The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

I haven't commented on much in the last couple of months, but the loss to the world of Gil Scott-Heron is a shame.  A modern poet for me and I loved much of his music.  You will all be aware that I often play a straight white bat; I emphasise with GSH however, as I feel his struggle had some belief and great input.

Dey bruvvers. Maybe dem bloods? Dey click fingers, punch fists in greeting, call 'ahright'. The levels of Bedford in 2011: teenage honkies.  Whatever have we done to this land? Welcome to the Estuary and all its tributaries.

Mondays to Fridays I have been chasing a crust with a young crew and learning their pain.  At the weekend I pay back the 'community' for my many sins; there is little difference between my colleagues and my mates in the Saturday Club. To borrow the Venn diagram there is indeed some interaction.  What perplexes me is the zeitgeist. We maybe struggling in a global economic downturn, but I think slavery in this country ended sometime before the Land of Freedom managed to get around to building ghettos in the 1960s.  

It appears that the affluent youth of the south-east - and let's face it they'd all be dead in a week in Ethiopia if they really understood poverty and deprivation - are now so disenchanted that they smash shops, burn cars and talk patois.  I know, before someone points it out, that I have also essayed most of the above, but I don't bellyache when I get caught. Crime and time...

You will have no time to plug in, turn on and cop out; lose yourself on skag and step out for beers; enjoy a programme brought to you by Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions.  The revolution will not be televised.  Gil speaking 30-plus years ago; worth listening to his version of 'Home Is Where The Hatred Is' and 'The Bottle' if you are not au fait  with his ouevre.  The latter was dedicated to me, by the way, and I will be selling its autographed sleeve as soon as I run out of Thunderbird.

The pathetic crime spree that overtook the news silly season in the UK should have made Gil laugh: the sad fact is that his inclination in the early 1970s was different.

He claimed that you will not look five pounds thinner; there will be no pictures of you trying to slide that colour TV into a stolen ambulance; there will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers on the instant replay; the theme song will not be sung by Johnny Cash or Tom Jones or Englebert Humperdinck. The revolution will be live; the revolution will NOT be televised.

Sad fact is it was, it will be, and it usually comes to the same ineffective conclusion.

As I mentioned in an earlier revolutionary diatribe: the answer is to organise and control the troops, and then get the brothers to shoot the pigs.  The top boys in football hooliganism ought to be able to run a decent riot: they have all been on TV anyway!