Remember When Music Belonged To Everyone?

The beauty of writing a song that revolves around a universal idea is that people feel like it could be theirs: it voices the way they’re feeling.The first time I heard my band Chumbawamba’s hit Tubthumping played at the ground of my local football club, I was standing at the urinal in the toilet underneath the stands, pissing the afternoon away with scores of other blokes, ready for the match. I walked up to my seat and watched people singing along to what had instantly become, in that moment at least, their song.

How nice. A pleasant enough ditty with a repetitive beat. But hardly a great tune that will live forever. Why are we hearing about it now? 

Tubthumping belongs to the guests at the wedding who sing it in celebration. It belongs to the Italian anti-fascists who sing it in defiance on a demonstration. It belongs to cancer patients going through chemotherapy, seeing every successful bout of treatment as a personal victory. I know that all these people have taken the song as theirs, because they write to tell us.

OK, so what are you complaining about? I mean, since this is the 'Guardian' you must be complaining about something.  

But there’s a problem with these universal songs – they can be hijacked by people who clearly don’t understand the spirit in which they were written, and want to use them to aggrandise themselves, or to sell ideas that aren’t universal at all.

Ah. Right.  

Because that’s the thing with songs, with literature, with art, theatre, cinema, with most of the beautiful, creative, cultural things we love – they are very rarely created by those on the political right. The bigots don’t have any good songs of their own.

Are you sure? I mean, in the very same pages we are always reading about how some classic works of the past are really evil right-wing tracts or monuments or institutions produced by blood-soaked right wing demagogues. Even former darlings of the left aren't immune.  

Let me be clear: the song Tubthumping was written to celebrate the resilience and tenacity of working-class folk who keep fighting when the chips are down.

But only if they aren't fighting against having their neighbourhoods and workplaces filled with immigrants, eh, Boff old chum? If that were to happen, you'd be back in the pages of the 'Guardian', squaling that it wasn't written for these working class folk after all.

It has nothing whatsoever in common with wealthy politicians with extremist anti-liberal agendas.

So what? I recall things didn't get better under Blair, in fact, they got worse, so the choice of music reaveals nothing.  

Former Tory prime minister David Cameron listed one of his favourite songs as the Jam’s Eton Rifles which prompted the Jam’s Paul Weller to retort “Which bit didn’t you get? … It wasn’t intended as a fucking jolly drinking song for the cadet corps.” When Cameron also admitted to liking the Smiths, guitarist Johnny Marr said simply: “Stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don’t. I forbid you to like it.”

Boff thinks this is exposing something about politicians. It's not. It's exposing something about progressive songwriters.  

Not So Much A ‘Radical Flank’, Chris…

...as urban terrorists who are unhinged about global warning nonsense. Just the sort of people you want knowing your address.

Packham, 62, defended the right of environmental activists to target the homes of MPs, as long as their action was “peaceful and non-violent”.

Because that always happens, right, Chris? 

“I think that we need a portfolio of protests, basically, because we need a radical flank and Just Stop Oil are seen by many as that radical flank,” he told Times Radio on Monday.“They are the people who in some people’s minds go a step too far. And that might be, you know, standing outside an MP’s house. But the fact is that they are motivated, as I am, by a manifest fear for the health of our future.

“The science tells us we have to act. These people are frightened for my future, for your future, for the future of any children they might have. They need to draw attention to this issue.”

By destroying public art and preventing the emergency services reaching people in need? Well, I suppose it makes as much sense as urging people to buy their eggs from Cambodia rather than Britain... 

Packham added that Just Stop Oil “want a rapid just energy transition away from fossil fuels to a healthy, renewable energy system and they need to get that message across, and they’re desperate to do so. So I would support a breadth of protest.”

Which is something they don't appear to have. So, can we see you forgoing your cosy BBC sinecure and glueing your hand to the pavement in future? 

“That doesn’t mean that you and I need to go and stand outside MPs houses. I’m taking a legal approach, a perfectly democratic one, which is available to me as a citizen of the UK. But yes, we’re on the same sheet.”

Let's hope you end up in the same cell too then. 

How Much Are You Slashing Your Appearance Fee By, Andrew?

Actor Andrew Scott has suggested cheap theatre tickets should be put on a “sale rack” so that young people can see West End productions without having to spend £150.

Put your money where your mouth is then! 

Scott, 47, told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme: “No matter how zeitgeisty or how modern you think your play is, if you are having to spend £150, no person between the age of 16-25 or beyond is going to be able to afford that. That is frustrating to me.

“Hopefully, there is some night or two nights a week when you can get something like a sale rack, you have to be prepared to rummage a little bit. It is important that it doesn’t remain an elitist art form,” he said.

Theatre is expensive because there's a lot of people involved - directors, stagehands, musicians, costumiers...they all need to earn a living. 

Last November The Crown star Dominic West called West End ticket prices “crazy”. David Tennant, the former Doctor Who star, said some tickets had become “ludicrously” expensive and warned that young people would be deterred from going to the theatre.

Funny, neither of them offered to take a pay cut either... 

Bad Laws...

For years, Sweeney has run the accounts to track the jet use of public figures and measure their carbon footprints. Sweeney’s coverage, which uses publicly available data from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and broadcast signals from aircrafts, has been widely praised and earned the 21-year-old a Forbes 30 under 30 nod.

And can't the slebs do anything about someone exposing their hypocrisy? Well, no. Not if it's public information.

Oh, hang on! 

Swift’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist letter to Jack Sweeney, a University of Central Florida student who runs several social media accounts tracking the private jet use of Swift and other public figures, the Washington Post first reported this week.

So...how? 

...Swift’s attorneys from the Washington-based law firm Venable accused Sweeney of engaging in “stalking and harassing behavior” over his tracking of Swift’s jet activity.

*sighs* 

These Aren't The Films And TV I Grew Up With...

Foster revealed how she had also challenged pervading gender stereotypes in her own family.

Talking about raising her children, whom she had with her former partner Cydney Bernard, and now raises with her wife, Alexandra Hedison, she said: “There was a moment with my older one when he was in high school, when, because he was raised by two women – three women – it was like he was trying to figure out what it was to be a boy.

“And he watched television and came to the conclusion: oh, I just need to be an asshole. I understand. I need to be shitty to women and act like I’m a fucker.

“And I was like: ‘No. That’s not what it is to be a man! That’s what our culture has been selling you for all this time.’”

Really? I grew up with pretty wholesome tv and films, where this decidedly was not the norm. Where masculinity was something noble, protective. I grew up with 'Lassie', 'Champion The Wonder Horse', 'Skippy The Bush Kangaroo' on TV, and films like 'A Matter Of Life And Death', 'The Guns of Navarone' and 'Shane'. What has changed?

And should Foster perhaps be looking in the mirror to find out?