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Issue #109. August 5th - August 18th, 2005 The Night shift
The Light Bulb
This Place Is Famous
Shooting to Kill
Record review #1: Clayhill (Acoustic Album)
Record review #2: The Young Tradition (Northern Drive - Album)
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The Night Shift I knew something wasn't quite right when I heard Carl in the classroom adjacent to mine arguing with his students about the present continuous, and then something shattered against the wall and my students looked to me as if to say "what the hell are we doing here?" and I looked at them in pretty much the same way and then Carl came tumbling through the door with a salaryman in a headlock and he was slapping the top of his wearied head yelling "present perfect, fuckass, thats present perfect!" and my students just sat there and then the bell went a-ring-a-ring-a-ring mercifully and that, as they say, was that. Carl was my best friend here. I called him Slippers because one day, when we were leaving the office, heading first into the elevator, then through the gaudy shopping centre, into the neon Osaka metropolis, well one day he forgot to take his work slippers off. So he had on an expensive double-breasted Italian suit, an equally expensive English woolen overcoat, and a pair of 99 yen slippers that were given to us all on our first day at the company. 'Work slippers' sounds almost contradictory, but these were the rules- you wear one set of shoes for outside in Japan, and a pair of slippers for inside. The night shift, as you may already have gathered, was crazy. Teachers need to be of a certain disposition to work it. You need either to be a vampire, or to have worked in a previous life as a call-girl or casino girl, to be an insomniac, or to be desparately short of cash to work it. I fell somewhere between the insomniac and the pauper. Likewise, the students were of an equally suspect disposition. Usually they were drunk, or university students, or were looking for a way out of the pre-ordained role Japanese society bestowed upon them, or a combination of them all. Sometimes you would be in the middle of a lesson, and a student would merely excuse themselves with a nod of the head and never return. At the end of the lesson you would go to the toilet and find said student either asleep on the toilet, or on their knees over a toilet basin or, on occasion, asleep at the sink with the cold tap running. This was the way of the world. We were all going to hell and we'd make sure something happened on the way to it. Girls were a problem for Carl and I. About 50% of the time, we'd turn up to teach either hungover or still drunk. As I said, you need to be of a certain, special disposition to get through this. Our first one or two lessons of the night usually contained university students or bored housewives. We'd get ourselves into all sorts of situations. We never realised what we were doing and I'm not sure that, even if we had, we would have changed what we did. Classes would overrun, and we'd pray for a no-show (when no students at all turn up- it DID happen) and when said no-show occurred, if there were no bored housewives or pretty university students, then we would nip to the nearest Lawsons, grab a bottle of Black Nikka, and wile away the time dreaming of a past that never happened and a future that never would. The company noticed that, not surprisingly, between the hours of 3am and 5am, very few, if any, students were taking lessons. Rather than spending money promoting this particular timeslot, they decided to save money by introducing an unpaid, two hour break. This meant that we would have two hours to do...nothing. Or something. Carl and I decided to do something. Our something involved Absinthe, Jaegermeister, Kirin, and one of the plethora of clubs in Osaka whose particular peak time happened to be between the hours of 3am and 5am. The last lesson would finish at 1.50am and, with the briefest of goodbyes, we'd be on our way, hustling past the drunken salarymen and the bearded homeless carrying a thousand empty tins on a two wheel bicycle, past the dark suited boys with the highlighted locks, and nothing's ever going to get our way as we pass the prostitutes that gather outside our favourite club and Keiko meets us with that sweet demure smile and we say Kirin and Jaegermeister and Kirin and Jaegermeister and go on then hit us with the Absinthe and another beer to wash it down and Carl hollers CUBA LIBRA which is fine by me, and the girls the girls and how long have we got and the girls and there's Gareth and GARETH! who's that with you and there's Neil and Canadian Ian and how long have we got how long have we got? and I know it's a crazy life and what am I to do about this crazy genki girl who won't leave me alone and are you ready to run are you ready to run are you READY? Staggering back, running in zig-zags, sweat staining our suits and alcohol pummeling our brains and we make it back, not sure what we will teach or how we will teach it and we get back, begin our classes, not caring if its right or wrong.
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The Light Bulb It started as a pub conversation about boring things and what we can endure - and it became a bet - or at least a point to prove. He wasted no time. As soon as he got home he cleaned out the box room and left in it only a chair and a small table. And he removed the light shade and unscrewed the fitting and lowered the flex from the ceiling until it was level with his eyes. Then he turned the light on and sat down, and stared at it, unblinkingly. She discovered him in the morning - still sitting in the same place, still not blinking. She tried to get him to explain, but all he could say was that he was doing it for her. He smiled proudly as he said it, but he didn't take his eyes off the bulb. She just thought it was a weird joke and left for work. But that night when she returned he was the same and as the days went by she couldn't just ignore it. She tried everything to make him stop. She cooked him beautiful meals, but he ate them at the table with his eyes fixed on the light. She turned the light off, but he just laughed and sidled over to the switch to turn it back on - all the while keeping his eyes fixed exactly on the bulb. She tried shouting, cajoling, hitting and crying, but none of it was any use. And in the end she just ran out of options and told him that she was leaving him. He was distraught. He turned his head from the bulb and looked at her. Her eyes were red from the tears and his were red from the light. "But I'm doing this for you!" he protested. This made her weep uncontrollably and he put his arms around her and tried to calm her. He promised that he was finished staring at the bulb and he would be there for her from now on. After a couple of hours she was calmer and, exhausted, they collapsed into bed. When she awoke it was dark and she wasn't sure at first where she was, but she slowly realised that she was in her own bed. She couldn't work out what was wrong at first. And then she realised that there shouldn't be this space beside her - not tonight - not anymore. She got up and her feet took her automatically to the box room. She looked in and saw him there - staring at the bulb. He realised that she was watching and smiled lovingly without turning his head. "I'm doing it for you," he said. She left that morning. And it felt good - in the weeks, months and years that followed - to be free of the burden. Sometimes she felt the symptoms and the pressure before she realised that it was all in the past. The realisation never failed to give her a lift. It was a little like flying she thought.
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This Place is Famous "This place is famous" you said "Oh." I said. It looked like any other greasy spoon to me. "Yes, all the film stars come here." You had thought I had said oh? With a question mark. I looked at you. You were waiting for me to be impressed. On the whole film stars don't impress me though. I mean some are ok, some are even good, but generally speaking the people I'd most like to meet are the writers. The people with the imagination, the people who invented the make believe. I didn't think they would come to a place like this, but you were still waiting for me to be impressed, so I smiled and nodded. We sat down at table which wobbled. "That is what the film stars like" you said. "Authenticity". "Mmmm" I said, without really thinking. I looked out of the window at the shabby grey street and wondered whether film stars really came here. I didn't think I would if I was a film star. If I was a film star I'd go a small sea side café and wear dark glasses and a head scarf. I'd drink strong coffee and peer at the world intensely, looking for symbolism in the way the seagulls swirled and waves crashed against the shore. But I'm not a film star so instead I watched black cabs and red buses. As I was watching out of the window, I noticed a scruffy looking man peer back in. He put his hands in his pocket and pulled out a handful of change. If this had been a film there would have only been one chair left in the café and it would have been at our table. He would have boldly come over to us and said: "It is awfully busy in here. Do you mind if I sit there?" And we would have been obliged to say "no not at all". Then the camera would zoom into his face, focussing on the grit and the dirt and the scars, and maybe a bit of dried up saliva around his mouth, before swinging back to us squirming uncomfortably in our seats. Before long though you would see us all relaxing because he would start talking, and we would laugh at his jokes and learn vital bits about ourselves that we'd only really understand 40 minutes later as the credits would roll up the screen. But it wasn't a film so what happened was a polite young waiter approached him as he stepped through the door and spoke quietly but firmly and the man turned away. Film stars obviously don't like that much authenticity I thought to myself. So we ate our bacon butties without learning anything vital about ourselves and drank tea out of cups which I noticed were chipped, and asked for the bill. The polite young waiter brought it over with a smile, and I looked at it with astonishment. "This place is amazing" I said to you. Finally, I was impressed. I was impressed that anyone had the nerve to charge such ridiculous prices.
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Shooting to Kill The shooting of a Brazilian man mistaken for a suicide bomber by police in London has revealed that the British police are operating a shoot-to-kill policy and led to a debate about whether this policy is justified. Many people naturally believed that the police would not have shot Jean de Menezes unless they had good reason to believe he could be a potential suicide bomber. It has since been revealed that their initial reason for following him was that they had evidence collected from the bombers’ backpacks linked to the block of flats he was staying in. This was reported in some newspapers (presumably because of the way the police had phrased this in press conferences or briefings) as a link between ‘the address he was staying at’ and the bombers. So the police suspected him on the basis that he lived in the same block of flats that one of the attempted suicide bombers in the failed July 21st attacks may have stayed in. Can anyone living in the same block of flats that a bomber once stayed in really be considered a suspect ? They haven't given any details of what kind of evidence they had as a ink either. There is also no explanation of why police who followed Mr de Menezes from his flat allowed him to get onto a bus to travel to the underground station where they shot him despite the fact that buses had been targeted in both the July 7th attacks and the failed July 21st attempted attacks. The fact that De Menezes was wearing a ‘large coat’ has also been given as a reason , and it has been claimed that he jumped over the ticket barrier when challenged by police. Both points have been disputed by Jean’s family who claim that on the day police told them he was wearing a ‘jeans jacket’ or denim jacket and used his travel card as normal. What we know of the police’s reasons for targeting Mr Menezes come from explanations given by the police for suspecting Mr Menezes and from guidelines on preventing suicide bombings issued by the International Association of Chief Police Officers two weeks before the shooting. These guidelines make sense but also tell police to watch for people wearing unusual clothing , praying, using strong deodorants or perfumes , avoiding making eye contact and other minor factors that could indicate someone is a suicide bomber – but alone certainly don’t. Many of these guidelines show that those who drew them up had a great deal of knowledge or experience of dealing with suicide bombings to draw on. However the guidelines recommend a shoot to kill policy against suspected suicide bombers. The killing of Jean de Menezes seems to show that the police don’t have enough solid information or evidence to know who is a potential suicide bomber. They killed someone who merely ‘acted suspiciously’ by refusing to halt when ordered to. The men who ordered him to stop were plain clothes police and it may well be that he ran because he feared being deported from Britain. The Home Office claim that the stamp on his passport was forged. Even if this is true it would only mean that continuing a shoot to kill policy would be likely to result in many more people who are no threat to anyone being killed for running from police when they are guilty of nothing more than having an expired work visa or a forged passport. The people we are meant to be able to trust to protect us become people we feel we have to fear at the same time. To prevent more attacks and more deaths the police need information on potential bombers. Without more information it’s more likely that the police will accidentally shoot innocent people than that they’ll manage to prevent suicide bombings. That doesn’t make us safer – it just adds another threat. To get that information they need the trust of the communities from which suicide bombers come. These include Muslims, asylum seekers and people born in Britain. Richard Reid for instance – the attempted ‘shoe bomber’ was born and grew up in Britain. If you saw someone you thought was acting suspiciously would you be more likely to report it if you know that if you are wrong it might still end with that person being killed by the police? Will people be more likely to trust the police enough to go to them after Sir Ian Blair, the head of the Metropolitan Police, has said the shoot-to-kill policy will continue and admitted that more mistaken shootings of people who turn out to be innocent are likely to happen? A shoot to kill policy is meant to make us safer from terrorist attacks. Instead it adds the fear of being mistakenly killed by police to the fear of being killed by terrorists and starves the police of the information they need to stop the real bombers carrying out more attacks.
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