Nope That's the Last Bit of my Tact Gone.

So I'm going to put some laundry on then I'm going to bed. This may take sometime.

23:25 on 30/9/12.

F*ck it I'm Having a Bath.

I don't care how late it is and I don't care what the neighbours think because spending last night sleeping in my clothes underneath a pile of dogs it's fair to say I hum to the point I'd be happy for someone to take my clothes and burn them. Did manage to pick up a tooth brush though which I suppose counts as a plus.

21:30 on 30/9/12.

Cheech & Chong Build a Deck.

After popping down to Brighton on Saturday (29/9/12) to help a mate "finish up a bit of painting" I've just got home at about 20:20 on Sunday (30/9/12) after getting a wall prepped for painting and using the phrase; "You didn't measure this did you" about 300 times. To be fair to the grown up in charge this is the first project he's taken the lead on, he's working for free and my ADHD can be less the helpful but about 12 hours later they'd succeeded in putting down about 12 decking boards. Seriously the whole thing reminded my of that episode of "The Simpsons" where Homer tries building a BBQ pit but ends up being celebrated as some sort of modern artist. I'd like to pretend I put in a full day but by 17:00 I'd given up in favour of smoking, drinking beer and generally hurling abuse at them.

On the plus side the argument we had in the car on the drive to the station was so epic my mate completely forgot what he was doing and drove me straight home by accident.

20:30 on 30/9/12.

My Storm Lives!

Unfortunately the new blogger interface refuses to work with it. Let us see if those nice little chaps at Google still remember to handle an email.

23:10 on 2/10/12.
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2

Bugger Bye-Elections.

According to an official statement by the leader of the UK Labour Party (Ed Miliband) my local (Croydon North) MP and former Secretary of State for climate change Malcolm Wicks has died of cancer aged 65.

Personally I thought it was a bit of an extreme way of reminding me that I really should call my father to confirm I'm staying overnight.

20:45 on 29/9/12.

If This Doesn't Work I'm Going to Look Like a Right Idiot.

So I should explain for someone who basically only exists as an extension of a computer I'm actually really rubbish at IT. However with luck it appears that I've found a way to link from Twitter to specific blog posts. This should provide me with a perfect platform to get properly involved in the US Presidential Election which technically started last Friday (21/9/12) due to early voting which is something students should be especially aware because it would be all too easy for a partisan university to schedule big tests and exams in and around election.

Of course now all I need is some follow through but there's little chance of that because what I'm planning to do this afternoon is already trending on Twitter and I've got a nasty feeling I'm going to end up tripping over Channel 4 para-Olympic hosts Claire Balding.

09:25 on 29/9/12.

Worthless F*cking Stage School Wannabe B*tch!

Apparently in the last hour or so missing Eastborne schoolgirl Megan Stammers (born in Croydon) and her 30 year old teacher have handed themselves into French police. The depressing bit is that her and Captain No Hoper have only done this because they think the publicity will get them the movie deal, the TV deal and the record deal. Of course the people that have been running them will try and use this period to promote discussion about whether or not she's some sort predatory Lolita and he's just an innocent victim because Britain loves a paedo. I think it would just be a lot easier to kill the pair of them

And to think I was almost in a good mood until Twitter started working again.

13:05 on 28/9/12.

Bastard, Bastard, Bastard Phone!

Yes I'm up early because I'm planning to go to the gym. However before doing that I thought I'd check out the latest headlines on my Blackberry. On both hand sets all the network connections are fine, all the security settings are fine but still the bastard thing won't let me do anything. It won't let me use Twitter, it won't let me use the Internet. It won't even let me make damn phone calls.

Anyone would think I'm planning to go to Brighton tomorrow and someone wants to make the trip as stressful as possible.

08:05 on 28/9/12.

To Hell With it I'm Going Back to Bed.

For reasons that are still not totally clear I got up so ridiculously early this morning I got to see a milk float I didn't think they still used milk floats so before I start babbling about purple elephants I think I'm going to take a nap.

15:10 on 26/9/12.

Yeah Back From the Pub.

No immediate problems. However in a sentence that's not going to do anyone any favours I should explain that after it became public knowledge that my grandmother's finances would blow up just before the 2012 US Presidential election her pension from the Freemasons increased. So while outgoings still far exceed income it doesn't look like were going to have to go nuclear until around spring 2013.

Anyway time to get back on the giggle sticks I think.

19:00 on 25/9/12.

Yep Slap Bang in the Middle.

I arrived back from the supermarket exactly in the middle of US President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). As a result I've not yet seen the speech but I'll try and make the time to watch it and other UNGA speeches on the Internet. In the meantime I have to say that I'm very impressed with the US' contribution to the main business of the UNGA - the rule of law at national and international levels.

Back in 2009 a US Federal Court ruled that the US Army Corp of Engineers were liable for the flooding of New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina, awarded five families hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation and opened the door for pretty much anyone living in New Orleans at the time to sue for damages. On Monday (24/9/12) an appeals overturned that decision citing something known as the Discretionary Function Exemption (DFE) which basically means that the US Federal Government cannot be held liable for damages caused by it taking or not taking an action which it is not obligated to by law, regulation or policy. It even goes further to prevent the federal government being sued over actions that it is obligated by law, regulation or policy (such as abortion provision) if the legal action is being mounted on grounds of social, economic or political policy.

This raises massive questions about the relationship between the state/government and the individual with the DFE giving the state/government a lot of scope to behave as badly as it likes towards the individual. This is particularly relevant to a host of international issues such as the Thalidomide case that came up during the para-Olympics and the long running case of ex-British military personnel who have been attempting to win compensation from the British government over health problems they suffered during nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific in the 1950's. A similar but very different legal principle has been used by Heads of Government/State such as Liberia's Charles Taylor to argue (unsuccessfully) that they are immune from the reach of international courts such as the International Criminal Court (ICC). Furthermore it highlights the differing attitudes to the importance of the rule of law in two supposedly advanced, democratic nations. In the US they have the principle of DFE written into law so although arguably the principle is unfair at least everybody knows where they stand. In Britain however while they have no such official policy the state/government is still just as protected (probably more so) from being held accountable for it's actions because political interference in the Courts means that the Courts will never find against the state/government regardless of what the law says. A prime example of this would be that Environmental Protection case I brought against the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). Although I'd prepared the legal case perfectly their lawyer basically stood up in front of the Court waved his arms about and said; "My client is much more important to the government/state then he is" so the Court ruled in their favour and to this day have been unable to come up with a legal explanation for it's actions.

Also I should just take a moment to mention Texas' response to the Megan Stammers case. It revolves around complaints that a male teacher spanked a teenage female cheerleader so hard she apparently couldn't sit down for a week. So no there is not an element of that story that doesn't sound like it's come directly out of a porn film. Interesting to know that Texas is in favour of same sex spanking though.

16:20 on 25/9/12.

No I'm Not Dead.

I do have to go to the supermarket though because well the trip directly after the end of the para-Olympics was not exactly 100% successful.

Annoyingly this trip looks like it will co-incide perfectly with US President Barack Obama's address to the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Fortunately though coming so soon after the Olympics and just before the US Presidential election this UNGA looks like it's going to be a routine affair. Of course there will be some pushing and shoving over Iran's nuclear program but then there always is. The issue of Syria will no doubt come up but with the UNGA having already been convened for a special session to discuss just that issue I think it's fair to assume that things have gone as far as they're going to go for now. So in an usual departure for the UNGA it looks like the main item on the agenda is going to be the main item stated on the agenda - The rule of law at national and international levels. Obviously this covers the way that national governments uphold the rule of law within their own countries but also includes international courts like the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the World Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). The work of these courts includes all international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions, the International Bill of Human Rights, the Nuremberg codes and the Rome Statute. It also touches on specific ongoing cases such as Saif al-Islam Qaddafi in Libya, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and me and my antics.

In the opening salvos the ECHR has decided that it wants to keep out of it by yesterday (24/9/12) allowing five Muslim terror suspects (Abu Hamza, Babar Ahmad, Syed Talha Ahsan, Adel Abdul Bary and Kahled al-Fawwaz) to be extradited from Britain to the USA. As the five's application to the ECHR centred on a somewhat silly claim that being held in a US federal supermax prison amounted to torture the courts rejection of the application can be viewed as a pro-US move although not a full endorsement of the US prison system. Britain has responded to the ECHR by raising the question of whether the Queen discussed the Abu Hamza case with the Home Secretary. The idea here is to assess whether the UNGA thinks that the Queen could be indited by the ICC over my grandmother's case having met the conditions of the "Knew or Should Have Known" test in the Rome statute even though I have yet to officially pass the case file to her. I would say that the test has been met because even if the Queen were to argue that she's one of the few people in British politics who isn't aware of me there has been direct correspondence between my grandmother and Clarence House over the Royal Wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Mind you it must be said even I'm struggling to find reasons to be stressed about that at the moment because it's not yet a pressing problem.

Also Britain and France are currently working very closely together to find Megan Stammers a 15 year old schoolgirl from Eastbourne (right next to Brighton) who appears to have run off with her 30 year old maths teacher Jeremy Forrest to France where it lawful for a 30 year old man to have sexual relations with a 15 year old girl. As this all started almost exactly as I started writing up the proper version of my para-Olympic closing ceremony opus do I really need to explain what this has all been set up to allow for a coded discussion between Britain or France about or what I most certainly won't be doing until the couple's been returned home safely.

12:20 on 25/9/12.

Terry's Tossed His Rag Then.

On the day Arsenal played Machester City and we all mourned those two little police girls who were shot during the week and Evra and Suarez shook hands before the Liverpool V Man U crowd who were all mourning the Hillsborough 96 Chelsea's 31 year John Terry announced that he will be retiring from the England team the day before he faces the FA disciplinary hearing over his alleged (cleared in a Court of law) racial abuse of Queen Park Ranger's (QPR) Anton Ferdinand raising dangerous questions about racism and Simon Harwood's Metropolitan Police disciplinary hearing over the killing of Ian Tomlinson at the April 2009 anti-G20 protests.

I actually think it's a good thing because it prevents Harwood saying anything that may incriminate him at his upcoming manslaughter trial and stops me telling you what I do with that laminated fold of paper containing a photograph of a topless Natalie Portman.

Trust me that's a better story in my head.

23:10 on 23/9/12.

Is Morsi Still in the Whitehouse.

Because I've just thought of an excellent toll free number.

Nope still no idea what kept me back from Rossini.

20:20 on 23/9/12.

Well That Just About Summed Up the Day.

Lewis Hamilton was leading the Singapore Grand Prix until he got a box full of neutrals and just sort of stopped. Then there were a couple of safety cars taking them up to the to time limit so Vettal won after everyone just sort of gave up before reaching the full race distance. Seriously at one point I think Schmacher actually dozed off but still Mr Ecclestone tries to convince us that people can be that interested in tyres.

Meanwhile in Britain it's insistently raining, I've been forced to break out the winter fleeces and the Liberal Democrats have been holding their party political conference which is possibly the most bland event in the history of events. Personally I think it's all just gods way of telling us to drink more Guinness. Mind you I do also think that me looking at pictures of an ex-girlfriend in Croydon caused a panda cub to die in New York.

Or to put it another way I'm a bit stoned so I don't see the next part of my para-Olympic closing ceremony Odyssey arriving any time soon.

18:10 on 23/9/12.

Operation Oil Theft: Month 20, Week 3, Day 2.

Ok technically it's closer to day three but it's Saturday, my day off and I've been distracted.

As I'm sure you've heard on September 11th (11/9/12) there were protests at the US Embassy in Cairo, Egypt and Benghazi, Libya over the heavily re-edited Internet trailer for the US made film "The Innocence of Muslims" which was said to offensive to the Prophet Mohamed. In Bengahazi the protests were hijacked by an extreme Salafist militia - Ansar al-Sharia - in order to carry out a pre-planned military style assault on the US Embassy that killed the Ambassador J Christopher Stevens and three others.

Yesterday (21/9/12) after Friday prayers more then 10,000 people took to the streets of Benghazi in protest. However rather then protesting against the USA and film they were protesting against Ansar al-Sharia and their law of the gun, their destruction of Sufi shrines, their desecration of World War 2 war graves and the attack on the USA Embassy. The protesters were so angry that they marched on and over-ran Ansar al-Sharia's headquarters and their military barracks totally evicting the group from the city. As the militiamen were armed and the protesters were not four of the protesters were killed in the process and thirty four were wounded.

So never let it be said that the people that killed the US Ambassador speak for all Libyans or all Muslims.

22:30 on 22/9/12.

Thank You and Goodnight!

Oh look the new interface does work with this phone. And it even me do capital letters.

01:30 on 22/9/12

Fricking Lightwieght.

Oh I've finally found out what's been p*ssing my dad off all week. Our new neighbours directly across the back have had some building work done and dumped all the rubbish at the bottom of their garden right up against our fence causing it to bow and bend. So yesterday he got me to hike the fence up on up to blocks so he could see what the rubbish was. He missed a trick though because with them out of the house surely that was the time sneak under the fence and then neatly stack all the rubbish up against their back door before dropping the fence down as though nothing had happened.

The fence has been up for over 24 hours now so I think that should count as due notice especially as I've just started on the Stella.

23:22 on 21/9/12.

Must Be a Slow News Day.

Because Britain has been obsessed with the allegation that newly appointed Conservative Party Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell called a policeman guarding the Houses of Parliament a "F**king Pleb" after he refused to allow him to ride his bicycle out of the front gates. As with Oliveria's legs this is one of those stories you can assign just about any meaning you like to. For example because they're not allowed to use the exact words Mitchell used the TV news are talking about him using "Anglo-Saxon phrases" so it could be a reference to the para-Olympic closing ceremony. They'd be wrong though because Pleb is actually a Roman word so proceeds the Angles and the Saxons by about 500 years. The only worrying is that as the former Secretary of State for International Development Mitchell is known internationally and both the new Libyan and old Egyptian constitutions both use the word Pleb because it refers to one of the common people. So Mitchell was actually perfectly accurate in referring to the policeman as a pleb. As for the rest of it you might need to check into the policeman's martial status.

Also police in Pittsburgh USA have spent the day dealing with a hostage situation that has ended peacefully in the last hour because so close to a Presidential election I knew that tattoo story would be a bit of a rock and roller.

19:05 on 21/9/12.

It Will Get Lighter.

Especially once I get through Act 9 -Winter.

In the meantime though I should explain that last week a patient on another floor in my grandmother's nursing home was being visited by his wife who suddenly dropped down dead. So they did the funeral this morning and they're holding the wake at the home this afternoon which seems a bit odd because in an old people's home you expect the residents to die not the relatives. Mind you I suppose it would have been a bit harsh stopping him going to his wifes funeral even if he couldn't remember who she was. So if any needs me I'll be off doing a funky little dance to clear away the ghosts. Or I could just clean the bathroom although option three is looking pretty attractive at the moment.

14:10 on 21/9/12.

Too Stoned.

And made the mistake of thinking I'm special. Back in a couple of hours.

12:40 on 21/9/12

The Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony: vol 3, Act 8.

Obviously this should be read alongside volumes 1 and 2.

Act 8

This saw the start of the Coldplay concert and to make sure everybody got a good look at them this began with the band simply performing “Us Against the World” on stage while the rest of the arena remained relatively calm and still. As I think they were throughout the ceremony Coldplay were accompanied by a deaf choir signing out the words to their songs. At a para-Olympics that had been defined by the Twitter hashtag #isitok designed to take a light-hearted (and at times downright filthy) look at what is and isn’t acceptable to say about people with disabilities I like to think the deaf choir was a bit of a sick joke because while I accept that there are different degrees of deafness I have to say that if you can’t hear then music’s not really for you. Of course that feeds into a much more serious debate about disabled rights because even with all the technological advances and assistance (such as making buildings wheelchair accessible) that we give to disabled people the fact remains that there are things that they simply will never be able to do.

As Coldplay began to play “Yellow” the lighting in the arena changed to more yellowish and reddish tones in order to signify the changing of the leaves as summer gives way to autumn. As raves are really a summer activity the big rigs/floats left the arena to make way for more autumnal pastimes. This started with ballrooms dancers (and two women in wheelchairs because it was the para-Olympics) performing on the Sundial stage. In Britain autumn sees the arrival on our TV screens of the two massive Saturday night entertainment shows – the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. As people had been saying for weeks that the stories of the para-Olympians would blow the sob-stories that play such a large part in the X Factor out of the water the ceremony decided to celebrate its more upmarket (BBC) rival. This fed into the debate about how to keep the public interested in the minority sports featured in the Olympics in the four years between games and help the athletes who are all amateurs make some money. TeamUSA’s women’s footballer Hope Solo and her impressive mouth led the way by appearing in the US equivalent show Dancing With The Stars and this series of Strictly Come Dancing features TeamGB Olympians Victoria Pendleton and Louis Smith although no para-Olympians were invited because sadly dancing is just one of those things that people in wheelchairs just can’t do. Britain also wanted to make the world aware of this particular series of Strictly Come Dancing because Victoria Pendleton was used as a metaphor for the Duchess of Cambridge during the Olympics and Britain hopes to keep that metaphor going all the way to the end of the series in late December.

Fitting in with the ceremonies other themes of flame and the ancient tribes of Britain the ceremony moved on to that other great British autumnal tradition Bonfire Night (November 5^th) which I explained in the first volume. This was signified by Coldplay playing “Up in Flames” while performers/dancers performed some sort of tribal dance while waving flaming torches and spears. Personally I thought this bit looked a bit gay but rather than being intentional I think that this was merely a reflection of the fact that there are only so many male dancers in very tiny and very tight hotpants you can assemble in one place before it’s starts looking a bit gay. The tribal dance sequence climaxed with a giant metal face rising out of the stage and being set on fire. This face could have been interpreted as being any number of ancient Greek philosophers in a reference to the Celtic language which is often mistaken for a tribe was actually spoken all the way from the west coast of Ireland right across Europe to the Balkan countries of which Greece is one. The face could also have been interpreted as Odin the Norse (Viking) god of war in a reference to the Norse invasions of ancient Britain along with most of the rest of Europe including Greenland. It could also have been a reference to the fact that Odin was the father of Thor whose legend was recently made into a film starring Natalie Portman who also starred in a film called V for Vendetta which played around with the story of Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night. Therefore all those people you see at protests wearing the white V for Vendetta masks along with the Anonymous hacker group are all entirely Natalie Portman’s fault.

However rather than looking like anything specific I think the face was meant to represent generic tribal art. This is an absolutely massive topic in its own right because every month some government somewhere announces the discovery of some new relic and asks us to marvel at the great significance of something that is often just what someone scribbled on a wall to keep their children amused. A particular expert in this field was my old form tutor at Croydon College Wilfred Leng whose main job was as a senior research fellow in ancient British tribal culture at Oxford University. Although it has really changed since the September 11^th attacks Britain’s intelligence services (MI5/MI6/GCHQ) have traditionally recruited officers from a sort of old boys network at Britain’s more prestigious university such as Oxford and Cambridge so Leng was teaching at Croydon to act as a local recruiter in the first step of a very long and arduous selection process. Having made it quite clear early on in the year that I had no intention of applying to either Oxford or Cambridge for exactly the same reason he really thought I should our weekly pastoral meetings had become something of a tedious formality for the both of us. Then one day as I was getting something out of my bag a bit of paper with a ‘Celtic’ knotwork that I was considering having done as a tattoo dropped out. As this was Leng’s major passion in life he picked the piece of paper up and proceeded to tell me all about the image in more detail then I could ever need or remember. Known as an Ulbstar Cross it has no religious significance at all dating back some 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ (Christianity) and as far as anyone can tell was simply used as a sort of corporate logo such as the Olympic rings or the para-Olympic Agitos to indicate which tribe was living in a particular area. The tribe that used this particular symbol were known by the Romans as “Picts” or “painted or tattooed people” and were famous for their blue war-paint that was said to both numb pain and stop blood loss which was probably best displayed on Keira Knightely in the film King Arthur. As Picts were such ferocious warriors that they ended up wiping themselves out by killing each other few of the other ancient British tribes along with invaders such as the Romans and Vikings wanted to fight them. Therefore the areas marked with an Ulbstar Cross were very rarely attacked by marauders and pillagers so amongst villagers it came to be known as a symbol of protection. Obviously hearing a back story that good was enough to convince me to get the tattoo done on my back between my shoulder blades. One of my classmates under Leng actually went on to sign a record deal with the Hellcat label run by Lars Frederiksen but that’s another story.

I got the tattoo done by a Brazilian house/squat mate of an Israeli/British girl I was knocking about with at the time who introduced me into a great many things including her girlfriend and a very messy pre-fame Russell Brand. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a tattoo done but it basically involves you sitting very still while you pay someone to inflict pain on you and trust me the spine is the most painful area to get a tattoo done because the needle sometimes hits nerves and gives you shooting pains from your toes to your teeth. As this Brazilian artist was more used to working on black and Hispanic skin my pale white back was one of the best canvasses she’d ever been given to work so decided to do almost the entire thing by hand meaning the tattoo took a total of six hours spread over roughly two three hour sessions. Obviously during all this time we got to talking and once we’d got through all the formalities like hygiene standards and HIV/Hepatitis infection control (Brazil’s are actually higher then Britain’s insisting on the use of a surgical face mask) and all the usual small talk about favourite bands/books/movies  we got around to talking about her recent pregnancy and her plans to move back to Brazil  which obviously led into a very long and detailed conversation about Brazil and Brazilian culture to the point that I’m pretty sure that if I was ever in the country I could walk into a certain street in Sao Paulo and be introduced to this very cute (judging by the parents) 12/13 year old boy/girl who is no doubt behaving like a bigger bastard then they were conceived as. Further proving that she wasn’t a particularly observant Jew this Israeli/British girl got a Buddhist chant tattooed on her lower back at around the same time. Showing my age this was all happening around the time of the Al-Aqsa or second Palestinian Intifada so my very casual relationship with this girl was sort of defined by us hearing on the news that a bombing had taken place and then holding our breath until we found out who’s been killed to the point where her sister missed the Dolphinarium attack by about all of ten minutes. Actually it feels a bit odd talking about her in this context because we actually parted ways with none of the malice or hatred of all these other stories. I simply went off to do my thing in Brighton while she went off to do her thing in Brazil and knowing her nose there’s a good chance she’s still there ducking national service.

After the flaming face disappeared and the smoke began to clear Coldplay were left on stage to play “Paradise.” The heavily painted and battered piano that Chris Martin was playing on reminded me of those pianos/organs that you used to get at old fashioned fairgrounds. This was a reference to the fact that there are really three main ‘tribes’ of travellers in modern Britain; New Age Travellers (ravers), Irish travellers/gypsies like you get at Dale Farm and circus/fairground types that are known as Carnies in the US. It must be said though that there’s actually a lot of overlap between the three groups because they’re not as obsessed with racial purity as the people who study them. Therefore the image of the burnt circus being left after the big rigs had been cleared away by the fire seemed to be an attempt to drive a wedge between the ravers on one side and the gypsies and carnies on the other by blaming the hardship they’ve suffered under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act (CJA) on the ravers whose provocative behaviour forced the government to act. Although I can’t speak for them I doubt that argument will get far with the gypsies and carnies because they should know better than anyone else that in this life there are people who will go for you whether you provoke them or not and the British government have been going after travellers since the 1960’s – some 20 years before the ravers got going. One group that is very obsessed with racial purity and particular protecting the male bloodline are the Monarchies who insist that a Royal bride must be a virgin on her wedding day. Therefore the issue of virginity had been an undercurrent to the ceremony from the moment the Royals arrived and Sinnott started climbing his massive pole although I can’t imagine why I was thinking about it at that moment.

One other performer who has used the burnt circus imagery is the US singer P!nk especially in the video for her song “Funhouse.” Now I have to confess that Pink is one of my guilty pleasures with a couple of her songs – especially ones from that album she did with Tim Armstrong from Rancid – are bought and paid for and one my iPod. Actually I’ve been keeping an eye on her ever since I saw her doing one of those really boring round of press interviews to promote her first album because you could tell even then that there was going to be trouble. Also my probably most significant girlfriend (the one who lives in Bristol) does look a bit like Pink especially when she dyes her hair that shade of shocking pink. When she doesn’t she looks more like Ruby Wax. Also when I was breaking up with the Canadian that Pink song “Last to Know” came on the radio at just the wrong moment sending me off into a teeny, tiny temper tantrum.

Apart from playing an unnervingly large role in my dating life Pink very nearly qualified for the US Olympic gymnastics team and her live shows are famous for having lots of spectacular aerial acrobatics so the next part of the ceremony was dedicated to her with lots of aerial acrobatics. These peaked with the arrival of humans appearing to float into the arena in what looked like giant versions of those Chinese lanterns that have become something of a trend amongst British people with limited taste (Essex) who use them to mark all sorts of special occasions like weddings, birthdays and funerals and invariably end up setting fire to their own or someone else’s home. Apart from taking a swipe at Essex this was meant to evoke memories of the series of live shows that Pink did at the near-by O2 Arena (Millennium Dome to you and I) to promote discussion about possible future uses for the Olympic stadium because with the O2 Arena so close by it stands little chance of being used as a concert venue. Also before the ceremony there was rumours (later proved to be true) that Rihanna would be using high wires/aerial acrobatics in her performance. Now I don’t know what the relationship between Pink and Rihanna is but working in the same industry I’m guessing they’ve met more than once and there could be a bit of rivalry between the two. So the sight of Rihanna ripping off Pink’s act raised the prospect of there being one hell of a catfight. This was made worse by the fact that in the week immediately after the ceremony Pink would be in London to promote her new album at the same time as Rihanna. Apart from playing a small gig at the iTunes festival Pink’s trip to London involved appearing on Channel 4 (C4) chat show “Allen Carr: Chatty Man.” Now although I think she’s only actually seen it once or twice somehow the legend has been written that this is my grandmother’s favourite TV show meaning that the presenter and all the guests entirely responsible for her mental wellbeing making it probably the definition of a tough gig not least because apparently I was talking over the entire recording.

The choice of the song “Paradise” was perhaps a little unfortunate because it features the lyric; “Para, Para, Para, Paradise” over and over again. At the para-Olympics this was a bit like standing in front of a huge group of disabled people and chanting “Cripple! Cripple! Cripple!” at them over and over again. However if you saw some of the Tweets in the hashtag #isitok you would know that this was purely intentional, very tongue in cheek and fitted in perfectly with the tone of Channel 4’s games coverage.

Osman Notice.

In an effort to prove how extremely rare it is for a British police officer to be killed in the line of duty the number 1 news story in the UK is still those two female police officers who were killed in Manchester on Tuesday (18/9/12). The story has now progressed into talking about the specifics of gun crime within Manchester with the whole thing being blamed on a feud between Manchester crime families. In an effort highlight how bad the situation is the police are claiming that they've been forced to issue a record number of what are known as "Osman Notices."  The name comes from a 1998 case brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in which the widow and son of Ali Osman who was shot and killed by Paul Paget-Lewis in London in 1988 sued the Metropolitan Police for failing to warn Mr Osman that they had intelligence that Mr Paget-Lewis intended to kill him. The ECHR dismissed the claim for damages but ruled that the police did have a duty to warn (but not protect) people who they had intelligence suggesting that they would be killed. These warnings became known as Osman notices.

Although they are more often used by the police as a way to annoy known criminals Osman notices do carry some legal weight. For example under normal circumstances British law does not allow you to use lethal force to remove a trespasser from your property. However if you are living under an Osman notice that would contribute to a reasonable belief that the trespasser presented a legitimate threat to you life allowing you to use lethal force to deal with them. Under extreme cases where the intelligence leading to the issuing of the Osman notice suggests a long term and severe threat to life (such as being on an IRA hit-list) the person to whom the notice applies can be exempted from British laws regarding the possession and use of offensive weapons including firearms. So after appropriate training the individual (normally a serving or ex-law enforcement officer) can be allowed to keep and use a range of firearms including semi-automatic pistols, assault rifles and even grenades.

Or to put it another way if the Brits are still fretting about how much time and energy they have to spend protecting me they should just hurry up and issue my firearms certificate along with my driving license because if they were to give my passport back I'm sure I could find someone prepared to train me to above and beyond the usual standards.

12:25 on 20/9/12.

Bastion Baby.

Today it's been revealed that last Tuesday (11/9/12) a female British soldier gave birth to a five week premature baby after apparently not knowing that she was pregnant. Coming on the day that Daniel Thomas a semi-professional footballer discovered that he won't be prosecuted for making homophobic comments on Twitter about TeamGB Olympic diver Tom Daley am I the only one thinking this is a highly elaborate way of promoting discussion about British comedian Russell Brand's recent divorce from US singer Katy Perry. Elsewhere in celebrity news Rihanna has posted a new photo on her Twitter account (technically instagram) and the actual Iran responded with a story about two girls who beat up an Iman who told them to cover-up.

10:30 on 20/9/12.

What It's Wednesday my Day of Rest.

So it's religious observance why I've not done much in the way of work today and absolutely nothing to do with the massive hangover. Seriously I was speaking to a mate on the phone this afternoon about the logistics of getting some bricks delivered for some building work he's doing and I had to stop him halfway through to explain that I'd spent most of the day wandering into rooms and then completely forgetting what I'd gone in there for. As a result my next instalment of the para-Olympic closing ceremony is not exactly finished although it might be done by tomorrow evening.

In the meantime though I suppose I should tell you about one of my more infamous Guinness binges that involves that ex-girlfriend I share with This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby from act 9. Saying I don't remember her name is a bit of an understatement. I first met her in an after-hours dive bar and because I'd been on the Guinness since about lunchtime I spent the entire evening talking to her thinking she was someone else completely. She was pretty wrecked herself so it was really the next day before we eventually worked out we weren't who we thought we were. Actually thinking about it it would probably have been better if I'd never found out who she was because she turned out to be a right gold digging little bitch. Seriously after we fell out she completely changed her identity (name, social security/national insurance number etc) and moved to London in order to try and worm her way into the entertainment industry trading on my reputation. You only need to look at the absolute kicking she's getting off both the BBC and HBO as the Valentine Wannop character in Parades End to see how well that went for her.

Of course it was that same dive bar where after another Guinness binge the bouncer assisted me in leaving in speed after I apparently offended the entire population of France after insulting a French barman. However as everyone seems so desperately interested in that story I'm rather childishly going to refuse to tell it. After all it didn't come up in the ceremony.

Oh I miss my old life.

22:20 on 19/9/12.

Britain's Rihanna Obsession Contiues.

Seriously I think they've got at least enough ammunition until the end of fashion week. Firstly the coverage of the Dale Cregan case is focusing heavily on the relationship between the two female police officers who were killed. The idea is to make our dear queen paranoid of the people around her and seems to have been inspired by the Ani DiFranco song "Two Little Girls" that I still can't listen to. Also the government is changing the laws of domestic violence. These include lots of changes such as expanding the definition of an offender to include those between 16-18 years old and increasing funding for groups that work with male victims of domestic violence. However the bit everyone is focusing on is plans to include psychological abuse such as telling people who they can and cannot be friends with, when they can and can't go out and controlling their financial resources as a form of domestic violence. Finally a report has been released about how prescription painkillers such as aspirin can actually make headaches worse. This is not news and is meant to play on the rumour that Rihanna is addicted to prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin. That's probably true after all everyone in the entertainment industry is on heroin and does have AIDS. She does of course though need to go to bed. If she hasn't got one she can always come and crash at my grandmother's because I'm sure it'll be one way to teach Croydon how to be cool.

12:20 on 19/9/12.

Well That Got Messy.

Always does on a Guinness binge which I believe is acts 9 through 13 of the para-Olympic closing ceremony. Still I'm up now and it wasn't quite as bad as last week.

10:40 on 19/9/12.

And Hell to Bed and Gravity

Because I've heard summers in the meadow.

Thank You and Goodnight.

00:05 on 19/9/12.

3 Out 1 In 10 to Go.

No it's better then that Palace drew 1-1 with Nottingham Forest and round here we call that a good result. Better then that though Ronaldo turned over Man City 3-2 in order to prove that the Madrid riot squad were quite correct in baton-ing the shit out of that MCTV presenter who thinks it acceptable to turn up on Twitter with her face painted like that girl who played with fire.

23:00 on 18/9/12.

Terrible Pub That Black Lion.

No cellar, no TV, no heating. The sound systems been over-run by Protestants.

But the good news is I'm here in the warm and apparently Palace lost.

21:45 on 18/9/12.

Norbury.

It's like Thornton Heath only more sh*t.

Yes that's right I'm back from the pub to find my house not obviously burgled. According to my father who is insisting on going to see my sister tomorrow and has therefore been a nuisance all day they'll be a football crowd in Wetherspoons so will have to go to Norbury instead. As a result all I have to contribute is a long, long line of swear words which is a polite way of saying that I've been on the Guinness since four so the chances of me adding a fourth volume are diminishing by the second.

19:15 on 18/9/12.

You Remember Dale Cregan.

Naughty little scallywag; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_Units
who was chucking hand grenades around in Manchester during the Olympics.

Well today he set up a Irish Republican Army (IRA) style ambush in Manchester by calling a regular police patrol unit to an address in the Tameside area of Manchester. He then attack the patrol car with at least a gun killing the vehicle's two female occupants - PC Nicola Hughes and PC Fiona Bone - before driving to a police station in the Hyde area of Manchester and handing himself in. As the vehicle he was travelling in contained a fair few weapons the police and army have spent the day setting up cordons and using their funky little robots to carry out controlled explosions. Coming on the day that Kevin Hutchinson-Foster went on trial for supplying the gun to Mark Duggan that led to him being shot provoking the August 2011 riots this obviously promotes discussion about illegally held firearms within the UK. My version and therefore the correct version is that throughout the 1970/80/90's Britain provided Protestant/Loyalist terrorist groups in Northern Ireland with a huge arsenal of weapons to counter-balance the huge arsenal of weapons held by the IRA. Of course when the Good Friday Agreement/Peace Process took effect in 1998 the IRA were forced to destroy all their weapons while the Loyalists were allowed to sell theirs on to white gangsters in the Manchester area of the mainland UK. At around the same time black gangsters in the London area started importing a lot of little pop guns from continental Europe and the two groups continue to do battle around the Birmingham/midlands area. So yeah I'm not saying that I've got the Brits by the balls with this Court of Protection (COP) thing but they seriously starting to worry about the gun running routes should the next civil war start.

Obviously feeling as though they're on the brink of war (and even if they weren't) the Brits still have violence to give. So I should explain that Canadians father was actually a police officer who killed two men on an undercover operation and after protesters besieged the family home for weeks he was eventually sacked from the force. The Canadians husband was also one of her fathers brother officers serving with Britain's Surrey force. So like I said - awkward. The Canadian of course harboured dreams of becoming a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) but she was that crazy even Surrey police thought that would be a bad idea. The good news though is that the Canadian is most certainly not a mirror for Rihanna but she's a pretty good mirror for that US Navy weapons specialist who trained Rihanna for the movie "Battleship." You know the one who's still trying to put up with being the pretty girl on the warship.

15:45 on 18/9/12.

It's Cold Out There in the Gym

Must be why five brought Cregan in. Turns out he had one last grenade to throw though.

And now I'm gonna take a bath because I'm too poor to afford a shower.

13:30 on 18/9/12.

The Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony vol 2 acts 6-7.

Obviously this follows on from volume 1; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-para-olympic-closing-ceremony-vol1.html

Act 6

After the parade of nations finished without incident the wounded soldier was back on his platform to give another short speech that I didn’t catch to introduce the start of my dreams parade of lovers. This would be another recurring theme of the ceremony and I suppose if you were being coarse you could also describe it as the long line of women in my life who’ve pulled their knickers up and stormed off thinking they can do better only to discover that they can’t. The ceremony’s director decided that this procession should begin with men carrying what looked like flamethrowers advancing across the stadium scorching the earth. In a further effort to prove what close friends and allies Britain and Germany now are this looked a lot like that footage of Nazi troops during World War 2 (WW2) that you’ve seen in all those documentaries. The idea was to get everybody to say that it represented the “Blitzkrieg” or “lightning war” used by Nazi troops in an effort to make those English Football fans/hooligans who are still obsessed with WW2 look and feel foolish because the Blitzkrieg tactic was used to attack Western Europe and Guernica in Spain. The ‘scorched earth’ tactic was used by the Nazi’s as they retreated from Russian troops on the eastern front and the tactic is hardly unique to them having being used by everyone since the Roman’s salted the earth at Carthage right up to Saddam Hussein’s retreat from Kuwait. I have also been known to rant about how my father uses the same tactic to mow the lawn to the point where he’s churning up mud. Apart from studying it at school the reason I know more than most is because I briefly had a German girlfriend and let’s just say that the differences between English and German mean that sometimes things get lost in translation.

The flamethrowers weren’t even actual flamethrowers but the type of heat gun (basically a blow torch with a backpack) that highway maintenance workers use to burn painted road markings off tarmac. This of course was a reference to the fact that now the games are over the hated games lanes (indicated with Olympic rings painted onto the tarmac) would be removed and London’s traffic can return to its normal levels of gridlock and chaos. However the reason I know so much about painted road markings is because they were a big part of my life when I was working as a traffic warden. Apart from working with a German guy who got so sick of being called a Nazi he turned up to work one day in jackboots and then spent the day goose-stepping through the streets of Brighton giving passers-by Hitler salutes I also worked with a heavily tattooed Canadian with a penchant for violent men. While believe it or not I’m not actually happy posting people’s personal business up on the Internet let’s just say that this woman was such a nightmare that she once asked me if her bum looked big in her uniform. I answered wrong and that strop went on for about a month. Seriously though rather than just needing to grow up a bit this woman was seriously crazy to the point where I think she was only in Britain to escape from the men in white coats who were waiting for her back in Canada. The last I heard she got sacked from that job for being crazy before going on to work in a care home before getting sacked from that job for being crazy. On the plus side though she did cause me to have the most awkward international telephone call I’ve ever had. One morning at around 2AM I was woken up – still a bit drunk – and answered my cell phone to this Canadian voice asking to speak to this woman. I told them she was still asleep so the voice asked if I was her husband. I said no and asked who was calling. The voice replied; “Her father.”

The men with flame guns were followed into the arena by what was described in the official program as the “Truck Invasion.” This involved a long parade of very odd vehicles making their way into and around the arena in what was basically a very long advert for the west end show “Warhorse” that helped build many of the vehicles. Some of these vehicles such as the scaffold sailing ship, the one that looked like the cogs and springs you get inside a clock/watch (representing time and that Dolly Parton song “Bargain Store”) and the giant blue lobster/fish thing served a specific purpose and would feature again later on in the ceremony. Others though were clearly there just to make up the numbers in a deliberate effort to annoying foreign intelligence agencies looked for any secret coded symbol such as those featured in Portugal’s 1974 Eurovision Song Contest Entry that triggered the coup that overthrew the country’s fascist dictatorship. Apart from being a distraction this was Britain showing off about how clever they are at espionage work because the ceremony did include many carefully planned symbols/triggers that were designed to have a political/espionage effect but they were much more subtle and sophisticated then getting everybody to take to the streets in protest when the guy holding a rifle with a flower in the barrel appeared on screen. One of the vehicles that was particularly interesting was the one that looked like the nose section of an F-18 Sabre/MiG-15 fighter jet. Based on shared WW2 technology these were basically the same plane with the US using the F-18 and the Soviet bloc countries using the MiG-15. These aircraft were used extensively against each other during the Korean war and because that war is technically still going on any reference to it could have raised tensions across south-east Asia where North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China are all tangled up with each other in various disputes over the ownership of various islands. I think that was just a bit of mis-direction though and the F-18/MiG-15 was a reference to the type of home ‘care’ my grandmother received leading up to her breakdown. Rather than helping her wash, get dressed or feed herself this ‘care’ was focused almost entirely around sitting down with her to go through her old photographs and tell the stories behind them. As my grandmother has photographs that show her and her husband doing things like having dinner with the family of the ex-Governor General of Grenada shortly after they’d fled the 1979 coup a lot of the stories behind my grandmother’s photographs are actually official state secrets making it incredibly stressful for her to talk about without official permission. One of the more infamous of these photographs shows my father as a young boy standing in front of the nose of a Soviet MiG-15. My grandfather who took the photograph hoped that it would look like it was just a bored father taking a photograph of his war obsessed little boy rather than a spy taking pictures of the aircraft’s weapons system. And to think people still wonder why I have no talent for peace.

Accompanying the parade of wacky vehicles were a group of dancers/performers dressed in white face make-up, black capes and black top hats in the classic Goth style. In Britain this look is synonymous with surreal comedian Noel Fielding who unfortunately shares his initials with the British fascist group the National Front (NF) – remember this detail it will come in useful later. It was when I saw the tank/armoured car that had been painted blue and fitted with giant butterfly wings I decided that in order to put on this almost pornographically long parade of vehicles the organisers had clearly put out an open casting call to anyone in the UK who owned a large, unusual vehicle that actually ran. This of course is what the British government did with boats in order to evacuate British troops from Dunkirk in 1940 which was another little WW2 reference. It also contributes to the debate about funding for Sinnott’s tall ships charity because while the government might be overpaying for the rehabilitation of wounded troops they also get to preserve parts of Britain’s maritime heritage into the bargain. Mainly though I think the more amateur vehicles that made up the end of the procession were there to trigger me into making the post title; “Run What You Brung!” Recognised by all car enthusiasts this phrase has particular resonance amongst the predominately young men who spend thousands modifying and customising their cars to show them off in illegal meets/races in car parks in a phenomenon that has really taken off since the 1994 Criminal Justice Act (CJA) effectively killed off the British rave scene. As these men are almost exclusively white, young and working class (at the risk of giving them ideas) is the perfect recruiting ground for fascist groups like the NF and the English Defence League (EDL). The phrase; “Run what you brung” may also be familiar with people used to attending events like the ceremony who know that they function a lot like those ink-blot tests psychologists use. Although there are certain set themes and references to pick out most of these types of events can be interpreted any which way you like. Therefore in the conversations during and after the show people will project their own meanings on to it and you can tell a lot about who a person by what meaning they project provided of course they’re not lying. In fact so much fire was used during the ceremony it made me think of the Sun Tzu quote about not knowing a man until you’ve held their feet over the mouth of a volcano. As a result you could prepare for these sort of things by scouring the Internet for every little rumour and spending ages researching things like the history of Norse mythology but ultimately it just comes down to how good at talking you are because you can only run what you brung. While Rihanna was clearly the target I was being aimed at that evening I reckon bringing that phrase out at that point would have caused a fair few in attendance a fair few problems.

Once all the vehicles were in the arena the lights dimmed and the stadium took on the atmosphere of a good old fashioned 1980’s rave. Obviously asking what a rave is like is a bit like asking what a para-Olympic closing ceremony is like – it depends which one you’re talking about. However the really good one featured absolutely massive (30k+) sound systems (big rigs), fairground rides like Wurlitzer’s and roller coasters along with stilt walkers, jugglers and other circus performers. As the vehicles kept moving throughout this sequence I suppose they could have been mistaken for carnival floats and the one featuring male dancers wearing only very small and very tight hot pants could only be a reference to a float at a Gay Pride parade. As the spirit of the rave scene was that everybody was equal and everybody was brilliant (at least until the drugs wore off) a lot of the people involved in the rave scene also got involved in the gay rights protests that were also going on in 1980’s. In fact the famous Berlin Love Parade started out as a political protest long before it became famous as a music event. The sequence ended with a very loud vocal repeatedly singing; “holding out your hand” while those famous loud repetitive beats mentioned in the CJA played out. This was a bit of a swipe at the New Age Travellers many of whom were claiming unemployment benefits (handouts) while throwing these massive raves instead of looking for jobs that didn’t exist. Apart from that little dig this celebration of rave was another recurring theme of the ceremony intended to promote discussion about whether the CJA had gone too far and it might be time to loosen the rules on raves as a way to keep the population occupied during the recession.

Act 7

Annoyingly and deliberately the first part of this act was not broadcast in the UK because Channel 4 (C4) though that this little segment of official IPC business would be a perfect opportunity for an advert break. However I gather it began with the awarding of a Chinese sponsored endowment/scholarship for young disabled athletes. Obviously this was the part of the ceremony that the Chinese government most wanted their people to see – a point emphasised by the Chinese sign-language translator that was shown on the big screens within the stadium. However in an effort to irritate the Chinese during their once a decade political transition this was immediately followed by the anointing of the new athletes representatives to the IPC council. The idea was that this would cause a lot of discussion in China about whether the new representatives had been democratically elected or appointed and which alternative was better. Apparently this cause Chinese leader in waiting Xi Jinping so much worry he put his back out. The mention of councils also promotes discussion about Britain’s system of local government including my own troublesome Croydon council but mainly it was an attempt to promote discussion about the role of local government in killing off Britain’s rave scene. In order to save time the only new representative I shall name is France’s Arnaud Assoumani because his comedy name can be pronounced to sound like; “Oh so sue me!” in an attempt to promote discussion about why Jay-Z who would appear later didn’t sue French President Francois Hollande over the unauthorised use of the song “Niggers in Paris” in a campaign video and whether that failure to sue constitutes support for Hollande. Sadly though the real reason is far more mundane. Rather than being an official video it was an anonymous Internet viral video so to this day Jay –Z probably doesn’t have a clue who to sue and in fact the video could have been circulated by the Sarkozy campaign in order to mock Hollande.

After the new representatives had been anointed they each invited their favourite Olympic volunteer/games maker up on to the stage to thank them by giving them flowers and a big hug. Apart from prompting some smutty suggestions about what exactly these volunteers had done to make themselves so popular this was just a genuine attempt to thank all the volunteers and point out that the majority of the 80,000 people in the stadium were there as guests of the athletes including many of the volunteers. The slightly too over-familar embraces were supposed to promote discussion about the way that celebrities (the athletes) relate to their fans (the volunteers) especially in the Internet age. This was probably entirely Russell Brand’s fault with his Tweets about wanting to hug Olympic troll victim Tom Daley a little bit too hard. It was also a specific stab at Rihanna because as one of the three most followed people on Twitter there are a lot of people who want to know how she relates to her 21 million or so followers not least some no-mark British charity that has just been set up to help people deal with Internet trolls and is no doubt frantically taking notes.

There Goes my IQ.

With this Duchess of Cambridge/privacy thing still rumbling on I've decided to delve deeper into the celebrity/paparazzi world. Apart from the brilliant news that the normally rather staid Farmers Weekly actually went to the trouble of interviewing Alan Graham about the "We Found Love" video that was filmed on his County Down farm winning an MTV award it feels like my soul is slowly dying. I'm actually tempted to call up my Internet service provider to see if they'll be prepared to waive this month's charges because surely I can't be expected to pay for this.

In better news Simon Harwood the police officer who killed Ian Tomlinson at the anti-G20 protests in London in April 2009 has pleaded guilty to gross misconduct at a disciplinary hearing meaning that all the hearing has to do now is formally sack him. It should also make him a lot easier to prosecute for manslaughter once his original trial is declared a mis-trial and the verdict over turned.

In even better news I've discovered that I do like Irn Bru after all but I don't think it's going to do much for my ADD.

13:30 on 17/9/12.

If This is Morning I Don't Like It..

Seriously normally when I inexplicably beat my alarm clock by this much I normally expect there to be an earthquake or something.

07;50 on 17/9/12.

The Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony vol: 1 Acts 1 - 5.

Sorry I got a little disassociated from my self there but as I explained here; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/about-my-para-olympic-closing-ceremony.html this is just too long a subject to publish in a post so instead I will be posting it up in volumes.

Act 1

In an effort to promote discussion about the three concepts of time (daylight savings, solar, atomic) that are currently in effect in the UK Coldplay used their Twitter feed to leak the news that the ceremony would begin at one of the 19:30's. Technically this was not a lie because the ceremony did begin at 19:30 (Daylight Savings Time/DST). However the opening act was the parade of nations. As many of the para-Olympians have mobility problems and the closing ceremony is really a chance for them to let their hair down, have a bit of a party and enjoy themselves this part of the ceremony was very informal and not televised in the UK in an effort to loosen the athletes up away from the structure and discipline that pretty much rules their lives and generally get them a bit drunk. Unfortunately no-one knew how long this process would take meaning that the show could have began thirty minutes or an hour or ninety minutes after the athletes started entering the stadium. This was a nightmare for the athletes who entered the stadium first and were left sitting around with nothing to do and any TV channels across the world who were trying to broadcast the ceremony live leading to lots of speculation about what the holdup was including but in no way limited to the suggestion that everybody was waiting for me to finish my dinner and sit down to watch the ceremony. During this time Britain's Channel 4 (C4) broadcast a studio based panel show in which various C4 para-Olympics presenters popped in to talk about the games and fill the dead air. This gave viewers and C4 producers an opportunity to rate some of the new presenters (including Alex Broker) who were basically brought in on work experience to cover the games as a very long job interview. The studio also kept throwing back and forth to the Olympic stadium in order to interview basically anyone they could find. Two of the pre-arranged interviews conducted by the very experienced C4 News presenter Jon Snow were with the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Mayor of London Boris Johnson. C4 viewers who watched the opening ceremony will remember this being Alex Broker’s baptism of fire TV debut. With the athlete all in the stadium about 45 minutes after they began making their way in the entertainment/broadcast part of the ceremony began at 19:30 (Solar time/GMT.) In an effort to keep them entertained the crowd in the stadium were led in a mass countdown to the start but they were out by about three seconds.

Act 2

As these types of international simultaneous broadcast always do the broadcast section began with a short pre-recorded video sequence. Apart from looking pretty these serve an important technical purpose by allowing all the different broadcasters to make sure they start broadcasting the live feed at the right time. In order to make this even easier these sequences normally feature a ten second countdown with the numerals 10 to 1 being clearly displayed in the centre of the picture with the zero second being left blank. However in the sequences in the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and the para-Olympic opening ceremony these numerals were disguised as part of the image with the rings from a coffee cup on a table making up the 8, the 7 being a house number, the 6 being a number on a bus etc in a deliberate attempt to annoy foreign broadcasters. Although I suspect that the satellite feed featured more traditional numerals overlaid on the video the UK broadcast feed did not feature any numerals at all. This was an attempt to engage foreign broadcasters in a debate about why many of them were picking up the full satellite feed but not broadcasting the para-Olympic ceremonies in the way they had broadcast the Olympic ceremonies.

As the international simultaneous broadcast that broadcasters in Europe are most familiar with is the Eurovision Song Contest which gets broadcast live to many European nations every year the visual style of the video was a clear nod to the visual style used at Eurovision which is probably where most of the complaints about the numerals had come from. It began with a man who looked a bit like Jason Orange from the band Take That dressed in a costume of a sort of 19th century pirate similar to the one worn by Orange in the video for "Kidz." He began by looking up at the sky through a sextant which is another reference to the concepts of time because a sextant is a device used by early sailors to calculate their position at sea relative to the position of the sun and time. The man then looked down into his notebook at a picture of a sailing ship and a scaffold-pole sailing ship suddenly appeared around him. He then 'sailed' that ship through the streets of Britain most notably picking up an adolescent girl who was a reference the Olympic debate about sexual ages of consent. On the way he was joined by a parade of other people and odd looking vehicles including what viewers of the BBC car show "Top Gear" would recognise as "the Bacchus" a very unique type of car that was built by a German man by basically just adding wheels and seats to the massive engine from a World War 2 German Heinkal bomber. Apart from being a way to show off an example of a British idea that has gone on to become a global brand the reference to "Top Gear" was also an attempt to ignite more discussion about the is Rihanna a US spy? debate because "Top Gear" did once have a great deal of trouble getting a US work visa in what many people think was an attempt to force "Top Gear" into a very lengthy debate with the US government about who they are, what they do and why they're doing it. Apart from being a reference to the fact that the BBC1 drama series "Inspector George Gently" which features a character name "Bacchus" was starting at the same time (the argument about the prominence of the para-Olympic in the schedules that was begun in the opening ceremony) the inclusion of the Bacchus was to show that after two very large wars Britain and Germany are now friends and allies and to raise discussion about the "German Bombers" chant often sung by England football fans/hooligans. Sung to the tune of "10 Green Bottles" it's basically a chant about German bombers appearing in the sky and getting shot down by Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) in a reference to the Second World War. Since the emergence of far-right/fascist groups like the English Defence League (EDL) a lot of people have commented that this sort of racist behaviour from English football fans/hooligans has got worse. The soundtrack to the video was a special composition called "Welcome" composed by David Arnold a British man who is rather famous for his work in television and movies including some of the James Bond movies.

Act 3

As soon as the video sequence finished the live broadcast of the ceremony began. The show opened with men dressed in costumes similar those used the "Mad Max" films aboard weird rusted out vehicles that looked like they'd been made out of scrap parts like the type of vehicles used in the Mad Max films. Evoking memories of the Mad Max films obviously provokes discussion about their star Mel Gibson and his penchant for anti-Semitic rants and his other films such as "Apocalypto" which is about the Mayan tribe who predicted that the world would end in 2012. The Mayans would become another theme used later in the ceremony. The main use of the Mad Max reference though was a contribution to the global warming/climate change debate. Whether or not you believe that the burning of fossil fuels causes climate change fossil fuels are a finite resource that will eventually run out so there are people who think we should make efforts to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels in order to make them last as long as possible. The other school of thought led by Britain is that we should use up all the fossil fuels as quickly as possible while preparing to be the winners in a post-Apocalypse Mad Max style future where everybody fights for every last scrap of oil, coal, metal and water. I also think that Rihanna may have referenced Mad Max in one of her music videos. The men who we were told were "Wind Gremlins" were riding what can only be described as "Fan Bikes" that is to say a sort of motorcycle that was powered by a giant fan on the back similar to the fan boats they use in the Florida Everglades. These Wind Gremlins proceeded to tear around the stadium and great speed making lots of noise so at a stretch of the imagination could have been compared to the Valkyries from the opera by the German composer Richard Wagner. Wagner was said to be Adolf Hitler's favourite composer and his music was said to be played in the Nazi concentration camps so the reference was another little nod to Germans over how Britain now considers them allies and an enquiry to Israel about why I keep talking about Wagner. The overture from the opera Ride Of the Valkyries was also used in the famous Vietnam War film "Apocalypse Now" so can be used to promote discussion about the Vietnam war and the Apocalypse school of thought in global warming/climate change. A Valkyrie is of course a type of angel from Norse (Viking) mythology that transports the souls of dead warriors to Valhalla which is the Norse version of heaven so the reference to Valkyries was a reference to the different tribes that have invaded and occupied Britain at various points over its history. The tribal make up of Britain would become another significant theme of the ceremony. I think the giant flaming face that appeared later on could have been Odin the Norse god of War and father of Thor or it could have been any number ancient Greek philosophers but I think it looked a bit generic tribal art to me.

Once they'd finished pretending to be Valkyries the Wind Gremlins assembled in the centre of the stadium forming a circle around a giant installation of the para-Olympic logo - the Agitos - that was suspended in the air from wires. As the wind from the Wind Gremlin's Fanbikes buffeted the Agitos sexy female dancers who were dressed as nuns/19th century nurses began to have a pillow fight below it with the feathers from the pillows emphasising the force at which the Agitos was been buffeted by the Wind Gremlins. As the word Agitos can be pronounced to sound like the word ATOS - a para-Olympic sponsor - this was meant to represent the protests against ATOS that had been seen during the para-Olympics over ATOS' role in carrying out the unpopular reforms contained in the British government's 2011 Welfare Reform Act. The similarity in the dancers costumes was meant to be a reference to the nurses featured in the NHS sequence of the Olympic opening ceremony which could have been viewed as either a protest against the British governments reforms to the NHS in the 2011 Health and Social Care Act or a way to sell those reforms to the British public. The image of sexy nuns/nurses having a pillow fight was supposed to be a reference to the plot of any number of generic pornographic movies in order to add the level of sexual innuendo that formed a major theme of the opening ceremony.

While this was going on dancers/performers dragged in a piece of stage furniture that looked like a medieval siege machine/battering ram to emphasise the idea of ATOS being placed under siege. The dancers/performers pulling the siege machine/battering ram on ropes were meant to represent the ‘Celts’ that dragged the stones that built Wiltshire’s famous Stonehenge but ‘Celt’ is just a flash word for any generic ancient Briton. The siege machine/battering ram was being ridden by a double above the knee amputee who had very short prosthetic legs. He was introduced by the British commentator - Krishnan Guru Murphy - as "Luke Sinnott, a Navy Captain who lost both his legs to an IED while fighting in Afghanistan." As along with most people I couldn't think of any reason why the Captain of a Royal Navy warship would have any reason to be stepping on an IED in the Afghan desert I took this to mean that Luke Sinnott was a Captain in the Royal Marines which are part of the Navy. Now as I have a cousin who I refer to as Luke even though that's not his name who tried and failed on physical grounds to get into the Royal Marines twice before joining the Royal Engineers regiment of the Army instead I took this to be a reference to him. This was confirmed when it was revealed that Luke Sinnott was actually a Captain in the Royal Engineers. Obviously it's a bit odd that a man with my reputation has a cousin in the British Army so his failure to get into the Royal Marines has always been shrouded in mystery because there was a feeling that Britain wouldn't want an associate of mine involved in one of Britain's elite units because although the Marines are not special forces they do deal with some of the more sensitive and important jobs. The other reason why the commentator referred to Luke Sinnott as a navy captain is because since being wounded Sinnott has gone on to set up a government funded charity helping other wounded military personnel come to terms with their disabilities by learning to crew and sail old fashioned sailing (tall) ships. Along with dance and circus skills this sort of ship therapy has become very fashionable in the UK to help people with all sorts of problems. For example a mental health charity (Mind) that I used to be associated with has a similar program to help people with mental health problems overcome them by learning to sail tall ships. Despite being involved with Mind I had no involvement in their sailing ships project so I can really comment on how effective it was. However I do know that this type of tall ship are really expensive to buy and maintain so in a time of government spending cuts Sinnott's inclusion was to promote discussion about whether the same results could be achieved at a lower cost. In an attempt to send the message that Britain's values it's war heroes more than ATOS Sinnott's arrival was enough to force the Agitos to finally be blown away and the act ended.

Act 4

This act began with dancers/performers marching into the stadium carrying flaming torches to represent the generic early tribes of ancient Britain and one group who appeared to be dressed as Roman centurions. This whole sequence reminded me of the Lewes fireworks display that marks Bonfire Night (November 5th) in the village of Lewes just outside Brighton which has become something of a major tourist attraction. Having lived in Brighton for a number of years I've attended the Lewes fireworks display on a number of occasions but found it distinctly unsettling because although for most people in Britain Bonfire Night is just an excuse to muck about with bonfires and fireworks it actually marks the anniversary of Catholic plotters failure to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill the Protestant King James in 1605. The bonfires are actually a reference to the gruesome way that the plotters including Guy Fawkes were executed. So when you go to traditional displays like Lewes there's actually a strong current of anti-Catholic bigotry with effigies of the Pope being burned and such like. This of course promotes discussion about the English civil wars and King James' invasion of the Republic of Ireland and the ongoing Protestant V Catholic tensions in Northern Ireland. Although I can’t remember the fancy name of the doctrine the fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants is that Catholics believe that in order to get into heaven you must believe in God (and Jesus Christ but let’s not complicate things) and follow the rules he has written down in the Bible (Thou Shall Not Kill for example). If you fail to follow those rules you are said to have committed a sin and as punishment you must admit the sin to a priest who will tell you what you must do (penance) to atone for your sin in order for God to absolve you of your guilt. King Henry Tudor (Henry VIII) of England this didn’t like this bit so in 1534 he set up the Protestant (Anglican) Church of England to change this doctrine. So now in order to get into heaven all Anglican Protestants need to do is believe in God and behave as badly as they like on earth because that mere belief will be enough to absolve them of their sins. Of course what most people think of as the Christian Bible is actually the King James Bible which was essentially just made up in Victorian times so the new passages such as the parts of the Book of Revelations made famous in the Johnny Cash song “When the Man Comes Around” could be used to enslave people in the British Colonies in order to build the British Empire. Apart from reminding everybody of the Roman invasion of ancient Briton that happened about 1,700 years before Henry VIII the Roman centurions reminded me of one particular Lewes fireworks I attended with a very drunk Australian who decided that he wanted to join in with the parade leading to him very nearly getting beaten up by around 20 big men dressed as Roman centurions and carrying flaming torches. Funnily enough this did also involve a quick conversation with the police in which phrases like "drunk and disorderly" might have been used although no arrests were made.

While the marchers were making their way around the stadium the Wind Gremlins and the siege machine were also driving around and were joined by the Bacchus from the opening video sequence which got a loud cheer. This was an effort to demonstrate that Britain and Germany are such good friends that not only were they able to get the Bacchus for the video they were also able to get it there for the night. The Bacchus was driven by a bald white man in a leather jacket who could either have been the owner/creator of the Bacchus or the wounded soldier who would appear later. The battering ram of the siege machine which had by now made its way to the centre of the stadium then suddenly started to slowly rise up to erect a massive pole which Luke Sinnott started to climb. As Sinnott is a double above the knee amputee and only has short prosthetic legs it took him a long time to climb the pole and there was doubt he would ever make it to the top. So yes apart from being a slight reference to Sinnott's tall ships charity the giant pole was meant to represent a giant erect male penis and the doubts over whether Sinnott would be able to get up it was a little nod to Pele's appearance in Brazil's bit of the Olympic closing ceremony.

While we were all waiting to see if the Brits would be able to get it up our representative from the Royal Family arrived along with the International Para-Olympic Committee head Sir Phillip Craven arrived in the stadium. In a break from tradition rather than just walking into the Royal box these VIP's were instead driven onto the floor of the stadium itself in a rusted out limousine that like the Wind Gremlins Fanbikes and the Bacchus looked like it had been built out of scrap parts. This was a significant step down in the world for the Royal representative who is used to being driven around in a pristine and specially built Daimler limousine. The purpose was to promote discussion about whether the British Royal Family is starting to look a bit rusty, tired and a throwback to a world that no-longer exists. The choice of the Royal representative was interesting because it was Prince Edward Duke of Wessex. So the sight of him arriving while Sinnott was still clambering up that giant pole re-started all those jokes from the para-Olympic opening ceremony about Prince Edward's sexuality. Also at a distance and partially hidden by the car you could have mistaken Prince Edward for Prince William Duke of Cambridge and the sight of him arriving next to Sinnott's massive pole could promote discussion about why more than a year into their marriage William still hasn't managed to get Catherine pregnant. After all her entire purpose in life is to give birth to an heir and a spare. I believe this issue has already been broached by 'well wishers' on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's tour of Singapore.

Once they'd got out of car Prince Edward and Sir Craven stood/sat in a wheelchair while the British Union (jack) Flag was raised and a blind girl sung a bad version of the national anthem. The bad singing was purely intentional and along with the rusted out limousine was designed to promote discussion about how much or how little respect the British people have for the Monarchy.

Here the third act ended and British viewers went to an advert break in order to allow Prince Edward and Sir Craven to make their long journey to the Royal Box.

Act 5

The first advert break was nothing remarkable and had clearly been scheduled to cover the walk to the Royal Box and allow for the stage to be reset. When we returned though we were treated to a military looking bald white man in a leather jacket standing on a hydraulic platform reading a speech that I didn't catch. I suppose he could have been the driver of the Bacchus or I suppose at a distance he could have been Chris Martin off of Coldplay. After all Coldplay did use their Twitter account to leak that Chris Martin would be entering the stadium aboard that hydraulic platform. However I think the wounded (below knee amputee) Staffie was mostly meant to represent Ross Kemp who started out in BBC1 soap opera "Eastenders" before marrying Rebekah Brookes and making "Ultimate Force" ITV1's brilliant but sh*t drama about the Special Air Service (SAS) - sample dialouge "You want to send them to a psychiatrist?! They kill people for a living and some of them enjoy it!" After divorcing from Rebekah Kemp went on to make a series of documentaries for Sky which basically involved him being sent to some of the world’s most dangerous places to get shot at. Sample titles include; "Ross Kemp on Gangs" and "Ross Kemp in Afghanistan." Of course because Ultimate Force also starred EU/world renowned Brighton based gayer Heather Peace there are a few stories I could tell mainly about where she lives and how bad her mortgage must have been to make her agree to 31N62E - an Afghan war film so awful they could only afford two prop guns because they blew the whole budget on 15 minutes of helicopter time.

The wounded soldier from the Royal Staffordshire regiment was most certainly not meant to be a reference to “Screwbie Roo” the dog that once woke me from a drunken stupor by biting my toe so hard that I developed and Irish accent that wouldn’t go away because she’s such a mongrel it would send me off on a long and odd tangent. No this particular wounded Staffie’s purpose was to introduce the Parade of National Flags because while it's best to get the athletes with mobility problems seated first every nation must be officially represented and given the spotlight. It also helped buy time for IPC chief Sir Craven to climb all those stairs to the Royal Box.