David Cameron, on the other hand, has got the complexion of a waxed apple, and consequently a longer shelf life. He embodies a kind of gung-ho, William Tell-ish quality. I was watching him in Prime Minister’s Questions on the iPlayer recently - he is uncannily like Tony Blair, right down to the contrived but confident use of gesture. He even has the occasional flourish. He almost vogues.

In contrast, Gordon Brown has the paralinguistic range of a cloven hoof - he fully depends on the sole ‘expressive’ technique of hands-as-snow-plough. The fact that he has the collapsible slack-jawed look of a stroke victim doesn’t help matters.

David Cameron is going to win the next election, even though we all know that, deep down, he’s a rancid maggot.

Gordon Brown’s crucial flaw is his Stalinistic stoicism. This is the end of Labour. He should have given up the ghost months ago and made way for someone younger and better looking. We were over the idea of Gordon Brown as Prime Minister way before Tony stepped down because of the relentless repetition of the open secret that they’d made ‘the deal’. It’s akin to fixing the outcome of X-Factor - it doesn’t seem right.

Rallying the wrinklies around him now is only making matters worse. For Margaret Beckett to say that “the British people will neither understand nor forgive a party that appears to be more concerned with its own internal disputes than with their very real problems” is a valiant attempt to nip a rebellion in the bud but comes a bit too late ‘cos the momentum seems already to have gathered. So, actually, this kind of statement foreshadows, even encourages, continued collapse. A decent shot but an own goal.

The very idea that the timing is inappropriate because the government needs to concentrate on minimizing the repurcussions of economic crisis doesn’t wash when they’ve all just been on summer holiday. Plus, politics isn’t about politics, it’s about drama! It’s the perfect fucking time for a rebellion. And most MPs are subconsciously tuned into this so Labour rebels won’t be able to resist the pull of a revolutionary stand-off especially because of the current climate. The argument will also stir up resentment because the feeling is that the current economic climate is being used as a shield, which seems weak.

I’ve got to confess that I’m interested in seeing what happens after the Tory government comes in. Historically, artistic communities are injected with a certain kind of verve under right-wing regimes. We might not benefit in terms of funding. If the economy is poor, fewer people might venture out to see us perform. But my own internal rebel is waking up and feeling the flush of inspiration. Some good work could come out of this.

And political activism at grass roots might also benefit. Government is currently a closed shop. Once there was the idea that a local MP served his/her constituents as a primary purpose, with loyalty to their party a context for this service - of secondary significance - and a broad loyalty to the chosen leader taking third place. Then Tony Blair came along and reversed it. Some would say Maggie Thatcher started it off. But the upshot was that the leader ended up coming first. Now that order sits badly, because no one likes the current leader, or at least no one thinks he’s any good.

No one really likes David Cameron, either. But he’s more polished. The net generation, though, are questioning why any of these gimps are in positions of power in the first place. And the public rage at being ignored in mass protests over Iraq hasn’t yet had an opportunity to fully vent itself. What could be more ironic than a completely undemocratic decision to declare war on a country in order that we might liberate it by making it ‘democratic’? We can all see this. And now we have the means with which to stand up and say it. Globally.

Governments and corporations are “locked in twentieth century thinking”, say Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in Wikinomics (read it). The online masses are engaging in self-organization and reshaping the cultural landscape - look at how the music industry is in crisis; in twenty years, there probably won’t be any such thing as A & R - the big labels will just be licensing facilitators. Unless the bigwigs work out how to adapt to the technology that means the originators of content can increasingly be their own enablers and distributors. Creative people are starting to come together in groups and collectives. Why shouldn’t we also get creative with politics?

One-way monologues of duplicitous and manipulative construction are starting to struggle to be heard among increasing numbers of articulate voices in dialogue. If we suspect that a voice is out to dissemble us, we can reach out and share our critique with larger numbers of enquiring minds who are prepared to stand up and say, ‘Hang on a minute, Dave, you’re full of shit’. We’ve got an opportunity to redemocratize political discourse. In time, we could even reshape the foundations of government so that they become increasingly ‘open-sourced’. Willingness and participation are the first steps.

Lecture over. Everyone back to the dancefloor.

The Lipsinkers: Trannies on Tour from Dickie Beau on Vimeo.

And, as if by magic, by order of some cosmic act of buffoonery… no water in the pipes. Not in the kitchen, not in the lav, not the shower.

But there’s nothing to be done. The Council blamed Thames Water. Thames Water blamed the Council. Thames Water asked me to go out into the neighbourhood and canvass nearby buildings for analagous drought issues, because if I could find a neighbour in another building with no water they might accept that it’s their fault. I told them I can’t be seen in public without having had a shower. Deadlock. The Council are going to send someone out within four hours, by which time I might have turned into Pete Doherty.

Thank fuck for the lifeline that is the interweb, so that the world might continue to revolve around me, though my resurrection has had to be postponed as a ‘tomorrow problem’.

That’s me swimming in the middle with the white face. I’m either in ecstasy or it was caught at the moment David Hoyle’s elbow cracked my balls.

And if you’ve never danced in the moving fountains in front of the Royal Festival Hall in your undies at midnight, I highly recommend it. Bit cold, mind you.

And took her beautiful, wonderful life

We both found God.

But the thing that really struck a chord

Was the shame I felt when I got bored

With bereavement.

Who’d have thought it? The man who runs Formula One - the most boring sport, and the one most bereft of style, that the world has ever known - has a penchant for Nazi chic and likes a spot of CP.

This is so his own private business it’s positively depressing that his being outed as a fetishist is supposedly the ‘price of free speech’, according to Nick Cohen, in the most ridiculous quote of the year (in the Evening Standard - hello).

Free speech is apparently something of an illusion, anyway, if we’re to believe the story by Lotus on folo that one of the prozzies in the Mosley video is the wife of an MI5 intelligence officer, who has since been ‘forced to resign’. If there is fact behind this allegation it’s interesting that the newspapers haven’t been chewing much on the meat of that material.

What breathes life into the Mosley story is the fact that his dad, Oswald, was a real-life fascist. This is the cynical sensationalist centrepoint around which the honeytrap was insidiously contrived. The implication that Mosley may be some kind of covert Nazi is palpably stupid. There are five adults in my immediate family (including me) and NONE of us share the same political position (although we don’t beat each other up about it).

If Mosley and his companions had been sporting KKK costumes and burning black kids, that might be of interest to the public and worth informing the Crown Prosecution Service about, but a bit of themed hanky panky is hurting no one. And if people are offended, they should pay no heed to the contents of a secret video that was filmed without consent because it’s none of their business, anyway.

The video, of course, has been broadcast on the web. If you’ve seen it (research purposes, darling), you’ll know it’s actually pretty dull. As the fetish scene can be. On my first foray into that world I made a beeline for a gang of fiercely gesticulating transvestites who I thought looked like they were talking about something pretty wild, only to discover they were sharing advice about keeping their car engines clean. It takes allsorts.

But I’m loathe to take the piss out of the fetish scene, because while papers like the News of the World and the Daily Mail are apt to mount their hypocritical high horses and cheerfully bemoan the decrepit state of the nation’s family values, the trusting networks of quasi-family setups that connect within the fetish community are often quietly going about the business of caring, nurturing and supporting each other, with respect for individuality, privacy and consent (a corruptible dominatrix or two being a disappointing exception to the rule). Meanwhile, the children of the ultra-conservative learn the language of shame (DEAD silence), living but partly living, in the fear that their dark secrets will someday be exposed.

Those cunts at the News of the World deserve a fucking good hiding.

Very Hot Chocolate (a dirty protest) from Dickie Beau on Vimeo.

But, digging deeper, there’s a curried bean in this somewhere that burns my ass.

200 complainants is quite a lot by ASA standards but, if the ASA choose to investigate, I’ll bet they find nothing “inappropriate” or “offensive” in the ad’s content. How could they? It’s entertaining but ultimately banal. So, an appropriate response to the complaints about the ad would’ve been Heinz saying, “Get the fuck over it.” The fact that they went all “gay” about it, apologising for causing offence, is bad enough because this smacks of homophobia in itself. But there’s something inauthentic about the whole story that has the cynic in me smell a rat in this kitchen, and it makes the whole thing a measure more insidious yet.

This is the very first TV commercial produced for Heinz by their new ad agency, AMV BBDO, which took over the company’s £10 million contract recently. I wonder if there’s any coincidence here.

It seems to me that the creatives at AMV BBDO are pretty clever: create a minor furore over some mild gay content in a “family” ad; then, create massive brand awareness by removing the ad with much fanfare and apology, declaring it the response of a company “that listens” - suddenly, everyone will look at the ad on the internet, and all those thousands of people who never even heard of Deli Mayo before (which - say it out loud - sounds uncannily, almost poetically, like a certain newspaper) will now be familiar with your product, plus you’ll generate a bit of a debate because plenty of people will kick up a fuss about that fact that there’s not very much to make a fuss about. Hey presto. Most successful advertorial concept of the year.

Maybe I’m overthinking it but it makes sense to me that good ad companies get millions of pounds for shit like this.

Sad thing is, this withdrawal method is not gonna be too great for the self-esteem of gay kids, or the kids of gay parents, who are gonna be extremely sensitive to the idea that their existence is a justifiable source of shame - it’s just such an idea that this entire hullabaloo inflates. And therein lies the fucking rub. And it’s why Stonewall are up in arms, and Gaydar are encouraging a boycott of Heinz products, and there’s a Facebook group campaigning to bring the ad back. Wow. That’s a lot of publicity right there.

Whether this situation has been engineered by cynical creatives, or blown out of proportion by a company of such flimsy mettle that it bows to the pressure of an ultra-conservative minority, Heinz and their ad bods are obviously doing something so wrong it’s weirdly right. They even made it onto my blog. Clever cunts.

While I wait for the kettle to boil, perhaps I could put some washing in the machine. No, by the time I’ve sorted out my colours, the water won’t be BOILING hot anymore and I’ll have to boil it all over again. Forget that. I could … I need a pee, I’ll pee.

I’ve had a pee, the kettle’s just boiled. Well done. Perhaps some chocolate to go with that tea. Hm. Nice. Now a cigarette. Better go into the garden for that; don’t want to stink out the living room, flatmates won’t be chuffed.

Now, what was I going to do? Oh, the article. Ah, the computer’s indoors. Hm. Must fill the moments. Maybe I’ll call someone. Who can I call? Who can I call? Who can I call? Who do I feel like calling?

Those weeds are ridiculous. We’ve got such a big garden, so much potential. We could have a Vogue Ball out here, that’s one hell of a runway. Nextdoor have barbecues. We should have barbecues. But the council will have to fix that drain.

I can’t believe that drain. I can’t believe they only unblocked it three weeks ago. What keeps blocking it? It’s un-believeable. I’ll bet them upstairs are pouring fats down the plughole. I bet that’s what it is. I’ve a good mind to go upstairs and say, “What are you pouring down the plug? It’s blocking the drain and we’ve got scum all over our runway. We need you to stop pouring fats down the drain else it’ll ruin our Vogue Ball.”

But it might not be the flat directly above. It might be the one above that, or the one above that, or the one above that. I’m not going to knock on all the doors. I’ll get a reputation for being the curmudgeonly little fart on the ground floor. They’ll end up pouring fats down the drain just to spite me.

Why am I back at the kettle? I’ll have another cup of tea since I’m here. This is way too much caffeine. Now, who was I going to call?

I wonder if any of those boys nextdoor are a bit gay or if they’re just Italian.

I must renew my gym membership. I’m gonna turn into a blimp. Hm. But I’m not in bad shape. I might not be a cover boy, but… Oh, for heaven’s sake, who wants to be a cover boy, anyway? I’ve got more important things to do with my time than spend all my time down the gym.

There might be a dead rat in the drain.

But I must renew that membership. And those library books are way late. Where are they, even, anyway? If a complete stranger walked into my bedroom they’d think I was somehow dysfunctional.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Let’s read that article. Then, we’ll work on some music.

I’ll just check my messages first.