Letter: Escape to happiness (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Escape to happiness

Comrades,

As a party member I would like to ask what purpose was served by the publication of Sputnik's article in the October Standard. As far as I can see no socialist viewpoint is advanced, rather the contrary; to suggest that "scraping the meat off the plate" is a practical attitude to vegetarians is obtuse and. in practical terms, counter effective. Further, stereotyping of the kind employed can do nothing other than alienate interested neutrals. A propagandist of experience must surely know that stereotypes are no more effective when purportedly factual than avowedly imaginary. Although this should make no difference, the article is not even funny; on my reading it did not even raise the involuntary and quickly regretted chuckle sometimes elicited by sick jokes.

If I did not know that Sputnik had published excellent articles under another name. I would suggest that he sends his next offering to Punch, a magazine long renowned for bridging the gap between seriousness and humour by eschewing both.

John Usher 

London SW4

Reply:

We have received many letters in a similar vein and note the points made

Editors.

Escape to Happiness (or drama on the Trans-Siberian Railway) (1986)

A Short Story from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

This summer I took a party of tourists to Lake Baikol and Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia. Any professional "courier'' will tell you that every package tour has its "freaks", and this one had two — both young women with college degrees in — "surprise, surprise" — sociology. One, who was quite small and looked like death warmed up. said "she was not getting enough fibre". The other, larger, with a huge shock of fair curly hair, shuffled around in a voluminous covering like a pair of old curtains — and large, soft, fluffy boots. She could have just escaped from the local pantomime, playing Widow Twanky. They were both engaged in local community projects. One was forming a group in Hounslow to help people "analyse their dreams

They were (or had been) "into" everything. of course, running the gamut of the so-called "Left Wing": ex-Socialist Workers Party; CND; Battered Wives; Women's Liberation; Greenham Common — and now "Animal Rights". The little one had been prosecuted for disrupting a fur auction, but did not believe in "violent action" (her boyfriend was doing six months for it) and now the very latest — they were "vegans'; not just vegetarians — but vegans. No meat, fish, eggs, butter. milk, bread or cakes baked with animal fat. etc. etc.

The manager on the dining car of the train (Trans-Siberian Railway) just could not grasp it. "Then what the hell do they eat?", he asked plaintively. The usual Russian attitude to vegetarians is very practical. They just take a knife and scrape the meat off the plate. Not with vegans they don't! They actually sent back an excellent Borsht (beetroot soup) because one suspected a sliver of meat in it — which is just not possible.

Nevertheless, all went well until we reached Ormsk. Here a handsome, almost beautiful Russian lady boarded our train with an enormous quantity (even for Russians) of luggage, including possibly a washing machine, and certainly a child's pram, and three very good-looking children. A boy of ten. a girl of five and a baby of a few months.

There are four berths to a compartment (second-class), obviously two up. two down. The newcomer with a small baby, two other children, and terrifying luggage was quite flustered, almost hysterical with anxiety. With that frank openness so typical of Russians, especially when travelling, she naturally assumed that she would be granted the bottom berths, whatever the tickets said, on account of the children, especially the tiny one.

Our vegans had omitted to master the Russian language prior to their trip, so that no dialogue or explanations were possible. She just plonked herself, her kids, the cradle, and her bags on the bottom berths, pointing heavenwards to indicate her proposal that our two "liberators" move up to oblige.

But no! Not a bit of it! Why should we move? They could not move their luggage. "These are our seats." "Besides", said Widow Twanky, "I've got a bad back"! A "bad back"? How many millions of working days are skived every year with "bad backs"? The one undiagnosable. indefinable gimmick known to all for a couple of days off.

By this time our Russian visitor found everything just too much — and with a voluble stream of rich Russian invective, rudely shoved poor little fibre-less No. 1 violently out into the corridor. Screams, tears, kids sobbing, everyone shouting, with calls for the unfortunate "courier" to "do something'. Calmly surveying the scene I announced portentously: "It's dinner time! Come along! We'll sort all this out later!!" Once our freaks left the compartment, their chance of retaining the bottom bunks was about as likely as snow in the Sahara.

Safely shepherded half-way up the quarter-mile-long train to the Diner, I was able to divert attention and calm hysteria by guaranteeing that the "Schee" (cabbage soup) was utterly meatless. So it was; the meat had been given to somebody else. "Now really". I started persuasively, "You are animal lovers. so am I! So are we all! But little children are animals too! Don't you think? Have they no rights? Is their mother wrong to want to care for them?" No dice. I was talking to a brick wall. "Yes. but we paid for our ticket! They are our seats! She should not be allowed to travel with all that luggage with children. Why should we have to move?" Argument was obviously futile.

But a solution was to hand. Our handsome newcomer had told me, through her tears, that she was joining her husband, an Army officer, in Budapest. This was my cue. Lowering my voice and wagging a finger. I whispered mysteriously "Do you know what I think?" They were agog. "I've suspected it from the start", I murmured. "She's escaping from the KGB." This completely flattened them. After a long pause, little Miss No-Fibre whispered. “Does this happen very often?" "Often", I breathed heavily, "almost every other day or night. We've got to help her. for the sake of the kids." The result was magic. All their sentimental longings for some practical worthy cause were aroused. They obediently and efficiently transferred to the top bunks, proud members of a dramatic liberation conspiracy. Harmony reigned. The Russian lady was now treated with reverential respect, more deeply convinced than ever that the English were nuts.

I am sure that for many months to come the local Community Centre at Ruislip will thrill to the story of how they helped a beautiful Russian lady with her three lovely children to escape the dreaded KGB. But 1 must be getting absent-minded, for 1 clean forgot to tell them that what I had meant was Kinky Girls from Britain.

SPUTNIK

Blogger's Note:

Mmm, what were the SSPC thinking? I grew up reading The Sun newspaper in the 1980s, and I was getting flashbacks as I was scanning this in. Understandably, this short story stirred up quite a bit of controversy amongst the readership at the time, and the following letter from John Usher appeared in the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Escape to happiness 

Comrades, 

As a party member I would like to ask what purpose was served by the publication of Sputnik's article in the October Standard. As far as I can see no socialist viewpoint is advanced, rather the contrary; to suggest that "scraping the meat off the plate" is a practical attitude to vegetarians is obtuse and. in practical terms, counter effective. Further, stereotyping of the kind employed can do nothing other than alienate interested neutrals. A propagandist of experience must surely know that stereotypes are no more effective when purportedly factual than avowedly imaginary. Although this should make no difference, the article is not even funny; on my reading it did not even raise the involuntary and quickly regretted chuckle sometimes elicited by sick jokes. 

If I did not know that Sputnik had published excellent articles under another name, I would suggest that he sends his next offering to Punch, a magazine long renowned for bridging the gap between seriousness and humour by eschewing both.

John Usher

London SW4

 

Reply: 

We have received many letters in a similar vein and note the points made.

Editors.

I believe 'Sputnik' was a one-off pen-name for Harry Young ('Horatio' in the Socialist Standard).

Letter: Not amused (1979)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not amused

Let’s be serious. . .

After reading SC’s wide-ranging expose of the entertainment industry (“We are not amused,” Socialist Standard, August 1979) I felt I was being a real traitor to the working class when, against my better judgement, I was conned by the Two Ronnies into emitting a tiny snigger.

Waves of guilt led me to tear my favourite Picasso print from the wall. I made sure that The Onedin Line was switched off immediately I walked into the sitting-room. And I became really nasty when they tried to condition me with a spot of catchy reggae on the jukebox in my local pub.

In short, I realised what a naive and philistinic twit I have been all these years for deluding myself that we shall still be able to enjoy silly jokes, trendy art, TV serials, songs, dances and general merriment—even, dare I say it, fat ladies wobbling their bums-when socialism is established.

Tom  Price, 

Daventry Northamptonshire

A blue-blooded hippopotamus. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lest we congratulate ourselves too early that the violent hysteria which has seized the Press and public is subsiding, and that Reason is climbing back to her perch, we are rudely shaken by that daily masterpiece of culture and refinement, the “Daily Express,” into a due regard for the stern realities of a coronation. The “Daily Express” is not a paper to be read every day. Nature has wisely ordained otherwise. I refer to that well-known fact of psychology by which it is incumbent that the more intense pleasures should be tasted relatively infrequently. A regular reader of the sheet referred to is a deplorable spectacle, and as much to be pitied as a victim of the opium habit.

The usual brilliancy of the “Daily Express’s” dazzling pages reached its blinding zenith a few days ago, when it informed the mere work-a-day world that the King—God bless him !—was, in the opinion of the Boy Scouts, a hippopotamus. This, of course, will be greeted by the less intelligent (that is if the first paroxysm of shocked patriotism leaves him mentally whole) with what is known to “Daily Express” readers as a howl of derision, followed by an expression of unbelief in our good faith. Any criticism on these lines is silenced by referring those so afflicted to the “Daily Express” of Saturday, June 10.

To save you any trouble in the matter I will quote the first part of the column in full :

#    #    #    #

THIRTY THOUSAND BOY SCOUTS.

WEIRD ZULU WELCOME TO THE KING.

“HE IS A LION—A LION.”

“Thirty thousand Boy Scouts will greet the King at Windsor on July 4, and the form of their greeting will be far from conventional. The long lines of a military parade will be lacking, for Lieut.-General Baden Powell will marshal the Scouts after the manner of Zulu and Basuto impis.

“Every Scout will give the call of his patrol bird or animal—the wolf, bull, rattlesnake, hyena, peewit, cuckoo, and scores of others. Then there will be a dead silence, and a moment later the Scouts will sing the weird Zulu chant :—

‘Een gonyâma, yonyâma.

Invooboo

Yah bô ! Yah bô !

Invooboo.’

which, being interpreted means :— 

‘He is a lion—a lion ! 

Yes ! he is better than that ; he is a hippopotamus!’ ”

So that you will perceive that the Boy Scouts are not so mad as they look, not by a jugful. Yah bo ! Yah bo ! The Editor’s salary to three yonyâmas that not one Englishman in a thousand knew the true inwardness of Yah bo until June 10. I hope, further, that any takers will journey to ancient and castellated Windsor on July 4, and take a gramophone record of 30,000 wolves, bears, bulls, rattlesnakes, hyenas, cuckoos, peewits, etc., in full song, and present it to an Institution for Broken-down Clergymen, to be used as a sedative, or to give them a kindly foretaste of the bliss to come. Let him save a record blank until after the “dead silence.” Dead silence sounds ominous and almost prophetic, doesn’t it ? Thirty thousand sparrow-legged Boy Scouts yell Yah bo ! to the King of England, Emperor of India, etc., provides a spectacle which is at once inspiring, illuminating and of happy augury. This is a joy that Caesar never tasted. Neither Alexander nor Pompey could command it. Thirty thousand penny broomsticks athwart the blue of heaven, and then : “Yah bo ! Invooboo ! ”

Ah ! God is good ! Centuries, ages, aeons of evolution, and then to come to “Yah bo!” Enough ! Our duty is plain and clear as a pitchfork. Our youth shall be instructed in the whole art and mystery of gonyâma, coupled with Yah bo. After which—we shall see what we shall see.

PARIS.

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2008)

From the December 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Horrorscope revisited (2024)

A Short Story from the April 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Updated from a short story in the February 1984 Socialist Standard)

Right behind the headlines of the papers there’s a space entitled Horoscope

Do you think I’m some sort of dope?

Because it’s always there I turn to first of all to help me cope.

(With apologies to Jake Thackray)

Good news and bad news. The bad news is that the government has increased the retirement age yet again. You’re now expected to continue to work until you’re 81. Or until you fall down dead from exhaustion. Whichever comes first. The good news is that as part of the government’s compulsory mobilisation plans you are in the third tier of those awaiting the call.

A tall stranger will appear on your doorstep today. You immediately realise that he is not someone who swiped right on the dating app. Although uniforms are something that can be a turn on they are not so when the dark blue also wears at the hip a Sig Sauer P250. You have been accused of offending someone by your use of mean hurty words. You are strongly advised not to criticise the government. Bear in mind, Big Brother is watching you at all times. Or else.

You will have trouble at work today. You are summoned to appear before Human Resources. HR is run by the boss’s daughter. Are you happy working here, is the first question put to you. Your bat senses immediately perceive that you are not here to be given a pay rise but that instead the proverbial is about to hit the fan. Miss Otis regrets to inform you that it has come to their attention that you have been making disparaging remarks on your private social media about working conditions at the company, and further, you have made extremely rude comment about the boss, her father, but she wants you to know she is being very objective in dealing with this matter. Describing your boss as a mean grasping slave driver of a capitalist will not be tolerated. Perhaps you would not only like to delete those comments but you should post something very positive about him and the company too. She is deeply concerned and strongly suggests that you are much more careful what you post privately in future. Or else.

Beware of turmoil in the home. Your private landlord notifies you that given the continual interest rate rises his property empire is faced with extra costs that are seriously reducing the amount of unearned income that he is able to extract from his tenants. He says that next month’s rent will be double what you are paying at present. Failure to comply with these new terms blah blah blah will result in the eviction of you and your family. Your partner has a complete meltdown at the effect eviction would have on you all especially the children. He points out that there are plenty of desperate people looking for accommodation who are prepared to pay whatever exorbitant rent he might charge. Remember, before you start complaining that landlords provide a public service, and their altruistic motives should not be at all questioned blah blah blah. Further, don’t you know we live in a capitalist system which means never give a sucker a break and if you and yours end up on the street then it will be your fault for being such a tight-fisted git.

A letter bearing bad news. Dear Patient, as a result of the government having privatised the National Health Service we wish to inform you that every appointment made with a doctor at this surgery will now incur a cost of twenty pounds. If you are taking regular medication please be aware that all drugs will have to be paid for at whatever price is levied by the drug manufacture.

A slight bit of bad luck. You’re a single mother. Your child minder says they can no longer look after your child. What to do? Basically, you’re screwed.

You receive a summons. You are alleged to have transgressed the Public Order Act. What’s it going to take to make you realise that you can’t go around demonstrating in favour of things the government disapproves of? Are you one of those freaks who believe in democracy? It might go easier with you if you snitch on those who imbued you with such insidious beliefs. You’ve already been warned about saying mean hurty things. You need to learn to keep quiet about things that don’t concern you and to kowtow to your betters.

A marvellous time for you. You’re dreaming.

You are in a spending mood. Spoiler alert: Unfortunately, you do not possess the wherewithal to indulge such ridiculous fantasies. You decide to cheer everyone up so you say, how about a treat? Let’s have three pennorth of chips! At the fish and chip shop you peruse the prices on the board and wonder how food could have become so expensive since your last sojourn there. As you didn’t have a win on the national Lottery that week you reluctantly leave there empty handed.

You are developing some strange habits. Resolve never to believe in astrology ever again. You have come to realise that what politicians and the media tell you has as much credence as the pseudoscience of star signs which may or may not be taken seriously by very many. Please temper your greatest heresy which is no longer believing that capitalism is the best of all possible worlds which benefits the majority as opposed to the minority ruling class who continue to have power over your everyday life. You are treading on a slippery slope. If you let these invidious thoughts get the better of you, you will be challenging the prevailing heterodoxy and before you know it you will be confronting capitalism and saying that it should be abolished. Cleanse your mind of such thoughts. Or else!

Dave Coggan

Try thinking (2024)

From the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Life’s a bag of shite and then you die. I wonder how many times you’ve heard that.

One of my mates even goes a bit further. He says you’re dead lucky to get the bag with it.

Well anyway. I was walking past a church close to where I live a few months back and I saw they’d put up a banner that reads Try Praying. Turned out that the slogan had been thought up by some folk near me. So I thought I might give it a go. After all, times are pretty rough for loads of people round here, not just myself.

It was a well-produced banner too, and hanging outside quite a nice building that gets a modest amount of footfall of a Sunday. Not as much as the boozer down the road but that’s another matter

So for a while I gave it my best shot. I dredged up a few phrases that I remember from my schooldays and even threw in a few of my own making. I didn’t ask for anything for myself, mind, I wasn’t after a 49-inch telly or a big house. Just general things like world peace and an end to hunger and poverty, the type of thing that all the religion bigwigs like the Pope and the Dalai Lama bang on about.

If you’ve seen the news recently, you’ll know how effective my praying was… because bugger all happened.

My mates said I shouldn’t have expected anything else. Things are as they are because that’s how they are, that’s life so stop your whingeing.

I can understand how easy it is to go along with that attitude – there’s so much stuff in the world that looks so complicated that you don’t even want to try to get your head around it.

But I’m not giving up that easily. I reckon things can be changed. I’m even tempted to put up my own banner outside my house, one that reads Try Thinking.

Now, I reckon there’s a good chance that like the vast majority of people on this planet, me included, you chose to be born in the wrong bed. Now I don’t necessarily mean that your family was really skint, although that could be true as well, I mean a family that has to work to earn a living. If you did, that was a crucial mistake. It probably means that you’re going to be a human resource, lumbered with boring work/unemployment/zero-hours contracts/insecure tenancies or stranglehold mortgages – I could go on but you know what I’m talking about – that bag of shite I mentioned just now.

Consider this for a moment, will you? All around the world, most real wealth is in the hands of an increasingly small minority. And what do they do with that wealth? First answer, they make damn sure that they keep their mitts firmly on it, and out of your reach. And who can blame them?

But that’s not the issue – the important thing is the effect of their ownership or control on production. It means that, by and large things are only ever made if there is a potential for profit. Seems crazy, but the latest fashion wasn’t produced to make you look fabulous, it was made by a human resource working in some crap-hole, maybe Leicester, maybe Vietnam, so that an employer can make some brass by flogging it on to you. Now producing for profit has all sorts of insane results. One of its minor faults is that it buggers up the planet – you know all that – if you don’t, go on Google. And every so often…. the markets come grinding to a halt and loads of people end up out of a job.

And you must have heard the joke about there being too much month at the end of the money. Producing for profit relies on keeping us not quite so skint that we can’t manage to go back into work next week, and skint enough to ensure that we bloody well do go back.

And then the sort of stuff that we can afford out of our wages is designed down to a price so it usually turns out to be a load of tat anyway, soon to be binned or fobbed off on a charity shop. Well, that’s what real life is like for us human resources.

There’s nothing natural about a situation where a minority can live it up while the rest of us just scrape by. This may have been going on for many years but there is no physical law that says that society has to be this way. The fact is that there is no longer any need for the capitalist system that has now taken over almost the entire world. My mates are wrong, change can happen, but it needs you and your mates to make it happen.

Budgie

Simon the Sociobiologist (2008)

From the January 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Santa’s New Clauses (2010)

A Short Story from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Memo to: Little Helpers Team Leaders

To be cascaded to all staff

Dear Colleagues

As we approach our busy season I feel it only fair to remind you of the financial difficulties we find ourselves in as a result of the on-going recession. As you know, the juvenile gratuity market is experiencing heavy turbulence and we are committed to making savings wherever possible. As your Chief Executive I am setting a personal example by reducing my 2.6% annual growth in intake of mince pies and sherry by approximately 0.8%, phased in over the next fifteen years.

Certain scurrilous tabloid newspapers have been spreading unsubstantiated rumours that I have awarded myself a bonus of ten million pounds. Rest assured this is utterly unsubstantiated. In fact it was a modest seven million pounds ‘performance & productivity’ reward – which reflects well on all of us, by the way! – plus one million for the Management Consultation exercise with myself, one million in stress-related compensation for writing this, and one million in shares which may go down as well as up.

Needless to say, our core business strategy still revolves around putting children first, and Management has agreed a bold new plan to ensure our competitiveness in the difficult times ahead:

• To enhance efficiency and fairness we must recognise that unfairness is more efficient, and thus end the practice of a Universal Entitlement to Presents..
• The work-shy must play their part in maintaining the true spirit of Christmas. It is hardly fair on taxpayers that those on benefits who refuse to work for nothing should continue to expect presents for their children.
• We will no longer be delivering free chocolate to children in hot countries – it only melts. Instead we will introduce a fair trade agreement – their arable land in exchange for toy guns, pistols, machetes and napalm.
• You may have heard that those spiteful Fire Fighters threatened to go on strike on Bonfire Night, which would have spoiled the fun for so many young ones – obviously it wouldn’t be right to reward their young ones this Christmas!

Meanwhile, let’s remember that special group who have had a very tough time lately and borne it all without complaint. Our hard-working Cabinet ministers and Captains of Industry in the C.B.I (Collect Bank Interest) have taken courageous and selfless decisions in order to resuscitate our ailing economy – a task which has earned them No Thanks Whatsoever from the ungrateful population – their children deserve our special kindness this Yuletide. With the money saved from the undeserving, we can afford to pay all these children through £9,000 pa college courses!

With all of us making sacrifices, here’s where you can play your part in making Christmas special for certain children the world over. The great news is that you get to keep your jobs, on condition that you agree to certain new terms and conditions. Your friends in the Reindeer Union have already welcomed these new clauses with open legs and the abattoir sub-provision has not been invoked even once!

There will be a downward restructuring of wages, holiday and sick pay entitlements to zero while the statutory retirement age will be infinitely extended so that now you work for eternity.

Failure to accept this generous offer will necessitate the immediate relocation of the Grotto and Workshop to New Zealand where all staff will be replaced by sub-minimum-wage Hobbits.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Ho, ho, ho, and have a Merry Austerity,

Santa

Santa

 

Animal crackers (1956)

From the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is psychology the bunk or am I afraid of what might turn up through delving into individuals minds? The answer depends on what psychology is and this I confess my inability to decide.

Whilst reading Reynolds News (8-4-56) I noticed an article headed “ The 'Animal Crackers’ Character Test” and sub-headed “Would You Rather Be A Fish?” This aroused immediate interest As the article was written by Dr. Brian Welbeck, Reynolds News crack psychologist (he is their only one), I anticipated a fount of information.

It appeared from the article that headmen who examine head cases find it important to determine the characters they are investigating. Incidentally, I have not got acquainted with how psychologists determine the subjects willingness and capacity to pay the bill for treatment. Neither do I know now they manage to keep this dark in view of the whole host of other characters, rent collectors, insurance agents, credit merchants, and so on, who are deeply interested in this facet of an individual's character.

Not only is it important to determine character but it should be done as simply as possible. This seems highly desirable as it cuts down work tremendously and expedites business no end. Happily this has been achieved; only two easy questions are necessary.

At this stage instructions appeared in the article. Personally I'm a guy who is always getting instructions, at school, at the Labour Exchange, in the Army, from the wife, in the factory. Indeed, it is difficult to mention where I don’t get instructions. This made things very easy for me. This is what I had to do: “Before you read any further—stop.” I did this! nothing happened. I proceed to the next word, “Look.” This I am doing I know because I can see the word, still no reaction. The next word is “listen.” This produced another blank. I try them all together simultaneously. This is difficult sitting in a chair with a paper in my hand. Still no dice. All this makes me aware of how really mysterious psychology is.

Next I have to write down my “ own ” answer to . the two easy questions. ,

The Dr. sure appreciates the uncertain world we live in. Be careful. All of us are aware of the Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Some answer other than our own may inadvertently slip in. Make sure it's your own answer and not the Admiral’s whom you don’t happen to be.

The first question is: “If you had to be an animal which animal would you choose?” My answer came fast—a human. The second question was curt and terse, no beating about the bush. “Why?” This shook my morale. Me being a wage slave, and not knowing any other animals that have, for example, dogs and wage slave dogs, I got no animals to look down on. I got out of that dilemma rapidly. I was cheating, picking the card I was not meant to choose. I tried again, “sabre toothed tiger.” Why? Because its extinct, if it wasn’t it would be very useful to chew up Capitalists with. This completes the test. Now follows the real hard work interpretation.

From a number of examples of interpretation provided I choose the first case at random that Dr. Welbeck recalls as a pale, plump, young woman. Her choice of animal was gazelle, and the reason is because they are very graceful with long beautiful legs. It transpires that this dame is very unhappy about her large cumbersome frame and wants desperately to be like Jane Russell or Marilyn Monroe. This is very shocking because I never knew that pale, plump, young women had large cumbersome frames, which goes to show how good a psychologist the Doctor is and Reynolds News is making no mistakes.

Now comes the interpretation of my own character. The first extinct animal that sprang to mind was a sabre toothed tiger. Immediately my mind projected on the nearest wall, the spectacle of the most ferocious tiger imaginable chasing bloated Capitalists in 78 carat gold limousines all over the place. This I can recommend as highly enjoyable to unhappy people like myself who are very desirous of becoming plain ordinary citizens of the world.

The real importance of my choice of animal is because it is extinct. One reason why animals become extinct is because they are separated from their sustenance. This is really what I would like to happen to the Capitalists. To see them deprived of their rent, interest, and profit, by the world’s workers taking over the livelihood the means of wealth production and distribution and making this the property of everybody or nobody and thus making everyone plain citizens of the world.

This analysis reveals that I am a very frustrated character. This I shall remain until the workers of the world allow me to assist them in the performance of the delectable task of eliminating capitalism and establishing Socialism.

The characters reading this who are not acting as willing and able physicians in removing my frustration or in curing the social ailments of the world are altogether very deplorable.

D. W.

"Will that be all, Sir" (1998)

From the November 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

More Exploding Diarrhoea from the States (1998)

TV Review from the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you haven’t yet seen South Park (Channel Four, Fridays) the chances are you will have read a TV review about it. At the risk of saturating the market, here’s another one.

For the uninitiated, South Park is the most recent in a series of “adult” cartoons designed for television, following on from programmes like BBC2’s Ren and Stimpey and Stressed Eric. It is about as far from Bugs Bunny or The Hair Bear Bunch as you are likely to get. It is violent, coarse, shocking and disturbing in almost equal measure. It is also—at least periodically—rather funny.

Based on school life in a town in Colorado it centres on the bizarre and deranged activities of four young elementary school kids, one of whom gets slaughtered in each episode, hence the show’s catchphrase “Oh my God! They killed Kenny!” The storyline material can be best illustrated with reference to an episode last month when a grandfather of one of the children begged his grandson to kill him and put him out of his 100 year long misery. When the kids decided to string up a cow from and tree and drop it on him (“it’ll look like an accident”) a passing cop in his patrol car stopped to see what was going on. When he saw that he’d disturbed the kids and that they were only trying to kill an old man his response was to tell them to carry on before he drove off.

This illustrates why South Park is one of those programmes you laugh at but then in many ways wish you hadn’t. The effect is similar to laughing at one of Bernard Manning’s better jokes—profoundly unsettling. And every now and then one of the characters will berate another one by telling him he’s “an asshole” because his mother’s “a fucking Jew”. There is an underlying comic subtext to this—such comments are invariably apropos of nothing and designed to show how children (often mistakenly) pick up and use the language of the adults around them. Unfortunately, comic subtext is not always picked up by those watching, let alone those watching late night Channel Four (if in doubt try watching it with a group of young kids to witness the varying reactions and attitudes).

Help! Help! Here come the bores!

There are two standard reactions to phenomena like South Park. The first is the knee-jerk reactionary position of the Daily Mail and the so-called “moral majority”. This sees programmes like South Park as being part of some leftist plot to undermine decent family values, as the work of the devil himself, or even both. Their religious ravings notwithstanding, what escapes those promoting the conservative agenda is that to a large extent these programmes are reflecting what is already going on in society. A healthy society where peace and co-operation reigns is unlikely to produce programmes about young children murdering their grandparents. The sort of society that produces such programmes is a violent and sadistic one, plagued by division, suspicion and generation gaps. In other words, the sort of society that capitalism is.

The other standard reaction to South Park comes from the woolly liberals at the other end of capitalism’s political spectrum. If they see anything wrong or disturbing about such programmes they will justify them on the grounds that they are unlikely to do anybody any harm as they are only TV shows (hey, do you think all the kids are going to go around killing their grandparents now or something?). This is a simplistic view, typical of the left, which fails to understand the reciprocal and reinforcing nature of much of the material emanating from capitalism’s media. This is because while violent and anti-social TV programmes are a reflection of a violent and anti-social society, they are not merely a reflection of this as they have an impact and impetus of their own. No materialist can seriously argue that children exposed to violence and murder on TV every day of their pre-adult lives are not going to be affected by it. They may not immediately go out and start killing old people, but they will have built up a tolerance to violence and a certain perception about how to solve problems that others will not. The economic foundations of capitalism provide the origins of most modern violence, but it is its political structure and media apparatus which provides much of the impetus.

In the episode of South Park already mentioned, Kenny—before he is murdered—contracts an extremely contagious case of “exploding diarrhoea”. Rarely in the history of television has a programme provided such a rich metaphor about its own origins in the jungle of market madness known as the USA, or about society’s future trajectory as it projects heap loads of shit all over the working class. Laugh? I nearly cried.

DAP

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2010)

From the March 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Royal Welding (2011)

From the April 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Scientists have almost succeeded in crossing an endangered inbred species with a specimen from the related species homo-partius-animalis. The splicing of Prince William of Diana, KFC with the Right Ordinary Kate Middlebrow will take place under closed circuit conditions in front of 1900 specially invited observers, with appropriate ambient vibrations provided by a bank of sterilised musical ‘pop’ androids, before the couple retire into a private mansion to bonk out what is hoped will be the next generation of media darlings. “It’s pretty crucial they get this right”, said one mating specialist, “as results have been so disappointing for the last three generations. There’s a real danger the line may go extinct, or gaga, and Britain could end up being a garden-variety republic like France.”

Experts say that it is quite hard to train royal breeds as they have a tendency to run off at the mouth and look stupid in front of cameras, or else punch the people holding the cameras. They have to be kept on a severely rich diet and protected from work and other hereditary allergies while at the same time being represented as ‘normal’ people who ‘do things’. They are secluded from prying spotters yet must remain visible enough so that people can remember who they are. They are surrounded by obsequious flunkies and then told that they are ‘serving the nation’. They must be prevented from expressing opinions and embarrassing themselves in public, since like many celebrities they tend to believe that because everyone is looking at them they must be clever people with something to say. Finally they must at all times profess their loyalty and devotion to a political system which regards them as anachronistic nobodies who should by all historical logic and precedent have long since been shot in a cellar. Not surprisingly these restrictive and paradoxical conditions often lead to strange and delusional behaviour, especially in the elder males. Many of them tend to speak in a strangulated squeak from permanently contracted sphincters, a conditioned reflex learned from their public school upbringing. The females often go off the rails entirely and have to call in Lord Max of Hastings to conduct damage limitation.

For the sartorially curious, Kate Middleroad will be wearing a dress worth several African dictators. William’s younger brother and best man will turn up in a Nazi uniform for a bit of a lark and a nod to their forebears. Charles will be dressed as a cactus.

Wills, as the adoring public love to call him according to the Daily Mail, saw active service behind the lines of bodyguards and became a highly trained helicopter pilot, a fact that may come in useful if ever the republicans stage a coup and the Royal Benefit-Scroungers need to do a swift bunk to Sweden. He is descended from many notable English monarchs including Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Ivor the Cutler and Vlad the Impaler. However, anti-royal spoilsports may retort that this pedigree is genetically spurious, since like all humans Willy probably shares more genes with the Neanderthals than he does with his great-great-great-grandfather.

Wills gets given a dukedom as a wedding present, which lasts a bit longer than a set of towels from BHS. Meanwhile we get a day off, which lasts a day. But hey, let’s not be churlish. It’s a bit of a show, a bit of pomp, a bit of nonsense our descendants will scratch their heads over. And it’s no worse than the X-Factor.

HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE! (Trans: if you don’t like it, f**k you!)

Paddy Shannon

How did you sleep last night? (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many reasons have been offered to explain the persistence of war, from sun spots to satanic dictators. Now Mr. Charles Cook, president of the National Federation of Bedding and Allied Trades, has hit on a spanking new one. At his trade convention at Scarborough on 24th May, he said: “Bad beds cause bad tempers. If Mr. Kruschev would allow us to design a bed for him. it could do more good for international relations than any number of diplomatic jamborees.”

This remark must have provoked some very pained reactions in the Foreign Office (jamborees, indeed!) Let us consider one or two implications of it. First, we are pretty sure that when Mr. Kruschev retires after a night on the vodka he does so to an excellent bed—certainly a much better one than any Russian worker will ever know. But if Kruschev’s bed is bad. how much harder and lumpier must Stalin’s have been—he always seemed to be in a much worse temper than Kruschev. Then what about the period when the Russian and British governments were allies in the last war and we were flooded with pictures of Stalin beaming through his moustaches? Did the great dictator change his bed in 1945? What about the others who change sides even more frequently than Russia did? For example, Marshal Tito must be in a different room, let alone bed, every night of his life.

Not to be facetious, let us grant that Mr. Cook may have been joking, that he may be one of those employers who is so interested in his job that he eats, drinks and sleeps (sorry) for it. Perhaps he was carried away in his enthusiasm. Thus we may excuse him; but we would feel even more kindly towards him if he would point out that the cause of modern war is in the relentless competitive struggle between capitalist groups who are trying to gain the upper hand in the world's markets. The profit which the worker produces is realised on the commodity’s sale. Hence the struggle. That goes for all commodities, from tooth brushes to tankers. Including mattresses.

Ivan

Lounge Lezard (2013)

Book Review from the October 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bitter Experience Has Taught Me. By Nicholas Lezard, Faber and Faber, 2013. £9.99.

Lezard is a Guardian book reviewer and critic, with a column in the New Statesman called ‘Down And Out in London’. This book has been adapted from that column and is a self-deprecating and amusing account of his life after being kicked out of the family home by Mrs Lezard for a wide variety of inadequacies and misdemeanours. In near financial ruin, he shares a dilapidated house near Baker Street called ‘The Hovel’ with his friend Razors and the focus of this book is his struggle to maintain his head above water while also maintaining his daily wine habit (Lezard is an erstwhile companion of Jeffrey Bernard).

Originally from a relatively privileged background, Lezard is a left-wing, professional cynic who also thinks nothing of inviting police attention by playing midnight cricket – after a few glasses and with real cricket balls – on the chi-chi streets of Marylebone. The contradictions are often what make the humour here, and Lezard is an engaging writer.

He claims to have often annoyed his right–wing father (who at an earlier time of life had been rather bizarrely awarded the Order of Lenin, Fifth Class) with his forthright, radical politics. Interestingly, on one occasion this involved young Nick ‘urging everyone to vote for the Socialist Party of Great Britain’ during a mock election at school, with himself as the candidate. Inexplicably, he seems to have done worse than we normally do, and we can only hope that this psychological trauma didn’t influence his subsequent life path too much.

Dave Perrin

It's Laughable (1949)

From the September 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

"All you Socialist fellows are alike. You all lack a sense of humour.”

This remark is thrown at Socialists time and time again, so let us examine the question of a sense of humour.

Psychologists and doctors tell us that laughter is a safety valve. Nature’s way of protecting our mental set-up from shock. We laugh at the fat man who slips on a banana skin because, were we to regard the accident coolly and thoughtfully we should no doubt suffer some of the mental anguish if not the physical pain of his fall.

But the realm of humour is greater than this. Take stock of the jokes of comedians who help to make our life more bearable in an almost unbearable servitude. They help us to laugh at ourselves. The more ridiculous a joke makes us look, the more we laugh—the tramp with a hole in the seat of his pants—parasitic mothers-in-law—the worker asking the boss for a rise —the raw recruit in the army and all these “funny" stories in which human beings have failed to reconcile their sex-lives with the economics and twisted morals of this social system.

The trouble with a Socialist, we are told repeatedly, is that he will take everything so damned seriously. For some inexplicable reason, some mental quirk, he finds it difficult and a little stupid to laugh at poverty, squalor and sexual maladjustment. The poker-faced individual will keep harping on economics. He spoils every joke by pointing out the unpleasant truth in it. Laughter was given to protect us from shock and the Socialist will keep showing up the shocking things that we escape seeing through humour. A regular boor and a bore is the Socialist. Even the antics of Labour politicians hardly raise a smile on his face and they are current topics of radio humour these days. Wisecracks on pre-fab houses start him off about “ ’omes fit for ’eroes to live in,” and industrial slums and the speed of the housing programme. They seem to have hit the mark, these critics. There does seem to be a lack of humour somewhere. Perhaps the reason could lie in the fact that these things are not so funny after all. Perhaps if all the canned humour ceased on the radio and in comic strips; perhaps if people in general turned a little less to humour for escape; perhaps when life gets unbearable even beyond a joke, people might come to see these things as needing a remedy. But then, they might also become so shocked and disgusted with their lot that they would throw the whole social system overboard and institute Socialism.

And that would never do. That would be no joke. Or would it?

L. C.

Between the Lines: Only Joking (1990)

The Between the Lines column from the May 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Only Joking

More mature TV viewers must be at a loss what to do with their Monday nights this month. April 9th saw the last in the series of Stand Up Jim Davidson (ITV), which was billed as "adult humour". What this meant in practice was peak-time permission for the chirpy cockney to entertain the troops by setting the clock back thirty years. Remember those good old days before we were taught to worry about the feelings of racial and other minorities? When a good joke had to have a good defenceless target? Well, Jim takes the Sun newspaper and simplifies it into small-screen sniggers for the simple-minded. Asians in Bradford, people in wheelchairs. the blind, women in council flats. Jews. Irish and gays: all these and many more were featured in his gallery of mugs. Only one group was missing from his league table of comical victims: white, male. English boneheads, with a microphone in one hand, half a pint of lager in the other, and not very much in between.

Democracy Versus Marketing

There was a great deal of promise in the early parts of "Remote Control: Television and Democracy" (Channel 4, April 7, 8-9pm). First, there was an excellent survey of the ways in which each period of history has seen a struggle over control of the key means of communication. In the Middle Ages, for example, the translation of the Bible into English was part of a shifting of power from Rome to Canterbury. In the nineteenth century, punitive taxation on publications was used to prevent the free distribution of radical ideas within the working class. And in the twentieth century, the early lessons learnt by the ruling class regarding the political uses of cinema were later applied to radio and television.

A further useful point was made by this documentary, regarding the current debate about the likely effects of the impending "deregulation" of broadcasting, and the arrival of cable and satellite. The debate has been almost exclusively based on arguments about "quality" and choice. Will deregulation lead to a widening of choice, a degeneration of quality, or both? But this is to regard television as purely another product for mass consumption like any other in the capitalist world market. The stress being placed on the concepts of quality and choice place the millions of viewers in a passive role, their only function being to pay their money and flick their remote control switches. But television, as a means of expression and communication, has always had the potential to be more than simply a product for mass consumption. The technology, particularly since the advent in the 70s of small, hand-held video cameras, could allow large numbers of people to be making programmes as well as watching them. Present government plans for the future of broadcasting fail even to pay lip service to such possibilities.

It was at this point that the programme began to flag somewhat. Lacking any really pertinent political analysis, it was not able to touch on the reasons for this, or to approach any real solutions. This inability of present-day society to allow proper participation in the broadcasting process is in fact symptomatic of a much wider problem. Real, full democracy in society is simply not compatible with a class-divided, property and profit-based social system. With regard to possible solutions, the programme focused on access slots like the BBC's "Open Door", the problems they have encountered, and on Channel Four, with its special remit to cater for minority views. Radical commentators trotted out tired modern cliches about their wish that TV would become more "empowering", "enabling" and "facilitating" for people, but had little idea how this might happen.

The conclusion reached, however, was refreshingly realistic: that the direction in which TV is heading shows less and less concern with the exciting ways in which it could be used as a democratic means of expression, and more and more preoccupation with being a profitable investment within the market system.

Steve Coleman

February horrorscope (1984)

A Short Story from the February 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Good news and bad news. First the bad news. You are diagnosed as having a serious illness which will kill you in six months unless you are prepared to sell your house and car, your home computer, and all your furniture in order to pay for an expensive operation in a Swiss clinic. Now the good news. A team of British surgeons have just perfected this operation which can be obtained on the National Health Service.

P.S. There is a seven month waiting list.

A tall stranger appears on your doorstep today, but don't rush into something you might regret. Be ruled by your head rather than your heart. Before opening up to him ask yourself these relevant questions: have I paid the television licence? Did I reconnect the gas-meter?

You will have trouble at work today. It is discovered that you have sent a letter to a local paper complaining about the fact that the management have nice soft toilet paper while you grubbers on the shop floor have to make do with torn up pieces of the Sun. You are immediately branded as a red mole and suspended. The media has a field day. You are denigrated, castigated, and generally regarded as a not nice person. (You should be grateful that hanging wasn’t re-introduced.) After all. what better use could you find for the Sun?

Turmoil in the home. You are visited by a burglar who contrives to separate you from the rent money secreted behind the biscuit tin, along with the twenty-pence pieces nestling in the coffee-jar. He also takes some of the family heirlooms, including the picture of the green Chinese lady, and the three plaster ducks.

A letter bearing bad news arrives today. Don’t even open it and you’ll feel all the better for it. Throw caution to the wind and tear it up. (You can always get reconnected when you pay the bill.)

A slight bit of bad luck. You arrive back at work after your winter holiday week only to discover that the owners have dismantled the factory and scarpered. (Who says that you can’t take it with you?) This means that not only do you no longer have a job, but you don't get any redundancy money either, in spite of your twenty-eight years' service. Ah well, it never rains but it pours. Still, every cloud has a silver lining, and for you this comes in the form of a consolation prize in a corn-flakes competition: a bike. Unfortunately, while out foraging for a job you fall off and break your ankle. Stay in bed.

You receive a summons to appear in court as a witness at the trial of six policemen accused of attempting to murder an innocent bystander by filling him full of holes. You tell the court how you saw the policemen sneak up on the victim who was bending down to tie his shoelace, and empty their guns into him. The judge remarks that anyone can make a mistake and commends the officers for remaining cool while reloading for a second volley, in spite of the potentially threatening gesture the suspect made by twitching his left ankle. He also recommends the policemen for bravery citations. You get six months for perjury.

A marvellous time for you, the very pinnacle of your life. Your child is one of the seven and a half thousand children whose stories have been selected to be published in a bedtime book of fairy-tales to be presented to Prince William. (And with a bit of luck your husband could be one of the lucky handful of unemployed hired to lift the bloody thing.)

You are in a spending mood and Asda are doing a real bargain basement in collapsible nuclear fallout shelters at the amazing knockdown price of £39.50. This gets you the nuclear family (no pun intended) size shelter which can be assembled in forty-five seconds flat. (It can be de-assembled even quicker.) It comes complete without groundsheet allowing you quick and easy access to the soil enabling you to dig your own private little loo (and also to dispose of anyone foolish enough to stick their face out beyond the mock whitewash sides). There is also a compact little pocket complete with zip, to store all those little necessities that you might require after all the fuss had died down, like money, a first aid kit, or even some cyanide capsules.

You are developing some strange habits. Asking questions and reading papers that don't have page three cuties. No good w ill come of this. Leave the thinking to people who can decide what's good for you. After all, if everybody started to get these ideas into their heads, where would it all end?

Tone.

A Message To The Troops

'Since Patsy died, I've not really liked country, but . . .'