THE LEEDS DEBACLE

LEEDS

ISSUE4 - £FREE

WELCOME TO ISSUE FOUR OF THE LEEDS DEBACLE More writing from more writers, new and old, good and great, make up a fourth debacle of poetry, reviews, features, comments, blogs, interviews and stories on music, fashion, art, holidays, booze, sport, tv, politics and other suitable summer sense and nonsense.

Issue four of The Leeds Debacle is: John Barran Ross Newsome Tom Dean Kyle James-Patrick George Quinn Robin Jahdi Jacqueline Howics Glen Pinder Joseph Wood Rebecca Elliott Azar Ashraf Gareth Jones Dave Barlow Rachel Gardner Gareth Tantram Damien Knightley Adam Lee Jones Danny Egan Stevie Rigsby Michelle Dalgety Ed Teale If you would like to write or be written about in the next debacle we would like you to email thedebacle@hotmail.co.uk - that means you, everyone!!!

Read all issues in full colour and everything at: issuu.com/thedebacle Befriend us at: facebook.com/leedsdebacle

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A FROG, UNIVERSITY, WILL SMITH /GARETH JONES

T

his is a story all about how, a frog’s life got flipped, turned upside down.

And I’d like to take a moment, 5 minutes in duration, to tell you about this frog and higher education.

Deep in Louisiana born and raised, on the lily pad where he spent most of his days, diving in the water, trying to stay cool, never had this frog thought about school.

When our frog was young he lived on a boat, until his dad died of a croaky throat. The news of his death came as quite the shock, from life on a boat he now lived on a rock.

He was in the pursuit of happiness and always upbeat, everyone at the swamp thought he was sweet.

It was clear that one day he would leave the lake, least that was the view of Hancock the snake.

On a July afternoon this prophecy came true, totally coming out of the blue. The frog was swept into a sack, and into the arms of a man in black.

This man didn’t look like a Galaxy defender, if anything he looked like a sex offender. Black Ray-Bans and a tight black suit! Staring at the frog like a forbidden fruit.

Disorientated the frog’s eyes went blurred, as he glanced at a book with a mocking bird.

“Do you know of this book?” the man asked our green friend (talking to frogs I would not recommend).

The frog replied, “Read it.” It was all he could say, as the man took it his face turned grey. He listed books to test our young friend; the answer was the same from beginning to end.

“Read it, read it, read it,” was all that he said, next thing he knew he was on a plastic bed.

The frog was now trapped in a small Tupperware, on a bed of cotton in a state of despair.

“This frog I have found needs a name, when I get him home I’ll be in the hall of fame!”

“I’m going to get him enrolled on an English d e g r e e , e q u a l opportunities for the frog and me!”

He called the frog B a g g e r Vance, and took him to Froggy-style uni the first day he had chance. As they walked onto the university grounds, including the Tupperware he weighed seven pounds.

The man dropped Bagger onto a desk; a girl in the class thinks this is grotesque. “Why is there a frog, this isn’t science?” she screams out in total defiance.

“He’s only come for two days of playing, and the amount he’s read he’ll wind up staying.”

The frog had been granted a twoday trial, to see if university was really worthwhile. The class was a mix of ages and races, real sweet faces, every different nation: Spanish, English, Jamaican, and now it had a frog that lacked concentration.

As they argued it was immediately

clear, that Bagger was a frog and far from Shakespeare. Freed from being trapped in a plastic dish, he wanted to go home see his friend the fish.

School was not the kinda place he could spend a few days in, he couldn’t get past the strong double glazin’.

“Girls ain’t nothing but trouble,” his owner thought, as she grabbed his frog, that had now been caught.

Bagger was not going to build castles in the sky, and it was clear to all that he was about to die.

It was like a scene from the Wild West, as our friend the frog was put to rest.

‘He wasn’t special that was just his croak, frogs can’t read you f**king joke!’

The Man in Black tells her “Give it a rest” and writes, ‘I Am Legend’ across the frog’s chest.

Please send your three thing requests for issue five to thedebacle@hotmail.co.uk whoever’s suggestion Gaz uses will win a copy of his book Semi-Detached!

TheLeedsDebacle_3

Television T

elevision, eh? Not like it used to be in the good old days. Time was, you’d crank the old telly when you got in from school/truancy/the mine, and when that picture finally appeared on the super-reflective, rounded screen, you knew you could settle in for a night of quality entertainment. Not like nowadays, when everything’s a reality or property show, or just You Tube videos and people texting.

No, it was good old-fashioned television. Bullseye - where real men, and the occasional woman who looked like a man, played darts in order to win a speedboat that they could take back to their landlocked council estate. Or the Wheeltappers and Shunters, where incredibly fat, sweaty men visited those council estates in order to tell racist jokes.

Of course, there was some actual good telly back then too. Mainly comedy, it seems. The Likely

looked at with rose-tinted specs when people tell me things were much better back then. As with cinema and music, though the 1970s had some real excellence, that is not to say the present day is lacking.

Take the Leonard Rossiter comedies, for instance. He was a true legend of comic acting, and his two key roles (let’s ignore Tripper’s Day, shall we?) saw him playing, respectively, a mean, spiteful loser trying to stretch what little authority he had as far as it would go, and a moderately successful, insane misanthrope.

There is a direct, and worthy, descendent of his today. And I’m not talking about halibut-faced grimster Martin Clunes’ remake of ‘Reggie Perrin’. No, I would certainly hope that at this point in time you, dear reader, have had the pleasure to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. For those unaware, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David

/ROBIN JAHDI

generally accepted by the good old days brigade.

Then we have the drama serial, in which the modern day absolutely trounces the good old days. I’m not sure what there was – I Claudius and not much else, whereas nowadays HBO alone can keep us occupied. Take the Sopranos.

Australian foreigner-ridiculerturned-social commentator Clive James remarked in his essay, ‘Great Sopranos of Our Time’: “The real question here is whether the Godfather trilogy really is the armature of the spin-off, or whether the spin-off is bigger and better than the armature. Surely the latter is the case. We shouldn’t let the size of the picture fool us.

In the little picture, a lot more is going on, and it’s a lot more true.”

At some point after NYPD Blue, The X-Files and ER, America learned how to make better telly than films. Those shows certainly helped pave the way, involving high-end talent both in front of and behind the camera, but it all really came together with the Sopranos. Originally surprisingly dissed as ‘Analyse This! The Series’, this was a gangster epic with humans at the centre of it, something Donnie Brasco was close to achieving. It was more of a family drama that just happened to be about gangsters, and it was the coolest thing on telly.

At some point after NYPD Blue, The X-Files and ER, America learned how to make better telly than films.

Lads was pretty good, but the best things were shows featuring John Cleese or Leonard Rossiter.

Fawlty Towers, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and Rising Damp were, and are still, classics. But it seems the olden days of telly are 4_TheLeedsDebacle

spends the show… well, pretty much just living his life. However, due to his rigid adherence to his principles, or simple misunderstandings, awkwardness and hilarity ensue pretty regularly.

And its faux-documentary style recalls Alan Partridge, which is

After that, everyone else was in on the act. Six Feet Under featured a pair of funeral directors who had a different featured ‘client’

Bunk enjoyed a snuggle with that bloke from 300

each week, playing out against a grand narrative of struggle against external forces. Nip/Tuck featured a pair of plastic surgeons who had a different featured ‘client’ each week, playing out against a grand narrative of struggle against external forces. Err. Even the first series of Desperate Housewives was an intriguing Hitchcock-insuburbia whodunit – with Danny Elfman music, no less – before it turned into lame soap opera.

because it was the best TV show they had. In a nutshell, it’s about police. But it’s also about drug dealers, and we’re not entirely sure who the good guys are. In fact, we’re pretty sure neither are. But what begins as a grittier, extended New Jack City unfolds and unfolds as the five seasons go by, in stunning detail, until you can track governmental decisions down the ladder to the street, and back up again.

Of course, everything changed when The Wire appeared on our screens. David Simon, who did Homicide: Life on the Streets in that ER/X-Files era, revisited the mean streets of Baltimore, Maryland (about which he wrote in his previous life as a journalist) for this one, and it changed everything. Not that it was successful: it was famously not massively viewed. But HBO kept commissioning new seasons simply

The Wire isn’t being compared to old telly. It’s not being compared to any telly. The comparisons are more along the lines of Dickens and Shakespeare now. What’s truly shocking is the fact that those comparisons aren’t actually farfetched. There is nothing else like The Wire in terms of drawing you into a truly labyrinthine tale of one city, its people, and how they can fuck each other over without even realising. Every person

should receive a box set for their 18th birthday, because you’re not really an adult if you’ve not been exposed to it. The closest thing UK telly has seen is probably Our Friends in the North, but that wasn’t really close at all.

Away from HBO, we have series like Breaking Bad. Programmes about science teachers who decide to cook crystal meth shouldn’t be good, but this one is absolutely compelling. Again, it’s the humanity at the centre of the crime and chaos that keeps us hooked, but the violence and extreme peril certainly don’t hurt.

The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The Wire have all finished, but the quality doesn’t seem like it’ll abate any time soon. Golden age of telly? We’re living it. Now, where are my Mad Men blu-rays…

TheLeedsDebacle_5

here’s as a bindle, with a guitar

izen Report

it The SubjectC

D

epending on whether you are reading The Debacle, listening to the podcast or watching this on the Subject Citizen YouTube channel...

Greetings readers/listeners/ viewers, your continued and growing support and contribution is not only appreciated by me, but is ultimately essential to you, the nation’s very own subject citizens. I haven’t got through all three of the emails you’ve sent in.

Nevertheless, I’m glad I’ve been able to help you on your way, Linda from Holbeck, and don’t thank me, I see it as my duty.

And it’s not only Linda, in other developments I have acquired my very first lunatic stalker fan.

It’s very exciting. He will appear at many of my gigs, buying me a congratulatory post-set drink (venue permitting it’s usually chilli tequila) and always insists it’s the first time he’s seen me perform.

After explaining the reality to him he’ll reply with something like, “Well, that’s even more a credit to you”. Flattering but awkwardly repetitive as I examine his face

into are housing madmen? I’m not sure, but flattered all the same. If you can touch one person... But don’t touch him, he’s mine.

I switch our attention to a warm Easter Sunday all-day event in a small venue, bands in the cellar, acoustic acts upstairs, Milly from Terrorvision providing A-list stature, about 20 acts in all.

The name ‘Easter Resurrection’ conjures images of Ian Brown in a robe wearing a crown of thorns.

The irony being he is as high up in my chain of command as Christ is in some other circles. The ring leader has also arranged ‘The Leeds Fringe Festival’ at which I’ll inevitably steal the headlines with some flash of magical oncein-a-lifetime genius. For this is the theme for all aspiring iconic musical mega lords. Because when the sun shines, the English listen to music outdoors. And stay longer. And get drunker. And shout louder. The environment and atmosphere changes completely from the focused semi-controlled etiquette that surrounds wintery gigs, into a sun-stroked frenzied pandemonium involving sun hats, beer gardens and tiny little denim shorts. Oh yes.

or so more pints than usual before taking the stage and, whenever possible, introduce a stimulant of your choice to soak up the drink.

Don’t overdo the self prescription though, gurning affects the sound of the lyrics. You will hopefully find yourself at a point of loose, inspired and capable. Just where the needle on the gauge needs to be for these sunny festivals.

A blur of uncontrollable randoms are chattering and uninterested in anything not wearing denim shorts but a bar into my opening song, the atmosphere obediently settles down and the people switch on.

Surprised at the appreciation, the gaps of spontaneous erratic bullshit between songs grow ever longer, the more I relax.

I am currently at a point where I find myself playing in the same circles. In Manchester, in Leeds, in Bradford - each city having its own big players. This is surely the top standard of unsigned music, the scene that will be battling for the top spots next summer!

SOS festival in Manchester in August reads as a who’s who.

Good performances at shows like these, especially in the summer, can impact 10 times more than an evening gig in, say, February. Use the sunshine as an agent, take advantage of this time. Festivals and all-dayers left, right and centre, good momentum here could have you writing a Christmas no.1 contender. Next time I’ll debut a summer classic ‘drunken, warm and jobless’ and we can see how it goes down in the sun.

Don’t overdo the self prescription though, gurning affects the sound of the lyrics for evidence of amateur deceit.

Does he know he’s doing this?

And why the fuck chilli tequila!?

The last two things I want to drink. The main offenders. What does this signify? Is it recognition of my ever-growing popularity?

Confirmation of my ability?

Evidence the venues I bounce 6_TheLeedsDebacle

At a later all-dayer in Wibsey W.M.C called ‘BD6 live’, the luxuriously hot weather acted as a catalyst to the frenzy to the point that it emanated through everyone to each corner of the venue. The way to handle this situation I find is to knock back two

Keep on keeping on, that means you Linda. Till next time, loyal friends.

M

y. Our. No, my first parent was a star. 12 billion years worth of providing. Parents say children today are time consuming? Nowadays, nowadays, now-a-days. Just think of our first parent. We were all not planned pregnancies said our first parent.

Billions billions billion billion, add

Parents

/JACQUELINE HOWICS

another 9, take some away. One of my seven mothers, which one, who knows, suckled the milk of our, my, yes, my first parent. My decedents, the decedents who established Europeans. My blood. Our blood.

The blood of our first parents.

Billions, billions and billions add nine. Then I, not our, but I,

blipped into existence. Another bang. Another big bang that did not mean to bring anything into the world. Life, like our, my, our first parent, through chemicals, motions, banging, big big banging.

Brought life. And ever since the whole god darn world has been banging.

TheLeedsDebacle_7

I

n these darkly depressing days of the credit crunch crisis where we wallow inside our almost-evacuated, bailiffed, griefhole homes crying into a can of spam beneath a ton of Lambrini, spare a thought for the poor pub.

Unable to compete with our pound a litre ciders and 9p noodles, landlords have been hurriedly handing in their licences, from the long-established likes of Kirkstall’s Rising Sun to newcomers and goers like Merrion Street’s Glory Bar. Or so the media would have you believe. Whilst there is clearly a truth in the fear, the bar business can still be a goldmine. A Saturday night stumble down Call Lane is proof of both sides, as two recent bars sit vacant and sad at the bottom of endless queues for £4 pints. So it is surprising, welcome news that three new arrivals are hitting the streets of Leeds at similar times: The Belgrave, Empire and Sedgwick Avenue.

Filling the space of the aforementioned Glory Bar, Sedgwick Avenue has made few changes from the outside but is coming at us from a whole different place. That place, to be exact, is East Coast America, whose hip-

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hop influence is behind the name and the idea. DJ’s spinning laidback rap, funk and latin beats aim for a chilled energy, enhanced by a rare impressive city centre beer garden. What could be a cosy inside currently feels a little harsh but, once the bar stamps its Nike Air footprints to become the kool grandmaster, this small fruit could become Leeds’ big apple.

Opposite the ever-popular Adelphi, Empire, at first glance, appears dubious. A towny bar blaring bland dance music hoping to catch the dregs of Call Lane, it seems more suited to the stale suits of Greek Street until you enter. Then the bar unveils a purposefully styled upstairs, a nice conflicting mix of relaxed and vibrant, if not necessarily unique. The real gem of Empire lies beneath, where a larger downstairs darker room - all pillars, stage and attitude - lurks.

Priding itself on sound quality, the 250-person venue should be a joy for bands to play and customers should feel a buzz to watch them.

Here’s hoping they seek out and attract the quality and cool performers the setting deserves.

At

the

other

side

of

town

the cocktail ‘n’ roll is equally increased at the expense of dickie-bows ‘n’ balls. Replacing seedy snooker giants Riley’s and its degenerate clientelle, The Belgrave may have selected an odd venue but immediately makes a whole lot of sense. The exterior has been transformed by a lick of paint and emphasised windows, whilst the plush interior boasts leather booths and a wide bar, perfect for drunken intimacy or pissed-up prancing as you wish.

The theme is as unsubtle as it is unarguable, with wallpapers of guitars, records and Debbie Harry, but there remains an unpretentious friendliness about The Belgrave which suggests a real boozer at heart, just one where you drink Hendricks with Hendrix.

All three new additions are impressive enough to dominate many a city but, in what remains a thriving scene, Leeds opens few gaps in this market. Offering original cocktails, world beers and cool music has become standard, but one that we should be grateful to have escaped the Stella/Carling brigade for. Make the most of it.

Leave your Lambrini, spam and tears, your £4 pint is served with relaxation, parties and life.

Real Ale Ramblings

/ED TEALE

Crossing the pond has never seemed so attractive!

T

his instalment of ‘real ale ramblings’ starts with a pop quiz – who took my advice from issue 3 and paid a visit to the Town Hall Tavern for a pint of Ram Tam? Those who did will have found it closed and undergoing a rigorous looking refurbishment! The good news is the refurb is complete and the Tavern is looking a lot better for it. With a new management team, cocktails and new food menu to match the self-styled gastro pub image, it feels like the Town Hall Tavern has successfully transformed itself into a more accessible pub for the masses. The term ‘gastro pub’ might often be sneered at by traditionalists, but in this case, it is one refurbishment that has given us a pub a lot better than it was before.

One thing that hasn’t changed at the Town Hall Tavern is the owners. Timothy Taylors are still at the helm which means the

magnificent Landlord is still being served and it tastes as good as ever. The award-winning Landlord is widely available as a guest or regular ale in most decent pubs, but there can be no better place to drink it than in one of Timothy Taylors own pubs that can be found across North and West Yorkshire.

Fantastic beer isn’t just a Yorkshire thing, it’s not even just a UK thing, it is global! It doesn’t always have to come on draught (although it can help). Great beer can even be found from the ‘home of bad beer’ – the USA. After wading through the terrible light beers by Budweiser and Miller an undercurrent of quality brewing is clearly evident.

A trip to the U.S of A isn’t needed though to sample a selection of Americas finest. Offerings from San Francisco’s Anchor Brewery are often found in Leeds while

New York’s Brooklyn Lager can be easily found. Brooklyn Lager is occasionally found on draught but you need to be prepared to part with well over £4 a pint to experience it. If it’s a draught beer you crave but can’t be bothered to see if North Bar still have some Brooklyn Lager left, you are more likely to find Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but as with Brooklyn, you won’t be left with much change from a £5 note.

Personal favourites of mine from the US breweries are Goose Island IPA from Chicago and Boston Lager made by the Samuel Adams Brewery. Boston Lager especially is a fantastic dark beer with a smooth taste but you will probably need to visit the US to sample it on draught, although the bottled version easily does it justice if you come across it.

Although these beers from across the Atlantic aren’t necessarily brewed in the same way as our beloved ale from the UK, they are all fantastic in their own way. The colours and most importantly, the flavours they offer can make your taste buds tingle as much as any cask ale.

Go in peace, enjoy your ale.

TheLeedsDebacle_9

The law is not an ass, it`s a cash cow. /DAVE BARLOW

H

ow many of you have broken the law? How many of you have done something illegal? How many people think I`ve asked the same question twice? They sound like the same thing but they`re not.

I`m not a lawyer but it seems like we have three types of law.

God`s law, which varies from deity to deity but for the purpose of this rant, the ten commandments will serve as a good example. Take away the fluff about Graven images, weekends off, slagging your Mum and Dad off, neighbour`s ass etc. you`re pretty much left with, don’t kill or steal. Sounds like common sense, even to an atheist, unless they`re a murderer or a thief.

Common law. This roughly boils down to, don`t cause loss, distress or harm to anyone, or anything, that`s it, that covers everything. If you break this law you have committed a crime provided it can be proven that

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there was intent and that there is an injured party. If you are found guilty by a jury of your peers you can be jailed.

Statutes and acts. These are the ones we are all probably most familiar with, the parking/ speeding ticket, smoking ban, putting your bin out on the wrong day/ for too long/too full, not filling in the stocktake, I beg your pardon, ‘census’ form, paying taxes, to cut a very long story short, stuff you get fined for.

Thousands and thousands of laws, more than 3000 since Tony Blair took over the UK plc. How many of those have you heard of or broken?

But a statute isn`t really a law, it`s only given the force of law, when consented to, by the governed, the governed being us.

Which means one of two things is going on here. Either everyone in the country held a meeting and agreed that it was illegal to watch your own telly, without paying some already wealthy corporation.

Not only that, you kept it a secret from me, or, we`re all being had by statutes. When did you all vote for “Civil enforcement officers”? If we`re the “civils” being “enforced” by jumpedup traffic wardens, shouldn`t we have been consulted, did you consent to them having any authority over you? No. Statutes, slippery fuckers, eh? Going round like they`re Judge Dredd, “I am the law” when they`re no such thing, cheeky, robbing bastards.

The next time you`re smoking a cheeky doobie and a copper tells you it`s a crime, ask him: where is the injured party, who have I caused harm or loss to? His answer will vary but the result will be revenue collection.

It`s time to stop bitching and moaning about how corrupt and useless our governments and police are and remember who works for who, around here. If we aren`t ready to rise above our slavery, then we must at least stop paying for it.

The Relent

M

y arm had been diseased for three years before I got it removed. They strapped me down with leather belts and steel buckles. They didn’t use anesthetic “in case it mixes with the disease and has adverse effects.” I felt every stroke of the saw. I screamed and cried, hoping that they may be overcome with mercy and stop, sew up the wound, unfasten the restraints and let me leave.

They just turned up the teevee’s volume so they couldn’t hear me. It didn’t stop me hearing the metal grind against the bone.

They offered to keep in touch but I refused. I didn’t want their sympathy, I didn’t trust their sympathy was genuine after such malicious surgery. They didn’t enjoy it and I understood how hard it was for them to ignore my pleas and my instinctive insults, but I could never befriend them or rely on their support after they had so efficiently mutated me.

They offered to keep it in a vault. Under supervision I would be allowed to have them reattach it for a couple of hours at a time, so that I could enjoy the simple pleasures it afforded. They weren’t pleasures when I had it but after using my teeth in lieu of

/JOSEPH J. WOOD

a hand, it would be bliss to have the ease of proper function. I told them to destroy it and they threw it into the incinerator as soon as it was removed.

Now I sit in the dark and regret that I ever even asked them for solace.

The disease had hurt like fire as though my arm was angry and vindictive.

In the darkness I wonder whether I could have coped with the pain.

I try to compare the pain of the disease with the impracticality of losing my arm. It’s a ridiculous competition, always without an answer. The question bears more torment than either the operation or the disease ever could.

Yet I am glad they burned it. If I had accepted their gesture of good will the disease would slowly creep into me every time I reattached damned thing. I don’t know how long it would take but eventually it would enter more of me and I’d be done for.

I was drunk on whiskey when I stumbled into the vault that I expected to be empty. I opened the white metal door where my arm should have been and was relieved to see it contained behind a second door made of glass. I pressed a button and the door slid open.

I held it to my shoulder and it re-attached itself, seemingly and inexplicably out of kindness. I didn’t do anything but stand there complete. I couldn’t do anything lest I become used to its nuances.

After tearing it away and resealing it behind the glass I walked away.

Now I yearn to go back to the vault. I fear I gave it enough time to infect more of me. I know where to find it and I know I can re-attach it, but it will always be different. It is not my arm any more.

I had grown accustomed to the disease and the disease had grown accustomed to me.

Now we are separate. I can wear it and pretend it is mine but I will always have to remove it before I leave. I am now waiting for my other arm to become diseased. Maybe when it does I will relent with more vigor and I will let the disease overcome me.

I welcome it. I even search for it. I fear the surgery that may follow finding it, but more than that I fear I will never need the surgery again.

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The Island

/REBECCA ELLIOTT

Gaia Rosenberg Colorni and Gwilym Sainsbury

Firstly I would like to say that I love this film. I have watched it many times since you have sent it me. The detail to the narration is great. How long did it take you both to pro-duce?

From the time the idea for this video started to its completion, just one week ago, the film took roughly four months to produce.

The trip to the island, which constitutes the main content of the film, took place on one afternoon in March 2011. We had heard about the island a month or two before but had waited for the local dinghy enthusiast to take us there as our guide. We found it difficult to shape the initial footage into an informative and coherent form so the idea of using a narrator, impersonated by Thom Green, emerged as a resolution.

Discussions began amongst our group regarding the video-essay as genre, and as a consequence we were particularly influenced

by Patrick Keiller’s Robinson in Space, and the enigmatic figure of Robinson which we somewhat paralleled to the local dinghy enthusiast in the construction of the narrative for The Island. The narrator’s script is based on the details we found out about the island, initially from the local dinghy enthusiast and then from our own research into the objects and artefacts encountered on it.

We both worked on the script, the voiceover recording, and the video editing process together as is usual in our collaborative projects, which resulted in heated debates and discussions to be

developed in our future work.

‘The Island’ is 17 minutes long, this changes how and where you can show the film, what are your plans for ‘The Island’?

It’s interesting that you ask that, as after finishing the film we were faced with this problem in the last few days. While the film was still unfinished, Gaia exhibited it on a loop in a very small studio space, on a monitor facing a chair, as part of an open studios event; we soon became dissatisfied with the grazing attitude in which the film was being approached by visitors, which is symptomatic of a much greater issue regarding the viewing context of most video art. We considered organising screenings of The Island, whereby viewers could only watch the film from the beginning, scheduled at particular times during the day, but given our options of possible (institutional) venues to do this, somehow this idea did not sit quite comfortably either. As for most of our other videos, the film has been uploaded to YouTube and is therefore accessible to anyone with an internet connection. We therefore thought of developing a form of distribution to fit with this choice by installing QR code plaques on two benches in the vicinity of the island. We stuck one of these plaques with resin on a council bench facing the island from the shore, and the other on a bench we have recently purchased online and placed on the island ourselves. The QR codes we have introduced act as bar-

http://youtu.be/HkIR__D5JsM 12_TheLeedsDebacle

codes that can be read by most smartphones’ digital cameras, automatically directing the smartphone user to the YouTube page which hosts The Island film.

This form of locative media allows members of the public to discover and watch the film within the island’s physical geography as well as through internet browsing, whilst comfortably sitting on a bench. We are quite aware that not everyone (including ourselves) owns a smartphone. This of course complicates questions on both the kind of encounter with the work that is set up through appropriation of contemporary technologies and the kind of different audiences they grant access to; but it is also interesting to note that most teenagers who we have bumped into during later visits to the island itself do own a smartphone. In this con-text, both The Island as a film and the island as a place act as a living and lived setting for different stories to occur, celebrating the spirit of the 19th century adventure book.

I do think that because I live in Burley it gave the narrative of The Island much more depth. It created an integral juxtaposition knowing that the ‘island’ isn’t an incredibly pleasant place. It made the film more absurd and endearing. What do you feel about this?

Our idea of the island, as we initially heard about it, seemed quite utopian and in many ways it lived up to our expectations as an urban arcadia. The various and

contrasting uses (from camping and geocaching tournaments to substance abuse) that this island seems to serve to members of the public constitute an intriguing phenomenon within local urban geography. Despite the local dinghy enthusiast’s observation that the island was privately owned by National Grid, it seemed in many ways a freer public space than spaces designated by the council as public and therefore regulated as such. Of course the surroundings of the island, as well as the territory itself, are not what one would imagine to be a typically idyllic haven, neither from an urban or a natural point of view. Yet the island’s seclusion,

due to lack of designated access (but access to anyone determined enough to cross the weirs, or take their dinghy for a paddle), allows it to function as a more revealing type of public space, outside of council and police regulation and open to anyone to use as they please. We believe the island as a formation creates a particular ambiance, in Situationist terms, which can be studied, interfered with and even expanded on through casual exploration and play.

How true is the plot of The Island? Did you really get talking to a dingy enthusiast at a film screening in a squat? Does

the dingy enthusiast really go exploring the island by himself?

The narration is based on what the local dinghy enthusiast told us about the island as our guide. All the information provided in the film can be considered as factual: the local dinghy enthusiast does indeed exist, we first met him at a film screening in a squat house, etc. However these ‘facts’ are presented as so ambiguous, even extraordinary despite the mundane context in which they manifest themselves, that the film obviously, and necessarily, leaves the viewer questioning the degree of their truthfulness.

videoandtheartist.blogspot.com

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Live Slow, Die Young.

F

or those who don’t know me, I am 26 (pushing 27) and like to think of myself as ‘young at heart’. There are a number of factors which I use to cling on to my early twenties.

Firstly, I’m a student, secondly, I look about nineteen, and lastly (and perhaps the thing that upsets me most in the entire world), I cannot grow facial hair and the prognosis for future growth is not good. Spending my days with other students merely compounds this mindset and I thought I was destined to be one of those annoying people who is eternally trying to be ‘down with the kids’.

This was the case until a recent discovery of mine, and now all of a sudden I am worried that I may have skipped a few years down the line. It is the discovery of this hobby which I would like to talk to you about today.

If you were to ask your average outgoing 26-year-old male what his favourite pastime was I’m sure you’d get a few answers coming up fairly often. Football, the pub, BBQs and going to gigs/ festivals would rank pretty highly I imagine. Now, I do love all of these things but I believe that I may be in the minority when I say that ‘pottering’ (or ‘puttering’ if I’m fussy with my grammar) is my absolute favourite thing to do in the world. After a quick look on a popular search engine I find two excellent definitions of puttering which I would like to share with you: i) “To move or go in a casual, unhurried way” ii) “To occupy oneself in a desultory but pleasant manner, doing a number of small tasks or not concentrating on anything in particular”

/GARETH TANTRAM

nodding your heads thinking, “this is a man who talks sense” and you will most probably have been pottering about when you picked up this lovely magazine. For those of you who are thinking, “this man is talking rubbish” and who will be about to turn the page, I bid you adieu, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

I feel I should explain my situation further; I am not a lazy man by any stretch of the imagination and my weekend diary is looking far busier than I would like over the summer months. Having plans and doing fun stuff is great but it does cut into your pottering schedule quite significantly, which can have knock-on effects on other areas of your life. Without the time set aside to potter I often find myself feeling a bit stressed and worn out from the rigors of the daily grind.

Just to clear things up, a common misconception is confusing pottering and procrastination as the same thing. Pottering is a pastime spent doing something you enjoy (or nothing) at a relaxed pace whereas procrastination is time spent putting off doing something less enjoyable, and if anything it cuts down on the time you have free to spend pottering.

Confused? I’ll move on…

Find a few hours on a suitable day and completely free them up of any plans - I like to do this on a Sunday as you already feel naturally relaxed and at ease then just see where your day takes you. You can still be productive; it’s just that you adopt a more laid-back manner and slower pace. My perfect Sunday involves a lie-in followed by breakfast and the papers, accompanied with a couple of cups of tea whilst listening to some lovely vinyls.

From there I might run a couple of errands in town before meeting friends for a pint or three. If I’m feeling energetic I might squeeze in a trip to a local record shop but basically I just like to float about all day really. The routine usually varies in some way; there might be a short jobs list, I may or may not speak to anyone all day but I make bloody sure that nothing gets in the way of my pottering.

So yes, you are probably thinking that I am some sort of old-beforemy-time Granddad, but don’t write me off just yet. Some of my most successful days out and dates have involved more than a couple of hours of pottering and summer weather throws a lot of good opportunities for relaxed days-out your way. Recent examples include impromptu record shopping in York, rowing in Knaresborough and Boris-biking in London which were all fantastic care-free days. My advice is this: clear your diaries, get yourselves out there and see what you get up to.

At the time of writing it is just three short weeks until myself and a friend head to New York for two weeks of fun. We have both been a few times before so have no need to go and do all the usual sites and all that jazz. I am bloody excited about getting out there and seeing some live sports and gigs, but most of all, whilst I’m in New York I can’t wait to potter. Maybe I am getting old after all…

Having plans and doing fun stuff is great but it does cut into your pottering schedule quite significantly

Now those of you on wavelength will already

my be

So a bit of homework for you then… if you also have a busy diary at the moment in between work, kids, family or the pub then I would sincerely recommend you take this column to your heart.

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BELLE & SEBASTIAN

Ever wondered what happens to the pasty sensitive teenage bedroom-dweller when time takes away the teenage? At The Academy tonight it would seem to have bloated into the middle-class middle-life so afeared. Receding plump men beside sqawking gaggles of women create an air of council christmas party. Then Belle & Sebastian take to the stage and fifteen years of normalising is reversed back to where we belong when we didn’t belong. The final show of the tour sees the band in joyous mood, mixing the best of new album ‘Write About Love’ (‘I Didn’t See It Coming’) with fans favourites (‘Judy and the Dream of Horses’) and band picks (‘Slow Graffiti’). Stuart Murdoch jigs and jokes and appears at long last to have picked up the tricks of the trade by complimenting the crowd and city throughout. Not necessarily a welcome schmooze but maybe that says more about me than him. Appropriately chic-geeks are invited to prance onstage to ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ and the whole overcrowded room follow suit with that unusual fey sway that can’t help but bring a smile to even the pastiest

THE BLIND DEAD MCJONES BAND

The blues is a music made up of myth and legend. From Robert Johnson’s crossroads to, it seems, the disappearing Blind Dead McJones. Thankfully his band insist that “the blues aint dead, it’s just hard to find” and play on with or without their undoubtedly real and undoubtedly great leader. Sadly, ‘Back To School Blues’ is the usual without, but backing boys Ben, Steve and Andy put on an entertaining stomp nevertheless. ‘Hang On There Boys’ retells McJones’ reasons for being delayed to a gig, the rollocking tune obliging to McJones’ “permission to keep the people happy with a guitar intermission”.

More pounding blues-rock follows with ‘It Was A Good Day’ where boasts of cake are grunted like a seventy year old Dylan. No mean feat. The pace slows on the haunting Tired and the tiring Haunted before Good Scratch Boogie dumbs it down for a rousing pub kneesup. The final psych-tinged title track confirms the missing McJones’ own verdict of the record: “boy’s done good”.

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THE BLACK LIPS

For those unaware, The Black Lips are four unruly asses from Atlanta, Georgia who make a ramshackle riot of noise to a ramshackle riot of unruly asses. So sloppy is their sound that it feels surprising that they ever managed to drag themselves together to complete actual songs, however short, and damn catchy ones at that. On the other hand, the cynic might smell marketing similar to the dog turd aromas of everyone’s favourite backward inbred southern rockers cum professional tricksters and stadium popsters Kings Of Leon. Toothless simpletons play Ramones-esque garage punk meets girl group pop to such simulaneously rocking and bubblegum perfection it’s hard to believe there’s not a team of moneymen behind it all. Only they’d be doing a rotten job seeing as the trio might be able to sell out venues like tonights Brudenell but attract little recognition beyond their feverish followers. And tales of pulling weiners out, scrapping, vomiting, peeing and generally being disruptive enough guests to be banned from places as small as London’s Heaven Club and as large as India and Canada might be a step beyond marketing ploy.

New and sixth album Arabia Mountain is produced by Mark Ronson, who is in the audience tonight, which has not caused Amy or Adele style success and remains almost identical to the previous five. Two minute jaunts, like single Modern Art, are as danceable as anything they’ve released, but it is Bad Kids that causes a mass stage invasion of snogging, moshing, undressing, diving, flailing and falling, prompting the band to warn “if any of my teeth get knocked out I get to knock out as many of yours”. A lovely evening.

JESUS CHRIST

So you form a band and, before the monotonous rehearsals sapping what energy is left after eight hours in the office you’re doing this to escape from, you have the fantasy and fun. Like thinking of a name. You throw around some ‘wouldn’t it be funny’ suggestions before settling on The Something. Unless you’re Jesus Christ, three lads from murky Hull who, for better worse or irrelevance, clearly didn’t quite get past that first stage. Whatever images and sounds you’d expect from a band called Jesus Christ, pleasant chaps do indie-pop was lower on my list than gurning wrestlers do death-metal, trendy dickheads do art-rock, or arrogant pillpoppers do technohouse. ‘Odd Shaped Muzak’, their debut EP, could be a whole lot odder, but, within the genre, there is something pleasingly skewiff about them. Lead track Yellow Bird Canary riffs off with swaggering social sloganeering, displaying welcome wit unlikely to stick in the head. The wonky scuzzy folk of Oh Diane! is relatively simple and lovely. In Noir’s psych-blues and murder ballad Death at Old Wanton Place they descend darker, before shouting repetative closer Going Salamander. The aims of White Stripes and Bad Seeds are impressive and impossible.

Reaching for The Fall they collapse into Menswear. Refined, this record hints that Jesus Christ’s second coming could be a worthy resurrection. Google them for news of it.

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Dallas Green and his City & Colour /KYLE JAMES-PATRICK The emotional origin of a piece of music has never come under such scrutiny as it does in the modern age of instant information, with every written opinion carrying the same weight as the next, debates over an artist’s intention and even the very definition of an artist are common in all listeners’ forums.

When Dallas Green of Alexisonfire fame released a tiny EP called Missing, celebrating the life of his recently passed guitar teacher Ralph Serravale, the indubitable honesty of his songs would see his music spread to more ears then one could ever imagine a 1000-print run could achieve – fast forward to 2011 and Dallas has a sold-out US and European tour at venues, including Leeds’ Irish Centre, designed for experience over profit, the question of the emotional origins of his debatable style of emo-folk-pop has never come into question and has divided people into two categories: those who love City & Colour and those who haven’t heard it yet.

Before considering Green’s latest album Little Hell, it’s necessary to have an understanding of where the soft-voiced Canadian has arrived from, especially when most contact with his name has come from the thunderous sounds of former mathcore fanatics Alexisonfire. Dallas Green began writing his self confessed ‘sad songs’ during his teenage years when he was learning guitar, a point in our lives when we are exposed to the world, old enough to feel complex emotions but not experienced to understand how to work with them. Most of the songs from his 2005 debut album Sometimes were written years before and refined, the five songs from The Death Of Me EP are 18_TheLeedsDebacle

testimony to Green’s beginnings, taking songs of his teenage years and combining new aches from being in a hard touring band; songs ranging from basic heartache from one you trusted in Save Your Scissors, to the loneliness of doing what you always wanted yet being away from those you love, Comin’ Home. Green never buried himself in specifics when it came to writing about difficult parts of this life, this almost ambiguous nature of style has allowed listeners to connect with his music on a deeply personal level; adding their own narratives, names and places to the songs of longing. The palpable sincerity of a man from a hardcore band singing about missing his loves from past in present, strummed alone over an acoustic, delicately decorated with reverb, won the hearts of many and made Sometimes a gold record, which wasn’t too bad for a guy from St. Catherines, Ontario.

Limited to just a few shows in between Alexisonfire tours, who were releasing their 2006 pinnacle album Crisis - the most ‘Dallas Heavy’ album on the AOF roster – perhaps influenced by the success of City & Colour, giving Green more confidence to take a central role. It was very quiet on the C&C front until early 2007 when a release entitled Live gave everyone an up close and personal C&C experience, coming with a DVD, the honesty and humble nature of Green was nothing but genuine. It was this release that cemented C&C as its own act, not a side project, but a full independent organism.

Green was known for pulling out an 80s pop cover stripped down to a near gospel like state, but his

piano rendition of Happiness by the Kilowatt demonstrated how much more soul he had to express beyond the ear slamming sounds of his parent band. By February 2008, Green’s sophomore release Bring Me Your Love would push the boundaries of his fans, and his success.

If Sometimes was the emo, Bring Me Your Love was the folk.

Adding an element no fan could have predicted, beginning with the creaking of floorboards and the resonance of the old church the album was recorded in, Green returned with a full band and a room tone that placed the listener next to Green, creating a very unique listening environment attuned to the C&C live experience. Some songs you would have heard before, but a few you wouldn’t. Aging with his songs, the material on BMYL was just as heart wrenching as one would come to expect, but it felt that Green was moving onto the next plateau of internal growth.

“I’m afraid to sleep because of what haunts me.”

I was able to speak privately to Green in October 2010 during a fans’ meet and greet, retreating to the back of the room, he sat alone away from his band, many people intimidated by the man in double denim. Questions were asked, based on the lyrical content of his most recent record, if he struggled to live up to other people’s expectation of him.

He said it wasn’t so much other people, but dealing with his own demands, never feeling that he was good enough to be where he was, let alone continue it.

And that it was that feeling that

actually helped push him with his material.

“I know there is going to be people who don’t like it, but I think there will be people who do like it, so there’s no pressure for me to write a song hoping that someone likes it. The pressure is on me writing a song and I like it, at the end of the day.”

Always using plain and simple terminology, Green has constantly been praised for his straight talking songs about what it is to be human, and finally treating his audience to an extensive tour raised his profile so much that he became everyone’s favourite artist that no one had heard of. His shows would be full of guys bringing their girlfriends, girlfriends crying while boyfriends looked on with a mixture of awe and jealousy, putting their arms round each other, reminiscing about when they heard a particular C&C song, reliving that moment in the company of strangers.

During the gap between Sometimes and Bring Me Your Love, Green was married to MuchMusic VJ Leah Miller and the positive effect on his writing can be found in songs such as Beautiful Girl and As Much As I Ever Could, calling in a new set of emotions for Green to translate.

“I used to say that I only wrote songs for people to cry to, not to dance to, but I guess now that isn’t true.”

The release of Green’s new and third album Little Hell is the finest collection of a man disturbed, a man relieved and then a man on reflection of life as a mass.

Translate? The simple beauty of the first record walks into the room holding hands with the full instrumental backing of the second, but they have both aged, gained invaluable life experience and rather than make you share the pain of another, they want you to get up and join them to dance, but only because you want to. The experience is yours.

Green hasn’t made music to make you dance, he has made his own version of melancholy pop that when heard, you can’t help but associate the sounds with the warmer moments of your life.

The first two records created a soundtrack to the moments in your life that were happening immediately, Little Hell adds the sound to your past loves, present joys and future happiness. The weight of such a statement is a heavy one, and some may not agree, but to use Green’s own words...

“It’s funny, you think as a listener. Somebody will put out a record and you don’t like it. You

don’t realise that you’ve moved onto a different stage of your life and maybe, because with that last record you were so emotionally invested in, this person’s new record, it just doesn’t resonate with you the same.”

For this listener, Little Hell is one of the finest recordings in my lifetime. Tackling subjects from love of one, to love of your family, to moving forward in your own life to tackle your own challenges.

This record is empowering, soulful and without a doubt a very real record; something which very few artists will make in their lifetime.

In impact and influence, Dallas Green is my Bob Dylan.

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Tulips and me on the bus /DAMIEN KNIGHTLEY On cold days shared with sun I think of the apple summer and of its taste, the heavy drip of clarity beating its way through the murk of guilt.

I miss the taste, I miss the pull, I miss the river.

The tulips in my hands my only company on the back of the bus, the fleeting glimpse of reality that shot past me through the window, the pull and the push.

A big knot in my stomach and a bag of smoke in my lungs.

My phone rusts the wheels the motion is lost.

The walls stare at me, the ceiling stares at me, the window ajar stares at me, it welcomes the breeze, I don’t welcome the breeze, the tulips don’t welcome the breeze.

There are no laws here only myself and the tulips my beautiful friends, forgive me tulips, I have thoughts of blue.

The walls stare, the floor stares, the people stare, those tulips stare, from my lap they stare.

Awaiting the stomach and the gift of seed, she is a flyer, she is cerulean black, facing the day, turning her back.

Her bones pirouette on their spool.

The bus stares, the driver stares, me and the tulips, together we stare.

Swallow hard, shards of mirror, clot throat, dull pulse, churning, ridged and trapped tulips.

Shovelling the words into your ears and the tulips into your mouth violently, violently, quietly, quietly.

A crush of tulips! tulips! tulips! tulips! from my lap they scream and together we stare.

I can only apologise to you, my tulips.

Probably Something /STEVIE RIGSBY Nothing to do, nowhere to be It’s a sunny day for me Gunna get by, maybe get high Leave behind the cold disease No one knows what summer means to me I’m gunna cast off Find a place and play my guitar Sunny days can take you far Opening road opens my eyes Warmer days and calmer nights No one knows what the summer means to me I’m gunna fly away

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El Capitan /ADAM LEE JONES Every now and then I wonder what could have been The love in our eyes, the sun would still beam Crooked and withered this summer has made me No more jumping out of bed, finding murky swamps in our tea These past two years of regret, was time well spent?

England! Airport! Airplane! Spain! / JOHN BARRAN 9pm.

Or am, it doesn’t matter.

Ninety pints of Carling contaminate and camouflage anxiety and anticipation into boredom bland and black Red front White back

Children cheer Grown men cry, or else bare their bums, whilst Grown women (for the lads), or else.

This is just the start: Majorca Menorca, Costa del Greece attack Red front White back

At gate four Four hundred frightened feet follow orders of odour ogres Squeeze suitcases into matchboxes Turn pacifists into brawlers “Forty quid or unpack” Red front White back

Bacon and eggs and chicken and chips and liver and onions and Fanta and crisps and lager and vodka and vomit and piss A great crack!

Red front White back

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FIFA

/JOHN BARRAN

F

ootball. A simple game. Man kicks ball into goal. Man stops man kicking ball into goal. Now who could complicate, grandiose and scandalise such a thing? In 2011 the answer seems to be pretty much everybody, including me and probably you, but mostly him.

Rarely does the human mind behave so irrationally as to cheer at A N Other because he kicked a ball from 12 yards past N E Body whilst wearing white, then jeer at the same Mr Other because he kicked a ball from 12 yards past the same Mr Body whilst wearing red. Or the other way around.

Many ignore this nonsense and allow their lives to be dictated by a guy they’ll never know, crying into pints and thumping into heads because he didn’t kick a ball an inch lower. Others accept the nonsense and use it to enhance their lives, make friends and memories, bond with their children.

Either way, for good or bad, the idea that football is a universal language playing with emotions and relationships provides it with immense power, which filters through to the club to the players to the hierarchy. For the club, a seemingly infallible business with a constant market, the owners must choose between selfless expenditure for fan delight or selfish greed for personal wealth.

Many take the popularity option, living the Champions League dream until it all implodes in tales of Seth Johnson and goldfish.

Others see the pound signs and sell the dignity they never had to add another irrelevant zero to the end of their personal bank balance, like Captain Uncle Albert Birdseye. Destroying our club and destroying the game. Only how can 22_TheLeedsDebacle

we complain at their greed whilst simultaneously championing one of their own, dispicable national treasure Lord(!) Alan Shitbugger, who brazenly took cash out of Tottenham whilst winning virtually sugar all. Or his evil sidekick Karen Shady, ruining West Ham after her bad work at Birmingham was done. (Any blokes who think there’s something about Brady, it’s not sexiness, it’s ruthlessness.)

Managed so badly, the players have taken full advantage and claimed nearly all the clubs power and more than all the clubs money. A hundred grand a week and he can’t even score a penalty?

Maybe because it was saved by a man also on a hundred grand a week, or maybe it’s because being given more money than a brain can understand, especially a stereotypically thick footballers one, has no correlation with how well a human will kick a football.

Or is the fans brain actually thicker than the stereotypically thick footballers one? For who wouldn’t accept an extra hundred grand a week to do the same job for a different company? Mind you, if you had to move out of Barcelona and live in Manchester...

Of course, no industry allows such mismanagement and rewards such greed without being corrupt from the very top, and how we have discovered just what a set of high-living low-lives we have in charge of the beautiful game.

Not that this is anything new, but a failed English World Cup bid has seen us bleating like bad losers.

Bid leader Geoff Thompson’s corruption policy of pleasing small-nation voters with matches in their country or sending David Beckham and Prince William to celebrity-wow other voters was too subtle, too polite, too English

to beat the blatant bungs of worst candidates, best bank balanced Qatar. Sending David Cameron along can’t have helped either.

Later, embarrassingly standing alone at an attempted boycott confirmed the rest of the world didn’t give one about us, were laughing it up and, worse, are still playing the game and standing where the power is.

Amidst all the accusations fired at FIFA, its hated head Sepp Blatter showed his face to be barer than a nudist colony by pulling off abuses of power that, yes, are galling and sickening, but also that one can’t help but delight at. Incredibly, Infected Bladder turned the scandal into his greatest weapon to keep his seemingly untenable position by getting his allies to somehow deflect the finger of failure from himself, not only on to each other, but mainly to his only rival for his presidency, Mohamed Bin Hammam. FIFA then set up a ‘solutions committee’ to fight corruption, except this “council of wisdom”, as Sepp likes to call it, are selected by the man himself, laughably include opera singer Placido Domingo and US politician Henry Kissinger, and immediately cleared him of wrong-doing.

Embarrassingly standing alone, the surly old toad was the victor.

The question is: who cares? The UK media outrage may claim we are appalled by this behaviour but I must confess to being little more than entertained. Crazy press conferences, finger-pointing, deceit, intrigue, scandal, corruption, smokescreens and inexplicable plots, this is one hell of a lead character in a soapopera, and what is football if not that? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pro-Blatter. I know that football is rotting from its very core and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. It’s just I’m more interested in whether a man I don’t know is going to kick a ball past a man I don’t know whilst wearing white.

The crazed and deluded world of the English Defence League

/AZAR ASHRAF

A

silent night, everything is at peace. I believe this to be a rare snapshot of my city nowadays. I concede not all nights are like this one. Now, I’m sure every street has its own story, from pure hell, to calm serene nights. My own place of residence and birth is the north of England.

Some nights we are blessed with live theatre, performed by white English nationals with a heavy dosage of beer and a whole array of magical intoxicants. The Greeks were a wise bunch, ‘in vino veritas’ they’d say. Then it is a shame what truly lies in some people’s hearts today.

This of course is not an attack on the white English people of this land. It’s an attack of the savagery that has gripped the full berth of the country by people of all races and backgrounds. The notion that there is an overtly aggressive Islamic extremism agenda brewing in this country is beyond bizarre. Roughly 3% of the population, plotting the demise of Christian England, causing all its problems, and controlling the laws to give Muslims precedence.

The idea has swarms of A-Teamstyle vans with motifs from mad

Arab terrorist organisations, trying to rape little girls. As a Muslim (again, don’t panic, stay calm), I agree some abhorrent acts have been, and unfortunately will be, at the hands of people claiming to be Muslims, when in fact, under Islamic law it would be impious, along with other faiths and basic human rights.

Unlike EDL perceptions, my judgement and indictment of the EDL is not an attack on the white English-born majority of this land.

It’s a response to the misguided, the less-informed, hate mongers of the EDL. An issue with the EDL is that it’s a street protest movement, very little changes from protest to protest, the same motions occur over and over again - it’s becoming repetitious and Sisyphean.

To most EDL members the problem began with the docking of aid ships to England from South East Asia, onboard workers who heard the call given out for labourers from the Commonwealth to come work in England, perhaps the chance to start a new life.

Of course it goes back further more. It could be argued that the first time Muslims began to trade and settle in England coincided

with the East India company’s establishment.

But why the tension in recent times? After the demise of the hooligan culture, it left a lot of angry men with years of pent-up aggression ready to explode at any given point. The unfortunate occurrence of September 11th made known to them the twisted minds of extremists and their modus operandi. The seed of hate was planted and the influx of immigration only added fuel to the bonfire. The spark was a lunatic group with little sense and understanding, who thought it in their best interest to object and show disdain for the British Armed Forces abroad and boycotted a parade. The EDL responded in kind, with the same apparent lack of insight. With the precision of a hooligan-style get together and the swift scent of hate in the air, they hoped for it to all kick off.

The future brings with it an uncertain future for the EDL, with its slow building emergence.

The level of sophistication and intelligence needed to bring forth an argument, which they believe has substantial weight, will become ever so more difficult.

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After indecisive beginnings Leeds has grown out of Reading's ugly northern sidekick into an established big-player in the massive market of massive festivals. Originally selling its festival soul to advertising, the last few years have seen an increase in projects proving the positive effect the event can give the city.

Last year, any still-missing soul from the main event was made up for with the introduction of Leeds Festival Fringe and their motto "for the love of the sound, not the pound". A week prior to Leeds Festival (18th-24th August) of mostly free shows from over 100 unsigned acts, this year adds a Metal Fringe at Empire to the existing Acoustic Fringe at New Conservatory. Other venues taking part are Carpe Diem, Milo, Dry Dock, The Well, Northern Monkey and The Ship. The week culminates in its centre with

24_TheLeedsDebacle

a Saturday stage on Briggate adding dance, drama, fashion and comedy to the music.

As the usual Futuresound heats successfully continue each year, allowing the best unsigned local bands the opportunity to play Bramham Park, that same prize is now also being offered to the kids by Centre Stage, courtesy of children's charity Martin House.

School and college bands, all under 21, compete for their dream gig, along the way raising thousands for the charity. So far,

Mike Heaton of Embrace and Leeds Fest MD Melvin Benn.

Boy-girl five-piece Carbon Party (nearly Carbon Party Sausage until realising the band included veggies) mix punk, funk, folk and beats.

Last minute replacements for heat dropouts, Inlaze made it to the final with a newly explored heavier sound of System of a Down metal and Dave Grohl grunge.

everyone's a winner, especially the 12 bands who made it through to play the final at Leeds O2 Academy on 19th July in front of a large crowd, including the judges: Pigeon Detective Matt Bowman,

Named after Bruce Willis' mother's maiden name, regular Leeds Festival goers Marsicans hope to play there with music "that's got a bit of head-nod to it".

The Mexanines appeared at Bingley Music Live and hope their Arctic Monkeys-inspired bluesy indie rock

makes them "part of the biggest thing we look forward to all year".

Neve came together as a duo through obvious musical connections, blending female vocals with the finest pop, folk, jazz, rock, soul and reggae influences.

Playing Leeds would mean "the absolute world" to indie four-piece St. Somebody, who otherwise live happily ever after jamming and eating KFC. Formed at Leeds' Rock School as Red Hot Mini Cheddars, Traffic Wire wisely changed name, improved their rocking sound, and

Hard working pop-punk-rockers You Had Me At Hello moved rapidly from side-project to LA EP thanks to a fanbase that has seen them playing Academy-sized shows before.

Poaching For Mammoths met at Leeds' Rock School course and it would mean "everything" for them to go one better than this same stage they reached last year.

The five lads of Sharp Darts already have a debut album, a Bingley Festival performance and plenty of interest thanks to their phat riffs and grooves, and flowing melodies.

"You just don't understand... it's not like playing in a rock 'n' roll band," sing Sprayed Aces and their infectious straight up rock 'n' roll sounds like they mean it.

showcase new material written for the competition.

Vinyl Party decided a name change from Touching Cloth was "absolutely necessary" when moving on from Paranoid covers to Strokes-inspired originals and claim playing Leeds would be "M&S great".

TheLeedsDebacle_25

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Bring Back Brains to Britain!

/G.A.PINDER

Bye-bye, Big Brother, BB. Bye-bye to boneheaded bozos brutalising Braincells with breathtaking banality.

Bye-bye to braindead beefcakes Bleating ‘bout the birds, and big-boobed Bimbos bitching ‘bout the boys.

Bye-bye to being bludgeoned by broadcasts Beamed by the hour because beating the BBC is better for the bank balance.

Bye-bye to boring babel, bleeding blood By the barrel from the souls of Blind baffoons believing stardom beckons.

BB, Big Brother, Bye-bye.

Bugger! It’s Being brought back By bloody channel 5, Bastards!

TheLeedsDebacle_27

BEAUTY TRUTHS NOT

UGLY LIES

/RACHEL GARDNER

http://beautytruthsnotuglylies.blogspot.com Whether your idea of a fabulous holiday is frolicking at a festival, lazing in the sun or road tripping around Europe, when it comes to packing - less is more. This summer there is a plethora of products that will keep you looking your best without having to drag around a heavy bag.

The Dress: The Anastasia Multi-way Jersey Dress by Vanessa Knox £170 There are at least 12 ways to wear this dress thanks to its extra long sleeves that can be tied, twisted and tangled to create a look to suit your mood.

Perfect for unpredictable weather, going from day outfit straight into night and letting your creativity take hold.

The Shoes: Cocorose Foldable Ballet Pumps £35 - £45 As great as heels look at the start of the night, after a few hours your feet hurt and wobbling when drunk is not such a great look. Every party girl should have a pair of Cocorose shoes in her bag to rescue danced out feet and for wearing during the day when the sun is shining.

The Necklace: Esme Perfume Pendant £24.99 As lovely as festivals are, they can be a little smelly at times.

It’s a long walk back to your tent and carrying around a bottle of perfume is really going to get in the way of enjoying yourself. Keep yourself smelling sweet with this beautiful necklace with a secret perfume pod inside.

28_TheLeedsDebacle

The Lip Balm: NIP + FAB Lip and Nip Fix £8.25 Soothe sore lips that have done too much kissing with this protecting and replenishing balm. Not only can this be used on your lips, but on any part of your body that has got a bit sore or dry.

The Sun Protection: Ahava Mineral Suncare SPF 30 £19 Sunburn is not pleasant for anybody involved, pink and peeling skin is best avoided with a few squirts of this great moisturising spray.

Not only will you be protected from the sun, your skin will be left soft, glowing and extremely touchable.

The Make Up: Benefit Benetint £24.50 A rose-tinted lip and cheek stain that is kiss proof, drink proof and party proof. Just a few dabs on your lips and cheeks, is all you need for a sexy flush that will last long into the night.

The Face Cream: First Aid Beauty 5 in 1 Face Cream £28 With SPF 30, UVA and UVB filters you have no need to worry about burning your face whilst keeping it fully moisturised. The face cream also combats free radicals, corrects uneven skin tone and reduces the appearance of wrinkles. You can party every night, barely sleep and drink as much as you want without it showing on your face.

The Fake Tan: He-Shi Travel Collection £17.50 A quick and easy travel kit for men and women of the award-winning HeShi formula in a waterproof zip bag. An exfoliating body wash, express liquid tan, mini mitt and a gradual tan will keep you looking like you have been on a sun-kissed beach even when it’s rained every day.

The Perfume: Nina Ricci Nina L’Elixir £40.85 The closest thing you can get to a love potion bottled in a jewel-like apple. With hints of jasmine, forest fruits and the seductive scents of cedar wood and cotton musk, Nina L’Elixir is a perfume for the fun, charming and sexy.

Holiday essentials: Batiste Dry Shampoo £2.19 – Because washing your hair at a festival is never going to happen.

Veet Easy Grip Ready to use Wax Strips £6.12 – No one wants to see hairy legs and armpits all over the place.

Durex Extra Safe £8.29 – The last thing you want to bring back from your holiday is Chlamydia.

SunShots SPF 25 £1.49 – Single use pouches of sun protection wherever you go.

Halo wipes 99p – Deodorant wipes, handy hygienic wipes, moist toilet tissue, toilet and surface wipes and eye make-up remover pads.

Living Nature Rescue Gel £8.15 – Cleanse, soothe and heal damaged and blemished skin with nature’s miracle healer: Manuka Honey.

Optrex Eyedew £4 – Wake up tried and hung-over eyes and get them glowing again with Eyedew, in sparking or dazzling.

TheLeedsDebacle_29

B

uckets laced with amphetamines, fire rope designed to maim, tattoos without hygiene and a system designed to rape you of your soul as well as your wallet: welcome to Thailand. Ever since I was 8 years old and I attempted to build my own sledge to conquer the snow dumps in my home town, despite a slew of bad results such as getting pinned under a car, I always considered myself to be a one time adventurer. My trip to Thailand, the land of the wise and transformed, will definitely be a single affair, as once the sun comes up on the party island, the lengths of corruption and how a poor nation has taken full advantage of its tourists become clear.

Let us begin with what the brochure said: “The tropical paradise of Thailand, as seen in films such as The Beach and The Man with The Golden Gun, is the ultimate in luxury and relaxation.

Take in the white gold beaches, the lush jungles, the temples of Buddha and, of course, the Thai people and their vibrant culture.”

Not just a land of peace and tranquillity, Thailand is also a place to get shitted out of your mind, promoting its beach and full moon adventures as the “greatest party of all time”, folk from all over the world tan up, get drunk and have sex with each other. UV parties, foam parties, off your tits parties, Thailand has it all, and no other island is more popular then Koh Phangan.

The

Dark Side Of The

Full Moon

/KYLE JAMES-PATRICK

This is how day one of the Thailand experience goes down when partaking in a bit of full moon action: we arrive on an expensive ferry to check into a hotel that rips us off within seconds. The room is almost ok, as a mat on the floor and air conditioning is all you will want in this heat. Heading out we notice lots of signs promoting drink and food “cheaper den England!”.

Meals will set you back 200-250 baht (£4-5), which doesn’t sound bad, except that this is a nation that has effectively tripled its prices. When greed steps into the ring, dignity and respect are going to get a pounding.

All party-goers are encouraged to wear UV clothes, with market stalls selling every kind of ridiculous combo like a massive student costume shop. The product is crap, the price is expensive, but it’s all under this invisible sign of ‘what you should do’. Next up is the alcohol, which is promoted with vigour by locals selling plastic buckets containing

and Same Sam are the two main brands of brown booze and I was pleased with myself for not being a label whore. After sipping on the toxic sludge, I can’t find any alcohol in it, yet one hour later I start to nibble the inside of my face. I go to the seller (Rambo) and question if he put the whiskey in, he laughs and shoves what I think is a bottle of vodka into my face; that I did taste. I watched the vendors for an hour and it started to make sense.

First thing I noticed was that the bottles are not sealed but just a front, getting a sniff was closer to paint stripper mixed with nail varnish. The vendors are poisoning people with home made alcohol in branded bottles, they pour it with coke (can’t fake a can!) and energy drink to disguise the taste.

The energy drinks are laced with amphetamines which put you into a speed frenzy and consequently buy more buckets. Later, on a bucket high, I couldn’t sleep, went for a walk and saw the vessels, these horrid little things packed with straws, getting recycled in the morning in bin bags and washed in contaminated water (only natives can drink the tap water). The ice is contaminated water as well, so in my bucket drink I have basically bought 80% poison plus coke.

After sipping on the toxic sludge, I can’t find any alcohol in it, yet one hour later I start to nibble the inside of my face Here is the reality: imagine a massive frat party full of all the douchebags you didn’t think were real. This is an island of stereotypes and the Thai people who live here do not like you on their island.

30_TheLeedsDebacle

a 50cl bottle of liquor, a mixer and a vile energy drink called MD150. You’ll see familiar brands like Jack Daniel’s, Smirnoff and Gordon’s, but for a quarter of the price I cheaply opt for a 100 baht local whiskey bucket. Hong Thong

High on the “fuck it, have a bucket!” ideology, I am tempted to go and dance in the foam party, a monster machine that spits foam exclusively into eyes, causing extreme pain and temporary blindness. The foam gets in your

some of the most horrific burns that are literally oozing, stick that on a postcard to mum. But don’t worry if puss is coming out of the first degree burn on your neck, fuck it, have a bucket.

Out of your mind on homemade toxins, poisoned by unknown soap, covered in urine, seeping fresh wounds cover your body, stories of children pulling guns for money, people having drugs planted on them then arrested, accidents happening deliberately, girls being drugged, all float around the island; but no one cares.

Body art... makes you look like a prick drink which you feel that you can just ‘scoop out’ and not suffer the effects. I vomitted all over myself within 5 minutes of being in the foam, all over my shoes, which I then lost. You can go and wash yourself off in the sea, if you can dodge the thousands of men from all over the world who are pissing in the ocean like children.

Next, some fire breathing - a skilled entertainment requiring strict supervision, but when in doubt, some ratty-looking man with a stick and a crate of paraffin will do. Burnt hair, stomach full of fuel... fuck it, have a bucket.

I could go for an elaborate tattoo by a man in a shed with a cheap internet tattoo gun. Now don’t get

me wrong, these chaps can draw, but they can only draw a set few styles. I enquire about a compass, and after explaining for a painful four minutes what a compass is, the chap writes “morff - bouph meest - west” on a bit of paper and gestures for me to sit in his chair... I declined. I didn’t see a sterilisation unit on the whole island.

I wonder whether to try out a 30foot piece of rope that is on fire and being swung by two unknown natives in a jump rope style.

Sounds exhilarating doesn’t it? It really is because you never know the exact second the natives will turn on you and lash you with the rope, and believe me they will, they hit everyone who got in. I see

So, why is this happening? All the deliberate harm and injury, it was so obvious I didn’t realise until I was sat in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of my arms.

They take my passport then ask what’s wrong. I request to see the bill they are sending to my insurance company: 30,000 baht per night to look after me. This is what it all comes back to, the medical centres, the pharmacies, the 7/11 stores. Injure the tourists and you’ll make a thousand times more money out of them, feed them shit, attack them, scare them, it doesn’t matter. They will always come back because this is an island to pose and prove how hardcore you are.

Thailand was a beautiful country once, but human greed has washed over it and ruined what dignity remains. If you want to see Thailand, bring a lot of money, don’t drink the alcohol and avoid full moon parties. Or you’ll be like me, sat in a medical centre with tubes coming out of your arms, waiting to be sent back to England where I can be treated like a human being again. Otherwise, thoroughly recommended. And remember to bring your STD collectors card! Catch 3 and the next bucket’s free*! *subject to 300 baht service charge TheLeedsDebacle_31

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Through the eye of the storm

M

any things can cross your mind when you are riding through the sky at 600mph, thousands of feet high, in what is basically a metal tube designed and kept aloft by numbers and equations stored in mankind’s greatest invention, the computer. I’m not afraid of flying, but if you are, I would suggest that it’s perhaps best not to dwell on the origins of flight; because once you’re airborne there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to ensure that you stay there. You are powerless! You are in the care of complicated circuitry and the skill of a few individuals, all of which can fail at any given moment, and when that happens, not even the safety talk from the steward or your seat that doubles as a life raft can save you, and you are doomed. Yes, many things could go wrong. You love flying and when you board you usually just fall asleep.

On this particular journey there is the issue of the airline’s most recent nemesis, aka Ash cloud Mk2. In the days leading up to the flight, the ash threatens to disturb and cause delays; but in truth the growing panic is for nothing and your plane is late by only one hour, which, in the grand scheme of things ain’t too bad. The first flight goes well. You catch a film, have a couple of drinks and make a snazzy in-flight hat out of the sick bag. Nothing unusual happens and soon enough you descend from the clouds and make a smooth landing in some giant metropolis.

From 2 or 3,000 feet America looks like the capacitors and transformers that make up the circuit board that lives in the back of your television, truly machinelike and in effect that is what it is, just a big machine.

After the confusion of being in a different country subsides and you get your bearings back, you are told that there are further delays

as there has been many storms and tornados, “that seems like fun”, you think to yourself, but you’d be wrong. After another long time sat around you get on the next plane which is a small jet with one seat on each side of the aisle - you can think of nothing but sardines.

You wait on the tarmac for an age for what the pilot describes as a “window of good weather”, which eventually arrives. Shortly into the flight it would seem that this particular window is only open ajar and turbulence grows until you are being flung around the cabin on what seems like the greatest rollercoaster ever.

The pilot comes on the radio and announces that we are going to have to make an unscheduled stop due to a tornado. By this time you are starting to feel the tiring effect of hours of travel and when you get tired like this you become irrational and you don’t meet this news kindly. You are no pilot, but you tell yourself that if you were at the controls you would take the risk and break on through to the other side. Alas, no matter how hard you try to mind-will the pilot into growing a pair, he doesn’t seem to be the risk taking type today and as knuckles and faces alike turn white with apprehensive tension, he lands the plane with amazing skill. From here on things begin to become a little hairy. You are told to leave everything on the plane and run across the tarmac towards the terminal in the pissing rain. You can hear the urgency in the voice of the stewardess and there is a definite sense of growing unease in the atmosphere.

You are both too tired and excited to be scared and perhaps ignorance had something to do with it as well, but for the record, it would seem that there is nothing that Americans like more than a good panic. Indeed you believe that some may even become flustered on not receiving cream in their coffee.

/GEORGE QUINN

You arrive soaking (but amazed by the size of the rain) in a terminal, and pandemonium ensues. What sounds like an air raid siren is blaring at an astonishing level, and through the panic you learn that the din signals the coming of a tornado. People are huddled in bathrooms and through the window lightning surrounds the whole building, biblical thunder makes its presence known. Days ago a tornado killed a few hundred not so far away, but at the time this doesn’t cross your mind.

You are so tired by now that you can’t be arsed fighting to get in a toilet, so instead you lay down by a window and try to get some kip. You are British so you calmly wait and don’t panic, instead you quickly fall asleep.

The tornado passes two miles away and destroys everything in its path, well that was what you are told by the staff when they wake you up to get back on the plane. As you walk across the paddock the rain still falls hard on the asphalt and as Zeus and his thunderbolts retire, the smell of electric lingers in the air. You sleep on the plane all the way to the last airport of the journey, for all you know the pilot could have been doing loop the loops all the way. It has been tiring yet exciting, but now all you want is a bed. A guy you know is waiting at the airport to pick you up and you meet a token scouser who is going to the same place and manages to cadge a lift - some things never change. This is the last leg of the day and within 15 minutes you are checking in at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. You enter the bar; it is a huge conservatory suspended between the two towers of the hotel. The whole room is almost completely empty, confirming your worst fears - the bar is closed. A girl approaches; she has been waiting up for you way past any sensible hour. You each put your arms around one another. ‘I love you’. It was all worth the while.

TheLeedsDebacle_33

JULY

1st - England v Sri Lanka (Headingley Stadium) 2nd - Quarry Hill Festival (Wardrobe) 3rd - Leeds Loves Food (Millenium Square) 4th - Lloyd Langford (Adelphi) 5th - Colin Megson (New Headingley Club) 6th - City & Colour (Irish Centre) 7th - Leeds Indie Radio Sessions (Mojo) 8th - Buerk! The Newsical (Seven Arts) 9th - Summer Market (Cross Keys) 10th - 1m x 1m Art Competition (Bowery) 11th - Unsane (Brudenell) 12th - Eels (Academy) 13th - Jazz On The Aire (Granary Wharf) 14th - US Beer Festival (North Bar) 15th - Recipe For Life (Seacroft Housing Estate) 16th - On The Edge Festival (TempleWorks) 17th - Out Of Spite Festival (Well) 18th - Henri Gaudier-Bryzeska (Henry Moore Institute) 19th - Centre Stage Final (Academy) 20th - Yorkshire CCC v Lancashire CCC (Headingley Stadium) 21st - Ancient Food Evening (City Museum) 22nd - Alan McGee’s Greasy Lips (Milo) 23rd - Unity Day (Hyde Park) 24th - LOL Comedy (Highlight) 25th - Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Leeds Met) 26th - Finding Adam (Harewood House) 27th - The Boy With Tape On His Face (Seven Arts) 28th - Headingley Snapshots (HEART) 29th - Much Ado About Nothing (Kirkstall Abbey) 30th - Opera In The Park (Temple Newsham) 31st - Record Fair (Corn Exchange)

Something to do every day...

AUG

1st - Blue Note & Swing Kids (Well) 2nd - Fornica: Self Made (Test Space) 3rd - Life’s A Beach (Craft Centre & Design Gallery) 4th - Clueless (Temple Newsham) 5th - The Music (Academy) 6th - Karma To Burn (Cockpit) 7th - Gay Pride (Millennium Square) 8th - A Series Of Works Carefully Arranged (Art Gallery) 9th - Leeds Utd v Bradford City (Elland Road) 10th - Dreamcoats & Petticoats (Grand) 11th - Sarah Mack & North Leeds Calligraphers (Lotherton Hall) 12th - Leeds Rhinos v Castleford Tigers (Headingley Stadium) 13th - Beacons Festival (Helsaker Farm) 14th - Circus Skills Workshop (Middleton Park) 15th - Agatha Christie’s Verdict (Grand) 16th - Leeds Utd v Hull City (Elland Road) 17th - Dancing In The Street (City Museum) 18th - Visions! Omens! Hallucinations! Miracles! (College Of Art & Design) 19th - Boy Band Tribute Night (Ramada Leeds North) 20th - Jongleurs Comedy Club (Oceana) 21st - Bands In The Parks (various) 22nd - Leeds Festival Fringe (various) 23rd - Taste: The Politics Of Food & Drink (Abbey House) 24th - Mario Merz (Henry Moore Institute) 25th - Native Americans of the Plains (Lotherton Hall) 26th - Leeds Festival (Bramham Park) 27th - Deli Market (Kirkstall Abbey) 28th - West Indian Carnival Reggae Concert (Potternewton Park) 29th - Chapeltown Carnival (Potternewton Park) 30th - Thriller Live (Grand) 31st - Jazz Night (Highlight)

34_TheLeedsDebacle

SEP

1st - Northern Ballet Ensemble (Stanley & Audrey Burton Theatre) 2nd - Gavin Webster (Highlight) 3rd - Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair (Corn Exchange) 4th - Bingley Music Live (Myrtle Park) 5th - Wooden Shjips (Brudenell) 6th - Jimmy Cliff (Academy) 7th - Treefight For Sunlight (Cockpit) 8th - Damien Hirst (Art Gallery) 9th - Vin Garbutt (Grove) 10th - Potted Potter (Carriageworks) 11th - Kaiser Chiefs (Kirkstall Abbey) 12th - Hamlet (Grand) 13th - The Go-Beteween (WYP) 14th - The Great Gatsby (Carriageworks) 15th - John Smeaton of Austhorpe (Temple Newsham) 16th - Mathilde (Seven Arts) 17th - Madame Butterfly (Grand) 18th - Gala Fundraiser feat. Ken Dodd (City Varieties), 19th - The Duke Spirit (Cockpit) 20th - Justin Moorehouse (City Varieties) 21st - Leeds Carnegie v Rotherham Titans (Headingley Stadium) 22nd - Elkie Brooks (City Varieties) 23rd - The Pretty Things (Brudenell) 24th - King Lear (WYP) 25th - Fink (HiFi) 26th - Josh T Pearson (Brudenell) 27th - Love Arts feat. Ruby Wax (Howard Assembly Rooms) 28th - Four Tet (Wire) 29th - Vintage Kilo Sale (Leeds Uni) 30th - Grace Notes (Grove)

TheLeedsDebacle_35

Oh the twisted plight of mankind, The phrase “your money or your life” has never been more true.

Yet at the same time, the truth, whatever it may be, Is no longer anything more than a filthy pack of lies.

The race for survival is one that will never end.

Mother Nature will once again reclaim her throne on a deserted Earth.

True to its own nature, greed will only become more greedy, Until it has consumed all and itself.

This is a warning to all that is mankind. /GEORGE QUINN

THANK YOU FOR READING THE DEBACLE TO CONTRIBUTE TO ISSUE 5 PLEASE CONTACT THEDEBACLE@HOTMAIL.CO.UK