Media speculation has it that the name is anything from one of the characters from Mortal Kombat, a Shaolin Monk or that it is from the Hawaiian word for sea, the Finnish word for rejoice, a hybrid with Welsh, Scandinavian and Greek roots meaning  keeper of the keys, whilst further speculation offers Japanese, Mandarin and even Burmese origins.

Eurocritics can exclusively reveal speculate that the name Kai Wayne is in fact an affectionate tribute to the fearsome religious leader Kai Winn from the excellent TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which Wayne and Coleen would undoubtedly have watched on late night TV on one of the many large screen TVs installed throughout their custom built luxury mansion.

Wayne and Coleen are both devout Catholics and would undoubtedly have been drawn to the fiery, independent, if misguided, nature of the combative and committed faithist.

There is even some photographic likeness. Nobody has yet seen a picture of Kai Wayne but photos of

Wayne Rooney - or it it Kai Winn

Wayne,

Coleen Rooney

Coleen and

Kai Winn - or is it Wayne Rooney

Kai Winn even show a certain similarity between the footballer and the religious leader.

X Factor contestants Kandy Rain

This weekend’s shows were par for the course, compelling and depressing in equal proportions.

In the previous two weeks we had seen the predictable departure of girl group Kandy Rain in week 1, to my mind not for musical reasons but because they were simply too sexy for an ultimately conservative show like The X Factor and the welcome departure of the oddly eyebrowed Scot Rikki Loney the following week.

The biggest change for this week’s Big Band theme was a completely new image for Rachel Adedeji, who abandoned her Rihanna meets Morrissey big top for a cute bob and swapped her previous moody introversion for a giggly smiley face that left me wondering if she was on Prozac. Whatever the reason, she turned in a much better, albeit less interesting performance and avoided the unbearable torture of a third week sing off.

Of the other contestants, Ollie Murs, who surprisingly fancies himself as a cross between Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown; teen hearthrob Joe McElderry,

Wee Joe McElderry, Cheryl's sex bomb or is it little brother?

who confused the nation’s sweetheart Cheryl Cole into saying both that he is sexy and like a brother to her; the anonymous Lloyd Daniels; the previously impressive and constantly charming Stacey Solomon; the overly confident Danyl Johnson; and Jamie Afro Archer turned in competent if unremarkable performances, the highlight of which was the latter’s performance of a U2 song causing geriatric Louis Walsh to protest that Jamie and Simon Cowell were cheating by not selecting a “real” big band song. Oh, the controversy!

The remaining three contestants delivered more exciting performances, Welsh Divette Lucie Jones was effortlessly immaculate, the “controversial” Grimes twins John & Edward, aka Jedward, once again turned in the most entertaining performance of all the contestants and the manufactured trio comprising recruitment consultant Shar Alexandra, barmaid Graziella Affinita and hairdresser Shanice Davis, aka Miss Frank, turned in the one performance of the night that actually brought some art into the music on offer, largely due to another impressive rap by Graziella.

Their art was all in vain however as tonight’s sing off pitted Miss Frank

Miss Frank will be missed

against Danyl Johnson and, after fellow judges Louis Walsh (groups) and Simon Cowell (over 25s) understandably backed their own artists, Dannii Minogue plumped for Danyl and Cheryl Cole displayed untypical feebleness by declining to make a decision and passed the buck to the public. There was never any doubt that the target audience for this light entertainment talent show wasn’t going to pick a really creative act and it was the end of the road for the most original singers on the show, Miss Frank.

All in all, this weekend’s shows were another triumph for the conservative mediocrity the show specialises in, complete with additional live performances by the bafflingly successful vocal group Westlife and the effortlessly charmless competence of Michael Bublé.

Will I watch again next week? Almost certainly, although now the art has gone and left only the pop, I doubt I’ll watch faithfully every week as I have up to now. The final show is a must see though, if only to see how the nation’s pop fanatics have thinned out the competition’s wilder edges, leaving only the polished, if impersonal, pop pie perfection.

Our First Three Chickens, left to right - Daisy, Eileen and Betty

Now, having got the bug of keeping and caring for chickens, me and my partner decided to explore the world of battery hens. We had seen some publicity about adopting ex battery farm hens via a local Norfolk organisation called Little Hen Rescue. The group had arranged with a local farmer to take 10,000 hens and re-home them. We jumped at the chance to get involved and registered online to adopt three hens. We built a chicken run and were given another by a local school who had three girl pupils build one as an exercise.

After a little confusion we managed to pick up our new hens. It was a very emotional experience as the little birds had hardly any feathers and were shaking with nerves. They had lived the first year of their unhappy and stressful lives crammed into tiny cages piled one on top of each other with no access to sunlight or grass. It makes you very angry when you first see them and it’s hard not to cry.

Rick Lennox and Sparkle having a cuddle

They each came with little fleece jackets on to keep them warm, which makes them look even more adorable. Underneath, of course, they looked more like the kind of chicken that a meat eater might find in the frozen section of their local supermarket.

It’s been just over a week now since we picked up Marmite, Sparkle and Hiccup and the change in them is amazing! /the first thing we had to do was teach them how to drink. They had been used to being drip fed and had no idea how to drink from a bowl. For the first couple of days they stayed nervously inside their hut but on the third day they finally ventured out into their new enclosure. Hiccup doesn’t like sharing food and pecks the other two but we keep our eyes on things and slowly she’s calming down. Hopefully soon we can integrate them with Daisy and Betty.

The hens in their new hut

To see the change from shy and frightened hens to inquisitive little chickens in just one week is so rewarding. They all have their own little characteristics and mannerisms and we can’t wait to get some more. Oh, and of course we now have plenty of boiled eggs for breakfast

Skunk Anansie were back at the Water Rats fifteen years after it all started there.  But this was no nostalgia trip, they seemed just perfect for this moment in 2009.

Skin was dressed in a frightening feather-like outfit. She looked scarier than a velociraptor, although this was no Jurassic Park. This was now and the future too. She was joined onstage by Cass and Ace whilst Mark Richardson had taken time out from drumming with Feeder to complete the line up that the band had so much success with from touring the first album onwards.

Skin of Skunk Anansie live

This was billed as a secret gig under the name SCAM (Skin, Cass, Ace, Mark), sold out in twenty minutes and if you weren’t one of those lucky few who found that window of opportunity open then you could’ve paid up to £400 a ticket via eBay!

Greatest Hits here we come… Selling Jesus, I Can Dream, Charity, Weak, Brazen and all. And they’re still asking who put the little baby swastikkka on the wall! The whole set was familiar except for one track I never caught the name of but, according to guitar hero Ace, there’s a lot more to follow where that came from.

Skunk Anansie have risen from the ashes, just like the phoenix and the flame etc – and guess what? They’re gonna be huge! Again. Huger than before.

So, exciting times ahead if you’re a Skunk fan because this ain’t no one night stand. It is a new beginning and it makes a lot of sense. Stay tuned Mr Charlie Big Potato, just because it feels good DOES make it right.

A typical empty lot in the Fresno/Clovis conurbation. With a population of more than half a million and growing, views like this are growing less common in the area.

They are relics of the township and range system of land allotment which was devised to share out in a fair way the vast new territories acquired by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, and which is the basis for the familiar grid system on which most American towns west of the Mississippi are laid out. In this they differ fundamentally from undeveloped lots in European towns, which – as densely overgrown as they may appear – almost certainly have a history of intense human activity going back many centuries. Hard as it is to fathom, these wild acres are pretty much as they were when the first white settlers crossed the mountains to try their fortunes in the promised land towards the setting sun.

Standing on such a parcel of land here in the San Joaquin Valley of central California – especially one undisturbed by the plough – one imagines wistfully the world that the naturalist John Muir encountered when he journeyed from San Francisco to Yosemite in the summer of 1868. He wrote:

…The valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one vast level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea ruffled a little by the tree fringing of the river and here and there of smaller cross streams from the mountains. Florida is indeed a land of flowers, but for every flower creature that dwells in its most delightsome places more than a hundred are living here. Here, here is Florida. Here they are not sprinkled apart with grass between, as in our prairies, but grasses are sprinkled in the flowers; not, as in Cuba, flowers piled upon flowers heaped and gathered into deep, glowing masses, but side by side, flower to flower, petal to petal, touching but not entwined, branches weaving past and past each other, but free and separate, one smooth garment, mosses next the ground, grasses above, petaled flowers between.

Little of Muir’s San Joaquin remains. It was quickly noted that a land which could support flora in such abundance must be fertile indeed, and today the valley is an immense patchwork of fields, providing much of America’s fruit, vegetables, nuts, wine, dairy produce and cotton and all of its raisins. So it has remained for most of the last 150 years, interspersed here and there with small towns and just the occasional larger city – Sacramento, Fresno, Bakersfield. For while it is an ideal place for agriculture, it is less attractive for human habitation. The San Joaquin’s climate is classified as savanna: dry, flat grassland, with stagnant air that cradles cloying fogs in the winter and extreme, stifling heat in the summer. It rains seldom, so that the air also easily traps haze and pollution, rendering the beautiful, snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains and the lower Coast Range invisible for much of the year and giving the valley an illusory resemblance to the endless featurelessness of the midwestern prairies.

Even with modern air conditioning, it is a harsh place to live. For the early farmers, toiling in layers of Victorian clothes, it must have been almost unbearable. The few older farmhouses that remain are often built on stilts to allow air to circulate underneath and provide some coolness. At four o’clock in July and August – the hottest part of the day – valley cities can seem like ghost towns. Nothing stirs on the burning sidewalks – or anywhere else except in the fields, where migrant workers from Mexico and Central America pick fruit and cotton no matter how high the mercury rises. Even driving is difficult: if you have not found some shade, your parked car will be like an oven, the seats scalding hot, the steering wheel and gearshift intolerable to touch. Opening windows does nothing to cool either buildings or vehicles: you just crank up the AC and hope it works quickly.

A semi-rural scene in Clovis, California in December 2003.

Yet ever-growing numbers of people call this unforgiving environment home. The transformation of the San Joaquin began in the 1930s, with the arrival of thousands of poor farmers fleeing the Dust Bowl disaster of the Midwest, seeking a still-fertile place where they could begin anew. Now the valley is seeing a fresh influx of humanity: but these new invaders are fleeing not an environmental disaster but a more modern and prosaic phenomenon. California’s tourist image of golden beaches, sun, palm trees and the emblematic grandeur of the Golden Gate have driven property prices and the cost of living off the scale in the state’s main population centres around San Francisco Bay, the Los Angeles basin and San Diego.

The same location five years later - now a small business park.

Suddenly the baked San Joaquin Valley, with its high unemployment, inhospitable climate and abundant land leading to relatively low property prices, is looking attractive. People from the megalopolises are selling their million-dollar townhouses and buying big new homes in the valley. Some continue to commute to their jobs in the city, but with the people comes infrastructure and the businesses seeking to serve and employ them. The new housing developments are no longer dormitories but are beginning to house new valley dwellers.

All of this needs space, and with the fields of the San Joaquin still growing much of the nation’s food that space must be reclaimed from those empty lots within the city limits. The view shrinks, the old trees fall, the wildflowers and ground squirrels that lived there must make way for the humans who would now live and work on the land that was their home. Piece by piece,as we watch, the last parcels of John Muir’s wilderness are vanishing under the concrete foundations of the future.

Why should you choose to read classic literature? Classic literature is the best of the best from a bygone era. It offers a glimpse into our former social habits and customs, the foundations of our modern society and intellectual reasoning. In coming to understand those times and people, you will know our modern life better.

photo of Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was a maverick thinker, activist and writer. She fervently believed in and actively worked for women’s suffrage, the abolition of slavery and integrated schooling – boys and girls, blacks and whites educated together. She was a woman who was unafraid of the world, or of being alone in it. Famously a spinster, a fate worse than death for most women of the 1860s, Louisa May was unconcerned and even uninterested in others opinions of her unmarried status and explained it once in a interview saying “I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man”.

She came by these feelings and beliefs quiet naturally. The bohemian world in which she was raised was filled with forward thinkers, liberal minds and unorthodox educators; most notably her father, the philosopher, educator and influential Transcendentalist, Bronson Alcott. Bronson surrounded his young family with the people who would help to direct and shape the modern world, people like Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller. So it may come as a surprise that she should write a book full of such strong conventional, even traditional values.

Little Women was not Alcott’s first book, but it is by far her most well known. Considered her seminal work, Little Women was originally published in two parts in 1868 and 1869, part two was titled Good Wives in the UK and Europe and still is in most cases — an important fact if you’re looking for just one book, when what you really need is both books.  It revolves around the life of four sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March and is based heavily on her own life in Concord, Massachusetts in the family home Orchard House.

photo of Orchard House by Leon H Abdalian

Alcott’s simple tale of four girls growing-up, learning to love each other and themselves, follows the group from early adolescence (Meg 16, Jo 15, Beth 13 and Amy 12) through to adulthood. Alcott’s moral message and the themes of family, god and simple pleasures can frequently feel a bit heavy handed to the point of preachy, but her charming characters, their fun and lively society and friends more than make-up for the moral battering you sometimes feel you’re receiving.

Main character Jo is the centre of this tale and obviously meant to be Alcott herself. This rambunctious, curious tomboy loves writing plays to be performed at home with her sisters for the sparse but appreciative audience of her Mother, Father and maid Hannah Mullet. These plays are a forerunner to the sensational stories she will eventually write and sell to the tabloid papers of the day, and form the cornerstone of her writer’s education.

Jo is the down to earth and sensible, but passionate, sister with sparse physical possessions and a grumpy distrust of physical beauty or societal attributes. Strong and independent, it is easy to see early feminist attitudes in the lovely Jo, although Alcott wouldn’t see that herself. Jo is all strong character with a wide stubborn streak, prickly on the outside, but tender, caring and kind on the inside. Although she tries to hide this softer side, all those who know her best help her protect this. Her sisters’ characters are all significantly different than Jo’s, which allows Alcott to teach her moral lessons. Each sister has a different strength and each suffers from a different character flaw.

Meg is the natural mother and her goals and desires mostly revolve around home, husband and children, but with a desire for material things that she will always struggle with.

Youngest sister Amy is blessed with natural grace and beauty. She is also possessed of a true artistic talent and instinctively understands and respects those little niceties of society that make her charming in company. Unlike Jo she understands the need to return social visits and be polite, holding her tongue rather than blurt out honest opinion, things Jo just can’t seem to comprehend.  But Amy is vain and strutting, spoiled by her sisters and her parents, who all indulge her in her little vanities.

Middle sister Beth is painfully shy and stoic, always labouring to ease her sister’s burden. She loves with an open innocent heart and is the person Jo will try to emulate but will never quiet succeed. Although her shyness prevents her from truly experiencing the fullness of life and love, Beth’s journey is fated to end far too soon. Beth and Jo have the special bond between helpless babe and protector, with both girls alternatively being either protector or vulnerable child. Jo and Beth share the most emotionally wrenching moment in the book and in their singular moment of need they will both comfort and be comforted until the end.

Although Little Women can feel a bit preachy and Christian-centric, the basic tale is one of love, self-improvement and family and is well presented. The Marches are a strong, close, loving family with their share of trials and tribulations. Alcott’s ability to convey the young girls’ personal catastrophe of not having the right gloves or dress is entertaining and enchanting and will evoke your own personal memories of adolescent devastation upon discovering a blemish on Prom Night or spinach stuck between your teeth on a first date.

The images and ideas are unmistakably of a century long gone and a life most of us wouldn’t even recognise, offering us a glimpse of the beginnings of recognisable contemporary social attitudes and the start of the classlessness and equality that society has worked so hard to finally achieve.

Free market philosophy has a lot going for it, but at times like this you have to question the underlying wisdom of this approach.  Purists would argue that we should let the markets sort themselves out but with the current downward spiral the obvious concern is that the world will rapidly disappear up its own backside.  The economy is rapidly coming to a standstill.  Banks won’t lend money to each other, yet alone you or me.  The housing market is dead and woe betide car manufacturers.

At the moment we are in a surreal phase where life is going on as normal.  Christmas is coming and the economies of the western world are still chugging along under the inertia of consumer spending, but what happens when the credit card bills arrive on the doormat in January?  2009 will be an uphill struggle for most, people will pull in their haunches and look to reduce their debt burden.  Consumer spending will slow rapidly and profit warnings from manufacturers and service providers will be plentiful.  Stocks will crash even more and the downward cycle will continue.

This recession has the potential to be deeper and longer than no other the world has ever known.  Yet I sense hope; there is so much talent out there, so many hard working , diligent, talented individuals bursting with enthusiasm and innovation that I cannot see how the downturn can last too long.  In addition, when recovery comes it will come in a way that has never happened before.  The standard of education, communication and technology will enable the realisation of smart business ideas in a way and with a pace that has never been seen before.  This time it will be an a truly global basis with more and more Third World nations participating.  I truly believe the world will be a better place with harmony and cooperation taking place like never before.

I see China and India as major players, no longer emerging markets but powerhouses of the new global economy.  Africa will also participate as there is so much untapped  potential there.  Turning the Sahara green will be the way to save the world from threats of global warming/climate change.  The deforestation in the Amazon will be offset by the greening of the Sahara.  True carbon offsetting. There will be a surplus of food and this can be used to make carbon neutral fuel.  A totally renewable source of carbon fuel which is effectively solar energy.  The new plants will extract carbon from the atmosphere, in exactly the same way as other plant life, but we will be revitalising an area of land that is totally wasted right now.  Sea water irrigation and salt resistant crops is the answer!

I see a brave new world where communication and cooperation are key.  Talented individuals will run their own businesses from the comfort of their own home/office whilst collaborating with their personal networks around the globe.  They will employ a few key workers and a few more service operators, plumbers, builders, gardeners, nannys and the like.

This is the new business model for the 21st century and you IT savvy, creative, problem solvers out there are at the heart of it, you can change the world with your innovative ideas and communication skills.  How many of you reading this are out of work right now, spending your waking hours searching the internet, looking for the right role?  With approximately 200 people applying for the same role as you, you would be right in thinking that the job market is extremely competitive right now.  Don’t worry, in the new world you will be masters of the Universe.  You just have to find your niche!

But all of that and more has happened. The names of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become internationally known because of the crisis caused in the US by the collapse of the two giant mortgage lenders. I woke up recently to hear on the radio that the UK government has just bought a major interest in the Royal Bank of Scotland, where I am a customer. Job insecurity is no laughing matter, so I resisted the temptation to ask the friendly staff in my local branch how they felt about suddenly becoming civil servants; I just have to trust that the changes won’t affect their ability to look after my overdraft.

I’ve been saddened to hear about the effects of the financial crisis in Iceland, the most beautiful country I’ve ever visited, where the national economy came close to collapse. I can see the effects closer to home, too: suddenly there’s a severe shortage of job opportunities being advertised in my local paper. When I visited a recruitment agency in Leeds recently, I was told that there was just one area in which new jobs were being created rapidly: debt collection. The queues for bargains at my friendly neighbourhood discount food shops in Bradford have never been quite so long.
I’m genuinely sorry that so many people are suffering because of the economic problems, but at the same time I’m relieved that deregulation is now thoroughly discredited (a word that seems singularly apt) just as surely as Communism was discredited by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The economic era that gave us Reaganomics and Thatcherism has now been pronounced dead by no less an authority than Francis Fukuyama, the economist who previously saw the free market as the natural final state of human society and announced ‘the end of history’. Fukuyama has now admitted that ‘…there are certain jobs that only the government can fulfil’, and called for the rebuilding and revitalising of the American public sector. I am no economist, but I like to think that the species I belong to is capable of more than just mercilessly competing and trying to sell things to one another, so I’m glad that greed is no longer believed to be good. As our credit is crunched, we can see all too clearly where over-consumption has led us.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all the economic chaos and worrying news, I’ve found one personal consolation: I no longer have any difficulty in finding people with whom I can have a good discussion about politics. A crisis of this magnitude causes lots of people to watch the news more closely and to look to our elected leaders for some sort of solution. The state of the global economy has drawn more attention to the US election, and probably decided its outcome, as the Republicans have taken the blame for the crisis. This is at least partially fair, since they have been the loudest American cheerleaders for the free market, and Reaganomics certainly carried the Republican brand. The true extent of the Bush administration’s culpability for the present crisis is endlessly debatable; it’s hard to gauge how much control national governments can have over economic changes as seismic as the ones currently shaking the planet. But in hard times, incumbent politicians tend to get punished by the electorate.

The relentlessly negative tone of the Republicans’ campaign has surely made matters worse for

them. In troubling times, people naturally look for hope and reassurance rather than for more reasons to worry. Barack Obama has at least sounded like someone trying to bring his nation together to combat problems. The personal attacks on Obama from the McCain/Palin camp have seemed irrelevant, a bout of petty name-calling as the house burns down.

The stories that emerged about McCain and Palin’s personal wealth and extravagance were also given greater power by the difficult circumstances in which many voters suddenly found themselves. If you’re worried about the mortgage payments on your family’s only home, then reading that John McCain owns seven homes can hardly inspire confidence in his ability to relate to your hardships. Meanwhile, the Republicans’ spending of $150,000 on clothes for Palin seemed staggeringly insensitive, the supposedly down-to-earth Alaskan visiting the most expensive, exclusive designer shops just as many voters were buying their own clothes from charity shops or budget stores.

In one limited sense, the imminent election is now less important. Whoever is handed the reins of government will be dealing in damage limitation; there will be no magical remedy to fix things quickly coming from the White House or anywhere else. President Obama or President McCain will be overseeing increased government intervention in the economy whether it suits them ideologically or not. But for a wide variety of other reasons, the election still matters enormously. The new President will certainly need to be calm under immense pressure, and Obama has gained great credit by retaining his cool in the face of some outrageous attacks while McCain has appeared irritable and impulsive on the campaign trail.

And then there are the questions of war and peace. Leaving aside all the moral and humanitarian questions about the American presence in Iraq, the USA needs a less aggressive foreign policy for financial reasons; the American economy simply cannot afford the vast cost of war on multiple fronts.

International co-operation is going to be required to solve the international economic crisis. The election of Obama would have huge symbolic importance in convincing the rest of the world that the world’s most powerful nation would in future be using its power in a more conciliatory manner. I can only agree with the editorial verdict in a journal that endorsed President Bush at the last US General Election, the Financial Times: ‘The challenges facing the next president will be extraordinary. We hesitate to wish it on anyone, but we hope that Mr. Obama gets the job.’

Anyway, we’ll soon know, and I won’t be lonely in my waiting. For one thing, the coverage of the election by the BBC and by Britain’s serious newspapers has become comprehensive and excellent lately.

What’s more, it so happens I spend a lot of my social time around the University of Bradford, where one of the specialities is archaeology. Many of my friends have been trained in that science, and even the most conservative church regulars among them are affronted that the most powerful politician in the world could conceivably soon be Sarah Palin, a believer in creationist theories that they know are demonstrably absurd. The student union bar there is staying open till 4am on the morning of November 5 so that we can watch the results come in while clutching a glass of something calming or celebratory. Hopefully I’ll be back here soon afterwards to tell you what the atmosphere was like. But if I’m a little late, I’m sure you’ll understand.

You see, it’s like this: I simply cannot get enough of the US Presidential election.

My habit causes me pain. It reinforces a depressing sense of helplessness in the face of human irrationality and overwhelming power. I can, and do, subscribe to Barack Obama’s e-mailing list

Barack Obama photo by SEIU International

to get the latest updates directly from the candidate I hope to see win; but US electoral law prevents an un-American like me from responding to his frequent appeals for money. I don’t have the funds to commute across the Atlantic to help with canvassing, and I’m sure that even if I could go knocking on doors in a crucial swing state like Ohio or Florida, some voters would tell me that America’s choice of leader was none of my goddamn business as soon as they heard my English accent. But I’m still fascinated by the electoral events – partly, of course, because the choice that American voters make will be so important for the whole planet.

From an environmental point of view, there’s a world of difference between Obama’s enthusiasm for alternative energy sources and John McCain’s loyalty to the oil-centric energy policies that have characterised the Bush administration.

International relations will be strikingly different if American voters reject the neo-conservative demand for US domination of global affairs contained in Republican foreign policy, and instead give Obama the opportunity to repair old alliances and restore his country’s good name in the world.

John McCain photo by Image Editor

McCain voted for the invasion of Iraq and has declared that the USA’s military presence there should last for a century if it furthers America’s aims. Obama opposed the invasion and wishes to withdraw the troops as soon as practically possible, while striving to end the dependence on oil that focuses so much American attention on the Middle East.

These practical policy considerations are reason enough to take an intense interest in the choice of leader for the planet’s dominant nation; but what really fuels my fascination is the drastically different views of human life that are represented by the American right and the American left. It is a clash between faith and reason; between an embrace of diversity and a craving for a simpler time when life had clear rules and authority always prevailed, between an acceptance of progress and equality, and a longing for a mythic past when men and women knew their God-given places and everything was so much more certain. It’s the 21^st Century versus The Waltons and John Wayne; and of course religion makes this clash of philosophies so much more passionate. Perhaps the biggest choice before the American electorate is the one between plurality and theocracy: between those who truly accept that there can be more than one valid view of an important issue, and those who see the election as a ‘culture war’ between their God and sinful, un-American depravity. It is this latter group that brings into American elections issues that thankfully do not usually greatly intrude into British party politics.

Abortion may be a minor issue at the next UK General Election; Conservative leader David Cameron supports a reduction in the time limit for late abortions. But we certainly won’t see any mainstream British politician echoing Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s call for a total ban on all terminations, even if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.

Likewise, the legal rights of British gays and lesbians should stay much the same regardless of who the Prime Minister might be following our next General Election; but the issue of same-sex marriage is more important than the economy for many voters on the American religious right. It was courageous of Obama to demand during his speech to the Democratic Convention that ‘…our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters…’ should not face discrimination; he must have been well aware that for many American voters, supporting anti-gay discrimination is quite literally an article of faith.

Then, of course, there is the American citizen’s ‘right to bear arms’, enshrined in the Constitution and so dear to much of the electorate that even a would-be reformer like Obama dare not threaten it, however strong a case for doing so might be made by US violent crime statistics; even the most tentative moves towards tighter gun regulation must be couched in terms that reassure rural voters that their hunting rifles will not be taken away.

Finally, there is the American addiction to ostentatious, sentimental patriotism that has made a genuine election issue out of the occasions on which Obama has or has not worn a ‘flag pin’ stars and stripes badge on his lapel.

Would I want these things in British politics? Most definitely not. And yet, at the same time, American politics awakes in me a kind of nostalgia for the days when our elections generated such visceral passions. Part of me misses the days of Thatcher versus Old Labour, when our political parties stood for dramatically different outlooks on the world rather than representing subtly different approaches to free-market capitalism, as they do today. It is strangely refreshing to view an election with real partisan zeal, fervently rooting for one side and feeling revulsion towards the appalling attitudes of the other.

Having said that, I’m very well aware that Obama is not actually the Messiah, even if that is the sneering nickname that some Republicans have given him, For all his charisma and charm, he can be a ruthless political operator when necessary; and after the barrage of attacks he faced at a relentlessly negative and fear-fuelled Republican Convention, that’s just as well. Obama’s election as President would only begin a process of change in America and across the planet over which the USA holds so much sway. Indeed, one of the most endearing things about Obama’s style is the way that he stresses empowerment: his slogan is ‘Yes, we can’, not ‘Yes, I can’. Popular opinion at home would render him unable to change some of the things that appal outsiders about America; the gun culture would remain, as would the death penalty. Even so, the choice before the US electorate is stark.

The Democrats offer a plan to withdraw from Iraq and repair America’s relationships with the outside world, a programme of taxing the richest to help the poorest, policies aimed at making health care affordable for all Americans, broad-minded social attitudes, an appreciation of eloquent intelligence and plans for huge investment in alternative energy.

The Republicans stand for war and conquest, religious intolerance, entrenched privilege, narrow national self-interest, support for the free market at its most merciless, disdain for welfare, a mistrust of intellect and an attitude to environmental protection summed up by the chants of ‘DRILL! DRILL!!’ at their Convention, demanding that nothing must get in the way of the search for American oil. For a liberal European like me, it looks like the closest thing I’m ever likely to see to an election between good and evil.

The US Presidential Election 2008 is a story with most of the elements that make for great dramatic entertainment. There’s a dashing hero to cheer on, loathsome villains to despise, the future of the planet at stake, a plot with plenty of startling twists, and now the certainty of history being made one way or another: either the first African-American President, or the first female Vice-President.

If a screenwriter had come up with the story of Sarah Palin,

Sarah Palin photo by Thomas Roche

the obscure woman from the backwoods suddenly transformed into a serious contender for the most powerful position on earth, then surely the script would have been rejected as absurdly far-fetched. Come to that, rarely in even the most lurid of soaps can so many skeletons have come clattering out of a single character’s closet in so short a space of time; yet it seems that a lot of Americans love Palin no matter what powers she’s abused or how many lies she’s told. It’s a bit like what happened when Jade Goody first stomped into the British Big Brother house; some viewers were appalled by her behaviour, but she became a star because many others were thrilled to see someone a bit like them become famous and important.

So I’ll keep missing sleep waiting for the latest developments, anxiously scanning the opinion polls and scouring American political blogs for the background detail. Some good friends of mine follow their favourite soaps or TV talent contests with comparable intensity, yet cannot understand how I can find politics so compelling. All I can say to them is that this US election is anything but boring. Bizarre, yes; frightening, frequently – tedious, never. Our own domestic politics may have become pretty dull; but for better or for worse, they do things differently over there.

]]> http://www.eurocriticsmagazine.com/politics/us-politics/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-election-watcher/feed 55 http://www.eurocriticsmagazine.com/sport/football/ebbsfleet-united-a-different-kind-of-football-club http://www.eurocriticsmagazine.com/sport/football/ebbsfleet-united-a-different-kind-of-football-club#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:04:49 +0000 Christopher Rose http://www.eurocriticsmagazine.com/?p=137 Possibly as an antidote to the increasingly pervasive influence of big business in football, I have recently joined the over 30,000 football fans from 122 different countries that have invested the modest sum of £35 a year to own our very own football club, Ebbsfleet United.

The members of MyFootballClub.co.uk bought the club for £600,000 in February 2008 and just three months later Ebbsfleet United won the FA Trophy at Wembley, the club’s greatest achievement so far in a history that dates back to 1890.

There are many benefits to this modest investment, far less than the price of a ticket to most Premiership games. I get to actually help pick the team, decide on transfers in and out, get a free match day programme sent to me via email and vote on everything from marketing/promotional strategies to the performance of the manager and the board.

There is also a dedicated forum where I can chat with other football fans about any and all football matters, either about Ebbsfleet or more general issues affecting the game.

Ebbsfleet United are currently mid-table in the Blue Square Premier League, only 4 promotions away from the Premier League, and on something of a high right now. Not only is former Ebbsfleet (then called Gravesend & Northfleet) player Jimmy Bullard, now with Fulham, called up to the latest full England squad for the imminent 2010 World Cup qualifying matches against Andorra and Croatia but the team also has 3 players, goalkeeper Lance Cronin, central defender James Smith and striker Luke Moore in the England C squad.

The club is handily located close to the high speed Eurostar hub Ebbsfleet International, making it easy for the club’s international fanbase to get to the games.

Here is a list of some of the key milestones in the history of the world’s first and only internet community owned football club:-

2007

26 April – My Football Club launches.

31 July – 53,000 register their names and email addresses on the website.

1 August – £250,000 is collected on the first day membership fees are accepted.

10 August – £500,000 is collected in 10 days and MyFootballClub has over 12,000 members.

August to November – Nine football clubs approach MyFootballClub, asking to be purchased.

13 November – A deal in principle is reached to buy Ebbsfleet United (EUFC), from the Blue Square Premier division.

2008

12 February – Members vote to accept Nike’s offer to become the club’s kit and merchandise supplier.

21 February – MyFootballClub members vote to complete the purchase of EUFC for around £600,000. Over 21,000 members from 70 different countries own 75% of the club.

14 March – Members elect seven members onto the My Football Club Society Limited Board.

15 March – EUFC reach Wembley for the first time in their history, beating Aldershot 4-2 over two legs in the FA Trophy Semi Final.

8 April – Members vote to freeze season ticket prices at the club.

9 May – Members travel from over 20 countries to watch the Final, including Australia, America, Canada, Turkey, Croatia, Italy and Sweden.

10 May – EUFC lift the FA Trophy at Wembley after beating Torquay 1-0. Up to 5,000 overseas members watch an online feed provided by the FA and Sky, and over 26,000 Fleet fans at Wembley – old and new – witness the historic victory.

June/July – Ebbsfleet United enjoy record season ticket sales for the 08/09 campaign.

9 June – Members vote to set the weekly playing budget at £10,000.

August – Members and supporters raise £20,000 among themselves to buy striker Michael Gash from Cambridge City.

Most recently the members voted to allow the transfer of star striker John Akinde to Championship side Bristol City for a club record transfer fee of £150,000.

Obviously it remains to be seen if this kind of transfer of power from faceless corporations to grassroots fans can be sustained if and when Ebbsfleet United progress up the league ladder but it is a great feeling to be so intimately involved in the day to day running of a real (as opposed to fantasy) football club.