Wednesday September 26th 2001

While panic grips London, and gas masks are advertised on the Shopping Channel, I too prepare for war.

I go out and buy six month’s worth of peroxide.

Meanwhile, a charity recording of “What’s Going On” is about to be released by Bono and diverse other self-important pop stars, who after much thought have decided that the best way they can help victims of the terrorist attacks is by reminding people they’re famous. I have just heard the record, and, needless to say, it is an atrocity of its own. Haven’t people suffered enough?

And there was I thinking there had been too many three-minute silences of late. I could have done with another one there.

“War is not the answer”, they sing. And immediately Messrs Bush & Blair drop what they’re doing and hang their heads in shame… No, of course they don’t. World leaders have never had their minds changed by music in the past and they’re certainly not going to start now. Least of all by hasty, ill-advised, self-aggrandising charity records.

Natalie Imbruglia is at least honest about the egotistical intentions behind the big “America’s Heroes” benefit telethon that was broadcast on TV recently. She uses her slot on the show to premiere her latest single.

Elsewhere, the Rev Jerry Falwell, friend and influential supporter of Young Mr Bush, appears on an American Christian programme and quickly indentifies the culprits behind the terrorist attacks: “I really believe that the abortionists, the feminists, the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle… I point the finger in their face and say: ‘You helped this happen’.”

I imagine Mr Bush, being that renowned expert of world geography, subsequently clicking his fingers and threatening to bomb the people of Lesbia if the Lesbianese government doesn’t hand over Osama Bin Lesbian.

Wednesday September 12th 2001

Thousands die in a series of terrorist-related attacks on the US.

And in music news:

“MTV have dropped all their shows for the rest of the week and instead will broadcast videos of “unobtrusive adult orientated hits” such as Dido, Travis and Madonna.”

I walk the streets of North London and people don’t seem to be hanging their heads in collective misery any more than usual. The animal welfare charity subscribers are still out in force on Muswell Hill High Street:

Women With Clipboard (to passers-by): Can you spare a minute? Animal Welfare, can you spare a minute? Excuse me… Can you spare a minute…?

(Dickon passes her, looking the way that he does, not unobtrusive, not orientated to adults)

Woman: Can you spare a – Oh! You’ve put me off now.

Saturday September 8th 2001

After the Manic Street Preachers launched their last album with a concert in Cuba, Fosca are launcing the new EP with a tour of Sweden.

I am reminded of my disappointment at watching the documentary “Our Manics In Havana”, and seeing Nicky Wire dress down for his excursion, eschewing his usual dress and make up. Any fool can wear panstick and drag on an English rock festival stage. Many fools do just that. Surely it’s far more interesting to do it, if you have a fleet of journalists and camera crews to record the occasion, in a country where despite the improvements made in the last ten years, homosexuals and transvestites are still regularly detained by the Cuban police. Dressing down with a bad beard to meet a dictator who once commented approvingly on rural life that “in the countryside, there are no homosexuals”, seems to me a wasted opportunity. Apparently Mr Wire is aware of Cuba’s record on such issues, yet deliberately refused to ‘Stay Beautiful’ in Castro’s presence because “that would be disrespectful” to the dictator. Pity. I will not forgive him.