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Eurovision

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Monday, 23 Jan 2023, 13:45

It was a surprise to no one that Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night except maybe Sam Ryder who might have thought he was about to actually win. Hard luck Sam and deepest commiserations, I feel for you!

I don’t believe for a minute Ukraine won, there were many better songs in the contest but to paraphrase Not the 9 O’Clock News, ‘nice propaganda shame about the song’. But in these days of X-Factor style manipulation, CGI, media bias and outright lies who knows what to believe anymore.

And why all the concern for Ukraine? There’s been a war raging in Yemen for years and not a word about it, or anyone from the celebrity circus of the dire and meaningless showing up to support the downtrodden over there. But then it all depends on where the interests of the military/industrial complex lie doesn’t it, and who they own.

Formula 1 cancelled Sochi this year but were happy enough to go to Saudi Arabia, that bastion of freedom and social justice, and Australia, who were only outdone in lockdown tyranny by China. And, again, the silence was deafening from the world of entertainment. Who would have thought that Right Said Fred would have been the most vocal advocates for freedom and at the forefront of the anti-lockdown/mask/forced jab tyranny of the last 2 years? Not a word from Bono, Geldof, Sting, Paul Weller or Bruce Springsteen, all those fake grandstanders for freedom and justice, what a bunch of hypocrites and champagne socialists!

Surely cringiest moment of the year has to be Bono singing ‘Stand by Ukraine’ to the tune of Stand By Me, and in one foul moment desecrating, not only one of the great classics of the Motown era, but my love for it as well. I’ll never be able to listen to it again without seeing that self-righteous prick squawking along – some things are unforgivable, these people have no shame! Isn’t it strange too that all these celebrities can just pop over for a visit to a deadly war zone and not even a helmet or flak jacket needed for protection!! Hmmm…never a sniper around when you need one!

The sad thing about all this manipulation is that the genuinely talented and deserving get nowhere. Imagine if you were one of the other contestants on Saturday night; you put in all that effort, you possibly wrote the song, like Sam, learned it, practiced it and put yourself forward for selection, worked for months in preparation and, then, propaganda wars takes over and all your effort is rendered meaningless.

The same thing is happening in women’s sport. All those years of training and then some bloke with an overdose of oestrogen and a fake pair of tits comes in and takes it all away. Women’s sport is going to be wiped out because biological women cannot compete against biological male athletes. The physical differences that happen in puberty are irreversible and it is not possible to make a male a female regardless of how many hormones/suppressants they take or what they identify as. See link below.

All this so-called ‘social justice’ has a down side and it started with the ‘everyone’ gets a medal’ that killed off the school sports day. Jordan Peterson, in one of his lectures, talks about killing the spirit of a child and that the quickest way to do it is to put down their behaviour/effort when they are doing well. Isn’t that just what is happening here? Imagine the disappointment the child who was good at sports and who actually won the race must have felt. So what if poor little Johnny cried because he lost! Life is not always about winning and the sooner he learns to cope with loss and failure the better his life will be, a bit of adversity can build character.

Gone are the days when your abilities, skills and talents mattered as you strived for excellence in something. These things don’t matter in the world of social justice, the only thing that matters now is the content of your underwear, or your sexual preferences, or how many boxes you can tick for the neo-liberal fascist brigade. As noted in Jen Psaki’s replacement in the Biden administration:

Female – check,

Black – check,

Immigrant – check…the job’s yours. You’re not gay too are you, or feel a bit manly?

No,

Ok, pity though, we could have checked another box or two!

The other downside to this is that when you put people in positions based on a social justice box tick, and not on actual merit then, inevitably, there will be failure. Just look at the political leadership across the globe. How many of them are there because of their talents? You don’t have to delve too far into their history to see that they are all hand-picked for who they are and not what they can do. Justin Trudeau is where he is because of his father, a former Premier of Canada. Emmanuel Macron worked for the Rothschild’s before launching, or being launched, into politics. Jacinda Ardern graduated along with the likes of Tony Blair from the WEF’s young global leadership programme. See link below, you’ll note a few familiar names there.

But in all the shouting for ‘social justice’ I haven’t heard a mention of nepotism or connection to the upper classes and moneyed rich. British politics and all those top civil service jobs are all filled with graduates from Oxbridge who came up through the public school system. The ‘Old Boys Network’ is still going strong and not a word about the advantages mummy and daddy’s money and connections bought for their offspring. Nor has there been much about how the rich own and control everything already, or when the rules these governments enforced on the rest of us over covid, did not apply to them because when you have a private jet you can go anywhere, at any time, without restriction, or party at your leisure like Boris and the rest of them.

When ‘everyone gets a medal’ it undermines those who excel and kills off their reason for trying, why bother training, studying, acquiring a skill when someone with no training, no effort and no skills can walk in and take away all that you have worked hard for.

The 1960’s were a golden age in Britain, social mobility was at its highest, Britain led the world in industry, music and art, and it held the promise of a more equitable future. The working classes were better off than ever and had a strong voice that was finally being heard. It was the generations who remember those times that voted for Brexit because they saw how much their country had declined since joining the Common Market/EU and finally had the chance to stop the rot.

The Eurovison song contest which also began back in the 1960’s was one of those shows that the whole family used to gather around the TV to watch and see if you could pick the winner, like the Miss World Contest, before the feminist rabble intervened and killed it off. It was fun, a bit of harmless entertainment that everyone could enjoy. God forbid you try to have some fun now when cancel culture rules and the self-righteous and humourless are in charge!

Most of the social justice warriors/neo-liberal fascists are not even aware that they are just pawns in a rich man’s game, designed to keep us down and fighting amongst ourselves while they, quite literally, get away with murder. The stresses of the last two years have left us all fatigued and stressed, the world has been turned upside down and the lunatics are still in charge. It feels overwhelming.

And yet it is in the world of art and entertainment that I see hope. Artistic types have to be able to create and seldom fit into a one size fits all, homogenous, characterless world where you are not allowed to have fun, disagree and ‘MUST FOLLOW ZE RULES AT ALL TIMES!!’

The Sex Pistols have re-released God Save the Queen, just in time for the Jubilee (links below and a few more for the fun of it!) It is good to see that the spirit of punk is still alive and well. Stick it to them Johnny! While It may appear that the ‘elites’ have it all going their way at present, they control politics, the media and the corporate world but no one gets to have it all their way, all the time, forever. Change will come, people are waking up and the pendulum will eventually swing back the other way. I just hope it will be sooner rather than later so that the ‘architect’s’ of the present mess can be held to account. But, in the meantime, just to try and speed things along, you can always introduce your children/grandchildren to the Sex Pistols and see if we can inspire a new generation to bring on the Anarchy! Altogether now! I am an anti-Christ, I am an anar-chist…

Transgender women in female sport: why biology matters (sportsperformancebulletin.com)

World Economic Forum’s “Young Global Leaders” Revealed | Covert Geopolitics

Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen - YouTube

The Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The U.K (official video) - YouTube

Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant - YouTube



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Weddin

Bohemian Rhapsody

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Edited by Aideen Devine, Sunday, 11 Oct 2020, 09:43

Is this the real life, is this just fantasy...and many a day I spent, back in my teenage years, gazing out the classroom window, watching the sky as clouds contorted and rolled over Croaghan Hill, the ever-changing light, adding depth and detail to the broad vista of the town below while fantasizing about (among others!) Freddie Mercury.  Completely unaware at that stage of his sexual preferences, although, even when I did become aware, I still fantasised that he was only gay because he had never met me!  After all, we had so much in common, he liked opera and ballet and so did I, and he also loved to play Scrabble, my favourite board game!

Bowie and Zeppelin were my first loves in music and I had been introduced to them through my oldest brother but Queen, I discovered and fell in love with, all on my own.  I still remember the night at St Colman's disco when I first heard Seven Seas of Rhye, Now I'm Here and of course, Killer Queen.  I also remember, only too well, the announcement of his death and how I cried that miserable Monday morning in November.  So, with my heart on my sleeve, I ventured forth tonight to see if justice had been done to my beloved Freddie, in the movie, Bohemian Rhapsody. 

The movie tells us about the early days of the band and their rise to fame.  It reveals more about the background of Freddie's life than the other members but there wasn't anything in it that I hadn't read or heard about before, from his long term friendship with Mary Austin to his, shall we say, adventurous party lifestyle.  

 As a Queen fan, I loved it!  I had forgotten just what a tour de force Freddie Mercury was on stage! What a showman, artistic and outrageous, unique and dynamic! I wanted to sing along! I wanted to stamp my feet and clap my hands to We Will Rock You!  I wanted to stand in the crowd at Live Aid and cheer and sing and drink in every second of that heart-storming performance, made more poignant when we realise he had just been diagnosed with Aids, and I'm not the least bit embarrassed to admit a few tears were shed.  Ah, Freddie!  We'll never see your like again, unfortunately!  

When the film ended, no one wanted to leave, conversations were struck up with strangers in order to delay the inevitable as fans and new fans discussed the merits of Mr Mercury et al.  Those of us old enough to remember relived those moments in our lives when the music of Queen provided the soundtrack and helped to cement those memories in our hearts and minds.  Many vowed to come back and see it again and next time, we will stamp our feet and clap our hands!

In the daily grind of life, we sometimes forget those great moments in life.  Times when our hearts soared, when the sheer joy of a performance or piece of music lifted and inspired us, reminded us that there was more to life, that there could be better days or better ways of living if we just had the courage to reach out for it.  I remember 1985,  I remember Live Aid and how unhappy I was with my life at that time.  I also remember vowing to change it and the following year I ended my marriage and even though I had a tough few years after it, it's a decision I've never regretted. 

I haven't listened to music much in the last few years even though I still have all my albums and CD's.  I seem to have settled (or been driven?!) into a sort of musical doldrums, I put away Queen and the Sex Pistols, Billy Idol and all those others who sent my heart soaring and my pulse racing, those powerhouses of my youth who didn't compromise or apologise for being exactly who they were and screw everyone who didn't like it!  

In the apparent misery of the world today, as controlled and promoted by the media, we are fed a daily diet of fear, propaganda and paranoia.  We have forgotten that music used to be a way to stick it to the man, a way to upset the establishment and inspire revolt and rebellion.  Nowadays, everybody is so busy trying to display their liberal principles, demonstrating to the world how open-minded they are, how welcoming, all kumbaya and political correctness, anxious to be good citizens, terrified of change with a soundtrack so bland, sanitised and nonthreatening that we're being lulled into a permanent state of brain-deadness and musical easy-listening (which used to be the most insulting thing you could say about someone's musical taste!).  Now we have music giants like Ed Sheeren with all the charisma of cold rice pudding, perfect for the snowflake generation and political cowards like (punk?) Bob Geldof who turned coat and now kisses the asses of the establishment.  'Oh, we're better together,' 'Oh, we need to save the planet', 'Oh, we can't listen to someone who might disagree with us because we're so easily offended', 'Oh those nasty Brexiteers have taken away our future'.  Blah, whine, blah!  

It speaks volumes for how weak and insipid we have become that the most rebellious voice in politics today is Jacob Rees-Mogg!  My God!  What happened to us?? We were the punk generation, when did we roll over, give up and play brain dead? 

Well, I'm not giving up and thank you Bohemian Rhapsody for getting my blood pumping again, I'm going make it a point to listen to Queen, the Sex Pistols and Billy Idol at least once every month because I need those reminders.  We all need those reminders, to remember who we were, when we had a fire in our bellies and weren't afraid to speak up and speak out.  Remember our youth, when it was normal to challenge the status quo and defy the authorities instead of cowering in a permanent state of anxiety, too terrified to stand out or stand up and go against the crowd even when we're being sold out!  Maybe it's time to get out those old tunes, crank the volume up and let chaos reign for a while, be a rebel, disagree with your friends, be offensive, challenge everything you are being told and be a bit like Freddie, strutting, confident, belting it out at volume, the shy man who was a God on stage, and who knows what might happen if we let that fire burn again...ROCK ON!


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