Then, the Vatican tells us what they think is a really  serious crime….

Women priests.

The Vatican has made plotting to ordain women as among the most serious crimes a catholic can commit:

Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, underscored how the ordination of women is “a crime against sacraments,” while paedophilia should be considered a “crime against morals” and both would fall under the jurisdiction of the CDF.
From The Daily Telegraph 15-07-10

When the Catholic clergy has such repugnance for women, it makes their fondness for underage boys seem almost inevitable.

Horsley, who combined dandyism with post-punk sensibilities is said to have died of a heroin overdose following celebrations for a play based on his autobiography Dandy in the Underworld.

Horsley’s dandyism had more in common with Baudelaire than Brummel, and his pink gaberdine suits and other fopperies were a method of affronting society rather than easing his way into it.

Dandy in the Underworld – a gift to unimaginative sub editors and obit writers – is a painfully honest, frequently revolting account of his struggle with ennui to find some meaning in his life, his almost inevitable drug problems, his relationships with men, women and his passion for fine tailoring, prostitutes and narcissism.  His ultimate act of art-narcissism was being crucified in the Phillipines.

Without doubt he was one of the people who added spice to this blandest of all decades by simply being himself.  More recently he wrote  for the anarcho-dandyist magazine, The Chap.

His last column, as luck would have it, was about Satan:
“It is the Devil who understands and ministers to man’s carnal and intellectual self, and art is carnal and intellectual.”

His written work was often no more than pithy quotes lifted  from Quentin Crisp and others stitched together to great effect. The final paragraph of his final column contained a prophetic aphorism, which I think on this occasion, was one of his own:

“You know that the religious promise of immortality is an illusion, fit for children. What can you do? Decide that the only power you have in this life is over your own body, so why not drink and drug it to death?”

Hail Horsley, you have left the world a poorer place for your leaving it, your wit, wisdom and wardrobe will be missed. We all hope this is just a publicity stunt for your new play.

I was instantly hooked… I loved Lovecraft’s stories of how a chance discovery of an ancient  book might open doorways to unimagined worlds, and his tales of Dunwich, and Innsmouth – ancient towns where things had gone badly wrong for the inhabitants.  Dunwich was the focus of the Dunwich Horror and played a smaller role in many of his other weird tales.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I pulled off the main road towards the sign saying ‘Dunwich – 4 miles’ and sped down a single track road so narrow, the trees either side touched branches overhead.

Dunwich, on the Suffolk coastline, was Lovecraft’s inspiration for his  fictional town, which he set in Massachusetts.

The Suffolk Dunwich had been a prosperous and important port town on the Suffolk coastline until 1286, when  a huge sea surge undermined the cliffs upon which it was built.  Most of the town was swept into the sea, taking (by some accounts) eight ancient churches with it. It has been said that during storms, the bells of the lost spires can still be heard ringing under the water.

Although Lovecraft’s poem The Bells specifically refers to Innsmouth, it was surely inspired by the myths of Dunwich…

Year after year I heard that faint, far ringing
Of deep-toned bells on the black midnight wind;
Bells of no steeple I could ever find.

The poem ends…

They tolled – but from the sunless tides that pour
Through sunken valleys on the sea’s dead floor.

The visitor can now walk along the bottom of the cliffs, looking up at the remaining village at the top, but sadly I didn’t hear the ‘Mad Clappers’ tolling.

One of the few remaining indications of the the town’s splendour before it was taken by the sea, are the ruins of the abbey.  Lovecraft, who described the 18th century buildings of New England as ‘impossibly old’  would have been impressed.

Driving 200 miles due west will take you to Birmingham, ancient city of the midlands. While there doesn’t at first sight seem to be much to attract the seeker of the unusual as you drive past seemingly endless council estates… a visit to the town centre will not disappoint.  One of the first exhibits to the greet the visitor the city’s central art gallery and museum is Epstein’s giant bronze of Lucifer…

This is a truly striking piece of work and I am going to have to find out more about it.

A five minute drive from the centre of town (or 15 minutes by foot) is the disappointing jewellery quarter.  Marketed by the city as an area for artisan jewellers, it is in fact a district full of wholesale sellers of bargain-basement jewellery that you can find anywhere.

However, the district has two Victorian gothic cemeteries. These, like Portsmouth’s once-fabulous Kingston Cemetery had been desecrated by the local authority, resentful of the cost of upkeep and greedy for more places to sell for burial plots.
Gravestones had either been uprooted or flattened. Mercifully sanity has prevailed, with local groups forming to preserve and restore the cemeteries to something approximating their former glory.

An oasis of peace and quiet in the bustle of Birmingham. Definitely worth a detour on a sunny Spring day.

When, in 2008 the world’s economy finally did go to Hell in a handcart, certain university lecturers who, despite the lessons of history and their own comfortable middle-class lifestyles, still claimed to be Marxists, were writing pieces for the broadsheet newspapers proclaiming the ‘death of Capitalism’. This has not happened, the cost has been great, but the mechanisms of Capitalism stayed in place and it has largely, repaired itself. In every case where a Communist country has undergone similar financial upheaval, it has ended up with thousands of people starving to death – Ayn Rand’s first-hand account of life in Russia in ‘We the Living’ being a good example.

Capitalism works and Communism never does. It was for this reason that in the late part of the 20th century we saw the death of Communism, with first Russia and then China giving up the pretence of anything even remotely Marxist in the way they conduct their economies. Communism is no longer the indulgence of superpowers, or even the second rate countries – only basket cases such as North Korea and Cuba cling to this model by force of will and by believing their own tractor production figures.
Perhaps now, two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall, socialism – Communism’s sallow-faced sibling – will also finally expire.
Then perhaps we will have heard the last of the idea that you can only strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

by Owen Davies

Gary Numan’s career began with a launch in 1979 that can only be described as meteoric, with two number one albums, Replicas and The Pleasure Principle, and the hit single Are Friends Electric in the same year. His use of make-up and elaborate stage shows hinted at Bowie, but Numan’s synthesiser rock sound was brutally mechanical, and the lyrics, inspired by William Burroughs and JG Ballard, painted an emotionally cold dystopian vision of technology and alienation. It didn’t sit well with the 1970s vibe of punk anger, or with the pop frippery of the 1980s New Romantics fad.

Numan entered a hinterland, experimenting with dance music and jazz-funk until the 1990s when he came back with a hard-edged and industrial sound that was truer to his earlier music. Sacrifice and Exile – dark and brooding albums, with lyrics delivering an angry, heretical attack on the god of Judeo-Christianity, re-made his reputation for a new generation.

A full 30 years after the launch of the Pleasure Principle, Gary Numan was at The Junction, Cambridge, still able to hold an audience, but more comfortable with his craft, less in need of proving himself. He is not now disdainful of coming out of ‘character’ to talk to the audience or dedicate a set of songs to his dead friend and Tubeway Army collaborator Paul Gardiner. The insanely huge light shows, electric cars and radio-controlled robots that filled Wembley have gone in favour of stripped-down show for small venues that focuses on the music.

Numan was never one to produce rich, complex music on albums only to offer up a thin facsimile live, and it took up to four synthesiser players to deliver the pure, fat synth sound of the slightly over-produced Pleasure Principle on stage. While faithful to album cuts, the remixes of these tracks for live performance have benefited from the dark industrial sound of his later work and have given them an edge.

The second section of the concert focused on the newer material, and with the stage stripped of two of the synthesisers, the mood animated and became more like a real gig than a recital. It was gratifying to see that Numan, after 30 years can still deliver a powerful performance, and, looking around at the other grizzled heads bobbing at the front of the stage, still command a dedicated and loyal following.

One quick word about the support band Dirty Harry. A confident, competent band delivering a tight hard pop-rock sound. Had they been around in 1979, when Pleasure Principle was launched, they would have stood a chance of having a shot at the charts. But in today’s download-driven market, where there are no charts to speak of, no singles to be released, and no network television programmes such as Top of the Pops or the Tube, how ever do good, hard working bands get a break and make themselves heard above the background noise?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8290669.stm

This is further evidence that Christian ‘compassion’ and ‘forgiveness’ are in fact the selfish actions of people concerned only with ingratiating themselves with Jehovah and saving themselves from Hell.  In their rush to show themselves to be ‘good Christians’, they showed no concern for the need of  their child to be avenged (no-one asked the child if he forgave his rapist), or for the rest of the community to be protected.  All that mattered to them was their own faith and their own salvation.

At the risk of appearing obsessed… I have just seen another, and recommend anyone who has a spare hour in London tomorrow to go and view it on  its final day.

Exquisite Bodies, at the Welcomme Trust in Euston Street, is a fascinating exploration of phenomenon of medical models, usually made out of wax, that existed from 16th century Florence until the Victorian Period.

Designed to get around the practicality and often the legality of dissecting real bodies for medical study. These figures are frequently highly artistic and have uncanny resonances with religious icons.

While this exhibition does not feature any real specimens (except a two-headed cow), they represent real medical conditions in a real and graphic way.

Highly recommended and FREE… catch it if you can, the final day is Sunday October 18.

The Stuff of Thought: Human Ideas and Where They Come from

The Stuff of Thought: Human Ideas and Where They Come from

by Steven Pinker

More at the Opus Diaboli bookshelf:

… All my lyrics are talking about great stuff. Don’t invite this Satan guy into your life! That’s the one thing I have going through the whole show, this anti-satanic thing. If anybody should protest me, it’s the Satanists, not the Christians. Does anybody get this?

…But what they don’t realize is that these kids come home and they say, ‘Dad, Alice is totally anti-Satan. He’s against drugs and alcohol!’ And if that doesn’t work, ‘Dad, he can beat you in 18 holes. ”

An excert from an interview with Alice Cooper for the Sun Herald http://www.sunherald.com/living/story/1661729.html

Alice… Alice… don’t you realise that you’re playing the devil’s music, you’re borrowing his clothes, his imagery, his schtick… but not having the honesty to give Satan credit for all the positive things we get from him… like rock and roll.

Shame on you Alice, and if you came to my town I would ‘protest (against) you’.