Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Days The World Ended

Wide-aperture Rapture photo capture recently
Ever since mankind first evolved, someone, somewhere has been predicting that doomsday is just around the corner. Does the completion of the Mayan calendar in 2012, though, mean that the end truly is a little bit nigh this time?

Acolytes tend to be a trusting breed. It takes little more than a few statistics relating to the girth of Noah’s Ark or rumours of an unwitnessed tête-à-tête-à-tête with a two-headed extraterrestrial to persuade them to forsake all their worldly goods and decamp to a nearby hill, there to await the Rapture.

The “Rapture”, for the uninitiated or for those still weighed down with consumer items and a place to live, is something of a catch-all term relating to the timely rescue of goodly folk (usually Christians) from the earth just scant seconds before said planet is consumed by fire, swallowed by a space demon or overrun by sterile cactus people on a mission to inseminate human females. Please feel free to delete in line with your own personal delusion.

The “Rapture” is chiefly notable for two things: a) The frequency with which it is predicted, and b) The frequency with which it fails to materialise. Leading the field in Wrongful Rapture Recognition (WRR) are, of course, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a US-based Christian splinter group.

The Witnesses predicted the imminent arrival of the Rapture in 1914, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975 and 1984. They then took a ten-year sabbatical before returning to the fray in 1994 when, once again, they completely failed to predict the end of the world. In 1995, with no apparent sense of irony, the Witnesses returned to the headlines of the less-discerning periodicals with the announcement that “the end of the world was no longer nigh”. With the Jehovians’ unparalleled record for getting things wrong, this may prove their most unsettling prediction to date.

In truth, the end of the world has been predicted with unerring inaccuracy pretty much since the beginning of the world. In prehistoric times, winters, eclipses and an unaccountable shortage of mammoths may all have been seen as harbingers of the apocalypse, but it was the arrival of Christianity that really proved to be the beginning of the End of Times industry.

The first to capitalise on this new-found enthusiasm for species extinction was Theudas, a self-appointed messiah, who led 400 of his chosen people into the Judean desert in 44 AD in order that they might survive the looming end of the world. Unfortunately, their personal worlds ended somewhat precipitately when they were hunted down and slain by a Roman garrison. Theudas, himself, was decapitated and had his head carried on a pikestaff to Jerusalem. This, at least, had the benefit of preventing him predicting further apocalypses in 45 AD, 47 AD, 52 AD or 56 AD, leaving the field pretty much open for the Jehovians some 2,000 years later.

While the interim period between the headstrong (and ultimately head-short) Theudas and the current predictions of a cosmic full stop are undoubtedly littered with dubious doom-mongers, let’s jump forward a millennium or two. Despite 2,000 years of scientific discovery, increased religious cynicism and some 15,000 or more occasions when the horsemen of the apocalypse have proved to be non-runners, belief in instant immolation on a global scale seems more widespread than ever.

The very latest—and hugely popular—injudicious Judgment Day theory currently centres round the Mayan Calendar. Now the Mayan calendar is quite different from those that we habitually give to our least-favourite relatives around Christmas time. For one thing, it is singularly lacking in kittens, bobbins of wool and life-affirming doggerel; for another, it is some 1,872,000 days long and consequently takes up a lot of wall space.

The Mayan Calendar (non-girly version)
The figure of 1,872,000 days represents some 5,128 years, a period spanning back to 3116 BC, the year the ancient Mayans believed the world began. Under their somewhat complex system of chronological assessment, long periods of time are measured in b’ak’tuns, each one of which is some 394.3 years in duration. A total of 13 b’ak’tuns equals one piktun. The current piktun comes to an end on 12 December 2012. Many have subsequently seen this as marking the absolute end of the Mayan calendar and, hence, the world.

This has proved to be enough to excite an appetite for a pending apocalypse not seen since the long ago days of September 2008, when the trials of the Switzerland-based Large Hadron Collider (LHC) spectacularly failed to destroy the world, even the bits of it to be found in Geneva. The mass media, professional Armageddon auteurs, the decidedly unhinged and even Hollywood (note the subject matter of the 2009 blockbuster 2012) have all latched onto December next year as our Next Best Shot at Being Shot Of It All.

One small, but influential, group, however, seem rather unconvinced and, largely, unconsulted. This is, of course, the diminishing number of South American natives who still adhere to the precepts of the Mayan Calendar. There is much bemusement among the latter-day Mayans that their sophisticated Western neighbours have picked on the piktun as a sure sign that a deity-decreed downsizing is due in December 2012.

One Mayan elder, Apolinario Chile Pixtun, is decidedly unimpressed with the attention his cultural chronology is suddenly attracting. He says: “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff. These doomsday ideas come from Western ideas, not Mayan ones.”

In truth, the Mayan calendar extends well past 2012, with many future predictions in its religious tracts not scheduled to take place for another 1,500 years or more. Far from marking the end of the world, for the Mayans the completion of a piktun is a time for celebrations. It’s a bit like Mayan Christmas. The fact that young ancient Mayans had to wait more than five millennia before they had a chance of getting a new Wii console or a Beyblades Super Vortex Battle Set may explain the cultural ennui that led to the ultimate downfall of this once-venerable civilization.

No matter how easy it is to dispel the mysteries of the Mayan Calendar, one other issue remains far harder to resolve—just why, since time immemorial, have so many people felt it incumbent upon themselves to predict the End Of Life As We Know It? Speaking to the UK-based Guardian newspaper on the eve of the first tests of the aforementioned LHC, Paul Boyer, author of When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture, ascribes the enthusiasm for en-Rapturement as down to mankind’s most primal urges.

He said: “It reflects a very ancient pattern in human thought. It is rooted in ancient, even pre-biblical, Middle Eastern myths of ultimate chaos and the ultimate struggle between the forces of order and chaos.

“It is deeply appealing at a psychological level because the idea of meaninglessness is deeply threatening. Human societies have always tried to create some kind of framework of meaning to give history and our own personal lives some kind of significance.”

Loosely speaking, Boyer seems to suggest that a hankering for ringside seats at the holocaust stems from a deeply ingrained desire to be part of something momentous—and what could be more momentous than mankind’s last moments? Boyer’s theory, though, may be fatally flawed, by its complete failure to acknowledge the role of “bragging rights” in many elements of human intercourse.

Lucky enough to bag a seat on the last U2 tour? Then no doubt you’ll be bigging up Bono’s performance, brandishing a tour programme and sporting a Larry Mullen Jr T-shirt. In short, you’ll be letting everyone know you were there. Front row seats at Ragnarok, as it was known by our 11th-century Norse cousins, offer little scope for one-upmanship on those, if any, that missed the occasion. Put brutally, there won’t be many bids for merchandising rights come the apocalypse.

The Norsemen of yesteryear offer another object lesson for would-be apostle of the apocalypse—every decade gets the doomsday it deserves. For 11th-century Norwegians, the end of the world involved a lot of pillaging, smiting and ultimate triumph, closely followed by an eternity of quaffing premium grog in the Valhalla Twilight Home for Victorious Vikings. In more biblical times, the ideal apocalyptic aperitif consisted of a lot of burning bushes, angelic hosts and the sound of trumpets being blown.
Ragnarok'n'roll: It's hammer time

Contemporary cataclysms now embrace recreations of the Big Bang, invasions by inevitably grey aliens and computers developing self-awareness and deciding to dispense with mankind altogether. Despite the many different mechanisms suggested as heralding mankind’s last hurrah, a number of elements remain consistent. Chief among these is the identification of an individual or a group who provides the catalyst for the looming cosmic catastrophe.

Over the centuries many different characters have fulfilled this rule. The Jews, for instance, are a perennial favourite, often functioning as a default setting for cataclysm conspirators when no other more likely candidate can be found. Other supposed agents of the apocalypse have included Bill Gates, Elvis Presley, Genghis Khan, The Beatles, Bill Clinton and ’60s pop songstress Cilla Black.

The British Royal Family have proved particularly fecund ground, with the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles all separately linked to plots to shift the earth’s poles, trigger a nuclear war or to simply provide a warm welcome for Satan and several of the lesser dukes of the underworld.

 One surprising figure for candidature as the “Antichrist” is Anwar Sadat, the former president of Egypt. As late as February 1997 he was tipped by several Middle-Eastern prophecy pundits as a key figure in the coming End Of Days. It is no slur on Mr Sadat’s zeal for such a cause to suggest the likelihood of his shirking the proffered role. He has, after all, been dead since October 1981.

Whilst many celebrities and international figures, such as Sadat and The Beatles, were unwittingly pulled into matters apocalyptic by third parties, others have been much more pro-active on that front. Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States and star of the 1951 chimp comedy Bedtime for Bonzo, was probably the only end-of-the-world advocate who actually had the power to deliver it.

During his eight years as the world’s Most Powerful Man (1981-89), Reagan regularly alarmed colleagues and political commentators alike by his literal belief in one biblical prophecy in particular. This stated that the end of the world would begin with a decisive battle between good (the US) and evil (the USSR) above the small town of Armageddon (Megiddo) in northern Israel. Critics of Reagan’s foreign policy during his term in office maintain that not only did he believe this prophecy, he also did his level best to bring it about.

 Reagan typifies many in the apocalypse-anticipation game in terms of actually being a true believer. Despite the countless thousands who have sought to steer humanity to a premature mass grave, very few of them seem to have been out-and-out scoundrels, motivated entirely by pecuniary gain.

A dishonourable exception here would be Lee Jang Rim, the Korean author of the ever-popular Getting Close To The End, one of the comparatively few Southeast Asian contributions to Last Days literature. Lee’s Hyoo-go movement attracted thousands of supporters from across the world, all believing his prediction that the end of the world would occur at midday on Wednesday 28 October 1992.

Having, with true apocalyptic zeal, given away all their possessions, quit their jobs, left their credit cards unpaid and neglected to set the video for any of their favourite programmes, the patience of Lee’s assembled flock was not long-lived.

By 12.01, a distinct shuffling of feet and subdued muttering was apparent. By 12.05, watches were pointedly being glanced at and a general round of harrumphing could be discerned. By 12.15, Lee had legged it, fearing a retribution far more imminent than that likely to be meted out from any divine source. He was eventually arrested and imprisoned for fraud.

It came as scant consolation to his ex-congregation when some US$4 million worth of bonds, bought with money Lee had extorted from them, came to light—especially when their maturity date turned out to be June 1995. Still, as no doubt one jovial member of the local Korean judiciary pointed out to the now penniless throng, it’s not the end of the world now, is it?
Sadly, the world outlasted REM

A Brief History of the End of Times 

4.5 billion BC: Earth created according to current scientific thinking. No recorded sightings of angels, spaceships or members of the British Royal Family.

10000 BC: Earth springs fully formed into life according to creationists. Much time spent burying dinosaur bones and aging cave paintings in order to try the faith of future generations.

3116 BC: Date the Mayan calendar begins. Possibly stunt by South American tourist board to promote city breaks to Rio in 2012.

0 AD: First ever Christmas. Birth of Christian religion and inspiration for 2,000 years of apocalyptic rumours. And pantos.

53 AD: Residents of Greek city of Thessolinia panic due to widespread belief they had missed the end of the world. They hadn’t.

1000 AD: First millennium crisis. Whole of world reportedly on best behaviour in anticipation of return of Messiah and likelihood of End of Days. Mood spoilt by arrival of 1001.

1555 AD: Michel de Nostradamus, the famous French seer, publishes his first collection of apocalyptic prophesies, setting the trend for vagueness, lack of specifics and generalisations still followed by 21st-century horoscope writers.

1843 AD: William Miller founds influential apocalyptic movement with the unimaginative title of Millerism. Predicts end of the world in 1844, later revised to 1845. Miller’s many followers refer to their ultimate failure to be consumed by fire and summarily despatched to the afterlife as “the Great Disappointment”.

1914 AD: First prediction of the end of the world by the Jehovah’s Witnesses (see also 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1984 and 1994).

1988 AD: Edgar Whisenaut publishes his best-selling book, 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988.

 1989 AD: Edgar Whisenaut publishes sequel, 89 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1989. Doesn’t sell as well as original.

1992 AD: David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian Group in Waco Texas, changes name of his commune from Mount Carmel to Ranch Apocalypse. Local FBI fails to see this as ominous sign.

1998 AD: Chen Heng-ming, leader of the God’s Salvation Church, announces that the Messiah is set to announce the end of the world live on every Channel 18 in the world. News goes down particularly badly in North America where Channel 18 is home to the Playboy Network.

2000 AD: Forces of Y2K bug, planetary alignments, biblical predictions and disgruntled aliens combine. World stubbornly refuses to end nevertheless.

2012 AD: End of Mayan Calendar. Hillsides expected to be briefly over-populated. Normal service expected to be resumed shortly. 7.5 billion AD (circa): End of the world due to consumption by massively expanded sun. Vague sense of vindication reported among latter-day Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Sixties Kid's Star Zebedee Found Out in Tragic Roundabout Round-up



VETERAN children’s entertainer Zebedee was last night arrested on charges relating to indecently assaulting a young girl, a fairground ride operator with learning difficulties and an underage snail. The offences are believed to date back to 1963.

The arrest comes just 24 hours after Cheshire police raided the home of Stuart Hall, the former It’s a Knockout presenter. The ashes of the late Eddie Waring are also believed to be helping with the enquiry, said to relate to an illicit “up and under” with a 15-year-old dressed as a giant marsupial.

In 1982, Zebedee was awarded the MBE in recognition of his work in promoting a positive image of the disabled. At the time, a Palace spokesman said: “Zebedee has proved to be a great role model for those facing physical challenges. He has become a British institution, despite being born with no lower limbs and a torso 50 per cent composed of coiled steel. He has endured many of his afflictions, including his comedy moustache, with considerable dignity and courage.”

Recent weeks, however, have seen speculation grow as to a darker side to the life of this once-feted jack-in-a box. One of his alleged victims, known, for legal reasons, only as “Miss F”, said: “When I first met him, he was the proprietor of a musical carousel that he told me had occult properties. At the time, I couldn’t believe he was interested in someone like me and when, after only about five minutes, he told me it was time for bed, I believed him. He also started asking me to “be nice” to a friend of us, a rabbit. I later learnt he was using me to pay off a drug debt.”

Waiting in the wings...
In a statement, the BBC this morning confirmed that Zebedee will not be appearing in a light-hearted five-minute slot before the news until enquiries have been completed. Speculation that The Herbs have been approached as a possible replacement could not be confirmed.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Constabulary confirmed that arrest did not form part of Operation Yarrow “because he’s a puppet”.

On Other Pages:

Has he been a naughty old Hector?
Hector’s House of Horrors: 
Sex-mad old Hector’s kinky capers left Kiki cold

Mary, Mungo and Nonce: 
High rise high-jinx in lift of lust

Bagpuss the P***y Blagger: 
Saucy old cloth cat exploited Emily, 11. After 38 years in therapy, lost property Lolita confesses: “Not even the mouse on the mouse organ could mend it or fix it.”

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Dick Emery, German Poo Porn and the Bearable Unlikeliness of Being

Ooh he was awful


It’s not quite a mid-life crisis. To date, I’ve had about six of those and having one more some nine weeks shy of being 49 seems a little presumptuous to say the least. It’s more a growing sense of fragile mortality, in part occasioned by the reluctant realization that I probably need glasses for the first time in my life. Only though, as the old gag has it, for reading and seeing things fortunately.
The other factor is a reluctant acceptance that I really can’t and shouldn't drink these days. Having cut back hugely over recent years, apart from on trips to the UK, my tolerance is akin to that of a  curious 15-year-old babysitter who finds the key to the drinks cabinet. One who has skipped his tea. Years of overdoing it, missing meals, eating a what’s what of those foods designed to fuck your gut and almost willfully seeking out stressful situations, with all the gusto of anxiety junkie with a martyrdom complex have made me Reflux Sufferer of the Year for four concurrent terms. There’s no gala dinner to mark this achievement  you just get given two boxes of Nexium and are allowed to have a bit of a lie down.
The other, less predictable, sign of your own impending demiserie is that you suddenly realise everyone you watched on the telly as a kid is dead. From Dick Emery to Arthur Lowe, from Harold Wilson to Doctor Who’s Brigadier. Even the Beatles have suffered 50 per cent fatalities and, worse, still neither of them was Ringo.
Suddenly, the prospect of being unalive one day seems much more than just the rumour it was 20 years ago. It’s now that religion suddenly has a fleeting appeal. “Christ,” you think, “if only it wasn’t such obvious bollocks…”
It even triggers the forlorn belief that if, well, smart people believe in it, then perhaps believe in it, then perhaps you’re missing something. Sadly, despite – or, likely because – having the whole of my education in Catholic institutions of various hue up to the age of 22, my cynicism trumps my forlorn hope in heavenly gradparental reunions and the persistence of consciousness every time. Bugger.
Only my fundamental belief in the huge unlikeliness of anything existing at all ever in the first place gives me a sliver of doubt as to the certainty of absolute oblivion within the next two and a half decades.
By current reckoning, I will miss having my consciousness digitally downloaded to a PC by at least half a century. Then that might not by a bad thing. I expect I’d only end up getting over-written by some 22nd century German coprophilia porn. Besides who would bother to access you?
They''ll hate you, Butler
Would some still corporeal descendant boot you up and ask how you were today? What would you reply? “Slightly fragmented?” or “I think I’ve got a bit of a virus coming on…” Would anybody really be interested in a digital you reminiscing  about the days when On the Buses was the funniest programme in Britain or hearing about that bird you probably could have shagged had you played it slightly differently? Chances are, being evicted from your hard-disk home by Teutonic poo porn would be no accident.
80 minutes away, my arse...
Anyway, as antidote to being a trifle miz, I’ve decided to have a bit of an adventure. This has seen me temporarily abandon the high rises of Hong Kong and head to Koh Yah Noi, an island some hour and 20 minutes from Phuket by speedboat and one lacking so much as an ATM. Here, for the next 12 days, I will contemplate the nature of mortality and watch the whole of 24 on DVD.
The Mrs has used all her holiday on a three-week viisit to her folks in Hanzhong, so this is a solo trip.
Expect blinding insights, revealing revelations and the answer to the question that preoccupies many of us – was season six of Kiefer Sutherland’s real-time thriller really all that bad?

Monday, October 29, 2012



The Mob Rules

Like many of my generation, I wrote to Jimmy Savile. In my case, I asked him if he could sort it for me to meet a Zygon, a Doctor Who baddie that lived below Loch Ness. He never wrote back. Maybe I shouldn’t have included a picture. Of me. Not the Zygon.

A Zygon recently
Rumours about Jimmy Savile were apparently in circulation even way back then and long before the peroxide popster was well past fixing. The most prurient of these concerned backhanders paid to morgue attendants for a little alone time with the recently departed. Of course, the truth concerning these “expiry dates” has never been established.

Then again, neither has any of the current crop of allegations.

Anyone who has seen the harrowing recollections in the Panorama programme (Jimmy Savile: What the BBC Knew) would find it hard to doubt the sincerity of the participants. None of them, however, was corroborated. Even if they had been, they would not have been aired had Savile not made his final travel. Savile’s right to sue, like his pensionorial right to Winter Fuel Payments, died with him.

The sheer volume of posthumously-emerged accusers obviously suggests the likelihood of Savile’s paedophile proclivities. The fact that many of them seem to be currently working in chip shops in the Roundhay Park area etc., though, suggests a certain payday sensibility. The way in which the allegations have been universally accepted as gospel, however, is perhaps a little disturbing.

Savile row continues
The lack of any dissenting voices demonstrates the muscular orthodoxy that characterises the current state of UK media. While rightly desperate to fend off state control in the wake of the phone tapping scandal, there has been no such willingness by any commentator to posit alternative views on potentially sensitive subjects.

This unanimity of position seems to rely, depending on the issue, more on a fear of inciting the belligerence of particularly vocal single issue pressure groups or, of course, the Daily Mail. The latter case is perhaps the most bizarre, given that the Mail itself is a supposed manifestation of the free press. In truth, it acts more like a rabid sheep dog, savagely turning on any member of the media flock that fails to follow its line. On anything.

The most virulent manifestation of the former has been the Hillsborough Action Group.  The publication of the recent report was, publicly at least, greeted as the Absolute Truth. This was despite the fact that, in private, a number of broadcast and print journalists believed the true truth lay somewhere between this latest report, which totally exonerated fans, and earlier investigations that equally exonerated the emergency services. Any suggestion, however, that every Liverpool footie fan was not a jolly gap-toothed chap with a heart of gold would have been howled down.

It seems every media owner was in obvious fear of inciting this opprobrium and, of course, the inevitable Sun-style circulation-collapse throughout Merseyside that would ensue. It is to Liverpool’s credit that, I suspect, it is the only city in the UK that could create such a phenomenon, but such muscular orthodoxy rarely guarantees the veracity of anything. All of which brings us back to Mr Savile.

With Savile no longer in the saddle, the search for warmer scalps is well under way. Gary Glitter has been in and out of custody, while 69-year-old Freddie Starr has been pre-emptively defending himself, while sitting on a sofa next to his 30-year-old fiancée.

Inevitably, with the Savile-saga proving so lucrative, both in terms of reader-acquisition and, ultimately, “my own story” pay-offs, the reputations of many other dead celebs are sure to be exhumed. The ever-reliable internet has already suggested John Peel. This, though, seems largely on the grounds of his obvious similarities to Savile – these being that he was a DJ, started his career in the sixties and, most importantly, is dead.

A Fredaphile?
For those interested in such things, I am reliably informed that the current list of runners and riders includes Hughie Green (10-1), Leslie Crowther (20-1), Jimmy Edwards (40-1), Arthur Negus (100-1) and Fred(A) the Blue Peter tortoise (1000-1). Aye, madness will ensue when the public’s appetite for such things is aroused.

In these bizarre times, it is perhaps ironic that the most apt of words come from the late Ronnie James Dio, one-time lead singer of Black Sabbath and not a paedo (probably). In the opening number to his second album with the band, Dio perhaps far-sightedly, warns us: “When you listen to fools, the mob rules.” Quite.