Gary Glitter back in the UK, Team GB, Mangal II and Spanair flight crash

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK
Home News : Gary Glitter back in the UK
I find myself breathing a sigh. I wonder if the rabid lynch mob that proclaim themselves to be protectors of our morality (as they kill a paediatrician) will think that Alvin Stardust is fair game. Certainly major record stores seem to have re-written the history of seventies rock so that Gary Glitter doesn’t appear in it any more.

Apparently the UK is a ‘Christian’ country, and when invited to stone an adulterer to death this bloke Christ said something about ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’. The trick there was that no one is perfect, and how will the world ever get any better if as soon as someone is sick in the head or makes a dreadful mistake they are eternally damned for it?

No, I’m not talking about Paul Gadd a.k.a. Gary Glitter, a.k.a. someone who you can behave as less than a human being towards because apparently as far as dealing with him is concerned two wrongs now make a right.

I’m talking about the cabinet ministers who smoked dope in the past, and who don’t have it tattooed on their forehead so that they can be refused credit when they try to buy something or have their USA permits refused because they are drugs offenders.

And I’m talking about the police forces that at no point ever caught Gary Glitter carrying out any act involving children (he was caught when a PC maintenance engineer found images of children on his computer). Have these police forces got an element on their identity cards that says ‘incapable of preventing crimes involving children’? Can’t say I’ve seen it.

Marketing News : Team GB
Apparently it is now de rigueur to take a traditional description of something and rename it to make it sound more (yuck) funky. So the British Olympic Team is now referred to as ‘Team GB’. This got me wondering what new names our other institutions should have to be in keeping.

So I propose that British Armed Forces be re-named ‘War GB’. The Police Force now becomes ‘Plod GB’. The National Health Service can now be known as ‘Sick GB’. And of course the British Government can now be ‘Wrong GB’.

Restaurant Review : Mangal II, Ocakbasi Restaurant, Stoke Newington
My friend Lili took a bunch of us to this Turkish restaurant in Stoke Newington. Unbeknown to me, because I’d forgotten that she’d mentioned it, this is the regular eating place of popular art combo Gilbert & George and I found myself sitting behind George himself.

My friend Freddie Valentine has an amazing comedy routine where he performs a song about the artistic pair as the wonderful Barry Chester creates ‘art’ in a Gilbert & George excrement fashion, live onstage. The song has a chorus about them making you ‘a nice cup of tea’ and I found this tune going round my head as I ordered dinner.

Whilst my stomach can handle the most disgusting array of fast food, and an uncanny amount of ice cream and chocolate, it is completely without resistance to spicy food. I have to carefully avoid it to prevent unpleasant and potentially painful experiences. So I have learned that instead of believing people that say ‘this isn’t very spicy’, I must order korma (usually chicken) when I am in an Indian restaurant, and Iskender Kebab when I am in a Turkish restaurant.

At £10.95 including special bread, this was not exactly cheap for me, although it was perfectly reasonable for a London restaurant of any reputation. It was certainly a very filling meal. It was also a nice touch that the can of Coke I ordered was the Turkish language version.

I was reminded of the scam artists in this part of London who had translated free advice from food safety authorities into Turkish, and were trying to sell it to Turkish restaurants at £100 a time, masquerading as an official source. Their little game only came to light when they tried to sell it to the local council!

The service at Mangal II was good, the décor bright and clear, and the atmosphere relaxed and friendly. So this is a nice place to have a Turkish meal in the presence of art icons if you fancy it. More information at mangal2.com.

Travel News: Spanair flight crash
The suggestion that the recent Madrid air crash was a result of a series of problems will not help the budget airline industry. Airlines like EasyJet have long been aware that only an unquestionable record on safety will keep them in business and that when one budget airline has safety issues it could be the end of the whole business. If skimping or mistakes in a range of areas are shown to have been the cause of the crash it could lead to concern over all the budget carriers at a time when there is pressure on to keep costs down.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]