From the EP ‘CMYK’ (2010)
Sensational headlines grab your attention,
To cynically alter your comprehension.
Read this. You have to agree,
With truth distorted, a zeitgeist is bred,
That our prejudices are supported, spread
By another patronised devotee.
Making a meal of negativity with zeal,
Force fed; a daily diet of their cultural ideal.
They’ll victimise and demonise
The poor, ill, foreign, uncommon and new,
All in the feint vein, you’ll surmise;
With your money, to propagate their view.
For once an event that suggests hope.
Well, we can do without spin for a day.
Tomorrow it’ll be discarded. Old rope,
Back to the usual – that they see it our way.
The wars, terrorism, natural disasters, famine,
Obviously aren’t our fault, okay?
Be thankful, without us and them,
You wouldn’t have nuffink to talk `bout today.
What good is your imagination?
When you can be willingly immersed
By saturation and regurgitation?
Impartiality and factuality are reversed,
To create dismal scandals and sleeze.
Watch as we besiege another celebrity,
To satisfy the populous craving for vulgarity.
We’re just here to please, you’re the disease.
But occasionally their ghastly invective
Can create a moralised collective,
Who challenges them with tenacity.
The press? Apologise? No fuckin way.
‘Freedom’ means we have the final say.
Then they have the temerity
To say; someone else is at fault
For progress grinding to a halt.
Either way they’ve achieved the main play;
That their importance doesn’t decay.
Their inane outrage is always staged,
To augment a resentful anxiety.
Discarded. The daily conduit wastes away,
Sadly, its content still holds sway.
It keeps their readership caged,
As a simmering nadir of society.
But something can be done,
About how these rags are run.
Tell them they no longer speak for us,
Remember those who suffered injustice.
So Boycott the Daily Mail and The Sun,
Because it’s for the good of everyone.
Seeing Adolf
She turns the lock, opens the door, teasing me with a cheeky smile as we enter her flat.
“Go in there and I’ll get us a drink.”
I like the way she said that and the way she looked at me as she said it. It’s gotta be in the bag. I’m getting that vibe.
“A beer?”
“Aye, cheers.”
Off she wanders. I take my coat off and bound into the living room as directed. Then I see it. The fuck? Surely not? I keep looking; it’s not going away and I just can’t stop looking at it. I can’t believe that I’m looking at a massive picture of Adolf Hitler positioned perfectly above her mantelpiece. What a body blow. The crushing disappointment and anger quickly succumbs to the momentary hope provided by rampant intrigue. If I do a runner now, never knowing why, it will forever itch away at me. Perhaps it is some ironic artistic statement or commentary, like modern art? Or is it post modern? Whatever that means. Or perhaps she just is a bloody fascist? Right, I better act normal here. I don’t want to do anything or say anything that will make her think I’ve been unnerved by seeing “it”. But what if she is pretending? What if it is a test? A joke, even? She did tell me to go into this room. Look, you’re over-thinking this. Just ignore it. Forget it. Stop looking at it. Fuck! Here she comes.
“Here, sorry, only Miller Lights left.”
Piss weak beer is the least of my worries. No amount of liquid is going to moisten my parched throat with that thing staring at me.
“No, aye, that’s fine…that’s great. Thanks.”
“Are you okay?”
“Aye…I’m fine, nae bother.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Naw…naw, it’s nothing.”
“If something’s up, tell me.”
“Emm, well, that picture on the wall there.”
“What picture?”
What picture? The fuck? She has to be on a wind-up. What picture!
“That picture of Hitler above your mantelpiece. There!”
I look at her. Her mouth develops a strange half disbelieving smile while her eyes are bulging with a mixture of astonishment and increasing anxiety. Now I know I’ve blown it.
“You high?”
“I’m no fucking high! I had a few drinks. You were with me all night. You saw me?”
“I don’t know what’s got into you, but there’s no picture of Hitler – it’s a mirror.”
I look again, hoping to see my reflection, but all I see is his vile glum mug, his cow’s lick and that ridiculous mini-moustache he wore.
I turn back to face her. Her lips are moving, but her voice is starting to sound distorted. She puts her hand on my shoulder, but it melts into my torso. Everything is beginning to blend together, the ceiling with the floor, black with white, reds, blues, greens and yellows. Everything except that picture with the wall, it remains in tact and omnipresent. I feel a sensation like I’m sinking but physically I remain static – my perspective becomes increasingly distant and blinkered into staring straight at Adolf. I want this to stop, but, oddly, and despite the momentary feeling of seasickness, I’m calm. Things begin to resolve slowly, and the picture of Hitler eventually disappears into the distance. My eyes close involuntarily, and when they open and I find myself in a kitchen with unwashed dishes, half eaten food, wine glasses, empty bottles, and plastic cups lying everywhere, in what looks like the generic aftermath of a party. She reappears again through the door. She is dressed differently. Her demeanour is different too. Initially apprehensive – but now she looks downright scared, of me? Her throat is bruised. Her nose is bleeding. She tells me to sit down with a peculiarly aggressive hand gesture – at least that’s my interpretation. Her lips are moving, but there’s no sound, not even that sound of silent air. She walks behind me as I sit. I glance over my shoulder but she uses her hands to turn my head to face straight forward. I don’t know why I let her. I can feel her whispering in my ear but I still can’t hear what she’s saying. I turn to face her. She has a rolling pin in her left hand. It’s cocked and ready to hit me. It comes down before I can get my hands up.
This feels like my own bed: it is, it is, it is. That was a dream. Thank god. Walking towards the en-suite I notice there’s new furniture everywhere, the kind of IKEA shite that I’d never buy. The walls are a hideous light green colour – they should be white. Have I woken up yet? Nothing makes sense, except one thing: the ghastly intuition of its presence. I have a vision of it and where it is. I rush downstairs. I stand outside the door of the living room, hesitating, afraid to open it. I compose myself, before slamming the door open. The sight of it drives me down on my haunches. My light headedness morphs into a familiar corrosive pain, and my stomach feels instantly cavernous. The pressure in my chest increases, like something heavy is gripping, pinning me down, increasing to the point that I feel physically weak. I topple back into a sitting position on the cold varnished oak floor, leaning against an equally cold leather armchair, trying to stare into space. This has to end.
I hear someone fumbling at the front door. The key is now in the lock and being turned. I look around the corner of the door frame. It’s her! She sees me peering round the door as she enters. It gives her a shock.
“Babe, what are you doing down there?”
Babe?
“Andy, are you okay?”
Why is she talking to me like this – as if she knows me, and even cares about me?
“Fuckin stay away, you’re crazy.”
“Oh no, not again.”
“What do yae mean, not again? Don’t come near me. I don’t know what’s going on wae you and that painting.”
“Please, please. I’ll get your pills, okay.”
“So you admit you drugged me?”
She looks wounded by the accusation, but why? She smashed me over the head with a rolling pin. She has a picture of Hitler on her wall. Everything is a lie. It has to be.
“I’m gonna call Dr Deivan; you’re delusional again.”
“I’m no the one who’s crazy. I’m not the one who’s been drugging people and smashing them over the head wae a rolling pin. I’m no the one with fucking Hitler on my wall.”
“It’s not a picture of Hitler. It’s a delusion. I’m calling him.”
“Fuck do you mean it’s a delusion?”
“It’s a mirror. Please, just calm down, the doctor will come and make it go away. I promise.”
“Look! It’s right there, above the mantelpiece.”
“That’s a mirror! Please stop – you’re really scaring me.”
“You can’t see it? You’re lying. You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Right. I’m calling Dr. Deivan, you’ve obviously had a relapse.”
“Relapse?”
But how does that explain before? In the other reality, the proper one, or is it this one, or is it neither? Perhaps if I destroy the painting it will end? Now that is crazy. Stop it. She wants me to think like that.
She quickly presses a series of buttons on her mobile, like she’s dialed it before. I watch her watch me with trepidation, as I move toward the painting. I’ve only just noticed that she’s pregnant. I look into his eyes. I don’t know why. There must be some clue. Everything started to go haywire when I first saw him. That had to be the trigger.
“Andy, Andy! Please…sit down. Dr. Deivan will be here soon.”
“Who?”
“Your doctor. You’ve been doing so well recently…”
So is this doctor another one of her cohorts? A co-conspirator? Is he the one who’s been feeding me stuff that makes me see Hitler? Or am I lucid now and for some reason they don’t want me to be aware? So the picture’s real? He’s coming round to get me back under their Orwellian control again. I have to escape, but the front door is locked. I hear her screaming at me to stop. I smash the pane of glass nearest the lock – it slices and grates into my forearm. The door still won’t open from the outside and my arm is snared by the shards of glass still in the frame. I can hear hurried footsteps behind me. I feel a prick in my shoulder, before I pass out I see her retract the syringe.
I have a massive dressing on my arm. I don’t remember how or why it’s there. Has it happened again? Have I hurt her or the baby? I get up and rush downstairs. I see her. She seems to be unharmed. She sees me. She draws away slightly, taking a half step back. Her body language tells me it’s happened again. I can tell she’s worried about her safety. What have I done this time?
“Right, what happened?”
She gives a barely audible sigh and walks towards me, giving me hug.
“You just had another episode.”
“I didn’t…”
“No, not this time.”
“Thank fuck for that.”
“Is your arm okay?”
“Aye, it’s fine. Look, never mind that, are you sure you’re alright? After last time…I was worried I’d done something terrible again.”
“Don’t worry, you weren’t violent this time.”
This time, but what if I am next time? This feeling of helplessness is far worse than the knowledge of the existence that I cannot control. The control has to come from outside – from the pills. And to stay normal, to be allowed to stay with her, I have to take them, and remember to take them. I see the agony in her face every time I look at her, as I am now. That guarded look that at any moment I could harm her, even when she laughs or smiles at me it’s there. I see it. As if she’s looking past this version of me and sees the other that I can’t, and each time it appears it feels like the damage gets more irrevocable. The truth is we fear for each other, but never for ourselves. It would probably be for the best if I left. At least it would give me the peace of mind that she and the baby would be safe. But I know I can’t bring myself to do it and she would never ask me, no matter what happened.
She changes the subject; her usual way of coping with it.
“Are you hungry? Because I’m fucking starving!”
“Why don’t you make me leave?”
She hesitates to respond, for second, she opens her mouth slightly as if she is about to say something, but instead just shakes her head while focusing on the chopping board. I hug her, in the faint hope this gives her some reassurance. But she flinches slightly as I unexpectedly put my arms around her.
As I walk into the living room I see one of the windows in the front door is boarded up. I look at my forearm. So that was me not being violent? I sit down, then I realise something has changed from last time. The mirror is gone.
“Where’s the mirror?”
She comes through from the kitchen hurriedly, looking flustered by the question.
“Oh…eh…It fell.”
That was probably me too. I never did like it anyway. It always made me look strange for some reason.
The End
© Niall Cullen (2013)
From the album ‘The 18th Letter’ (1997)
There are more constructive, effective and proven ways to make the BBC change.
I’ll keep this relatively brief.
There’s been a groundswell of wannabe activism on Twitter, with people wanting to take on the BBC’s perceived editorial slanting in its news reporting, by proposing the mass boycotting of paying the BBC’s licence fee at best, or scrapping its funding completely at worst. This is in reaction to its alleged obfuscation – non or selective reporting – of the vile policies of, and attitudes within, the current Conservative government.
What interests me here is the reactions by some to this Tory favouritism by the BBC and the causation of said reactions. Calling for a boycott of the licence fee shows a complete lack of common sense and rational thought, and it is indicative of the culture of insincere grandstanding that social media can encourage. In some instances it manifests itself with a frothing at the mouth, calling those who oppose this extreme ‘solution’ a socialist charlatan. It’s easy to say ‘boycott the licence fee’, or ‘scrap the BBC’, and have the like minded propagate this shite by Retweeting it. None of this requires any analysis, or consideration of the actual consequences. All it takes is just a few clicks – like closing an annoying pop up advert when you visit a porn site – and it can be done without the need to think things through.
Not only that, it’s illogical and hypocritical. A good few of those calling for the scrapping of licence fee are some of the most vocal in their opposition to the privatisation of the NHS, police, fire and public services.
What’s that saying? ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees’? Trite it may be, but it’s never more relevant than on this issue. This is the way Rupert Murdoch and his sort want you to react, to anything. Tabloidisation, let’s call it, where you’re goaded into lashing out immediately, believing what you read or hear without questioning whether it’s founded on truth, or discerned wisdom.
You could suggest that the budget cuts at the BBC, then the subsequent restructuring (contraction really) of the BBC news division, and the ultimate effect it has had on the BBC news division’s impartiality, are correlated. Maybe the token Thatcherite Tory bastard Lord Patten was planted in his position as BBC chairman by Cameron and his cronies on the BBC trust, and that these changes were bought by Murdoch. Perhaps it was a subversive form of politicking, with it aiming to invoke a burgeoning resentment among weak minded lefties at having to pay the licence fee of a public service broadcaster whose reportage is right leaning.
Now I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but it would make sense that if there was an insidious plan to drum up support, or to start up a movement to get rid of the BBC, that this was it. Circumstantial evidence also helps the theory along. Murdoch is on record, through his cunt kid Jamesie, the he would love to see the BBC’s public funding withdrawn. Thus making the UK TV market a commercialised free-for-all. It also would cause a mass upheaval and restructuring in the TV organisation which attracts the most viewers, and force it to find the revenue to survive through other means. It would have to play by the rules of others and enter into a commercially competitive arena which favours Sky’s infrastructure, programming and target audience.
The fact that people seem to have forgotten, spectacularly, is the BBC news division represents only a small percentage of the BBC. The insinuation that it’s ideologically representative of the organisation as a whole is bizarre and quite frankly fucking embarrassing. It’s a vast organisation with many different kinds of people making vastly different kinds of programming. And why is it like that? Because it has a mandate, a responsibility, to make a variety of shows that represent the diverse demographic profile of this country; from The Thick Of It to Nigel Slater’s cookery programmes, Blue Peter to Match of The Day, from shows made by Charlie Brooker to David Attenborough. Some of these shows are better than others, and that’s where we as viewers carry influence on which should remain, change or be binned.
Which brings us to the crux of the matter: there are better ways to change the BBC. Complain to Ofcom and the BBC and give reasons and evidence as to why they’re failing to be impartial. Boycott shows or specific sections of the BBC which you dislike. The BBC has to justify its licence fee, and if it’s losing swathes of its audience to other media and TV channels for poorly produced and researched, or even biased programming, then that’s when it comes under pressure. Eventually those whose jobs it is to oversee its prosperity will come under pressure to make the necessary editorial changes to bring people back.
For example, when the BBC’s funding was squeezed a couple of years ago two of its arts stations were threatened with the axe – BBC Four and BBC Radio 6 Music. I’m a huge fan of both and my life would be worse without them. And guess what, a lot other people felt the same way. So did we call for the BBC to be scrapped altogether because it was trying to do something we disagreed with? No, of course we didn’t, we campaigned and fought for them to be saved, and they were. And why is that? Because the BBC is funded by us. If it wasn’t we the audience wouldn’t be encouraged and feel empowered in any way to do this.
You might not like the fact that we feel we need to demand impartiality from the news division of a public service broadcaster, but it’s our responsibility to hold it to account, and it always has been. Just as it’s always been with the NHS, whose mistakes are always scrutinised publicly, for our benefit. So why willingly devise ideas for campaigns that would give up our right to do the same with the BBC?
Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard 
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