw how wildly popular Kung Foo Panda is in China and how even the intellectual elite are questioning why it could never be made in China under the current conditions. Great Creativity always opens up great questions and the answer to that one is not safety first. It's fun first. Risk a little and gain a lot I say.

Swap Meet

Over the weekend I went to a 'Swap Meet' thinking it would be like a car boot sale with some swapping although it was more about me swapping my cash for stuff. In any case most of it was a lot of the junk we accumulate without having any real purpose and yet each piece of junk has a whole manufacturing process behind it.

Depressing really, but I did score some amazing vintage magazines which I don't really have enough space to carry back to China ,although if anyone is interested I can buy up the rest next week and ship 'em somewhere, where they will be appreciated because I was the only person interested in them given that most of the people ambling around the car park were of Vietnamese or Mexican extraction. These printed products kind of reminded me of the Ephemera Society fair that I attended with Charlie some time back last year.

This first cover caught my eye as it's celebrating the 1960 Rome Olympics and what with all the Olympic fever in the air I thought it provided an interesting contrast. The happiness and spontaneity of the front cover is evident with the two smiling gymnasts from the U.S. team.

The next one is an Evening Standard (I've no idea what it's doing in California) from the 1972 Munich Olympics. These games were marred with tragedy and if I'm not mistaken were the occasion when the term Terrorist first came into the public consciousness.

This Time magazine surprised me for it's coverage of a British election which led me to think the owner (whose address is on the cover) might be an Anglophile or a British emigre.

I think this Life cover from 1963 the year of Kennedy's assassination is I think the most historic find. Inside were full details of the death including the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald only 90 minutes after the event. A classic example of 'case closed' so quickly and yet we now know there are so many questions outstanding. Most importantly Oswald's assertion that he was a patsy.

Lastly a bit of advertising as all the items I bought are chock full of ads that are so good. I particularly liked this one because I'm staying with a friend who was partly responsible for hiring of Crispin Porter while at VW and developed with CP&B a campaign which is strictly speaking so on brand all these years later from the above quintessential Bernbach days of DDB and Volkswagen. See below.

Asian Olympic Enthusiasm

It does look like Japan is struggling to be excited with the Beijing Olympics. I think the diminished enthusiasm is for historical reasons although the Hong Kong figures have surprised me a little too. I'm guessing that Australia will be on a par with other occidental countries. Via Thomas Crampton

SoCal

Lots of intense political discussions with old friends, catching up with some 2.0 people, Mexico this weekend, San Fran/PSFK next week and Beijing on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

It feels like a bubble here; particularly the Hummers. Completely removed from the the outside world and yet the ever present reminder of oil pumps and real estate for sale looms large.

Southern Californians though have to be some of the most generous and helpful on the planet. Pretty much every transaction or interaction is seamless and delightful.