Oot and Aboot

Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, "You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh." The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, "Let me cross over," the men of Gilead asked him, "Are you an Ephraimite?" If he replied, "No," they said, "All right, say 'Shibboleth.' " He said, "Sibboleth," because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

Judges 12:4-6

For those that don't know, this Biblical quote is the source of a word in linguistics terminology. Because the Gileadites and the Ephraimites had a slightly different accent, during war they were able to discern one from another by how they pronounced the word 'shibboleth' (as I recall it means 'stalk of wheat' or some such but it doesn't matter). So to us today, a shibboleth is a word that immediately identifies a person as coming from one region or another.

To the world at large, Anglophone Canadians are, of course, not immediately discernable from our American neighbours. Abroad, people who fancy themselves experts on accents will often say to me, "So, what part of the States are you from?", hoping that their identification of me as an American will please me. As I'm not, it rather doesn't please me, but unlike a lot of Canadians, I don't go into a storming rage about it either. It's a natural mistake. It's no big deal.

A lot of Canadians have, themselves, developed a lot of pot-ey-to/pot-ah-to style shibboleths to detect Americans among us. A lot of Canadians, for example, cling to our pronunciation of the last letter of the alphabet as a matter of extreme importance - to them, saying 'zee' is tantamount to treason. None of these are universal at all (many Americans use the so-called 'Canadian' form and many Canadians the so-called 'American' form, plus the so-called 'Canadian' form tends actually to be British), but to many English-speaking Canadians, the following questions of pronunciation, spelling or vocabulary are of prime importance:

• Can: "zed" vs. USA: "zee".
• Can: "colour" vs. USA: "color".
• Can: "pop" vs. USA: "soda".
• Can: "hos-tayl" vs. USA: "hos-tull".
• Can: "route" (rhymes with "boot") vs. USA "route" (rhymes with "bout").
• Can: "tap" vs. USA: "faucet" (or is it the other way round?).
• Can: "hydro" vs. USA: "electricity".
• Can: "eh?" vs. USA: "huh?".
• Can: "eh?" vs. USA: "isn't it?".
• Can: "eh?" vs. USA: "Hello, how are you?".
• Can: "eh?" vs. USA: half of the dictionary.
• Can: "Pardon me." vs. USA: "Hey, what's your problem, buddy? You lookin' for some of this? Come on, I ain't afraid of you, punk".

Oddly enough, however, the clearest difference - which a good many of Americans are aware of - is completely rejected by us. I know I always did. I had read many an American book about dialects making reference to Canadians saying "oot and aboot" and was completely mystified by it. I had also read one or two British books about dialects that claimed Canadians said "oat and a boat". I was further mystified.

"We say these words correctly!" I shouted. "The rest of the world pronounces them wrongly!"

Passersby sheltered their children from me and crossed the street to walk on the other side, away from me.

Turns out they're right. Now that I'm a 'professional linguist' (okay, I'm not, but it sounds as impressive as 'professional macramé maker' or 'professional sandwich artist', doesn't it?), I can confirm the truth: we do, indeed say these words funny.

Or rather, the rest of the world pronounces them funny and only we pronounce them correctly. These things are relative (shelter your children).

You see, in the non-Canadian English speaking world, the vowel in 'ow', 'out' and 'loud' is the same vowel (actually, it's a 'diphthong'). In Canada it's different. If I could be bothered with Unicode, I could impress you with my knowledge of flashy 'international phonetic alphabet' characters, but it doesn't, so you'll have to take my word for it when I say that a Canadian tends to pronounce 'out' differently. Here's a primer:

Pronounce the 'a' in 'cat' (the IPA symbol is a groovy Siamese-Twin 'a' and 'e') and slide it into the 'oo' sound that you make while admiring impressive phonetic explanations. You're now saying 'ow', and if you do it falsetto, prepubescent boys will run from you in terror. To be a non-Canadian, just stick a 't' on the end and you're saying 'out'.

However, if you want to 'go native' next time you find yourself in Moosonee, Ontario or on the third line of any Florida NHL team, you need to pronounce the 'u' in 'cup' (the IPA symbol is an ungroovy upside-down 'v') and slide it into your 'oo' sound before capping a 't' on the end and calling it 'out', Canadian-style. For those who are really bored, this rule applies to the 'ou' diphthong before all unvoiced consonants, so to a Canadian, the vowels in 'house' and 'houses' are different, even though the second word is just the plural form of the first. If you're ever in doubt (not daaa-uuut), just ask the person you're speaking to to pronounce the word 'house' in its singular and plural forms. If he pronounces the vowel the same, he's quite clearly a non-Canadian and you should seize him and kill him at the fords of the Jordan immediately. If he looks at you all confused and asks what 'singular' and 'plural' mean, he's definitely a Canadian. Buy him a beer. But none of that wussy American stuff. (Side note: how is American beer like making love in a canoe?)

So you see? Definitely not 'oot' but still different. Similarly, the vowels in 'write' and 'ride' are pronounced differently in Canada. So now you know. Even though I'm sure you don't actually recall wanting to know...

Note: in other countries, people tend to differentiate themselves from their neighbours with silly minutae like different religions, different foods, different cultures, millenia of conflict and past attempts at mutual genocide. This is, of course, the North American Difference, where we dwell on what's really important in life...

Daily fortune cookie: 31 March 2011

"Invent a new language, and use it to write epic love poems."

A Few Words about Gilles Duceppe

It's amazing - and impressive - how good Gilles Duceppe has been looking so far. And I don't just mean within the milieu of Québec; it's tough not to notice the respect and begrudging admiration English Canada seems to be giving him. Well, at least where 'English Canada' means (a) English-language media not owned by Postmedia or Quebecor and (b) people I know and talk to here in Toronto.

Duceppe has really come out fighting, painting Harper as a hypocrite and a religious nut. He's waving that letter to Adrienne Clarkson around, he's speaking confidently, he's funny, he's passionate. He's (bizarrely) reassuring.

And he's speaking a hell of a lot of English. Why is he speaking so much English? Well, Québec has perhaps a million anglophones and allophones... could he be speaking to them? I suppose it's possible, though Québec anglos are about as likely to vote BQ as rural Albertans are to vote Liberal. I think Duceppe is speaking to 'English Canada' - to the other nine provinces where he doesn't field candidates.

Why? Duceppe's aura has always had to do with his not having to give a damn what the rest of Canada thinks of him. I realise he's never really gone out of his way to antagonise English Canada, but he's certainly not minded the hostility many outside of his province feel toward him. Or at least hasn't seemed to.

I hear noise that this change in tone precipitates a change in the BQ. People seem to be suggesting that he BQ is starting to look like dropping overt seperatism from their platform - or at least downplaying it - to broaden their tent. Well, I don't believe it. I don't see the Bloc abandoning independence. After all, if nothing else, they don't have to: their voting base is not entirely pro-independence, and they specifically do not commit themselves to making any moves toward independence (seeing that as entirely a provincial matter).

I think it's a bit different. I think Duceppe wants to be liked as much as possible, across the country. For a man who's been in federal politics for twenty years, there is a legacy issue: I think he'd like to be remembered well. I also think, though, that twenty years in the opposition genuinely constrains him. There is a certain percentage of BQ supporters (as, incidentally there is in the NDP) who see their party's natural place on the opposition, who genuinely think that the BQ can best serve Québec's interests by standing up to the federal government, not by participating in it.

I don't believe Duceppe believes this. I admire the BQ for not going the Sinn Féin 'abstention' route, for not letting its republican stance get in the way of the actual nuts-and-bolts of getting things done for its constituents.

To this end, the BQ is just 'another party' like the others in Commons. Like the SNP or the Plaid in Westminster. And if the goal is to 'get things done for Québec' - that is, if the medium-term goal is that - then why not do whatever it takes to actually get things done?

Duceppe wants to get things done. I sense this. He wants to participate. He wants to act and enact. Good for him. And of course to that end, if he really does want to participate in a more active manner in Ottawa, it helps to be liked (to even a small degree) by the voting populaces of his possible partners - either 'coalition partners' or just less formal deal partners. However Ottawa is going to work after 2 May.

So yes, it might seems hypocritical that the man currently lambasting Harper for his anti-coalition gestures just a few years ago discussed working with him toward that end, but I would argue that it's not at all - that even more than Jack Layton, Duceppe is willing to deal with whatever devil he can find to further his interests. After all, if you look strictly at the constitutional side of it, every other party is equally 'the devil'. His seemingly natural 'allies' the Liberals are even further from his views vis-à-vis national aspirations than the Conservatives.

But there's more here than coalition hopes. Duceppe is perhaps realistic enough to recognise that he can no longer work in any reasonable fashion with Harper, and that the numbers might very easily not allow him to work with the other two (or maybe three) parties. After 2 May, Duceppe might very easily find himself permanently stuck in his opposition chair.

Or rather, not at all. I think that if Duceppe doesn't walk away in May with a concrete arrangement affording him some real say in Ottawa, I think he'll step down and move to Québec City. They say he could parachute directly into Pauline Marois's job, perhaps paving the way for the strongest victory the PQ has ever had, whenever the next election occurs. It goes without saying, of course, that if such an event comes to pass, all the work he's doing at the moment painting Harper as a corrupt man out of touch with the voting public will serve as excellent practice for a future showdown with Jean Charest. And I think a Premier Duceppe would talk referendum, given the right mood - but not without actively engaging with the rest of Canada. It's clear Duceppe wants an independent Québec, but not one that functions as an enemy to what would remain of Canada. And as such he doesn't want to be an enemy either.

What he wants, seemingly is to be a 'partner'. In whatever way he can make that happen.

And good for him. There is a lot that all other party leaders can learn from him.

Daily fortune cookie: 30 March 2011

"Come to think of it, I'd rather you didn't drink my liquor from an old fruit jar either."

Uu Kanata

Have you ever heard of 'Uu Kanata'? It's the National Anthem in Inuktitut, an official language in Canada. Wikipedia has it in Syllabics and transliterated into our alphabet, but they don't have a translation. Still, what they have is beautiful. Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics are a thing of beauty, and transliterated, those knotty long words look like mystical spells. Dig it, if your Unicode can handle it:

ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ!

ᓇᖕᒥᓂ ᓄᓇᕗᑦ!
ᐱᖁᔭᑏ ᓇᓚᑦᑎᐊᖅᐸᕗᑦ.
ᐊᖏᒡᓕᕙᓪᓕᐊᔪᑎ,
ᓴᙱᔪᓗᑎᓪᓗ.
ᓇᖏᖅᐳᒍ, ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ,
ᒥᐊᓂᕆᑉᓗᑎ.
ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ! ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊ!
ᓇᖏᖅᐳᒍ ᒥᐊᓂᕆᑉᓗᑎ,
ᐆ ᑲᓇᑕ, ᓴᓚᒋᔭᐅᖁᓇ!

Uu Kanata!
Nangmini nunavut!
Piqujatii nalattiaqpavut.
Angiglivalliajuti,
Sanngijulutillu.
Nangiqpugu, Uu Kanata,
Mianiripluti.
Uu Kanata! nunatsia!
Nangiqpugu mianiripluti,
Uu Kanata, salagijauquna!

I tried singing along, but it doesn't flow off my tongue, alas.

Daily fortune cookie: 29 March 2011

"Now is the time to realise your ambition to write a Broadway musical about the life of Mary Lou Retton."

The New Democrats - en français!

I know I'm guilty of 'thinking in English' here. I don't claim to be doing anything else. I'm hardly an expert.

But I really don't get 'Nouveau Parti démocratique'. I mean I don't quite understand how the name 'New Democratic Party' translates into French.

I half get it. I remember enough of my high school French to recall that some adjectives come before nouns, like 'nouveau', and some come after, like 'démocratique'. You could say 'C'est un nouveau parti', or 'C'est un parti démocratique'. Fine.

But that seems to imply that the Nouveau Parti démocratique is a party with is both nouveau and démocratique. Like Barack Obama's party is the original one, and this is the 'new one'. 'Democratic Party, Part II'.

Personally, though, I've always understood the party name not to mean 'Democrats: The Next Generation' so much as 'the Party of New Democrats', the party of people who believe in a kind of 'new democracy. After all, supporters call themselves 'New Democrats', with no sense that the 'new' there describes them as individuals or points out some kind of novelty within the party.

That being the case then, it feels to me - it's always felt to me - as if the party's French name ought to be the 'Parti nouveau démocratique'. Or perhaps the 'Parti nouveau-démocratique' (with that sexy hyphen). But why isn't it?

Something Steve told me...

"You know, that reminds me of something Steve told me the other day when Terry and I were at Erika's house."

Why do people on the internet do this? There needs to be a term for it, for the medical condition that makes certain people - in particular, I have noticed, younger people who grew up with an internet - reference friends by name from their real lives, people who I could not possibly have any chance of knowing. When I'm talking online about something or someone from my 'real' life, I'm constantly sayhing things like, 'a freind of mine' or 'this guy I know'. Does that make me old-fashioned? Should I be using proper names?

And if so - why? It seems ridiculous to me.

Daily fortune cookie: 28 March 2011

"Do unto others as you would have David Hasselhoff do unto you."

TMI, Google Maps!

I love Google Maps. I think it's absolutely brilliant. With time they're getting so detailed and accurate that I suspect they're going to have my underwear drawer properly identified. That's great, but there's a very significant line between 'usefully detailed' and 'uselessly complicated'. I fear that Google Maps is starting to cross that line.

I present to you the immediate Yonge and St. Clair are in Toronto. St. Clair is the east-west yellow street and Yonge is the north-south one. It's stuck to the side of the image because it's the area to the east that I want to show: slightly east of Yonge on St. Clair is where the St. Clair TTC stop is.

Singular: the St. Clair TTC stop. There's just one. From there you can take buses, a streetcar and a subway going northbound or southbound. Quite obviously, the platforms you must stand on to take these various forms of transport do not physically occupy the same space, as that would create huge crowding and many an accident, especially as buses would be forced to drive on rails. Rather obviously, once you've entered through the turnstiles, you go up or down corridors and/or stairwells accordingly, following the signs to get to where you want to go. Like every subway station on the planet. Why Google Maps chooses to show the exact location of each platform is entirely beyond me (in the case of the subway platforms, these are of course subterranean and just plotted as 'roundabout there'). If I bring up Google Maps wanting to know where the St. Clair subway station is, is it not glaringly obvious that I want to know how to get there from the street? That I want to know the entrance to the station?

So where exactly is that entrance? Well, unsurprisingly, there are several. The main one that you'd access from the street, the one with a big TTC symbol in front of it, is in a building that also has a McDonald's in it. Look carefully at the map... the McDonald's is indicated on it and is the only way you'll find the entrance to the station. And... yeah, it's nowhere nearn those big letter 'M's, is it? Looking solely at this map will give you the impressions that the best way to get to the St. Clair subway station would be from Pleasant Blvd. (And note: there is a back exit, not that I'd advide taking it).

But this begs the question: while putting the subway, streetcar and bus logos in the place thye've chosen, Google Maps has undoubtedly made their service more accurate. But have they made it more useful?

Buffy Doppelgängers

A doppelgänger is a ghost that takes on the shape of a living person. While Joss Whedon's Buffyverse has not tended to go very far into the idea of ghosts, it has gotten a fair amount of mileage out of the idea of a living character encountering a facsimilie of him- or herself. I actually have found screencaps of eight different occassions in the Buffyverse where a character shares the screen with someone or something looking exactly like him/her (and, of course, played by the same actor). Here they are, with explanations of what exactly is going on in the image.

WILLOW: This is a still from Doppelgängland, the follow-up to The Wish. In that former episode, Anya (in her first appearance) creates an aternate world, one in which Willow and Xander are vampires (among other differences). VampWillow was such a popular creation that Joss Whedon decided to bring her back, for this episode in which she passes through from her dimension to the 'real world'. This picture, then, depicts VampWillow and 'normal' Willow (not tough to guess which is which). As a clue to where the Willow character will be going down the years, this episode is significant - not merely because it has the first intimations that Willow might be gay. This episode gives Willow a taste of what she can be like with a little more self-confidence, and afterward she becomes a genuinely more self-confident character.

XANDER: In The Replacement, a demon named Toth has a weapon that he intends to use on Buffy. In theory, the weapon should split Buffy into two: one with all of her 'Slayer' traits and one with her 'normal person' traits. Accidentally, the weapon is trained on Xander, creating two Xanders - one with the very best aspects of his personality and one with the very worst. That's what we see in this picture, and unlike the others, 'they're both Xander'. There is really no 'doppelganger' here alongside the 'real Xander' (though the episode is set up to give the false impression that that is exactly what is happening). By the end of the episode, the two have been reunited, but as with Willow, this episode is also a turning-point for Xander in that it shows Xander becoming, as his 'good-side' version indicated, more mature and responsible. Plus, we get a nice look back when Xander says to Willow, "Hey, wait till you have an evil twin; see how you handle it," and she replies (to herself), "I handled it fine."

BUFFY: Warren, who will become the bad-guy in season 6, is introduced in season 5 as a 'geek' who can build robot love slaves. He builds one for himself and then is forced by Spike to build a 'RoboBuffy' for him. While this 'BuffyBot' will return in season 6, in this first appearance, Intervention, she is a comically chipper addition to what had become a rather morose show, following the death of Buffy's mother Joyce. In this picture, the BuffyBot, on the right, has been deactivated, and the real Buffy is staring at it, unconvinced of its accuracy.

SPIKE: The villain of season 7 is 'The First', a shapeshifting non-corporeal entity that can take the form of any person who has died. While this obviously doesn't create many opportunities for doppelgangers, it does in the case of Buffy (who has died twice) and Spike (who, as a vampire, is technically dead). Here, the First is in the guise of Spike, goading Spike on in Sleeper. The First has managed to 'take control' of Spike, and has for a while been using different visages to keep him borderline-insane. From time to time, the First appears also as Buffy, and on a few occasions (notably series finale Chosen) speaks face-to-face with the real Buffy, creating a second 'Buffy doppelgänger' incident.

CORDELIA: This is perhaps an incidental case, but on the Angel episode Birthday, Cordelia has an out-of-body experience while knocked out after receiving a particularly powerful vision. In the picture above, the waking Cordelia is invisible to the others, who have crowded around the comatose Cordelia on the floor behind her. In this particular case, it's tough to describe the 'other' Cordy as really a doppelgänger, since it is her: one is her body, one her spirit.

ANGEL: Angel is, of course, a vampire. When soulless, he used the name Angelus, but once ensouled dropped the Latin suffix. As Angel's story develops across both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, the soulless Angelus and the ensouled Angel come to be viewed as two distinct entities within the same body. This reaches its pinnacle in Orpheus, in which a subconscious dreamspace inhabited by both Angelus and Faith produces an ensouled Angel as a distinct entity (with much longer hair) for Angelus to fight. Thus either two seperate entities are fighting each other or one entity is causing two sides of itself to fight each other. Shrug: either way, this is the end result.

LORNE: This is perhaps also a tangential one. In Life of the Party, Lorne has 'had his sleep removed' in order to get more accomplished. The stress, however, gets to him as he tries to catch a moment to himself in front of a dressing table mirror. The mirror begins to talk to him, and indeed sing to him, before he frustratedly smashes the mirror. This is what we're seeing, but what are we seeing? Probably nothing more than a figment of Lorne's imagination and, in fact, no doppelgänger at all... but we do see two Lornes talking to each other, which is what we're looking at here.

GUNN: Last but not least, in the final season of Angel, Gunn has taken on a particular role in Wolfram & Hart that allows him pretty regular access to the 'White Room', where he discusses things with 'the conduit', which most of the time takes the form of a white tiger. In this particular case, however, in the episode A Hole in the World, the cat has been replaced by a facsimilie of Gunn himself, perhaps because the scene required dialogue, and getting dialogue from a tiger is a difficult task at best.

This is All Your Fault, Michael Ignatieff

So as we grind inexorably toward another election, with the vast majority of the citizens of the country convinced that by and large the make-up of the House of Commons will stay the same, I find myself being forced to listen more and more carefully to a little nagging voice that's been in my head for the past year or so.

I'm speaking about the little voice that appears every time I seem Michael Ignatieff speaking on TV. The voice that says "I don't want this man to be my prime minister".

It's there; I can't deny it. I have seen this man speak, in full or in soundbite, on countless occasions. And yet not once have I ever gotten the slightest sense that I was watching a prime-minister-in-waiting, someone that I could ever feel comfortable calling 'my prime minister'.

This is not to say I feel comfortable at all calling Harper that. I think I'm one of perhaps, all told, an outright majority of Canadians who want neither Ignatieff nor Harper to be Prime Minister. And since we're currently stuck in the middle of one of history's most unfortunate false dualities - the media-fed notion that we have only these two figures to choose from as PM - I'm not surprised that larger numbers of Canadians are joylessly turning to Harper and his Conservatives as the 'devil we know', the less offensive of the two man.

Is Harper less offensive than Ignatieff? Not at all. Policy-wise he remains one of the most offensive politicians in Canadian history, and as a person he has had only the mildest sparks of personality and humanity down the years - though again that's more than you can say for Ignatieff. Plus, bad ones though they may be, Harper has ideas. Ignatieff does not appear to have any at all. None of his own, at least.

I have a theory - far-fetched though it is - that Ignatieff takes his current job description extraordinarily seriously, even to the detriment of himself and his party. While within a question of days he might be a candidate for Prime Minister, at the moment he's Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, sworn to provide an opposition to the government of the day. In theory, this is an extraordinarily valuable function in a democracy, a bulwark against dictatorship-through-yesmen - it's a position, defined that way, that a true believe in democracy would cherish, and perhaps Ignatieff is every bit the true believer in democracy that he's trying to present himself as.

That would mean that, to use my personal favourite example, the other day when Stephen Harper appeared before the press to outline Canada's position on Libya, Ignatieff's seemingly non-stop partisan response was actually delivered not as a desperate attempt to undermine Harper's public support but in his capacity as a person sworn to oppose every last thing the PM does.

It'd be nice to think: I can't stand Harper, but I watched that particular press conference to hear how Canada would react. The person delivering the message was unimportant to me: it was Harper due to the political reality at the moment, yes. But be that as it may, I might dislike the guy, but his is the voice that matters on this topic. I hated watching Ignatieff pick apart everything Harper said and making dig after dig at a moment where a bit of solidarity would have been appreciated. There are occasions where I think Ignatieff can gain political points and respect by saying, 'I commend the Prime Minister on his action, which is precisely the thing I would have done in his place'. Ignatieff never seems to take them: he appears to define himself solely as the anti-Harper.

Whether this is a po-faced reading of his role as Head of the Opposition or his ham-fisted attempt at an election campaign doesn't really matter - it is clearly not working, because it makes Ignatieff look like a mere thorn in the side of Harper as opposed to a viable alternative. The false dichotomy with which we Canadians are constantly presented - the one that tells us the only two people who could be Prime Minister are the leasders of the Conservative and Liberal Parties - makes a very real problem for the vast numbers of Canadians, myself included, who don't much care for either Stephen Harper or Michael Ignatieff. For me it reinforces the correctness of my decision to park my vote with a third party, but for many Canadians it will mean either a frustrated decision to sit out the election or a resigned decision to cast their vote with the Harperites, who at least present a vision of leadership that is less than ginggle-worthy.

Bad news either way. But perhaps a necessary medicine? The Liberals need either to give people a reason to care about them again or to fade into oblivion. I'm not bothered by the years Ignatieff has spent in the UK and the USA merely because they're not Canada: I've lived abroad, and if any country should take 'cosmopolitan' as a compliment it is this one. But when I think of some of the more inspiring Canadian politicians out there - and I think the leaders of the three progressive parties in Canada can all stake a claim to this - one thing I see is years and years of unfailing public service. Jack Layton's years in municipal politics, Gilles Duceppe's years with public service unions, Elizabeth May's years with environmental organisations: all of these stake real claims of legitimacy that Ignatieff's storied academic career fails to replicate. In other words, you just haven't earned it yet, baby - not because you haven't been on Canadian soil but because you haven't been in the front trenches serving Canada. Or much of anywhere. There is no dirt under your fingernails, and I don't mean 'you're an élitist' - hell, I love the idea of a published novelist and Harvard professor representing Canada. What I mean is that it really is tough to avoid the conclusion that on some fundamental level you are in it less for the public good of Canadians than for yourself. That's not CPC slander ads sticking - it's the truth. That damned false dochotomy again shows up and allows us to view Harper's meagre public service record and conclude that 'all politicians are in it solely for personal gain'. But I refuse to believe that. Or at least believe that it has to be that way. When I see Ignatieff's fundamental lack of fresh ideas, I can't avoid the conclusion that he has little to say because he has too little experience out there listening to people. It seems like a cliché but new ideas are borne from experience, and from being able to draw on years of experience. A neophyte's vision of politics is always a useful thing, too - but Ignatieff does not seem like that, either.

I find it difficult to believe that Michael Ignatieff will outlive this current campaign. And then once he's handed in his resignation, I'm curious to see where the Liberals will turn for a successor. If that successor fails to inspire confidence in the public - once again - then I think this time it might be lights out for the Liberals.

And while Michael Ignatieff will not deserve all of the burden of blame, he will deserve no small portion either.

Daily fortune cookie: 25 March 2011

"Over the next twelve months, you might see big changes in your life, but it probably just means your vision is getting worse."

A Few Campaign Predictions

With an election due any second now, I'm not going to make any guesses what will happen election day, not yet. But here are a few predictions on what's going to happen during the month of April:

1. We'll see an initial jump in Conservative numbers - they'll jump into the forties for a week or so. Not only because the 'no-election' camp will support them (if they're not already) but also because their camp is more firmly established, and the 'undecideds' will rise (an event which is hidden in polling soundbites), dipping from the other four parties' support.
2. We'll also see an initial NDP jump, though perhaps a more moderate one. It will have longer legs, though.
3. At some point in the campaign, we'll see the NDP within five percentage points of the Liberals, and there will be plenty of talk about the NDP replacing the Liberals as the main federalist alternative. I can say nothing about whether or not that bubble will make it to election day.
4. Jack Layton's health will be a recurring bugaboo, and perhaps surprisingly it will be the Liberals who will push it as an issue.
5. Ignatieff will change his tone during the campaign, trying to redefine his image as something more prime ministerial. It might work.
6. The NDP's Québec bubble will burst.
7. The Liberals will reveal a few more Conservative scandals that that've been holding onto. They will not have much of an effect.
8. The Conservatives will largely succeed in defining the elction on economic terms as opposed to ethical terms. The Liberals will follow suit, and in the second half of the campaign will talk Conservative overspending more than Conservative abuses of power.
9. The debates will be hard on Harper. He will come across as aloof, surly and tired.
10. Elizabeth May will utterly fail in getting her voice heard.

Well, there's ten. Let's come back to this in a month or so and see how I did, eh?

Daily fortune cookie: 24 March 2011

"A Roman emperor will give you thumbs up. However, he will only be trying to hitch a ride."

Fresca, Yummy Pain.

Fresca doesn't advertise, it seems. It just sits there, unnoticed and unloved, on the shelf. I think I always presumed it was a drink for middle-aged housewives or something like that. It so happens that it's 'grapefruit flavour'. It doesn't taste much like anything that grows on trees, actually. If it taste like anything, it tastes like pain: it's seriously acidic, and it burns going down.

Yet somehow Fresca is totally completely awesome. I discovered it only last year, and lament all those sad Frescaless years of my life so far. I'm not the biggest fan, all told, of pop, and certainly not of The Coca-Cola Company™, the official soft drink of Evil. Yet there's something guiltlessly refreshing about the drink, it quenches your thirst and makes you not feel like a sell-out. Damn, that's impressive.


Note: the Coca-Cola has not given my dime one for shilling their products, the filthy whores.
 

Daily fortune cookie: 23 March 2011

"You will be plagued by ennui, angst and other five-letter foreign words."

The Progressive Party

Been doing some number-crunching. You want to see?

It looks like this.

It's me playing with numbers based around a thought I keep returning to again and again: that the left in Canada is divided. But when people say that, they mean mostly the combined Liberal and NDP vote. I would counter that that represents not the left but the non-right, which is not the same thing. Liberal interests and progressive interests overlap from time to time, but not often enough to consider them truly the 'same camp'. No, when I talk about the progressive voice, I'm talking about the NDP, the BQ and the Greens. Yes, many rightist or centrist seperatists vote BQ. And many rightist or centrist environmentalists vote Green. But the platforms of those two parties overlaps those of the NDP much more than the Liberals' platform does.

Hell, just read what I wrote over a year ago.

We're probably hours away from writs being dropped. And I'm not overly optimistic that this next election will serve progressives well. But after that? Well, who knows?

Don't Do It, Jack

The budget is about two hours away from being revealed. Flaherty has 'leaked' that he's going to meet some of the NDP's demands, and that he isn't going to meet the Bloc's or the Liberals' demands.

As intractability goes, the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Bloc are really showing it in spades. Yet somehow, with 272 of 308 votes already decided in advance before the election, it's those remaining 36, some 12% of Commons, who will be accused either of propping up the evil Conservatives or of precipitating a $300 million election 'that nobody wants'. The long-gun registry was the very same thing, and the NDP paid a political price for attempting moderation that the other parties didn't. Bravo to Layton for trying to use his party as a voice for moderation, as an agent for making ideas that work as opposed to digging heels into the ground. It's admirable, but it doesn't really seem to gain the NDP much support.

It looks like there are a few scenarios that can happen. There are three main ones:

• Since it's a given that Flaherty will cave into some but not all NDP demands, the NDP can vote against the budget. If they do, hopefully they can get the message out that 'we really tried to get this budget to pass but the Conservatives are too driven by their radical agenda to be open to practical suggestions'.
• The NDP might hope either to waffle on the budget or to actually declare their support for it, only in order to turn around next week and join the Liberals in a motion of no-confidence involving the Conservatives' contempt of parliament.
• The NDP could spin Flaherty's carrots as being enough, and could throw their weight behind the Conservatives twice: once regarding the budget and again next week regarding contempt.

Option three, the only thing that would prevent an election (unless the Liberals or the Bloc capitulate, and that doesn't look probable), would be a disaster for the NDP. As much as both the Bloc and the Liberals are directing their gaze in Harper's direction, they both hope to steal NDP support. They would be unrelenting in reminding left-leaning Canadians that the NDP had sold them out. I'm incline to think it would stick this time.

Option two is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too option that might make sense within the closed walls of Parliament but seems ridiculous out there in Canada. It will make the NDP look directionless and indecisive. Layton likes being seen as a statesman, but principles are important to NDP voters too. They like clear messages, and Layton should really start sending them. I have a suspicion that option two is what Layton is mulling, but I think it's a mistake. It will allow both sides to hammer them for indecision.

Option one carries its risks. The Conservatives will try to present the case that they attempted to accommodate the NDP as much as possible, and that the NDP don't care about the economy, only about reckless elections. The NDP will need to counter that Flaherty did not do enough, and that unlike the Liberals and the BQ, the NDP were making modest proposals that a government that really didn't want an election and that recognised the supremacy of parliament should have been able to accommodate. They did this to themselves, Layton will hope to say. The main problem here is that while the NDP's message sounds powerful and convincing, it doesn't soundbite very well. And given the limited opportunities for soundbites the NDP get, in comparison to the Conservatives, the Liberals, and if you're watching in Québec the BQ, they need to message as efficiently as possible. Still, though, I think it's the best possibility for the NDP at the moment.

I'm attracted to the idea of the NDP as powerbrokers. I like seeing them step in and be actively involved in parliament, navigating the landmines of agreement and support in order to actually get things done where the other three parties won't. But not at the expense of principles. Principles are the cornerstone of the NDP. Stick to them, Jack. They're why we vote for you.

Daily fortune cookie: 22 March 2011

"You should socialise only with people who keep Chia pets."

Beyond the Pale

I can still remember the first time I went to http://ignatieff.me, the Conservative Party's trash-Ignatieff site. I was met with that sinking feeling I've had much more often recently: that feeling that the guttersnipe tactics of American divisive politics had really entered Canada, and entered with a vengeance.

As I've said so many times before, I don't like Michael Ignatieff. But I don't think he deserves the dishonourable trash the Conservatives are throwing his way. What stuck out most on ignatieff.me, apart from the fact that the Tories are using a Macedonian website to instill doubt about Ignatieff's loyalty to Canada, was the following: The site pretends to be a magazine. In order to diss Ignatieff's internationalism (God what a sin that is), the fake logo say, "International Edition". Below there is an American flag, since Ignatieff lived in the USA. There is a British flag, since Ignatieff lived in the UK. There's a French flag, since apparently he also taught in France, though you don't hear much about that. And lastly, there's a Russian flag. Why? Because Ignatieff is of Russian heritage. Yep, that's right: the Conservatives question Ignatieff's loyalty to Canada not merely by questioning where he's chosen to live through the years but also by taking issue with his ethnicity.

In our Canada.

Despicable. Really. Yeah, it's just a flag, but the point is there. Anyway, the Conservatives have a new one, called http://www.ignatieffselection.com. There's an apostrophe before the 's' and a space after it - yeah, I was confused too. Anyway, the new site is a travesty of web design, with a chintzy alarmist font splattering text all over the page like the ugliest of yellow journalism rags. It consists of little more than repeated attacks on Ignatieff and other Liberals. The text is so poorly written and so lacking in subtlety (and the appearance so amateurish) that I was frankly shocked to see "Authorized by the Registered Agent of the Conservative Party of Canada" at the bottom of the page. Sadly, not shocked because I thought such below-the-belt slams beneath the party but because given how much money they can throw at TV ads, I figured they could have tossed a bit more at this site.

A site filled to the brim with mudslinging has the audacity to put the following sentence at the top of each page: 'He is so desperate for an election, he is focussing on personal attacks and innunendo to get what he wants.'

Ahem.

Anyway, the worst is the page that, in true sensationalist fashion, screams 'Michael Ignatieff: Child of Immigrants?' It would seem that the Conservatives have found examples of Ignatieff presenting his background as one of refugees, and have decided to dig into the Russian side of his family to produce as much dirt as possible, blamig Ignatieff for having rich ancestors.

You might argue that Ignatieff has no place trying to gain political points by talking about his ancestors. But at least they are his to talk about. Digging up dirt on the family members of your political rivals is beyond the pale. This suggests a 'win at any costs' war-like approach to politics, and at a time when people are already starting to debate whether or not attack ads are breaching the barriers of good taste, this does indeed cross a line. A line we need to maintain. Civility has a place in politics. And since Harper and his party have demonstrated a contempt for democracy, for honesty and for decorum, you'd figure they'd at least try to hold onto civility.

But I guess not.

Daily fortune cookie: 21 March 2011

"A whirlwind romance will end in a whirlpool."

The Worst Songs in the World: the Quiz Answers

So here are the answers from yesterday. These delightfully 'incisive' little barbs (not to brag, but I think some of them really hit their mark) describe which songs? Well, now it can be told.

1. He feels at times like a song-composing computer: the result seems convincing on first glance, but if you look a little deeper it fails the Turing test conclusively. "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News (1986)
2. He's a puppet in the video, driving home the point that it's all a big cartoon, but that's no mitigation: I don't listen to the Teletubbies either. "Ass Like That" by Eminem (2005)
3. Wikipedia reveals that the song was written with only one chord: which makes sense, as everything about is screams monotonous and dull. "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson (1971)
4. This was a band that had abandoned incisive social criticism for purposeless button-pushing, a band that had, like lexicographers before and after, confused anarchy with mere chaos. "No One is Innocent" by Ronnie Biggs and the Sex Pistols (1978)
5. Which brings to mind the word 'flaccid' – a perfect word to describe this song, which despite all of its huff-and-puff is as empty as a deflated balloon. "How am I Supposed to Live Without You" by Michael Bolton (1989)
6. This is macho belligerence of the ugliest sort, and it mocks the sympathy the world had for the United States by glorifying its insular world-view and proudly displaying its ignorant disregard for the rest of the world. "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American)" by Toby Keith (2002)
7. The most frustrating thing about his apparent assertion that, after crudely describing Kennedy's assassination, there is nothing else to say is that nonetheless he keeps on gibbering anyway. "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel (1989)
8. It’s the organ, you see. That’s what makes it ‘baseball music’. The rinky-dinky rink organ that just calls out ‘me and the boys having a good time with beer and barbecue’. "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits (1985)
9. What I see is a bunch of wealthy white English men taking the real and tragic plight of immigrants and turning it into a clown-show worse than Pat Boone’s “Speedy Gonzales”. "Illegal Alien" by Genesis (1984)
10. This ridiculous piece of nonsense ultimately got the nod for inclusion here because it takes itself seriously: it's a 'sad' song about a girl who has fallen out of love with the protagonist, who like a mealworm writhes up to her mother to complain about it. "Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" by Herman's Hermits (1965)
11. It’s not an excessive outbreak of political correctness but mere common sense to say that songs like this cheapen and exploit the trauma battered women undergo and not only make domestic abuse socially acceptable but even imply that it’s what women want. "Johnny Get Angry" by Joanie Sommers (1962)
12. A man afflicted with the same disease as Mick Jagger and forced to sing all of his lyrics through pouted lips, Hart gamely grunts out the line “it's time to send our message everywhere” (since until this time Canadian musicians were operating in silence on the topic of African famine) before adding a faux-Michael Jackson “cha-know” that ups the ridiculousness one point, before heading into... "Tears are Not Enough" by Northern Lights (1985)
13. It's merely the navel-gazing of a celebrity who appears to have problems being satisfied despite all of her material wealth. "American Life" by Madonna (2003)
14. Spooky, I guess, if you go for that sort of thing, but perhaps if she'd survived, she'd have pointed out that this a capella nightmare is little more than a silly joke sung in an annoying voice. "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin (1971)
15. Songs don't have to rhyme, but in the absense of anything else that would indicate it took her longer than two minutes and nine seconds to compose the song, a rhyme or two would be nice. "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega (1987)

If you scored 15 out of 15, yay. If you scored 0-14, boo. I have high standards.

The Worst Songs in the World: the Quiz

I keep a blog, or rather I once kept and hope again to resume a blog, called "The Worst Songs in the World... Ever!" It's dedicated to bad vibes: it's all about me dissing songs throughout history. I also, for karmic balance, keep a blog called "The Best Songs in th World... Ever!", though it says something about human nature that it gets fewer hits.

Anyway, I've decided to make a quiz out of it. I've selected certain choice sound-bites, single sentences, from my screeds. Match the sentence to the song it's excoriating: I'll list all 42 songs that I presently have articles about, though I've only excerpted from 15 of them. Here we go:

1. He feels at times like a song-composing computer: the result seems convincing on first glance, but if you look a little deeper it fails the Turing test conclusively.
2. He's a puppet in the video, driving home the point that it's all a big cartoon, but that's no mitigation: I don't listen to the Teletubbies either.
3. Wikipedia reveals that the song was written with only one chord: which makes sense, as everything about is screams monotonous and dull.
4. This was a band that had abandoned incisive social criticism for purposeless button-pushing, a band that had, like lexicographers before and after, confused anarchy with mere chaos.
5. Which brings to mind the word 'flaccid' – a perfect word to describe this song, which despite all of its huff-and-puff is as empty as a deflated balloon.
6. This is macho belligerence of the ugliest sort, and it mocks the sympathy the world had for the United States by glorifying its insular world-view and proudly displaying its ignorant disregard for the rest of the world.
7. The most frustrating thing about his apparent assertion that, after crudely describing Kennedy's assassination, there is nothing else to say is that nonetheless he keeps on gibbering anyway.
8. It’s the organ, you see. That’s what makes it ‘baseball music’. The rinky-dinky rink organ that just calls out ‘me and the boys having a good time with beer and barbecue’.
9. What I see is a bunch of wealthy white English men taking the real and tragic plight of immigrants and turning it into a clown-show worse than Pat Boone’s “Speedy Gonzales”.
10. This ridiculous piece of nonsense ultimately got the nod for inclusion here because it takes itself seriously: it's a 'sad' song about a girl who has fallen out of love with the protagonist, who like a mealworm writhes up to her mother to complain about it.
11. It’s not an excessive outbreak of political correctness but mere common sense to say that songs like this cheapen and exploit the trauma battered women undergo and not only make domestic abuse socially acceptable but even imply that it’s what women want.
12. A man afflicted with the same disease as Mick Jagger and forced to sing all of his lyrics through pouted lips, Hart gamely grunts out the line “it's time to send our message everywhere” (since until this time Canadian musicians were operating in silence on the topic of African famine) before adding a faux-Michael Jackson “cha-know” that ups the ridiculousness one point, before heading into...
13. It's merely the navel-gazing of a celebrity who appears to have problems being satisfied despite all of her material wealth.
14. Spooky, I guess, if you go for that sort of thing, but perhaps if she'd survived, she'd have pointed out that this a capella nightmare is little more than a silly joke sung in an annoying voice.
15. Songs don't have to rhyme, but in the absense of anything else that would indicate it took her longer than two minutes and nine seconds to compose the song, a rhyme or two would be nice.

And here is the full list of songs, fifteen of which are described as above. Match the 15 up and disregard the other 27.

1. "Johnny Get Angry" by Joanie Sommers (1962)
2. "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys (1965)
3. "Iko Iko" by the Dixie Cups (1965)
4. "Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" by Herman's Hermits (1965)
5. "Petunia, the Gardener's Daughter" by Elvis Presley (1966)
6. "The Black Angel's Death Song" by the Velvet Underground (1967)
7. "The End" by the Doors (1967)
8. "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles (1968)
9. "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap (1968)
10. "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow" by Funkadelic (1970)
11. "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson (1971)
12. "Mercedes Benz" by Janis Joplin (1971)
13. "My Ding-a-Ling" by Chuck Berry (1972)
    
14. "Squeeze Box" by the Who (1975)
    
15. "Lay Down Sally" by Eric Clapton (1977)
16. "Dreadlock Holiday" by 10cc (1978)
17. "No One is Innocent" by Ronnie Biggs and the Sex Pistols (1978)
18. "Breakfast in America" by Supertramp (1979)
    
19. "What's Your Name?" by Depeche Mode (1981)
    
20. "China Girl" by David Bowie (1983)
21. "Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen (1984)
    
22. "Illegal Alien" by Genesis (1984)
23. "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer (1985)
24. "Tears are Not Enough" by Northern Lights (1985)
25. "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits (1985)
26. "Girls" by the Beastie Boys (1986)
27. "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News (1986)
28. "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2 (1987)
29. "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega (1987)
    
30. "Don't Worry, Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin (1988)
31. "Got My Mind Set on You" by George Harrison (1988)
32. "One in a Million" by Guns 'n' Roses (1988)
33. "How am I Supposed to Live Without You" by Michael Bolton (1989)
34. "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel (1989)
35. "I Love You" by Vanilla Ice (1990)
    
36. "Barbie Girl" by Aqua (1997)
37. "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (the Angry American)" by Toby Keith (2002)
38. "American Life" by Madonna (2003)
39. "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani (2005)
40. "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas (2005)
41. "Ass Like That" by Eminem (2005)
42. "We are the World 25 for Haiti" by Artists for Haiti (2010)
    

Answers tomorrow!

Compilation! "The Smiths - The Songs That Saved Your Life"

THE SMITHS
THE SONGS THAT SAVED YOUR LIFE

I put this together largely as a response to The Sound of the Smiths, a rather hapless two-CD Smiths compilation that exists as a single-CD 'greatest hits' collection, no better or worse than any of the others, and a 'special edition' that adds a second disc, a rather random mix of vaguely 'rare' stuff and sundry tracks from here and there. It doesn't make that much sense, really. Which is a pity, because it'll probably be the last time The Smiths' legacy is exploited on the CD format...

Oh, who am I kidding? There'll be others. As long as humans have ears, Warners will periodically find new ways to repackage The Smiths' recorded output (and now that EMI has gone under and will probably be hoovered up by WB, Morrissey's too). The Smiths' legacy is so compact though - there are only eighty or so songs (many in different versions, it should be mentioned), but probably half of everything they recorded is 'essential'. I thought that if you put together two full CDs of Smiths material, you'd probably have 40 songs - in other words, more or less half of everything they ever did. What does that make it? Not a 'greatest hits' or an 'introduction'. Not the completed works either, though. So let's call it a 'restrospective'. Whatever you call it, it makes a great collection, even if it would, were it to actually exist, be just another cynical repackaging job. Still, in the interests of true cynicism, I've included three previously-unreleased 'alternate versions'. And a tacky badge.

CD ONE

1. HAND IN GLOVE album version. (3:23) Produced by the Smiths, remixed by John Porter. From the Rough Trade album The Smiths, ROUGH61, February 1984.
2. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? Peel Session version. (3:11) Produced by Roger Pusey. From the Rough Trade album Hatful of Hollow, ROUGH76, November 1984.
3. REEL AROUND THE FOUNTAIN Troy Tate version. (6:05) Produced by Troy Tate. Previously unreleased.
4. THIS NIGHT HAS OPENED MY EYES. (3:39) Produced by Roger Pusey. From the Rough Trade album Hatful of Hollow, ROUGH76, November 1984.
5. BACK TO THE OLD HOUSE Peel Session version. (3:02)  Produced by Roger Pusey. From the Rough Trade album Hatful of Hollow, ROUGH76, November 1984.
6. THIS CHARMING MAN. (2:42) Produced by John Porter.  From the Rough Trade single 'This Charming Man', RT136, October 1983.
7. STILL ILL. (3:20) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade album The Smiths, ROUGH61, February 1984.
8. HEAVEN KNOWS I'M MISERABLE NOW. (3:34) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade single 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now', RT156, May 1984.
9. GIRL AFRAID. (2:48) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade 12" single 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now', RTT156, May 1984.
10. WILLIAM, IT WAS REALLY NOTHING. (2:09) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade single 'William, It Was Really Nothing', RT166, August 1984.
11. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GET WHAT I WANT. (1:51) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade single 'William, It Was Really Nothing', RT166, August 1984.
12. HOW SOON IS NOW? (6:44) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade 12" single 'William, It Was Really Nothing', RTT166, August 1984.
13. THE HEADMASTER RITUAL. (4:52) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade album Meat is Murder, ROUGH81, February 1985.
14. NOWHERE FAST. (2:37) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade album Meat is Murder, ROUGH81, February 1985.
15. RUSHOLME RUFFIANS. (4:20) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade album Meat is Murder, ROUGH81, February 1985.
16. BARBARISM BEGINS AT HOME. (6:57) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade album Meat is Murder, ROUGH81, February 1985.
17. THAT JOKE ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE. (4:58) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade album Meat is Murder, ROUGH81, February 1985.
18. SHAKESPEARE'S SISTER. (2:08) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade single 'Shakespeare's Sister', RT181, March 1985.
19. STRETCH OUT AND WAIT alternate version. (2:45) Produced by the Smiths. From the Rough Trade album The World Won't Listen, ROUGH101, February 1987.
20. THE BOY WITH THE THORN IN HIS SIDE album version. (3:17) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade album The Queen is Dead, ROUGH96, June 1986.

CD TWO

1. RUBBER RING. (3:23) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade 12" single 'The Boy with the Thorn in his Side', RTT191, September 1985.
2. ASLEEP. (4:10) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade single 'The Boy with the Thorn in his Side', RTT191, September 1985.
3. BIGMOUTH STRIKES AGAIN. (3:14) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade single 'Bigmouth Strikes Again', RT192, May 1986.
4. THERE IS A LIGHT THAT NEVER GOES OUT. (4:03) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade album The Queen is Dead, ROUGH96, June 1986.
5. I KNOW IT'S OVER. (5:49) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade album The Queen is Dead, ROUGH96, June 1986.
6. CEMETRY GATES. (2:41) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. From the Rough Trade album The Queen is Dead, ROUGH96, June 1986.
7. THE QUEEN IS DEAD original unedited version. (7:30) Produced by Morrissey and Marr. Previously unreleased.
8. PANIC. (2:21) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade single 'Panic', RT193, July 1986.
9. ASK album version. (3:15) Produced by John Porter, remixed by Steve Lillywhite. From the From the Rough Trade album The World Won't Listen, ROUGH101, February 1987.
10. YOU JUST HAVEN'T EARNED IT YET, BABY. (3:32) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade album The World Won't Listen, ROUGH101, February 1987.
11. HALF A PERSON. (3:36) Produced by Morrissey, Johnny Marr and Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade single 'Shoplifters of the World Unite', RT195, January 1987.
12. SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD UNITE. (2:58) Produced by Johnny Marr. From the Rough Trade single 'Shoplifters of the World Unite', RT195, January 1987.
13. IS IT REALLY SO STRANGE? (3:04) Produced by John Porter. From the Rough Trade single 'Sheila Take a Bow', RT196, April 1987.
14. SHEILA TAKE A BOW. (2:41) Produced by Morrissey, Johnny Marr and Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade single 'Sheila Take a Bow', RT196, April 1987.
15. GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA unreleased early take. (2:04) Produced by Johnny Marr, Morrissey and Stephen Street. Previously unreleased.
16. PAINT A VULGAR PICTURE. (5:35) Produced by Johnny Marr, Morrissey and Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade album Strangeways, Here We Come, ROUGH106, September 1987.
17. STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE. (3:32) Produced by Johnny Marr, Morrissey and Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade album Strangeways, Here We Come, ROUGH106, September 1987.
18. LAST NIGHT I DREAMT THAT SOMEBODY LOVED ME. (5:06) Produced by Johnny Marr, Morrissey and Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade album Strangeways, Here We Come, ROUGH106, September 1987.
19. I WON'T SPARE YOU. (2:48) Produced by Johnny Marr, Morrissey and Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade album Strangeways, Here We Come, ROUGH106, September 1987.
20. I KEEP MINE HIDDEN. (2:00) Produced by Grant Showbiz, remixed by Stephen Street. From the Rough Trade 12" single 'Girlfriend in a Coma', RTT197, August 1987.

NOTES

The Smiths only released four 'proper' albums. Combined, they only exceed the length of this compilation by a few minutes. But with the Smiths, the albums only told a small part of the story. Much of what matters most was scattered across singles, periodically collected in cheesy compilations. It wasn't even the non-album a-sides either - Smiths b-sides frequently numbered among their very best pieces of work.

This collection starts off relatively confusing: the first batch of Smiths songs were more or less recorded three times in full: with Troy Tate as producer in sessions for a scrapped first album, with John Porter for the ultimately released first album, and at a handful of sessions for the BBC. The first seven tracks here are a kind of 'greatest hits' of the early years. I break chronology here only by including the remixed 'album version' of Hand in Glove as the opening track, but I find it a more enjoyable listening experience to the muddled original single version. What Difference Does It Make? was a single, but I present it here in the BBC version, the earlier and now preferred version. For Reel Around the Fountain, I've turned to the unreleased Troy Tate version. Simon Goddard likes it best and I think I agree, though all three versions have their merits.

This Night Has Opened My Eyes and Back to the Old House are both from the BBC, as compiled on Hatful of Hollow. This Charming Man is the classic 'Manchester version'. Still Ill is the only song produced by John Porter for the début to make it to my collection.

We then get five single tracks: Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and its 12" b-side Girl Afraid, before history's greatest single in full: William, It Was Really Nothing, its b-side Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want, and its 12" 'bonus track' How Soon is Now?, included in full here (there are no 'single edits' on this collection). That's followed by five of the nine tracks on Meat is Murder: The Headmaster Ritual, Nowhere Fast, Rusholme Ruffians, Barbarism Begins at Home (all seven minutes of it), and That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore, which was also a single.

Ending CD one with the album version of The Boy With the Thorn In His Side may not make that much sense, since otherwise disc one is devoted to The Smiths, Meat is Murder, and other tracks of the era, while disc two is devoted to The Queen is Dead, Strangeways, Here We Come, and contemporary tracks.

But the reason for my doing so is to start disc two with Rubber Ring, the b-side of 'The Boy with the Thorn in his Side' and the 'title track' of this collection. It's a great disc-starter, followed by Asleep, the other b-side from the same single. We then jump headlong into The Queen is Dead, their masterpiece, with fully six of its ten tracks. After 'The Boy...' on disc one, we also get Bigmouth Strikes Again, There is a Light That Never Goes Out, I Know it's Over, Cemetry Gates, and a previously-unreleased 'full-length' version of the title track The Queen is Dead.

We then get a big mess of single-only tracks. Both Panic and Ask were a-sides (I take the latter in an 'album version', which means the slightly longer version that features on compilations - it's not actually from any 'album' at all). You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby would have been an a-side too, but it was dropped at the last minute, and wound up on The World Won't Listen later on. The amazing Half a Person would have been its b-side, but it wound up on the b-side of Shoplifters of the World Unite, a solo Johnny Marr production, instead. Is It Really So Strange? was recorded in the studio, but the only officially-released version, this one, is another BBC recording. It was the b-side of Sheila Take a Bow, the last of four consecutive between-album singles.

Girlfriend in a Coma was the first single from Strangeways, Here We Come. An early take was done in a rocksteady style, and that's the version I include here, both because it's intriguing and as a ruse to make the collection more, er, collectible. After that, we get four of its album-mates: Paint a Vulgar Picture, Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before, Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me and I Won't Share You. On the cusp of their estrangement from one another, this love song from Morrissey to Johnny Marr would have been a great place to finish. But despite Marr's loathing of the song, I Keep Mine Hidden, b-side to 'Girlfriend in a Coma' and the last original song they ever recorded, deserves its place here. Anyway, it's also, according to Simon Goddard, a song from Morrissey to Marr. So two messages from one half to the other half of one of popular music's best-ever songwriting partnerships.

Daily fortune cookie: 18 March 2011

"When a problem comes along, you may resort to other measures besides whipping it."

Comic Strips Make No Sense At All

Some three years ago I had a blog that I called "Makes No Sense At All", named after the Hüsker Dü song. The point of it was to give me an occasional soap-box from which to give into Andy Rooney tendencies and just grumble and complain about whatever took my fancy. I didn't carry on with it too long, and it was read by, like, a maximum of five people who were not GoogleBots. So since it's just sat there moribund, collecting digital dust down the years. I decided I might as well close down the old blog and syndicate its contents here, in weekly installations. I've eliminated a few blog entries that seem too anachronistic by now, but the blogs that I have included I've not edited at all. So enjoy watching me at my grumpiest... Makes No Sense at All.

Originally published 3 July 2008.

Have you ever taken a gander at the comics page of your friendly local newspaper? I mean, since 1984?

It wouldn't really matter whether or not you've looked in the past 24 years, of course. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has changed in all that time. Sure, there is the odd new comic. Some of the new ones are actually pretty good. What I am in fact referring to is the evil that is "Garfield", "B.C.", "Cathy" etc. Any comic over a generation old.

I can't imagine an industry where stasis and complete lack of innovation is rewarded so handsomely. These comics have not had a single worthy punchline in my entire lifetime and haven't even attempted anything new in that long. On absolute auto-pilot, they glide through the years recycling the same jokes over and over, to the point where no humour whatsoever remains unstrained.

If you think I'm exaggerating, take a quick check at today's comics. Viewed objectively, not a single one can claim to have anything even remotely funny - or, God forbid, cutting edge - about them. 2008? 1973? 1994? 1979? It makes no difference whatsoever.

How creepy can you get?