Don't Vote UKIP

(I originally wrote this on my personal Facebook wall in the run up to the 2014 European Parliament elections.)

I am worried about UKIP's popularity. I am worried that people are actually going to vote for them. I've thought for awhile that voting for UKIP was a bad idea, but was also aware of my own ignorance of the situation. I thought that there might be something other than lie-filled propaganda fuelling their popularity.

Not any more. I am now absolutely certain that voting UKIP is a really, really bad idea.

UKIP's MEPs have a track record of not turning up to work, and not voting in Britain's interests, despite being paid £60,000 per year to do so. Voting for UKIP is a vote for lazy, apathetic workers who don't turn up. The sort of workers who would get sacked very quickly. As an MEP, they can't get Britain out of the EU, and they don't even bother to make the EU better for Britain, presumably so they have more to complain about in their propaganda.

The EU allows us to travel, to study, to work, to settle anywhere within it. A lot of British people do this. EU immigration works both ways. Importing and exporting is made a lot easier. We are a country reliant on imports. Britain's position in the EU is better than that of many EU countries. We've kept the pound; we have greater control over our economy. We are one of the strongest countries within it. The benefits of EU membership vastly outweigh its costs. It is in Britain's interest to stay in the EU; it is in the EU's interest to keep us in it.

Sure, our position could be improved, and its the job of competent (i.e. not UKIP) MEP's to sort that out. MEPs that turn up to work.

UKIP clearly have their own sinister agenda. Their propaganda presents the idea of leaving an internationally agreed human rights convention as a good thing. WHO READS THAT WITHOUT ALARMS GOING OFF? Who reads that and thinks 'Too right; I don't want my government accountable for human rights abuses'? They focus on the right of prisoners to vote, and suggest that this is an awful thing, presumably hoping for an emotional reaction to the idea that murderers and rapists can vote. The right of prisoners to vote is a safeguard against political oppression. Take it away and a government can imprison its opponents and stay in power. Take it away and we could become a dictatorship very quickly. We might get angry at the idea of a murderer being able to vote, but I'd rather that than live under a dictatorship. It might be a fairly ineffectual safeguard, but I can see why it's there.

I'm worried about the rise of UKIP. I really hope it's just a phase.

I don't align myself with any political party; I don't know who I'll be voting for on 22nd May, only that it won't be UKIP or BNP.

After having wandered round a decent chunk of the world, I now get annoyed at the idea of not voting when we live in a country where we can actually change who makes the decisions. We might not be particularly fond of any of them, but we can choose the ones that we think are least shit.
Laos is a 'democratic republic' with one political party. And a midnight curfew.

Use your vote.

And for fuck's sake, don't vote UKIP.

'Riddley Walker' by Russell Hoban

I have read a lot of science fiction, so it is becoming increasingly difficult to find science fiction novels that wow me like the genre once did. For the past few weeks I have been enjoying 'Riddley Walker' by Russell Hoban, which is the best SF novel I have read since February last year*. It has taken so long to read because the whole book is written in a made up version of English.

'How cud any 1 not want to get that shyning Power back from time back way back? How cud any 1 not want to be like them what had boats in the air and picters in the wind? How cud any 1 not want to see them shyning weals terning?'

Riddley Walker, the novel's eponymous narrator, lives an unspecified length of time in the future in post-apocalyptic Kent, where technology has regressed to Iron Age levels. Riddley tells us his story, records some of his people's folklore, and provides a copy of the one ancient text shared by the various tribes: 'The Eusa Story', which tells of how Eusa, with the aid of Mr Clevver, shrunk himself down and found a little man called Addom, who he accidentally split in half while interrogating to discover the secrets of the universe. 'The Eusa Story' is written in a more archaic dialect of fictional post-apocalyptic English:

'Owt uv that 2 peaces uv the Littl Shynin Man the Addom thayr cum shyningness in wayvs in spredin circels. Wivverin & wayverin & humin with a hy soun. Lytin up the dark wud... Bad Tym it wuz then. Peapl din no if they wud be alyv 1 day to the nex. Din even no if thayd be alyv 1 min tu the nex. Sum stuk tu gether sum din. Sum tyms thay dru lots. Sum got et so uthers cud liv. Cudn be shur of nuthing din no wut wuz sayf tu eat or drink & tryin tu keep wyd uv uther forajers & dogs it wuz nuthing onle Luck if enne 1 stayd alyv.'

'Riddley Walker' was first published in 1980, so it pre-dates textspeak and the internet. Perhaps the last few decades, with their lols and m8s and rofls, have detracted from the inventiveness of Hoban's Riddleyspeak. I think it shows that Hoban was extremely prescient: we have already seen English head in Riddley's direction. Hoban says in the afterword: 'Riddleyspeak is only a breaking down and twisting of standard English, so the reader who sounds out the words and uses a little imagination ought to be able to understand it. Technically it works well with the story because it slows the reader down to Riddley's rate of comprehension.' By forcing you to read it slowly, as you decipher the language, 'Riddley Walker' draws you into its world far more than the average post-apocalypse novel. Riddley's world seems hideously plausible.

'I said, 'You cunt.'

He said, 'Funny what peopl wil use for a hard word. The name of a pleasur thing and a place where new life comes out of. There ben times nor not too far back nyther when they use to offer to that same and very 1 what has her woom in Cambry. That same very Nite and Death we all come out of.'

I said, 'Dont you push words at me you rat cunt.''

Many of the words and phrases have double meanings: one of my favourite examples is 'sarvering gallack seas' for 'sovereign galaxies', but the tribespeople of Riddley's world imagine vast sky-seas, crossable on sky-ships, which are severing ('sarvering') them from the humans on other planets. The novel is highly regarded amongst People Who Read Lots.Will Self wrote the introduction to my edition, and David Mitchell wrote an appreciation in the Guardian. 'Riddley Walker' more than repays the effort spent in reading it. Read it. Read it. Read it.

*I read Karel Capek's 'War with the Newts' in February last year. It's a brilliantly bleak satire on colonialism, fascism and racism, made all the more bleak by the events that occurred after the novel's publication in 1936. ('War with the Newts' pokes fun at the Nazis for not liking Jews and being obsessed with racial superiority.) Capek stands next to Franz Kafka as one of the giants of twentieth century Czech literature.

Rustam, the 'Persian Hercules'

I have nearly finished reading my mythology anthology. Having read so many myths over the past year, I think I have become a bit desensitised to how bonkers they often are. There are a lot of Badass Hero Myths; here's some of the story of Rustam, the 'Persian Hercules'.

Queen Rudabeh of Zabulistan was pregnant. When the time of the birth came near, the queen grew pale and shrieked and swooned. King Zal summoned the magic Simurgh bird, who explained that the baby was too large for a normal birth and instructed the king on how to perform a Caesarean section. On the day of his birth, Rustam was as big as a one-year-old. He was suckled by ten nurses and, once weaned, ate as much as five people. He was great at killing things; he was a badass.

Fast forward.

One day, King Kai Kaous of Iran, a friend of Rustam's, decided to conquer the Kingdom of Mazanderan. He led his soldiers there, plundered the land and laid waste its cities. The Sorcerer-King of Mazanderan summoned the White Demon, who captured Kai Kaous and his men.

Eventually, Rustam heard about this and was not pleased. He travelled to Mazanderan. In the capital city, Rustam decapitated Arzang, leader of Mazanderan's demon army, and released King Kaous and his men.

Rustam then mounted his trusty steed and galloped to the Seven Mountains, where the White Demon lived. Rustam fought the White Demon, cutting off some of it's limbs. At one point the demon gained the upper hand, grasping Rustam and crushing him until all his bones must surely break...

But then Ohrmazd (God) intervened, increasing Rustam's strength and stamina so that he was able to defeat the demon.

Demons dead, King Kaous wrote a letter to the Sorcerer-King of Mazanderan explaining that Rustam had killed the demons, and Mazanderan now belonged to him. The Sorcerer-King would not give up.
He sent his human army. Rustam uprooted a tree and threw it at the troops, killing many of them and terrifying the rest.

The Sorcerer-King summoned more demons to bolster his forces.

For seven days, the battle raged between the soldiers of Mazanderan and the soldiers of Iran. The screams of the demons, the shouts of the warriors, the clanging of the trumpets, the beating of the drums, the neighing of the horses, and the groans of the dying made the earth hideous with noise. The armies fought until it seemed like pity and mercy had both completely vanished from the world. The plain on which they fought turned into a lake of blood.

And then Rustam faced the Sorcerer-King one-on-one. Just as Rustam was about the kill him, the Sorcerer-King turned himself to stone to survive the fatal blow.

"Return to your true form or be shattered into pieces!" yelled Rustam.

The Sorcerer-King did so, and King Kaous promptly ordered that he be hacked into pieces.

After the execution, there was a massive party.

(Myths are often propagandistic: it is telling that the evil demon-summoning Sorcerer-King kept his prisoners alive, after they had invaded his country and laid its cities to waste...)