Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish.

For the last fourteen years my life has been getting gradually shitter and shitter. The country, also, has been gradually shitter and shitter. For the last fourteen years the Conservative party have been in power. David Cameron and Theresa May were awful people with awful policies but Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak (specifically Johnson, Truss is so deluded I doubt she even knows her own name) have been not far short of pure evil.

Yet incompetent at the same time. You can deal with bad bosses and you can deal with incompetent bosses but when they're both? That's when you're fucked. The polls for last night's general election were pointing towards a landslide although there was always the danger that some Farage fascists or Corbynista lunatics who believe he should contest, and lose, every general election would derail that. I hoped not. I think a step to the left is better than a step to the right - even if it's not as big a jump to the left as many of us would hope for.

So I got the Pringles (sour cream and onion, thanks for asking) and San Miguels in and tuned in to BBC1. Clive Myrie (who some friends suggested was drunk or worse) and Laura Kuenssberg at the helm and a team of Jeremy Vine (my old Eggheads chum, but not sure abot his werid hexagon graphics), Fiona Bruce, Victoria Derbyshire, Nick Watt, Naga Munchetty, Rita Chakrabarti, Kirsty Wark, Katie Razzall, Chris Mason, Aleem Maqbool, Dharshini David, and, of course, John Curtice - the don. 

Many of them using the word 'psephology' like it's going out of fashion. Co-comms came from Sadiq Khan, Neil Kinnock (a political hero of mine and one who mentioned Anuerin Bevan - my ultimate political hero - in 2024, in 2024!), Peter Mandelson, Steve Baker, Wes Streeting, Andrea Leadsom, Margaret Hodge, Dawn Butler (talking lots of sense), Daisy Cooper, David Bull (of Reform, not heard from him before but fear I will again), and Lee Cain. A master in bullshit.

Then the exit poll came in and the prediction was that Labour would take 410 seats (up 209) and the Tories 131 (down 241), with the Lib Dems on 61, and, very worryingly, thirteen seats predicted for Reform. Farage's pro-Putin, pro-Trump, xenophobic, racist party. In the end, Labour did a little bit better, the Lib Dems a lot better, and the Tories did worse. Reform, as it stands, only have one MP. The miserable frog faced fucking cunt they call Nigel Farage.

But on election night they don't hang around so next up was the race on for the first declaration It was won by Bridget Phillipson for Labour in the Houghton and Sunderland South constituency at 11.13pm. With Reform second. Way ahead of the Tories. About twenty minutes later nearby Blyth/Northumberland elected Ian Lavery from Labour (with Reform second - again). Which leads Leadsom to start claiming Tories have not been right wing enough and going on a boring and predictable rant about "woke stuff". Rather than losing because they've been a bunch of cunts.

Chris Mason asks her if there will be a "civil war" within the Conservative party in the coming months. I think there may well be. I think there's a strong chance they will merge with Farage's lot - and that Farage will insist he is given a top job - and from there he will chip away from within until he's either the leader or he has destroyed the Tories entirely. One of these scenarios is far more desirable than the other.

Other votes start trickling in. Sunderland Central (Labour first, Reform second), Swindon South (Heidi Alexander for Labour unseating a fairly big beast in the Conservative's Robert Buckland - the former Justice Secretary - who, to be fair, is pretty gracious in defeat - and angrily suggest there should be a different, more civil and more honest, future for the Tories, good luck with that), a Labour hold in Washington and Gateshead South.

They get the declarations in early in the North East. Clive Myrie and Jeremy Vine both get unnecessarily excited about the swingometer as more votes come in (all with Labour winning - good, all with Reform second - not good). This trend isn't bucked until 0137 when the Lib Dems take Harrogate and Knaresborough from the Tories (this tactical voting is working well) and, about ten minutes later, the Tories actually win, retain, a seat. Rayleigh and Wickford in Essex, Mark 'Penfold' Francois (despite a 36% drop in vote share).

As it goes on, and results come in thick and thin, there is, as you might expect - things can only get more confusing, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. It's good that Labour regain Darlington, Cannock Chase, Stroud, Nuneaton (a classic swing seat), and keep Barnsley, Leeds West (Rachel Reeves looking likely to be the first ever female Chancellor in British history), Thurrock, and Scunthorpe. Some of the constituences have, of course, changed, boundaries have been altered, but the gist is the same.

It's really good when the repulsive scumbag, repellent grifter, George Galloway is kicked out. It's good, but more expected, to see Emily Thornberry (not a great speaker but a decent soul, I believe) and Angela Rayner (who I think is great) returned in Ashton-under-Lyne. It's even better when Grant Schapps (and all his pseudonyms) is kicked out. He's the sixth minister to go. Alex Chalk and Michael Fabricant follow him out of the door. Keir Starmer wins Holborn & St Pancras (though a man dressed as Elmo got nineteen votes) and potential Tory leader (but not now) Penny Mordaunt gets her arse handed to her on a plate in Portsmouth.

Bad news comes, primarily, with Reform's vote count and the weird phenomena of young people supporting them, possibly thinking Farage is a 'ledge' on TikTok. The first MP of theirs to be elected is Lee Anderson, 30p Lee, a person who has backed Corbyn, then Johnson, and now milkshake enthusiast Farage. A craven human being who will stand behind whatever populist he can find. A very very low note in a mostly positive night. That wanker Richard Tice wins in Boston and Skegness. Two places to cross off the holiday list.

There's also a weird group of people who imagine that British politicians can somehow influence what happens in Palestine and Israel. An ostensibly left wing group of 'useful idiots' who find themselves forever aligning with the far right. Their cheerleader, the horrendous grifter George Galloway, is kicked out in Rochdale after less than five months. That wanker will be back. Don't doubt it.,

We cut to another wanker, Nigel Farage, who is waffling away about "common sense" and wanting his "country back" and it becomes obvious to anyone who understands history that in Farage we can see the obvious signs that an already extant form of British fascism is taking over from what was once called the Conservative party. But he wins, of course he wins. Eight times he tried but now he's in. He'll be a truly, truly terrible MP but he will employ Trumpian tactics to suggest somehow the "elites", or the "deep state", are conspiring against him. Farage's success is by far the lowest point of an otherwise overwhelmingly positive evening.

I was fairly indifferent about comedy Lib Dem leader and candidate Ed Davey retaining, and more than doubling his majority in, Kingston & Surbiton (I think he's a decent cad even if my mate Richard thinks he's a "cunt") and I was also indifferent about Jeremy Corbyn getting in (he was a rubbish leader, promoted an anti-semitism that still poisons the far left, and lost two elections - but that was more down to his stupidity than anything else) but I was simply confused when Faiza Shaheen (wrongly, in my view, kicked out the Labour party) and the Tory candidate Shama Tatler allow the egregious Iain Duncan-Smith to retain Chingford and Woodford Green against the odds.

That was about as long as I lasted. I went to bed (after falling asleep on the couch) safe in the knowledge that the fourteen year shitshow of Tory chaos, corruption, cruelty, and criminality is finally over and that the future for me, my friends, and family should be happier, safer, and more prosperous. Though Donald Trump and Nigel Farage will do all they can to change that.

When I woke up both Truss and Rees-Mogg were gone (good riddance to bad rubbish, Rees-Mogg had to stand next to a man in a balaclava made of baked beans as his defenestration was announced), Basingstoke and Wrexham (two places where people I love live), and everybody I know and care about was happier than they have been for years. Following a night in which I wondered whoever thought up the idea of rosettes, I don't want to end on a sad note, I couldn't help noticing that the Labour politicians who have taken power intend to govern for the country. The Tory party, even in their pomp, did not promise that. They didn't aim to govern for the country. They didn't even aim to govern for their own party or their own party's supporters (who I am certain they loathed even more than their political opponents) but simply for themselves.

Well, thank fuck they're gone. I don't want to use the word Starmergeddon (a good title for the blog but I'm not a fan boy, leave that populist bullshit to the Corbyn and Johnson fans) but last night was a great result for the country. It'll take time - a lot of time - and it'll take money - to quote George Harrison "a whole lotta spendin' money" - but in Starmer and Labour I trust. I support and cherish the Labour party but the thing I love most right now. I love democracy. Fuck the Tories.

Panic/Don't Panic.

In America, in 1938, the CBS Radio Network broadcast an adaptation of H.G.Wells' The War Of The Worlds directed and narrated by Orson Welles. Aliens had arrived in New Jersey (as opposed to Woking in the original book) and for many it was all too much. People freaked out, thousands of them took to the streets in the hope of escaping the aliens. Mass panic ensued.

But, of course, aliens had not landed in New Jersey and these people over reacting had, accidentally, fallen into believing a lie. Often, these days, we call lies 'alternative facts' or 'post-truth' and last night I was at The Star of Greenwich for Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub's Are We Living In A 'Post-Truth' World with Dr Joseph Ucsinski, the Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami.

Dr Ucsinski (let's call him Joe from now on - host Chris French did) has crunched the stats and done the research and has come to the conclusion that, despite warnings from politicians and journalists, we are not living in a post-truth world where truth and untruth are the same thing. At least the vast majority of us are not. Even if the New York Times have gone from writing an average of one hundred articles that contain mention of conspiracy theories (in 2010) to about eight hundred per year (from 2020 onward, I wonder why that year?).

When trust wanes, conspiracy theories rise. But who is to blame for what appears to be a rise in conspiracy theory belief? You'll not be surprised to learn that the chief culprit is the Internet, particularly social media, particulary YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter. Those most susceptible to belief in conspiracy theories tend to be Republicans and Trump supporters who get behind, and share, stories about QAnon, the 6th January attack on the Capitol Building, Pizzagate,and general anti-vax bullshit. Some have even killed their own children because their belief in conspiracy theories was so strong.

But is this narrative entirely true? Let's go back again to 1938 and that War of the Worlds broadcast. Did people really believe aliens had landed in New Jersey. Very few people listened to the broadcast in the first place and those that did would have heard numerous disclaimers during the broadcast - as well as adverts for Ovaltine - making it explicitly clear that what they were hearing was a work of fiction. It's hard to imagine broadcasting adverts for Ovaltine during an actual alien invasion. People didn't really run on to the streets. There was no mass panic.

So why the disjuncture? Back in the 1930s the newspaper industry was seriously threatened by the popularity of radio so 'flashy' newspaper headlines intended to discredit radio proved doubly useful. They helped sell papers and they helped to discredit their radio rivals. Newspapers were, not for the last time, spreading fake news about fake news.

Conspiracy theory belief hasn't really risen since then. Belief in conspiracy theories about the death of JFK saw a peak in the 70s, 80s, and 90s but have gone down a bit since (they actually seemed to go down about the time of Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK which wasn't shy about spreading conspiracy theories), covid related conspiracies (from forced vaccinations to 5G and on to Bill Gates, tracking devices, and the big one - that it was all a 'plandemic') have remained on the same level since the pandemic began, and QAnon belief has stayed pretty stable since 2018.

 

The data, it seems, tells a different story to the headlines. Social media, as well as more traditional media, appears not to be changing as many minds as we might think. Most people are already pretty set in their beliefs or their systems of belief. There's correlation more than there is causation and most people don't use the Internet to look up conspiracy theories.

The most famous conspiracy theory website, Alex Jones' egregious InfoWars is ranked #3242 in popularity in the US. For some balance the New York Times is ranked #25 and for even more balance, and an interesting insight into what people really use the Internet for, PornHub is ranked #12. Yep, there's far more people out there wanking than trying to convince people the earth is flat.

Joe had an interesting take on the idea that conspiracy theories can lead people to transgressive and violent behaviour. His research suggests that the people who commit violent crimes and hateful acts in the name of conspiracy theories are the same sort of people who would commit violent and hateful acts anyway. Much of the reasoning is simply post-rationalisation.

Examples include the so called QAnon shaman who is now out of prison and selling yoga leggings. Jacob Chansley (his real name) was dismissed by his own lawyer as an "idiot". Another man, who remained nameless, claimed he was acting on instructions he'd received from Donald Trump through his car radio. Most of these people need medical treatment and probably can't get it.

Even the idea that Republicans, or conservatives - with a small c, are more prone to conspiracy theories isn't borne out from the evidence. It's dependent on what conspiracy theory you're talking. Democrats are equally susceptible to believing conspiracy theories about Trump and I've noticed a rise in people, amongst my friends, who support Palestinian freedom suggesting that the Hamas attacks on October 7th 2023 were somehow staged, faked, or, at the least, wildly exaggerated.

So if, according to the media, there is always a conspiracy theory panic but according to the data that actually isn't getting worse then what is really happening? Why do we worry about it more than we ever did? The answers aren't the most comfortable but they do, at least for me, make a lot of sense.

Certain politicians, most famously a former President and convicted felon who may well find himself in the White House again come November, are motivating conspiracy theory believers into acting, often violently, on those beliefs. Trump is aided by people like Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (who has a particular hatred for Disney who she believes are sexualising children) and the vile political commentator Tucker Carlson who is rather obsessed with the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Both Carlson and Taylor Greene are, surprise surprise, big fans of guns.

They're in an ecosystem where everything seems to lead to a satanic paedophile ring and those accused of being satanic paedophiles range from Kamala Harris to the Pope and from Joe Biden to Tom Hanks. Believers in satanic paedophile conspiracy theories tend to have a certain make up as discovered by Joe and his team's studies. They tend to be xenophobic, pro-Trump, pro-Putin, anti-Biden, anti-abortion, and anti-vax as well as being particularly argumentative and violent both online and in real life.

Which has resulted in some of them sending death threats to children's hospitals and turning up to protest drag shows waving guns around. One statistic that has most definitely risen is that among the relatively small number of conspiracy theorists that are out there, there are now three times more of them that are likely to take violent, even lethal, action.

Three times as many - and Trump is continuing to drum up that violence. He won't stop. It had been a really interesting talk - even if finished on a rather pessimistic note. A fun (!) Q&A took in Ronald Reagan, Mitt Romney, Nazis, Brexit, the holocaust, Sandy Hook, Jeb Bush, Trump's overtures (after winning the Presidency in 2016) to Bernie Sanders (proving how often the far right and the far left find themselves working as allies for similar causes - even though with different motivation), and Trump's completely unfounded statement that Ted Cruz's dad killed JFK.

Cruz was a rival to Trump for leadership of the Republican party and, as with so much to do with Trump, this baseless accusation was done merely to harm a rival. Trump may be a massive big orange baby with a cock like the mushroom from the Mario computer game but Hitler looked, and acted, like a prick too. Conspiracy theories won't die when Trump dies and the damage he has done by weaponising them will stay with us for a very very long time. Joe Ucsinski didn't want to leave us with a message of fear (and I'm feeling very optimistic about the future today because the Tory cheats, criminals, and bullies are being booted out after a fourteen year shitshow) but, when it comes to America, and America's role in the world, it's hard to be anything but very afraid of the future.

Thanks to Jade, David, and Paula for joining me, to Professor Chris French and The Star of Greenwich and its friendly staff for hosting, to Goddard's Pie & Mash for tasty food beforehand, and, of course, to Joe Ucsinski for a really good talk.

Radical Dance Factions:Art/Magic/Lore with the London Fortean Society.

I could have been at Glastonbury, I could have been at Pride, I could have been watching the Euros, and I could have been sat in the park with a good book and an ice cream but, instead, this Saturday I was at Conway Hall with the London Fortean Society for a whole day of curated talks which they'd called Art/Magic/Lore and if I had a few, very minor, reservations about it beforehand, by the end I knew I'd made the right decision.

It was a great day. I enjoyed pretty much every talk and performance and I even got out to Becks Cafe on nearby Red Lion Street at lunchtime for a rather ambitious cheese omelette and chips with an (accidental) double helping of bread and butter so I could make chip butties. The vast majority of the speakers were female and that was reflected in an audience which I'd estimate was about 75% female. It's not an exact science but I'd say that's a huge increase compared to a typical Fortean crowd.

Kicking things off, at the sensible time of 11.15am were Thomas Sharp, Marc Spicer, and Rosey Trickett with Circling the Square Mile. The three speakers, and several friends, go out and create a 'faery ring' around the square mile of the City of London once every four years. Always on February 29th. Because, they say, city traders are 'the fairy folk the old tales warned us about'.

In 2020 they met at the Royal Exchange, broke up into smaller groups, and placed one hundred bronze mushrooms in a circle that enveloped the entire City. The very next week, global stock markets plunged. The speakers were enough in the real world to admit that the arrival of the pandemic may have played a factor. Certainly when they repeated the act in 2024, nothing really happened.

We were told about a book called The Weeping Cufflinks. (It's about a sad banker called Toby - which is claimed as a generic name for a stockbroker - a bit unfair to Tobys, I know some, they're nice) and another, by WB Yeats, called The Celtic Twilight (as well as some of Martin Parr's photographs of bizarre city traditions) but what I wanted to know is why are city traders deemed to be fairy folk?

The 'proof' comes with the facts that they easily blend in with real people, they are amoral, and they are totally transactional. Think of fairy stories like Jack and the Beanstalk and Rumpelstiltskin. All of these involve some kind of transaction from buying magic beans to an imp that spins straw into gold in exchange for a woman's firstborn child!

In 2009 there was a huge financial crash and the banks were deemed "too big to tail" so the rest of us had to bail them out. From this we ended up with austerity, populism, and Brexit. Amoral bankers are architects of the current shitshow we're all living in. They're not evil. They simply don't care. They are amoral. Are we all victims of the dark magic enacted by these city hobgoblins?

One to discuss later. Next up was Jennifer Higgie with A Journey Into Women, Art, and the Spirit World which turned out to be excellent. She talked a bit about gender exclusions and women being written out of art history (something many major galleries and institutions are making massive attempts to redress and, I feel, are succeeding in doing so) before taking us on a whistle stop journey through women's art from 35,000BCE to the present day (as well as how that art interacts with mystery, the spirit world, saints and angels, and shapeshifters).

That's quite a journey. From Australian aboriginal art, the oldest known representative statue, and Greek marble statues of Athena - for whom Athens is named (we can't know if these were made by a woman - but they represent women), and on to Minerva (the Roman equivalent of Athena) and artwork by Hildegard of Bingen who not only made art but is the first named music composer in history. She also created her language. She kept herself busy, did Hildegard.

There are renaissance tarot decks that inspired Italo Calvino, Niki de Saint Phalle, the Fox sisters (who played a vital role in creating spiritualism), Sojourner Truth, Georgiana Houghton, Margaret Watts Hughes, Hilma af Klint, Betye Saar, and Ana Mendieta. Two works that particularly grabbed my attention were Houghton's The Flowers of Samuel Warrand and Lavinia Fontana's Assumption of the Virgin. Oh, and Madame Blavatsky (a Fortean favourite) popped up at 1216hrs. Just over an hour into proceedings and my bingo card was stamped.

It was a great talk and so was the next one. Amy Hale's "this current drew you":Ithell Colquhoun's erotic energies and sacred landscapes drilled down deeper into one particular female artist. An artist, who around the time of World War II, created work about erotic energy and sex magick, drew watercolours of humans and angels in couples and even threesomes and incorporated queer desire into her work.

Colquhoun was spending a lot of time in Cornwall as an evacuee and, Hale suggested, perhaps esoteric sexuality was an escape from the horrors of the war or a potential route into a more enlightened future. Colquhoun had quite a life. She was born in India in 1906, was photographed by Man Ray in 1932, and fell in love - scandalously at the time - with another woman in 1934.

She had a long held desire to become part of a cult order, or several cult orders, and in the 1950s she finally came good on that desire and joined orders devoted to Celtic Christianity and others inspired by the Golden Dawn. She believed there were vital energies both in human bodies and in the Earth itself and was interested in union, yes - that type of union, with deities. The vital energies of course would arrive, and be received, via human orifices and as women have one more orifice than men that meant, to Colquhoun, they were more divine.

She took an interest in transitioning to androgynous states, riffed on Gustave Courbet's infamous L' Origine du Monde (turning it half into a landscape), and made work inspired by the old belief that stone circles were women who had been turned to stone for dancing on the sabbath! Here's some of her work so you can have a look yourself. You may notice a theme (although you can even go to back to Lavinia Fontana's work for that):-

 

For some reason I felt quite hungry so it was time for lunch with Dewi, David, and Liberty before returning, just in time, for a site specific performance by Aliki Karveli. One of the bits of the day I had misgivings about but in the end the only bad thing that happened was the Aero I'd bought after lunch melted in my pocket. I felt it would be rude to start eating an Aero when somebody's doing a site specific performance.

These things can, of course, be wildly pretentious and even uncomfortable. It was quite pretentious but not uncomfortable. Not even when the heavily tattooed Aliki Karveli took a thread and wound it round people in the audience including your clueless narrator. Elsewhere the performance took in bells, shakers, chains, a shawl, a kind of bodhran, some flute playing, and, best of all, some rather soothing drone music which could have sent me to sleep after my big lunch. But didn't. I ate my what was left of my melted to fuck Aero and considered myself lucky not to have experienced anything like the Rainbow Rhythms episode of Peep Show.

Maybe it was the post lunch slump but I found Hayley Lock's talk, An Altered Self, the least interesting of the day. Lock has been regularly going under hypnosis to explore her altered self (she'd be back to do just that at the end of the day) and she talked, at some length, about this. I must admit I zoned out a few times but I made some notes and they go more or less like this:-

Esoteric and occult studies of female otherness, historically generated divisions of power, magical thinking, Antonin Artaud, John Dee, cosmic fields, psychological topography, Buckminster Fuller, ancient oracular mythologies, future future experiences, tensegrity, ancient Mexican shamanism, silent invisible energy from dead stars, mining the interior architecture of one's psyche, obsidian mirrors, Carl Sagan, quantum mechanics, local chthonic power sites, the vernacular of Essex, sexualised scenes in medieval literature, and a performance event called Witches Teat that took place in Suffolk in 2017. A lot of it was, sadly, beyond me.

If Lock's talk was the one I struggled with the most (and it wasn't boring, just a bit confusing and went on a tiny bit too long) then the next talk was probably my favourite of the day. Kathryn Atherton with Mary Neal and the Suffragettes Who Saved Morris Dancing. The morris dancing revival didn't take off, as you may imagine, in rural communities but in London and the person behind it, now mostly forgotten, is one Mary Neal.

Neal was born to money from a wealthy button making family in Birmingham, She was an organiser and she had spiritual beliefs. With her fellow Methodist friend Emily Pethick (from Weston-Super-Mare) they volunteered in the slums of St Pancras at a time when poverty was believed to be either God's will or punishment for having a bad character and, therefore, not many people were trying to change it.

Life was particularly dangerous for poverty stricken women who would often fall into prostitution. Neal and Pethick had gotten into socialism and moved into the slums themselves. Once embedded, they brought culture to the young women who lived there and took them on trips to the countryside where their lives were transformed. Many of them had never seen a cow before, or even a dewdrop.

Lives changed by contact with nature. Neal and Pethick opened a hostel in Cambridgeshire where the girls could stay. Labour bigwigs of the time like Ramsay MacDonald and Keir Hardie visited and soon Neal, Pethick and their charges were supporting unions and strike action. A co-operative was set up, Mission Esperance, and a dressmaking business that didn't exploit its work force was formed as part of it. Other dressmaking work paid so badly that often women took sex work to supplement their meagre wages.

Neal and Pethick contacted Emmeline Pankhurst from the Women's Social and Political Union (later to become the Suffragettes) and Pethick launched Victory For Women magazine. In 1906, Mary Neal approached legendary folklorist and song collector Cecil Sharp who was delighted to provide folk songs to the young women through his various contacts.

Morris dancing had almost completely died off years before but the young women loved to perform the dances (which Mary Neal attributed to an ancestral memory of their rural heritage) and were soon performing hugely popular shows in London and touring various country estates. Even the then Home Secretary came along and was taught how to morris dance. Imagine James Cleverly having a crack at it!

These girls from the slums were now hobnobbing with the elites. It was them who published the first book of morris dance and it came out about the same time as the Suffragette movement was becoming more militant. Dances reflected this shift as they became about political events and the women's struggle. Mary Neal even suggested a festival of music and dance and proposed a site near Glastonbury.

That never happened because World War I broke out but somebody should follow her up on her idea. Imagine a music and dance festival in Glastonbury of all places! Sadly, that's not all that the war stopped. When the war finished, the Mission Esperance never returned and though women got the vote, morris dancing became a male bastion and remained that way for decades and decades. It's still only slowly changing back now. This was a vital history for lesson for anyone, like me, interested in music, progressive politics, and heritage.

 

From the most interesting talk of the day, via a short break - my ageing bladder needs these breaks, to the most fun performance of the day. The phone cameras were out for Huginn & Muninn and their progressive two person Bedlam Border Morris from South London. Dressed as giant crows (or are they ravens?) with plague masks, they did some very sprightly, energetic, and enthusiastic morris dancing to some very good folk music - played by Holly and Jess. While occasionally taking time out to tell us about the history of morris dancing and explain a few of the dances.

It was like goth morris dancing but with good percussive chops and the stories about Odin, nickelharpa players, Portuguese fire dancers, The Monkees, Wet Leg, and Cecil Sharp (again) were all interesting but the highlight had to be when they each put a giant black balloon on their heads and did a potentially injurious stick dance. It was like something from It's A Knockout and it was very funny. It was also quite moving when they ended their performance by reminding everyone that morris dancing, any dancing I'd say, is about friendship more than anything else.

The organisers had scheduled that performance just right as well, perking us up for the final section of the day. Which began with more morris dancing related shenanigans. Lucy Wright's Start A New Tradition Today! begins with our speaker in the inauspicious location of the Stevenage Holiday Inn on 30th April 2023. She was away on a work trip but she was determined to dance the sun up on Mayday.

So she did. Alone. Wright had grown up in Macclesfield and her father had been a morris dancer but, as can happen, life got in the way and dancing fell by the wayside for years. But, I find this happens a lot, as we get older we reengage with the passions of our youth and so it was for Lucy Wright. She made a brilliant, and extravagant, outfit, and she went into the centre of Stevenage and danced like nobody was watching.

For an audience of curious street cleaners, early morning commuters, and fellow hotel guests. Lucy Wright went on to talk about how not everyone can join a side (geography or disability could make it difficult, people may feel they're the wrong age, race, or gender - sadly) so she came up with a name for solo morris dancing - hedgedancing.

Named after Rae Beth's book Hedge Witch. A few others soon joined in - primarily remotely - and Wright thought of reviving an older and less well known tradition (though one that Terry Pratchett has written about it). Dancing the sun down during the winter solstice. Then on 31st October 2023 the sun was danced down by over one hundred people all over the world. Wright named it 'dusking'.

It got her to thinking about traditions and how so many English folk traditions seem to be male based (the honourable exception is the annual Buckinghamshire pancake race which looks fun). So she came up with a few of her own and showed us some photos to illustrate them. They were pretty impressive and seemed to involved wearing antlers, smoking out fools, waving a dildo in the air, and wearing furry knickers!

Good on her. There was just time for Hayley Lock to appear on stage again. This time with her hypnotist who had already hypnotised here before they reached the stage (he didn't want us, he said, all doing the funky chicken) and, for some reason, she was wearing a long black gown like the ones barbers put on you before they cut  your hair.

Lock and her hypnotist were aiming, vaguely, for a past life regression. Ideally to the moment, after birth, when she was just energy! The aim was to go through an ancient door into a past life but that's not quite how it panned out. Lock described standing on soft wood chippings and there being 'presences' there as well as being spun in a nice soothing way. As if, keeping with the afternoon's overriding theme, dancing.

Next she was floating (not in reality, obviously) in a green ether and going towards some kind of shapeshifting structure and then bouncing off its jelly like walls. All the while she was drawing pictures, scribbles really, of what she was experiencing. She even spoke of smelling warm biscuits and being given a glass of milk.

As well as there being another person there, that person holding out a very big silver plate, and her spinning on that plate, After that she describes being in cold war and then, a bit more worryingly, dividing up into several parts. Before ending up on a cushion so big she can't see the sides of it. Then she's gently clicked out of her hypnotic state and we all go to the Enterprise pub for a very enjoyable debrief.

Thanks to Dewi, David, Liberty, Scott, and Michael for joining me and thanks to Conway Hall, the London Fortean Society, and all the speakers and performers at this curious and fascinating event. It might be time to take up morris dancing.

Kakistocracy L:The A-Z Of Why Nobody Should Vote Conservative On The 4th Of July (Or Ever Again).

In three days time, on Thursday 4th July, the country will finally have the chance to rid itself of the most corrupt, cruel, and criminal government in its modern history. It is imperative everybody gets out and votes the Tories out. Ideally, there will be no Tory MPs left following the election. That's highly unlikely but they should at least be destroyed as a serious political force for a generation. Or forever. This may sound mean spirited but I hold the entire Conservative Party in total and utter contempt for what they've done to the country, what they've done to politics in the country, and what they've done to the idea of telling the truth. Here's an A-Z of why I deeply and firmly believe they should be permanently removed from power.

Austerity. The Austerity programme that was introduced by then Prime Minister David Cameron and then Chancellor George Osborne has, according to the National Institute for Health and Care Research - an actual goverment body, been responsible for a rise in suicide attempts as people struggle to make ends meet, or even survive, under this cruel and regressive policy. The Royal Society of Medicine estimates that in 2015 alone 30,000 lives were lost due to austerity. Multiply this by the fourteen years the Tories have been in power and we're looking at 420,000 deaths. All because David Cameron wanted to act tough.

Under A we can also find Lee Anderson. Or 30p Lee. He's managed to go from being a Corbyn supporter in the Labour Party to the Tories and on to Nigel Farage's fascist Putin supporting Reform Party. While a Tory he suggested meals could be cooked for 30p, said he'd not support the England football team because they were taking the knee, told asylum seekers in the Bibby Stockholm they could "fuck off back to France", and eventually left the Conservative Party after suggesting that London mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists.

Brexit. Everything about it, from start to finish, has been a complete and utter disaster. It has emboldened the most craven and dishonest of MPs, it caused the death of Jo Cox, it has weakened the British economy, it has weakened Britain's world standing, and it has divided families up and down the country. None of the promises made by the Brexit brigade have been kept and everyone is worse off because of it. Those who supported it and claimed they "won" eight years ago didn't win. They lost. Everyone lost. There were no winners.

Under B we can also find performatively cruel politicians like Kemi Badenoch and Suella Braverman. The latter of whom dreams, fantasises one suspects, of immigrants being sent to Rwanda. You can also find Peter Bone, the former Tory MP for Wellingborough who had to resign (eventually) after a report found he had committed "many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct". Essentially, he stuck his dick, Bone's bone, in a male employee's face.

Covid. Nobody can blame the Tories for the existence of Covid but we should hold them accountable for their terrible response to it. Boris Johnson held off a lockdown for much too long, he boasted of shaking hands with coronavirus victims in hospital, and then, after nearly dying of it himself, him and his cronies and colleagues partied the nights away while others were unable to hug their dying parents and grandparents. This alone should mean they're never anywhere near power again.

Under C you can also find David Cameron, the man who kicked off this fourteen year shitshow, as well as Therese Coffey, the unhealthiest looking Health Secretary of all time (and one who suggested, dangerously, that people could simply share their prescriptions - which is illegal). Then there's former Olympic rower and posh boy James Cracknell who is aiming to become the Tory MP for Colchester during the upcoming election despite describing his own party as a "shower of shit". Then there's the Culture Wars in which, in lieu of policies and practical solutions, Tory MPs simply claim that things are too 'woke'. Despite not seeming to even understand the meaning of that word.

D-Day. The commemoration of which didn't detain Rishi Sunak too long. See also the wet and weak Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden (so ineffectual I suspect most of the country don't even know he is the Deputy Prime Minister) and the mad as a box of frogs Nadine Dorries who when not getting sexually excited by Boris Johnson imagines that a shady cabal of Tory politicians with names like Dr No, The Wolf, and The Dark Lord plotted to overthrow Boris Johnson which, for some reason, involved killing and torturing animals. She may not be in the Tory party any more but the fact she ever was speaks volumes about the sort of people they will let in.

E is for ethics of which the Conservative Party no longer have any need for. But let's name a couple of specific Es starting with the effluence that they have allowed to pollute the beachs and rivers of the UK and going on to the election itself and the illegal betting that Conservative insiders have been involved in. It's been said, often, that though the Tories are terrible at governing, they are good at campaigning. The last few weeks (and this betting scandal specifically) have proved that to be far from true.

Food bank usage. In 2010 there were 60,000 people in the UK reliant on food banks. Now there are just shy of 3,000,000. That statistic alone should damn this rotten Tory government forever.

Under F you can also find Mark Francois, the Poundland Penfold and the chairman of the right wing headbangers European Research Group.

Gove (Michael). Sadly standing down at the election, depriving us of the chance of enjoying him lose his Surrey Heath seat. Gove is a good barometer of bad ideas. If Gove is for it (Brexit, Dominic Cummings testing his eyes on a road trip to Barnard Castle) you can be sure it's a bad idea. It was quite funny that time he rocked up in his suit at an Aberdeen nightclub and started raving. It was almost like he'd dropped an e - but we all know Gove would never ever take drugs.

Another useless G is Chris 'Failing' Grayling and while we're on the Gs let's not forget Grenfell, Boris Johnson's downgrading of the disaster, the same clown's rude remarks to the fire service, and Theresa May's inability to even act like a human being when she visited the site.

Hancock (Matt). The former Health Secretary, groper of staff, serial bullshitter, crocodile cryer, and ostrich anus eater. Nobody needs reminding why Hancock was so dire but let's not forget it was Johnson who gave him that job and in this version of the Tory party his rise wasn't an outlier.

Also for H we have Hunt (Jeremy) who's in charge of the economy while it's tanking. Also:-homelessness which has increased by 17.5% in the UK since 2010.

Immigration. Brexit was supposed to stop most immigration. It hasn't happened. The Tories are always keen to make immigration a hot topic yet fail to actually have a plan on how to deal with it. One thing they could have done (but didn't, and won't) is to talk about all the benefits of immigration.

Johnson (Boris). The biggest ever cunt to ever be British PM (Truss was terrible but she was more a symptom of long Johnson and he can be blamed for her). Almost every word out of his mouth was lie, he partied while he ordered us all to stay in. The list of his crimes are so long they would fill this entire piece. His name isn't even Boris but idiots still insist on calling him that.

Kwarteng (Kwasi). The chancellor when Liz Truss was PM and therefore one of those most responsible for her utterly disastrous 'mini-budget'.

Levelling up (or lack of it). A vote winner for the Tories was quickly forgotten when they took power. Most Tories hate northerners and think they're all stupid - but they do like their votes. For the shame, a significant number of them gave them their vote.

Also for L we can have the cost of Living crisis and noted homophobe Andrea Leadsom

May (Theresa). On the face of it, the sanest of the five individuals who have held the top job during the fourteen year shitshow. In reality, hopelessly weak as she danced to the tune of the right of her party and sent out vile "go home" vans and boasted of turning the UK into a "hostile environment". One thing, to be fair, the Tories did deliver.

Let's not forget either Michelle Mone who became a baroness and made £200,000,000 providing defective PPE products during the pandemic. Or Esther McVey, the Minister for Common Sense who was found to be claiming expenses for a flat she doesn't live in while at the same time going on about 'Whitehall waste'. Hypocrite,

NHS. The Tories never wanted the NHS (Labour brought it in) and they don't want it now - so they don't fund it properly. Do you seriously imagine Rishi Sunak uses the NHS.

One N they seem to be keen on of late, however, is national service. A pathetic sop to try and attract older voters who won't have to do it, there seems to be no plan of how to implement it or what it would actually entail. No policy whatsoever. Just a moronic soundbite from a party clean out of ideas.

Osborne (George). His smug face would be reason enough (a face you'd never tire of punching) but as Cameron's chancellor he was one of the chief architects of the deadly austerity programme. Rightly booed at the 2012 Paralympics. 

Partygate. They went on the telly and told us not to mix with anyone from outside of our own homes (even if they were dying). Then they went straight to parties with karaoke, suitcases full of wine, and some truly horrendous outfits and canapes.

Let's also take time out to remember the horrendous smirking and death penalty supporting former Home Secretary Priti Patel, Owen Paterson (who had to resign over broken paid advocacy rules) and Chris Pincher (who had to resign after living up to his name).

Queues at Dover are pretty much a feature of any long distance lorry driver's life these days. Thanks both to Brexit and the bungled way it was handled.

Rees-Mogg (Jacob). This is the one I'm hoping will provide us with a Portillo moment. Another homophobe who would also ban all abortions and suggested that those that died in the Grenfell fire did so because they lacked "common sense". A nastier piece of work, it'd be hard to find.

Serial bully and former Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab needs an honorary mention for presiding over the botched evacuation of Kabul. An event he didn't bother coming back from holiday for because, he claimed, "the sea was closed". Then there's Rwanda where we send our Foreign Secretaries but where we won't be sending any illegal immigrants.

Sunak (Rishi). After the disaster of Liz Truss, Sunak promised "integrity, professionalism, and accountabilty". Spoiler alert - he lied. The man who launched Eat Out To Help Spread Covid has been an absolute disaster as PM which is hardly surprising as he was feckless enough to serve under Johnson. Another one fined (a meagre amount considering his vast wealth) for attending lockdown parties. Vote him out to help out - and someone give him an umbrella.

Truss (Liz). Where the fuck do you start with this lunatic? Famously outlasted by a lettuce, her tenure was so disastrous it may take us decades to recover from the damage she did. Even now, she is completely unrepentant, blaming everyone else for her own failure as she shares the stage with conspiracy theorists and travels around America shilling for the convicted felon Donald Trump. In the photo above she looks happy about something. My guess is she's just tortured a hamster.

Union Jack. The Tories love a flag. Not a Pride flag though. No, they love a massive Union Jack flag. Some people have been very unkind by calling them flag-shaggers.

Villiers (Theresa). While serving as Secretary of State for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, Villiers failed, for some reason, to declare she held £70,000 worth of shares in Shell, an oil and gas company. Conflict of interest? You might think that, I couldn't possibly commit.

Windrush. One of May's lowest acts was wrongly deporting (and/or detaining) British subjects who had lived, legally, in the UK for their whole lives. Many others lost jobs or were denied vital medication. And she thought the naughtiest thing she'd ever done was run through that wheat field.

W is also for whip lover Gavin Williamson (incompetent and cruel, a lethal combo). and William Wragg who had to leave the Tories earlier this year when he admitted giving the contact details of other senior Conservatives to a blackmailer after becoming the victim of a Grindr honeytrap.

X-rated tractor porn is probably a bit tame for William Wragg but it appears to do it for former Tory MP Neil Parish who resigned after he was caught watching pornography at work. He claimed he was looking at tractors. I've heard of a Sexy MF but didn't know the MF stood for Massey Ferguson.

Years (14). Fourteen fucking years of these bastards. Fourteen fucking years. Please - no more. Never again

Zahawi (Nadhim). The former Chairman of the Conservative Party was another one given the boot after breaching the ministerial code seven times. As with everyone above this man should never be involved in our politics again. Let's make sure we see the back of them on Thursday.