HEATWAVE REPORT

Until today, the heatwave was pretty crap here in Birmingham. The weather succeeded in being very wet, dull and muggy, which is all the bad stuff about a heatwave with none of the good. It is very odd to drive to work in fog and then have to run to the office from the car being pelted with rain harder than pebbles and hotter than my morning shower.

Today was an improvement. It was actually sunny and it was heartening to see sunrays bounce off those cars - my office overlooks a carpark, which is alright, but I'd prefer a lake or the ocean maybe. I didn't actually get to experience the sun until I got home at 6pm. It's a very sad thing only to get to look at sunlight and not actually be in it.

I note that the year Wimbledon gets a rain-proof roof-thingy, it turns out to be hot and sunny. Ha! Weather has sense of humour.

WE'RE HAVING A HEATWAVE!

Seriously! Britain is going to string together several days of hot weather this week!

Broken up with a bit of rain and stuff.

Reported in the Guardian here with a headline about a teenager being struck by lightening, which is not the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about a heatwave, but it'll do.

To celebrate (the hot weather, not the lightening strike) here's the Muppets singing Tropical Heatwave.

HADLEY FREEMAN v MICHAEL JACKSON

Hadley Freeman tries to make a case for why we shouldn't show collective grief about the death of Michael Jackson, because such a thing just leads to "false emotion".

Poor love, she can't differentiate between how people might genuinely feel about the death of a uniquely talented global superstar, and how the media will report it. But not to worry - I think we can learn something from her poorly argued and ill-timed article just the same.

As Hadley is so very scornful of "collective grief", I think that when she shuffles off her mortal coil we should take every care not to do anything that could lead us to this same "false emotion".

I think, when that Big Event happens, that the radio, TV stations and newspapers the world over should just ignore Hadley Freeman's sad passing. I don't think we should give her death any newspaper headlines. I don't think we should spontaneously collect in small groups and chant together her many unforgettable newspaper musings. Radio stations should not devote hours to her talent. We should not make any tributes to her on social networking sites. It would all just be so false, wouldn't it?

Much as I am sure the planet will heave with grief over her loss, I don't think we should get hysterical because clearly she would not want us to.

Certainly, any obituary written should not mention her genius. She did, after all, shag Piers Morgan* and so any celebration of her astounding talent for writing bits of irrelevant stuff in an on-line newspaper would seem a little strange, if not dishonest.

No, I really think that when Hadley Freeman passes away, we should just forget her.**

* No she didn't. Hadley Freeman has never even met Piers Morgan.
** On reflection, bit harsh. Now that I know she didn't shag Piers Morgan she should definitely get an obituary in the broadsheets.

MICHAEL JACKSON: WHAT A TALENT

Performing Billie Jean, live, 1983

R.I.P.

IRAN

If anybody is still bleating on about lack of civil liberties in the UK, then Scribbles would like them to look at what is happening in Iran and shut the fuck up.

TERMINATOR SALVATION: THE WORLD IN 2018

Scribbles is heartened to be able to report that in post-apocalyptic 2018, women still wear make-up and have long glossy hair. It is good to know that Frizz Ease survives nuclear blasts. I think it's important to keep some standards, even if you're losing the desperate fight against a global war to prevent the termination of the human race.

Also, in 2018 people no longer swear. Not even when a great big bloody scary terminating machine creeps up and scares the shit out of you. In a world where humans are crushed, enslaved, hunted down and made to live like rats in sewers, nobody utters a single "fuck". This is progress of sorts, I would say.

GONE WITH THE RAIN

I had no time to record it on this blog, but I would like to mention for the benefit of readers who do not live in the UK, that for four days (count 'em! Four!) last week the sun absolutely beat it down in the UK and the British experienced a spell of continuous natural heat. For at least three of those days I didn't even think twice about taking a coat out with me. I had to put on sun cream. I was so proud. Britain could still do weather with the best of 'em!

Since then of course it has pissed it down non stop. And it's going to carry on pissing it down for the next week. The electric heaters have gone back on in the office and I am back to wearing jumpers and my long waterproof coat with convenient hood.

I've noticed that it is psychological painful to have to wear winter clothes at this time of year. I yearn to put the sandals on and don pretty tops. I yearn. Like a horse tied up in a stall who wants to be let free to frolic in the fields, all my natural instincts are being thwarted. Whatever it is inside that makes me feel like a woman, it's not having its needs met.

Which reminds me of the article that Julie Bindle wrote in the Guardian recently, my first brush with makeup, in which she states, "I became a lesbian aged 15 and therefore have never experienced the "need" to dress for boys or men." I don't know which puzzles me more, the bit were she "became" a lesbian like it was nothing more than choice, or the bit where she suggests that makeup is merely about women wanting to please the boys.

I wonder if those women in Afghanistan who, at risk of being beaten if discovered, wore makeup under their burkas, knew that they were doing it for the men?

I also wonder if male heterosexual cross-dressers know that too? Those men who risk ridicule, and quite possibly their life as they know it, to fulfill a need to put on wigs and wear high heels and dresses, and cover their face in slap? Do they know they do it for other men?

No! The need to express femininity by painting the face in chemicals and staggering about it uncomfortable but fashionable clothes is something very sacred that sits deep in the female (and sometimes the male) physche. It may very well have its evolutionary beginnings in the need to attract a mate and get a shag in order to procreate, but it remains one of the basic instincts rather than some superficial and superfluous need by modern day women to please their masters.

I dare say I do not speak for all women. Not every woman needs to express of feminine side, but those of us who do know that something like a dress offers the promise of a life that is deliciously removed from the pressures of every day, the repetitiveness of routine, the need to be somewhere, do something, that makes up so much of our time, and transports you instead to something far more enjoyable and gracious. It allows you to dream, to slow down - to be girlish, even.

I want to dream! I need my dress fix God damn it! Red lipstick can only fulfill a girl's needs so far!

As God is my witness, as God is my witness I'm going to live through this rain and when it's all over, I'll never wear jumpers again this summer! If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill! As God is my witness, I will wear a dress this summer.

After all, tomorrow is another day. And it might be sunny.

LABOUR AND THE PHANTOM PHONE CALL

I was cooking tea the other evening (gnocchi in ricotta and spinach, as you ask) when the phone rang. When I answered it was a recorded message of a soap actress telling me how important it was that I cast my vote for Labour in the forthcoming European elections.

I was a bit spooked to be honest, not because of the message, but because I was thinking it was a bit weird receiving a phone call from someone who I was pretty sure had died. I kept thinking how hearing a voice from beyond the grave was slightly blotting out the message about voting.

Anyway, right at the end of the call, I realised I was listening to the woman who used to play Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street, and it was her character that had died, not the actress. And anyway, I had mixed her up with Wendy Craig, who used to play Pauline Fowler in Eastenders, who had died of cancer around the same time as Jade Goody. The Pauline Fowler character had also died.

There was a certain synergy with the confusion I felt over that call with how I feel about Labour these days. I'm listening to Labour but I can't work out who they are or whether they are still alive.

I always thought Labour would regret getting rid of Blair, but even I couldn't have guessed just how much. Downing Street just hasn't been working under Brown's leadership, we've lost the narrative arch of policy and the press run rings around us. This is Brown's fault. All his fault. Yes, he has had the downturn in the economy to contend with, but Blair kicked off two wars and still managed to set all the agendas. Brown treats his back benchers like rags to polish his ego, making them do things like vote for indefensible counter terrorism bill with its inexplicable and shameful 42 day detention plan, and he has revenge attacks, briefing against talented Ministers and damaging the party because he's been personally affronted by them in some way. Or because they don't have penises, one or the other.

And yet, you know, I don't think Labour is dead. There is still something about Brown that makes me want to believe. I am still willing him to break out of the Gang of Knobs who have surrounded him since he became PM and start to listen to the party members and begin to trust his instinct. I can't believe he thought it felt right to do a Youtube shoot, I can't. He's a good man, he just fell in with the wrong crowd. The spirit of Labour is still there, it just needs the PM to be the man we all know he can be and stop freaking grinning.

I choose to believe at the moment then that Brown's Labour Party is not merely a phantom party that died on Blair's departure, but alive and working. Brown and Co had better start to make themselves look solid soon though because people can't vote for a party that isn't there - as the European elections have taught us.

STAR TREK: REBOOTED

Saw the new Star Trek film. Do like a good bit of sci fi. Thought was most excellent film. I have never been in space and watched space ship battles, but I feel like I have because it all looked so believable. Space has never looked so cold and beautiful and deadly. It was like watching moving art.

The spirit of the film however is in the tradition of Start Trek, examining moral dilemmas but with a twinkle in its eye. I perhaps could have done without the Scotty-in-the-water-tube scene, but otherwise the humour was subtle and unannounced.

The new James T Kirk was a little pervy, but then he is still a baby. Scribbles sincerely hopes he moves quickly in future films towards the William Shatner's James, although she's worried no one can quite do confidant-affability-with-a-knowing-and-sexy-smile quite like our Bill.

The screen however absolutely belonged to the new Spock. It lurved him. The fight inside Spock between his human passions and his Vulcan rationality was deftly conveyed here and there with an understated body posture or flash of an eye. He managed to be sexier than James T Kirk, which I'm guessing is something you wouldn't be able to imagine until you've see the film.

All the pieces are now in place. Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Simon Pegg doing us Brits proud as Scotty. Star Trek polished up and ready to boldy go blah blah blah ...

DEATH AND SUMMER

Summer is on its way I see.

I can tell this not just because it was so hot this weekend I was painting garden furniture wearing pants and a t-shirt, but also because the TV News is full of stories about skin cancer and people drowning in pools.