A New Goethe Needed 114

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The Peacock Throne of the Mughal Emperors was set at the heart of beautiful gardens, fountains and elegant courtyards. Poetry was as important to them as warfare. On the throne was set the inscription: “If there be heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.”

I am in Dubai. If there be hell on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here. Dubai. The land that taste forgot. Apparently designed to gather together as many as possible of the nastiest people from all continents, and give them anything their heart desires. I am sure, if you could just find the right person to chuck a spare million, you could make a snuff movie starring one of the unfortunate little Sri Lankans or Central Asians who are everywhere, doing all the work, but apparently invisible. Then you could go to a Spa.

It is as though someone had given Jordan a trillion dollars and a million slaves and invited her to construct the city of her dreams. For those who believe that consumption is the purpose of life, this is the new Mecca. I think I can sum it up best by saying that I am continually expecting to see Tony and Cherie come round the corner, followed by Mandy, Nat Rothschild, Deripaska and Gulnara. I met nicer people and my soul was less disturbed up country in the middle of the Sierra Leone civil war. My God, I want to get out of here, burn all my clothes and shower for a week.

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114 thoughts on “A New Goethe Needed”

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  • jay

    http://www.voteforit.org/index.php/a-case-for-treason

    It appears our current parliament is contary to the laws of England part of the common law act or something been around since the Great King Alfred and still applies by law to our constitution.

    I asked a newbee lawyer on the subject of which she confirmed my concern.

    Obviously any law person would steer clear of this if they want employment in this country.

    A point aside why is Frankie Boyle advertising his unsympathetic and down righ distasteful show on the inside page of the Saturday Guardian Tv magazine.

    Surely it is to keep breaking us down.

    Jay

  • Mary

    By the time this lot go in 2015, there will nothing left of the state to privatise.
    .
    18 March 2012
    .
    Royal Mail pension fund transfer due next month
    The Communication Workers Union said that it had been campaigning for the move for years
    .

    Royal Mail pension fund assets and liabilities are set to be transferred to the government next month, subject to EU approval, the BBC understands.

    The move means that Royal Mail pensioners will enjoy a state guarantee of their retirement benefits.

    ++It also paves the way for the eventual privatisation of the Royal Mail.++
    .
    /…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17423461

    PS The CWU seem to be accepting this. Fifth columnists?

  • Rose

    Yonatan at 8.08 – How gracious of the “Lord” Owen to receive petitions and how honoured I feel that he has agreed to it.

    Of course I am “interested” – but not enough to tie my coat-tails to anything one of the architects of the whole bloody mess we are now in,has a part in.

  • Mary

    It is getting really serious. We will have to rise up against this lot. The latest just announced on the 10pm news is that private companies will be put in charge of major roads. We will be throwing coins into toll booths ere long.

  • Fedup

    God I hate that shit hole called Dubai. The place is a monument to the Western ideals on fecking steroids. Sort of the latter day wild west. Arrival in the airport that is a monument to good intentions stuffed into black boxes and buried in the desert sands. The whole out of place building that tries (without much success) to stay relevant to the Arab Traditions in this case implementation of a “dhow” in the nether regions of the airport.
    ,
    The comedy of errors then continue with the fat police driving around the airport on their golf carts, with the head guy wearing an overstated samurai kind of an expression similar to those in cheap Hong Kong movies.
    ,
    The regimes and pseudo countries dotted in that vicinity are experiments in “excess” Petri dishes for sociologist and anthropologists. (This explains the need of Geordie to fly to that shit hole for their holidays!!!!!)

  • Jay

    The money state are privatising its a form of communism
    Nationalism is when thhe people own the states assets our pensions are just fiat currency. What are our narional policies?

    Why is prime ministers questions a farse why do they not discuss any sensible policy change?

  • Jives

    Why’s everyone so down on Dubai??
    .
    Aint that where Tony and Cherie(plus their 33 henchmen bodyguards) go to mingle with,catholically,Cheryl and Ashley Cole whilst hoping to gladhand Mandy and Nat,whilst quaffing champers with Rebekah,Clarkson and Stevens,BLair and Yates of The Yard – not to mention Alisdair and Fiona Campbell…??
    .

  • glenn_uk

    A former house-mate from Holland, a friend, spent time in Dubai with his old man, and was always recommending that I go to work there for a few years. It was really easy and nice there, he insisted, good money, no taxes and decent weather. You could drink with compatriots in the evening and make a tidy bundle for a couple of years’ work. This was a deeply humane Dutchman, the sort of person around whom you had to be careful – if you said you liked his watch, he’d take it off and give it to you, and be offended if you didn’t take it.
    .
    It’s quite possible that a lot of the skilled workers don’t know what’s going on, just keep their head down working 12 hour shifts every day for a month until they return home for a fortnight, then repeat. It beats claiming dole. The main problem for such workers in recent years is that the Dirahm is pegged to the dollar. So many people wouldn’t notice any other problem.
    *
    .
    On a side note, a mate sent this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/17/facebook-dark-side-study-aggressive-narcissism
    Does this mean it’s ok that I’ve only got 5 people on my account?
    .
    Actually, I don’t have a personal account at all – it’s shared one with the misses, rarely used, and only created at all under pressure from various friends desperate to have us on there. Since we rarely update anything (maybe once every couple of months – actually, the most recent update was last May), we’re not part of their crowd om a significant sense.
    .
    Nearly all the people I’m closest to, particularly those heavily involved in IT, do not have a FB account. We’re way too concerned about privacy for that. I wonder how many other tech-heavy Gen-X’ers fall into that category.

  • Barbara

    I lived in the Gulf 1975 – 1982 and remember Dubai well from that time.
    It has been astonishing to me how the place has “developed” since then, and I wonder how the more thoughtful and dignified Arabs have allowed such a monster to arise.
    When there were almost unlimited choices for the future it is desperately sad that this is the future that was chosen for the country.
    A sad and pathetic failure of vision.

  • Mary

    Ref N Korea, Blaine Harden has a book to sell. Being helped by the BBC. Fits nicely into the agenda against one of the US’s ‘evil axis’ states.
    .
    Escape is a BBC Book of the Week.
    Starting March 26, it will be read twice a day for a week on BBC Radio 4, the NPR of the UK.
    .
    Foreign Policy picks Escape as one of the books that will matter in 2012
    http://www.blaineharden.com/

  • Mary

    FEMA Corps To Be Brownshirts For Homeland Security Emergency Response
    .

    VIDEO
    .
    “We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” Barack Obama, 2008
    .
    Homeland Security has announced the creation of a new FEMA corps to tap volunteers for disaster/emergency responses. The program is a partnership between FEMA and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), itself managed under the Homeland Security umbrella.
    .

    http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.fr/2012/03/fema-corps-to-be-brownshirts-for.html
    .
    ‘Elected’ police commissioners and privatised policing will form the pathway to the UK version.

  • Jay

    Did the Brown shirts not fight Bolshevics and restore moral order although only temporary.
    Wouldnt a legion of Brownshirts under your direction Mary have a purpose?

  • nuid

    TonyF12,
    I read an article last night about that “Executive Order of effective Martial Law”. Apparently it’s only updating a law that’s been around for absolutely ages (something like 35 years). And the updates don’t involve anything major. It’s like a tidying-up exercise. I’ll try and find the link.

  • TonyF12

    Thanks Nuid. I must have been asleep longer than I should. How does the equivalent Martial Law legislation work over here in the UK? Could Cameron use an Executive Order to send in the troops into the homeland wherever and whenever he felt like it – that is if we still have any available?

    The UK’s sabre-rattling for military intervention in Syria is interesting reading too. In 2010 Syrian army regulars were estimated at 220,000, with an additional 300,000 in reserve. Numbers we would have trouble in matching.

  • Komodo

    Budget prediction: Private debt to be nationalised: public profit to be privatised.
    Never mind the family silver, these bastards are selling the family home.

  • Jay

    Komodo

    Check my earlier link.

    Our government is not a lawful constitution.

    Dont worry all will not be lost have faith and say a prayer.

    The truth will prevail.

  • nuid

    “Nuid and TonyF12 I linked to this above. Jay seems to think it is all A OK.” — Mary
    .
    No, Mary. I don’t think so. One (yours) is an announcement by the Dept of Homeland Security
    http://www.infowars.com/fema-corps-to-be-brownshirts-for-homeland-security-emergency-response/
    .
    and the other is an executive order signed by Obama last Friday, which doesn’t mention FEMA once.
    {http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness}

  • harry

    Completely comprehend your sense of spiritual shock mr Murray. The people that you mention also have a place in that poem by Shelley: Masque of Anarchy.

  • Passerby

    …..Odd that it’s intelligent, literate and thoughtful ……. Emirate, but don’t worry. You can slag it off too.
    ,
    Advertising Mr. McNabb and his work aside, apparently somehow we ought to be grateful that we now have some kind of a permit to rubbish the rubbish, and feel empowered to “slag off” another part of the same rubbish heap.
    ,
    These failed artificial constructs that have been set up as some kind of “state” cannot be pushed as the model of the societies that humanity ought to aspire to replicate.
    ,
    Furthermore given the fact that now in the US or the best ever thing since sliced bread, has pushed its citizens to commit DIY surgery on themselves to remove tumors/cysts, as well as a spot of dentistry. This model too can be a hardly credible source/agent as to be the judge sitting in Judgment upon other nations, including the DPRK.
    ,
    This poor chap is self medicating and pulling his own tooth out, alas he only manges to break it, and is left with a stump in his gum
    {http://www.vidiload.com/video/108183/Do_It_Yourself_Dentist/}
    ,
    DIY surgery Removing Own Tumor/cyst

  • Frazer

    Quite right Craig.
    I was passing through Dubai airport a few months ago and purchased a ticket for $50 for a chance to win a Ferrari.
    Imagine my utter surprise that as of now, I have not been contacted by anyone to ask me where I would like to take delivery of my new car.
    I am obviously a victim of a scam. Shame on them !!

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