Weekend reads: Russell Brand's Revolution and Joy Division's Ian Curtis gets lyrical

It's like most of Brand's observations, from the following cook-book;

- Take one banal observation.

- Sprinkle a few big words to replace otherwise perfectly serviceable small words.

- Give self a big pat on back for being clever.

- Serve half-baked, with side serving of really earnest exasperation.

Johann Hari?

"“All desire is the inappropriate substitute for the desire to be at one with God.”"

A perfectly sensible sentiment, and not scary at all, replace 'God' with any other focus of belief, or 'Universe' for those not brought up with monotheism ground into their character to some degree.

As a spiritual lesson, its one of the clearer ones, and certainly better phrased for the modern world than the bibles 'thou shalt not covet thy neighbours ass' (or somesuch). My neighbor has a big ass, and I certainly wouldn't want an ass that big...

Words and thoughts tend not to be scary, what is scary is how some nutters twist them to say what they want them to say, then go out and enforce that interpretation on others as 'the true word of God'.

"All desire is the inappropriate substitute for the desire to be at one with God."

Does anyone seriously believe this? It's an enormously pretentious statement, uttered only by those who want to appear devout.

I interpreted the word 'desire' (in the context of what I understood the book to be about) not to mean things like 'desire to not be attacked' but 'desire for new smartphones, iPads, nice cars, new suits, power to sack people I don't like' and so on. From my understanding of this, I don't think you need to believe in God or a god to have an intellectual ascent to the idea that some people use these things to find meaning in their lives, even if you don't believe it.

But if you don't believe me, go onto any forum (including, to some extent, this one) and say something nasty about Apple.

No, I don't like Russell Brand. I particularly dislike the way he refuses to answer a question when being interviewed, doing so in a way that always makes the interviewer look like he doesn't understand the question (s)he has asked.... If you have any doubt as to his 'humility', see how he responded when he thought Evan Davis suggested Mr. Brand didn't have an imagination.

Re: Crap

At £20 a 'roll' that would be damned expensive toilet paper.

I'm sure all Reg readers would have some off the wall views they could spin into a suitable manuscript for publication in book form. However since most of us are not TV personalities, no one would be interested in coughing up any cash to read them (or even hang in the bathroom).

I guess his agent put this idea in his head, to realise another revenue stream or somesuch.

We all know modern society is deeply flawed, and other models exist, but such models are also flawed and too many are too deeply invested in the current status quo to consider advocating change (even when things go completely tits-up and the flaws become blindingly obvious to everyone), and those who are not have not the influence or the insight to imagine another way.

the forbidden words

A week without the following naughty words might be interesting:

Apple

Microsoft

Google

Samsung

Intel

ARM

Snowden

Re: Published words/censored standards?

Specifically attacking a certain group is not allowed, rightly so.

Certain words are general expletives. Others are discriminatory to some, so must be blocked at all times unless we are able to program AI to calculate context.

Re: Atmosphere

Huge fan of Ian Curtis' lyrics: dark, brilliant, and discerning/discernable.

Slightly huger fan of Elizabeth Fraser: opaque lyrics/imagery, blurred/imagined vocabulary, and soaring vox. Plus one for the mention.

Hard to imagine a book transcribing her lyrics ever happening ... but what a glorious thing a legitimate and annotated compilation of them would be!

If you haven't already, track down and listen to the Jeff Buckley/Elizabeth Fraser collaboration "All Flowers in Time", makes you wonder what an Ian/Liz joint would have been like.

A lot of people at the time thought Marx had found the answer. Today we've had experience of various attempts to implement his ideas - all have ended badly, most of them catastrophically badly. So anyone who still thinks Marxism is the answer hasn't really grasped the question.

And just because some famous people were criticised initially and later proved to be correct doesn't mean that anyone who is criticised today must be right - most of them won't be, and are simply being criticised because they're spouting rubbish. As Carl Sagan put it:

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton*, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

* Robert Fulton - designer of the first practical steamboat and submarine

Re: Independent Thought

It's the easy buck. Why try to work hard and earn some cash when you can act like a rich eccentric, and hope to win the easy "rich eccentric" pound/dollar.

A bit like the Nigerian and similar scam emails. Set the bar really low, and you hit that untapped market no one else is stupid enough to aim for. :P

Re: Independent Thought

I think there may be too many Free Thinkers here to give any time to his ideas, they're busy freely thinking what they're told to think about by mainstream media.

Unless one can hear something someone says without instantly shutting them off because they're not the person one wants them to be, sorry, but the process of dumbing down has truly set in.... And this is what we're being conditioned to do; Look at a person's image and if it's not what you've been told is acceptable, don't think about anything they say.