Schadenfreude? I don't think misfortune comes into it

It had to happen! Belief undone by a fatal lack of ability (as well as the most red cards of any team in the league). Especially good to see two of the more intelligent managers, Hodgson and O'Neill, apply the final nails to the coffin.

Pet Shop Boys - Legacy (2009)

"The great thing about pop music is that it makes difficult things sound natural. And anything can be brought into it. It is like a newspaper for the world"

(Neil Tennant, 2009)


Legacy


That's it, the end

But you'll get over it, my friend

Time will pass, governments fall

Glaciers melt, hurricanes bawl

High speed trains, take us away

North or south... and back the same day


And you, you'll get over it

You do, you get over it


Seasons will change, more or less

Species vanish, art perplex

Resentment remains, both east and west

Police expect... an arrest



For now, you'll get over it

Somehow, you'll get over it



You'll be there, the king over the water

In despair, recoiling from the slaughter

They're raising an army, in the North

From York Minster to the Firth of Forth

The pilgrimage of grace, you won't believe it

Such a human face... when you receive it


And you will, get over it

With time to kill, you'll get over it


There's a cruiser waiting, at Scapa Flow

To take you away from all you know

The old man agonized

He really has compromised

Public opinion may not be on your side

There are those who think they've been taken for a ride

You'll get over it, I'm on your side because

You'll get over it, and what a ride it was


Tout les artistes dans le monde

Chantent pour toi ce soir

Tout les artistes dans le monde

Chantent pour toi c'est noir


It's dark, but you'll get over it

On your mark, you'll get over it

That carphone warehouse boy has been on the phone

He wants to upgrade the mobile you own

Have you realized your computer's a spy?

Give him a ring, he'll explain why

The bourgeoisie will get over it

Look at me, I'm so over it

And you, you'll get over it

You do, you'll get over it... in time

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It forms the staggering last gasp of a fine album (no return to form, simply even better than Fundamental); the ante upped, the majesty and wisdom enveloping. This is stately and humanely grandiose as only the Pet Shop Boys can imagine. Those vintage, timeless orchestrations combining beautifully with synth orchestra hits - tolling their greater sadness. Who's he quoting in that opening line? Not him, is it? Elliptical lyric; it must be obvious, but is never hammered home.

A requiem for New Labour, to follow some of his earlier savagings; this casts a rueful eye on 'the legacy' that so obsessed the vain and deluded Blair, unable to assess his own vacuity and transience. The PSBs art is a window on the world, in the old Dennis Potter sense; northern good cheer, imparting some profound truths to modern Britain in 'Love Etc.' - number 1 in a Britain that was ready to turn its back on consumerism rather than merely tepidly express doubts. Britain could make the change but so many have been converted not simply in terms of policy or even behaviour but by the language and assumptions of the market and managerialism.

'Building a Wall' evokes Westall's The Machine-Gunners, Hadrian's Wall, the Cold War, Captain Britain and current fencings-in; perceived via Tennant's recollections of his Gosforth upbringing, the lost, proud provincial England of the 50s / 60s. 'The King of Rome' evokes the majestic melancholy, the chill and the embrace of Behaviour; 'Did You See Me Coming?' makes Johnny Marr matter again (it always takes a Morrissey, Sumner or Tennant to truly do that).

But, 'Legacy', well, it is astounding; a rueful epitaph to a period in our history which may increasingly come to seem bizarre and outlandish - the long, indulgent binge; Brown's quarter-by-quarter short-termism and Blair's increasingly paranoid heeding of the Daily Mail agenda on ID cards, law and order, Europe, foreigners, etc. The betrayal of the north is deeply felt by this County Durham resident Tennant, who never took Mandelson's advice. As is the prescience of "Police expect... an arrest", a grim anticipation of G20 and the many battlegrounds that one senses we are headed for. And the pointed coup de grace of the move into French.

The left-of-centre, articulate heart of Britain resides in the Pet Shop Boys; unfortunately, despite the amount of people who profess that they are heroes, I see scarce evidence (in the open, anyway) that people are actually being influenced or affected by this noble pop art. Such is the fate of those who go against the temper of their times, I suppose; let us hope that it can be turned. Let us make that happen.

'You don't have to be in Who's Who to know what's what'

33. Michael Moorcock - 'The Spencer Inheritance' (1997)

'Bonuses all round,
says Donny Flair
our golden age PM.
Let's give ourselves
A pat on the back.'

(http://www.theedge.abelgratis.co.uk/spencer.htm)

While this story disappointed a little, inevitably in comparison with 'Theatre of War' (and Ballard has surely covered this territory brilliantly), there is much that is, or was, bracingly relevant. The epigraphs to each chapter or section, quoting Diana or reports regarding the media circus, inform a dystopian view of Britain: e.g. '[...] I wonder how they and all the grey men who put her down feel now? The people have spoken.' - Michael Winner, News of the World, September 7th 1997.

There are astonishing bursts of irrationality like this, from Julie Burchill, conflating patriotism with idolatory of Diana, and defining 'us', the people, against 'them', the foreigners, the Greeks and Germans: '. . . The Royal Family often seem to behave in ways which could actually be called unpatriotic, and their denial of Diana, the world's sweetheart, was the biggest betrayal of all. But then, what can you expect from a bunch of Greeks and Germans . . . Her brave, bright, brash life will forever cast a giant shadow over the sickly bunch of bullies who call themselves our ruling house. We'll always remember her, coming home for the last time to us, free at last - the People's Princess, not the Windsors'. . . .We'll never forget her. And neither will they.' - News of the World, September 7, 1997. Moorcock's scholarly selection of these epigraphs is insightful, but they could be more strongly tied to the narrative at times, which has a loose, freewheeling feel about it, in stark contrast to the concise control of a Ballard.

There are pertinent juxtapositions of Diana's professed views on landmines with her role as a martyred figurehead in the internal conflicts of this parallel Britain; and indeed the civil war is depicted in bloody terms, with plenty of descriptions of para-military and indeed military activities.

In terms of Cornelius, this seems to be an exercise in bathos: Jerry cuts a sickly figure in this story, suffering from 'convulsions' and playing little active part. Maybe this is part of Moorcock's subverting of the hero figure in science fiction? One suspects you need a thorough grasp of the character and what he has previously been (in various novels and shorts) to get a full picture of his portrayal here. That might a criticism of Moorcock in that he presumes a familiarity with these characters - maybe the first of my shorts surveyed which requires this sort of awareness of backstory. It can still be enjoyed, but is a curious, slightly distancing read at times.

Jerry does make a crucial comment - 'Long ago [...] Far away. Obsolete ikons. Failed providers. Lost servers. Scarcely an elegy, Miss Scarlett. Hardly worth blacking up for. Government by lowest common denominator. A true market government. Poets have been mourning this century ever since it began.' - which is close to one of the ruefully defeated reflections by the mysterious academic Robinson in Patrick Keiller's diptych encompassing London and Robinson in Space (1994/7), of which I am sure Moorcock is well aware, being a London writer.


Una Persson is a more attractive and proactive figure in the narrative; this chic revolutionary (or terrorist) wouldn't be out of place in a Luke Haines song, being introduced thus: 'Una Persson, stylish as ever in her military coat and dark, divided pants, straddled the fire, warming her hands. Her pale oval face, framed by a brunette pageboy, brooded into the middle distance. 'Don't buy any of that cheap American crap,' she told Major Nye. 'Their tanks fall apart as soon as their own crappy guns start firing. Get a French one, if you can.' '

She is a European anarchist, fashioned from the 60s and 70s, but timeless in herself; she has indeed appeared in several of Moorcock's different books and series': Elizabethan alt-history Gloriana, the Unfulfill'd Queen (1978), the Jerry Cornelius quadrilogy (1968-77), The Dancers at the End of Time (1974-76) , The Nomad of the Time Streams (1971-81), etc. The last of these series fascinatingly is centred around and narrated by Oswald Bastable, one of the Treasure Seekers of Edith Nesbit's 1899 children's novel, and finds roles for Churchill, Enoch Powell and Mick Jagger... a must-read, now that I have finished Donald Barthelme's excellent novel The King (1991), with its depiction of Arthurian myth transplanted to WW2. [finished as of: 17/05/09]

Una is a kind of refraction of that sphere of British music that runs from Roxy Music to the Human League, where things European and avant-garde were utilised. In terms of who might be the ideal Una in a film, Moorcock comments on his Multiverse website's forum, 'There might be one or two suitable actresses, but mine are associated either with US film noir or French nouvelle vague (or thereabouts). Or Beatles Berlin...' Anna Karina, perhaps? Or Jenny Runacre if British? She is clearly portrayed as aware of feminism, reading Meredith's Diana of the Crossways (1885) - Moorcock conveying his love of the forgotten and arcane in literature, as well as liberated, anarchistic women.


Overall, it is a rather ramshackle, freely associating narrative, written in a style that is somehow difficult for me to get used to; definitely an original voice, who I will pursue at longer length - the Nomad series? Critical to understanding it is Jerry's comment: 'But I have a feeling it won't go down too well in the provinces. I'm beginning to think this has been a poor career move. Market forces abhor the unique.'


'Murdering the opposition:
It is a last resort.
He came up that morning
He said
From Scunthorpe or was it Skegness.
You know, don't you?
The last resort.'


7/10