John Walker's Electronic House

So this is 6.16am. I did one of these last week, but it was from the getting up perspective. Weird thing, both nights before seeing this mysterious hour, I’d not been able to sleep AND listened to Loveline. COINCIDENCE? Yes. That is what it is. A coincidence.

Last week it was to get up to go to work with Kim, the foiled assassin of the post below. She’s a teacher, and a damn fine one. With the unique hateful stupidity directed toward teenagers world wide, American schools begin at 8am. And that’s BEGIN begin, as in, first lesson starts at 8 – none of your nonsense form periods or assemblies, or whatever method of easing you into the school day you might expect. It’s head-first at a time when the teenage pathology says BE IN BED.

Any how, I’m not going to write up my week in Chicago as some sort of holiday diary, because I didn’t go on the sort of touristy, camera snapping holiday that one might write up. I, as I desperately hoped would be the case, just sort of lived over there for a week. I drank a lot of coffee, did some work, hung out with friends, watched a lot of baseball, went bowling, sat in the corner of classrooms for a day being stared at by confused American teenagers who desperately wanted to know if they had an accent too. That sort of thing. The entire week was only possible because of the amazing generosity and continuously excellent company of Kim and Nick, and they already know how incredibly grateful I am.

What I do wish to discuss, however, was my journey home. As if to make the point more profoundly than moping about on Thursday morning cuddling a cat ever could have, the transport aspect of leaving Chicago was a massive hideous pain. First of all, Americans hate people who come in or leave the country. On the way in, they have three customs desks open for the eighteen thousand people who have just got off the one plane, and then what looks like how I imagine supermarket checkouts would look in Heaven for all three of the Americans. Open customs desks, gleaming brilliant white, so numerous that as they stretch off into the distance they reach a vanishing point. Of those three non-US citizen desks, one of the ARMED guards will, every two or three check-ins, just get up and walk off for no discernable reason. He or she will come back in a bit, once their mysterious need has been satiated, and check in a couple more. Then maybe grab a coffee. Whatever. It is also obligatory to have no air conditioning in customs, as this will sweat out the terrorists, causing them to melt, and no longer be a danger to society.

Leaving, weirdly, is even worse. Because obviously what you want more than anything else when you arrive at an airport is to no longer be at the airport. Every stage, from customs to baggage to the oh-so hilariously misleading signs toward public transport, are obstacles in your race to airport freedom. But on the way to your plane, what you want is a vast leisure complex, preferably with a theme park, and coffee fountains on every wall. Leaving Heathrow is like visiting a mall that no British town centre could produce. But US airports’ international departures, and I exaggerate not, tend to have a stall set up in a corridor, selling, “I LOVE AMERICA” t-shirts and mugs. Internal flights are a whole other matter – then they’re just one giant ball-filled play area of magic. But for those leaving – ah, fuckem, they’re abandoning us – give them the crappy patriotism stall.

However, I would rather move in and live the rest of my life in the Chicago O’Hare departure corridor than have to fly through Paris Charles De Gaulle again. It is, without question, the site of the most concentrated repugnant stupidity of anywhere on earth.

CDG appears to have been designed and built by the people who created the philosophy of British towns. They really don’t want those pesky darn people ruining things by coming in. Terminal 2, the only terminal with which I’m aquainted, is the stupidest place ever created, by three nautical stupidmiles.

To start with, getting from one place to another: On the way home I landed at terminal 2E. My flight was from terminal 2F. Look at a map of the SINGLE BUILDING that makes up terminal 2, and you can see that the two sub-terminals are a short corridor apart. But oh no, not so simple if you don’t want people coming in and getting under your feet and on your planes. They are two – TWO – bus journeys apart. BUS JOURNEYS. TO THE SAME BUILDING. And not quick hop-on, hop-off journeys. Or the massively cool monorail journeys in O’Hare which even have the Half-Life voice and everything. These are 10 minute trawls through the run-down backstreets of CDG’s seemingly aimless construction sites, being bounced around on hermetically sealed horrorbuses, heated to the match the surface temperature of the Sun. But not the pleasant dry heat afforded by a trip to the Sun’s surface, instead a thickly humid cloud of human despair. If the metal of the bus were to be shot away by a super-metal-destroying gun, it would take over half an hour for the remaining bus-shaped cloud of sweat and misery to dissipate. And the two journey thing – that’s just cruel. It doesn’t suggest it will be two. You get the bus to the 2F section, and go in, and follow the signs for 2F 40 – 59, rather than 1 – 40, which takes you up some stairs, down a corridor, a right, then a left, and then it takes you to a lift, and you get in the lift and go down, and walk along until you reach… a door leading to a bus. It’s like a sick joke. It can only be deliberate.

Then there are the people. I can only imagine that CDG attracts the stupid to come stare at this temple built in their honour. Everywhere I walked, and I mean everywhere I walked, not, “it felt like everywhere, but was only a couple of times,” I mean EVERYWHERE I WALKED, the most brain-stabbingly stupid people would just stop. All the time. Walking along, three steps maybe, then stop. Then turn around. Then stand utterly still for the rest of their lives. They’re still there now – go see. So not only do you constantly bump into people who have stopped for NO REASON AT ALL, but also to make it that bit worse, that special CDG touch, you bump into them FACE FIRST. Every three steps. It ends up becoming like trying to walk through one of those table football games, where all the blue and red men on sticks are jammed in place.

Finally reaching the lost realms of Terminal 2F 40 – 59, I was delighted to see before me what looked like an airport mall. Blink blink blink. Were my eyes deceiving me? Had I stumbled upon some ancient city of CDG, to which the rotting, wasting evil had yet to reach? No. Not at all. My eyes were deceiving me. It was as if someone had been carrying the duty free shop to its place, then tripped up and spilled it all over the entire concourse. All the usual sections of the hideous ultra-blue lit duty free shop that appears in every airport seemed to have been given their own independent storefront. I walked among them, desperately searching for somewhere that might sell me a coffee at 9am, two and a half hours before my next flight. Somewhere to sit down and have a coffee. By this point I was talking out loud to myself as I walked around. I was growling loudly at the endless numbers of stupid people ceasing all their life’s motion before me every few metres. I was asking the walls and ceiling to help me, rescue me. Which all reached a peak when I found the only place in the entire forgotten circle of Dante’s hell that had seating. The smoking area.

Unlike most airports that put the smoking into a small corner, or preferably outside where the stupid suicidal morons can pollute themselves in private, CDG has decided to give them THE RESTAURANT. The whole place. It’s open fronted, of course, to ensure the gift of noxious fumes can be shared with all passing by. I went to the counter to get my coffee, lasted as long as it took to breathe in, my left eye melted in the socket, and I turned and left.

Eventually I bought a coffee from a lone stall, stood upstairs in the waiting area as if it had been dumped there by someone who couldn’t be bothered to wheel it down the escalaters, staffed by a girl who looked like custard poured into a binbag. I asked for a “LARGE, BLACK”, emphasis duly placed, Americano. A medium cup was selected. I was too tired to protest. Which was then filled to the halfway point. Halfway as in height, rather than volume. So about 1/3 full. Lid was put on, handed to me. Finding myself having to pull downward on the cup to prevent it from floating away, I opened it up and stared in disbelief at the titration of coffee I’d been sold. I interrupted the next customer, and said, “I’m sorry, but I asked for a large. This isn’t really very large, is it?” She looked at me and said, “Oh, so you want milk?”

Now, I’m not going to get into the whole, “An Americano doesn’t have milk in it, that’s the point of it, please leave the planet,” argument that I might otherwise embrace here. I’m more interested in the, “leave room for milk” mentality. When I ask for a black coffee, I mean by this, a black coffee. Not a white coffee with the milk left out. I do not need room for milk, if I am not having milk. Especially when I’ve ordered a coffee that doesn’t come with milk. So why is it that in almost every coffee place I ever visit, I have to ask for the rest of the mug to be filled with hot water? I somehow don’t assume that when I answer, “No thanks,” to, “Would you like milk?” I’m secretly saying, “Yes I do want milk, but my own secret milk that I’ll add afterward when you’re not looking, so whatever you do, leave room for it.” I digress. On this particular occasion, she’d not only left room for milk, but also a shopping trolley and kingsize mattress. “No, I don’t want milk. Could I have more hot water in it please?” And she stared at me as if I were asking her to fill it with the pus from the festering spots on her bottom. “Hot water?” she muttered, confused, and resigned to the indignity of finishing filling the cup from the same hot water source she’d so prematurely abandoned only minutes ago.

Yes, so that’s Charles De Gaulle airport. I recommend it for all.

Now, obviously when one works as a reviewer, it’s very bad form to publically denounce the work of other reviewers. Not because it’s rude or anything, but because there’s probably something in your own work that they could immediately come back on, revealing you as the filthy hypocrite you truly are.

Fortunately, I’m perfect, which puts me in a strong enough position to publically declare my over-back bowledness at IGN’s Black & White 2 review. I knew they had the spoiler, and I knew they’d given it a ludicrous 88%. But I’d not read it. Now my review’s up, and Tim’s excellent review in Gamer is on the shelves, I thought I’d look at the competition’s. I’m yet to read past the first paragraph:

“Peter Molyneux doesn’t do sequels. And though he’s an ambitious and original game designer, the fact that he doesn’t make many sequels puts him at a bit of a disadvantage relative to some other notable game designers. Where people like Will Wright, Sid Meier and Warren Spector can refine their designs over several different iterations, Peter and his team basically get one shot at getting things right before they move on to other projects.”

I’m not sure there’s ever been any more dense a collection of wrongness in one tiny space. IGN, I salute you. This is fantastic, and it’s why I love you.

If we leave aside the “Peter Molyneux doesn’t do sequels,” followed immediately by, “the fact that he doesn’t make many sequels,” a mere sentence later… No, let’s not leave that aside. How? Is this an artistic use of the word ‘doesn’t’? “Obviously, by ‘doesn’t’, we mean, ‘does’, in its metaphorical sense.”

But. B..B..Bbut. But. Populous 2? So there’s one. Oh, and Syndicate Wars. But that’s only two. Unless you include Powermonger: World War 1 Edition. And Dungeon Keeper: The Deeper Dungeons. And Fable: The Lost Chapters. Oh, and Black & White 2. But hang on – they refer to his teams. So the team’s Magic Carpet 2, Dungeon Keeper 2, Theme Park World, and Populous: The Beginning should probably be included. But apart from those ten examples, his games don’t get sequels. Not ever.

I daren’t read any more.

Dear Sir,

Re: Starbucks promotes homosexual agenda with coffee cup

I find it to be deeply disturbing that, as a Christian organisation, it should be someone’s executing their freedom of speech to express an opinion that should give you cause to condemn Starbucks, and not, for instance, their despicable business practices, or selling of coffee beans harvested by slaves.

What message does this send out to the world? So far as I can tell, the only time you will step up and take action is when someone has a differing opinion to yours, which you would wish to silence in an oppressive and unloving way. With this being the case, you make it very clear that highlighting the plight of coffee plantation workers who are unpaid, or on so little money that they cannot afford basic human necessities, is not something you care about enough to dedicate your efforts toward.

I have no wish to enter into a discussion about your beliefs regarding homosexuality – your article’s vocabulary makes it very clear that you have no desire to give this matter any thought. I do, however, wish to learn how your organisation recognises its priorities. Do you genuinely believe that silencing a person’s comment on the fear they lived in because of their sexuality is a more pressing and important matter than the use of slavery actively supported by Western business?

Yours sincerely,

John Walker
Christians Who Think

It’s a very strange day when I link to Fox News.

But there’s a very strange thing going on in New Orleans. Being out of the country during the revelation of the scale of the disaster meant for a confusing awakening upon return. It turns out that after 60 years of Polish jokes, the Poles aren’t so interested in America, and the truth of what had happened went unmentioned.

So last night as I caught up, seeing the change from Tuesday’s, “Phew, that was close,” to the true volume of the situation, it wasn’t the 80% destruction, or the phenomenal numbers of people killed by the storm that was most over-powering, but the sickly discovery that more people are dying because of inexplicable actions by the military than the hurricaine.

Currently there are tens of thousands of people locked in stadiums, surrounded by dead bodies and people dying, with no food and no medicine, when they are only a short walk from safety. Reporters from the extreme-right Fox News are screaming at their anchors, telling them to shut up and admit what’s happening. This video clip (the server is busy, keep trying – it really must be watched) shows Geraldo Rivera (of all people) and others in tears, as they stand in bemusement in the seeming genocide happening around them.

What is happening? For what possible reason have countless numbers of people been locked into stadiums, left to sit in their own shit, piss and dead friends and family, for four days, without any help, and fucking snipers positioned to prevent them from leaving?

Something is very wrong. When Fox reporters break the company line, they get fired. So these are reporters who have no interest in their jobs any more – just to put the report in perspective.

It gets worse.

The Red Cross are being refused entry to New Orleans by the National Guard, because their “presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.” These would be the people who are locked in to the disease-infested prisons, whom the RC would prevent from evacuating, presumably. The Red Cross state, “Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.”

What do the people in the stadiums have that those evacuated from the hotels do not? Black skin, it turns out. Kayne West, during an NBC telethon, suddenly deviated from his script, entirely flooring a completely fatuous and useless Mike Myers. A powerful speech on the attrocities being committed against black people in NO was followed by Myers’ lamely reading his autocue, to which West replied, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Watch it here.

CNN report on the two versions of the events – the government version, and the “in-trenches” version.

Alternet report on how money to strengthen the levee that broke, flooding the city, was diverted into Iraq.

The mayor of NO gives up on the political crap, and speaks his mind.

“I don’t want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don’t do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can’t even count.

Don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.”

There’s something like a revolution happening, and it’s a gradual one. Blogging has hit a critical mass, instant message means that a link reaches literally millions of people within minutes, and email catches up the rest. Cover-ups aren’t nearly as possible any more. And it’s beginning to get recognised by media outlets. The government line is that aid is arriving, all is well. The people of New Orleans are able to announce this lie instantly and loudly. The message gets spread powerfully. The lie is revealed, and even Fox News can’t keep it quiet. Blimey, it seems like democracy. For me, those people include Kieron, Richard, Tom B and most of all, Kim.

Something awful is happening. Make sure everyone knows.

EDIT: Nick points out that so far there is only Geraldo Rivera’s word to go on that people are locked into the stadiums, and it’s hard to find this reported anywhere else. Bearing in mind Rivera’s history, some more confirmation might be necessary.

EDIT #2: Here’s something.

“One 13-year veteran of the New Orleans police force said he and many fellow officers who had been at the Superdome since Sunday were equally outraged at what they saw as a lack of preparation that allowed the situation in the covered stadium to deteriorate so badly and so quickly.

‘You can’t be trapped in there for so long without going crazy. People were locked in the dome like prisoners,’ he said.”

EDIT #3: Kim finds another site reporting the “locked in” nature of the situation.

“Dirty, fearful and exhausted, they pressed their faces against the metal gates, begging and pleading for the chance to board a bus and get away from a refuge that is a nightmare.

Those lucky enough to get out told tales of rapes, child molestations, shootings, a man who jumped off the roof and a fire that broke out in the giant sport arena where up to 20,000 people had taken shelter from Hurricane Katrina.”

I’d like to make a complaint.

Some complaints. The first being about the Sun. While I recognise that the heat it sends our way is somewhat necessary, and while I do appreciate that the light it offers lets me see stuff, I would still like to object to the way it has rendered my face unable to pull expressions of horrible agony I feel without cracking in half and falling off. I’m used to deliberately hiding from sunshine, aware of its despicable evils, and instinctively covering myself in Factor Building suncream as soon as an Angel-like dash through its beams is unavoidable. Too used to it. So when it snuck up on me, I had quite forgotten how quickly it acts. Helping at Jo’s 180 skate park at Greenbelt, I was sat still on a chair, watching a kid try the same trick (a 180 off a low block) for an hour. It was a fantastic thing to see – someone keep trying the same trick, over and over, getting closer to landing it as he went along, ignoring it when he slipped back, and then finally landing it, and realising that I’d seen and there was someone to share the moment with. Gnarly. All the while, ultra-violet light was secretly setting my face on fire. This morning, returned home a day early to get ready for going to Poland tomorrow, I am sat with a rigid blank expression when my face really wants to be contorted into poses of anguished screams. The only after-sun in the flat seems to make more boasts of its ability to help maintain my tan than stop the raging burning pain. I can’t go outside to find a pharmacist open on the Bank Man’s Holiday, because I would scare the children.

I would also like to complain about the wind. While the peoples of New Orleans are making such a big fuss about it getting a bit blowy, no one’s taking any notice of my victimhoood of the dangerous moving air. Again, on the 180 skate park (I keep linking in the hope that people with large amounts of money and decent hearts will read about it and donate enormous sums to the extraordinary project), wearing my staff badge about my neck, the wind whipped up the laminated slither of deadly plastic and jabbed its sharp corner hard into my open right eye. It only stopped weeping twelve hours later.

And finally, I would like to complain about the ‘Mexican’ food I ate on Saturday, that decided to leave my body with such ferocity that my entire being prolapsed through my bottom. Thank the good lord that Greenbelt happens to have one block of actual real-life toilets, as well as the ten trillion chemical pots scattered about the fields. I did, I confess, have to use the “disabled only” toilet. I really had no choice – it was “disabled only” or “on the floor in front of everyone”. I feel I made the right decision. Until upon leaving I saw a young kid in an enormously complicated electronic wheelchair waiting outside the building. Actually, no – unless his evacuation was as urgent as mine, I think it’s only polite to give up your exclusive cubicle for someone in so much need. Poo. Poo poo poo, lots more mentioning of poo.

Talking of Kieron, today he chanced upon this wondrous blog of games writing prowess.

With the devastating death of the RAM Raider, it’s good to know that we still have Francesco Poli, whose careful misinterpretation of astonishing stupidity for inciteful dialectic provides an encyclopaedia of cutting journalism. He certainly puts us corrupt hacks in our place.

Bravely standing up against the products of useless, untalented, humourless games designers like Tim Schafer, he is the uncontrollably right-wing voice that the world has been looking for.

ITV News has gotten hold of documents and photographs about why the police killed Jean Charles De Menezes on the tube.

The documents and photographs confirm that Jean Charles was not carrying any bags, and was wearing a denim jacket, not a bulky winter coat, as had previously been claimed.

A document describes CCTV footage, which shows Mr de Menezes entered Stockwell station at a “normal walking pace” and descended slowly on an escalator.

A number of people commented when I last wrote about this story, before the details were revealed, and when the story went along the lines of: the police having told him to stop, shouted at him as they chased him through a tube station, where in his heavy bulky coat he ignored their instructions and leapt the barriers.

Some who commented stated that de Menezes deserved what happened to him, citing all the excuses that have now disappeared.

To these people, I ask: please, next time, will you remember this? Will you remember that you were lied to, given little morsels of misinformation that were deliberately designed to play on your prejudices, and enough excuses to not have to face up to the reality of what had happened.

Those morsels are gone now. This is not “I told you so”. This is, please, next time, stop and remember this. Because next time the report probably won’t leak, the truth won’t get out, and the convenient lies will stay in place. As with so many times before.

Currently booking flights for an October jaunt. Checking the travel insurance bits and pieces, I find this:

————-

Before You travel, You should ask yourself the following:

* Do You have any Pre-existing Medical Conditions?
If You have answered ‘Yes’ to the above question, You should telephone 0870 241 0090 for an alternative policy, as this policy does NOT cover any pre existing conditions. (This may also apply to any Close Relative (whether travelling or not), travelling companion, or person with whom You will be staying whilst on Your Trip.
* If You have purchased an Annual Multi-trip Policy, will the duration of any Trip exceed 31 days in respect of Silver cover or 62 days in respect of Gold cover?
* Do You intend to engage in any Winter Sports whilst on Your Trip?
* Do You intend to engage in any sports and activities whilst on Your Trip?
* Do You need the golf cover extension?
* Do You need the business cover extension?

If You have answered ‘Yes’ to any of these questions, or want to check anything before You travel, You should contact Your issuing agent or the Travel Helpline on 0870 737 5863.

IF YOU ARE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING The following number is available for deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired customers who have access to a text telephone: 01444 450 389

————

I’m not entirely sure you actually need to type in capitals for the deaf and hard of hearing to be able to read it.

I’ve tried not to cross-post with my other hooded and cloaked online presence, but this story is too good to write about only once in a day.

Jack Thompson, the US ‘lawyer’ who has spent his entire career attempting to supress expression in the media, has brought himself back up to the tippytop of his desperate fame via the GTA: San Andreas ‘Hot Coffee’ story. Surfing the wash of Hilary Clinton’s reactionary insanity upon the discovery of a mod that allows you to see non-nude, simulated cartoon sex, his idiot-mouthed screeching has ensured there must now be a tedious, and obviously entirely pointless, review of the contents of videogames.

Of course there’s an upside to this. It means that the ever-moronic Thompson will offer up ever more of his spectacularly stupid statements. His pathalogical inability to say anything that doesn’t immediately contradict itself is remarkable. It’s as if an angered gypsy put a curse upon him as a child, and ever since he is incapable of saying a sentence without immediately making a spectacular arse of himself. The recent 80 minute interview with Chatterbox contains some specials. Here are a couple of them:

When discussing Rockstar’s next release, Bully – a game which is alleged to contain simulated bullying, although of course no one claiming this has even seen the game running – he exclaims at the horror of a game that encourages violence saying,

“Somebody ought to grab these nutcases by the lapels.”

Sheer brilliance. But as nothing when compared with possibly the greatest quote of all time:

“There are sociopaths everywhere. Some of them are in government. Some of them are at Take Two. In fact, we’ve got a bunch of sociopaths in Edinburgh, Scotland, sitting around in their kilts, sipping single malt whiskey, spreading racial, hurtful stereotypes in this country.”

If he weren’t a lawyer, I’d call him an ignorant, scaremongering charlatan who should be in jail for contempt of court.

For the longest time I have been trying to articulate my political position in the wake of the events of the last few years. This is not to say that it has changed – it has become more articulate, self-aware and educated, but still essentially stayed in the same place for as far back as I can remember. But as the broadest acceptable title for where I stand, “the left”, increasingly becomes a phrase I fear, what is going on?

‘The left’ now refers to the groups of people who will happily go on “Stop The War” marches co-run by extreme right-wing organisations, explaining that it wasn’t all run by anti-Semitic bodies, so it’s still ok. ‘The left’ now refers to the people who will endorse George Galloway simply because he disagrees with someone they disagree with, and in doing so accept his fondness for spending time with extreme right-wing dictators, and his endorsement of extreme right-wing groups, and his calls for violent actions against others. ‘The left’ runs around screaming “TONY BLIAR MORE LIKE!”, reducing painfully complicated situations down to black and white arguments wherein they label the perceived opponents as the ‘black’, and then seem to think that the ‘white’ requires no definition or identification beyond “not the same as the black”.

That’s not ‘the left’ that I used to think of when I heard the phrase. Perhaps the whole association with the extreme right is the immediate giveaway. And it scares me. Because as New Labour moves to the centre, and obviously the Conservatives keep rushing right, the Liberal Democrats still haven’t figured out what to do with their new-found leftist position, and those on the left who didn’t go with Labour are now acting out on the anger at the betrayal they feel. This anger pushes them to where my friend Martin describes as “around the back of insanity, where they meet up with the extreme rights”.

Articulating this, and the peculiar feeling of standing in the gap left over, looking around and wondering what happend, is pretty disorientating. Somehow the vocabulary of what was previously the left is now perceived to be nu-intolerance. Standing against oppression is only acceptable if it’s perpetrated by the Western world. Which is why it was so utterly bloody fantastic to read this by Nick Cohen:

I still fight oppression